The Imperial Citadel of Karalion (WIP)

The Karalion Empire is one of the major powers in our fantasy campaign world. Since politics will become more and more important I thought it time to map the Imperial Citadel including the throne room.
The Citadel was/is the nucleus of the Imperial Capital around it and was built almost 3,000 years ago. After its foundation as an outpost of a predeceeding half-elven civilisation a fortified settlement grew around it. Over the course of time, the inner part of the settlement became the Imperial Castle encompassing palaces/living areas, gardens, thermae, places for religious worship, kitchens, the Imperial Diet, the Imperial Mint and garrisons for the palace guard within high walls.
The Citadel itself "merely" houses the throne room, several council chambers, rooms for audiences, the chancellery and administration of the imperial household, living quarters, the armory of the emperor, minor court yards (most propably four) and maybe additional rooms / functions.

I have started making the walls with the CA46 "Castle Walls" annual:
Die Zitadelle von Karalion_Basis
The different shades of purple and red signify the different construction phases starting with the keep and a eight-towered bastion. Later two of those towers and parts of the bastion were dismantled to make room for an expansion of the fortres including a first palace. Further construction phases affected only the interior buildings, not the walls of the citadel.

Comments

  • Next I will replace the solid colors with adequate bitmaps and copy the walls into a DD3 color metric map. Since the annual pdf does not say much about it, are there any pitfalls I should avoide?


    Btw: Those black ellipses at the keep represent columns of black stone at the surface of the keep.
  • edited October 2012
    Glad to see this great use of CA46 and eager to see how it will evolve :)
    To fill any shape use the CHANGEFS command (or right-click the Change Properties button and select Change Fill Style) and select the shape(s). The fill style dialog will appear.
    You might not have the right fill styles handy so you can browse the bitmaps or better yet import your map in a new one created with the template (wizard) you want.
    Just create a new map based on the template and select Insert File from the Draw menu then select your FCW file.
  • JimPJimP 🖼️ 280 images Cartographer
    edited October 2012
    I am hosting Natalya Faden's texture fills, which I use on my surface maps, at Oljan maps and texture fills There are 3 zip files, 200x200, 500x500, and 2000x2000. They don't exactly duplicate. Some fills are in only one of the files.
  • edited October 2012
    Thank you very much for the encouragement, Joachim.

    Thanks for the tip, JimP. I already downloaded these textures quite a while ago.


    I still have to decide many details, but I made some little progress. This is, what the original bastion looked like:
    Die Zitadelle von Karalion - Ursprüngliche Festung
    It is based upon the Late Bronze Age fortifications of Nuraghic Sardinia, especially upon Santu Antine (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuraghe_Santu_Antine), Su Nuraxi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su_Nuraxi_di_Barumini) and Arrubiu (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuraghe_Arrubiu). I not yet happy wtih the layout of the interior rooms and stairwells of the bastion, but for the moment it suffices to illustrate the history of the Citadel.
  • edited October 2012
    I have changed the fill styles to bitmaps that I hope to show the different construction phases. To the wall sheets containing the fortress walls I added a little white inner glow to signify that those walls were fettled with a white finery.
    The area with the black marble tiles floor is where the throne room is planned to be. I know it is quite large, but it is still smaller than the Basilica Ulpia or the Cologne Cathedral.
    Die Zitadelle von Karalion - Renaissance Erdgeschoss
  • The keep (or nuraghe) houses the primary council chamber, where the "Kronrat" (first house of the Imperial Diet, something between the Privy Council of England and the Roman Senate) convenes:
    Die Zitadelle von Karalion - Renaissance Grosser Ratssaal
    This part still needs floor and furniture as well as a decision upon the style of the stairwells to the upper and lower levels.


    The small council chamber is the meeting place of the cabinet. It is also used for private audiences and the like:
    Die Zitadelle von Karalion - Renaissance Kleiner Ratssaal


    The antechamber to the great throne room is an atrium style room with some kind of roof lantern or glas dome:
    Die Zitadelle von Karalion - Renaissance Atrium
    The blue construction lines indicate important lines of sight (the horizontal one lead to the throne), the pink ellipse shows, which part of the room is open to the sky. The columns support a gallery/matroneum.
  • Love, Love, Love, the textures you're using....and now I'm going to have to get the castle walls annual. Its awesome and looking forward to see how this develops.
  • edited November 2012
    Spent some time fideling around with the Throne Room and managed to "build" the pillars supporting the roof. Additionally, I tried to make the white parts of the black marble floor less prominent (not yet sure, wether I will keep this change):
    Die Zitadelle von Karalion - Renaissance Thronsaal
    As before, pink construction lines indicate a gallery. The chair is just a place holder for the position of the throne.

    Next steps are the construction of the raised dais for the throne, the small columns around the hearth and some mosaics on the floor.
  • And my first attempt at a mosaic shaped like the Karalische Rose, the heraldic emblem of the Empire:
    Die Zitadelle von Karalion - Renaissance Thronsaal 2
  • The rose patterned mosaic does not seem to work out in combination with a raised dais, so I "banished" the Imperial Emblem to the high wall behind the throne and tried a more classic approach:
    Die Zitadelle von Karalion - Renaissance Thronsaal 3
    For the steps I used a black outer glow since a Wall Shadow, directional wouldn´t work on a dais.
  • This is such an amazing project...excited to see another zoomed out view with all of these improvements.
  • Yep, a zoomed out view would be nice.

    Not to sure of the black marbled floor. It seems to dominate the picture.

    For the rest, WOW.
  • Not a fan of the black fill myself but the design is a marvel :)
  • I actually really like the black fill, but perhaps you could try to soften it up with a very slight blur...or darken it a touch with the RBG matrix (i.e. try to make those bright whites grey.)
  • I am not yet happy with the black marble fill myself (to many white spots). And I am still contemplating wether to add more mosaic elements to the floor of the throne room.

    Meanwhile I added a first draft of the Imperial Banquet Hall (might double as waiting / staging area for councilors, diplomats, courtiers and the like) on the opposite side of the Atrium:
    Die Zitadelle von Karalion - Renaissance Bankettsaal
  • Additionally I added gras filled polygons where the inner courtyards / gardens will be. In the northwest one the original Imperial Rose Tree grows:
    Die Zitadelle von Karalion - Renaissance Erdgeschoss 2
  • This is fantastic. Just out of curiosity, what are the dimensions on this map?
  • The Citadel measures roughly 290*150 Meters, the throne room has a length of 80 Meters.
  • I love seeing the progression as you build this map. The interiors of very large rooms can be difficult to layout and still keep them interesting. This is looking great. Keep the updates coming!
  • 16 days later
  • Having a heavy RL-workload right now, I make only slow progress. I am still working on the Imperial Banquet Hall and the adjoining waiting / reception area. This are my first drafts of the inner courtyard / garden / peristylium to the south of the IBH:
    Die Zitadelle von Karalion - Renaissance Innenhof Wartezone

    Die Zitadelle von Karalion - Renaissance Innenhof Wartezone v2
  • The paving of the first draft looked to dark for my taste, so I experimented with the texture to achieve a brighter impression. Additionally I am not sure about my hegdes. What do you think?


    Btw.: The red lines are - once again - construction lines indication walls I still have to draw.
  • Think this is going to look great.

    And youre right about the hedges, they don't look right.
    You could either loose the edge around them or plant them with flowers, then they would be flower boxes.
  • LOVE the garden sculptures. Have you thought about fractalizing your existing polygon to give it the slight irregularity that they should have? I also think removing the bevel and adding shadows would help.

    But yeah...this is looking fantastic.
  • edited November 2012
    The garden sculptures are from the CSUAC-Set. The hedge was simply a wall with a dark grass fill on its own sheet plus some effects. But I am testing some other solutions right now.
  • Fiddled some more with my hedges and came to this result:
    Die Zitadelle von Karalion - Renaissance Innenhof Wartezone v3
    Still not sure about it.
  • 1 month later
  • I love watching a project evolve - I didn't see this when it was first posted... Like KenG I'm curious if there's any new movement on this (very impressive) project. Like JdR I don't really care for the black marble fill (though it could just be my aesthetic vs the artist's) - I feel like it dominates the map and draws the eye away from all of the other, very cool stuff, going on.
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