Black&white big city

[feanaaro]

How would you envision maritime defense on the map of an ancient city?
The wideness of the harbour areas is intended, as this city stand precisely at the point were the longest river of the world goes into the sea, so it has massive (for the era) commerce in both directions.

[atpollard]

If practical, a wall inside the city protecting vital areas (like the government buildings and blacksmith’s quarter) while being prepared to sacrifice the fisherman’s quarter and docks to enemy attack.

An alternative might be towers (like bulwark monitors) 300 meters out from the coast and spaced 300 meters apart armed with trebuchet reaching out from 300-600 meters (depending on the missile size) … forcing enemy ships to run a 600-900 meter gauntlet (of Greek Fire?) before reaching the docks.

In cities with a natural escarpment along the river, the docks and warehouses might be separated from the first ‘city street’ by a 10-20 foot slope offering the town guard a defensive ‘high ground’ to fight from.

[as far as how these would look on the plan … an inner wall through the city, towers off the coast or stairs on the roads perpendicular to the shore.]

(A strong navy is probably easier).

[feanaaro]

The government of the city is "guild-based", thus essentially de-centred; so there is no "government area" to protect. Also, if the port is shut down, the city would have to surrender rather quickly, because it receives a big chunk of its food from the fertile land upstream the river.
The other solutions are probably technologically too complex.
The city has a somewhat strong navy, especially on the river side of the equation. It would be vulnerable from the sea, where it is not the greatest power. However, the main factor is that none superior sea-power has the interest or the strength to conquer the city and keep it military, while the land powers are not strong at sea or river. For sure, if Eryemiré were to give a rough deal to Iramir, the latter would retaliate and win on the sea, but it would have no interest in conquering the city or even destroy it, because it is a profitable commercial hub and a manufacturing powerhouse (relatively to the low technological level of the era, of course).

Edit: on a second thought, perhaps some small artificial island with some defensive machinery could be plausible on the riverside, where the water is presumably shallower. They could also be off the area of this map though.

[Lyandra]

Great map! I love the amount of detail and the fact that it doesn't seem overwhelming.

[feanaaro]

For some context, this is a close up of the area where the city is, taken from the larger regional map (that likely will never be finished, since it already halted photoshop to a grind on my computer).

The region here depicted is quite small, roughly 300*250 km; it is however one of the most densely populated area in the world, due to it being in the position of reaping the surplus of the fertile lands upstream the river Kelerion. The cities and other smaller dwellings should total approximately 1,5 million inhabitants.

Names still provisional, as usual.

[feanaaro]

Is it finished-finished now?
Will it ever be?

[Blaidd Drwg]

Probably not
But you have to let go at some point

[Janden]

That is really stellar. I'm a huge fan of really detailed city maps. I can appreciate the time-consumingness of a project like that.

[feanaaro]

As some may still remember (apparently this is the most successful of my maps) I had trouble with representing elevations with this monochromatic style (espacially since, as often repeated, I can't really draw anything). Now I've returned on trying. Do you think this might work:

[Vinoex]

Assuming that you are talking about Old Deree, Yes, I think it will work quite nicely. If you are talking about the other two areas on the northern edge, they seam kind of faint.