What era is your setting?
So I decided that I wanted to try making a city map for the first time. Rather than start from scratch, I decided to work with one of the cities I'd named in the map I finished earlier this fall. I found pyrandon's tutorial and used that as a guide. I'd started my second draft on where roads would go when I realized that I'd completely forgotten to consider the scale. I'd cut the relevant section of map from the largest version of my other map and had blown it up a couple times, traced the coastline and made a new map from it. So there was a scale already attached. I just forgot about it. Anyway, here is what I had before I realized I needed to start over.
Anyway, a list of things I have messed up:
1. Roads that were way too wide.
2. A city that was about 500 miles wide.
3. Trying to make a city that's about 20x20 miles, when that is not realistic for the time.
4. Spending hours trying to massage a scale into something manageable before I realized #3.
Last edited by lisze; 12-04-2010 at 06:40 PM. Reason: I'm an idiot
What era is your setting?
Late medieval/early Renaissance-ish. Trade in the region (portions of four continents centered around a sea) is flourishing and there are a few major city-states that have grown thanks to increased trade. Innovations/inventions/etc are on the rise, leading to increasingly larger urban populations, with all the troubles that brings. The region is optimistic overall.
I have updated the regional map and have marked where the cities will go so that I can finally start on the city. On this map 9.7 pixels is 1 mile. The largest of the three purple dots is Durndl. I looked up some information on Italian city-states, as well Medieval Demographics Made Easy, to get an idea of how large the city would actually be.
region1mi9n712509pxareamap.png
It isn't a perfect regional map, but that wasn't the point. From what I figure Durndl is about 2 square miles and has a population of about 80k.
(I've opened a new document now 3520x3520 so that each px is 3ft. Now back to the tutorial I was attempting to use in the first place.)
Last edited by lisze; 12-05-2010 at 04:31 PM. Reason: started
All right. I've made the backdrop for the city and I've sketched out the streets. I figured the main cart roads would be about 15 feet across, while the secondary streets would be half that. Smaller streets are not shown. The cart roads connect to the city gates and divide some of the wards. All of the first ten wards were divided by a cart road. Later on each ward is bordered on one side by one. Some of the secondary roads were done by the city's government; others were commissioned by the wards.
(For example, unless I change my mind, Ward 17 is actually a thriving merchant area, rather than a space for the poor. Many of the poor live in the older wards and where there are fewer larger roads (but numerous smaller ones).)
Since this is just a sketch, I can change the road sizes if I miscalculated. When I did them I did not have access to the net so I couldn't check average road width or cart sizes.
The image with the black background is to make everything easier to see. The numbers and red outlines refer to the wards. The wards are numbered in order of creation (with some fumbling among the first ten).
Outlines.pngsmCity Sketch.png
Right now I'm wondering if it wouldn't be easier to cut out each ward and work on them one at a time, then piece them back together. (Each ward has its own police station and representative. Some representatives are chosen by lots to work on the governing body. Others are temporarily appointed to the Petitioner's court or else something I'm not sure of yet. Guilds have their own representatives. This system is based on/stolen from Renaissance Florence pre-Medici).
Last edited by lisze; 12-06-2010 at 12:03 AM. Reason: forgot a note
Looks like quite the undertaking, looking forward to seeing what you come up with.
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Looking great !! ill be watching this one..
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Thanks. I admit, going back over those roads at the moment is a little daunting. So I've been working on other parts, such as making a better map of the wards to possibly use as an eventual overlay. The majority of my time, however, has been in working on some of the stuff behind the map.
Using Medieval Demographics Made Easy, the 1427 Florence Catasto, the Cartographical demographics tutorial for the GDP sections, and a few other sites, I made a set of worksheets for Durndl to calculate, well, a lot. I also have it fully linked between pages so that I don't have to copy-paste and can use it for my next city-state project. DurndlWorksheet.zip
It isn't finished yet, as I'd like to add better demographics information and pages for taxes and the military. I don't know what else would be useful and/or interesting.
This is looking fantastic, can't wait to see this develop. I love the amount of thought you're putting into the social aspects of the city.
All right. I've completed the large cart roads for the entire city and the secondary roads for the old city. The dotted line around the edges of 9/10/etc is the old city wall. Parts of it are still standing. Other portions were torn down for roads, buildings, etc. Some parts of the wall are used as a fourth wall for buildings. One of the old gates is now a popular inn. Ward 5 has three important areas in it. The circle in the middle of it is where the castle stands. The castle is now used as the seat of government. All of the representatives have an office there. The upper left side of five is where the guilds keep their main offices (though many may have have additional offices elsewhere in the city). The area to the right is the main branch of the police and the petitioners' court, which serves as both a judicial court and forum for hearing citizens' complaints and ideas. The head judge brings the petitions that the judges have decided are worth the city's attention to the city council.
Unlike the outer wards, the inner wards work together in a more coherent city system. The outer wards are usually more like cities in miniature. (Note: The wards were first decided by the City Warden/Police Chief. The ward divided the city into wards in order to make the city police more efficient.)
durndl_in_progress.jpg
As for my excel workbook, I used the price given for a price of goods in 1480 Florence (http://www3.telus.net/Quattrocento_F...e/economy.html) to figure out how much my currency is worth. I don't how I came to the calculation, but I decided that three loaves of bread would equal the rough third of a pound of wheat used daily. Then, assuming the bread would consume the same percentage of the total cost in my currency as it did in Florentine Lire, I figured the cost of the bundle, a living wage, and some more. From that I was also able to convert between USD and my currency. Pointless and very roughly calculated, but still nice to know.
Anyway, my next task there is to figure out a tax system. I know I want the city to set a flat task for each ward based on its population. I also want the guilds to be responsible for an additional tax. They would be opposed to the tax on one hand, but would accept it also as a way to justify their presence on the council. There might also be a deal about importing fees. The individual wards would be allowed to charge an additional tax on top of what is required of them by the city. This money would be used to pay for ward needs/etc. Maybe.
This is the final placement of the main streets throughout Durndl. There are smaller streets, but they aren't shown at the moment as they'd only be about 1 to 1.67 pixels wide. Scale is going to be an ongoing problem, I think. As much as I'd like to fill the blocks with buildings, that doesn't seem like it is feasible (scale is 3 feet per pixel with dimensions 3520x3520). So I thought about treating this like a political map, at least at this scale, and just marking points of interest. I'm still wavering on that though.
Does anyone know any useful maps or tuts I could look over and steal ideas from?
currentprog.png
I also made sure to convert my streets to a mask that I then applied down. So now I can select one block at a time. I also used this to redo my ward colors by selecting all the blocks within each ward.
My next tasks are creating the outer wall and docks and pinpointing landmarks, markets, inn/etc.
Last edited by lisze; 12-11-2010 at 01:50 AM.