Ganador

[Caenwyr]

And here's island #3. Once again I carved a canal through the heart of it - using the ntural terrain of course!

Ganador_05.jpg

This is coming along nicely - but be sure to keep your critique coming!

[Mouse]

That's a lot of work! I take my hat off to you

Looking forward to seeing all these squares and magnificent buildings I've been imagining from your story

[Caenwyr]

That's a lot of work! I take my hat off to you

Looking forward to seeing all these squares and magnificent buildings I've been imagining from your story

Thanks Mouse!

The southern islands are where most of the people live, but even here you'll notice several structures that are substantially larger than regular house. These are usually temples, libraries, halls etc. I also intend to inject more and more palaces and monuments as I go north and towards the smaller islands. One thing to keep in mind though is that the scale is about 10 ft per pixel, so even humongous monuments will appear smallish. The cathedral on the southernmost island seems quite insignificant, but it's about 680 ft long, just slightly shorter than St. Peter's Basilica in Rome (the longest church in the world). I plan to add a few theaters and even a charriot racing stadium if I find a spot to cram it in (the one in Rome, the Circus Maximus, is just over 2000 ft long, so even on this map it would appear quite large. I'm probably gonna go for something smaller, but I'm not above extending it past the original coastline: these people know how to build on unsteady ground and they like to show it off!). Regardless of how many monuments and palaces I add, it's still gonna be hard to get the size of things across on this scale, but I'm sure shading will help .

You might also notice Ganador has no stone walls to speak off, but it has a far less visible, but equally effective defensive measure: just below the waterline there's a huge ring of pointed steel stakes that would run any attacking force to the ground long before they're within reach. There are routes to enter the harbour of course, but these are only known to the harbour pilots, and they change regularly. I'm still struggling to find a way to display those stakes... and whether I should display them at all, since their invisibility is exactly what makes them so effective - and only a fool gives away defense secrets, right?

Below you'll find a modest update. One more island that got its buildings!

Ganador_06.jpg

[Ilanthar]

Very promising! I like the concept and the organic planning of the city.
Watching for your next steps!

[ThomasR]

You're an ambitious man, Pieter, very ambitious ... but with your skills, I do not fear for you and look forward to seing more

[Caenwyr]

Very promising! I like the concept and the organic planning of the city.
Watching for your next steps!

You're an ambitious man, Pieter, very ambitious ... but with your skills, I do not fear for you and look forward to seing more

Thanks guys! I just hope I'll be able to pull it off too.

Below you'll find the next incremental update. Added some more islands to the mix, and the first (and probably only) truly massive monument: the racing grounds. I'm playing with the idea of flooding the place and having boat races instead of chariot races, considering this is a very sea-oriented people. Or maybe I should allow the possibility for both: by lowering the floor of the place between low and high tide, it should be possible to flood and drain it without having to use pumps or aqueducts.

I'm not entirely sure about the island west of that though: it might be a tad too regular compared to the largely organic land masses of the other islands. What do you guys think?

Ganador_07.jpg

[Caenwyr]

Hey all!

So I decided to redo the narrow island in the middle of the central bay (I'm probably gonna call it Barz Márgole, Isle of Steel) to have it look a bit more irregular. I kinda like it now! How about you?

I also filled in the island to the north. It's the one but largest island on the map, but it got colonised much later. You'll notice the street pattern is a bit more regular here than it was on the islands that got inhabited sooner: city planning FTW!

The new island not only sports public baths in the middle of a massive park (in the SE corner) and a theatre (SW corner), it's also home to the naval fleet base (in the north) and a huge collection of warehouses which mainly hold grain and barrels of freshwater (most of the eastern seaboard). The city generally collects enough rainwater in cisterns, but the barrels are there in case of drought. You can never be too careful.

Ganador_08.jpg Ganador_08b.jpg

Thoughts? As always, be harsh and terribly unreasonable - I want it to be the best it can be!

[Ilanthar]

Still looking good . Do you plan to connect the city to the land with some big bridge? I'm just curious.

[Josiah VE]

This is mightily impressive. It's certainly not lacking in size.
When zoomed out the design looks a lot like a real city.

[Voolf]

Bunch of teeny-tiny squares and the effect is great. but i wonder if those small roofs wont merge into one clutter later when/if you are going to colour and shade. I am curious how you are going to develop it after lines are done.