"Building Troy" Topic

I have enough models now to start arranging them on the tabletop and begin to see how my city of Troy will take shape.

It was never my plan to model the whole city. Troy may have had a population of as many as 10,000. It was a substantial town. My plan is to represent a corner of the city and have my models take up a corner of the tabletop.

I'm beginning with the citadel wall that encircled the inner town. This wall has every reason to be the most iconic feature of the city because of the truly impressive remains of its substructure that can still be seen at Hisarlick. The idea I have is that the citadel wall will make a 90-degree arc from one table-edge to another. The inner town will be behind the citadel wall. The outer town and outer wall will be in front. Once the citadel wall is mapped out I'll know roughly how many models are needed.

I experimented with having the East Gate model right up against the table-edge – that's to say, the northern end of the wall's walkway going off table. From the gateway, the actual wall then courses south with a slight inward turn towards the East Tower.

I designed a number of angled wall sections that could be used as modular components. The idea being that they should be modular divisions of the full 90-degree arc that I need.

The actual section of wall between the East Gate and the East Tower at Hisarlick angles so slightly that it could be represented on the tabletop as straight but I thought it looked better with a slight curve so I designed a wall section with a 15-degree inward angle.

At the same time, I designed another wall section with a 30-degree inward angle. Two sections each of these two inward curve sections can complete a 90-degree arc.

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Nice looking walls.

Beautiful work!

Looks grand, congrats!

The bulk of the town was indeed located outside of the citadel walls, so you're good…

Further along the wall from the East Gate stood the East Tower.

The East Tower was actually an addition that was built over the existing curtain wall specifically, it is more than likely, to protect the approach to the East Gate.

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I have all the models I need now to see how my citadel wall of Troy is going to look.

Here they are in the state they're in at the moment, creating a 90-degree arc to position at a table corner.

My tabletop is made up of 200mm-square terrain tiles. These can be raised and stepped to create higher ground by placing polystyrene tiles under them. With my models in position, this is my opportunity to plan how big and how high my mound of Troy will be.

Troy was built-up directly behind the citadel walls. The buildings here were grander than the ones in the Lower City outside the citadel. I had to be careful not to go wild and create a mound that was so high that any tall buildings inside the citadel looked as if they had little or no protection from the citadel walls.

There were also other ground level considerations to take into account. The ground at the gateway points should be level enough either side of the wall. However, the ground behind the East Tower, for sure, was higher than it was in front. At the moment I'm just going to leave opportunities for these features to evolve. There are a lot of things to take into consideration to be able to cram as many features as possible into what is a tight space but I think at this stage I have the groundwork of a good plan.

Here are the beginnings of my mound of Troy.

What would a model of Homer's Troy be without Priam's palace? I have reserved a square building plot at the summit of my polystyrene mound for a palace. It's literally as much space as I can afford to give it. The shape and size of my mound of Troy is basically dictated by the space required for a palatial building. Meanwhile I'm left with the slopes around the site, between the palace's building plot and the citadel walls, as space for the grand buildings of the citadel.

Although the summit of Troy's mound was carved off by Hellenistic building projects and Heinrich Schliemann's pioneering enthusiasm did irreplaceable damage to the mound, the citadel of Late-Bronze-Age Troy must have been similar to the citadel of Mycenae with a palace on the summit and buildings linked by ramps and stepped walkways. Mycenae's principle thoroughfare is sometimes pleasingly referred to as a chariot road.

Like Mycenae, I'm going to have a ramp that rises from the principle gate – the South Gate (referred to today only, the day of a big match, as Gareth) – up to the palace on the summit. This will be Troy's principle thoroughfare. I think there needs to be an alternative route up to the palace, especially for gaming purposes. Here's a stepped ramp I've made as a pathway from the East Gate up to the palace.

It's time to get my first citadel house on the tabletop.

I have a walkway, now I'm designing a house to fill my building plot. It all has to fit on one 200mm-square tile. I'm eager to use the level step on the walkway and have an entrance to a house there. I'd also like another doorway on the other side of the building. However, this will mean paring down the building plot as I'll need walkways on either side of the tile. Although space is tight, I'm trying to have all the walkways of the Citadel around 50mm wide to make them as functional as possible for gaming. As I'm giving myself the job of designing a building with an even more reduced footprint, it might be surprising that my plan is also to design not one single but two attached houses!

To make the citadel houses look grander than the houses of the Lower City, I'm experimenting with adding a bit of colour. Not too much or too strongly coloured as Bronze Age pigments would have been natural – earth colours are a good bet – and likely to fade quite readily in the Anatolian sun.

The building has more generous height than my Lower City designs and the doors are somewhat finer in style. All in all, the Citadel should be a more desirable place to live! One further addition will be joining up the walkways with paving slabs to complete the urban look of the townscape.

I've put the East Gate in position, here. My plan is to have both these models up against the table edge. It's good to see how the different heights work together. And also the closing in of the urban space!

I've decided to increase the height of the mound by sticking another tile on top. My main concern is whether I can design a ramp that can rise from the level of the South Gate up to the top of the mound in the available space. And especially, design a ramp that isn't so steep that my Trojan warriors instantly fall over!

Putting a house of the Lower City on the outside of the wall gives a sense of scale and a chance to see the different styles of houses together, and how the setup from the Lower City up to the Citadel Mound will shape up.

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