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Westernesse: A Númenórean Colony Quest

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[X] Plan Roaring Forge, Iron Sea
Admiral Skippy said:
Although as far as defences go, @veekie's mention of Chinese cities had me looking up Chinese city walls on Wikipedia, which was interesting. Apparently with a predominantly earthen construction at the core, Chinese city walls were capable of withstanding even early 20th century (!) artillery with little damage because they were so ridiculously thick and robust. Something to think about perhaps.
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Its mostly because of defending against nomad invasions AND early chinese gunpowder. The walls are rated for gunpowder because before there were cannon, walls were sometimes breached by literal barrels of gunpowder.

So they built to tank it. And thats also why they had small forestries and farms in the wall bounds too. It was expensive to build, but the environment did reward it.
 
veekie said:
[X] Plan Roaring Forge, Iron Sea

Its mostly because of defending against nomad invasions AND early chinese gunpowder. The walls are rated for gunpowder because before there were cannon, walls were sometimes breached by literal barrels of gunpowder.

So they built to tank it. And thats also why they had small forestries and farms in the wall bounds too. It was expensive to build, but the environment did reward it.
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What really interested me from reading is that they would build in sections by constructing a wooden frame, compacting earth within the frame until it was super dense, then removing the frame and going on to the next section. Which seems like a very simple but also clever way to do it. Unlike Roman or medieval walls, which had a stone or aggregate centre, Chinese city walls were completely earthen inside, with usually just a stone covering (and many of the earlier ones did not have this). This mean they were also usually several times thicker at the base than European walls, as well as tapered. As you say, this actually made them better at absorbing the energy from explosives and gunpowder-driven projectiles than purely stone walls would be, because compacted earth is not brittle.

All of this is to say that if we're not worried about bragging rights, short of Sauron coming himself, I expect we might be able to build something effectively as invulnerable as a Númenorean Iron wall, just by making it hilariously thicker. Which would be back-breaking for most cities, but perhaps not for us given our aptitude for engineering. We could in fact take a lesson from Constantinople as another city with water at one side, and go for a double wall.

(Hell, we could also take a lesson from 18th century European Star Forts, and build a Star Fort style double outer wall with overlapping fields of fire from engines and steelbows, surrounded by a constellation of miniature star forts linked with bridges. At that point it does not matter whether our street plan is ideal for defence or not, because the Orcs will have to climb over a million bodies to get in, or learn how to swim.)
 
[X] Plan Roaring Forge, Iron Sea

Yeah, what Skippy says has convinced me. All previous selections seem to support this tha best. Still, a fortress made from numenorian iron sounds cool, but a super harbor would play best with what we have. And a merchant focus might help us repay our debts faster. We are charging tariffs, right?
 
ShyPerson said:
[X] Plan Roaring Forge, Iron Sea

Yeah, what Skippy says has convinced me. All previous selections seem to support this tha best. Still, a fortress made from numenorian iron sounds cool, but a super harbor would play best with what we have. And a merchant focus might help us repay our debts faster. We are charging tariffs, right?
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The problem with preplanning such an expensive wall is we don't know just how large our colony will get. Constantinople itself had massive problems as it outgrew its Roman Walls, and lacked the resources at many times to build ones of similar quality around its newer boundaries. If we build a Wall with Numenorean Iron now - we are likely to out grow it in the matter of a few decades, let alone centuries - especially if we absorb colonists from the failing colonies to our north; faithful and Non-corrupted Kings Men from the home isle, and people fleeing Sauron's slow return in Pelargir.

Better to leave it for the harbour, which garuantees greater trading potential, so that we can use our longterm power to buy as much Numenorean Iron as we like for various projects, like our Walls; and particularly armies.
I'd just like that massive iron wall built before Sauron invades Eregion - (just remembered that the destruction of Eregion has already happened) Before Sauron makes his return, and strikes against the Elves and Dunedain - yes the Last Alliance managed to push Sauron back to Mount Doom - after decades of gruelling war, that saw much of Gondor in ruin. As we are Numenorean we are in the middle of his warpath - and after Numenor's sundering, knowing his hatred of our race, if we don't bow, we are screwed.
 
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It does make a little more sense to leave a giant impressive wall until we have a better idea of the shape of the city, so we don't risk growing out of its bounds, yeah.

The caveat being, of course, that we should hope we don't face a major direct assault on the city itself within that time.
 
[X] Plan Roaring Forge, Iron Sea

Tempted to try and meet the Druedain instead of Misty Mountains exploration, but that doesn't seem critical while Misty Mountains almost certainly leads to contact with the Dwarves, and I love everything else about the plan.
 
Chimeraguard said:
[X] Plan Roaring Forge, Iron Sea

Tempted to try and meet the Druedain instead of Misty Mountains exploration, but that doesn't seem critical while Misty Mountains almost certainly leads to contact with the Dwarves, and I love everything else about the plan.
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I'd really love to meet the Drúedain, I'd just like to leave it until we've got a better handle on our own backyard, if that makes sense.
 
[X] Plan Roaring Forge, Iron Sea

JuliusNepos said:
[X] An Ordered Land:

Better to have planned from the start
City layout management is important

[X] A Foundry:

I anticipate the inevitable smith contests between durin's folk and ours that will be the stuff of songs

[X] Ûrîphêl.
We brought her for a reason

[X] Guards:
[X] The Walls of The Isen:

Between these two let our city be invulnerable or nearly at least.

[X] The Lands Of Iron:
[X] The Misty Mountains Cold:
[X] The First Haven:
--[X] Send Inzilbeth

Let's meet the neighbors
Well the ones that matter anyways
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You need to put this into plan format. Look to some of the other players plans from this turn and the turns before.
 
This is not a vote for any plan, this is a question for the qm. @Telamon , assuming this little colony manages to grow and expand, how tightly are we bound to current arrengements? Say I feel like we need diffirent types of military units to complement our pre-existing ones, is it possible to see about building such forces sometime in the future?
 
Radek said:
This is not a vote for any plan, this is a question for the qm. @Telamon , assuming this little colony manages to grow and expand, how tightly are we bound to current arrengements? Say I feel like we need diffirent types of military units to complement our pre-existing ones, is it possible to see about building such forces sometime in the future?
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As the colony grows and expands, it will obviously be possible to recruit and build to your military — at the cost of not devoting manpower to other things. Most colonies which are not purely military rely on a small core of guards and hire out companies of Striders to serve as explorers/military/what have you.
 
@Telamon

Out of curiosity, where exactly on the Isen are we located? I get the feeling we are founding the colony somewhere up river, but I don't think there has been a description of where we are in relation to other location.
 
[X] Plan Regional Power

I like better defenses on land over a better defended port that will hardly ever matter.

It isn't like any great threat comes from the Seas in Tolkien after all, and Numenor is not long for this world.
 
[X] Plan Regional Power

I am a little hesitant in going all out into manufacturing and the isen option seemed to be about trading with the dwarves?
 
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DkArthas said:
[X] Plan Regional Power

I am a little hesitant in going all out into manufacturing and the isen option seemed to be about trading with the dwarves?
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The options we chose, including the Isen, were also geared towards advancing our industry and technology. The combination of the other plan means we have an excellent port that we can use for trade, as well as a major manufacturing and industrial centre. We can still trade with the dwarves and others, but with our current build, and the fact we emphasised Shapers, it makes sense to prioritse industry, which would also allow us to export goods en masse via our port.
 
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