Soulthieves: scale of the overworld, density of the populace, and (NEW!) wards of the city.
At the end of this post I rambled a bit on the scale of the overworld and travel times:
http://joshksingh.livejournal.com/78976.html
I only just recently realized that there's a dumb problem with that scale. If each locality (square or tile) of the overworld is 2 km long, and the whole map is 300 localities long on either dimension, that means the map is 600 kilometres long. For comparison, that's roughly the distance between Toronto and Montreal, or between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Basically, that's considerably bigger than I'd wanted The Island to be.
So I might suppose instead that each locality is only 1 km long, which is something like 0.6 miles for you Yanqui-Dudeles in the audiencia. Thus the overworld map is 300 km long, which is considerably more reasonable. I guess that's 90,000 km², which isn't so bad. And of course the land mass itself doesn't occupy the entire map (I'm not about to count up the exact number of localities, though). At the "heroic" walking speed I cited of 6 km/h, the PC would cover a road locality in 10 minutes. But rather than make shorter races slower walkers, I might just lower the walking speed to 5 km/h, which would justify the road walk in 10-15 minutes. Wikipedia says the average human's walking speed is 4.8 km/h anyway, which I admit is faster than I'd've thought, but that's sufficiently quick. Basically, taller races would walk at a more leisurely pace while shorter races would put in a little more effort, but everyone could walk at the same base speed. I'll be forgiving and suppose that smaller races don't actually burn any more calories in the effort and thus not require more frequent meals, which I suppose could even be justified to a degree because of their smaller mass. If that turns out unsatisfactory, I'd rather they sacrifice walking speed for equal exertion, since in a roguelike context the opposite would be a significant disadvantage to those races; they'd have to carry more food, which is added burden which equals even greater exertion, not to mention the additional turns spent eating. Time is a little less vital, although because The Island has 4 distinct seasons, it's still more important than in other games. There'll also be differences between day and night as far as activities in different places go, so it might, say, be more important to get between two points in a timely fashion.
So 1 km² localities seems fine, but this leads to another problem. Different settlements are supposed to be different sizes when you enter them, as I outlined in this post:
http://joshksingh.livejournal.com/100369.html
I just edited down the sizes of towns and cities once more. It would be a little weird for cities that are 12-16 panes large zoomed in to occupy only a single locality in the overworld map, more so now that the squares are a quarter their previous size. One would think there would be some spillover, so to speak, to neighbouring localities that would have to be accounted for in the overworld map. With the old locality dimensions, there could've been a little suspension of disbelief. That's gone now. Those very large cities would've been in Capital Network, specifically Castle Town and Market Town. There's a lot of important stuff going on in those places. They need to be properly accounted for. At the same time, those cities can't reasonably fit into a single 1 km by 1 km area. 9 panes, I'm willing to grant. Larger than that, I don't think so.
The answer came to me: wards.
Castle Town and Market Town are now divided into wards, with each ward occupying a separate overworld locality; each ward would itself be 9 panes, perhaps fewer on the fringe. In fact, while there used to be two cities on the south side of the river, Market Town and East Market Town, they have respectively become the West Ward and East Ward of the new City of Market Town.
As you can see, I let myself go. Market Town has 5 wards, while Castle Town has a ludicrous 10. Yet this is perhaps more reasonable than the previous. These are supposed to be the most overpopulated, degenerate cities in the entire country, after all.
The story of Market Town's wards doesn't have to be very romantic. Central now is presumably the oldest, with West, East and South being sprawl. These four are primarily within the city walls. Station Ward is the newest ward, a dump of a neighbourhood that grew up just outside the South Ward's gate; it basically started out as some additional guard facilities on the Capital Expressway to check incoming traffic, but has grown into something of a ghetto or barrio, populated essentially by migrants from around The Island and their descendants who haven't managed to gain entry to the city proper. Basically, some additional purses to tax without having to provide much in return. I might make it a hotbed of tension between the guards and the local residents, with a promise of action for anyone trying to travel into the city.
Castle Town's wards probably have a more interesting story. Citadel and Castle Ward is obviously the oldest; this is the ward immediately before the castle gates, the castle itself having been nestled at the feet of the mountains in the depths of the citadel for obviously defensive purposes. Citadel and Castle Ward is itself surrounded by a wall, essentially the outermost wall of the citadel itself and the inner wall of Castle Town altogether. Old Market Ward is, as suggested, the old market of the city, predating Market Town which later sprung up across the river. It's still a market, of course, but it's quite cramped. Lake End Ward is the neighbourhood by the shore of Great Lake; basically it was once an upscale neighbourhood for the castle's retinue that is currently slummy, although at least it has access to the cleanest water supply. Governance Ward would be the administrative centre, particularly for Mount and Great Highlands Provinces; it's otherwise slummy as well. Portlands Ward is, obviously, where the city's port facilities are; if you want to grab the ferry, this is the ward to go to. Riverside Ward is mainly commercial, while Mountside Ward is mostly residential, in both cases probably a little less gross than other wards. All these wards are mostly within the outer wall of the city.
The remaining wards are probably the worst off. Reception Ward is so named because it was an important entry point to the city for migrants, as migration greatly increased after the Highlanders established the Kingdom and ruined the economies and cultures everywhere else. Like Market Town's Station Ward, it's populated by a lot of people who basically got stuck at the eastern gates around the Capital Expressway. It's got its own lively culture, but that doesn't mean it's not an overall shitty place to live. Outlands Ward is less lively and less optimistic; it's uphill, off the highway and the river, and outside the city walls, so it's far from prime real estate for the poor, but on the other hand it probably has a lower crime rate than other wards. Low Ward is probably the most disgusting. The city's official explanation of the name is that it's downstream from the old city, but the residents know it's named after them. There is minor running water infrastructure, but the water is virtually undrinkable. There is no optimism to be found here, with a large part of the population begging and prostituting within the city walls to get by.
Indulgent enough. Right, Eric?
Now, if anyone directs you to any particular place within such cities, they'll have to specify which ward.
I may divide a handful of other cities in The Island into wards as well, although most won't have that many; in fact, those that do have wards might only have two. I don't have much desire to go nuts with this beyond the two above cities.
Something I'm thinking of adding to the overworld is bridges. For example, a bridge might connect Market Town's Central Ward to Castle Town's Old Market. There could be a handful of bridges elsewhere in The Island, but in many cases I could justify not having bridges for lack of money. Bridges would have to behave differently than other localities, though, since you'd need to be able to walk across them in only two directions while being able to float down (or up) the river underneath them. I could implement them with a sort of obligatory zoomed-in view, since in the overworld map it would be harder to justify preventing you from going in any direction off of them. I guess I need to examine specific cases to decide.
http://joshksingh.livejournal.com/78976.html
I only just recently realized that there's a dumb problem with that scale. If each locality (square or tile) of the overworld is 2 km long, and the whole map is 300 localities long on either dimension, that means the map is 600 kilometres long. For comparison, that's roughly the distance between Toronto and Montreal, or between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Basically, that's considerably bigger than I'd wanted The Island to be.
So I might suppose instead that each locality is only 1 km long, which is something like 0.6 miles for you Yanqui-Dudeles in the audiencia. Thus the overworld map is 300 km long, which is considerably more reasonable. I guess that's 90,000 km², which isn't so bad. And of course the land mass itself doesn't occupy the entire map (I'm not about to count up the exact number of localities, though). At the "heroic" walking speed I cited of 6 km/h, the PC would cover a road locality in 10 minutes. But rather than make shorter races slower walkers, I might just lower the walking speed to 5 km/h, which would justify the road walk in 10-15 minutes. Wikipedia says the average human's walking speed is 4.8 km/h anyway, which I admit is faster than I'd've thought, but that's sufficiently quick. Basically, taller races would walk at a more leisurely pace while shorter races would put in a little more effort, but everyone could walk at the same base speed. I'll be forgiving and suppose that smaller races don't actually burn any more calories in the effort and thus not require more frequent meals, which I suppose could even be justified to a degree because of their smaller mass. If that turns out unsatisfactory, I'd rather they sacrifice walking speed for equal exertion, since in a roguelike context the opposite would be a significant disadvantage to those races; they'd have to carry more food, which is added burden which equals even greater exertion, not to mention the additional turns spent eating. Time is a little less vital, although because The Island has 4 distinct seasons, it's still more important than in other games. There'll also be differences between day and night as far as activities in different places go, so it might, say, be more important to get between two points in a timely fashion.
So 1 km² localities seems fine, but this leads to another problem. Different settlements are supposed to be different sizes when you enter them, as I outlined in this post:
http://joshksingh.livejournal.com/100369.html
I just edited down the sizes of towns and cities once more. It would be a little weird for cities that are 12-16 panes large zoomed in to occupy only a single locality in the overworld map, more so now that the squares are a quarter their previous size. One would think there would be some spillover, so to speak, to neighbouring localities that would have to be accounted for in the overworld map. With the old locality dimensions, there could've been a little suspension of disbelief. That's gone now. Those very large cities would've been in Capital Network, specifically Castle Town and Market Town. There's a lot of important stuff going on in those places. They need to be properly accounted for. At the same time, those cities can't reasonably fit into a single 1 km by 1 km area. 9 panes, I'm willing to grant. Larger than that, I don't think so.
The answer came to me: wards.
Castle Town and Market Town are now divided into wards, with each ward occupying a separate overworld locality; each ward would itself be 9 panes, perhaps fewer on the fringe. In fact, while there used to be two cities on the south side of the river, Market Town and East Market Town, they have respectively become the West Ward and East Ward of the new City of Market Town.
As you can see, I let myself go. Market Town has 5 wards, while Castle Town has a ludicrous 10. Yet this is perhaps more reasonable than the previous. These are supposed to be the most overpopulated, degenerate cities in the entire country, after all.
The story of Market Town's wards doesn't have to be very romantic. Central now is presumably the oldest, with West, East and South being sprawl. These four are primarily within the city walls. Station Ward is the newest ward, a dump of a neighbourhood that grew up just outside the South Ward's gate; it basically started out as some additional guard facilities on the Capital Expressway to check incoming traffic, but has grown into something of a ghetto or barrio, populated essentially by migrants from around The Island and their descendants who haven't managed to gain entry to the city proper. Basically, some additional purses to tax without having to provide much in return. I might make it a hotbed of tension between the guards and the local residents, with a promise of action for anyone trying to travel into the city.
Castle Town's wards probably have a more interesting story. Citadel and Castle Ward is obviously the oldest; this is the ward immediately before the castle gates, the castle itself having been nestled at the feet of the mountains in the depths of the citadel for obviously defensive purposes. Citadel and Castle Ward is itself surrounded by a wall, essentially the outermost wall of the citadel itself and the inner wall of Castle Town altogether. Old Market Ward is, as suggested, the old market of the city, predating Market Town which later sprung up across the river. It's still a market, of course, but it's quite cramped. Lake End Ward is the neighbourhood by the shore of Great Lake; basically it was once an upscale neighbourhood for the castle's retinue that is currently slummy, although at least it has access to the cleanest water supply. Governance Ward would be the administrative centre, particularly for Mount and Great Highlands Provinces; it's otherwise slummy as well. Portlands Ward is, obviously, where the city's port facilities are; if you want to grab the ferry, this is the ward to go to. Riverside Ward is mainly commercial, while Mountside Ward is mostly residential, in both cases probably a little less gross than other wards. All these wards are mostly within the outer wall of the city.
The remaining wards are probably the worst off. Reception Ward is so named because it was an important entry point to the city for migrants, as migration greatly increased after the Highlanders established the Kingdom and ruined the economies and cultures everywhere else. Like Market Town's Station Ward, it's populated by a lot of people who basically got stuck at the eastern gates around the Capital Expressway. It's got its own lively culture, but that doesn't mean it's not an overall shitty place to live. Outlands Ward is less lively and less optimistic; it's uphill, off the highway and the river, and outside the city walls, so it's far from prime real estate for the poor, but on the other hand it probably has a lower crime rate than other wards. Low Ward is probably the most disgusting. The city's official explanation of the name is that it's downstream from the old city, but the residents know it's named after them. There is minor running water infrastructure, but the water is virtually undrinkable. There is no optimism to be found here, with a large part of the population begging and prostituting within the city walls to get by.
Indulgent enough. Right, Eric?
Now, if anyone directs you to any particular place within such cities, they'll have to specify which ward.
I may divide a handful of other cities in The Island into wards as well, although most won't have that many; in fact, those that do have wards might only have two. I don't have much desire to go nuts with this beyond the two above cities.
Something I'm thinking of adding to the overworld is bridges. For example, a bridge might connect Market Town's Central Ward to Castle Town's Old Market. There could be a handful of bridges elsewhere in The Island, but in many cases I could justify not having bridges for lack of money. Bridges would have to behave differently than other localities, though, since you'd need to be able to walk across them in only two directions while being able to float down (or up) the river underneath them. I could implement them with a sort of obligatory zoomed-in view, since in the overworld map it would be harder to justify preventing you from going in any direction off of them. I guess I need to examine specific cases to decide.