Ostwyc, the Lion City

[QED42]

Coming along very nicely!

Will you be putting buildings outside the walls too? One of my pet peeves is cities that are crammed full inside the walls but have no over flow or outlying settlements/farms, that never seems very realistic to me.

[Falconius]

There are many examples of city walls including farms and open areas for further expansion in their initial construction. Obviously there may be a scattering of outlying buildings to take care of farms beyond the walls, but beyond that living outside the walls would be uncommon in any place where the walls were useful. That is until the city fills up, and only then will you get communities pushing out of the walls, in which case a second set may be made or those outside left to their peril. The other case where people are likely to want to live outside the walls is where city walls are no longer useful, either because of well controlled peaceable lands or because of technology. There is also of course a corollary and that is if it is extremely dangerous beyond the walls either because of extreme unlawfulness, or because of overwhelming threats of technology (or magic), no one would be living beyond the walls or be building permanent structures out there.

[Caenwyr]

Coming along very nicely!

Will you be putting buildings outside the walls too? One of my pet peeves is cities that are crammed full inside the walls but have no over flow or outlying settlements/farms, that never seems very realistic to me.

There are many examples of city walls including farms and open areas for further expansion in their initial construction. Obviously there may be a scattering of outlying buildings to take care of farms beyond the walls, but beyond that living outside the walls would be uncommon in any place where the walls were useful. That is until the city fills up, and only then will you get communities pushing out of the walls, in which case a second set may be made or those outside left to their peril. The other case where people are likely to want to live outside the walls is where city walls are no longer useful, either because of well controlled peaceable lands or because of technology. There is also of course a corollary and that is if it is extremely dangerous beyond the walls either because of extreme unlawfulness, or because of overwhelming threats of technology (or magic), no one would be living beyond the walls or be building permanent structures out there.

Oh yes, there will be a large quarter outside the city walls, and a substantial fairground too. As Falconius pointed out, in peaceful times people tend to go and build beyond the city walls for several reasons. Not all of them pretty by the way. There will be a residential area, a string of inns for travelers arriving after the closing of the gates, a red light district for people with um... more peculiar tastes, and of course extensive farmlands, with watch towers spread out across the riverland.

Ostwyc is a very old city, and it has known its violent periods - hence the massive defense system and the watch towers all-over -- but for the last century or so peace has engulfed the lands in a cozy warm blanket. This has allowed the population in the entire area to boom, AND it has taken away the need to build a new wall. Once times get more troubling, the need for that extra wall will arise, but only the Gods can tell whether they will be able to finish them on time....

Also, I am thinking of adding anintermediate wall (in the old style again) that was built during the gradual expansion of the city, probably a set of two walls on either side of the lake somewhere in the middle of the valley, using the streamlets running off the mountains as added protection.

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Anyhoo, that's for a future update. This update is somewhat smaller, since most of the work I've done is on the placement of extra monuments (a theatre, a hippodrome, a basilica, a forum of sorts, some triumphal arches or obelisks, a granary, ...). This is still mostly invisible work in the ever-increasing draft layers... This PSD file is becoming a truly unruly beast! Some of these monuments need to be carved out of the living rock, so I went back to the terrain layers and recreated the bump map for the first such monument: the theatre. You can find it in the upper half of the map. The hippodrome will probably be next.

I also redid some of the building blocks that were already there, since I felt those streamlets really didn't deserve such a wide gap in the middle of a bustling city. So I removed the road on one side, and pulled the buildings closer to the streamlets. Most houses are still accessible from the other side, but those that aren't have their own (barely visible) bridges over the streamlets. I like to think of them as city mansions, for the more well off citizens.

[QED42]

Sounds like you have everything in hand and some awesome plans for this map! Now hurry up and finish it so we can salivate over the final version please

[bkh1914]

You've obviously put a lot of thought into this city.

And your level of detailing is...impressive.

One question comes to mind - does the city wall need extra fortification where the river passes under it? Maybe something like what you have for the city gates?

[Caenwyr]

Sounds like you have everything in hand and some awesome plans for this map! Now hurry up and finish it so we can salivate over the final version please

Patience patience!!

You've obviously put a lot of thought into this city.

And your level of detailing is...impressive.

One question comes to mind - does the city wall need extra fortification where the river passes under it? Maybe something like what you have for the city gates?

It does! However, they conveniently "forgot", so there's a plot device if they're ever was one... although it's such an obvious oversight (by the constructors, not by me - I expressly designed it to have that flaw!) that it might be a bit too much... got some thinking to do there...

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Alright, update!

Some more houses, and a teeny tiny monument. See if you can locate it

[Arkidemis]

With every up date I'm more and more impressed with the continued attention to detail. Great quality of work you making here, keep it up! As QED42 said, cant wait to see the final product.

[Caenwyr]

update!

[Tonquani]

This is looking absolutely epic. especially impressed with the mountains. From playing around with GIMP and Wilbur, I realize what a massive amount of time has gone into this!

[Caenwyr]

This is looking absolutely epic. especially impressed with the mountains. From playing around with GIMP and Wilbur, I realize what a massive amount of time has gone into this!

Thanks Tonquani! I did spend a silly amount of time on them, but the Wilbur part was by far the smallest. I've learned that I rather control the whole process myself than to leave it to a(n otherwise splendid, but far too little understood) semi-automatic software package. I did use it for the finishing touches though, to erode the steps away and get some of those nice rocky cliffs near the lowlands. All in all I'm quite pleased with how Wilbur handled that part of it!

And here's another update for you peeps. Finally managed to reach the northernmost walls! Woohoo!



I'm still gonna draw in some towers and/or temples on top of those hills surrounded by the city (probably a temple on the northern one, and a smaller fortress on the one closer to the middle walls), and I still gotta add a stream coming down from that newly inhabited valley, but other than that, that part of the map is done. Phew! Now it's off to that other 50%