City question

[Avarice]

Re: Hehe

...Considering the sheer number of undead any wizard can raise then there could conceivably be more undead than people. I wonder if they count in the population tally?

And more importantly (from the politicians point of view), are they eligible to vote?

With regards to the city planning, I've got to agree that any city (built by humans, at least) that is 2836 years old is likely to be a chaotic mess, with succeeding generations building onto it however they think best. Of course, there's nothing like a massive fire or similar catastrophe to free up some room for an ambitious ruler to impose his views on urban planning. Sure worked for Nero.

 

[Tonguez]

Obviously, I can't truly finish this city ... because of it's size.

Actually I ascribe to the theory that a city 2,836 years old in a highly magical empire is likely to take on a personality of its own and start acquiring both "History' AND 'extra geography'.

London, Paris, Rome, NYC are probably good modern examples of such cities in the (semi)-real world. Those places are a mess of layers of geography that intertwine and overlap so that geography history and purpose colide and anything can happen ...

What I'm really saying is its your city and your fantasy - If you want a city of 9 million people of which only 2 million are active at any one time and where whole suburbs exisit which only manifest from midnight to 4am before fading back into the shadows of the Business district THEN YOU CAN DO THAT!!!

 

[med stud]

Re: Hehe

With all those necromancers there must be a whole hell of a lot of undead servants running around. I wonder if people sell their bodies after death, to be raised. I wonder if the undead count in the population tally. Considering the sheer number of undead any wizard can raise then there could conceivably be more undead than people. I wonder if they count in the population tally?

Undead can be a mean to assure that 200 years of forced labour really turns out to be 200 years of forced labour
"Death is no excuse to stop working, convict!"

 

[Ancalagon]

Age does not equal size... there are cities in the middle east that are as old as civilization, but they aren't particularily large.

Paris is over 2000 years old, if you need another example of a large metropolis.

Ancalagon

 

[Cintra]

I would say that your city can be much larger than Rome was during the Roman Empire days. After all, Rome was limited to a very low tech base, whereas your capitol city has access to all the benefits that can come from powerful magic. If anything, I would recommend basing your city's size on some of the major cities of today. I'd put the population into the millions if that nation has a large bureaucratic component to its government.

Paris is actually a very good city to look at for ideas. They have strict legal limits on the height of buildings within city limits (six stories is about the maximum, I believe), which has led to lots of residential space still within the city proper, and all the large buildings needed by big business and industry being moved outside the city itself to surrounding areas. They also have laws that prohibit any planes from flying over the city (those laws have been in place for a long while, now), and plenty of other laws and regulations to preserve the city the way they want it.

Your capitol city could do much the same. Develop a code of laws that restricts certain type of development to certain areas. Restrict who can live inside the walls, even...

I noticed you said you can't really develop everything until you have the Epic Level Handbook. Sounds like you're already likely to do this, then, but I'll say it anyway...pay lots of attention to all the permanent or long-term magical improvements that the city is likely to have put in place. Permanent water supplies (similar to Decanter of Endless Water) feeding systems of aquaducts, some sort of annihilation item at the center of the waste management facility, Continual Light items for street lamps, maybe even some permanent portals between certain parts of the city and other parts of the same city (not to mention other parts of the Empire). If the city has extremely high magic to call upon, they can have plenty of upgrades that have been there for a very long time.

 

[JohnNephew]

As others have noted, cities don't grow indefinitely; old cities may easily not be particularly large.

A good historical example is the city of Jericho. You'll hear about things happening there today -- archaeological evidence indicates the city has been settled for something like 10,000 years. Many European cities, large and small, go back 2000+ years. Athens must be in the 2500-3000 years old range, yes?

 

[The Dungeon Nazi]

You know, with all this big extravagant magic talk going on (especially the mention of Netheril), you might want to check out the Elven High Magic section in Magic of Faerun. This place is starting to sound like it'd be an ideal spot for a mythal.

I think there's a free ESD on the Fall of Myth Drannor that contains some information along these lines.

 

[Nightfall]

Boy someone loves big cities don't they....

 

[ninthcouncil]

Athens, while indeed very old, was all but depopulated for a substantial period. When the Greeks won their independence from the Ottoman Empire in the 1820's, I believe it had a population in the hundreds. You can see engravings from the period where the Acropolis is basically surrounded by open country....

 

[Hand of Evil]

I think I would try and perform a timeline showing what the city looked like 3000 years ago, then 2500, then 2000, then 1500, so on...build a history around those points, like the northern district was added for X. The fire of the black moon caused the warehouse district to be rebuild, which caused the merchant ways to be built (underground passages for the moving of goods).