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View Full Version : To build a town from scratch?



DrkMagusX
2016-02-12, 11:11 AM
I m working on a project and seeking help and advice from the vast minds of the gaming community. What I am doing is trying to plot the course of growth from a group of settlers to a booming town.

Draken
2016-02-12, 11:32 AM
More info required. What is the timeframe? How often will this settlement see immigration? What resources can it harvest from its surrounding wilderness? What are the local dangers (weather, earthquakes, wildlife, supernatural things), what is the actual setting?

DrkMagusX
2016-02-12, 11:40 AM
Setting: typical sword n sorcery setting.
Location: along a river bank in a clearing surrounded by woods and mountains off in the distance.
Dangers: typical wilderness threats.

hymer
2016-02-12, 12:13 PM
Urbanization is generally a matter of commerce. It is commercial activity that attracts people to towns, and commercial restrictions that work in the opposite direction. Things like the availability of food and drinkable water can be rendered in terms of market; even good government can.
So if this place is going to grow, it needs trade. It needs resources to exploit (and safety can be one such a resource, though a rather volatile one) and ideally export, or a place in a trade network to occupy (preferably both). That will give people a reason to come there.

Storm_Of_Snow
2016-02-12, 12:17 PM
Well, first thing to consider is why is it there?

Junction of two trade routes or location of a ford across a river/pass through mountains?
Available natural resources (which could be anything from raw materials to good fishing grounds off shore)?
A land grab to stop another nation/mercantile body/religious group/other organisation grabbing it first?
Someone set up a homestead, started farming, and either other people have slowly migrated to the area, or the descendants of the original settler have long since outgrown the original building?
Other?

There would almost certainly be a place of worship somewhere - at village size and larger, it would have it's own, while at hamlet and smaller, there would be a central one within an hour or two's walk of all the settlements clustered in the area.

There'd also be a leader's residence, a communal area for important local meetings (village green or market square) and a tavern - and some locations may serve multiple duties (the leader could be the local innkeeper and the tavern is also where meetings happen). You'd almost certainly have a granary as well.

And a source for fresh water is essential.

As it grows, what would happen to the settlement would depend on why it's there - if it's on trade routes or allows the crossing of terrain, it'll become a market town, attracting merchants (who'll build warehouses near to the market square), moneylenders/bankers, tavern owners to accommodate people staying overnight and so on. Streets to the market square will be made wide to facilitate the flow of goods in and out. If it's resources, you'll have the processing facilities for them as close to their location as possible, with people living as close to those as possible. Land grab would become a garrison town - fortified walls and buildings, narrow streets that can be defended, barracks blocks with houses for officers and their families, and possibly NCOs, with some civilians to attend to their day to day needs), while an enlarged homestead would likely be fairly chaotic, with people putting their houses where they liked, which may reflect familial politics.

At this point, I'd like to discuss the extra info you've added. To be honest, your description of "along a river bank in a clearing surrounded by woods and mountains off in the distance." falls into natural resources, but doesn't really give very much - all they could really produce is lumber, transported out of the area by riverboat, but that wouldn't really be enough to grow into more than a minor village. You really need a lot more than that.

You could potentially have charcoal production, and if it's located at the joining of two rivers that come down from the mountains, it could become a centre for turning iron ore into steel. If there's wolves etc in the forests, then you've also potentially got hunting, tanning and leather production - which means instead of just producing steel, you can potentially be making weapons and armour for the local lord or ruler, which instantly means you're a strategic asset and thus your settlement is almost certainly a garrison town.

To continue with more generic growth - the leaders house would grow into, and be ultimately replaced by, a town hall, which may include civil servants, tax collectors and so on that run the town, or they may have buildings elsewhere, especially if there needs to be a separation of the state and the leader for some reason. The local church/temple could also have grown, probably having been enlarged and made more imposing - alternatively, there may be the same original building in one area of the town, with a much grander building elsewhere.

Different areas of the town would start to get different professions and classes of population - you might have a mercantile quarter where the merchants have their warehouses, which also has the moneylenders, one or two main streets which have traders of specific goods on (likely mixed, so, for instance, a tailors next to a locksmiths next to a candlers and so on - specific streets for trades would need really large towns, and more often cities, to get sufficient density), along with a few general traders scattered around as local shops, upper class houses somewhere (edge of town where there's plenty of land for grounds, on a hill to put them above the masses, on the river for access by boat so they're not mixing with the hoi-poli, near the town hall if the leader is en-nobled so they're close to power and can be seen in all the right locations etc), and conversely an old-town area where the lower classes live. And of course, there'd be local law enforcement in some shape or form, which would have a central command building, and possibly satellite offices. But actual distribution of watchmen or whatever you decide to call them would vary - the upper class areas and mercantile quarter may be very well patrolled, but the old town might be virtually a no-go area.

Education in early stages of the settlements life would be a church school. As a town, there'd still be the church schools, but there might also be schools provided by trade guilds for their workers, and maybe some philanthropists trying to educate the masses.