Orothos: The City of the Herons, the City on Stilts

[Sular]

This is a very early stage of a map of my heavily Venetian-inspired city-state, Orothos. The part of the map that I've been working on is the old mercantile and administrative part of the city ("Downtown" if you will).

The city itself sits at the entrance to a large estuary and was originally built in mid-water on pilings so there is no land in the city; it's all artificial. Trade, especially in dyes and pigments, in wine, various sea creatures and their products, and in cloth were and still are very important to the economy and culture of the city, which accounts for the names of some of the few places and streets I've put down.

[Lalaithion]

Looks Good!

[anstett]

I am a sucker for good maps of cities on the water.

Very nice start

BOB

[Sular]

I've expanded a bit, added more streets, and so on. I hope to have the whole of the canal system worked out by Friday.

[anstett]

I would offer that you do not need the bridges over the Serpentine Canal there. If they think in terms of punts/canoes/gondolas then bridges become superfluous for traffic over the larger canals. I would put in docks as points for ferries to cross.

Smaller canals would have bridges because it is easier to walk across than throw something to the other side but if you are using small boats as the main mode of transportation about the city then the main thoroughfare will need very high bridges to allow clearance to the traffic.

Just a thought as I look to see how I would go from place to place in the city.

BOB

[dangerdog15]

Wow! I was just studying an old map of Venice. Very similar color usage. This is looking great!

[Lalaithion]

Anstett, Venice often tons of bridges over large canals. They are beautiful works of achitecture an a wonder to walk across. Also, walking across a bridge costs no money; taking a boat does.

[anstett]

I did stay in Venice for a week once. There are lots of bridges over the smaller canals it is true. However over the main canal where the shipping is they use the gondola taxis for people rather than a large bridge that would have to have a very high clearance.

When I was laying out my own Venice inspired city I routed all the ship traffic around the outside of the city and only have one bridge with that issue to block ships from entering that part of the city.

Plus with bridges it is much easier to charge a toll to cross, small boats just slip through the canals quietly to a secret meeting.

[Sular]

You both make very good points, which I've been mulling over in the back of my mind all day. Anstett's comment about secret meetings, however, has convinced me that I do indeed have too many bridges. Secretive maritime meetings in out of the way places, possibly between illicit traders in beetle resin, between political conspirators, and general skulduggery involving boats on fog-shrouded canals have always been very much a part of this city in my imagining, so, fewer bridges it shall be.

That said, there will still be bridges, and some will probably be wonderfully designed (at least they will be described that way, as I lack the skill to draw them).

Thank you all for you critiques and comments.

[Lukc]

Well conceived - and a lot of work still waiting for you, hiding, in the shallows.

Anyway - it's a map, you're not painting the canals, so my twelve hundred running monkeys say a simple representation of a bridge works fine.