Altdorf map (Warhammer)

[gyldenstern]

****WIP****

Awhile back I began drawing on a new map of the city of Altdorf (that would be the capital of Empire, in the Warhammer Fantasy RPG setting) with the aim of making it look a bit more realistic. V1 is in the trash, but not a waste of time since I figured out a quick workflow. Anyway, this is V2. Its just a sloppy coloured version, just the get a view of the layout and such.

Since this is my first attampt at a city map I might need some help, both regarding the actual look of a medival city and tips tricks to make it look as stunning as I envison it in my head

First question (Ive been googling but in vain), how would a medival city wall look? And, Ive been thinking about another, older city wall surrounding the old city (that is bound to be there somewhere, I need to consult the fanatic gamers regarding this ). Isnt that the way cities are built? Expanding, building new walls.

altdorv-v2-beta.jpg
EDIT: Latest update
altdorfv3.9-web.jpg

[Wingshaw]

Hi Gyldenstern, welcome to the guild.

Let me give you some tips about medieval cities.

First, regarding medieval walls, check out Carcassonne, France. It still has many of its medieval walls intact, and is probably the best example I know of for looking at the way medieval walls should look. Another example worth checking out is Caernarfon, Wales, which has a magnificent castle, with impressive walls around it. There are plenty of other castles to check out, and places where the walls exist as remnants of their former appearance.

One of the things to remember about walls is that they are expensive to build, both in resources and manpower, and, to be effective, you generally want to avoid having too much length that needs defending, too: i.e. it is better to have short walls that can be defended easily, rather than a long wall that stretches your forces thin. Consequently, a double-layer of walls is unlikely. However, there are occasions where more than one layer existed (Istanbul being a good example).

Also with walls, it is important to remember that walls have multiple functions, not just the obvious one of defence against siege. For example, walls and gates are a great way of controlling who enters or leaves a city, and are therefore also often used as money-generating toll-points. Walls can have symbolic functions (symbols of grandeur, expressions of power, and threats). Many cities have foundation stories that concern the walls (if I remember correctly what I learned at uni, I think the founding of Rome involved Romulus marking out the boundaries of the city), and therefore they figure prominently in the imagination. Last (as far as I can think of right now), they may have legal functions: define the extent of a civic government's jurisdiction.

All that said, however, military purposes are the primary ones: there are easier and cheaper ways of building a tax-collecting barrier and tollgate, after all. That means, when deciding on the nature of walls to include in Altdorf, it is important to ask whether the city actually needs military defence, and, if so, what kind. If there are no real threats, no walls are needed. If fighting a rabble of barbarians, a palisade or earthworks might be sufficient, or else a single fortified location, which leaves the rest of the city to fend for itself. If fighting large armies equipped with siege engines, the standard stone walls. If fighting an enemy with cannons and gunpowder, star forts are a preferred option.

Next, I don't think you are right that new walls are built as a city expands (at least, historically speaking). There are a few reasons for this: first, cities just didn't grow very fast. Second, the people who lived outside the walls (officially called suburbs, or extra-mural settlements, in urban history) were likely to be poorer and less worthy of defending. Now, it is almost guaranteed there would be suburbs around a medieval city (for economic reasons: land is cheaper, taxation is lighter, traders can set up their wares without having to pay the aforementioned toll), it is very unlikely a civic or national government would be moved to defending the suburbanites. More likely, when war comes, they would be brought inside the walls (or sent away as refugees), and if their homes are destroyed, so what. They should be lucky to be alive.

Now, looking at your picture, a few pointers come to mind:
--the area covered by the walls is very large, which suggests that they definitely wouldn't need to expand the walls for people beyond. There is plenty of space for a very large population to live in.
--your streets are perhaps a little bit too curvy, though overall not too bad. If you look at medieval cities, the streets rarely curve. Why? Because the fronts of houses do not curve. Instead, they are more likely to appear curvy due to lots of straight sections at slightly different angles to each other. I hope I explained that clearly.
--land beside the river is valuable real estate. While it is not completely unlikely that there would be a wide riverside boulevard, it is more likely that there would be lots of warehouses built right up to the water, and a large street in front of the warehouses. There would then be alleys and suchlike running between the warehouses. If you look carefully at this map of London, you'll see that there is no public thoroughfare right next to the water.
--back to the walls, there are a few places where the walls you have drawn are unlikely. Remember what I said about shorter lengths of wall being better? Those places where you have a jagged kink in the walls increase the length of them, without adding much extra space. Unless there is a good reason (eg natural topography, pre-existing barrier etc.) they should be straightened out a bit. The V-shape in the walls at the northwest of the district so far drawn is a particularly unlikely arrangement.

That's it for now. Hope it helps. Keep going--this has a lot of promise.

THW

[gyldenstern]

Thanks! Good points! Ive tried to make the streets apear more straight, and adjusted the city walls. Ive also added an island in the river (like in Paris). And, yes, there shold be warehouses by the river. Ill get to that eventually.

altdorv-v2-beta2.jpg

[gyldenstern]

Damn! I realize that youre right. That means that despite trying to deny it and even drown my troubles in wine, I need to re-draw the street layout. But still, thanks

[gyldenstern]

Ok, new try. Any thoughts?

altdorf-v3-beta1.jpg

[Falconius]

Looking pretty good. I definitely like the new style changes.

It seems to me though that you are pretty limited in terms of your end goal (making Altdorf somewhat more realistic) by the fact that it is already a defined sort of thing (also it's set in Warhammer which goes together with realism about as well as oil and water. Warhammer is always style over substance which is what makes Warhammer cool). You may be better off re-imagining the whole thing from the ground up, or just playing heavy on the style aspect.

The second thing is that with such variation in sizing solid blocks like that become confusing in terms of what they represent, at least for me. Do they represent built up areas? Property lines? Open areas? etc. If they represent built up areas why do they lack the streets the other built up areas have. (You can think of streets as drainage for people, or vascularization for your city. Cities needs to have good flow, just like blood to organs)

[gyldenstern]

Thanks!

I think Warhammer, and in particular the 1st edition RPG is more om the dark and gritty side compared to the later more high fantasy versions, and you could pretty much interpret it any way you like. So Im dont really see that as a problem. I'll leave some thing out and add others. Thats pretty much how Warhammer evolves

So, my aim is to understand the city better even if I dont go all out on realism. At least I'll be able to visualize it better. The maps we have of Altdorf are quite weird, and doesnt look like cities att all.

Anyway, regarding the map, its a WIP and I havnt got around to add all the streets yet. So what you see is the map in its current state. Actually it was a bit more time consuming than I thought!

Ill post an updated version later this week, hopefully with more detail. And I havnt even begun to think about the style of the map yet. I just added some colour and texture to easiser see what Im doing. The finished map will probably look completly diffrent

[gyldenstern]

Slowly but surely...

Added some locations as the university, the imperial palace, the great cathedral and such. Also toying with colours.

altdorv-v3-beta2.jpg

[gyldenstern]

So, Im still not done with the layout of the streets, but Im going there. Meanwhile, Ive been trying out some options to mark important buildings and intresting places, and I think I will go for something like this. I still havnt figured out how I can possibly number all these locations, but maybe Ill have to settle with area maps for that. Anyway, heres the latest version of Altdorf, zoomed in:

altdorv-v3-beta3-close-web.jpg

[Ilanthar]

I like where you're going with this. I suggest a stronger contrast in the choice of colors for those important buildings. The red is perfect, the blue and especially the green are hard to see.
Good colors for the rest and excellent font!