Post your Castles, Cities, Forts and whatnot. I shall rate them.

[Madologist]

Fantasy castles, cities, forts, and whatnot that are be passed off as settlements, are often depicted in the media we consume here on this very site. Now, often those so called cities are very excellently depicted and thus require someone of somewhat expertise to point out what is wrong at them. As there are so oft many, many things wrong with them. And this is where I shall enter the field. However, there are too many fantasy and/or historical series out there for me to view them all on my own. So please, would you kindly post those very cities/castles you come across at me in this thread, so that I can rate them.
Thank you.

The rating shall be settled on a 4-10 scale; 4 and below is a failing rate, so 5 is the bare minimal passing grade. There also will be -, +, ½ to represent 0,25 grading.

How do I rate this stuff
You can find examples here or here and rough explanation of how I rate cities/castles here

I will await your pickings of fortified positions eagerly, however, if your submission is just a "ringed wall city with a river running across it" don't expect much.
I will also rate your own designs, if you are the world/city building type.

 

[GipoScribantino]

But what is the rating for the generic ring walled capital city with a river running across it?

 

[Painasbread]

Fantasy castles, cities, forts, and whatnot that are be passed off as settlements, are often depicted in the media we consume here on this very site. Now, often those so called cities are very excellently depicted and thus require someone of somewhat expertise to point out what is wrong at them. As there are so oft many, many things wrong with them. And this is where I shall enter the field. However, there are too many fantasy and/or historical series out there for me to view them all on my own. So please, would you kindly post those very cities/castles you come across at me in this thread, so that I can rate them.
Thank you.

The rating shall be settled on a 4-10 scale; 4 and below is a failing rate, so 5 is the bare minimal passing grade. There also will be -, +, ½ to represent 0,25 grading.

How do I rate this stuff
You can find examples here or here and rough explanation of how I rate cities/castles here

I will await your pickings of fortified positions eagerly, however, if your submission is just a "ringed wall city with a river running across it" don't expect much.
I will also rate your own designs, if you are the world/city building type.

Funnily enough, my first thought was literally a settlement and not a city or a fort, because they're all so unremarkable in manga or manhwa (usually).
The mediums are always putting emphasis on the exterior and interior appearance of the cities, like they're supposed to be something grand and all, but they never talk about if they're practical and functional and why and when they should be so.

That's the major reason why they never leave me a lasting impression, except for ridiculously high walls (that's not a feature, literally anyone can copy-paste that setting without any sort of reason or esthetic to it) or copy-pasted assets of a certain type of castle, that just become bland and unremarkable at first sight in any comic you can find them in.

So unless the specific city configuration has a role to play in the writing of the plot (almost never), and it is showcased that way by the pacing, lore and drawing, then I'll just forget it as if it's just part of the decor (as it should be, considering most plot writings and developments just use it as decor and don't give it any lore).

Even in the world-building type of stories, the city layout is rarely a core component driving the story. It's just a plus you can mention, but that's it.

My first thought on a proposition I could have made:
https://mangadex.org/chapter/112ac21d-3f8b-46ac-897d-8a8e49e14c32/2
https://mangadex.org/chapter/278d828f-82c3-4f33-a52f-3faa0ed5ad5d/4
I mostly remember this settlement by the more advanced wall, but those parts I linked are enough to show what I was thinking of. It's a cry far from a city or castle lmao, but at least there's a meaning behind it's building.

My second thought I had, as I was laying out my reasoning:
https://mangadex.org/chapter/1b87e8da-c202-4b07-bbf0-87fec8260465/17
It's literally the main character's living quarters and front yard, which gets tons of development shown constantly as the story progresses. He fleshes out his house from the mountain bit by bit.
[spoiler next link (kinda spoiler, def. spoiler if you go next page)]
https://mangadex.org/chapter/210d3123-6853-4101-8928-ba84f2c11895/22
That's just the difference between how the actual city and his residence are presented; it's shown much less majestic and useful/practical.

Now, an example of something I know that might tick your boxes (although they're not really created based on realistic foundations):
I haven't read Aria yet but from some chapter comments on Colori Colore Creare (shared universe), I gathered it should be a pretty fitting recommendation on the topic (I'll read it when I have time).

(chronological order)
https://mangadex.org/chapter/1d80cd6b-7c66-4c5a-a2bf-36f6a301e727/30
https://mangadex.org/chapter/fffb8fc0-3fe3-4150-b3d9-ae35f5dda7ee/32
I won't share more pages because this manga is literally full of it; they're touring the city and making halts indoors, briefly turning the focus to the miscellaneous interior layouts.

Could you also post some of your iconic or favorite castle/cities showcases from manga so that I may know exactly what I'm missing out on?

 

[Painasbread]

But what is the rating for the generic ring walled capital city with a river running across it?

3/10 at best imo.

 

[Angry_Panda]

What gets me about so many of the generic cities is they're just 'city on a river in a plain'. Not at the junction of two rivers, not at the edge of a change in terrain, not even at a significant bend in the river. Just pick a random point on a nondescript stretch of river and plop down a big walled city.

 

[Madologist]

But what is the rating for the generic ring walled capital city with a river running across it?

Depends
Generally speaking, it's not a bad design.
The city has a water access
the city most likely has just 2-3 entrances, but more than one
the ring wall has enough towers to support each other
the setting is something where the ring-wall makes sense

then it gets about 5-6

If it is say a series of rings that becomes a tower, then it would be interesting, but that isn't the "generic ring-wall river city"

3/10 at best imo.

Just because it's generic doesn't mean it's bad. I mean, visually it's bad and uninteresting, but in terms of defenses and such, it's a solid design. It passes, but just because it passes, doesn't mean it's good.

 

[Madologist]

What gets me about so many of the generic cities is they're just 'city on a river in a plain'. Not at the junction of two rivers, not at the edge of a change in terrain, not even at a significant bend in the river. Just pick a random point on a nondescript stretch of river and plop down a big walled city.

To be fair, most cities are just that.
but that is why they are "most cities" and no one knows about them, except its inhabitants and the surrounding inhabitants.
Unless it got say "fire bombed into oblivion" in the last 100 odd years, no one will ever know about it.

But that isn't the point of fiction, especially when you spend resources to design it. If you are going to design a city, make it a "historical city" and not City A that was never heard, indeed.

 

[Madologist]

Funnily enough, my first thought was literally a settlement and not a city or a fort, because they're all so unremarkable in manga or manhwa (usually).
The mediums are always putting emphasis on the exterior and interior appearance of the cities, like they're supposed to be something grand and all, but they never talk about if they're practical and functional and why and when they should be so.

That's the major reason why they never leave me a lasting impression, except for ridiculously high walls (that's not a feature, literally anyone can copy-paste that setting without any sort of reason or esthetic to it) or copy-pasted assets of a certain type of castle, that just become bland and unremarkable at first sight in any comic you can find them in.

So unless the specific city configuration has a role to play in the writing of the plot (almost never), and it is showcased that way by the pacing, lore and drawing, then I'll just forget it as if it's just part of the decor (as it should be, considering most plot writings and developments just use it as decor and don't give it any lore).

Even in the world-building type of stories, the city layout is rarely a core component driving the story. It's just a plus you can mention, but that's it.

My first thought on a proposition I could have made:
https://mangadex.org/chapter/112ac21d-3f8b-46ac-897d-8a8e49e14c32/2
https://mangadex.org/chapter/278d828f-82c3-4f33-a52f-3faa0ed5ad5d/4
I mostly remember this settlement by the more advanced wall, but those parts I linked are enough to show what I was thinking of. It's a cry far from a city or castle lmao, but at least there's a meaning behind it's building.

My second thought I had, as I was laying out my reasoning:
https://mangadex.org/chapter/1b87e8da-c202-4b07-bbf0-87fec8260465/17
It's literally the main character's living quarters and front yard, which gets tons of development shown constantly as the story progresses. He fleshes out his house from the mountain bit by bit.
[spoiler next link (kinda spoiler, def. spoiler if you go next page)]
https://mangadex.org/chapter/210d3123-6853-4101-8928-ba84f2c11895/22
That's just the difference between how the actual city and his residence are presented; it's shown much less majestic and useful/practical.

Now, an example of something I know that might tick your boxes (although they're not really created based on realistic foundations):
I haven't read Aria yet but from some chapter comments on Colori Colore Creare (shared universe), I gathered it should be a pretty fitting recommendation on the topic (I'll read it when I have time).

(chronological order)
https://mangadex.org/chapter/1d80cd6b-7c66-4c5a-a2bf-36f6a301e727/30
https://mangadex.org/chapter/fffb8fc0-3fe3-4150-b3d9-ae35f5dda7ee/32
I won't share more pages because this manga is literally full of it; they're touring the city and making halts indoors, briefly turning the focus to the miscellaneous interior layouts.

Could you also post some of your iconic or favorite castle/cities showcases from manga so that I may know exactly what I'm missing out on?

In the first two you have what we would call the foundations of a fortified city/castle, depending on how the community goes from there. A good read tho. Can't really rate that, since it hasn't gotten to the level of even a "large village yet"...

Then we get to... doesn't count.
I mean, I guess I'd have to rate someone's minecraft spire to pierce heavens, if that was something that existed in a fantasy series, built by a singular OP MC... but it isn't really an actual centre of living.

Then we get a river X-agon, that is on fire...
Jokes aside, it's

Depends
Generally speaking, it's not a bad design.
The city has a water access
the city most likely has just 2-3 entrances, but more than one
the ring wall has enough towers to support each other
the setting is something where the ring-wall makes sense

then it gets about 5-6

If it is say a series of rings that becomes a tower, then it would be interesting, but that isn't the "generic ring-wall river city"

And I shall leave it at that.

Venice would be an interesting thing to rate. As for Neo-Venezia on Aqua, I'd give it about 9 from the top of my memory from reading the manga several times and watching the anime even more times.
Still in terms of defenses, Venice is actually kinda bad, which is why they lived in the sea, surrounded by a swamp, which required a navy to tackle, which is why they had the largest navy in the Mediterraen. "Fleet is our Wooden Wall" t. English and all that jazz. Works quite well, I hear.

As for how defensible would the cities on Aqua be... well
They exist in space-age, so I'd have to rate their orbital defenses, anti-air defenses and so on. Once we hit modern age, it doesn't really matter what you build and where you build it. Be it floating cities or flying cities defying gravity, it's all moot, when someone lobs a square kilometre asteroid at you travelling relativistic speeds, nukes it from the orbit or the neighbouring continent or decides to bomb it to oblivion with 1000 bombing runs.

So uh.. overall score 0/10, please give me something to actually rate.

Not a manga, but here is a city design I pretty much give 10/10.

 

[UnnamedPlayer]

What gets me about so many of the generic cities is they're just 'city on a river in a plain'. Not at the junction of two rivers, not at the edge of a change in terrain, not even at a significant bend in the river. Just pick a random point on a nondescript stretch of river and plop down a big walled city.

Maybe it's because it's simpler to build on a "flat" terrain, which mean the river flow quite linearly and far from any river junction. Confluences are rarely "flat", except for the few ones "close to the ocean". And most of them are river mouths, where sediment despits can induce "rapid" variations of the river bed. Turbulent water, erosion, sediment deposit, all that.

Or because edges of terrain can move with time and break the house built upon. For example, some river erode their bed quite quickly, and move fast, in just a century. Notably, the bends in a river bed are often like that, because the currents are faster here. Thinks of meanders for the worst case.

We don't care now, because civil enginerring and building regulations made floods less problematic, but it was important back in the day.

And I don't see a problem with cities close to a river in a plain, given how rivers are usefull for early cities.

Also, Geology is fun !

 

[Angry_Panda]

Having a source of fresh water is a plus - hence coastal cities at mouths of rivers, and inland cities along rivers or lakes, or springs if needed. But there's almost always some good reason the site was chosen. It was the narrowest point across the river, so a bridge was built there and a town grew up around it. It was a drop in the river, or a rapids, which allowed for a mill to be built. It was the junction of two waterways, so it made a logical point to transfer cargo traveling up/down river. It was a bluff overlooking the river, so it was tactically advantageous. It was a higher spot in a fertile flood plain. Hell, it could just be that the right person owned the land and decided to build there, though that strikes me as a more modern reason (think of all the cities that sprung up around railroads, and particularly railroad junctions, in the western USA). But there's some reason the founders chose that spot as opposed to someplace else, and 'this sure is a nice boring stretch of river' doesn't really strike me as a likely reason.

 

[Madologist]

But there's almost always some good reason the site was chosen

You'd be surprised how oft this isn't the case or if it was the case, the reason became moot a millennia ago.
First mistake is to think about cities in USA, they are all children, barely out of their diapers.

As a personal point. I live in a county called "Churchmoor", because someone had a bright idea to build a church on a swamp.
Thousand years later, people still live here. The church is also still here. 800 years old, though, not a thousand years old. The first one was a wooden church or sunk into the swamp.

Addition:
You'd be surprised how many cities bordering historical "Germanica" are Roman forts or baths, like Bath.

Also
0/10 there is not a city or castle in sight.

 

[Madologist]

Maybe it's because it's simpler to build on a "flat" terrain, which mean the river flow quite linearly and far from any river junction. Confluences are rarely "flat", except for the few ones "close to the ocean". And most of them are river mouths, where sediment despits can induce "rapid" variations of the river bed. Turbulent water, erosion, sediment deposit, all that.

Or because edges of terrain can move with time and break the house built upon. For example, some river erode their bed quite quickly, and move fast, in just a century. Notably, the bends in a river bed are often like that, because the currents are faster here. Thinks of meanders for the worst case.

We don't care now, because civil enginerring and building regulations made floods less problematic, but it was important back in the day.

And I don't see a problem with cities close to a river in a plain, given how rivers are usefull for early cities.

Also, Geology is fun !

0/10 there is no city or a castle

 

[undeed]

Since you've given an example of what you would give a score of 0/10 to, I'm curious if your score can drop below negative?
I mean, this settlement is the one that gave me a wtf moment when I saw it in recent memory
and usually I don't particularly care about these kinds of things.

 

[Madologist]

Since you've given an example of what you would give a score of 0/10 to, I'm curious if your score can drop below negative?
I mean, this settlement is the one that gave me a wtf moment when I saw it in recent memory
and usually I don't particularly care about these kinds of things.

It is a village in a caldera
why does it have walls?
I think the MC's face in that page matches mine 100%

Caldera village makes sense
but
why do you have WALLS WITHIN WALLS
and not in the good way, but in the "you added another canal inside your anus" kind of way.
Congratulations
this is indeed -1
Cause that wall took a lot of effort. They had to HAUL all of that wood inside the cauldera and then make it into walls.
Walls that serve zero purpose, because you can just bombard the WHOLE village from the top of the caldera.

What the fuck was the author thinking.
No
this is -2
Just because I am that fucking pissed off at the very idea of someone's idiotic mind potentially spawning this into existence in some multiversal madness of a world!
No, -3, just because I wrote this long of an answer it gets deduced another point. The only way this village gets a positive score is, if that volcano blows up an they all die!

The manga looks interesting, thanks for that.

 

[Painasbread]

https://mangadex.org/title/2305dc0f...rium-ghost-travel-the-art-of-sakatsuki-sakana
I don't think that's a good propostion to what you're asking for, but maybe you'll find it interesting.

https://mangadex.org/title/7f9eee54-94ac-4872-bb66-51ba93b87467/city-of-sands
Good luck rating this city lmao (I won't post pictures, that'd be spoiling it )

At least I hope you'll like reading what I'm sending

 

[Madologist]

Good luck rating this city lmao

It's a magical moving sand hill that produces buildings based on the memories of people and conjunctively works as a metaphor of things changing and learning to deal with that.

What do you want me to exactly rate there?

 

[malagigi_encantatore]

Castle? Usually queen-side but I know it’s arrogant

 

[hazzack]

castle-nim from the wonderful land of manhwaland

 

[Madologist]

castle-nim from the wonderful land of manhwaland

That's a popular asset, hope the original designer got compensated.
The worlds are I presume modeled after baroque or later Europe and may or may not have magic. Very original, much Otome Isekai. Bonus points if MC is a villainess.

Feasibility: 5-9 depending on the actual setting it's featured in. Could historical 17th-18th century people build that, yes. Would it be a good investment to build it... no. It's way too big. However, this might be more of an issue of the people using the design. I have a feeling, it's intended to be a lot smaller, large still, but within realistic scope. If the setting it's in has magic and it's commonly used in construction, then I see no issue in building a palace that big.
Score: 6, learn to downsize, your micropeen doesn't need to be highlighted that much.


Design & layout: I can't decide do I like it or hate it, I flipflop between the two. At a glance it's a nice castle style palace. Huge and just radiating grandeur, very in line to a powerful kingdom, aiming to both impress and intimidate. You could easily toss this into a Souls game and most wouldn't bat an eye. I like the towers, the side ones and the central one, must have an excellent view from there. The gate-arch is grand, if not overly so, to the point it's so large, it must have been a pain to construct and to maintain. Hope they have elevators, cause whoever resides/works in the top floors must otherwise have quite the legs. The connecting arch between the main tower and the gate arch is a nice addition. I really like connecting bridges as a design, and more buildings should have them. The turrets everywhere are distracting, however, it's actually quite accurate to the 17th-19th century castle-palaces/manors. They really loved to stick them where ever they could, so can't fault these guys for it.
So... where are the windows? The gate arch, main tower, bridge and side towers all lack windows. You build something that big and you don't add in windows for people to take in the view? What's the point in that? For that matter, add in some balconies too, so you can really look down on your subjects while sipping your bewerage of choice.
What's up with the side towers. Two of them are hexagonical and more of a spire design, but then the last one is square and resembles an actual defensive castle tower? Keep your style consistent!
Score: 7½, I guess I like it. It's clearly a "lego" build made from various 3d pieces that were combined by some asset designer into Castle-nim. For what it is, it's quite good and explains why it's used so much by various background artists. It's still all over the place, but as someone, who makes trpg stuff similarly, I can't judge it that hardly. However, if this is original 3d art, then I'd drop the score to 7-.

Defensibility: It's a big complex surrounded by a wall that forces you to assault it from limited directions, mainly the front courtyard and then the gate-arch. But in those terms an office building is a well-defended structure. Sure you can force the enemy to many bottlenecks and tight-space fights, allowing the defender to negate the numbers advantage, but this presumes that the assaulting enemy isn't made up of elites that excel in this kind of combat. Bottlenecks serve quality and that isn't always on the side of the defender. The palace itself offers very little visible advantages to the defender: no walkable walls, no balconies, arrow slits, the towers and turrets are decorative and the scarcity of windows doesn't help either. Then again, this clearly is a palace/manor made to resemble a castle and not an actual defensive structure. However, you can still design your castle-manor to be defensible, without losing on style points.
In terms of a siege, useless. It doesn't look that sturdy and would fare badly under bombardment. Since it's a palace, if it's besieged, then the city around it has already been taken, including all the actual defenses and it's game over.
Score: 5, it does give some advantage to the defender and it would be a good last stand location, but it isn't and wasn't designed to be defensible. Planting your flag on top of that arch would result in a good photo op, just remember to remove any signs of looting from the soldiers featured.

Overall score: 6½.
For a lego background asset it's passable. There are things I like about it, like the connecting bridge, but those then highlight the issues I have with it. Really, add some windows for views sake! How to say it, the design started out good, but then the creator gave up when adding the details and submitted, what essentially is a beta version. And it really is too big, even for fantasy. This is a very common issue in manwhaland, for that matter, their sense of scale sucks. Don't rely on store assets that much either!
If this was a video game location, I bet there'd be greatbow archers sniping you, when you are forced to walk on the top of the bridge.

Amusingly, I've never met Castle-nim and I do read a lot of korean stuff.