"How To Make A Flooded City Board Work?" Topic

(I believe this ties into a discussion or two started by CC)
I want to do a 2x2 or 4x4 board for 15's, but I'm having a little trouble on realizing my vision :-p

Picture, if you will, an ultra-dense urban environment. Tons of mile-high buildings, raised roadways, walkways, etc.

Okay, now flood that sucker to a depth of 50-100 feet or so! On top of that, kill off most of the population so that 90% of the place becomes completely overgrown!

The upper parts of buildings rising out of the water is easy. What I'm having trouble with is the actual playing area. All the level ground is under water! And really, only gaming on some overlapping highways/walkways is kind of linear and boring- no matter how cool the rest of the scenery is :-(

Any ideas, guys? I've thought about 'plates' or tiers like you might see in Peace River, Midgar or Coruscant- but how do you represent that on the table, other than having a regular urban board and saying 'this is part of a tier.'

I really want to have a setup that:
A) Still presents the opportunity to see/use the water
B) Gives units other than jump-jet/pack troops a chance

Mission impossible?
Sigh :-\

SpleenRippa,

I was about to give up on the quest . . .

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Hopefully, someone will provide additional suggestions.

CC

You could use a thin layer of clear plastic to show where the water level is that way you can use the 'underwater' levels and the 'above water' levels, as well as on the water…
Mick

I still like the idea of only building whatever ruins that actually rise above the flood waters, and building those ruins as separate "islands" on MDF pieces that you can rearrange or remove completely, as it suits you.

That way, if you simply want a water table, all you have to do is remove all the ruin islands and voila, you have an instant sea/lake terrain table for other uses.

CC

Also, if the granite counter top in this photo is the water table, you could have MDF coastlines and river fords for other games, with the banks actually rising above the water, instead of having the river artificially above the ground level:

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CC

If people are still living in the buildings, you are going to have makeshift docks attached to the buildings at water level. Floating bridges will connect buildings/docks that aren't connected by skywalks and elevated roadways. What were major streets (large spaces between buildings) will be waterways, while smaller streets without skywalks will get the floating bridge treatment.

Thanks for the replies, guys.

CC,
I was thinking of using a layer of plexi floating above the board, as previously discussed- but I think you may be onto something with those LOTR photos. Hmm…

Having a 'coastline' like that might just be the solution. It could represent the edge of a plate, and still leave plenty of room for skyscrapers, floating debris, etc :-o

BillChuck,
You betcha there will be docks, shanties and all kinds of detritus from the inhabitants eking out their meager livings.
There will also be highway raiders, waterway pirates and a whole assortment of waterworld/madmax lowbrows stuffed in amongst the ruined arcologies and maglevs :-)

Hopefully some Sketchup layouts will be forthcoming. I just need to do some more conventional ones first…

By conventional, I meant sketches. Sketchup, sketches. Get it?
I'll stop. :-)

Also have a good look at the back streets of venice for ideas, the way the buildings interact with the canals will help with ideas.

The problem is that, with the rise in water level, the structures begin to collapse, so you will not have standing buildings for very long.

CC

About the collapse of some structures . . .

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CC

I'd take a look at photos of places like Hong Kong and Rio De Janeiro – fairly thing coastal "belts" of skyscrapers, with steep hills almost immediately adjacent; upping the water level somewhere like that will give a much more interesting look than a relatively flat city like New York, as you'll have bands of still-dry land overlooking "bays" full of the tops of high-rises etc.

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Dom.

PS – Obviously make the dry land jungle, mangrove swamp, etc – lots of nasty critters and predators to give people a good reason for wanting to live in the top of a flooded skyscraper…. ;-)

Dom,

"Obviously make the dry land jungle, mangrove swamp, etc –"

Maybe something like the Beirut "Green Line"?

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CC

Hmm, could be, although I was thinking more of it being land that previously wasn't much built on (eg. the hills of Hong Kong) and now sufficiently crawling with critters that you'd not want to try it even with the shortage of alternatives…. (Nice picture, though….)

I was thinking of having my city set in a giant crater or canyon system- only comfortably habitable spot on an otherwise desolate planet. Also full of useful algae, or some other resource to exploit (otherwise, why go there?).

Lots of geothermal heating and a naturally occurring underground water system to keep the populace wet. Life is great! Er… Until a large earthquake massively disrupts said water network- which proceeds to flood the bowl/canyon. Oops!

And these are sci-fi buildings. Who cares about the quality of the foundations ;-)

Ooh, I like the canyon idea….

Dom.

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I have though of a similar project in 1:300. Instead of tanks or AFV, I would use different typs of small crafts ( I think that there is a range of scifi small crafts). Instead of infantry I would use seabikes (you can use scifi grav bikes troopers for it). It would be cheaper and easy. ANd you still can use "dry" troops firing them from buildings, wooden bridges from building to building, etc..

In the comic AKIRA, you can find great images of a megacity destroyed, where some of the skycrapers falled almost without damage, so you can fight over they windows (sorry about my english) like dry ground

If you are not going to be using any ships, boats or other things which will moving be *on* the water surface, you could simulate the underwater part by painting it blue, green, brown or any other colour you think is suitable (green-blue is probably the best). Add some dense underwater plant growth for effect. If there are enough structures sticking above the water level and the colour contrast is strong enough, one will clearly see where the water level is supposed to be.

Take a look through this web comic freakangels.com/?p=45&page=6

It's a post apoc, steampunky setting in London after the sea rose. Some great drawings of the flooded streets and landmarks.

"Freak Angels" might give you some ideas freakangels.com at least for visuals.

Here's a suggestion – if I might. Build your city in sections – not only horizontally, but vertically as well. Build 4-story sections of buildings and have a sheet of plexiglass or the like laying across the first level (that'll be your water level) and then every 4 stories up. This way, you can make walkways that survivors would've crafted to connect "islands" and you can have a true 3-D game. And because the buildings are modular, you can quickly model different sections of the city simply by moving buildings and adding or removing building levels.

The only downside will be that your buildings will have to be kind of generic in appearance, but you should be able to construct the sections rather quickly.

Wyatt

To connect the buildings, the simples thing I can think of is having sections of collapsed building connecting various structures together. I.E. a section of a buildings wall collapsed connecting the 13th floor of one building to the 26th floor of another, etc.

Dont you just hate it when a thread on here gets you thinking? Time to get the modelling tools out… :-)
Mick

I like the flooded table idea and wanted to make one since reading that some cities where flooded in the Babylons Burning fluff years back.

I think plies of rubble islands are a good way to go. Some flyovers and raised concrete walkways may also remain.

If you wish to add some extra bits to increase movemnt with out swimming or boats then some home made wire/rope bridges inbetween buildings & rubble piles may be the way to go. Or as chaos0xomega mentions bits of rubble can form bridges too.

Dont forget most cities are not built on flat areas – so some raised areas/hills may be sitcking out of the water with ruins, rubble or buildings on them.

Some ideas:

- A floating shanty town and market
- A large ruined building turned into a fortress, ruled by the local waterway pirates
- Something with a large shattered dome on top :-)
- A destroyed monorail, cars hanging precariously
- Feral peoples living far from the remaining inhabited neighborhoods
- Food riots! Civilian figures everywhere
- Partially submerged nuclear reactor
- Spaceport, turned into a flea market
- Large algae/food factories
- Crashed ship of some sort, half embedded in a building

What kind of craft would the locals be using to ply the waterways?

- Simple barges and gondolas
- Ships that can sail close to the wind, maybe? Schooners or Xebecs? Galleys full of slaves?
- ACW style monitors?

Hmm…

How about a freeway overpass, turned into an above-water village of sorts?

CC

Bridges turned into cities. This has been in at least one movie I can remember, "Johnny Mnemonic" if I remember correctly.

As bad as most of the movie was, check out "Water World" for some ideas. The floating city and tanker were interesting.

The online superhero game "city of heroes", has areas of ruined cities. If you know someone who plays it, get them to print out some screenshots.

Make some dead trees with wreckage in them where the water line has subsided ( bodies,wrecked cars,tyres hanging from the boughs…etc)

I remember a scene in Waterworld when Kevin Kostner's character dives down into a submerged city. Maybe you could rent the video and get some ideas.

My idea would have a textured plexiglass from an overhead flourescent light as the water level. Figures below the water could be mounted on adjustable flight stands to better show how deep they were.

@ Typhoon
Anyone who knows Mr. Gibson, knows that bridges are the perfect place to build a slum/shanty town ;-)

"What kind of craft would the locals be using to ply the waterways?"

Old VW Beetles? They float, right?

Imagine a bunch of little "islands", like these:

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CC
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Now imagine some of those "islands" as a haven for Post-Apocalyptic pirates!

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CC

More great ideas here:

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CC

Imagine these intermodal container "homes" on top of a barge:

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CC

Ok here's a concept art idea of a flooded city
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Doug

Keep them ideas coming!

Can't wait to finally do it, or see some of you guys actually pull it off.

I just love this picture here:

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Dan
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UPDATE: Rebel now has the perfect set of figures to use as Post Apocalyptic pirates:

rebelminis.com/15afmiar.html

Dan
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