Worminghall Map Scale

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by Blind Mapmaker

My problem is not really working with these numbers, but the fact that I'll have more than 3,000 houses on my map of the city. And that's without filling the whole of the Old Town and keeping the houses in the New Town pretty far apart. I'm sure you'll agree that an average of 4-5 residents per building (3 would mean every building is a home, which is, of course, nonsense) is a bit on the low side for a town in which lodging is at a premium.

Bill's comments have certainly helped, but I still find myself hard-pressed to work with the population given. If you could give me any pointers what I should do, I would be very grateful.

Currently I'm using houses between 6 and 15 m wide and between 12 and 35 m long with a few outliers above that. I cut down the major roads to about 20 m wide (they were 40 m on the maps, but I think that exaggeration was for readability). I added numerous little alleys and back courtyards, but not for each and every house. I'm going to add a dozen or so larger squares too. I guess I could leave a cordon along all the city walls, but from what I've seen those were almost always built right up to. I assume most houses are at least ground floor and upper floor, with quite a few adding a second upper floor.

Those sound like some fairly large houses for a medieval town. "Heirs to Merlin" for Ars Magica, by David Chart (a hardcore medievalist, who later became line editor), has some data about typical town house types and sizes, for about 1220 AD.

As I understnad it, almost all buildings were homes. Few people had bedrooms of their own (children don't need to be taught about the birds and the bees - they can hear, if not see, their parents hard at work making younger siblings), and a lot of the commoner class just slept on the floor on stuffed sacks. You did have a sort of "nuclear family" sometimes, but very often with peripheral individuals included, which in our modern world would have separate residences. So I'd say 6-7 residents per relatively small building, excluding the tiny ones, sounds about right. That might fit for a 2 or 3 storey house 6 by 12 meters.

Even if you had a warehouse, e.g. for storing grain or flour, it'd make sense to have some people living in it to reduce the risk of theft.

I also don't think roads need to be 20 meters wide. Insofar as town layouts were planned (and some where planned to some extent, as far as I know), you needed 2 carts to be able to pass by each other on the main traffic roads, but compared to modern towns and cities a medieval town was basically chaos.

How wide is a cart? 2.5 meters? 3 meters at the most, I'd say, so 7 meters should be more than enough.

[Blind Mapmaker]

You raise some good points, Peter (and sorry for always missing your posts before posting; wasn't there a feature that warned you about this sort of thing?). In England smaller towns would probably be more logical for universities. Bologna in contrast was one of the biggest cities in Europe (Wiki says the fifth, but that may be overdoing it). Prague had similar dimensions. It would probably destroy the university town character of Worminghall to give them much more than 12,000 inhabitants.

Your points on the dimensions of houses and roads are also well-made. The problem is that things only get worse if I use smaller dimensions. Houses four of five metres wide are by no means unheard of in small towns, but that would mean even higher population density. I think I'm probably keeping the main roads at 15-20 m, if only for readability.

Messing with the number of inhabitants in a big way is probably a bad idea, after all, but I think I'm going to increase it by a third and then decrease the scale by another third. That should still keep my drawing urge occupied for a good long while.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Blind Mapmaker

By the way, I just found out that the Severn is about 150 m wide in the map. Doesn't that seem a bit excessive, too?

Checking Google maps, I find that the Severn is about 300 feet wide in that area, in its wide parts. That's 90 m.

Bill Stoddard

[combatmedic]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Checking Google maps, I find that the Severn is about 300 feet wide in that area, in its wide parts. That's 90 m.

Bill Stoddard

Rivers change over time, of course. It might have been wider at that area, circa 1300. Or narrower. I know it's a big river, the biggest in England and Wales, with a large estuary.

BlindMapmaker could check Severn historical and natural history sites, university wesbites in England, and the library. Something like an educated guess about the state of the river in that area in 1300 might turn up.

[Mateus]

Also remember that a map dont need to be 100% accurate (and normally dont were), specially regarding how wide a river or a road have to be.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Peter Knutsen

Instead Bologna did. That's such a tiny town, I don't even know where in Italy it is located.

Center of northern Italy, in the middle of the top of the "boot" before it flares out in the "cuff". About halfway between Florence and Venice. Seventh largest city in Italy, population about 380,000, only slightly more tiny than, oh, Copenhagen.

Obviously the home of Bolognese sauce, not to mention Parmesan cheese (capital of that region, anyway), lasagna, and tortellini. What we would do without it?

(See, the canard that Americans don't know geography is just a bunch of baloney.)

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Obviously the home of Bolognese sauce, not to mention Parmesan cheese (capital of that region, anyway), lasagna, and tortellini. What we would do without it?

(See, the canard that Americans don't know geography is just a bunch of baloney.)

You seem to have left out Bologna sausage in your list, somehow.

Bill Stoddard

[Blind Mapmaker]

I just want to thank everybody for their comments. It has really helped me get a better mental image of Worminghall. Now I just have to get that image onto virtual paper.

I decided to go with a reduction in scale by 30% and that already made things a lot more believable. The hundred or so buildings I have so far pretty much fill the triangle between Northgate Row and the gate. The Severn shrank to 70 to 115 m in width, which is close enough to the real thing for me. In the past I have done extensive research for similarly inconsequential things, but I think I'm not quite on the same level of obsessiveness now (although I am the first to admit that I still have a long way to go).

Slightly off topic and I hope not inflammatory, but as there are already some GURPS authors reading this thread: Would it ever be okay to post the finished map online, even if it is based on the one in the book? After re-reading the online policy I'd say "signs point to no", but I'd thought I might as well ask as it might be helpful for GMs and players.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Blind Mapmaker

Slightly off topic and I hope not inflammatory, but as there are already some GURPS authors reading this thread: Would it ever be okay to post the finished map online, even if it is based on the one in the book? After re-reading the online policy I'd say "signs point to no", but I'd thought I might as well ask as it might be helpful for GMs and players.

I would personally be interested in seeing it, at any rate. I think it's quite clear that you are allowed to make a copy of the map, revise it, and annotate it for your own personal use; the blank map of Worminghall was put into the book for exactly that purpose. What rules apply to posting it online will require a ruling by a representative of Steve Jackson Games who is competent to speak to their legal rights. But if there's no objection, I hope you will make it available.

Bill Stoddard

[Blind Mapmaker]

Thanks for the show of confidence. I'll certainly send it to you when it's done and talk to SJG after that. These things take time, though. I haven't done a city map in ages and this is much more elaborate than a simple Western town.

If anybody's interested, here's a link to some of my other maps. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to do much lately.