Topic: Barbarian Fortress/Citadel Models

Thanks, all. (There could be a living in digging ditches after all.)

Astuur wrote: Maybe the stones on the outer rim could match the building a bit closer (darker, rougher)?

I'll tweak 'em a little more.

One small problem remains: the citadel seems to be floating upon the water. That is because you see no underwater structure of the building at all. You could add some submerged rock foundations, maybe, or make the water less transparent (i.e. more reflective)

I played with the water a while to get it where I wanted. I'll work on the wall foundations. They are down there, I just have to make their presence known.

Puh... the building sequence will be quite some challenge!

I'm eager to start it, but it doesn't make sense if the finished model isn't ready. Remember that the fortress shares the same site and should evolve cleanly into the citadel.

What else: I have used 105/96 hotspot; seems usable, but is very close to the lumberjack on the left.

Yes. I am crowding that western boundary. I may warp that part of the moat right a little. At any rate, I'll give the lumber jack a little more room to swing his axe. Also, I have already softened the rim of the moat so it looks less like a concrete form.

I would place the flags at the drawbridge somewhere, where they cover less of the yard. Maybe on a protruding stone from the outer wall, or even the inner building. Or maybe with a sort of holder coming out at an 45° angle before going vertical again?

Good ideas. I would not want to obstruct Warnuff's view of the well, or anything else that may occur in the courtyard.

Thanks again, everyone for all your comments and encouragement.

I see little people.

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Tested the new one.
I can see no more room for further improvement; it's perfect like it is!

...unless you might want to consider mounting
\Widelands\tribes\barbarians\pics\icon.png (with the skull in player color)
somewhere onto this most powerful building of the tribe.

Being no programmer, I apologize for all my suggestions that imply undue workload and for other misjudgements due to lack of expertise or relevant skills.
I am on Win32, have no means to compile, and rely on prefabricated distributions (Thanks to Tino).

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Starting with the latest citadel model, I worked my way back to the fortress, to have as much continuity in the scene as possible when the player converts from the fortress to the citadel.
I came up with a couple looks and I'd like your opinions.
Certainly the size of the keep can be adjusted to a tallfortress like tallfortress or tallfortress3 style if that is preferred.
My question here is regarding the perimeter wall.
Should it be stone: fortress8 or wood: fortress9
Here's the citadel again for comparison:

Personally, I favor the wood palisade. It echos the headquarters and would give real gratification when upgrading to the citadel. I could add more stone to the fortress keep if we kept the wood perimeter because the stone inner wall just seems out of place to me.

Comments please.

I see little people.

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The wooden palisade looks awesome! I also think upgrading from wood to stone walls would work, since even barbarians would know that stone makes stronger fortifications.

I have some random thoughts about the inner building I would like to mention though: I am not sure what the idea is, but it currently looks a bit strange.If you compare fortress9 with the citadel, it looks like during the upgrade the inner building was placed on top of a tower-ish building. I am not sure how one would build such a thing to raise an existing building up and it may look a bit strange having the original fort inner-building standing on the roof of the tower in the citadel. On the other hand, I am not sure what could be done with the tower roof if the building was not there to keep it from looking too empty. However, I think if you experimented with something like inner building from tallfortress3 inside the palisade from fortress9, it would look a bit more natural that both these parts have been replaced or reinforced by stone when upgrading to a citadel without a building on the roof of the tower. This was written off the top of my head, so please ask if you are not able to make sense of it.

Ships!

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Venatrix wrote: I like the palisade wall, too. Maybe you could place them on a stone fundament to reduce the „out of place“ feeling of the inner stone wall? I’m not sure myself, whether this proposal does make sense… Another possiblity could be to remove the inner wall completely.

I considered laying stones as the foundation of the wooden palisade, but I asked myself "If they started with stone, why would they switch to trunks?" I am considering the idea of representing what could have been the underlying bedrock of the site for the foundation. If the rock was evidently already there when they started to build, it would be logical as the foundation of both buildings. I'll play with that a little and get back to you.

By the way: Should it become the palisade wall, you should adapt the headquarter’s palisade because it would be too regular regarding the height of the single trunks.

I agree. Good point.

@hjd - I agree the fortress keep and the "lookout structure" on the top of the citadel are too similar. I was patterning them after original models. While it does provide a sense of continuity between the fortress and the citadel, there is no logical reason beyond construction style that they should be "identical", however. Their functions are totally different. I am considering removing the inner wall entirely. That would open up more possibilities for the courtyard space and the fortress keep. I may experiment with starting the keep in stone for the fortress in the form of the ground floor of the ultimate citadel keep. A stone building inside a wooden palisade is no great stretch of the imagination and there are many precedents in history. There are lots of possibilities to explore.

@Nasenbaer - Thanks for your vote of confidence.

Keep those ideas coming in. They help compensate for my occasional "tunnel vision".

I see little people.

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