Roman Fort

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Currently a work in progress. I'll post updates and eventually the schematic files here.

[Now complete]

This is the floor plan mostly worked out, I just need to add a couple more buildings. This is the hardest part of any large build, working out a decent floor plan, once you get that right the rest of it flows quite quickly. This one will end up being a little over 300 x 300 nodes.

Cheers,

Andrew.

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One of the gate houses taking shape.

You can see in the picture that I'm doing the landscaping as well. Although this isn't a model of any fort in particular it should end up being a reasonable depiction of Roman military infrastructure and building style.

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I'm quite pleased with the way this is working out. It's not as difficult as I first thought.

All the defences are in place now and all the landscaping is done.

Cheers,

Andrew.

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Progressing nicely so far.

Soldier's barracks, ablutions block and stables are complete.

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This model fort is not based on any specific Roman fort but is instead what the Romans would have built if given a perfectly flat open space to build on. They were quite clever at adapting their designs to suit the lay of the land, what I'm building here is the ideal that they would have striven for.

At around the time of Christ there was not another army in the world that could tackle one of these forts.

It was a self sustaining home for around 700 people, all of them military either in mind or in body. 480 foot soldiers in squads of 20, 20 seargents, about 30 light cavalry, and a squad of 120 archers. Plus the commander with his family and his retinue of servants and auxilliaries, and a few skilled artisans such as masons and blacksmiths.

When you build in a square your most vulnerable points are the 4 corners, someone could sit on the limit of range with a stone thrower and pound your walls to rubble and you'd only be able to get a few archers close enough to do any good. Drum towers (circular) are much more resistant to shocks and impacts from outside than square towers. If you make the drum tower really big and solid you can mount your own stone throwers on it and get better range from the height advantage. These would typically throw large groups of smaller stones, 0.5 to 1 kilogram in weight, when thrown from a great height they are deadly. This was called "shot".

The next most vulnerable place of course is the gates. If you have a steep slope leading up to your gates it's almost impossible to get a battering ram up to it and if you do manage to do that then it has almost no power on it's upswing and is completely useless.

If you further throw up another high mound of dirt around your fortification it makes life that much harder again for attackers. Going down into gullies and back up the other side again is near impossible for heavy siege engines, and that's if the ground is baked dry and hard. But these mounds and gullies serve another purpose, going up and down hill like that is extremely exhausting for the attacking troops, horses carrying a man with armour and weapons will be completely exhausted and useless if the attempt is made at any better speed than a walk.

Anyone getting past the outer wall has another gully to traverse and slow them down further. Where troops regularly passed in and out the ground would get ground to dust in Summer and when it rained it would become sticky clinging mud, it was left this way quite deliberately. They also did all of their training exercises outside the walls and mounds in the cleared area before the trees, this area would also eventually become a quagmire of either loose dust or clinging mud depending on the weather.

Trees were cleared as far back as an extremely long arrow shot from the top of the wall to keep enemies from approaching too close unseen.

Tops of walls were never lit, looking at the light causes guards to become "night-blind" and also highlights them as easy target practice. Instead the walls were lit with torches in sconces around the base of the walls. For the same night-blindness reason buildings were only lit on the inside so guards on patrol wouldn’t look directly at a light. Light where you need it and not where you don't.

After Marcus Gaius reformed the Roman Military it became much better organised and at the same time much more flexible in it’s capabilities. A Legion consists of 500 men, 480 foot soldiers and 20 Seargants, likely mounted.

Foot soldiers, the Legionnaires, were in squads of twenty men, one of whom would be designated as the Corporal. They were trained with the Gladius, (short sword) the Pilum (javelin) and Pikes. (long polearms for defence against horse) They had to be experts with all of these, if they performed poorly a Seargant could order a Decimation.

This meant that the Corporal had to kill 1 in 10 of his squad, 2 men. The Corporal had to kill them personally, and immediately, on demand. Corporal Punishment. As well as being soldiers each Legionnaire had to have a trade or vocation, so when they weren’t on military duty they were also farmers and builders and sadlers and fletchers amongst other things.

The fort was self supporting with wheat and animal farming, pigs, goats and chickens. The pigs provided both meat and leather, goats provide both meat and milk, chickens provide both meat and eggs as well as feathers for arrow fletchings. They were very efficient people.

If well enough established there would also be a large water cistern in the centre of the camp, with a fountain. The fountain would have to be run by men operating a hand pump but it was for a good reason, it keeps the water fresh and drinkable by oxygenating the water. Still water becomes stagnant and can make people ill.

As you can see in the image below I’m getting there, just the Commander’s quarters and the temple to go. Plus I still have to furnish some of it.

Cheers,

Andrew.

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The Commander's Residence is now done, although it still needs furniture. It takes quite a while to do those rooves.

Next comes a temple, probably to Mars, a fountain in the middle, and more furniture throughout. Plus I think I need to make the gullies for the defences a bit deeper. Overal it's coming along nicely.

And I just remembered another important feature, it needs a bee apiary. Although honey was a pleasant treat it was more important for it's supply of wax. Bee's wax was used for the maintenance of timber and leather as well as making Waxed Cotton which was used for both stitching leather and making bow strings.

Cheers,

Andrew.

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All the buildings are now complete.

I just have to finish furnishing two of them and do a bit more landscaping.

Cheers,

Andrew.

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It's now complete. The Commander's Residence is unfurnished, feel free to put your own ideas in there. The rest is furnished properly.

391 x 391
Position 1 is ground level.

3.7 million nodes.

Cheers,

Andrew.