My last word on the Crusades; p

[James Ruhland]

> I think you've really got to admire the accomplshments of the First
> Crusaders & the Outremer Kingdomers -
>
A brief personal note; it was reading histories of the Crusades when I was
in 5th grade that got me interested in history in the 1st place. Godfrey,
Raymond, Baldwin, even that lout Tancred, they're all interesting folk; and
dispite what some have said and I have strongly implied, they were not all
evil, villanous sorts (ok, Tancered was). IMO, and not to turn this into a
history discussion more than it already is, the Crusades had two failings
that led to tragedy: 1) the lords of Outremer constantly needed
reinforcement from the west...which meant that, while the O. lords adapted
rather well to the situation in the Levant, they were undermined
diplomatically by new arrivals stiring up things better left quiet,
breaking treaties, etc (leading to Hattian). 2) the inability to form a
stronger bond with the one christian state that was in a position to offer
real help (as opposed to periodic disruptive migrations bringing with them
prickly kings who wanted to take over the whole enterprise). Mutual
distrust and envy between the Roman government of Constantinople and the
various crusader states caused the downfall of both. (btw, Neil B., just
part of my pedantic nature, but it wasn't "Anatolian Turkey", at least not
yet. When Alexius called for help, the Turks had been in Anatolia for only
a quarter century...it wasn't their property; this is why even they called
it the "Sultinate of Rum [Rome]" Some have talked about the evils of
"expansionist xianity", but if others can just keep their mits off our
stuff, and stop expanding into us (I.E., taking Egypt, Syria, Palestine,
Tunisia, Morroco, Algeria, Messopotamia, Persia-Iran, Spain, etc, etc. ad
infinitum in wars of agression without provocation...at least the Crusaders
went east with cause; to recover occupied territory from a forgein
invader.) Plus, I won't say what I think of crystal wavers who use the term
"xian"...
>
> The other is about the city layouts. Ariya has a really nice map, that
> looks vaguely like a real city. Ilien (and apparantly Endier, based on
> the commnts of the Thief regent in the campaign I'm playing in) don't.
> Ilien looks like a splot.
>
Ohhh, Neil, now you've gone and done it. You hit another one of my sore
spots. I agree whole hartedly with you on this. Most of the time it seems
that whoever designs cities for TSR, and other game companies, has never
looked at a map of a midieval city (or a map/archiological diagram of a
city for whatever era they are designing their place for). TSR's only done
a couple of decient cities in 20 years of designing them, but, for some
reason they never learn from their sucesses, and quickly revert back to
shlock cities. Take the Birthright cities: I agree with you on Ariya, it's
one of the good ones. Endier isn't, and Illien isn't, the city they did for
Taline--sorry, I cant recall the name off the top of my head--was ok, but
it looked like something designed originally for the FR and then ploped
into Cerilia instead). Designers always forget major details (like how many
people can reasonably be expected to live in a city building; even a
midieval city building); they've usually got one temple for each of the
locally worshiped dieties...regardless of the city's size (which means that
these places end up more crowded than Lambau Field in the playoffs). In
major cities they leave out too many amenities. They don't know scale
(check out the size of the Coloseum in Thyatis as depicted in one of the
modules vs. the city's stated scale; they're out of whack by an order of
magnitude of 3, at least). I could go on and on, but I won't. Calming down
now. Taking a big breath. .

[Trizt]

On 13-Nov-97, Neil Barnes (nb4769@bristol.ac.uk) wrote about Re: [BIRTHRIGHT]
- - My last word on the Crusades; poorly done game-worl:


- ->The first sign of a badly designed medieval city is a grid layout. The
- ->second is trees inside the city (cf City of Greyhawk) and the third is
- ->wide streets and gardens. Probably a result of living in the States -
- ->only one country in the world would build a city in the middle of a
- ->desert just because :)

In my opinion most of the "northen" cities in AD&D is desined quite much
wrong, this may be for many fo the TSR staff lives in Florida? ;) The streets
are quite to stright and broad, it's quite late we here in the northen europe
started to use strighter streets (why? for the designers thought the south
european cities looked much better and it was esier to build that way). But in
a cold winter day when it blows, the wind gest a higher speed in a stright
street than in a curwed and therefor will be more snow filed and colder (at
least feel colder as the wind has a high speed).
it's quite natrual in southern europe to have stright streets as this cooles
down the street during the warm summer.

Waht I would hope that the whole TSR staff could take semester at an
university and study a bit history, as I think that a fantasy game can't be
without parts from the RL. (I don't claim that I know everything, not even
that I know anything)

//Trizt of Ward^RITE

-

[David Sean Brown]

> In my opinion most of the "northen" cities in AD&D is desined quite much
> wrong, this may be for many fo the TSR staff lives in Florida? ;) The streets
> are quite to stright and broad, it's quite late we here in the northen europe
> started to use strighter streets (why? for the designers thought the south
> european cities looked much better and it was esier to build that way). But in
> a cold winter day when it blows, the wind gest a higher speed in a stright
> street than in a curwed and therefor will be more snow filed and colder (at
> least feel colder as the wind has a high speed).
> it's quite natrual in southern europe to have stright streets as this cooles
> down the street during the warm summer.

Well, we also have to look at this from another perspective. The
"northern" city I live in was founded almost 250 years ago, and for the
most part you can't find a straight street in it. Wy you ask? Well, the
city itself was originally uild around te hill that overlooked the harbour
and offered protection, and the original "streets" were cart and walking
paths which were the shortest and easiest routes from the major places.
Consequentially, they wander around the hill, and around other big
obsticles. At this point in time "city planning" wasn't necessarily a
priority for settlers. Defence and ease of movement was, and their cities
reflected this.

Sean