Ethran: Merelan City

[Mark Oliva]

escherndorf.JPG
Photo Copyright (C) 2010, Steigerwald EDV Verlag, all rights reserved. Used with permission.

Ah!

Well...

Hmmmmn... Hmmmn....

My thoughts exactly.

The majority of the vineyard is on a south east slope (north being diagonal from bottom right to top left). That's almost south facing... and the slope is more of a gently tilting plain, so its not really in the shade at any point of the day. Is that good enough?

For grape juice, sure. For wine, never. Best is the all-day sun of a south slope. OK is a southwest slope with late morning and afternoon sun. Minimal is a west slope with afternoon sun. But southeast ... grape juice. However, as you soon will see, the matter is going to get worse.

I don't live anywhere near a hop growing area.

The Middle Franconian hops gardens of Spalt and Hersbruck are near. The best German hops gardens in the Bavarian Hallertau are not distant, nor is Bohemian Žatec (Saaz in Austrian times), where the world's best hops grow. I've been to all of them, and none look anything like your grape-juice-producing vineyards.

The grapes of the Merlish vines (for it is they and not the Blucrans' who refined the strain) are small and very strong - and they are going to need a fairly stiff drink or two when they realise what's about to happen to them.

Then you're really in trouble. One does not get high alcohol content from strong or even very strong grapes but rather from the amount of sugar in the grape which turns into alcohol. The amount of sugar in the grape is, then, determined to a great extent by the amount of sunshine the vines have. In other words, if your wines are supposed to have a high alcohol content, you need a 100% south slope, preferably with a steep incline, most preferably with water at the bottom to reflect sunlight back into the vineyard. See the photo. It was taken in early spring before the vines had leafed out. It shows the Lower Franconian village of Escherndorf on the Main River. The vineyard - Escherndorfer Lump - faces due south. It is one of 5 world-class vineyards in Franconia. Some of the wine in the Lump goes for up to $100 a bottle in New York City.

Do you think I have enough vineyard to keep the wealthy of the city in booze for a year, or shall I do more?

Sorry. You don't have any vineyard at all to do that.

However, I do want to get you out of trouble. Instead of making it a village of winos, you could make it a village of abolitionist grape juice drinkers who will burn anyone at the stake who is caught drinking alcohol!

Nix für Ungut!

[Mouse]

LOL!

I can see that I'm going to have to turn the entire southern coast into a vineyard - close to the water

Thanks Mark!

[Mark Oliva]

You don't have to thank me. Pulling the rug out from under other peoples' feet is an old Bavarian sport. Glad to do it for you!

[Mouse]

Well no - you've actually been quite a lot more helpful than you thought, but the results of the consideration you sparked will only be evident once I've uploaded an update later today

[Falconius]

Um, this city clearly imports its food anyways. It's built on a rock, next to a swamp, and no one has a garden. So I'm not sure why they wouldn't just import their booze also.

[Mouse]

In the old days, you'd have been right about that.

Before the drought set in, and before the rest of Ethran became little more than a desert, all manner of useful things were traded between the five races, and entered the city partly by the road and partly by the dock. Merelan being a medieval city, its population is not so large that it can't be sustained by a single good road and an adapted fishing port.

Livestock is a rarity, since drinking water is too precious to share with more than a bare minimum of animals, so the only reliable source of protein is fish. Lugworms and shellfish harvested from the salt marsh and the sand banks are eaten in vast quantities by the poor, along with the more edible forms of seaweed, which when dried can also be burnt as fuel (since the trees are now all dead and the wood from them carefully guarded).

The only thing that still comes from the mainland (where all the vines have died or been overcome by the spreading dunes of the interior desert) is an edible succulent with a very nutritious root (parrac). Parrac has fibres that are long and strong enough to be useful in rope making, and at a pinch can also be aggressively softened, spun and woven into fabric for sack cloth.

The Sayers insist that the reason Merelan is still relatively blessed by the presence of water (hidden deep in its caverns, and still seeping from the sacred Pool of Life beneath the temple), is that Rusaar has blessed the Blucrans above all others, and will never allow his true people to die.

What fools they are, poor things!

[Mouse]

Version 33

Ok... so we're growing grape juice for the junior members of our society on the slopes above Cherrin

I've had to upload early today, because I have an appointment that could really spoil my day this afternoon. the grass colouring is definitely off. I tried fiddling with it to reduce the glowing green a bit, and all I've done is make it a really horrible colour.

That's tomorrow's job, now.

What I would be really interested in is if anyone has any thoughts on the design/style of the layout I've plunked down inside the Sayer compound. My idea was to have 1-2 thousand Sayers living there - the hard core of the warrior army and the senior officers, but it looks like a prison right now!

The temple is just a circle with a couple of entrances right now, but I have to think about how to represent the structure, which I have already written about - a geodesic dome of glass resting on an inner wall over an extremely important mosaic of precious gem stones (a key component of the story), surrounded by a glazed aisle that runs beneath the flying buttresses that support the upper walls that bear the weight of the geodesic dome.

I have a feeling I might need to draw this and import it

EDIT: I have also sorted out the really inconsistent shadow/highlight effects on the houses that are supposed to be in the shadow of the land (the contrast was way over the top). I discovered that it was because I had altered the default sun settings some time ago, and put it very low in the sky. Once I restored it to an angle that was more towards overhead, the problem simply vanished.

[Falconius]

Don't army bases generally resemble prisons? Hehe, I think it looks good. They may be somewhat short of parade ground and training space though, but I'm sure the commanders just make them go run in the marsh anyways

[J.Edward]

Hadn't seen the progress for a bit... then this
It looking great Mouse.

[Mouse]

Don't army bases generally resemble prisons? Hehe, I think it looks good. They may be somewhat short of parade ground and training space though, but I'm sure the commanders just make them go run in the marsh anyways

EDIT: How rude! I quite forgot to say "thank you". Thank you, Falconius

Well - I think you have a point there. LOL The bases around here certainly do! I might have to squash a parade ground in near the north east gate (top of the map the way its orientated), but the Sayers also think of themselves as spiritual warriors. When I get the garden of reflection sorted out (a tree filled parkland) it shouldn't look quite so harsh

As for exercise... I think they probably run up and down the island quite a lot. I would imagine that running to the marsh and back would be listed under the more sadistic forms of punishment!

Hadn't seen the progress for a bit... then this
It looking great Mouse.

Aw, thanks J.Edward And despite the horrible colour scheme I seem to have generated ever so suddenly