The City of Sanctuary (restarted)

[Falconius]

Cutting a chain that size pre-acetylene-oxygen torches would have been extremely difficult, and in the water would have been 10 times more difficult then that. at that time most metal would have been cut cold or hot using a chisel (and something solid to rest it on). Filing through that would take hours and hours and a few good files. No the best option when dealing with such a chain would be to attack the buoy's and try and sink them, but there are a bunch of ways to make that just as hard, for instance by making them out of a matrix of floating material rather than a big airbag. Second point is that the chain and it's buoy's don't have to be at surface level to be effective, a couple of feet down would be just as good.

In a modern setting there are more effective options, but if they were to use chains I'm sure they'd use the same chains as used for boat anchors on those super cargo carriers, the ones where each link weighs a couple hundred pounds.

[ChickPea]

Glad to see you back working on this. It's looking great. I particularly like the area just above the docks, where the waterfalls are. It's looking fab.

I really never meant to dig a big hole just there. It just kind of happened that way!

I'm sorry, but I can't stop laughing at this. It's like you went into your garden to dig a little hole in the earth to plant something... and accidentally created a massive sinkhole. Oh well, could happen to anyone!

Looking forward to the next update.

[Mouse]

Cutting a chain that size pre-acetylene-oxygen torches would have been extremely difficult, and in the water would have been 10 times more difficult then that. at that time most metal would have been cut cold or hot using a chisel (and something solid to rest it on). Filing through that would take hours and hours and a few good files. No the best option when dealing with such a chain would be to attack the buoy's and try and sink them, but there are a bunch of ways to make that just as hard, for instance by making them out of a matrix of floating material rather than a big airbag. Second point is that the chain and it's buoy's don't have to be at surface level to be effective, a couple of feet down would be just as good.

In a modern setting there are more effective options, but if they were to use chains I'm sure they'd use the same chains as used for boat anchors on those super cargo carriers, the ones where each link weighs a couple hundred pounds.

Its certainly a lot more sophisticated than the main method of blocking a harbour employed during the last war. Unless they've cleared it in the last 20 years when I wasn't looking, we still have a deliberately wrecked destroyer blocking one of the two entrances to Portland harbour. There's not even enough room to take a decent sized sailing yacht over it

I'm going to redraw that chain line - maybe symbolically with a dashed line and little dots to represent the buoys

Glad to see you back working on this. It's looking great. I particularly like the area just above the docks, where the waterfalls are. It's looking fab...

Thank you, Chickpea. Still a long way to go, but you know how it is with cities

And as for the hole...

It's like you went into your garden to dig a little hole in the earth to plant something... and accidentally created a massive sinkhole. Oh well, could happen to anyone!

LOL! No don't! Stop giving me ideas! I just had this sudden image in my head of the world tree growing out of it now!

[Azélor]

In a modern setting, you could launch missiles from afar. Getting rid of the chains can be delt once the main forces of the city have fallen.

Portland,Dorset (there are so many Portland)?
I could not find anything like that.

It's these improbable things that makes a place distinctive but most people would find it unrealistic in a fantasy setting.

That is a big hole indeed, it's going to get flooded unless you have some dutch pumps.

You said dwarves? Or did you say aquatic dwarves?

[Mouse]

You're right, it wouldn't be any kind of a proper defence these days

I was referring to the original Portland harbour - the English one in Dorset... and I was wrong. She wasn't a destroyer. She was a modified Royal Sovereign-class pre-dreadnought battleship built for the Royal Navy in the early 1890s. She's been there (if no one has raised her or blown her up in the last 13 years) for over a 100 years now. You can see the dark shape of her form lying between the breakwaters in the closest entrance to the harbour in this 2005 image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/F...bour_south.JPG. And I was wrong on a second count - the term I should have used is 'scuttled', not sunk.

Dwarves? Maybe I meant mermaids. After all - according to local legend the smooth artificially sculpted form of the harbour was created by them in the first place.

I'm going to keep the cavern and put a nice hole in the bottom of it for drainage to... wherever. These dwarves are clever folk

[SteffenBrand]

The chain is about 800m long, and would probably weigh far too much for any medieval fantasy winch to hold, never mind reel in. I'm thinking about building sea walls out towards the channel to narrow the gap and support most of the length of the chain. It would also give the harbour more protection from tidal surges - it being at the top of a natural funnel shape

You could also drop some Breakwaters (Link) in there. It would slow the waves crashing from the sea, it would prevent erosion of the coastlines of the harbor (a bit) and it would provide a hard to navigate nearly invisible (if placed sub-aquatic w barrier for every captain with large ships who does not know how to navigate between them once the tide kicks in and gives way for ships up to the city.

I'd include some towers sprinkled along where the chain lies now, to break the segments up. It would allow the segments to be lowered and raised individually and let through friendly ships while providing a barrier for others in another areas. The Towers could serve as a first line of defence, as lighthouses to point the way between the Breakwaters and as warning beacons for the city in times of danger. Just an alternative thought =)

I also answered why I don't find time for Bahradyar right now in my thread to not spam you here. And to keep it all nice and sorted. ;D

[Mouse]

Breakwaters are a really nice idea.

Thank you, Steffen

I'm thinking now in terms of having an outer harbour defined by these breakwaters - one with a city wall type construction on it, and very much like Portland harbour, which has three breakwaters defining its extent. I could have a 'great tower' like the one at Constantinople on both the harbour entrances, and the ability to let my own attack ships out of one entrance to deal with an invader trapped against the chain at the other

[Mouse]

I've worked on all kinds of different little things - colours, relief, road patterns, breakwaters...

Hopefully, it makes a bit more sense this time

[Weery]

I like the solution to the overly long defence chain. I really like the fields (gives a good sense of there being more of a world beyond the edge of the map). I like the topography added to the ground and indicated by the roads around the excavation.

I can't tell whether or not I prefer this tone or the previous cooler one? But I definitely prefer at least some of the rougher ground texture in the previous version.

Overall, great and I look forward to seeing more Mouse

[Falconius]

I like the warmer colours and all the new earth tones used in the fields. It looks nicer. I think the fortified breakwaters look more interesting than just the chain laying on the bottom and seems like a good solution. And if the breakwaters ever get captured they could still just sink a ww2 destroyer in the mouth of the harbour .