June Entry: Mennin's Hallow and environs

[Midgardsormr]

I've finally begun on the town. It's tiny, and getting results with so few pixels to work with is tough. So far, I have the manor house / civic building, a water mill, and a farm. I'm thinking some noise and a little bit of feathering around the edges will improve the fields quite a bit. I haven't decided if I want to try to indicate plow rows at this scale.

The mill is problematic because there really isn't enough flow from my water to power it, so I may put it at the bottom of a small enscarpment, so it's powered by a waterfall instead of the stream. Obviously, though, waterfalls are difficult... Maybe Mennin & Co devised a way to narrow the stream there. That would be easier.

Anyway,
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[Sigurd]

What about adding a mill pond and\or dam?

[Midgardsormr]

Good thinking. I might have to rearrange some things, but I might as well make the entire pond/lake a mill pond in that case, and I can attach the bridge to the mill while I'm at it.

[Midgardsormr]

The dam works well, I think. Here are a few more buildings, and a slight enhancement of the crop fields.

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[Midgardsormr]

All the buildings are done now.

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[Midgardsormr]

Added some forest in the inset and pasted the town onto the main map.

Does anyone know what the ratio of acres of farmland / people supported for early medieval agriculture would be?

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[Midgardsormr]

I went back to the very handy Medieval Demographics Made Easy document, which estimates that 1 square mile could feed about 120 people. I knocked it down to 80 people to account for the lack of skilled farmers, short growing season, and poor soil, leaving me needing about 3 square miles to support my little community. I added the fields, but I still need to add some more farmhouses and barns.

I decided to have fun putting in some forests next. I'm largely happy with them, but their addition makes the rest of the map look a little poor. I definitely need some grass and rock texturing to complement the forests.

Do they look like they're following the contours of the land properly? I am thinking they make it look a bit more flat than I had intended. I also need to address the tree-line. I hadn't realized how soft the edge of my mask was. It makes it look like the trees are insubstantial instead of unhealthy.

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