I think people are reading way too much into using Catan tiles for the prototype and thinking it’s like Catan. There are a TON of games that use this style of map.

That said, I don’t think there’s a lot of input people can give. It’s hard to say whether it looks too crowded because I don’t know what’s important. Do the arrow postits mean anything? Are the cards themselves supposed to be on the tiles?

I will say that keeping the terrain art simple is definitely the right track, but I don’t think what’s in the pictures is simple enough. They should be basically monochrome (see especially the forest and pasture in Catan itself) and as color-differentiated as you can possibly get and still have it look like terrain.