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The Classic
Castle City
Standard
-This standard was created at Brickfest
2003 by the Castle Roundtable Discussion chaired by Ben Medinets.
Purpose
This
standard is meant to provide an easy way for various people to work
together to build a large cohesive castle display. Since this concept is
specifically designed for displaying purposes, many elements (such as the
need for a coordinator) are included. Please do not let this limit
creativity.
At Brickfest, we found the central problem in
designing a castle standard has been the streets. Castle villages were not
cohesively designed until the late medieval ages, and therefore a grid
like design would seem anachronistic. At BrickFest 2003, we came up with
the solution. This will be illuminated as you read below.
Another
key issue in developing this Standard was to walk the line between larger,
more detailed creations ( such
as Dan Siskind’s Blacksmith Shop ), and keeping the standard simple
enough so that any person with a moderate collection could contribute.
Furthermore, this Standard does not conflict with earlier
standards, such as the Medieval Marketplace.
The Standard
The Basic grid
of the standard is the 32 x 32 green baseplate (from here on out, it will
be called the 32 baseplate). Wall sections will be built directly onto the
32 baseplate and will be able to attach to other wall segments. The
interior of these walled areas will be filled in with blank 32 baseplates.
The Wall segments are of two basic designs: straight and corner.
They are a
total of 8 and 1/3 bricks tall and 4 studs wide, hollow; and it runs down
the center of the 32 baseplate. You may notice that this is based off the
modular Classic Castle, such as the Guarded Inn, Black Falcon’s Fortress, and
King’s Castle. We decided
to make the walls 4 wide (the top area being 6 studs wide) to be more
accurate in the design, while still keeping with the versatility and
universality of the Standard.
The Corner pieces serve as towers.
The Wall segments attach to eachother with two technic bricks at
the ends of the wall.
Now the key to this standard is that these wall
segments are only the most basic form they can take. Don’t feel like using
wall pieces? Fine, build a brick wall. Want to build barding, or an Inn or
shop that is imbedded into the wall? Even building a non-straight wall is
fine, as long as it is 8 1/3 tall, and meets at exactly the center four
studs of the 32 baseplate.
A subsection of the straight walls, is
the Gate.
Again, this is a very basic design, but highlights
my earlier point: At either end of the gate, the walls are 8 1/3 tall, and
meet in the center.
For Displays, a Co-ordinator should be
chosen to make sure there are enough wall pieces and corner pieces to
complete an entire walled town.
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The
Village
So I’ve talked a
bit about the walls.. well, what about all the houses and shops that go
inside? This is where the Castle Round Table Committee got creative. Based
off of Jon Furman’s Provincial
Town and Anthony Sava’s Dahyart,
the Committee thought up a solution to the grid city problem.
Individual houses and shops should be built on plates (as
opposed to baseplates). These houses can then be placed liberally within
the Wall segments to create the winding roads of a medieval city. The
Houses can be of any size and any amount of detail: as long as they are on
plates.
The houses will be attached using 1x1 round plates.
Roads within the city would be formed by 2x2 round
grey plates. These form a very nice cobble-stone appearance, and the grey
plates are very cheap. In a display, the coordinator would be responsible for bring the required amount of plates, or making sure that they are
there (ie, finding someone else to bring them).
Compatibility
The
great thing about this standard, except it’s amazing versatility and
flexibility, is that it still conforms to the early Medieval Marketplace
standard. The MM is based off the 16x16 baseplate, which, if you have four
of them, transfers nicely into 1 32baseplate within the city walls of the
Classic Castle City.
Other Good
Things
As I said before,
this standard is beautiful because it is simple yet will produce a
realistic, attractive Medieval Town for display. But not only within the
town. By having the wall segments be in the middle of the 32 baseplate,
that means there are 14 studs outside the walls, which can be used to help
add to the display. Troops of Soldiers could be marching around, country
vendors could be selling their produce for the richer merchants who can
afford to be inside. Furthermore, the standard allows for larger creation,
like a keep of large townhouse, as long as it is built on to a
32baseplate.
Of course, you may also notice that there is the
possibility that different wall segments will have different colors or
style. However, medieval city walls were often built over decades, and
thus different building materials are used in different sections.
Furthermore, parts of the wall may have been damaged during an attack or
natural disaster, and so they would be rebuilt with possibly different
materials or style.
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This was written by Lenny Hoffman. If you need to contact him about the standard, please do not hesitate to email him. Thank you
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