Superhero 2044 Second Edition Revised :: Bloomberg Map

Overview

Following on from my earlier effort for updating the maps within Superhero 2044.

Quandary

I decided to pursue the inevitable; getting the Bloomberg City map refactored. To my surprise, the labeled scale for the original map is at 1 hex = 200 meters which is not the same as the label. So I was in a quandary because I had to make a choice to go with a larger scale of 125 meters per hex in order to fit into my scaling rules, or make the artwork be at 200 meters per hex. This is a logistics issue because I had already built the full island map and that took about two weeks worth of work.

I looked closer and the rendition of the original art and I discovered that there's also issues pre-existing on it. Take a look at the top-left (East); the roads I have from the 500 meter/hex scale don't fit with whatever was provided originally.

The RED roads are the accurate vector lines I used for the 500-meter map of Inguria Island. When overlaid upon the "200-meter" map of Bloomberg city, it can be seen that the roads (black lines) of the original artwork don't line-up correctly. BTW, that portrait box shows the extent of the 8.5x11 layout.

This made it easier for me to decide; I'll go with 125 meters per hex. At that scale, not all of the original map will fit into an 8.5x11 sheet were I to keep the dimensions of the hexagons I'm currently standardizing against. So, what I'll eventually do is create two renders; one for a letter, and one for 11x17 tabloid.

Suburbs

Another area where I wanted to make a decision was the suburbs. The original map has these tiny little ovals. I didn't know what they meant when I first started my campaign those many decades ago, and presumed that they were an abstract representation of a neighborhood. Sort of sparse.

This is a zoomed in image of the suburbs of Inguria. WTF are those ovals supposed to be? I decided that they've got to be circular streets. Any houses along these streets are not rendered.

I did some recent research on how neighborhoods are supposed to look within a planned community, which I presume that Inguria Island would have many such. I found that modern cul-de-sacs are more space-economic when they are using honeycomb designs. However, this arrangement can get pretty noisy for a game map.

An ideal arrangement for suburban streets is the honeycomb.

A very dense honeycomb neighborhood.

I decided to show just the main suburban access streets. It's about 140 single-family homes per street, with about 15 streets shown. That is about 2000 houses. According my drawing tool, I have 540 hexagons in that suburbs area. If I were to correctly decorate that area using honeycomb tiles with some variation where I add some marketplaces, social venues, fire-houses, etc.; I'd have a 10,000 buildings for 2.5 people (single person or married couple + 1 or so kids) . And this is presuming that the rocky hills of Inguria in that part of the island have been leveled and shaped correctly.

I'll eventually add low-rise apartments in the suburbs as well; these should be able to support an additional 10-20 K people. My notes tell me that the middle-class population should be around 50,000 citizens. I'm guessing the majority live in the Central district. This I think will be OK; it would be similar to living on Manhattan Island in New York, NY which has a much higher population density; about 1.6 million people in 60 square kilometers (27K/KM^2). Bloomberg's Central City just needs to support about 150,000 people within its 7 square kilometers (21K/KM^2).

Anyhow, here's the 125-meter scale map of Bloomberg City. It's a work-in-progress.

Bloomberg at 125-meters per hex. WIP. Once I figure out the tessellation pattern for the suburbs I'll update the map.