The City of Sanctuary (restarted)

[Voolf]

So good to see you back on this project. I expect some crazy good stuff going on here.

[Mouse]

Corfe Castle is one I know well, I spent my holidays in that area as a kid!

I can't decide whether I like the castle or the steam train best. The fish and chips are also pretty good

So good to see you back on this project. I expect some crazy good stuff going on here.

Thanks Voolf - I hope I don't disappoint

I've added most of the old village, a castle and a palace. I've also scaled down the wall towers to a more believable size

[Weery]

What a great (re)start I'm looking forward to this, I can't recall right now the name of the vinyard map you did last year but if this turns out anything like that one it will be fantastic.

Thanks for posting Mouse.

[Mouse]

Thanks Weery

The vineyard map? Merelan City had several vineyards on it

I don't think this city will be half as complex as that one. There will be at least 3 times as many shaded polygon buildings (which take more memory than symbols but have far more variation than even the best of the symbol sets). Sanctuary is also very much larger than Merelan City. The entire Isle of Merelan is about the size of the walled part of Sanctuary, and the map I've shown in the last few uploads is only about half the total area of the map.

Mind you - it is still nowhere near as HUGE as your city

[Ilanthar]

I like the global layout. I'm gonna keep an eye on this .

[Mouse]

Global layout?

Oh - you mean the whole city

Thanks, Ilanthar

[Mouse]

I've done a lot of things, but they are mostly detail work, so this may not look all that different at a glance.

I've reduced the size of the houses in Sanctuary Village, and added a newer section to the north of the old village - originally built for the families of the men who were brought in to build the city walls. I've added a few taverns and a temple, crenulated the city walls and towers, added gardens to the village and started naming things.

[Weery]

Funnily enough, part of what I enjoy seeing most on maps are little details such as your defence chain, underground winch stations and culverts.

I also really like the back gardens in Sanctuary Village.

Totally on board with the 'telling yourself stories about the residents and area as you work' process too btw! I even go so far as to imagine I'm walking around in the places I'm drawing and writing about

Great stuff.

[Mouse]

Thank you, Weery

Maybe the story idea is the only real way to keep going. I can tell I wasn't thinking any stories when I worked on Rimtown. That bit needs re-doing. Another trick (if the city is very large) is to move onto a new area and come back to something later on if its turned out a bit disappointing compared to what you hoped. Already, having hidden it from view all morning and been working elsewhere I can also see the roads in Rimtown are a bit too far apart.

Stories and imaginary walkabouts, leaving things instead of forcing them, and going back to redo something later - I think that sums up almost my entire approach to building a city once its basic design is out of the way

This time I've moved on from Rimtown for a while and done a bit of Mandel to the north west of it instead.

[Mouse]

I dug a big hole for the dwarves today

This hole was once a large lake, but it was drained and further excavated by the dwarves for building stone (an export of the city as well as used within it) and extra living space within the safety of Sanctuary's walls. It extends some way out beyond the city walls away from the coast, but so deep that it would be easier to penetrate the city wall than burrow down to get into Sanctuary that way.



Not sure about how the winch on the funicular (the incline tram system) should be powered just yet. I'm reluctant to add a thundering great steam engine. Maybe it uses a counterweight - two carriages balanced by water tanks - one on each side of the incline. Then it would just need a very big braking system, and something to move the top carriage over the rim and onto the slope of the incline. It would still need a really big horizontal pulley quite apart from the power.

So for now I've hidden it inside a really large building while I think about it.