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[Mlamlah]

.I'm not sure if this is what you meant, but our lands are of significant enough size that building walls on the edge of our lands would be a next to impossible task with the amount of labor and stone required, not to mention the ecological devastation that would be caused.

[Truean]

Sorry about that, I was unsure exactly how large our holding was. This is a good problem to have.

So we're clearly aiming for "around what is going to be our city with plenty of room to expand," then?

[GreatWyrmGold]

Sorry about that, I was unsure exactly how large our holding was. This is a good problem to have.

So we're clearly aiming for "around what is going to be our city with plenty of room to expand," then?

That's how I understand it.

And if we grow to the size of our walls and need to expand? Ask permission for new walls, of course! IIRC, "layers" of walls like that may not have been common, but they weren't unheard of.

[Truean]

I'd almost be happier focusing on a tower and living space for more soldiers.

Walls are nice and all, but they tend not to stab your enemies in the face.

[Gervassen]

I did another estimate, this time based on Chateau Galliard, which was built with remarkable speed in one-and-a-half years with 6000 workers. The stone was local. King Richard oversaw the building himself on site and drove them hard.

I measured Chateau Gaillard in photoshop, counting the towers as circular wall of said circumference, and came up with 467 meters of stonework tending to be 3 meters thick and 10 high, plus one Great Keep of unusual thickness and height.

We only want 6 meter high walls, but we want it 40% longer. That results in an overall volume of stone 84% of the Chateau without the Keep. Add the keep as our one allowed tower, and that's 1.25 years of work for 6000 men.

---

Okay, then. Let's set all this building in motion.

The Keep
A massive tower riverside on the downstream approach from the Count's lands:
20m tall, 16m inner diameter, 19m outer diameter.
6 storeys, 200 square meter floor area, 1200 square meters total

One floor would be enough to hold our garrison in a long siege, and our current town population of 200 could hide on two floors during a temporary emergency. This is a worthy keep, and a little larger than the Great Keep at the Chateau.

Time: ~3 months for 6000 men.


The Wall
6m tall, 3m thick, topped with bartizans.
640 meters long, enclosing three sides of a 250x200 plot, which can fit about 800 people in two-storey half-timbered dwellings, plus market and public buildings.

Time: ~1 years for 6000 men.

---

The secret is getting 6000 men, so crash construction with all of our revenues spent to bring outside workers, and all of our indentured inhabitants from the countryside (about 900 peasants) providing service on this when not in the fields.

Now the bright side, bringing that many people here ought to jump start the local economy and make our autumn fair a great rollicking crowd.

[Gervassen]

Mind if I join?

Well thought out strategies like those are always welcome. Especially not forgetting the Rat.

I'd almost be happier focusing on a tower and living space for more soldiers.

It would be easier, wouldn't it? One strong tower could be a refuge for all the townsmen in an emergency, and far more defensible with only 50 soldiers. Mlamlah is right, however, that a strong town wall will put us on the map as a place destined to be an important city, and provides the guarantee of safety that will lure rich and skilled folk to our door. When we gather 6000 men and begin building, it will be the talk of the kingdom.

[Urist McDwarfFortress]

What if we just don't enclose our town in a stone wall yet. Its growing quickly, and we can't accurately guage what it will look like, even 10 years from now. So instead of building a large stone wall, just build a little fort with one tower around our manor and maybe a few other important buildings (the barracks, perhaps?) while the rest of the town is protected by only the palisade.

That way, if the town comes under attack, we can hold the palisade until everyone evacuates into the fort, and then just give up the town and defend the relatively small fort. This concentrates our defenders, provided a relatively small area for the enemies to bring their force against, and its much cheaper and faster to build. Downsides: the refugees may be cramped and uncomfortable and the attackers may loot and destroy the town.

[Gervassen]

The ambition of it all actually swept me away for a moment, but okay. Our own peasantry from the countryside ought to be able to eke out a keep and a small enclosure in one year. Faster if we actually bring in workers. Let's make it a big keep, though!

[Mlamlah]

I think we should make slow and steady our motto for the time being, if we begin work on it slowly word with spread and we may get more labor as the project moves on. This month however, we should draw up plans, not build the thing just yet, i don't know if we even have skilled stonemasons.

[10ebbor10]

Since when does a tower equal a keep?

Technically, that would be an act of rebellion, though the GM's way to nice to punish us for that.

[tryrar]

Well we have skilled bricklayers, and laying bricks versus stone blocks isn't that different. It's shaping the blocks so they fit without mortar that's the difficult part.

Anyways, no to walls around ALL our lands(as pointed out that would take FOREVER, and it's just silly besides), yes to walls around the town. Also, we've got good housing already, and besides condo's/apartment building like structures would be an anachronism.

I like the rest of your stuff turean

Grev seems to have a good wall plan going so +1 to that, though remember walls in the middle ages were commonly two walls with a rubble-and-earth infill between them, and capped with more stone

Urist, it was common for cities to have multiple rings of walls as they outgrew the old set of walls, so that's not a real concern. Though we ARE building a tower riverside, so there's that.

[10ebbor10]

Technically, the Romans had insulae, which were 3-5 story appartements. They weren't known for their housing quality nor structural integrity though, and I'm pretty sure the knowledge to build them was lost.

[tryrar]

....10ebbor, I have to ask: Where the heck do you get all this obscure knowledge from

[10ebbor10]

....10ebbor, I have to ask: Where the heck do you get all this obscure knowledge from

No idea, actually. Tendency to remember stuff I read. (Mostly the nonimportant parts, but anyway)

Edit: The above information was slightly wrong. The things went as high as nine floors, according to wikipedia. And technically we can build them. Most were constructed out of wood, mud and bricks. Later they got concrete though.

[tryrar]

....Fair enough, though I doubt we'll be building them seeing as how the wikipedia description brings to my mind more along the lines of tenements rather than apartments; besides those things weren't exactly SAFE now were they?