OpenGeofiction
Dear all,
I waited some months to present “officially” the country of Gardensa and in particular the map of its capital, the city of Giliarca. But I have to say that during that months I had several contacts with many of you, speaking privately about the mapping of our countries and our mutial relations.
In this post, I’ll focus the attention on the city of Giliarca.
So, the main reason because I waited to propose a “public presentation” in this page, was that I preferred that the map should have a visible form. Now, the city of Giliarca is mapped for about the 45% of its final extension. I preferred to map progressively with a good level of detail, rather than map immediately all the city and put gradually the details. It can explain, e.g., the fact that the Airport can seems today to be overproportioned.
I’m planing to complete all the mapping of the city in the next six-seven months (august 2018).
I am aware that there are many flaws and lacks in the mapping of Giliarca. For this reason, I’m ready to hear any comments you may have. Depending on the case, I can explain the reasons for aspects that leave you perplexed, or I will modify the map to correct any true mistake, in particular about verosimility. Indeed, the main question is: looking at the map of the city of Giliarca, what elements lead you to say “it’s not a real map”? Effectively, in a good map all these elements must disappear.
A last word about the wiki: at the moment I’m writing the page about the Country that explain also the origins of its Capital Giliarca.
Discussion
Comment from Alsatian on 27 January 2018 at 12:46
WOAH! That’s really good for the beginning of a city (kind of looks like a capital already, though I’m guessing you want to go for the metropolis approach), and I understand what you say about the airport, almost the size of the city itself. Couldn’t see any flaws, but I’m really new (joined about 8-10 days ago), so I probably am not the best person to ask about this kind of thing.
Comment from kingfries on 27 January 2018 at 14:34
Agree with the comment above. Looks really great! I love that you took time to detail things out already. I assume youre going for an ,italian´ kind of style?. I wouldnt say the airport is unrealistically large, although I´m simply gonna suggest that maybe taking one of the 2 parallel runways away would already make a difference. All in all a great city. I´d even say that you should keep working on it more and then somebody could suggest it for the feautured map thing we got going on here. Oh and Pasalia would like to have your embassy down here. Greetings, Kingfries
Comment from zhenkang on 27 January 2018 at 14:42
Impressive.
Comment from yuriyhlmacof on 27 January 2018 at 16:58
Really impressive city. I love the level of detail you have put on Giliarca. I read your wiki article about Gardensa and is one of the best written and well-conceived history articles I already read on OGF Wiki. Congrats!
About the mapping: the only things that seam a little strange for me are the long viaducts of Via Aalde/Viale Tarephia cuting through the city grid. And the A1 tunnel crossing under the city also seams a little strange for me because of its length and the cost it would take to build it. But I guess there is a reason I don’t see for both of these structures.
Keep up with this level of mapping skills!
Best regards and happy mapping,
Comment from eklas on 27 January 2018 at 19:39
Indeed, Giliarca is a very nice city. Some parts of the street grid look a bit messy, but I guess that’s because of the terrain. Overall, there’s nothing I find terribly wrong except the river Indaco which disobeys the common rules for waterways - rivers always take the shortest possible way to the nearest large body of water, which is the exact opposite of what’s going on here. In fact, there should realistically be a hill range in place of it.
But otherwise, good job, keep it up!
Comment from eklas on 27 January 2018 at 19:43
Oh, actually, one more thing - it’s kind of impractical to place the capital city on the tip of a peninsula - and believe me, I’ve made the same mistake almost two years ago and I ended up redrawing the entire country when I’ve realized it was a mistake.
Comment from eleinads on 27 January 2018 at 22:51
Very interesting and stimulanting questions. Some answers:
kingfries:
About the embassies: as specified here , who want put the embassy of its country in Gardensa, he can choose in Giliarca a building not tagged, and can put himself the embassy tagging “Ambasciata di [name of the country]”, sending me me a message to communicate it.
yuriyhlmacof:
The viaduct of Via Aalde/Viale Tarephia is partially inspired to the “elevated road” in Genoa (Italy): a big viaduct that allows a fast driving in the center, passing over very busy roads. It pass across the gridlines because, to be a fast road, the radius of curvature should not be too tight. The buildings at the sides of that viaduct has been, partially, re-built, and partially has been edified after the road (I’ll explain it better on Giliarca wiki page).
The big A1 tunnel, is actually a very important engineering work… i think it is not unreal. It’s basically inspired to the Lincoln Tunnel in NY, with two differences: the Lincoln Tunnel is long 2,4 km, the A1 tunnel in Giliarca is long 4,03 km, and the Lincoln Tunnel is only over the Sea, and the A1 tunnel is partially over the ground. The function is the same: conduct directly from the extreme suburbs to the city center, in particular, in Giliarca, to the northern directional center, bypassing the old town. A so long road tunnel is not impossible from an engineering point of view: in the real world there are longer and deeper ones and, for a city, it’s not more expensive to build than a normal metro. I think that its function will be more clear when will be mapped the urbanization in the east area of the city. However, I can I have to make the two entry and exit points of the tunnel more realistic.
eklas:
“the river Indaco which disobeys the common rules for waterways”. True: I think I’m in time to fix this: I will insert a hill in the north-east area of Viale Antarephia, not yet mapped, where now passes the railway, to make natural the curve of the river to the west (on the other side the route is already guided by the hill with the castle).
“it’s kind of impractical to place the capital city on the tip of a peninsula”. Very interesting but complex issue. I think that it’s not a “mistake”, but can be classified as an “oddity” in itself not contrary to the principle of verisimilitude. There are many variables that are at the origin of the position of a big city. E.g.: in that case the climate is surely most agreable in the north of the peninsula than in the center and south, closer to the equator. there is the mouth of the Indigo river, which in past allowed the transport of timber from the forest on boats.
In the real world, an example of a city in the tip of a peninsula can be in Florida, Miami (officially not the capital, but the most important city of the state).
Comment from Portopolis on 28 January 2018 at 07:46
MY only two tidbits are the peninsula thing, while not against verisimilitude. From an invading force perspective it is a “terrible” idea. I know you use Miami but the tip of Florida is still a good 100+ miles across. Putting it at the very tip of a peninsula from a historic point of view makes it more open to attacks from both sides as the city also sticks into the sea. NYC is in a similar position, but their is still land before you reached the original NYC so it is inland. It is also terrible from a Hurricane point of view. cities like New Orleans are unnatural in that way but imagine New Orleans was moved even further down the mouth of the Mississippi to the very edge. That city would be built on swampland and at best land that continually floods and even be subject to even more devastating hurricanes.
The road thing I have seen before but having underground instead of overground sounds like you’ll destroy large amounts of the old city. The main problem IMO isn’t the length of the road/tunnel but the fact that it is designated as a highway which in an urban environment I normally envision to be 4 or three plus lanes at the least and burying all of that under an ancient city will seem devastating. It would make more sense IMO if the road was either downgraded or it was originally overground but then they decided it looked disgusting over ground and buried it.
These are just my tidbits, your city overall looks spectacular and it looks like your mapping it the proper historical way, if you continue down that route your city will eventually look so real people will mistake it for an actual city.
Comment from isleño on 29 January 2018 at 00:54
A few quick responses to some of the replies so far:
Anyway, hope this helps you out. Happy mapping,
isleño
Comment from eleinads on 29 January 2018 at 01:23
Portopolis:
some of your observation are certainly accepted by me, about others, I think, I can reply.
I start by the tunnel. About the classification: I’ve see that the Lincoln Tunnel too is classified as an Highway: see the map in OSM.
And I don’t understand why you say that its construction in underground should destroy the old town above it… in 2018 in real world we have and use normally the technology to dig a tunnel under a city without destroying anything… it’s the technology used in OGF world to create the A1 tunnel in Giliarca, where the geological quality of the subsoil allows this.
The other question of the city in a thin peninsula, I think is interesting. It’s true that for me it was a clear “concept” already when I started the map of Giliarca. But I think I can accept your observation (and the similar ones by other users), changing something in my map.
But, the probem has two different faces, that must be kept separate: the historical problem (invasions…), and the natural question (hurricanes…).
1) Historical problem: Giliarca is a commercial outpost created by sailors far from their land, comparable to cities in the Caribbean or some distant ocean areas. These cities are not in protected locations like European cities, and they have no fortifications, also because they are located in areas where there is a strong asymmetry of forces with the native populations. See for example Havana, or Singapore, or Hong Kong. This type of city does not have defense as its priority, but commercial relations. This justifies in my opinion the “very exposed” position of Giliarca. However, consider that the historical core of Giliarca is in the part that overlooks the inland sea, all the rest is very recent expansion of the twentieth century.
2) Natural problem: it’s, i think, more interesting. Even if, in real world there a re a lot of cities made in non-hospitable areas. Look at Tokyo…
However, I don’t want only justify my map: i will change it to welcome these important observations.
Forst of all, I’ll map a ridge of mountains at east of Giliarca, between the city and the ocean, in order to have a protection both against human enemies and natural events. Somethinhg like in Honolulu, only in a little smaller scale: 3-4 km instead of 8-10 km wide. It can also justify the the curve of the indigo river to the west.
Then I will now also reason if map a barrier of islands to the east, to make the eastern coast less directly exposed to the ocean
Comment from eleinads on 29 January 2018 at 01:40
isleño,
thanks for the comments.
I will now see whether how to make changes to make the course of the Indaco river more likely. Maybe, I can evaluate to “shorten” it and insert a nearest mount where to put the sources, but I have to think about it, I’m still not sure it’s necessary.
However, we have to consider that the flow of real rivers does not respond “mathematically” to rules and is often counterintuitive, and it is not always automatically true that the central line of an area is the highest. Take for example [the Po river in Italy] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Po_ (river) # / media / File: Po_bacino_idrografico.png), which does not go to the nearest sea but follows a horizontal path that leads him to the most distant sea. But, it’s true that in the real world a counter-intuitive river always has an explanation, so I believe that, at a minimum, I will change the course of the river and mofify the map showing the heights that make the whole more credible (unless I decide, finally, to shorten the river with the source in a mountain closer to Giliarca).
Comment from louis_walker on 29 January 2018 at 02:26
I keep seeing this thing about cities on peninsulas being a bad idea—but there have been plenty of cities built on peninsulas…in fact it was its location along a peninsula that made Constantinople one of the most impregnable cities of the middle ages. That city resisted siege after siege for centuries. Granted, it’s a much smaller peninsula…but still.
For a more recent example, since Giliarca is a newer city than Constantinople, there’s San Francisco, which is on a peninsula that is almost exactly the same size as Giliarca’s.
And wouldn’t a colonial force actually be more interested in a peninsular location, given the fact that it’s easier for a colonizing force to clear a clearly defined area and keep out indigenous tribes with which it will likely have conflict? New York was mentioned above, and a big reason that the Dutch close to locate their new settlement at the tip of Manhattan (which functioned, effectively, as a peninsula at that point in a lot of ways) was that it was relatively easy to defend.
I am genuinely curious where this concern comes from since it runs counter to what I’ve read elsewhere, so I am very interested in counterpoints! :) Also, As I have told eleinads before, I think Giliarca is fantastic, and Patermas is proud to have an embassy there.
One last note, on the A1 tunnel—I may just not have looked closely enough, but are there ventilation tunnels? Very long tunnels like this (the Lincoln included) need ventilation towers along the route so that the people driving through them can breathe!
Comment from isleño on 29 January 2018 at 10:12
@eleinads: The problem with creating topography to “explain” the weird river is that the topography will end up being weird too. This isn’t the Po. Arranging two unbroken rows of mountains, along both sides of the river, for the entire length of the peninsula, converging as the land narrows, is just not likely to look plausible. Fictional maps require a delicate balance of geographic weirdness: a little bit of weirdness will make it interesting and fun, but too much will damage believability.
@louis: It’s site vs. situation. A peninsular site can be good. On a very local scale of a few kilometers or so, a small promontory can be easier to defend. But if you zoom out to consider a peninsular situation, the tip of a larger landmass doesn’t confer much defense benefit… and if it’s too far from other land, it’ll limit access to nearby resources that help a city thrive.
San Francisco, New York, and Istanbul may have peninsular sites, but non-peninsular situations. Zooming out, San Francisco guards the narrow mouth of the largest bay in California, the outlet for the entire Central Valley. New York commands control of one of the greatest rivers in the northeastern US. And Istanbul is obviously the crossroads of Europe and Asia, the Mediterranean and Black Sea.
It’s much rarer for a major city’s situation to be the tip of a peninsula, and in those cases there’s generally some other good reason for it, like Singapore’s (or Khaiwoon’s) strategic position relative to major shipping/trade routes. So yeah, it’s possible… But for some reason lots of mappers love to stick cities at the ends of peninsulas without any clear logic, and the overrepresentation of peninsular cities in geofiction can make them seem a bit cliche.
Not that any of that makes Giliarca bad — it’s excellent in many ways. But if someone asks for critiques of a city at the end of a peninsula, that’s one they’re inevitably going to get.
Comment from eleinads on 29 January 2018 at 10:36
isleño,
you are right in your last sentence: my aim was to obtain critical observations, even severe ones.
The course of the river can also be totally redesigned.
Although I liked the idea of a very long river that crossed the plain (which we must imagine as a gradual slope) and up to Giliarca, of course I can abandon this idea, draw mountains closer to Giliarca (probably near Roghela) and make Indigo as a shorter river, that after a natural course (helped by other hills) arrives in Giliarca.
However, If I’ll make changes to the map, I will not do them in a simplistic and trivial way (like adding mountains left and right to justify the river), but I will make more “chiurgical” changes considering all the variables and the domino-effect that each change can have .
Comment from Portopolis on 1 February 2018 at 05:57
By the way isleno that was a breathtaking explanation. It put everything I wanted to say in an easily digestible fashion.
Another thing I want to add about San Francisco is look at where it’s downtown is located. It is located inside the bay. Lets say for some reason someone was to attack the city they would have to enter the bay, surely their would be several towns or outposts on the other areas of the bay that would be able to warn the residents of the city of an imminent attack. Another thing is San Francisco/ Bay Area is one of the most multi-nodal metros in the U.S with it having 3 major urban centers and at least 4 soon to become five with Stockton gradually joining in major commercial regions. San Jose, Silicon Valley, Oakland and San Fran itself. The area is multi-nodal almost entirely because IMO of San Fran being at the edge of a mountainous peninsula. IF San Fran was where San Jose is today, I doubt the metropolitan area would be so multi-nodal if at all.
One thing is if you look at downtown’s in the U.S along the East and West Coast very few of them and non of the major cities are completely exposed to the sea. Their either in a bay, or have barrier islands directly in front of their Downtown’s. The few that are like Galveston never reached their full potential, Galveston itself was destroyed by a devastating Hurricane. The biggest cities in the U.S not in this situation are Virginia Beach, Virginia, Atlantic City, NJ (metro area and earlier prominence) and Myrtle Beach SC maybe Galveston or Miami Beach next. Even Miami which is the closest major city in this situation has Miami Beach in front of it and if it was wasn’t even a major city till the modern era, were things like this are less relevant today.
Even the cities isleno mentions are still semi-shielded with the original location of Hong Kong being on the other side of massive mountains on it’s island and Singapore having several smaller and massive islands around it. I think putting Barrier island in front of the city would add a lot more to it’s location, but as I’m not in anyways an expert in geography, i’m not even sure if barrier islands would form in that situation.