World's End

[Ayana]

B) Walls. We need them. However, why not build them as the city expands? Start off with inner rings, and as we add people, we add layers of walls. What you end up with is a kind of Minas Tirith effect. Travel between rings could be purely via signposts, with the gates kept locked. Given iron access, with enough people making bricks we could eventually go for brick walls.

The first attempt, Brodgar, failed mostly from bad design. New Brodgar however, was on its way to realizing the dream of a real city when disaster struck in the form of raiders. The fatal weakness was a complete lack of protecting outer walls, having only individual walls. This time I want to see both combined.

If there's going to be layered walls, with crossroads between tiers, there should be people ready to take down those crossroads in case of raiding, as once the outer walls are breached those signposts would be an easy hop right into the heart of the city. Ideally, the outermost inside post should be enough, especially once brick walls are up.

Also, as a new player and one that's enjoying the hermit lifestyle provided by wilderness start, I've got to say that the idea of a city that's more of a collective of individuals in the same area sounds nice, instead of being, say, the exclusive wheat-grower for 'village x'.

Edit: I'm being Captain Obvious, aren't I? You guys would have already thought of that.

[Yolan]

If there's going to be layered walls, with crossroads between tiers, there should be people ready to take down those crossroads in case of raiding, as once the outer walls are breached those signposts would be an easy hop right into the heart of the city. Ideally, the outermost inside post should be enough, especially once brick walls are up.

I am really not familiar with this kind of stuff, so thanks.

Also, as a new player and one that's enjoying the hermit lifestyle provided by wilderness start, I've got to say that the idea of a city that's more of a collective of individuals in the same area sounds nice, instead of being, say, the exclusive wheat-grower for 'village x'.

That's it. I'm interested in player freedom and independence, but large scale, and lots of people to hang out with/trade with.

[Elirian]

To put it in a few sentences, its about attempting to have a non-communistic, and hence, far bigger scale city than usually possible by having all members own their own little bit of land within the city. Rather than working purely for the common good, players are expected to do their own thing, using the land they have. The idea, never fully realised as yet, is to test the possibilities of emergent complexity in the game. Can we have a thriving little city state on a scale not yet seen in this world?

That is interesting. I didn't realise this had been attempted before and had been considering the same concept. How did it turn out? Economically I mean. I'll go search up the brodgar/new brodgar threads for more info.

Did you use currency or barter?
Did you allow plots outside the village claim or only within it?
Did you tax at all in order to provide infrastructure such as walls/banners/statues, or were you totally hands off?

Which of the options you chose worked, which did not?

[Yolan]

That is interesting. I didn't realise this had been attempted before and had been considering the same concept. How did it turn out? Economically I mean. I'll go search up the brodgar/new brodgar threads for more info.

Did you use currency or barter?
Did you allow plots outside the village claim or only within it?
Did you tax at all in order to provide infrastructure such as walls/banners/statues, or were you totally hands off?

Which of the options you chose worked, which did not?

In New Brodgar we struggled to expand the claim much, as we started out right at the beginning of this world with few resources and no metal. Claims were allowed to expand wherever there was space, providing they stuck to the set layout. 11 wide streets, 5 wide alleys (so claims wouldn't bump) and 20x20 claims.

This is a composite picture taken of New Brodgar a few days before it was raided and mostly abandoned.



As far as the economy went, I guess barter was how people traded goods, but mostly we never had a chance to really get a functioning economy. For the time up until the raid, most effort went into team construction of all the roads, etc., plus getting personal claims started. It really was crushed just as it was starting to mature and metal was beginning to flow in.

Tax was really in the form of 'group work time' where we rounded up people to help make the roads everybody would use or the banners for the village claim.

[Chakravanti]

I think it will be a lot easier for you with an iron mine especially now that pallisades are a meaningful form of defense.

You should check out what this guy is trying to do: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=8254

[Lumar]

I had a similar idea and this was the layout I was thinking about:

The center is where the village claim and market would be. The red is brick walls, the black is palisades or brick depending on what the owner is capable of. The white empty squares is me being lazy. The grey is all road and the thin white lines around the plots is me getting fancy.

layout.jpg

[Yolan]

Looks nice.

What do you think about concentric circles for continual expansion though? I.E. Exactly like what you have there, but every two rows of houses have another square.

Also,

How about we join forces?

Good news: I have iron

Bad news (in the short term): I am very, very far away if you wish to walk to where I am. Probably better of spawning a fresh character.

[Ayana]

Defensively speaking, the sector walls should go up before individual claim walls. Also, the idea of a 'industrial district' sounds like it could be a good idea. Common ovens, smelters, kilns, etc. You could build your own, obviously, for lp and higher quality goods, but for those who'd like to use those facilities without using up their own space it could be useful. Obviously, as they'd be community resources, community upkeep should be encouraged.

[Chakravanti]

In my experience from being involved with cities of multiple sized is that it is always most efficient to operate out of a mine in the middle of the city. Depending on how urgent you consider outside walls it can be a great place to work securely out of a secure town commons.

One of the problems I always wondered about is how you would deal with is the having of cheese in mines since the best cheeses need to be processed there. Caves work too but I'd imagine it'd be difficult for everyone to have a cave.

Also the idea about concentric circles sounds interesting And could look really neat when finished.

[Elirian]

You would have to extend credit to people wishing to live within the walls.

20 plots per sector means plot price = 1/20 of the value of the clay and iron involved in sector wall construction, plus opportunity/labour cost for the person who actually erects them.

No one can afford that without establishing themselves, and if you allow them to establish outside the walls they'll never pay to move inside. I wouldn't think the second was a problem, but apparently leaving it up to the individual to wall their own plot doesn't work out too well? How did the raiders take advantage of the lack of outer wall in New Brodgar?

Concentric circles would make expansion an even more difficult process, as the ring before would never cover the cost of the next ring. It would become very difficult to have resources on hand to pay workers/gatherers to help with the next wall expansion when you start talking about tens of thousands of bricks, and even more difficult to persuade people to invest in their own protection days or even weeks before that protection is complete. Expanding by quarters seems more logical as it allows you to determine the size of the expansions walls, rather than having it determined by the current size of the city. However, once again, apparently having many small walls can be taken advantage of. Aside from being less efficient of course. I'm curious what happened with New Brodgar, especially if it could have been prevented by having one outer wall.