I checked your sketch. Since I'm commenting on walls this month, I've got a few suggestions.
-Let the main castle's walls follow the height contour of the hill.
-The second layer of wall follows the river quite a bit, but on the wrong side. It would make an excellent moat.
-The narrow neck of the peninsula of the castle makes a good choke point. Put the wall straight across it on the ridge. This wall can also be used to block the southern river arm
-Put a redoubt on the eastern hill to deny it to attackers
-Put the northern wall at the top of the slope on the northern ridge instead of below it.
-I you pull in the left flank of the northern wall you can make it meet the northern tip of the peninsula. A bastion on each bank could block the river.
-The islands are very undefended, are there no threat from naval forces?
-Blocking the northern river arm at mid point on the map while letting the walls on either side follow the slope of the ridges makes a good killing ground. Enemies can be attacked from the wall perpendicular to the river as well as from the high walls on the ridges.
Made a sketch for reference
That's my two bits. Hope you can use it.
Last edited by Hoel; 01-08-2009 at 01:46 PM.
Don't worry about mistakes, I'm still making many of my own with a style that I've been doing for years. Every map I try to do something different and thus make even more mistakes...but that's how we learn, I guess. Unless we get Hoel to do up our fortifications for us (nice defensive layout there, bro).
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
It probably has a few errors itself. It's the art of fortification rather then the sience.
I'm waiting for someone to make a map for a gunpowder world, then we can talk about sience.
Looking for City Wall Advice
PERSONAL REPLIES
Ascension - Y'know, there's a silly thing about making mistakes. When your goal is to get to the top of a greased flagpole and (in your own "warped" sense of goals) there are no other options, mistakes have a way of really "tripping" you up! I do understand what you're saying and certainly will make my share of them. I just hate doing so, though...
Hoel - Thanks for the suggestions on defensive walls. I really like what you've suggested and most certainly will be employing / deploying a number of said suggestions.
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Speaking of city / defensive / fortified walls, I've searched through a number of threads here at CG and have found many different examples of city walls from very simple line art to a somewhat detailed top-down view of the wall. Is there a ready resource that one can use to make said walls or, is this something I need to create myself?
I'd much rather use an available symbol or object but certainly am willing to create my own if necessary.
Looking forward to your input in order to take the next step in getting Kimarnock's Ruhba completed.
Regards,
Gary
In the end you will see, you is you and me is me.
© May 29, 1980
I make mine with one layer of lines for walls, with pattern overlay for at top down view. Towers go on a second layer. If it's a larger scale i might forgo the pattern overlay thou.
CD seems to have some tools for walls.
I just use a square pencil in photoshop and draw lines, then use layer styles, as hoel said...pattern, inner shadow, outer glow, color, etc.
If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)
My Maps ~ My Brushes ~ My Tutorials ~ My Challenge Maps
What Ascension and Hoel said...
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
PERSONAL REPLIES
Hoel - Thanks for your information on walls. As I'm still not completely comfortable with PhotoShop (CS2 or Elements) as I usually use PainShop Pro, I'm not familiar with Pattern Overaly and am having trouble finding it? I did follow your advice as to putting the various defensive elements on their own layers for ease in editing.
Ascension - That's pretty much what I did to "lay down" my defensive structures -- used brushes. I haven't done any finishing on the walls yet as I'm still trying to be somewhat faithful in following Pyrandon's tutorial.
Steel General - My above comments...
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WIP UPDATE
Hello, All.
After studying Hoel's suggestions for defensive walls and structures, I've layed out the city walls and defensive structures I'll be using for Kimarnock's Ruhba.
Some notes on the below image:
1) The small "dots" along the walls are upper wall towers that stick out from the main wall.
2) As you can tell, all city gates (with the exception of the very inner keep) are doubled. The large squares around the gates could be though of as gatehouses or barbicans with a gate structure between them.
3) The squres attached to the ends of the city walls can thought of as bastions or barbicans.
4) The stand alone squares on the islands and in the south can be thought of as redoubts, a tower house or a guard tower.
Kilmarnock's Ruhba 2008-JAN-14.jpg
Also, I've "grown" the canvas size for the image. Its dimensions are now 2300 x 1700 pixels. As you will be able to see, I've editied in sea and land cover for the extra pixels.
I do have a question for you concerning resolution. This is an area in which I have little practical experience as I've never really had an opportuninty to be much concerned with it. Currently, my map is using 72 pixels per inch. My questions are as follows:
1) What are the benefits of going to a higher resolution?
2) What are the drawbacks of going to a higher resolution?
3) What is the general "rule of thumb" when it comes to seting a resolution?
Thanks, in advance, for your comments and answers. Have a great day!
Regards,
Gary
In the end you will see, you is you and me is me.
© May 29, 1980
I usually work at 200ppi and then scale it back (usually to around 125ppi to meet the megapixel limit) to post here.
My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...
Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Hi Vandy, I would recommend looking through some of this thread as those questions are answered at the top part of it.
http://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=2596
Basically it depends. What matters in your case is the total image pixels not the pixels per inch unless your going to print it. Then these pixels per inch will determine the maximum size you can realistically print the map out to. 100 ppi is about the minimum, 200 is ok, 300 is good quality. You can go to 600 if its black and white line art but its starting to get a bit overkill by this point.
Downsides ? Well memory on PC goes up with resolution. Also you might find that its a bit more work shuffling more pixels about.
Rule of thumb is determine what your map is for. 72 is ok for screen, 200/300 for print. If able, double these when working on the map and then do a slight blur and half size it for the final output (keeping your working version at the old double res in case you want to modify it).
So for this months map for print challenge 48x36 inches poster at say 200dpi is 9600x7200 and ideally you should be at double this until the final size. For an A4 map to print and hand out thats about 2300x1650 preferably doubled up to about 5Kx3K or so as your working size.
If your using vectors then all this is moot since vectors don't have a ppi until you raster them for printing or output.
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