On 12-4-2012 21:14, Becraft, Robert wrote:
> I love the landscape and your integration of your structures into the model.
> I've worked with POV for almost 15 years and still struggle with landscapes.  Do
> you have a posting of the technique you used to lay out the roads and place the
> town buildings?
Thanks Robert. I shall write down a couple of things explaining my 
technique (which is still evolving by the way). Coming soon.

>
> I have three military concerns...
Only three? ;-)

>
> The first is the amount of land area enclosed by the city wall and the small bit
> that is occupied by the town.  Is it your intent to fill in this with more
> structures?  The entire town population would be needed to man just the towers
> on this wall.
Easy question. The answer is that I have far from finished filling up 
the available space. On the other hand, some areas of the city have 
fallen in ruin and have been abandoned. Fluctuations of the population 
due to diseases returning on a regular basis. The walls have been built 
in a more prosperous time.
Interestingly, there are images of the city of Antioch which show 
something similar, because its walls were built over a mountain ridge 
dominating the city below. I have been partly inspired by those views. I 
saw those in my copy of Steven Runciman's History of the Crusades.

>
> Second, the port seems to be small and well defended for such a small area.
> Profits from the docking fees must be extremely high.
Gancaloon has two harbours because it has two trading communities (three 
in fact, the third one being the Guild which operates in between the 
other two). The native River Traders use the harbour you see. The 
foreign Sea Traders operate from a harbour on the sea side. Alain is 
right in saying that that area is not very inviting but the people are 
resourceful and built dikes and breakwaters. Still to be modelled of 
course. During the stormy season, ships may take refuge in the inner 
harbour (in exchange of a substantial fee of course).
>
> Third, it appears your town is inside a bay area with a fortification on the
> town side, how come you don't have a similar fortification on the opposite
> shore.  Defending the bay would open up the entire space and give more room for
> the ships to enter, dock, trade and improve the economic position of your town.
I have not yet decided about the other shore. There probably will be a 
watch tower on the summit, as there will be a light house on the island 
offshore. However, for some reason no city developed on the other side.
In fact the fortifications are mainly for prestige, especially since the 
Turks took over a couple of centuries earlier. Threats from the Punic 
population in the west have mostly disappeared. In future, the Mongols 
will appear but that is outside the scope of the Tale ;-)
>
> Also, based on the city sky-line, your town is occupied by a bunch of heathens
> with no places of worship or praise.  Perhaps the fortifications are their
> masters???
Watch carefully: on the ridge between the Citadel (left) and the Old 
Palace (right) you can see a complex of walled-in towers. That is the 
Temple Complex of Indian inspiration but where a pantheon of gods are 
worshipped, especially local/foreign ones or the animistic gods from 
up-river. The Greek origin population has evolved to some kind of 
monotheistic believe involving Apollo/Athena, with Poseidon as special 
guest, but they do not use places of worship anymore. In fact, the 
temples they built in the time of Alexander the Great onwards, 
especially the huge temple to Poseidon on the seaward side of the city, 
have been transformed into store houses.

Thomas

Post a reply to this message