Castle Plans

Nice flipped picture. ;) :P :lol:

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Originally Posted by RPMiller

Of course if you are left handed things don't work out quite right. ;)

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Actually these was an infamous Scottish clan in the border country, the Kerrs, who were trained to fight with their left hand, which gave them an advantage when assaulting the English within clockwise spiral stairs of their own towers. With right-handed defensive posture, normally the right-handed attackers are placed in a disadvantage to the defenders.

But the Left-Handed Kerrs - broke this standard defensive advantage, and were hated for it! :D

True story!

And that is where the expression "You are such a Kerr" comes from. ;)

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Originally Posted by Sigurd

Very nice, classic design. I love maps where I can believe they would actually be built. Fantastic, improbable elements, have their place but believability wins out in the end IMHO. A good design makes me think "Castles like this would exist" - makes presenting them, much, much easier.

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My version was based on a real castle - Restormel castle in Cornwall, England. I switched some of the rooms and their sizes but the basic shape is the same.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restormel_Castle

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Originally Posted by Sigurd

I actually prefer Turgenev's version where all the elements have the same treatment. To do the outside without showing kindness to the inside of the tower creates an odd sense of imbalance.

SO, I added a tiny touch to the inside of the tower. A pattern and a complimentary drop shadow - to match the outside.

Torg's mod of Turg's map modded by someone whose name doesn't start with "T"

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That's pretty cool. I did see one minor thing that didn't work for me (sorry Torq)... that big rock in the moat, while it looks nice, it wouldn't make sense from a strategic p.o.v..

This is a quick post - I can't wait until I get a chance to work in Photoshop tonight. ;)

I was just thinking about something like this (sorry it's very quick and dirty)

I wonder what would be the best way to protect the castle from water erosion. I think if the moat was that close its likely the castle is on solid rock or has been built from below the water line up or magically protected some way. If the region has winter, frost would push the banks into the water as they couldn't go up for the weight of the castle.



Even a few seasons would have a tendency to undermine the heavy stone walls. The moat might be a strategic negative if it helps the sapping of the walls.


Sigurd.

If memory serves, most moats are artificially created and stagnant so there is little water movement, and the castle would be built on some pretty solid ground that would be tightly compressed during the actual building so erosion didn't usually factor in.

Even the castles built with natural moats were actually built in an area that had a tidal flow and the castle would be on an area that didn't experience the erosion - solid rock as you suggested or very dense earth.

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Originally Posted by RPMiller

Nice flipped picture. ;) :P :lol:

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No really - I kid you not... it seems odd to me but this is as it comes out of the camera.

I did a lot of research on Stairs and whatnot for Castle, and the majority of Stairs were Clockwise as they went down.

The reasons were manyfold, most being that a Defender could be relatively unhampered on their sword arm for swinging (not needing to worry about a wall). For narrow stairs, (like those pictured) the enabled a defender to have a wall to their left, put their shield in front, and then be able to swing to their right towards the centre of the stair, and swing over and above a defender.

Also, the doorways were lower than we would expect. In the past, this lead historians to believe that people were a lot shorter then, but that is actually false. We are actually shorter on averge now then we have been in the past at some times in history. I was at the Smithsonian a few months back and they had silhouettes of men/woman for points in history to show how big the were. Anyways, doorways in Castles were lower for the purpose of defense. A low Doorway forced an attacker to need to 'stoop' to come through, and by stooping their defenses were not as good, and their ability to attack was quite lessened.

Some interesting stuff.

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Originally Posted by RPMiller

If memory serves, most moats are artificially created and stagnant so there is little water movement, and the castle would be built on some pretty solid ground that would be tightly compressed during the actual building so erosion didn't usually factor in.

Even the castles built with natural moats were actually built in an area that had a tidal flow and the castle would be on an area that didn't experience the erosion - solid rock as you suggested or very dense earth.

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This goes against my experience. Most of the big gun castles over here which have water filled moats have natural sources. Some of these have been modified but usually its from a river with changing water.

Caenarfon
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=5...06738&t=h&z=18

Conwy
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=5...06738&t=h&z=18

Chepstow
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=5...26951&t=k&z=16

Pembroke
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=5...13475&t=h&z=17

Beaumaris
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...06738&t=h&z=18
http://www.beaumaris.com/
http://www.castlewales.com/beaumar.html

Also beau means beautiful and maris means marsh. The castle was built on a swamp - including the curtains !

The 'rules' about castles seem to be broken quite often as you go around them.

Edit -- Googles sattellite seems to be switched off right now for me.