Wanted some opinions on these maps... (Updated 4-16-04, 8 villages and a city!)

[MerakSpielman]

Estimated populations:
#1: 575
#2: 95
#3: 340
#4: 185
#5: 230

 

[mroberon1972]

Estimated populations:
#1: 575
#2: 95
#3: 340
#4: 185
#5: 230

Darn close on all but #2, but you would have no way to know the circumstance of the village to predict that. It's population is over double that, with the building being almost like apartment due to the limited 'safe' ground space...

Very good though on the guesses, though...

 

[Conaill]

Looks good. I like the variety in house sizes and shapes, and just overlapping the squares for the fields works fine as a quick hack. You may want to make your main roads a little narrower, right now they're wider than many of your houses. Many historical roads were only a single cart's width.

The spread out nature of the houses in the last map implies a very safe area. There's no way you could defend such a ramshackle collection of small houses against even a small raiding party. No clumping of buildings for mutual security, no sign of taking advantage of that strategically located cliff edge (as opposed to the previous map, where there' s a large building overlooking the road leading down the cliff. People living in that last map must feel very safe in order to build like that.

Are these last two connected? They both seem like they're part of a bigger whole, and they both have that cliff edge running through them...

 

[mroberon1972]

Looks good. I like the variety in house sizes and shapes, and just overlapping the squares for the fields works fine as a quick hack. You may want to make your main roads a little narrower, right now they're wider than many of your houses. Many historical roads were only a single cart's width.

The spread out nature of the houses in the last map implies a very safe area. There's no way you could defend such a ramshackle collection of small houses against even a small raiding party. No clumping of buildings for mutual security, no sign of taking advantage of that strategically located cliff edge (as opposed to the previous map, where there' s a large building overlooking the road leading down the cliff. People living in that last map must feel very safe in order to build like that.

Are these last two connected? They both seem like they're part of a bigger whole, and they both have that cliff edge running through them...

The first one (with the east to west ridge) is in a relativly safe area. The archdruid of the entire valley lives there. Not a lot that can stand up to that. On top of that, everyone locally is trained in basic weapon use. Including the older kids. Not an agressive bunch, but pity the bandits that wander in... =]

The other map is half way across the valley (Valley of Frozen Tears... product... blah, blah...) They are just closer to the mountains than the other maps above them...

 

[mroberon1972]

One more...

All of these maps were created using Fractal Mapper 7.0 and some tools I developed for it.

You can get the tools for Fractal Mapper at:

http://www.ancient-awakenings.com/m...e=Downloads&file=index&req=viewdownload&cid=2

Sadly, it won't help people using other mapping software...

 

[MerakSpielman]

Very good though on the guesses, though...

My rough rule is five inhabitants per structure. It tends to work surprisingly well, especially as a rule for creating cities with X number of inhabitants. Just divide the number by five, slap down that many buildings, and you're accurate enough that nobody will ever notice one way or the other.

 

[mroberon1972]

My rough rule is five inhabitants per structure. It tends to work surprisingly well, especially as a rule for creating cities with X number of inhabitants. Just divide the number by five, slap down that many buildings, and you're accurate enough that nobody will ever notice one way or the other.

Great minds think alike...

It was created (with the one exception) with 5 per building as the base...

Each of these will be in the back index as places in the Valley of Frozen Tears, with full keys and location info. I just wanted to see others opinions to get an idea of any major problems, but so far the response is positive.

You can enjoy them without buying the mini setting, so have fun...

Mr. Oberon
The Fool
John Bowden

 

[Conaill]

Last one looks interesting.

I would definitely *not* call it just a "village". Seems more like a citadel, or even a small (heavily) reinforced city to me. And if this is a secure haven in an otherwise dangerous neighborhood, you're likely to find settlements right outside its walls as well.

Considering how high up the city itself seems to be, I would try to scale the length of those peaks that you use to indicate the cliff face to the height of the cliff. And either remove the "beach" area between the cliff and the water altogether, or put a wall around the entire circumference of the city. Otherwise, it's too open for climbers to sneak in at night...

 

[Ferret]

It seem kind of drab and lifeless. No real comments but the roads grey, the ground is white, well off grey. And the roofs are a lovely grey pink.

 

[mroberon1972]

Another: