EN World City Project: Geography

Conaill said:

I haven't yet found any good ones. Seems like the aerial view only came into vogue in the 1500's or so.

Keep in mind that magic could easily substitute for gunpowder though! A fireball might do more damage to a ship than a cannonball. And if we create a bottleneck of 200 ft or less, a Flaming Sphere will torch a ship in a matter of seconds.

We should probably have a look at the Stronghold Builders Handbook for other tips on low-level defenses too...

Click to expand...

The thing is that we can't rely on magic as a defense. If we do that... then we have to assume that magic will be used against us. It really becomes an arms race.

Let's try to keep it simple.
*This is a frontier city-state
*It has some walls for protection
*It has some towers
*It has a small garrison of dedicated troops

Following that idea... There may be some stretches that have very little in the way of city walls. I would suspect that the Port Jollita area on the island wouldn't even have stone walls. Probably just wooden pallisades.

The Southside would have walls, but they would have been put up hastily so there are cracks and every once in a while it shifts under its own weight.

The Northside has decent walls, but that's only because the dwarves helped out... and because it's relatively safe on that side.

I doubt the river has any fortifications at all. Humanoids don't generally launch naval attacks...

--sam

I would also like to point out that no decision has been made on the trade routes. I think this needs to be decided before we continue with the city map.

As you all know by now, my vote is for the NE to SW trade route... not NW to SE.

--sam

Lookin good, Knightfall! Everything does look much more to scale now. Dunno what we would do without you!

What's the distance between the towers on either side of the river? If we make them less than 220 feet apart, everything in between is within "Medium" spell distance for stuff like Flaming Sphere etc. Right now it looks more like 300 ft or so. (Is that an arrow at the bottom there, or a tower in the middle of the river? Kinda hard to see...)

Do you still want to add some walls along the river bank in the Southern channel? Say, from the ferry to the wall ?

The city wall is probably higher and sturdier where it borders the Dwarven Quarter. Also, the street pattern would differ from the rest of the city. (More grid-like? More concentric for defense?)

We probably want some minor streams flowing through the city as well. The Dwarves live in the highest part of town on somewhat of a hill, and there's mountains to the North, but there might be a little stream flowing in either East or West of the Dwarven Quarter.

Is that a pilon in the middle of Highbridge? I would prefer two pilons as that allows for a more natural arch in the middle (see my little sketch top of page 4), but we can wait nailing that down until (and if) we hear from Knid Vermicious.

Any news about how and how well the "random street" feature works in CD2?

Conaill said:

Just went to check the "Protecting the City" thread... Mor's End only has a total of 60 City Guards manning the walls (which is even a little high given its size). Add up to 50 more flunkies that have passed the initial training phase of their compulsory military service, but probably shouldn't be trusted with too much responsibility (some of those will have duties elsewhere).

Two watches of 30 Guards. Let's put at least two dedicated Guards on each gate, that leaves 20 Guards. Put 3 Guards to patrol the SW wall, 6 on the SE wall and 11 on the whole Northern section.

Given that number, I think the towers you posted are probably a little too grandiose! The "watch tower" picture is probably large enough to act as garrison tower for us, and the actual watch towers may only be 2-story structures with a similar (but smaller) semi-circular floorplan.

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The lack of guards is where your city vulnrability comes in, as you can see the walls are huge, we would probably have more guards on southgate and trade gate than two and we would probably skew the guard rotation to put more men on the southern wall. I would figure there would be a patrol on the wall in the southgate section (river to river) and a patrol on the trade gate wal(river to river) and one or two patrols on the whole North wall. The city defense plan will call for attacking sections to hold while the rest of the guars mass to come to their aid, you could have 5 guards holding a gate against 50 orcs for 10 to 15 minutes while the rest of the guard rushes to their aid. Smart invaders could cross the wall inbetween guard patrols and then actually be in the city before they were spotted, you are dealing with a raiding force not a attacking force most of the time, they would pull a smash and grab and then try to get away. Thats a big reason for having scouts and rangers to the south, if you know they are coming then you can prepare, if you don't then you could not hold this wall for long with just a 4 or 5 man squad. Also there will be stuff outside the wall, the squats have grown outside the wall and the city is expanding but the walls won't change. The cost of the wall will be huge and upkeep wil be constant and never ending, chances are that the walls are constanly being worked on in one place or another not to mention the southern wall is basically built on the edge of a swamp, there will be constant shifts, cracks and sinkange to deal with. I think the walls are fine how they are, with the number of guards there are and the huge area they have to cover the walls are more of a deterent to slow down attacks than a actual defense. Remember that when you compare this city to a actual medieval city that the medieval city never had to worry about a 10 foot tall Troll attacking the gates, or a hoard of blood thirsty orcs or goblins raiding almost once a week. This is a much more violent world than they lived in.

As far as the watch towers go it is fine if they seem to big for this force to man, the walls were probably designed with a full scale siege in mind and in the event of a siege the numbers on the wall will swell to well over 2000. Many watch towers/guard towers will rarely be used in the day to day workings of the city guard, they should be designed for the rare event of a siege. Also the guards and the city watch probably use some of the guard towers as barracks.

CLOSEUP: The West Passage & Wallbridge

I thought I'd do a few more closeups before I go to bed. First up, Wallbridge.

CLOSEUP: The South Passage

Ship symbols are cool.

CLOSEUP: The East Passage & Newbridge

And another one...

CLOSEUP: The Citadel, the 3 island bridges and Mage's Roost

A lto of this is still very much a work in progress. Especially the Citadel and Mage's Roost.

CLOSEUP: Westgate

Now for the main gates. First up, Westgate.

CLOSEUP: Tradegate

And here's Tradegate.