Guild City: FAQ

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What is this Guild City thing, and where did it come from?


This Community Project started life on January 3 2017 as a Challenge suggestion that quickly gained support and got a whole lot too big for its boots. That is why the monstrously long main thread is in fact a relatively humble Challenge style poll thread with a very ordinary title - 'Guild City'.

The original Challenge suggestion was that it would be great idea to map the Guild as it if was a city, with all the parts and names of the city representing the guild members and assets. However, it was quickly realised that this would have been difficult for any individual to do as an entry in a 30 day Challenge, so J.Edward drew up an amazing base map and divided it into districts for us, so that we could each map parts of it over a longer period. Then Redrobes set up the new Guild City forum (where we are right now), and moved the main thread and its new index across.

Redrobes has also set up the structure of this forum so that the end result of all our mapping labour will be combined to form one very large zoomable city map with several levels, and many possibilities for future details such as floor layouts, dungeon levels, and clickable links to ISO illustrations.

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Where is Guild City, and what's the set up - geography... geology... climate?

The original Challenge idea that gave rise to this project happened to coincide in basic form and description with a city that Robbie (our Webmaster) had already included in a map he drew as part of the Gulidworld project that was started in early 2016 as the Guild's tenth anniversary celebrations, so a decision was made to go with the existing placement of the city in the Guildworld map, and this has dictated most of the natural and human geography, the geology, and the climate - as well as the main roads that are required to connect Guild City with its sister cities to the east and north east.

This is Guild City as it appears on the Guildworld map, in the Kingdom of the Cartographer:

Position.JPG

The city is located approximately 12 degrees south of the equator in an inland position. As you can see it is not a particularly large city by any means, and is decidedly isolated from rivers and oceans. Furthermore it is close to a border with a country inhabited by Orcs and at risk of invasion from the west.

Things were looking bad for having very much in the way of an exciting location, but it was J.Edward who came up with a brilliant solution - make the area one of limestone karst.

Without going into all the details of how limestone karst country is formed, the structure is deep horizontal beds of limestone that have been eroded by water percolating down through the layers and creating sink holes and underground rivers, some of which collapse to form lakes that are sunken down into the land.

Here is a sketch of the geological formations you might expect around the area of the lakes - contributed by J.Edward.

JE Sinkhole sample 1.jpg

J.Edward has drawn us the most beautiful and very exciting master plan of the city location according to this type of geology Please note - this map is out of date where area allocation is concerned! If you want the most up to date map for allocations you can find it here:

CURRENT.jpg


(this is one of the draft stages where you will see from the names on the map the districts were already being parcelled out to the cartographers taking part in the project)

The climate was researched most thoroughly by Azelor, from who's post I have collected these examples of similarly positioned cities in the real world:

Climate wise, some cities at a similar latitude include:
Bangalore: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangalore
Gondar (not Gondor): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gondar
Bamako: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamako
Brasilia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bras%C3%ADlia

According to Azelor's post there are no climatic extremes and plenty of rain in the slightly warmer season, leading to a potentially green and plentiful landscape, despite the lack of surface water beyond the lakes within the city.

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How do I get a district to map, and what am I allowed to map in it?

If you want to take part in the Guild City project you can. The city has been designed with expansion in mind, so don't worry if all the central blocks are already gone by the time you get to it. There is plenty of potential to add satellite towns if at any stage the city seems to be getting a bit too large as a single entity

To claim a plot for yourself to map visit the first comment in this thread, and check for areas that do not already show a name. Choose three or four in order of preference and note them down, then go to the very end of that same thread and ask J.Edward if you can have one of those districts listing all four of them in order of preference.

There are no hard and fast rules to what you can or cannot map in your part of the city, though most people prefer to have a look around at what has already been mapped in the areas around their own and make decisions based on that, and where they are in relation with the older central part of the city. While the project is still in its infancy this means having a look at all the relevant WIP threads here, but as time progresses it may be easier to check out the full map that will slowly emerge as Redrobes compiles all the finished parts into one big zoomable map (link to be added later)

Once your claim has been confirmed by J.Edward you may download your base map from here, and start designing your layout on the very handy 5 foot grid that has been laid out over the entire city area. (5 foot is equivalent to 1.5 metres).

While you are on the Main Index thread downloading your base map, check through the rest of the basic information available on that thread for light direction rays and any other useful information that I may have overlooked to put in this thread.


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How do I get my map the right size and match it up with my neighbours?

The base map you receive is the size that it is simply because it would be impractical to expect people to download any much larger file.

J.Edward has recommended enlarging a base map by a factor of 4 to work on it, and then if that is too large to upload in your WIP thread you can reduce the WIP copy to about half that size.

There are no hard and fast rules, and any size variations between the finished maps will be resolved at the stage when Redrobes compiles the zoomable city map, so please don't worry too much about whether you have exactly the same number of pixels per grid square as your neighbours, because it really won't matter at the end of the day.

You will find that you have roads marked on your map. These most frequently define the boundary of your area, while some of them cross through it. You can alter he position of the roads in your map, but please leave the boundary roads and the places where roads cross the boundary into neighbouring districts as they are, or we will end up with a lot of dead ends!

Please also note that the roads that are marked on your map are guidelines only, and that you can make them as wide as you wish. To fit a cart down a road just one way only, for example, you would need to draw your roads at least 8 - 12 feet wide (two grid squares), and a dual carriageway would be 3-4 squares wide - 4 squares to allow carriages to pass with a comfortable space between them at speed. Wider roads also help to match the maps together , though this isn't essential. It just ensures that you don't end up losing the front line of any buildings you may have lined up with the edge of the roads that define your district.

Several of the City Builders have already grouped together and started discussing cross-boundary projects, such as dams and bridges between districts. You can do this as well if you want to change something, by talking to your neighbours on the WIP threads.

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How do I start a WIP thread, and sort out my map for uploading - what size should everything be?

You start a WIP thread by going to this part of the forum and clicking the Post New Thread button as normal.

When the window opens up click the down arrow on the Prefix box and choose '[Section]'

Add your title in the following format:

## - Name of District [your avatar name]

(## represents the two digit number of your district)

Enter your WIP comment text and map and click done

(Most people have copied Redrobes style by including links to all their neighbours maps in the first comment of their own WIP thread, but there's no rule about this if you don't want to)

Whatever size your map is should be fine. The only thing you have to worry about is reducing it just a bit if you have been working on it a bit larger than your upload limit will allow.

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What about shadows, and perspective?

A long discussion took place about shadows, and finally a decision was made to encourage everyone to adopt a similar time of day and angle of sunlight.

The preference is for short shadows that do not fall over your neighbour's boundaries - the sort of shadow you might get at about 11 am.

The sunlight direction ray we are using is available from this post here, along with the global sun settings for CC3 users in the comment immediately below that.

Though we appreciate that some cartographers find it difficult to work in anything but ISO perspective, the majority of the city will be top down view - the preferred view. You can work in ISO perspective if you want, but you must respect that none of your mapping should overlap any of your neighbour's districts.

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Reserved for additional questions...

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