Minecraft: Vaubans Fortress

Vauban was the foremost military engineer of the late 17th and beginning 18th century, and he built dozens of fortresses for Louis XIV. Typical for his art is the star-shaped fortress, which allows fire from one bastion to cover all space in front of a wall or another bastion.

This is my take on such a fortress. It’s loosely based on the fort of Bayonne (high-resolution pictures can be found at Wikimedia Commons: Citadelle de Bayonne), since that one is rather square than pentagonal and so lent itself to easier implementation in Minecraft. Well, easier, not exactly easy.

It measures 260 by 244 blocks. Now it also becomes clear why I needed compact designs of Minecraft Cannons. These go onto the ramparts in numbers. There should be 47 short guns (my “carronade”) and 40 long guns (my cannon mk1 and mk2) on there…

Within the citadel of Bayonne are some not-very inspiring barracks-type buildings, which I initially planned to build as well, but then I found an Isometric view of the Citadel of Bayonne which made clear that I was off anyway, and my fortress wasn’t really Bayonne. So thought what the heck, we’ll go for baroque, all the way, with garrets and an onion-domed tower. I got me some more inspiration in the form of baroque mansions and town halls, and put a mélange of them on there.

And that’s how the whole thing looks, at dusk:

Well, that’s about it, here’s the level and schematic:

The license of these files and my screenshots is the OPL 1.0 (which is about the same as CC-by-sa); the original plan of Bayonne is of course public domain.

The fortress lives best about 6 blocks up from the level ground on some slight hill, that’s why the level has it raised by this (it’s just the hill missing under it). Some small details are unfinished, namely the portal on the other side, and some kind of outer gateway fortification (you’ll notice, the modern one seen in the isometric drawing is quite different than the one on the original plan). It is about half equipped with furniture, as well as half filled with stuff, Most noteably, it’s got several huge powder magazines, The screenshots were taken on my survival map, the dowloadable level is flat.

Update: I updated the level and schematic, the fortress other entrance is now useable, has portals (automatic ones), a towerlet over one of the portals, and some gardening (hedges, fountains and lanternposts) done.

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