Guide On Planning And Constructing A Settlement

[comanderbly^ 499]

Planning and constructing a settlement

 

 

Many desire to construct their own settlement, derived by many reasons like desire for political power and recognition, to explore a resource from the land, or to have a peaceful life away from the political and military life that is of the larger cities.

 

Although, before constructing a settlement you should consider if you really do so, or if you gather the ooc and ic conditions to create it, so before beginning this adventure you should ask yourself the following:

 

Will I be able to gather enough people to have active roleplay?

Do I understand the feudal law in my Kingdom?

Will I be able to construct a nice-looking, yet functional settlement?

Will I have permission from the lord of this land to construct it?

 

If you answered yes to these questions, then I guess you’re ready to proceed!

 

What kinds of settlements are there?

 

Hamlet, a tiny village, typically positioned around one key thing that employs all the population, such as a farm, mine or fishing spot. The houses are usually small and quite basic, the resources used are from the area, so there isn't much variation.

 

Village, the economy is mostly based on mining, fishing or most commonly farming. Farmers would all work on several large fields, and pay a percentage of what they grow to someone in a greater position of power (the lord of the village). Villages often contained at least one blacksmith, tavern/inn, and a shop or two. Villages often contain a small religious building.

 

Towns are somewhat similar to villages, but they have a charter permitting them to have a market. This means that many people from villages would visit towns to buy things not available in their own village, or to sell any extra food that they grow. Dirt roads would form between Towns and villages due to the somewhat frequent travel. They still have a large amount of agriculture, but there are far more services available. Towns may have wooden walls, most often around the town itself, not the outlying farming areas, depending on the location of the town (if it’s near the border with another kingdom, it’s more likely for it to have walls). Towns contain several religious buildings.

 

Cities are less agricultural based than any other settlement, with perhaps only 50% of people actually doing any fishing or farming. Many things are traded, crafted and built. Cities usually contain at least one large religious building, a large market, a dock if possible, and a fortress or some kind. Cities may or may not have stone walls, depending on how dangerous the surrounding areas are. And river that runs through a City will typically have embankments.

 

Placing your settlement:

 

The location of your settlement is very important, as placing your settlement in a place with no conditions would make no sense.

 

• Fresh water available

• Coastline for fishing

• Fertile farming land

• Will not flood

• Easily defendable location

• Room to expand

• Nearby good quality stone

• Nearby forests

• Room for farming

• Relatively flat

 

Laying out a village/hamlet:

 

Hamlets and villages have small populations, and were constructed with the regional materials. They contained perhaps only a blacksmith and an Inn.

First, you will need to decide on a layout, depending on the geography of the area this can be different. Layouts for settlements of this size are often rather spread out, with dirt paths between most buildings, and perhaps a few gravel paths near the center. If there is a cobblestone road running through the settlement, any services will be positioned along that.

The number of buildings is dependent on the population. Villages will often have one religious building, the Lord’s manor/house (typically bigger than the peasant’s homes, yet not a huge manor) and perhaps a storehouse. Finally, villages will have a manor where the lord lives.

Farms will be positioned around the village. Farming performed by serfs typically meant spending half their time farming food for their lord, and half the time working their own patches of land. If there is a decent sized river or a coast, fishing is also a potentially profitable source of food. Mines may be set up, but only in villages or hamlets near larger settlements where stone will be needed. Villages which mine are more likely to have stone buildings.

 

Construction of the settlement:

 

I support the use of messy medieval in the construction of settlement since it provides the proper medieval environment, looks good and is realistic. If you ever need tips on this you can message me, or any of the builders listed under.

 

After gathering the regional materials, you should get to the building, you could build multiple types of homes, obviously depending on the biome you’re located, and the resources available, here are some examples:

 

(By Stykernag)

(By Korthos)

(By Beggin_Bill/Cirdanoth/Korthos?)

(By Stykernag)

 

As you can see, hay is common in the roofs. Unlike the common thought, hay doesn't make a bad roof, some people use it nowadays! When building, refer to Cirdanoth’s guide on Messy-Medieval!

 

Regarding fortifications:

Not every settlement in the middle ages would have a fortification, I find it irritating to see fortifications in every corner, it nulls the objective of a fortification, now every force is ready to break into a fortification. It's very unrealistic and stupid.

Also walls, only a border settlement would have a wall, and it would not be a stone wall, it would be a palisade, only a city, a citadel or a castle would have stone walls.

 

The Lord’s house should be a little bit bigger, during the middle ages appeared the concept of a “fortified manor”, these would mostly be used by poorer Lords who could not afford a castle or just didn't need one, one great example by Korthos:

 

 

Constructing roads:

 

Road building was very expensive and time consuming in the middle ages. Most often a dirt trail (or a load of mud) was all that you would have. Roads were also very twisty, as people avoid trees, high terrain, slopes, or anything difficult to walk through. People would not waste time removing these obstacles, and build any roads around them, making them contour to the landscape. Roads would never be very wide, as there would never be traffic jams for any reason, as there were few travelers anyway, in the case that they were, they would just walk to the sides of the road.

 

A dirt path with small patches of exposed dirt (barely followable) can form with just two daily travellers, a decent dirt road may take ten, and gravel roads are only likely to be built if there are over twenty daily travellers. Cobblestone roads likely have a lot of daily traffic daily travellers, and will probably only form along roads between towns and cities. When constructing a road or path, refer to Cirdanoth’s guide on messy-medieval, he gives a good cover of these.

 

Credits:

The guide was mostly taken from this post, yet adapted into our world:

http://www.minecraftforum.net/topic/83803-building-a-realistic-medieval-world/

Credit to LukyLucaz, Korthos and Cirdanoth for the buildings, and the guide on MM.

[John Ivory 4546]

Very good guide!

[SodaiKamikaze 652]

Beautiful work!

[Hanrahan 2983]

Top notch!

[Narthok 10416]

MOAR!

[Stevie 1598]

Would you be #cool with it if we potentially used this thread as a helping guide for Oren come 4.0? I'm sure Senda would love to help use this as a model for our plans.

 

You'll get some like sick credit too of course.

[comanderbly^ 499]

Would you be #cool with it if we potentially used this thread as a helping guide for Oren come 4.0? I'm sure Senda would love to help use this as a model for our plans.

 

You'll get some like sick credit too of course.

 

That's what the guide is here for m8y

[Stevie 1598]

dont get sassy with me i meant for it to be official for oren and if youd be cool with that

[comanderbly^ 499]

dont get sassy with me i meant for it to be official for oren and if youd be cool with that

yes yes u can use it, it was meant for humans anyways (you can see all the feudalism/etc), so yes I'd be cool if u'd use it official for oren, if u need anything add me on skype

[Quavinir_Twiceborn 1050]

A very well-made and helpful guide!

Thankyou! :D

[Stevie 1598]

yes sir thank you sir ill be sure to later maybe probably

[TheBareSheet 194]

Moved to the Archive. It shall be sorted into the appropriate category shortly.