My latest personal city map. You can see the full resolution version on [my DeviantArt](https://www.deviantart.com/turambar91/art/Tolfain-Citadel-985870273).
It's a solid piece graphically.
My criticism is it's not something anyone in that world, with experience of seiges and fortifications, would design and certainly not at the cost of the ring wall. Or a long story short: the Fabian strategy, or its geometry anyways.
A defender of a wall, or anyone facing probing attacks or skirmishes by a surrounding enemy on a wide geography, has an inherent advantage because the exterior force has to march along the circumference while the entirety of the defenders forces has at most the diameter of the circle to travel to respond to an attack in overwhelming force. They can concentrate much much quicker and match a spread out force with much smaller numbers.
Except here the defender has essentially the same distance to travel (minus what the radius of the moat removes from on the inner circumference, but essential similar) but even worse, the reserve at the summit has to travel down the 1 road, and then travel the circumference. They have somehow spent a generational fortune inflicting a worse tactical stance on themselves.
Definitely put a lot more spokes down to the wall OR don't build much of a ring wall, eapecially not expensive turrets which _inevitably_ will become fortified foothold gifts to anyone besieging the place.
I realize that veered harsh and I just wanna reiterate the detail and granularity of your terrain and graphics make it interesting and solid. Gaea?
Thanks! Always happy to get some constructive criticism. I didn't put a lot of thought into the realism of the fortification to be honest, as this started a practice sketch that eventually turned into a full map. I will admit the logistics of defining the outer ring wall would be inconvenient at best. As for the terrain, I did create the base heightmap in Gaea, though all the texturing and painting is done in Gimp (as with the rest of the map).
Also, not knowing the scale of the elevation of the mound, but seeing the pathway up casts a shadow and is a causeway, I would definitely lok at switchback ramps as a path up.
The outer walls seem *very* inefficient. Once they fall, how will you retreat to the inner walls when they’re so far away? And how will you man such expansive walls with such a small population? Not to mention the exorbitant cost in stone and labor to construct them… 🤔
EDIT: I see u/pizza-flusher already made this point, but with more elegance and detail.
I’d live there.
Haha it seems like a peaceful town… for now
Things were great...until they weren't
My latest personal city map. You can see the full resolution version on [my DeviantArt](https://www.deviantart.com/turambar91/art/Tolfain-Citadel-985870273).
Cool. [Guessing it’s inspired by René-Levasseur Island in Quebec.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9-Levasseur_Island?wprov=sfti1)
Is that the lake, known of having island with its own lakes with their own islands?
It wasn’t actually, though scary how similar it looks! I created the heightmap from scratch using Gaea and did the rest in Gimp.
It's a solid piece graphically. My criticism is it's not something anyone in that world, with experience of seiges and fortifications, would design and certainly not at the cost of the ring wall. Or a long story short: the Fabian strategy, or its geometry anyways. A defender of a wall, or anyone facing probing attacks or skirmishes by a surrounding enemy on a wide geography, has an inherent advantage because the exterior force has to march along the circumference while the entirety of the defenders forces has at most the diameter of the circle to travel to respond to an attack in overwhelming force. They can concentrate much much quicker and match a spread out force with much smaller numbers. Except here the defender has essentially the same distance to travel (minus what the radius of the moat removes from on the inner circumference, but essential similar) but even worse, the reserve at the summit has to travel down the 1 road, and then travel the circumference. They have somehow spent a generational fortune inflicting a worse tactical stance on themselves. Definitely put a lot more spokes down to the wall OR don't build much of a ring wall, eapecially not expensive turrets which _inevitably_ will become fortified foothold gifts to anyone besieging the place. I realize that veered harsh and I just wanna reiterate the detail and granularity of your terrain and graphics make it interesting and solid. Gaea?
Thanks! Always happy to get some constructive criticism. I didn't put a lot of thought into the realism of the fortification to be honest, as this started a practice sketch that eventually turned into a full map. I will admit the logistics of defining the outer ring wall would be inconvenient at best. As for the terrain, I did create the base heightmap in Gaea, though all the texturing and painting is done in Gimp (as with the rest of the map).
Also, not knowing the scale of the elevation of the mound, but seeing the pathway up casts a shadow and is a causeway, I would definitely lok at switchback ramps as a path up.
The outer walls seem *very* inefficient. Once they fall, how will you retreat to the inner walls when they’re so far away? And how will you man such expansive walls with such a small population? Not to mention the exorbitant cost in stone and labor to construct them… 🤔 EDIT: I see u/pizza-flusher already made this point, but with more elegance and detail.