The City of Sanctuary (restarted)

[Mouse]

Hi Everyone

Some time ago... a long time ago - nearly a year in fact... I started doing a city map for the Profantasy Community Atlas; a communal project to produce a world atlas of maps that can be downloaded by users for personal use and modification, and which recently passed its first anniversary with nearly 100 maps in the collection, ranging from continental maps through regional and town maps to individual building and dungeon maps.

I wasn't enjoying the design I initially created for the city, so my own project quickly failed despite the overall success of the community effort. However, I've recently been re-inspired to try again, and this is the start of it:

Sanctuary is positioned on the north-facing rim of a very large gulf in a small tropical/sub/tropical continent called Malajuri. The land along the coast either way is tropical forest (mostly palm), while the hinterland to the south is mostly agricultural.

At the name implies, Sanctuary is meant to be a medieval mixed race city where all can find sanctuary against the rest of the world (hence the really big wall)



This is the watabou randomly generated city layout I chose to work with (and I am fortunate I got it when I could, since I don't seem to be able to open that site anymore)



And this is where I am at with the central part of the drawing after about 2 weeks work:



This is a 7500ft square section of the map.

All comments and suggestions welcome - please bear in mind that this is in its infancy, and yes I do know about the uphill river where I forgot to leave a gap in the dyke wall for it - and the houses that are in the middle of the street where I lost control of the street generator

[Falconius]

I think that looks very good. The layout, the streets, indeed everything looks like it really belongs that way.

I don't know what houses are in the middle of the street, but to me though the city gates look like they are facing the wrong way round. And given the generally high amounts of investment in the general defences I'd expect the fortress to be even more heavily defended.

Speaking of defences I'd like to hear whats going on with coast. It looks like there is a parapet along a cliff. For instance why would they not invest in towers or short little stumpy towers along that walk, and why would they not bother defending the stairs up with anything? Even just tiny gate houses?

[Mouse]

Thanks Falconius

I've got what the wrong way around? Oh yes! I see it now. I just found the picture I remembered from a few months ago here: http://111musicfestival.com/beaumari...umaris-castle/. Its the round end that needs to stick out not the square end! It looks like I could also do with moving all my towers off-centre to place them more outside the wall than straddling its centre line.

Funnily enough I was toying with the idea of gate houses on the ramps (those are two-way ramps not stairs - pedestrian/rider/horse and cart access to all levels that way)

And you've got a point about the sea defences. I might have to move the buildings up a level to make room for them. I'll have a think about that one

There is definitely a house smack bang in the middle of the road at the top of the northernmost ramp there I was just too distracted by the dyke wall construction earlier today to remember to go back and jiggle them all into a better position.

[bkh1914]

I'd also add that I would expect to see some serious defenses where the river passes through / under the wall.

[Mouse]

Thanks bkh

I'm working on it

[QED42]

Great to see you back and working on a new map Mouse! Also looking forward to seeing what you can do with a Watabou base as I've used them a bit in the past

[Mouse]

Thanks QED

A CC3 map (even a large one like this) will only take a fraction of the RAM that a GIMP or Krita map will hog, and can be exported many times larger than the files I can still open in those two bitmap apps, so despite the crippling of my machine I can still do CC3 maps reasonably easily - plus its fun doing something and seeing how far you can take it using just one app instead of many once in a while

As for the Watabou base... I'd say they are terrific for inspiration and basic structure, but its definitely not good to allow yourself to be limited by them. By that I mean that the city walls and basic road structure are the same, but I have already bent them around the modified harbour. I don't use the Watabou rivers because they always look a bit angular to me, and they run in some pretty strange places - like to the side of the settlement instead of through it. The roads themselves do tend to be incredibly iron-rod straight, which is unnatural in a medieval city (unless its a city that has inherited its basic structure from the days of the Roman Empire). There are also some extremely strange shaped buildings. In reality, I don't think I've ever seen a triangular house.

Where Sanctuary is concerned (and quite apart from the fact that I ripped out the heart of it to make way for the harbour) each district outlined by the original Watabou map is subject to revision. For instance I have shaped the northernmost roads to vaguely resemble a sort of petal around the temple, and in the most recent version (below) I have completely redesigned the roads of the Fort Garden district in the southernmost part of the walled city to more closely relate to the fact that this was the original village attached to the fort. It even has its old village green still intact. You see this kind of development around many English castles. Such houses, though small, are highly prized property acquisitions these days because they are often very picturesque. Here is the old village around Corfe Castle, about 20 miles from where I live. It is this kind of village I am trying to place in the shadow of the fort, between the fort and the bend in the river - the original village of Sanctuary.

Ok, so its not your typical tropical/subtropical city with lots of flat roofs and dust wherever there isn't stone, but the hinterland is a vast swathe of farmland, so it can't be all that dry in the city. Besides - there will be plenty of orange tiled and flat roofed buildings elsewhere, and this is a fantasy city not a real one



In this image I have also hopefully remedied the gates that were the wrong way around, placed the river in a proper channel under the wall that is protected by at least two iron griddles, moved the wall towers off-centre so that they protrude from the outside of the wall sufficiently to get a good angle on attackers who have made it as far as the wall, and indicated the presence of a submerged chain that can be raised to prevent invading fleets from entering the harbour. This is the same kind of defence system that made it so difficult to attack Constantinople from the sea, only where that chain was 300m long, this one is about 900m long. That's a lot of weight to tension between the two underground winching stations buried in the cliffs (and accessible only by underground passages from the city), but don't forget that we have elves and therefore magic to assist the mechanics of the winching stations

I've decided not to put walls along the lowest level of the harbour, but to add a substantial tower to the end of each of the piers (not yet drawn)

[Falconius]

There are options to mechanically reduce the weight of the chain, it could be attached to floating buoy's or if they somehow built a platform or tower towards the middle of the span where the chain could rest. It's looking good Mouse. You do amazing things with CC3.

[Mouse]

Thank you again, Falconius

I may think some more about the chain, but for now I have to populate this city with thousands of buildings! LOL!

[QED42]

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