More cities (City Designer 3)

[Midgardsormr]

I think I'm going to have to make that essay on fortification after all...

Please do if you have the time and energy. The subject is one I have long intended to research, and having a nice article here to springboard from would be very welcome.

[Steel General]

Heck, I'd even be happy with some kind of simple 'checklist' of do's & don'ts for fortifications. I have several I'd like to do for the CWBP.

[Gandwarf]

Ok, here's the verdict from the field engineers office
-Good central court. You would want to add a keep (basically a big tower, or castle). Those two makes the inner defences, fort and baily.
-Then you have the second layer. It should go in towards the harbour instead of out. Think as each layer, counting from the keep, as a separate court. Two serious bastions would anchor the line.
-Then you have three courts, one for each road, that's good. Keeps the defence on a smaller surface.
-The two square courts on the flanks are more or less useless. Put a big bastion in each corner instead.
-To add to the defences, if this is supposed to be a real fortress, and not a fortified city, add small courtyards behind each gatehouse to make a killzone for anyone who breaches the gates. The consider the way an attacker moves inside the fort. If he can move outside the range of the defenders on the walls, then he will be able slow his attack and bring in reinforcements.
-Try to limit the area that is the actual fortress. if the city isn't the primary reason for the fort, then let them live outside the walls, or a ring wall outside to protect the city, then put everything else into the fortress and keep.

Overall, it's a bit square and boxy. Use the terrain to augment the walls, a wall on a hill is much more defensible than a wall on flat ground. The terrain is seldom flat, so the walls shouldn't be either.
Depending on the tech level of your world, use more and more star shaped defences... That's all off the top of my head, I'll add more when I see what you make of it.
I think I'm going to have to make that essay on fortification after all...

Thanks Hoel, I will try to follow your leads. The city does lie in flat terrain however, so I can't really use the terrain. Also the city needs two bastions/keeps and a central castle.

[jfrazierjr]

Given the size of the docks, it does not look like this is a heavy naval town, so I would highly suggest walling off the harbor area and waterway access to the city. A couple of longboarts in the dead of night could sneak tons of invaders into the city proper....

[Hoel]

You're right. Building walls all along the shore would be good. Some channels from the lake could be dug around the outer walls for a moat too.

If the two courts at the flanks would act as bastions they shouldn't be as big. Build upwards like super-heavy towers instead, or a series of interconnected towers. They should be able to withstand heavy enemy bombardment, since they're right on the outside. You can use different thickness of walls too. The walls on the inside shouldn't be subjected to artillery and just be there to halt the attacker and provide a platform for the defender's ranged weapons.
I started the essay too, it's in the tut board

[jfrazierjr]

At a bare minimum, you would want something like this( I just used plain grey lines for the walls and Black for the towers to make it quick.

Not sure if the waterway inlet is used for large ships or not, but if not, then build the wall across if possible or use an arch with some type of gate if boats need to pass from the inner waterway to the sea.

Of course, this

is a much better design in terms of defensibility of that waterway. This is especially true if you can have an arch at both points to allow small boat traffic into the inner waterway, but want to still be defensible.

You could even go one more extreme and have the Tower right beside the harbor form a wall to the right side and have entrance to the actual docks them selves have a pair of towers and gate for even further security before they get into the dock ward proper.

[Gandwarf]

Thanks for the feedback so far. I think I am going for this shape, now that I read Hoel's fortification thread:

- The city is protected by a castle and two round keeps.
- The castle and keeps can cover all the exterior walls.
- The castle is protected by a moat, the keeps are round to make the walls harder to collapse.
- All exterior gates have a gatehouse and a small court behind it.
- Each exterior gate leads to a walled of part of the city.
- Entrances to the keeps are never in the same part of the city as an exterior gate.
- Lots of extruding towers to cover the walls.

So what do you think? I haven't placed any building yet, because when I do it will be harder to move stuff around.

[jfrazierjr]

Thanks for the feedback so far. I think I am going for this shape, now that I read Hoel's fortification thread:

- The city is protected by a castle and two round keeps.
- The castle and keeps can cover all the exterior walls.
- The castle is protected by a moat, the keeps are round to make the walls harder to collapse.
- All exterior gates have a gatehouse and a small court behind it.
- Each exterior gate leads to a walled of part of the city.
- Entrances to the keeps are never in the same part of the city as an exterior gate.
- Lots of extruding towers to cover the walls.

So what do you think? I haven't placed any building yet, because when I do it will be harder to move stuff around.

Question: whats the castle for? Thinking in terms of the layout you have, it appears to be in a weak point since (even though theres a moat) 2 walls are exposed to the surrounding countryside. If the castle is important, they would build out and around it if at all possible as they want that the last place breached. At the most, an attacker would have to get through 2 gates to storm the castle.

BTW, I prefer the geography of the original layout better.

[Gandwarf]

The castle is mainly there to oversee the harbor and protect it. It's not the most important place. The whole city is one huge castle actually

But I might still move it to the center of the city as the place to make a last stand.

[Gandwarf]

Ok, you have convinced me
I will probably go for something like this. Makes much more sense to have the castle as the last retreat.

I want the two outer keeps to cover all the walls, meaning the courtyards to the east and west stay small.