WIP: Purity City [BONUS: guessing game!]

[bif]

Hey all.

Welcome to Purity City, for better or worse the nicest place to stay in these parts of the post-nuclear wasteland. Some clever folks got a municipal water processing plant working on the outskirts of a city ruin, giving it the largest supply of clean water in the region. Didn't take long for it to become a major trading hub.

Here it is, my first map inspired by tutorials on this forum.

Everything is basically labeled, except for the red lines, which are barriers erected from scrounged material and cleverness. They aren't designed to keep out determined attackers, but luckily, even bad, bad people need water. Old town and the plant itself, however, are very well guarded.

Now for the guessing game: based on the description and the sketch map itself, please tell me what you infer about Purity City- past, present, and going forward. I had something in mind to convey, but there's no right answer. I'm especially keen to learn about 'wrong' guesses so I can tighten this up before I fire up GIMP.

Oh, also, this is the stage in the process where I would most welcome comments to improve the final product.

Thanks!

EDIT: Added an early WIP of the map. It should begin to say more about how the city developed over time.

[Steel General]

It's a good start.

A scale would go along way to determining the size of buildings, etc. (if any) are going to be added.

I think you need more than just the major roads. Side streets and alleys would probably play a major role in traffic flow.

How do they get 'fresh food' into the protected part of the city?

Just a few things off the top of my head, hopefully they make sense cause I'm not fully awake yet.

[bif]

Thanks for the quick response! Smaller roads are planned- I plan to do them directly in GIMP so I can undo/fix until I get it just right.

Scale... haven't nailed down a number yet, but imagine the dot in the center of Well Market is the size of a dwelling about 500 square feet. The space between the streets on this map will be dense enough (and detail vague enough) that individual buildings won't be discernible (making smaller streets even more important, I know). Also, though the streets here are uniform in size, once it's GIMPed some of the streets here will be smaller.

For now, please imagine the streets closer to the perimeter and those in the Southeast part of the city (ones that don't follow a clear pattern) to be smaller (perhaps I should color-code this on the sketch before I dive in), and even smaller streets of one pen-width wind their way through all the blank spaces.

The Westernmost vertical road within the city leads from the city entrance to that of the quarantine zone. The quarantine entrance is next to the hospital, sort of the administrative capitol of that area. That's where food comes in, provided by the municipal government who trades water for it under existing trade agreements with nearby communities. The comparative abundance of water here enables most citizens to maintain a garden, usually established and worked together as communities.

Hmm... that will factor into the final look of the map... there should be pockets of green open space in the depths of the boroughs, and maybe an occasional rooftop garden.

In any case, most food in Purity City is imported. A custom house at the entrance will be assumed if this game ever gets off the ground.

Thanks for the excellent idea prompts- just the kinds of things I needed to consider!

[NeonKnight]

To answer your Guessing Game:

Welcome to Purity City, for better or worse the nicest place to stay in these parts of the post-nuclear wasteland. Some clever folks got a municipal water processing plant working on the outskirts of a city ruin, giving it the largest supply of clean water in the region. Didn't take long for it to become a major trading hub.

SO, assuming Purity City is on Earth, then I would put it Future. Though it could be Present on a different alternative Earth where a Nuclear Holocaust happened around the 90's turn of the century like in most Hollywood movies from the 70's-80's.

[Gandwarf]

To answer your Guessing Game:

Welcome to Purity City, for better or worse the nicest place to stay in these parts of the post-nuclear wasteland. Some clever folks got a municipal water processing plant working on the outskirts of a city ruin, giving it the largest supply of clean water in the region. Didn't take long for it to become a major trading hub.

SO, assuming Purity City is on Earth, then I would put it Future. Though it could be Present on a different alternative Earth where a Nuclear Holocaust happened around the 90's turn of the century like in most Hollywood movies from the 70's-80's.

I am with NeonKnight here...
The city has been ruined by a calamity, probably nuclear because of the polluted lake, and now it is a trade hub because they have a water processing plant.

I also see that the hospital has a quarantaine zone. So this probably means victims of radiation poisoning... or there is some kind of rampaging virus (which might rule out the nuclear calamity).

EDIT: hmm, I see NeonKnight was quoting you, so you already gave away it's a post nuclear wasteland. I don't get the guessing game then
It could also be that the city is actually selling people polluted water??

[bif]

The guessing game was a half-baked idea. I'll do a writeup later of what I had in mind. It might be better to know up front. Thanks for playing, anyway!

[waldronate]

I infer that things got really bad in Chicago...

[Kristoni]

You made a huge leap forward with that second WIP. The colors you picked work really well for what you intended them to represent.
Perhaps a barrier is required that would restrict access for the healthy & quarantined people to the polluted lake and also to fend off attackers from that direction?

[bif]

Here is the final working copy. Planned changes include labeling key features and increasing the canvas size to make room for a legend. Add a compass rose, border, and map title, and that should do it. Will post the final with a brief writeup in the Finished Maps section, and post a more detailed writeup at the Campaign Builders' Guild forum.

Thanks SteelGeneral for helping provide early direction, and everyone else for your comments and for attempting the ill-conceived 'guessing game!' Also thanks pyrandon for the tutorial I followed after adapting it a bit for GIMP...

[Ascension]

Looks fine to me so far.