Quick question to those on TG - how accurate are fantasy cities - I'm talking about size and population - for instance...

Quick question to those on TG - how accurate are fantasy cities - I'm talking about size and population - for instance in the image - the quoted population is 11,900 - how accurate is this for a city of this size? - what settings are best at this kind of realism?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_urban_community_sizes
paizo.com/products/btpy82rc?A-Magical-Medieval-Society-City-Guide
twitter.com/SFWRedditImages

Depends on the system

...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_urban_community_sizes

1300 is a fine year to see populations up to 800,000 and you're probably getting 150 people in a single hectare, given how narrow the roads are.

Thanks bro!

Wasn't medieval londons population about 80,000? Seems a good ball park to work from

>the quoted population is 11,900 - how accurate is this for a city of this size?
Sounds about right for a city that size and if we consider that the technology etc. is around what is known in our world around 1400 to 1600.
If we consider Geneva had 12k habitants in 1550 or so the city you're showing hre might be a little cramped (not that it was unusual)
>what settings are best at this kind of realism
No idea honestly

If you trust the Spanish (and toy shouldn't, because they wanted to up the kill count to sound impressive) then prior to colonizing the Aztecs, the main city supported a population density of modern day South Korea. Because food production is wildly efficient when you have gardens floating on a lake that's perpetually being fertilized with human sacrifice, and they probably had some policies that helped with public health.

They didn't have advanced metalworking, and were missing lots of technology that you'd assume would be necessary to have an empire roughly the size of Rome's.

And, that's the thing. Population size and growth is gonna be limited by birth rate and death rate and indirectly by food production. You want crazy, huge cosmopolitan cities? Give them great food production techniques like in Tenochticlan, or pull a Caesar and subjugate a food rich area like Egypt and extract grain tribute

I would recommend this this demo book. This publisher has some amazing free resources fo world building. I would highly recommend buying their full books.

... forgot the link....
paizo.com/products/btpy82rc?A-Magical-Medieval-Society-City-Guide

You don't even need to go that far. Remember that until about 1790 France had the third largest population on the planet after China and India, and in 1790 Russia was only barely surpassing it. The reason why France is now at "normal" European levels is because of the 19th century fertility decline, which we still haven't figured out why it happened [no, it has nothing to do with the Napoleonic Wars, both World Wars had a much higher death toll and Les Trentes Glorieuses compensated for them to such an extent France's current population is in line with a projected France that never had the world wars].

this city is kinda fucked up. Makes no sense

Kintargo is Paizo's pet city based on San Francisco in both local culture and politics. It's the setting for a campaign that contains in-book trigger warnings and a revolution started out of what is quite literally a Starbucks.

>this city is kinda fucked up
How so? Even ignoring the San Francisco analogue, it looks like a reasonable city. Built on both sides of a river, near the sea, with a bridge connecting both sides.

>and a revolution started out of what is quite literally a Starbucks.
Vaguely makes sense, if said Starbucks function in a salon-like setting. Much like how French philosphes met up in a salon, drank wine and discussed the fate of the third estate these hipsters could meet up in a starbucks, have a double strawberry mocha frappuchino and discuss the fate of FUCKING WHITE MALES.

>until about 1790 France had the third largest population on the planet after China and India
As compared to what? Other contemporaneous countries, not including colonial possessions?

They are as accurate as needed.

Introduction of effective profilactics.

The middle class was able to support and educate more children into adulthood than the lower classes for about 200 years. Combined with relatively stable marriages and relatively healthy families and you see a huge economic boom and massive expansion of educated middle class population and all of the enterprise, expansion, commerce, and invention that entails. The introduction of the effective profilactic meant that the middle class stopped having 5+ children and started to have 2ish. 200 years of reversal.

Europes population went from ~33% of the world's population i the 19th century to about 12% today.

It's split of buildings is strange.

It has more ports on the north side, so we can assume that is where it started as a city, especially if we interpret V4 as a castle. The side a port city starts on would be the bigger side normally, but not only is the north side (with the money making docks) smaller, it has a partition that is high class living: generally something added later as nobles and rich people like to live in places with entertainment and money.

So, if the north side was asmall dock city, why would they build a bridge on the east side before the bend? Either they do 0 trade by that part of the yobalopolis river, or they have incredible tech to get it built fast, or they had a huge economy that allowed them to build an amazingly high bridge and cut off trade to that path for the months to years it would take. Building abridge is hard, building a bridge trade ships can go under is harder, and doing that while also keeping it open for trade is basically impossible for an older society. Certainly possible for a 'wizards did it,' though.

If c1 is the castle and where the city started, then trade by port would be relatively minor for this city, because it has nearly no ports on the south side and, generally, cities like this tend to grow a lot on one side before they ever bother going to the other side. Look at london. in the 17th century, it SPRAWLED across the north bank but barely crossed the river at all. Thats because bridges tend to be bad for river trade.

Though, looking at this, if argo is indeed an island, I guess there is no need for that little river leading southeast to be accessed, as it would just lead to the main body of water again eventually anyway. Still odd how this city is spread out on both banks though, but I guess that's what happens when you base midieval/fantasy shit off modern day shit.

I'm a huge worldbuilder, but not an expert, so grain of salt this shit.

the most important thing to keep in mind is how does the city manage its needs (food, clean water, sanitation) and what causes them to become cities in the first place rather then being a small town or village.

>the quoted population is 11,900
>how accurate is this

Well, it's 100% accurate. The author wrote it, so that's exactly what it is.

>Other contemporaneous countries
Yes, other contemporaneous countries. Including Russia, Poland-Lithuania, the combined Austrian possessions, the combined Spanish possessions (which at their height included both the low lands and significant parts of Italy), Japan and the Ottoman Empire among others. It wasn't like every other country except France, India and China was a tiny speck the size of Westphalia.

Just my two cents, but what if both V4 and C1 are supposed to be castles and (like historical Budapest) the city started out as two separate cities on either bank of the river that eventually merged? All we need to do now is explain why the trade oriented North is smaller than the South. Perhaps there's a lot of agricultural communities south of the river, while arable land is more sparse to the north? As for the bridge, there's never a shortage of fallen civilizations leaving behind great monuments that cannot be replicated with modern technology. Maybe it really is an awesome bridge most riverfaring vessels can sail under left behind by those who came before (which also explains why the docks start after the bend, perhaps that's where riverfaring vessels and seafaring vessels exchange loads?).

You do bring up good points, though solving these problems is what creates great backstories in my opinion. And I'm not sure whether my "solutions" make sense or are utterly retarded.

>40,000 inhabitants
>metropolis
Silverymoon kind of disappointed me, I expected the Gem of the North to be more densely populated..

Kinda looks like Old and New Tyre if Old Tyre was used for anything but farming and burials.

Well, like I said: fantasy and worldbuilding offer lots of options here. If this was a low fantasy map, I'd get real sperg about it, but if it's D&D levels of fantasy I don't think it's a huge problem. I just like my maps making sense but, yes, it is totally valid that your ideas give cities flavor and don't break immersion.

Lets face it, if you were at the table and someone just spouted all the shit I posted above about this map you used in your game... you'd probably drop them like a body in a river.

>the city started out as two separate cities on either bank of the river that eventually merged?
I think that's pretty cool, I only learned it was a real thing the other day

>OP pic features a Vauban-style star fort *inside* a classical curtain wall

I was going to rage at how stupid that is, but you know, it's more fun to take it at face value. I can imagine some weird post-apocalypse where this city forgot about gunpowder and went back to mediaeval castle-building.

On topic, I think the depicted city looks pretty big for 12k people. Compare with Dubrovnik/Ragusa, which at one point housed ca. 5000 people in the fortified city, covering less area than a square 1500 feet to a side.

I don't think C1 is a star fort, I think it's just star-shaped towers

>I don't think C1 is a star fort, I think it's just star-shaped towers
Sure, I can certainly see the Paizo plebs just drawing it that way for no good reason. But the aerial profile of the little dongle to the north is clearly a bastion keep and the freestanding bit to the south of the C1 label is a classic hornwork.

Can't blame them for wanting their maps to look cool, but personally it's the functionality of bastion forts that makes me cream my jeans. They look cool because they're built with a purpose, unlike this map.

C1 is Castle Kintargo, the seat of government for the city.

This is the skyline of the city as seen from the southern fork of the river that goes around the island that houses much of the city.

Magic plays a huge part in construction of these cities. There also might be a bit of exaggeration of certain features such as the Temple of Asmodeus (T3) and the true heights of the Castle.

It's not just real, it's really common.

FPBP

No, depends on the setting you tard.
Setting has almost nothing to do with it.

Either the perspective is off or most of those buildings within the walls look to be about seven stories high.