Yeah, I was a bit fuzzy on this but that's my take on it as well: any time before the dice are rolled.

I've been trying to figure out how to do this for NPCs, since NPCs by default will never fight to the death (except under extreme circumstances) which is why they tend to be squishier. For combat circumstances I take it as thus:

A non-trained npc will concede after a minor
A combat hardened unit (a soldier, guard or brawler) will typically concede after a moderate
Dumb combat hardened unit (like an attack dog, or fae creature) might take a major
Only extreme cases will take extreme or above.

My take on it is GM still gets final say in NPC concessions - not that I wouldn't listen to player arguments if they don't like the concession. Generally, I consider running away to be fair concessions for most situations though, depending on the level of consequences.

Oh and about Player Maps.
If you ask someone to draw a school room, and the throw in a weapons locker and a nuclear reactor, thats where you as the GM step in and go "come on". But a school room is a school room, a banks a bank. If you have something really awesome, draw a map of that, but I think it helps players invest in the game. Also if they have a hang out like a bar or something, let them draw that, put scene aspects ect because it cuts down on the "burn it down' factor. Hey OTHER PC dont burn down the bar we spent 45 minutes on!

My suggestion, next game, do it the way I said, then the next game do it the way you are saying, compare/contrast. Whats the worst that can happen?

My way
Zero prep before game time
Show up for the game, maybe ask the players some questions about their childhood, background, inter party relationships, how they feel about events going on in game "how does you character react to McCoy stealing the Mantle of Power from the Jade Court?" and just roll with it.

This is how I see it.
When I was a kid my friend and me played Duke Nukem 3d alllll the time, I loved that game, it was 3d, it was cursing, it was amazing.
So when he got this "Duke Nukem 3d level editor" book from Half Price books, my mind was blown.
Sadly, It was like finding out Santa wasn't real. Why? Because I realized stuff like enemys were spawned when you enter certain rooms, it didn't matter where you hit them, just as long as you hit them ect.
So when I hear people talking about drawing up maps of the dungeon/school/whatever they are going to fight in, I just think of Duke Nukem, and how it didn't matter if I snuck into that room/or how monsters were going to Spawn into it, regardless.
With a video game, no matter how good, only so many things can happen, in an RPG ANYTHING can happen. I just see planning like this as limiting your ability to do anything.

Well, that much is just style preferences I think. Everyone enjoys a different aspect of gaming a little more than the rest, whether that aspect is the storytelling, the strategy, playing a niche role, or simply smashing things. I prefer the storytelling, so for enjoyment purposes coming up with the scene is an investment for me, even if it might be more work. Basicly, I'm a writer at heart and while I like having players who have free will, I also like controlling the story and watching players have 'ah ha!' moments.

Another way to look at this is to look at the background. There are different flavours of luck - astrology? Something with a more Irish bent perhaps? Chaos theory? Probability?

I have a player who's using luck magic that he doesn't really understand, so I basically get a free call on where it comes from and such. It's kinda cool because he's tied the source into one of the main threats of the game, and then the group has given me artistic licence on what the threat is (mostly), so his magic will actually give me an opportunity to gradually provide hints until I'm ready for the big reveal. At the same time, DF has set rules of how it works mechanically, so he can't be screwed over mechanically by my artistic license. Win/win in my mind.

Anyways, the point is, this "luck magic" has to have a source (or charactor aspect) - work from that!

Also note: This isn't an actual inability. It's an agreement the queens made. Like any agreement a fae makes though, they have to keep to it strictly. It becomes part of their nature.

As a second note: this is why the mantle of knight was created: it's their one loophole, since they technically only have limited control over the mortals who bear the mantles. But yes, they can kill the knights, since they're being a mortal is a grey area thanks to the power of the mantle.

I'd personally say the zoom has something to do with folding it: You can unfold it to look at the whole thing, or fold it down to show a particular place of interest, which makes that place appear an ideal size, even though it's not that size when folded.

The other thing I'd say is avoid letting your players use google Maps for this. Say the map is detailed differently then a traditional road map and you can have it only show the details you find relevent. After all, the inteligence from the map would likely navigate the world differently 200+ years ago: new roads have been paved, new landmarks, etc. This gives you oppertunities to add challenges that wouldn't be there otherwise.

E.g. "We're supposed to turn left at the 50' rock!" - "Wait, what? There's no rocks here!"

We do. I'm not going to post it all (it's a lot to type up) but the gist of it is that the area we picked (southern Ontario) is on a system of lay lines that are "Fractured" by the influence of the great lakes, resulting in the 'fractured cities' - essentially this spiderweb of small lay lines that are actually counter-productive to magic in the traditional sense. This leads to major effects on several groups: Mortal practitioners who are not acclimitized to the effect find themself seriously handicapped, but the locals have learned to deal (kinda like people in mountinous areas acclimitize themselves to thinner climates) - the effects of the fairy courts are diluted, so many wild fae choose to live here, resulting in a large population of fairy scions and some changelings (I've decided that the fracture also tends to make scions more likely then normal.) Finally, there's a large population of Were's (werewolves, wererabits, werecayotes, and anything else that  exists here geographically)

Conversely, we also have a threat of old vs. new. The basic idea of this is that we have a major tech center here along with multiple universities creating a new generation of highly technical, intelligent and informed kids that are butting heads with the extremely powerful, secretive and influential Mennonite population. Basically, the Mennonites have secretly been controlling politics in the region since it has settled and their particular brand of influence is the reason we've never had a problem with major crime... and thanks to the new generation, for better or for worse this status quo is in jeopardy. Although the mennonites are pure mortal, they have a paramilitary wing - the Jagers. They're the theoretically defunct german hunting groups that are secretly still going strong: hunting paranormal threats that get out of hand, mostly the local Were's that get out of hand...

Theme: Breeding ground for mediocrity
Threat: The Fracture
Threat: Old school vs. New school

I'll leave it at that. We do of course have Faces defined for each of these groups, although only a high aspect for each is defined at the moment, as well as basic locations. I'm also summarizing quite a bit: there's a lot of political intricacies that my players will discover over time: some of which will be freely given, others will be shown during adventure gradually.

That said, it's not the setting itself I have issues with. It's more being able to generate the adventure. I already have ideas and places to start as you can hopefully tell, it's filling in the details these forms will help with. For example, playing my first scene in our first adventure, I intended to do an intro to combat that involved my players hanging out at the local Universities when they're ambushed by a group of local Jagers trying to catch a girl who has come to them for help. I quickly learned to improvise quite a bit to get through this scene in ways I do not like (layout of the classroom for instance? Athletics rolls by the mooks to break through the windows? What the innocent bystanders do/are capable of doing to help? Possible suggestions for compels I could use if I'm out of ideas during play?) All of these things seem like things I could have better thought up before play. As well, I found myself feeling extremely disorganized - which notepad did I write out stats for Mook B on again? Where did I write out my players aspects so I can think up compels? Crap.

That said, I have a basic first draft of these PDFs set up. I'm going to crean it up a bit and post my first version here for people to look over, and possibly for other new GMs to try. I will hopefully have something to show after this weekend.

Have you done city building with your group?  If you did this, many of your NPC's and Locations would be done, at least as an outline.

Not sure if you're referring to me, but yep as well. This little project of mine is to help expand on that, and transition from the city creation to the story creation. I'm doing this because I feel what I have so far isn't quite robust enough to feel real - The laws of reality are in place, but the details are still a little too flexible yet to feel like an actual game. Instead it feels like I'm making up a story as I go along, and while my players might not notice, it bothers me and takes away from my fun.

At the same time, I don't want to go too far and put the whole game on rails either, which is a real concern for me as well. So, I'm trying to come up with a way to better define the players in my story - a system where I can firmly say 'this is what I'm in control of and this is what I'm not'. The point is to create a challenge for not only my players (which I could do just by improvising) but for myself.

Sounds like I'm inventing a ruleset to make story creation a minigame for myself I guess. Not sure if I've worded this quite right, but hopefully other GMs get what I'm saying. lol