An unnamed Military Town

[rwaluchow]

Hello everyone,

this is my first post. It's a map I've put together for a large town in my new homebrew setting. I haven't settled on a name yet.

Hope you like it and criticism is always welcome.

cheers,

Rwaluchow

[ravells]

That was fast! There is so much I like about this map, but particularly the colour choices (nice and muted) and the tree symbol / distribution. I particularly like the little touch of having the stone circle in the nne.

I'm not sure I understand the placement ploughed fields - they just seem to be randomly scattered for no reason that I can see. Some visual explanation as to why they appear where they do would be nice. What is also interesting is that even though there's no wall, the building construction ends in a very neat edge around the town - again I can't really see a visual explanation for that. Perhaps there was a wall there once which has now fallen into disrepair?

Lovely work! What program did you make the map with?

[rwaluchow]

Thanks for the feedback.

The addition of a crumbling wall actually sounds like a really great idea. (the idea is that the town used to be a military base for an empire that has since fallen, since then the town has prospered and grown). Also maybe some more trees or some hills to account for the field placement would work?

I drew and inked this by hand then coloured it in photoshop.

[thebax2k]

That's a sharp, crisp map rwaluchow. It reminds me of some of the more recent FR city and town maps put out by Wizards--good job.

Now for the minor brickbats I like the crazy quilt patchwork of streets, it feels "natural" and organic, but there are a few hiccups from a realism standard.

The market (if that is what the circular open area on the bottom is) probably should be relocated to the east side of town--markets usually tended to be near major road and water arteries to facilitate transport. Also what is that structure that crosses the road to the west of the circle? If its a triumphal arch it probably should be on one of the larger roads or on the way to the castle. If its a gate, what is it doing in the middle of nowhere without any walls around it?

There should be a cleared area around the arena (if that is what the multilevel oval in the se part of town is). Arenas were usually major urban hubs (at least in Roman times) and had a plaza area around them where vendors could hawk food and souvenirs (not so different from today). Your arena (if that is what it is) feels kind of tucked out of the way.

At the base of the road up to the castle/citadel (I'm assuming its on a mountain or rise) there should be a cleared area or square. Also, the road going to it probably should be wider. I'm assuming the castle was built/developed first and the settlement grew up around it. That means the road to the citadel would be one of the oldest and widest.

One final thought--where's the wall? You say this is a military town. If so, it was either built to fortify a frontier or control a restive area. In either case, the lands surrounding the town would be unsettled. No wall means there's nothing to stop marauders until they reach the citadel. As I'm assuming the town grew up to service the garrison (taverns, gambling halls, etc.), I doubt they'd leave the populace to the mercies of the surrounding countryside. Thus, there should be a wall--or at least one in the stages of construction.

Obviously, one can foam at the mouth when it comes to realism, but incorporating a few principles from real cities and developments can make for a better map.

I hope you do more maps rwaluchow, you're off to a good start.

[Carnifex]

Nice map. I like your style alot!

Maybe you could work with the layout and I agree with some other posts (no wall, strange placements of the fields etc).

[pyrandon]

Great first post! Very, very nice. I'll ditto what the other comments said--but also let me say it's impressive that you generated that level of "brickbats" vs. "okay, this map [if that's what it's supposed to be] really sucks!"

Looking forward to seeing the revision!

Also, great suggestions thebax2k--have some rep!

[rwaluchow]

Thanks for all the comments and criticisms guys. I think I'm going to have to redo this map; too much of it is nagging at me. I'm going to add a crumbling wall around the town and either revise or do away with the fields.

I think I'll call the place Greenwall (because of the moss that covers the ancient crumbling wall).

Again, thanks for the imput; I love this site.

[Redrobes]

Thats great cos I likes this map too. I think if you hadn't had said that it was a military city then the wall thing would not have been any issue. I thought that the color was great and that it was of a nice clean style that you could replicate across many cities and keep a uniform feel to a larger region or continent.

I took a copy and up-rezzed it a few times and was wondering if it would be possible to automatically texture all the house roofs.

[The Cartographist]

Really, really like the map.

Really, really liked thebax2k's comments, so my hats off to him, but if you didn't change a thing, I'd still like the map.

[Badger]

Very nice map indeed, I like the colors you used, and there isn't much more to critique on that hasn't already been said.