I feel time has come to start work on a complete revision of Säntjana, the Karolian capital. After a very short consideration I concluded that wholesale deletion of the city centre was the only way to go forward this, and whilst the basic layout of areas and important landmarks will be maintained in the new incarnation, the scale, logic and detail of the city will be much improved after four years of mapping.
The reason I am posting this in the User Diaries is because a number of you had embassies in the city, which I’ve had to temporarily delete. However I will make sure these are rebuilt in similar locations when the new street grid is in place. I may also make revisions to the two airports so again will endeavour to make sure any flight information on the wiki matches the live map.
A more detailed bliki entry on the start of this huge project will follow once more mapping is done. Suffice to say even after two hours’ work I am already much more satisfied with the Old Town and terminus station. I have a much clearer idea of the evolution of the city and plan to be working my way through time starting with the medieval city and moving outwards.
For those who like to spot that sort of thing, there will be nods towards the layout of Tallinn, Copenhagen, Budapest and Vienna amongst others.
Comment from Leowezy on 26 September 2017 at 21:26
There’s seriously nothing more rewarding in OGF for me, personally, than to completely redo a part of the map and start from scratch, with the insights gained from the previous “sketch” kept in mind. I’d even encourage you to be even more ambitious, and to completely delete all the motorways and railway lines surrounding the city as well, and developing them anew as you develop the city troughout its development stages. I find my railways end up much more realistic that way than when I try to (subconsciously) develop a city to fit the way the rails and streets come in from neighbouring cities.
Similar things go for the coast line; it feels to me as if especially the old town needs a deciding “feature” why it is located at the very spot it is located at. Otherwise it seems more likely to me that the city would have developed at a more secure location further east, either on the sea street between it and Osmila, or in the little bay on the eastern shore. Maybe just a small river mouth, or a tiny bay, or a very small and straight languet would already do the job. I think especially the coastline around where you are building the old town right now looks quite unusual, because it follows a very wide, but quite geometrical curve. Perhaps you can break that up a bit. But then again, there are other people with a way better understanding of coastline geography here, so maybe they should chip in as well.
looking very forward to your next post!
