After a break with city graphics, I start working on a german city. There's no preview yet, but I'll post it here asap...

I don't know Germany as well as I know Wallonia, France, Greece or even Flanders. But I would like to make something so that our german friends feel like playing home ;) I need help for :
- ancient germanic village : what should it look like ? what kind of houses ?
- traditionnal german houses
- some informations about germans medieval cities
- pictures, from above is better, of great german buildings ( Cathedral of Köln, Reichstag, town hall, Trier's gate, ... ) I should include in the city.
- should I include bauhaus ?
- Are their regional differences ? What about austrian architecture ?

Thanks for helping :)

I don't know terribly much about ancient germanic houses, but I do know that they often had doors that were hinged at the top (and during the day were often propped open). Additionally, if we can judge from the old stave churches/shrines and reconstructed halls, they were wood with straw/thatch roofs at times (and small shingles at others, depending on climate I believe). The thatch roofs on the halls sometimes sloped all the way to the ground ( I am unsure if this is the same with shingle roofs). Additionally, many shrines were multi-tired and had dragon's heads on the various roof corners. Unfortunately, I have never been able to find pictures on the internet of them to show you but I hope that helped a little.

@Hugin : thanks, It gave me some ideas :)

Here's a very first preview for middle-age.
http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/allemagne_ma1.jpg

I like it, though it reminds me a lot of small modern german towns. If you'd like, I do have a picture of one of the old shrine/churchs that I could post/send... just as soon as I figure out how to do that.

Oh, one thing I forgot. All ancient germanic places would have The Thing. No, not a comic book superhero but the Thing was both a gathering place and a democratic (for the warriors) legislative body. Essentially, a town square though to my understanding few germanic settlements were close enough to be what we'd invission as a town.

If it looks german, it means I'm on the good way, thanks.

If you have pictures, please post it here. There's an upload function at every page bottom. Once the file is uploaded, copy the path and place it, with the right file name, in your post between [img*][/img*] ( but without the * of course )

I invite every german, austrian, swiss friends to post pictures and give me tips. I went to Luzern a four weeks ago, so that I am in a very "germanic" feeling ;)

Here (http://www.meinestadt.de/deutschland/tourismus/pix) is a link with some nice pics from german citys ;)

I hope this works, if not I will try again. Anywho, here are two churches, one taken from "The Hammer and the Cross" by Michael Rohan (now if only he was a rider....) and Allan Scott. That would be the one with the trees, and its location is near Oslo ( I have no idea where that is, however). The other, more detailed, picture is from "Myth and Religion of the North" by E.O.G. Turville-Petre. That is the "church of Borgund in Sogn (western Norway)". There is also a very faint germanic town in the background (but I can barely see it in the book, so I am not sure it will show up in the scan).

One thing to note is that both are Christian churches. It is believed that they were derived from the old pagan shrines (since structures like these don't just pop up out of no where) but, unfortunately, historian's aren't 100% sure. But just replace the crosses with more dragon heads (or Thor's Hammer) and you should do well.

~Hugin

Here's a first attempt for a complete middle-age set :

The church comes from a picture of a german village. The cathedral is the one of Köln.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/allemagne_ma2.jpg

I have some problems to have the same picture quality than with my flemish city. But I'll improve it.

For ancient era, I had an idea but I'd like to have some advice before doing it. Hugin told me to make a "Thing", a kind of square in the middle of town that was the place for decisions. I though about placing a big tree, some kind of sacred oak, in the middle of that "Thing". What do you think ?


EDIT : more than 500 posts !!!

Complete ancient and middle-age, with walled version :

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/allemagne_ma3.jpg

For ancient era, I made houses with straw/thatch roofs. There's a central square with a sacred oak.

I improved the quality of the picture for middle-age.

OOoooo, quite nice. The oak is a nice touch, though I haven't the slightest idea how accurate it is, especially since it is sacred to Thor (the Protector of Migdard). And I finally was able to find some more information of Norse villages, you can view it here (http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/daily_living/text/Villages.htm). Going off of my impressions from reading the Eddas and Sagas, most Nordic homes were a little more rectangle-ish and far less densely packed than you have them.

Did I say that I like the tree? :) Maybe it could "grow" with the city? Though, I suppose, that wouldn't make sense when the city shrinks...

Anywho, good stuff and keep up the good work.

@Hugin : I'm glad you enjoied it. I could make norse cities in the future, with the same sacred oak and more nordic houses ;) But it will have to wait I finished this and my next project ( british cities ).

Here's the preview of the industrial era.

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/allemagne_ma4.jpg

As I use to do for my european cities, I kept a core of old middle-age buildings. Surrounding industrial buildings are the same as my walloon industrial buildings. Industrial buildings in both countries are alike, so I didn't want to spent much time on making new german buildings. I hope it's not a problem.

The modern era will be much more specific ;)

Here's the modern era

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads8/allemagne_ma5.jpg