Mar-May '22 Lite Challenge: Phylakas Kataigithas

[4maram]

Hi, it's my first time participating in a challenge.

This is Phylakas Kataigithas, an island situated in the Mediterranean Sea, an the eastern exit of the Sea of Alborán (N 36º 34' W 1º 22').

Place.PNG

It hosted a Greek colony from the year 575 B.C. and it was posteriorly invaded by Carthaginians and Romans in the Punic Wars.

It remained under control of the Bizantyne Empire as an important naval base after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476.

In 711 it was occupied by the muslims, and was set as a base for piracy in the Mediterranean Sea.

It was reconquered by the Castellans in 1493, ending this way the Spanish Reconquest. America would be discovered a year later, in 1494. In that year begun the Modern Age and ended the Medieval Age. It would be the main naval base in the Mediterranean of the Castellan Crown.

In 1590 was initiated the fortification of the island. The arabian buildings were demolished and begun the construction of a group of forts to defend the main port.

In the XVII century the fortifying effort continued high around the island, and it remained an important port in the middle of the Mediterranean.

Now, in the XIX century, Philakas is an unsinkable vessel in the entrance of the Mediterranean Sea. It remains as Spanish domain and has been able to sink one or two vessels from the English Navy passing by after the Battle of Trafalgar.

Also, two towers of the optic telegraph were installed on both ends of the island 20 years ago, to communicate with the capital at Madrid and to speed up communications with the castles at Oran and Melilla. These two towers are part of the line Oran-Almería, and the Southern tower is one of the greatest engineering proyects in the last 20 years. It's signal can be seen from 88 km away!

TelOpAlme-Oran.PNG

We have been tasked by the province HQ to make several maps of Filacas Cataigidas (heightmap, buildings, rivers, etc.). Aditionally, one of these maps is going to be exposed at the next edition of the Enciclopedia de España.

###Latest WIP###
WIP1.png

LEGEND:
Light blue: Sea/lakes
Dark blue: rivers
Light yellow: coast
Brown: High ground/Mountains
Orange: Medium-high ground/Hills
Grey: Cliffs
Green: Farmable land/low ground
Dark green: Forests
Very dark green: Marshes
Light green-yellow: Grasslands
Red: Urbanisable land
Light grey/Grey touching red: Urbanised land
Black: Paths/Roads
Bright yellow: Slope edges

Notes:

I'm still deciding the size of the island.
At the beginning I thought about a kilometer in length, but now I'm more inclined to give it 45 km, to make space for some shipyards and great defensive systems.

Just now I'm deciding where are the edges of each slope. After that will come the heightmap, and then the actual area for each city.
After the cities are actualized, I will draw the strategic facilities and strategic spots where fortifications must go.
That would be version 1.0.

Version 2.0 would be done through pencil for some shadings and the cliffs.
Version 3.0 would have some zoom-in's to get a more detailed view of the fortifications.

[Bogie]

Welcome to the Challenge 4maram! Looking forward to seeing this develop.

[Elatan]

I'm excited to see how it turns out, it looks and sound interesting!

[4maram]

Ok, I'm calculating the main slope edges from this map:
WIP2b2.png

There, each pixel should be a 10x10 meters square, and the island measures 45 km in length (black line).

So far there's not much slop edges done yet (red).
WIP2b1.png

[4maram]

I think I'm going to scrap the first one as being too ambitious and too detailed. It just doesn't let any margin for errors, and I'm still developing the idea.

These are the slope edges completed, on the map.

###Latest WIP###
WIP2c.png

[4maram]

As a rule of thumb I'm separating the center of each city around 20 km from any other city. As the scale is 1px:10m, I've made a new brush with 3 circles with diameters 1000px, 100px and 5px, which translate to 10km, 1km and 50m:

CirculosDiametros1000pxU100pxU5px.png

Any land that is inside the circle will be land that people are trying to farm on and it will be actively patrolled in search of bandits or recently arrived pirates.

This is the arrangement of cities:
WIP3a.png

Within the area of influence of each city, there are multiple villages that help maintain the farming. These villages are around 3km (~300px) away from each other. There will be also some trading posts in the limits of each bigger circle.

This is the arrangement of cities plus villages:
WIP3b.png

When the paths are formed, each village makes a path with the nearest surrounding villages and the main city near them.

[4maram]

The paths are done. I've used the Epileptic B&W map as heightmap to give some nice natural curves to the paths.
Here it is:

###Latest WIP###
WIP4.png

I've used a clear blue as a terrain background to be able to distinguish the paths, the slope edges and the cities and villages' circles.

[4maram]

Right now I'm making icons of castles, watchtowers, guntowers, naval batteries, wind and watermills villages, optical telegraphs, mountains, hills, etc.

[4maram]

I've finished drawing the rivers.

In this map:
Red lines: mountain ranges
Blue lines: rivers
Black lines: paths/roads
Red squares: towns/cities

###Latest WIP###
WIP5.png

[4maram]

I still need to put the icons of cities, windmills, watermills, mountains, hills, forests, and names, but for any other purposes, this map is finished:

###Latest WIP###
WIP6.png

Oh, foot note:
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I just created the icons on my own and they are under a Creative Commons License. (Not usable for commecial purposes but available if you want to use them for maps displayed freely).
Icons.png

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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