Tool for mapping a city wanted

[TheClone]

Hi there.

For my upcoming 4e campaign I'm trying to build a city map. I'm trying to do this in a detailed way, though I can make some compromises there, because the city is really large. It has about 50'000 residents and I figured it will be about 25 square kilometers large, featuring a big river, large palace buildings and much more.

I tried to draw the map with hexographer but even with the new map items it doesn't seem to get where I want it to be. It's difficult to draw walls with gates and towers (walls alone are fine) and I have no working items for palace buildings. The river was okay, so I could export at least that and reuse as a background image, if that's needed and helpful. I don't have to use hexes either. If there is a tool that features squares only, I'd take it. But it should feature predefined map items. My graphical skills are pretty lousy. Mustn't be too fancy, the ones from hexographer (standard set, not advanced) are absolutely fine regarding fanciness.

I also tried Inkwell idea's random city generator, but this wasn't what I wanted. I can't move the temples into their own district and such things. Although the results looked almost as detailed and pretty as I like them to be. Like, the "simple peoples building" may very well be just brown blocks.

Is there any tool you girls and guys can recommend?

 

[Khairn]

My reccommendation would be to head over to the Cartographers Guild, and see the maps they've already created. You should be able to find something that suits yur taste. Then just PM the cartographer and ask for some advice.

I use CC3 and really like what I've been able to do. But having said that ... I find city maps are the most difficult to create, with lots of time and effort needed to make them even moderately passable.

 

[RainOfSteel]

My reccommendation would be to head over to the Cartographers Guild,

This link leads to a Google search for the Trillium Drug Program. </cross eyed>

 

[RainOfSteel]

For my upcoming 4e campaign I'm trying to build a city map. I'm trying to do this in a detailed way, though I can make some compromises there, because the city is really large. It has about 50'000 residents and I figured it will be about 25 square kilometers large, featuring a big river, large palace buildings and much more.

50,000 people / 25 sq km = 2000 people / sq km

That is 500 sq m per person (5,381.95521 sq ft).

I would normally think 50,000 would fit into one sq km (or less) for about 20 sq m per person. Actually, most will have much less than that. Whole families fit into single rooms in those days (and still do in many parts of the real world). Public spaces and land owned by the wealthy will take a good chunk of it all.

Is there any tool you girls and guys can recommend?

I am more mentioning it than recommending it, but:

ProFantasy Software - City Designer 3 - map making for fantasy, modern and SF RPGs, and historical cartographers

I don't get along with CC products, but you might and they're very powerful.

 

[TheClone]

We figured that it's lover than a modern big city, because of far less levels of the buildings. You also need room for the streets, maybe a park, market place, shops, a large palace and much more. Munich today has 4286 per sq km and a fair amount of sky scrapers. Therefore we just halved that for a wild guess that is accurate enough to stop the players arguing about it. And for my city I though about half-timbered houses which should no feature more than 3 levels in general.

I'll take a look at the City Designer and see if it works good enough to be worth it's price. I one tried Campaign Cartographer and it was a total button hell. You were unable to figure out how anything worked at all. And id didn't seem to support an evolutionary development like with layers and stuff. I was pretty disappointed for the "top notch tool".

 

[Quickleaf]

Ditto on RainofSteel's observation.

At 50,000, your city is pretty much a medieval metropolis, probably one of the biggest (depending on your setting). Thus you'd expect is population density to be very high. 20 sq m / person is in the ballpark.

If you're serious about city generation pick up Legend & Lairs: City Works by Mike Mearls (when he worked with Fantasy Flight Games). It's a great book you won't be disappointed by. There's a comprehensive city generation system that paints districts in broad strokes, providing you specifics without needigto design block by block.

If you prefer a premade map, there are some great ones in Paizo's Pathfinder Chronicles: City Map Folio.

Which version of CC did you use? I've made some good territory maps with CC3.

I'm a big fan of isometric hand-drawn city maps, which does require some artistic ability. There was a killer example I found on the boards of isometric Fallcrest, but I can't find a link. There were heraldic shields in the upper left. I would *pay* that guy to do a map, if I recall correctly he was a pro.

 

[RainOfSteel]

We figured that it's lover than a modern big city, because of far less levels of the buildings. You also need room for the streets, maybe a park, market place, shops, a large palace and much more.

My figures assumed a medieval city and the public spaces, which is why each person wouldn't get the full 20 sq m. You could give it more or less than 1 sq km, but not 25 sq km; it would be well-populated farmland at that point.

Munich today has 4286 per sq km and a fair amount of sky scrapers.

Most people today in first world countries have a tremendous amounts of personal space, and then huge amounts of public space on top of that.

I one tried Campaign Cartographer and it was a total button hell. You were unable to figure out how anything worked at all. And id didn't seem to support an evolutionary development like with layers and stuff. I was pretty disappointed for the "top notch tool".

If you had issues with CC3, as I certainly did, then City Designer is probably right out.

I've glanced at other serious products, but nothing has really attracted my attention.

 

[SkidAce]

And id didn't seem to support an evolutionary development like with layers and stuff. I was pretty disappointed for the "top notch tool".

It has layers and sheets...none the less it does have a steep learning curve...

 

[TheClone]

So apart form City Designer there seems to be no tool suitable for city designing? Free of charge would be a big there, I must admit and it doesn't have to be specifically made for cities, but it has to allow designing cities (like with house items and stuff).

Thanks for the thoughts on the city's size. Have you any hard facts from medieval cities on which you base your numbers or is just extrapolation? Because I was unable to find figures on the Internet, when I made that decision. I guess I'll have to make a switch then, though it does not change much to what I've done already.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Medieval London had about 50,000 people and was called "The Square Mile" - which translates to about 2.6 square km. Remember, many Medieval cities were walled, so building a wall around 25 square km was a huge task, as well as a hugely expensive one.