City of Cresckov

[Elterio Delgard]

Hi everyone. Recently I had some commissions, one of which being a city. Having never done serious city maps before, I had to do some research on how big should a standard house be and it seems to me I might have to do eventually some even more serious research than just browsing the internet. I may actually have to buy books apparently, having so many questions not yet answered...

Still here is what I learned... Apparently a standard medieval house was around 50ft by 25ft. (approximatively 15.25 meters x 7.60 meters).

But as for how the cityscape was built, what kind of people were where (I know smiths were not in the residential area because of the noise, and those working leather and making shoes were outside the walls because of the smell), my knowledge is very limited.

Still, I took the commission and though I am ALMOST done, I feel like I am only beginning a new adventure in mapmaking...

Cresckov.jpg

[Elterio Delgard]

Well here is the final product that I finished one week ago. Not sure if the layout of the farmlands is good and I think the water is to be worked.085BF166-4A32-4487-83CE-6ACA1331C711.jpeg

[Elterio Delgard]

Maybe what I could do in future town maps is having roofts instead of just black blocks. I will admit it does give a nice simple style, still it lacks the feel of variety which I see when people have their roofts. I also notice a mistake I did. Well, mistake yes and no, it was a map I started at first just for some practice but then a friend wanted it for his D&D and the cliff was already fully drawn when he told me below is the ocean. Next time, having a port would be nice. With boats. It could be also the port is just one or two miles along the road, but honestly I can't see any logic in a space between the city, and the docks. I mean, obviously you want to protect your dock and your houses, so it would be illogical to separate them right?

Concerning the network of roads, having those circular plaza was actually a mean to have some main roads diverging from those simply going towards a gate. I think it gives some intelligent design behind the growth and spreading of houses. True enough, its not really representative of the Middle Ages since houses were added in an organic fashion, and smaller roads were more like shortcuts between the main roads, and then the secondary roads, until no more shortcuts could be added. At least if I remember well... I did alot of searching, but didn't find much to say research >.<...

[Tenia]

Greta job here. I agree with you about the port, I looked for it on the map Just in case you need it, here is a link about (geographical but not only) relationships between towns and their port in French Middle Ages (in French) : https://www.persee.fr/doc/shmes_1261..._act_35_1_1869
Just my opinion: Personally, I wouldn't have outlined the streets in red, I was thinking it was the city walls and towers at first glance.

[Elterio Delgard]

Mmmm... True enough red seems more like a delimitation rather than a compartmentalization of the city within neighborhoods.