Help me settle a capital city

[Perfection]

Have two capitals. The nominal puppet capital in whatever strategic location you like from other CFCers. Than a underwater true secret capital where the shadow government resides and where you build, repair, and maintain your secret stealth submarine fleet.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

there's a scale in the bottom right corner - 1 px = 3 km

That means the map is depicting an area that's like, 3,000 km by 2,000 km

More continents than islands, I'd say.

Crap I missed that too. Thanks!

 

[Lexicus]

Np. This assignment would be a problem for me because I could spend like two weeks on it and still only have scratched the surface of my historical scenarios

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Np. This assignment would be a problem for me because I could spend like two weeks on it and still only have scratched the surface of my historical scenarios

Same here! I once was given an assignment to create an alien creature and me and a buddy turned it into an alien world-building exercise, despite the teacher telling us not to. We spun our wheels for a few weeks, basically got nowhere and turned in half-assed assignments that got low marks.

 

[Lexicus]

Same here! I once was given an assignment to create an alien creature and me and a buddy turned it into an alien world-building exercise, despite the teacher telling us not to. We spun our wheels for a few weeks, basically got nowhere and turned in half-assed assignments that got low marks.

Me and my brother used to draw random fictional maps and then populate them with polities and a history for fun. So getting an assignment to basically do that for school (while eliminating the step of having to draw the map) would have been something else

 

[Hrothbern]

Same here! I once was given an assignment to create an alien creature and me and a buddy turned it into an alien world-building exercise, despite the teacher telling us not to. We spun our wheels for a few weeks, basically got nowhere and turned in half-assed assignments that got low marks.

same here
at primary school designing underground huts, at secondary first all kinds of smart locks and when I was expelled for some months from English lessons, used that time for a deep dive in the theorama of Fermat (then still unproven).
It became an obsession and I spend most of my time that year in other lessons (got everywhere low marks) scribbling an amazing amount of formula's together before I gave up at the start of the next school year.

 

[inthesomeday]

Me and my brother used to draw random fictional maps and then populate them with polities and a history for fun. So getting an assignment to basically do that for school (while eliminating the step of having to draw the map) would have been something else

As though drawing the map isn’t the best part...

 

[Lexicus]

As though drawing the map isn’t the best part...

Meh. Drawing the map is usually cool but there is something also fun about taking a map that's given to you and working with it.

 

[BvBPL]

At that scale, the lake is almost ten times the size of Lake Victoria. Better than twice the size of the Mediterranean.

 

[Broken_Erika]

At that scale, the lake is almost ten times the size of Lake Victoria. Better than twice the size of the Mediterranean.

It should be called "The Sea of Big Water"!

 

[red_elk]

Have two capitals. The nominal puppet capital in whatever strategic location you like from other CFCers. Than a underwater true secret capital where the shadow government resides and where you build, repair, and maintain your secret stealth submarine fleet.

And the emperor's secret residence in a bunker inside a mountain. With secret railroad connecting it with the secret capital.

 

[inthesomeday]

Meh. Drawing the map is usually cool but there is something also fun about taking a map that's given to you and working with it.

When I was a really little kid, like 8 or 9, I would make big empty maps with continents and natural geography but no borders or cities. I always tried to emulate earth geography as best I could but I also wanted to use all my colors so there would be all kinds of fantastical biomes, like continent-sized volcanic fields or vast plains of exposed gold and coal. It wasn’t until I got a bit older that I got more into designing cultures and polities, but when I did each had to have an intricate and in-depth history to it.

To answer @Authopius I’ll suggest something that should’ve been suggested already: put a city on the island of the west island’s largest lake, Tenochtitlan style. The world’s cleanest and fastest growing city for a pretty long time, all without rice or an irrigatable river, and largely thanks to the lake.

 

[Perfection]

And the emperor's secret residence in a bunker inside a mountain. With secret railroad connecting it with the secret capital.

One of those 700mph Elon Musk pneumatic tube gizmos.

 

[BvBPL]

Having a secret kingdom hidden under a mountain always sounds good, but you have to consider that digging that deep has the potential to attract the attention of the Saurians of Hollow Earth. Not to mention Mole Man. Reed Richards is a busy guy; he can’t always drop everything and zip off in his flying car.

 

[Perfection]

Dig to Hell overthrow the demons and create an army of the damned.

 

[Mouthwash]

If somewhere like DC, Rome, Naypyidaw, or Brasilia can be a capital city, then anywhere could be a capital city. It all comes down to political and historical context.

Wait, Rome? Built on hills, near the coast, on one side of a large river? Smack-dab in central Italy with room for expansion in any direction?

(Also, I suspect DC was chosen because it was a strategic backwater, and modern cities like Naypyidaw or Brasilia shouldn't count.)

 

[Verbose]

It depends on when.
4,000 BC you want to be at the delta of a long river with a lot of fertile silt for arable soil (like Egypt and Sumeria) and coming from enough mountain area to have still enough fresh water in the winter to drink and for transport.
All the crosses are ok for that.
The bold cross has the advantage that it borders to a protected sea that enables transport to a huge coastline to grow around your capital over time.

View attachment 492681

I'd also go with something like this. The western island is not THAT rugged, in particular the northern part around that narrow bay stretching DEEP into the continent has a lot of good flat land.

I would put the X further north at one of the narrows, where it can better control sea traffic passing. The whole layout of these "islands" is such that there should be a LOT of sailing involved. That would render most of the interior of these lands fairly uninteresting, EXCEPT for this huge, narrow bay + rivers effectively opening the entire western continent up to sailing. I'd consider that a strategic advantage. The capital sits at the entrance to this huge system of potential internal waterways. It's faster and a damn sight easier to move along this than to sail around things.

 

[innonimatu]

To answer @Authopius I’ll suggest something that should’ve been suggested already: put a city on the island of the west island’s largest lake, Tenochtitlan style. The world’s cleanest and fastest growing city for a pretty long time, all without rice or an irrigatable river, and largely thanks to the lake.

Tenochtitlan was mentioned. The problem with putting it on an island (or even near the shores) of a lake is the latitude: if the area has a tropical climate, odds are it will be a disease-ridden area. A river delta would be much worse, that would be disease-ridden for sure. The lake is a good bet (my bet also), provided it is high enough (or the land rises near the shore) to have a temperate climate.

One amazing thing with Egypt was how they managed to have some cities in the delta of the Nile. Even so much of the delta was not densely occupied. The big cities were beyond Memphis, in the upper Nile. Alexandria was an exception, a late city sustained mostly through administration and trade. Which declined steeply when Egypt broke politically with the broader Mediterranean.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Have two capitals. The nominal puppet capital in whatever strategic location you like from other CFCers. Than a underwater true secret capital where the shadow government resides and where you build, repair, and maintain your secret stealth submarine fleet.

Underwater deep sea building would like what 10 times more expensive then building on the surface.
Unless there was some vital resources that would make building deep water city worthwhile

It would be a very cool, experimental city for sure, but if you have to fiances and resources for an underwater city, build a space ladder and a floating space city.
Ideally position to launch into the solar system

 

[metatron]

Tenochtitlan was mentioned. The problem with putting it on an island (or even near the shores) of a lake is the latitude: if the area has a tropical climate, odd are it will be a disease-ridden area. A river delta would be much worse, that would be disease-ridden for sure. The lake is a good bet (my bet also), provided it is high enough (or the land rises near the shore) to have a temperate climate.

Well that's a problem too. My original issue with the lake though was that there are no major rivers going into it and the mountains are rather far away. It's quite possible for the entire damn thing to be brackish water.