# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Town/City Mapping >  WIP - The city of Ankh-Bathor

## Clercon

This will be a huge project for me to finish. I've probably asked for too much, but you have to give it a try. Finally I've come to map the single most important place in the world of Etrakien - the city of Ankh-Bathor. So far I'm just trying to get the coast line, canal and probable size of the town right. So a lot of things might change in the future. The graphics are at the moment just placeholders, so don't take them too serious.

As Ive stated in earlier posts the city Ankh-Bathor consists of a eastern and a western city that has grown together, and today it is considered to be one city. I probably try to describe the town some more later in this thread.
So how does the town look? Believable? 

And this will probably take som time to finish :-)

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## thebax2k

Clercon, I like your maps.  I have little doubt it will be a stunner when complete.  I did have a few questions/observations from a realism point of view you might want to keep in mind as you draw your map:

The first question that comes to mind--what's the scale?  Are these two cities a mile or two apart or are they 20 miles apart?

Second, if the cities are less than a mile or two apart, why is the canal between them so wavy?  If the canal is man made, then it would likely have been dug as straight as possible, the only reason it would be that wavy was if the landform and terrain required it (which to be honest, is the explanation you might want to run with--your canal looks far more "interesting" than a straight line would be).

Third, where are the locks?  Although the two bodies of water on either side of Ankh Bator are likely close to the same height (for example at the Panama Canal, the Pacific is 20 cm higher than the Atlantic or about 8 inches), locks would facilitate two way traffic by moderating or eliminating a strong current and enabling horses, donkeys or whatever tow system you want to rig up to tow the ships from end to end (lookup the Erie Canal), they also can slow, moderate, or stop a storm surge from wiping out everything along the canal.

Fourth, and this point ties into question two, is this piece of land the continental divide between two or more tectonic plates?  I know it sounds a bit over the top, but Panama is, which is why it is so mountainous.  If that is the case with Ankh Bator, the central part of the canal would be higher than either end.  You'd just need to find a source of water to keep the canal running (Panama's is the massive amount of rainfall (69 inches a year) that keeps Gatun Lake filled).  Perhaps there is some massive dwarven waterworks, aqueduct or similar system--just the thing requiring hardy adventurers when it starts developing problems.....

Fifth, and I know this is early in the process, the canal will likely have towpaths on either side (or at least one side).  There should also be markets.  One final consideration is defense.  Although the city is in the middle of a powerful nation If I remember your first reference to it correctly, what is to keep raiders attacking either on land or sea?  City walls may not be necessary if the land the city is in has been at peace for a long time, but there should be at least some sea forts to deal with the marauding riff raff. 

Regardless, I'm curious to see how this develops.  Good luck.

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## Clercon

Hello thebax and thanks for your input. The whole point with this early WIP is that I want this to be right and Im no city designer in real life. So hopefully people like you can help me to get things straight.




> Clercon, I like your maps.  I have little doubt it will be a stunner when complete.


Well at the moment the map is in a very early Alpha stage so hopefully the visuals will improve a lot :-) At least you have put some pressure on me now.




> The first question that comes to mind--what's the scale?  Are these two cities a mile or two apart or are they 20 miles apart?


At the moment the scale is about 12 km across. This in miles would be something around 7.5 miles. It might change however depending on how this map develops. But something around that scale itll be. 




> Second, if the cities are less than a mile or two apart, why is the canal between them so wavy?  If the canal is man made, then it would likely have been dug as straight as possible, the only reason it would be that wavy was if the landform and terrain required it (which to be honest, is the explanation you might want to run with--your canal looks far more "interesting" than a straight line would be).


Spot on :-) I went for looking good here, but I might change some parts of it to a more straight path. However is the terrain some of the reasons that the canal isnt completely straight. The canal has a small story to itself as well. The city of Ankh-Bathor is situated on the remains of a much older city from the times before the great war between the Archonts and the humanoids in the seven worlds. By then magic was very common in the world and the canal was created to connect the two seas, innerhavet and Etrakiska sjön (by then they had different names of course). After the war the city was laid in ruins but the canal remained as a scar in the earth. So we are talking of a canal that has existed for some thousands of years (havent really decided the timeframe here, but its not very important). So maybe the course of the canal has changed some bits because of earthquakes, changes to the world during the great war and so on, but a canal created by magic cant seize to exist, not this one at least. And it looks better than a straight line :-)




> Third, where are the locks?  Although the two bodies of water on either side of Ankh Bator are likely close to the same height (for example at the Panama Canal, the Pacific is 20 cm higher than the Atlantic or about 8 inches), locks would facilitate two way traffic by moderating or eliminating a strong current and enabling horses, donkeys or whatever tow system you want to rig up to tow the ships from end to end (lookup the Erie Canal), they also can slow, moderate, or stop a storm surge from wiping out everything along the canal.


Thank you for this input, I love locks so of course I have to put some of them in. Didnt know that the panama canal had them. So now the Ankh-Bathor canal will have them too. 




> Fourth, and this point ties into question two, is this piece of land the continental divide between two or more tectonic plates?  I know it sounds a bit over the top, but Panama is, which is why it is so mountainous.  If that is the case with Ankh Bator, the central part of the canal would be higher than either end.  You'd just need to find a source of water to keep the canal running (Panama's is the massive amount of rainfall (69 inches a year) that keeps Gatun Lake filled).  Perhaps there is some massive dwarven waterworks, aqueduct or similar system--just the thing requiring hardy adventurers when it starts developing problems.....


Another good question. This one made me think. First of all there are aqueducts going into the city from the hills surrounding the area, so some of the water comes from them. Secondly there are hot springs in this area that feeds the canal with water. The same hot springs are also used to heat some of the more luxurious houses during the winter.




> Fifth, and I know this is early in the process, the canal will likely have towpaths on either side (or at least one side).  There should also be markets.  One final consideration is defense.  Although the city is in the middle of a powerful nation If I remember your first reference to it correctly, what is to keep raiders attacking either on land or sea?  City walls may not be necessary if the land the city is in has been at peace for a long time, but there should be at least some sea forts to deal with the marauding riff raff.


Yes there will be towpaths, at least on one side. At the moment the graphics are just placeholders for me to know where city, countryside and water will be. So the pattern used for the city is not the one to be used, therefor no markets, villas, palaces and so on. When it comes to defense the whole city is surrounded by a wall. Parts of the wall are from the times before the great war, these parts are of hard black stone that are impossible to break, protected by long time forgotten magic. 

Hopefully this answers your questions to some degree.

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## Gandwarf

Now, this is certainly going to be interesting to see develop. I like the overall shape of things... bring it on  :Smile:

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## Clercon

Some more testing and fiddeling has been done with Ankh-Bathor. You can now see the city walls (they are not done in a long way) or rather aproximately where they will be situated. The docks are done, or more the place where they will be. They are marked with grey. I've also started testing out how to do the canal town on the eastern side of the city. I can already see that I have to go back and widen the thinner canals or they will dissapear too much.

I also changed the actual canal a bit. made it a bit more straight, but not too much.

Please feel free to comment.

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## Clercon

So Im trying to figure out how to do this. Trying out some different techniques to see what works. After a couple of trial and errors Im closing in on something that feels good. So I thought I put it up for display for all of you to see.  When you sit on your own you tend to go blind after a while, so some input could be nice. The houses is what we mainly look at here, the park in the middle of the map needs some trees and abit more work on the grass. So what do you think?

The area you see is the canal town in the city. An area of small islands of houses connected with each other through a system of bridges.

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## waldronate

Looks good, but I have two observations: the streets are very uniform in width as though the streets define the buildings and the presence of extreme triangular and trapezoidal buildings bothers me. Consider some maps:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...00971&t=h&z=17
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...19419&t=k&z=16
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...04855&t=k&z=18

Lots of wandering lanes but nary a triangular building and streets of varying size in each. I understand how these things happen when doing maps like this, but it still disturbs me. Having said that, you're much more patient and effective an artist than mere critics such as me, so take my comments with a grain (ounce, pound, ton) of salt.

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## Zar Peter

I kind of disagree with the street width. Cartography is the art of reduction while keeping the information, it's totally allowable to reduce the thousands of different street widths into just one or two. Also the trapezoidal buildings are allowable because the environment is forming the shapes, it angles just shouldn't be too big or low. Triangular buildings on the other hand mostly occur in towns with high gradients and are not a good match to seaside cities. There are too much of them in this map.
I think it looks very promising.

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## ravells

Clercon! If you are going to map the whole city in that sort of detail you will go mad. I admire your courage in taking on the project. Stylewise, I like the size and distribution of the buildings and negative space, but I think it would look better without the bevel. One suggestion: Very large buildings usually (but certainly not always) have courtyards (otherwise no light inside) and space around them to emphasise their importance. 

best!

Ravs

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## Clercon

Waldronate: Well I decided to simplify things (as Zar Peter describes) so I only have 2-3 different sizes of roads. In the end this part of the town will be a very small part of the whole city. I tried to make the roads smaller but it didn’t turn out well when zoomed out. Everything just blured together.

One funny thing to mention is your reference to Venice. The eastern part of the city actually borrows the coastline from Venice :-)

Zar Peter: Thanks for your comment. When it comes to buildings I didn’t really think about the shape of buildings. To even make it possible to make the map with this kind of detail I’m trying to develop a method that let me create a lot of buildings in quite a short time. The prize I have to pay for this is that the shapes sometimes don’t follow how the “real” world shapes things. But I try to think about it when I continue to expand the houses, so I can avoid it if possible. 

Ravells: Yes I know that this is too much detail for any sane person, and the map will probably drive me mad both one and two times. But if I map Ankh-Bathor I want it to be great. I want you to be able to feel the massiveness of the city when you look at the map. So what choice do I have :-)

When it comes to the large buildings I’ll have your comment in mind. So I probably go over the once more, to make ‘em right. I tried to remove the bevel and I think you’re right. It gives the whole city a cleaner look. So I probably go with that.

Thanks for all the input it really makes this easier for me, and it might save me from madness ;-)

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## ravells

You will still go mad with a city of this size....

Good luck!

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## Clercon

> You will still go mad with a city of this size....
> 
> Good luck!


Yes I know, I just hope it's worth it :-)

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## Diamond

Alls I can say is, you've got some big brass ones to take on a work of this size.  Good luck, and if it's of the same high quality as your other stuff, I'm sure the end result will be awesome.

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## Clercon

> Alls I can say is, you've got some big brass ones to take on a work of this size.  Good luck, and if it's of the same high quality as your other stuff, I'm sure the end result will be awesome.


Thanks for the nice words Diamond....and you really put some preassure on me now ;-)
I know the size is big, but you have to go where your world leads you. And unfortunately for me Ankh-Bathor turned out to be quite a big town :-)

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## su_liam

Just don't forget to name every one of those little winding lanes. ... What? If you're going to drive yourself insane, don't stop halfway!

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## moutarde

You're an evil, evil man Su Liam  :Wink:

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## moutarde

Clercon, I'm very impressed with the size of the project you've undertaken here.  Just be patient and stick with it, and try to keep some options open for variety, and you'll get it done  :Smile:

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## Clercon

Yes we all know Su Liam is  an evil person, but that makes all the other of us look good. So it's probably a good thing ;-)

Moutarde: Thanks for the encouragement. The map will probably take some time to do, and I might even put in a break or two to map something completely different. So I don't grow bored of it.

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## ravells

Just thought I'd post this link. 

Good Luck Clercon!!

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## su_liam

You people cut me to the bone. I am not evil. Nor am I crazy(much). I just like a whole lotta detail in my worlds. I mean, if you don't put in those kinds of details how are the PCs going to know the best fish-and-chips place in town("Rose and Thistle," on Handlebar Moustache Street), and the cheapest bordello("The Ball and Chain," on the Avenue of Cheap Thrills). And when it comes to evading the secret police, nothing quite replaces knowing where the nearest manhole is.

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## Coyotemax

You are evil.  but evil in a good way.  Same kind of evil I am  :Smile:

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## Clercon

Ok here is the latest progress of the town. I tried some effects on the map as well, just to give me an idea how the end result might look like. The question now is if the roads are too narrow. Shall I widen them? Any other input is welcome as well.
And Ravells, I guess you'll be the first one I meet when I check in to Umedalens mental hospital ;-)

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## ravells

Yum, yum yum... love the little green bits in the middle.

I'm in room 401...let's hope they put you in 400 or 402....that way we can slide pictures of maps to each other through the gaps by the drainpipes!  :Smile: 

p.s. don't tell the doctors!

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## thebax2k

Wow, this map is progressing nicely.  To answer your question, Clercon, based on what I have seen of Venice and other Italian cities (such as this google map of the core of old Florence http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&sour...26758&t=h&z=16) your streets seem "about right".  That being said, I would put a wider east-west thoroughfare either on one or both of the banks of the canal, or running parallel to it on one side or the other.  Given how much traffic would be flowing from one end of the city to the other (granted, much of that by canal), such a road would be likely to exist.

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## Grimmr

Clercon, I think the difference in density looks great, and adds to the realism of transitioning from "working-class" areas to the more "sophisticated types" dwellings on the banks of the canal. As long as the final product retains enough detail to easily represent a road, I say keep it!

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## Clercon

Thanks for all the nice comments, it really motivates you to go on. Here is a small update of the map. Finished off the harbor areas in the east and added a hill with a tempel. next is to do the less crowded areas of this part of the town...where the rreally rich people dwell.
Hope you like it :-)

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## ravells

Looking wonderful! Go go go!!! I love the harbour!

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## Clercon

So this litle project has been nagging me a lot. I wasn't completely satisfied with how it turned out so the inspiration faded a bit with that. It also took me too much time to map it. So slowly I started to think if I might be able to do this map with CD3 instead. And maybe som finishing touches in PS. 
So I stared to test and learn what could be done with CD3. You can see some of the results in my finished maps. 
So finally I decided to give it a go. The problem now will probably be who gives up first, me, my computer or CD3. Because I have nerver before tried to something this big in CD3. And I don't know how the program will handle this size of a map. But we will see in the end....wont we ;-)

This is a part of the map, the eastern part to be more precise. The larger buildings are just placeholders and will be replaced later on with my own graphics. But that will be som time in the distant future. So will this work? Does it look ok in this style? Is the difference in sizes between poorer and richer areas looking right? Am I crazy doing this? 

I hope you like it :-)

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## Ramah

It looks great, Clercon. Much better than your earlier style I think. Good luck with finishing it and I'm sure it will be worth all the hours you spend on it in the end.  :Smile: 

It actually makes me consider buying CD3 to give it a whirl. I bought CC3 before I discovered this forum and I couldn't get on with it at all. But CD3 looks much better. I guess I'd need to get in contact with Profantasy though as I've reinstalled everything since then, changed my email address and lost my download.

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## Clercon

Thanks Ramah!
I'm also sure I will love it when I'm done, I just hope my wife will too ;-)

You should absolutely get CD3. I think it is a great program. Sure it has its small flaws but thats probably mostly because I'm used to PS. And CD3 behaves in a different way sometimes comparing to how PS would behave in the same situation. And it would be very interesting to see what you could accomplish with the program.

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## mearrin69

I think the new version looks awesome! Keep going.
M

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## ravells

Yay! Glad to see you're continuing with this! Clercon!

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## Clercon

Thanks for the comments Mearrin69 and Ravells. I really do hope that I manage to complete the map.

Some more progress on the map has been accomplished the last days. Mainly I have added the poorer southeast parts of the city, across the bay from the greater inner port. The area is walled in to keep the people in place but with the right papers (or money) you can go and come as you please. The area is called “The Maze” because of its uncharted and unplanned road network. The life in the maze is harsh and there is only one major building. A temple dedicated to the goddess of the poor and thieves, probably also the only place where you don’t risk to get robbed or killed if you’re a stranger. 

The authorities don’t have much control in this area of the town so it is a likely hideout for people that don’t like to be found.

I also added a picture of the whole city, so you can get a picture of the size and the progress. Some bits left to do. I really hope that CD3 will cope, or I might have to split the map in two, and paste it together in PS. So far CD3 hasn’t given me any problems at all. It works like a charm :-)

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## Clercon

I just thought I should post a progress map with a higher resolution then in the earlier post. Nothing dramatically changed here, just a few small pieces in the south. So mainly the same picture as in the last post, but with more details for the interested.

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## Ascension

Wow, that's a heckuva lot of houses.  Kudos for patience.

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## Mulliman

Well I thought the previous style was neater, but of course this one is splendid aswell haha  :Smile: . Will be interesting to hear more about backstory aswell.

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## Clercon

Thanks for the comments.

Here is a small update, well if you count every individual house it os a major update but if you look at the whole map it is a minor one :-)

The maze area in the south is done, some small things will be added later but nothing big. I've started to add some houses in the canal area, still some houses to plot out here. 

The island in the middle of the bay is the cities nekropolis. According to the common belief everyone has to be burried in the catacombs of the god Nekroshtar. The catacombs is a copy of the real world where the rich can pay huge ammounts of money to get a large private place to rest. The poorer ones are thrown in a massgrave in the lower parts of the catacombs. 

In the north part of the map I've placed some villas for the disgustingly rich. Walled in with big gardens they fell like they are living far away from the cities crowded streets. How wrong they can be :-)

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## Katto

Well done so far Clercon! I am so jealous that you can work with this map size in CD3 without having problems.

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## Clercon

> I am so jealous that you can work with this map size in CD3 without having problems.


Well I'm very glad too that it works so smoothly. Actually I haven't had a single crash so far. But the CD3 file is starting to be quite big now compared to the earlier towns I made. Hopefully my luck lasts :-)

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## Aval Penworth

So Clercon, are you still working on this one?

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## Marken4

How could I miss this thread? Anyway, amazing map, cool backstory and Good Luck!

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## Clercon

> So Clercon, are you still working on this one?


Of course I am :-)
But at the moment I'm having a break, ploting out houses is quite tiresome so I needed to do something else for a while. So at the moment I'm making the Drakonia world map. But you can be sure that I soon will return to Ankh-Bathor.




> How could I miss this thread? Anyway, amazing map, cool backstory and Good Luck!


Thanks a lot Marken4

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## Aval Penworth

That makes me very happy. :-]

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## Clercon

Another update, after four months. This project is moving slowly, but it's moving.
Some more houses added on the west side of the town. Ihope you like it.

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## Gandwarf

That's what you get for picking up such a large project: work, work and more work  :Smile: 
It's starting to look really nice though. As a city it's also believable. My only regret is that it's black and white, colors would have made it more amazing I think.

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## Steel General

Progressing quite nicely...

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## Clercon

> That's what you get for picking up such a large project: work, work and more work 
> It's starting to look really nice though. As a city it's also believable. My only regret is that it's black and white, colors would have made it more amazing I think.


Yes I know, you get to work, work and work. But hopefully it pays off in the end, even though my wife thinks I'm crazy:-)
The reason I'm using B&W is that I intend to add some custom made graphics, like temples and theaters.  And I think it will be more easy to do in the B&W version. Secondly I'm planing some heavy photoshoping in the map after I'm done in CD3. Mostly effects on water and terrain etc. We see where it will end up.

Thirdly.....you have already made such great city maps in colour so in this way I don't need to be compared with your high standards ;-)

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## Ramah

My God... my wrists want to slit themselves just imagining all that work. :S

Great stuff, Clercon. This is gonna be amazing when it's done.

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## Aval Penworth

Clercon, I envy your computer system.  I have 3 CD3 cities that I have built too big and now I can't get anyfurther unless I upgrade my PC.   :Frown:

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## Clercon

Well I don't really have that a fantastic computer system. I have an AMD dual core with 4GB of RAM running XP. 
I'm thinking of upgrading to Win7 64 bit system and adding in some more memory, but I guess I have to wait 'til I'm done with the map, so I'm not risking anything :-)

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## Marken4

Looks greit.. But just imagine what would happen if a big wave hit this city. No defences at all.

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## Clercon

> Looks greit.. But just imagine what would happen if a big wave hit this city. No defences at all.


Actually it would be very hard for a big wave to hit this side of the city. If you look at the attached map you can see that the eastern side of the city is well protected by some islands just outside its coast. On the western side of the city you have some more elevation that hopefully gives some protection...but you never know :-)

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## Gandwarf

> The reason I'm using B&W is that I intend to add some custom made graphics, like temples and theaters.  And I think it will be more easy to do in the B&W version. Secondly I'm planing some heavy photoshoping in the map after I'm done in CD3. Mostly effects on water and terrain etc. We see where it will end up.


Ah, I was hoping you were planning to do something like that. Can't wait for the final version, but there's still much to do I guess  :Smile:

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## LonewandererD

That's a really big city, I applaud you in your patient in creating that. Bravo!

-D-

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## Clercon

> Ah, I was hoping you were planning to do something like that. Can't wait for the final version, but there's still much to do I guess


Much to do is an understatement :-) I'm almost done on the east coast when it comes to denser areas. But there is some more things to add in in the surrounding areas. Then I have to start mapping the west coast, which is about as big as the part I'm nearly finished with. So I guess I have nearly 75% left to do before this is finished, but I can reuse some of the things already made which might speed up things a bit. 






> That's a really big city, I applaud you in your patient in creating that. Bravo!
> 
> -D-


Thanks :-)

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## thebax2k

You may want to take a look at the City of Tallon by Keith Curtis at http://www.savageearth.net/tallon-mapped.html.  He developed some type of fill brush pattern in photoshop that made building up the inhabited parts of the city much easier (although the built up area of Tallon is rather blurred now, an earlier draft had a more distinct look to the buildings, with individual buildings standing out).  Regardless, Ankh-Bathor looks great, keep up the hard work.

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## Fransie

Coming on nicely. The building on the centre island is way out of scale in my opinion, though. And a few others as well. If you want a truly enormous building, try to make it from several elements.

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## Clercon

> You may want to take a look at the City of Tallon by Keith Curtis at http://www.savageearth.net/tallon-mapped.html.  He developed some type of fill brush pattern in photoshop that made building up the inhabited parts of the city much easier (although the built up area of Tallon is rather blurred now, an earlier draft had a more distinct look to the buildings, with individual buildings standing out).  Regardless, Ankh-Bathor looks great, keep up the hard work.


Thanks for the link. That is really a beautiful map. However I'm making my map in City Designer 3, so you have to plot out all the houses. But luckily enough there are some shortcuts in the program you can use that will place the houses for you. Ususally you have to edit it abit afterwards, otherwise a lot of houses will end up on top of each other.




> Coming on nicely. The building on the centre island is way out of scale in my opinion, though. And a few others as well. If you want a truly enormous building, try to make it from several elements.


Thanks for the comment. The out of scale buildings will be replaced later on with my own graphics. So they are just placeholder for me, so I remember where they are suposed to be :-).

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## Clercon

I guess a lot of you thought that I had abandoned this monster of a map.....nothing could be more wrong :-) Sometimes you just need a bit of a break from it to keep your sanity. But I thought I should post up a wip where I am at the moment. The eastern side of the city is nearing completion (if you only talk about houses). On the western side there is still a lot to do. 
If you see something that looks completely out of the ordinary please tell me now so I can change it, before it is to late.

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## ravells

When this is finished it will be the 8th wonder of the world! It's such huge project, bigger than any other city map I've seen here. And it's looking good!

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## jtougas

Amazing.  :Smile:

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## Ramah

It's looking great, Clercon. Really looking forward to seeing this completed. I don't envy you one bit in this undertaking. Hehe.

Have some rep to encourage you.  :Smile: 

Edit: Ah, fudge. Gotta share the love a little first. Must be from your featured map I guess. I'll get back to you.

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## Clercon

Thanks for the encouragement guys. At the moment I'm dreaming of plotting out houses  :Smile:

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## thebax2k

The map looks great Clercon, I see the towpath next to the canal is in there  :Wink:   Do you plan to have special areas within the city such as a scholars district, temple district, warehouse district, etc.?

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## Clercon

> The map looks great Clercon, I see the towpath next to the canal is in there   Do you plan to have special areas within the city such as a scholars district, temple district, warehouse district, etc.?


Yes it is there indeed :-)
I have some plans for different districts, We see where I end up.

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## mearrin69

Wow! That thing's going to be amazing. Prepare to be Cartographer's Choiced...in ten years when you finish it. I appreciate your dedication to this one. I would have hidden under the blankets long ago!
M

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## Clercon

Mearrin69 -Thanks. Hopefully it wont take ten years to finish :-)

Some more work has been done on the map. But I also ran into some serious problems. When the FCW file (that is CC3's file format) hit 11 MB the program stopped working. So I had to divide the map in more then one part, and then put it together in PS. We see how it goes, the guys at Profantasy are looking into it. This is the progress on the western part of the city.

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## Djekspek

wow this is an amazing project! It looks great so far and I really hope you get to finish this as it's going to be a killer map. cheers, DJ

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## Clercon

> wow this is an amazing project! It looks great so far and I really hope you get to finish this as it's going to be a killer map. cheers, DJ


Thanks Djekspek, and don't you worry I will be able to finish the map. But I have to do it in parts in CD3 and then paste it together in Photoshop.

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## thestoat

I was just looking at the latest progress on the whole city. I had a thought that may save some of your sanity. The area between the 2 main ports of the city may be fairly lightly inhabited. First for ease of defence once a ship had entered the canal connecting the 2 ports their would be few places to dock. This would prevent an attacking force from sneaking troops into the center of the city. Without ships docking there would not be much trade. Much of the area between the docks could be taken up by large estates of various minor nobels. The point where the land route crosses would most likely be slightly denser but most who intended to do much trade in the city would most likely have taken one of the roads that lead to one of the harbors.

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## Krases

I have a bit of a newb question.  Just got CC3 and CD3 yesterday.  Why is everything white in these screenshots?  Does it make workflow easier or is there some other reason?  I am just curious because it would be nice to work in all white like that.

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## Clercon

Thanks for the input Thestoat. As a matter of fact Ankh-Bathor is actually two cities that has merged into one. So the plan is a city with very dense areas around the coasts and a more spread out population in between. Just as you have suggested.
The reason I've started to draw the coastal areas is that it will be easier to get the middle part right after they are done (at least for me) 





> I have a bit of a newb question.  Just got CC3 and CD3 yesterday.  Why is everything white in these screenshots?  Does it make workflow easier or is there some other reason?  I am just curious because it would be nice to work in all white like that.


krases, I'm using the black and white city style from one of the annuals. So that is the reason for all the white areas.

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## wynn

Wow! Nice project you have going here, keep going! I want to see it finished

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## Krases

> krases, I'm using the black and white city style from one of the annuals. So that is the reason for all the white areas.


Im not sure what you mean by 'annuals'.  Is the black and white style a drawing style you can download?

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## Clercon

> Im not sure what you mean by 'annuals'.  Is the black and white style a drawing style you can download?


Profantasy has a yearly subscription service that is called "annuals". Last year they had a b&w city style as a monthly style (you get a new style every month, so 12 styles per annual)

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## Krases

Oh I see what you mean.  Thanks.

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## Clercon

Here is a small update of the northwest part of the city.

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## Krases

Nice.  A little detail I like is the very small cross shaped building right beneath the gatehouse.  I feel that if its a religious structure, then its really naturally placed, because while many cathedrals had their own block to themselves, it was more common to have a small church sort of crammed into a block like you have it.  I like little details like that.

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## Clercon

> Nice.  A little detail I like is the very small cross shaped building right beneath the gatehouse.  I feel that if its a religious structure, then its really naturally placed, because while many cathedrals had their own block to themselves, it was more common to have a small church sort of crammed into a block like you have it.  I like little details like that.


I'm glad that my small details are noticed  :Smile:  I'm probably going to add some more small things when most of the houses are done. At the moment the town is kind of building itself. I have a clear idea of where the big squares are etc, but after that it kind of creates itself when I'm working.

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## thebax2k

Saw the map of Southpoint you recently posted and realized it had been a few months since the last update on this massive monster of a project.  Any further progress with Ankh-Bathor?  I can't conceive how large the image files must be for this thing now.  Plus, I hope you do the cultivated fields effect for this city that you did with Southpoint, it looks really good.

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## Clercon

Thanks thebax2k. Well the progress of ankh-bathor has been rather slow recently. There are some progress that I haven't posted, but I need to do some planing and thinking before I progress further. The fields where a showstopper too, but that one is solved now. I'm very pleased with how they turned out on the southpoint map. So it might be time to go back to this one now  :Smile:

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## thebax2k

You probably have a good idea of what you want to place, but if you are still fishing for suggestions, I have a few.  Some of those special districts that were mentioned on the first or second page (scholar's, temple, warehouse, etc.) should nicely fill up a bit of the space.  Also you might want to put in gardens, plazas with monuments, and parade or tournament grounds.  Given that Ankh-Bathor is likely the capitol of the nation/empire/kingdom that it is in, I'm surprised that the previews have not shown more extensive palace/military/government and bureaucratic complexes of buildings and structures such as the national theater, cathedral, or museum.

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## Clercon

> You probably have a good idea of what you want to place, but if you are still fishing for suggestions, I have a few.  Some of those special districts that were mentioned on the first or second page (scholar's, temple, warehouse, etc.) should nicely fill up a bit of the space.  Also you might want to put in gardens, plazas with monuments, and parade or tournament grounds.  Given that Ankh-Bathor is likely the capitol of the nation/empire/kingdom that it is in, I'm surprised that the previews have not shown more extensive palace/military/government and bureaucratic complexes of buildings and structures such as the national theater, cathedral, or museum.


There is always room for suggestions. My city creation process is very open and a lot of the stuff changes when I sit down and draw. In the southwest part of the city that I'm working on there will be two places of great importance. First of all the Imperial forum, a big open area where the emperor used to be crowned. Secondly there is the tower of the guardians. A tower that stretches some hundred meters up in the air where the order of the world guardians (at least they think they are the world guardians) reside. There are also some places in the map marked out where theaters and public baths will be situated. In the southeast corner of the city you can even spot a marked area where there will be an arena for horse races. But thanks for the ideas they are always welcome.

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## Clercon

I thought I should put up some progress on my Ankh-Bathor map. As you might remember the file ended up too big for CD3 to handle so I had to divide it in parts. So at the moment I have three different files to work with. This is a test to paste it all together to get a view on how the progress works out when it is all put together. Still a lot to do, especially in the southwest corner of the city. Then it is all the fields and the countryside outside the city gates. But hopefully I will be able to complete it in the end :-)

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## Krases

Dear diary.  

Its been about 3 months since Clericon updated his giant awesome map.  Was it too much for him? Was he eaten by a Manticore?  Is a whole jar of Nutella really 2000 calories?  These are all questions I ponder as I look at his blog and see the little village of Alvhem, which is like, totally awesome.  

Yours truly,
Krases

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## maxsdaddy

How many calories?!? Thanks for making me laugh.

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## Clercon

> Dear diary.  
> 
> Its been about 3 months since Clericon updated his giant awesome map.  Was it too much for him? Was he eaten by a Manticore?  Is a whole jar of Nutella really 2000 calories?  These are all questions I ponder as I look at his blog and see the little village of Alvhem, which is like, totally awesome.  
> 
> Yours truly,
> Krases


Haha, well I've probably put more hours in to this map then there are calories in Nutella :-)
Well I haven't worked on it for a while, honestly I haven't been able to do much mapping at all lately. But my intentions are to get this one finished eventually, but it really is a time eater. So it might have to stand back for some smaller ideas, before I return to it.

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## Lyandra

I really hope that you will return to mapping this city soon. It truly is totally awesome!

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## vorropohaiah

very cool. this is going to be big when its done - are you planning on keeping it greyscale or will you colour it? personally i like these type of city maps to remain greyscale though i was just wondering. great job

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## Clercon

Lyandra - Yes I do hope I will finish it one day. But it has been some time since I worked on it now. One problem was that I made it too big for CD3. The file got too big for the program to handle so I had to change the way I worked with it. After that i kind of had some hard time to get back to it. But hopefully the inspiration will get back to it  :Smile: 

Vorropohaiah - The plan is to keep it in greyscale. I'll probably edit it in Photoshop when I'm done to give it more of a unique look.

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