A town in the tropical dry forest, on a river

With what grows here (millet, rice, pulses), this land can feed a town of about 31,000 people from farms less than a day's cart from its walls, about the size of Toulouse around 1300.

Build a town in the tropical dry forest, on a river

A town of 10,000 here

Its grain comes from 14 km around, 1 day by cart (comfortable). About 420 villages and 79,000 country people farm it, and the town keeps about 40 scholars. Grown to 40,000 people, its grain comes from 29 km around, 1.5 days by cart (strained). Grown to 150,000 people, its grain comes from 55 km around, 2.5 days by cart (fragile). A city of 1,000,000 cannot live off this land alone.

In history

Vijayanagara, the "City of Victory", was founded in the early 14th century by the Sangama brothers on the Tungabhadra river, in the semi-arid Deccan of southern India. Its walls enclosed more than sixty square miles, much of it fields and gardens watered by canals from the river. Sluiced canals led the river into irrigation tanks, and aqueducts carried water to stepped tanks in the royal centre. Sorghum, cotton and pulses grew in the dry land, rice and sugar cane in wetter districts. Foreign visitors put the population near half a million, a figure historians still debate. The Portuguese Domingo Paes, there in 1522, called it "the best-provided city in the world".

Its wealth made it a target. In January 1565 a coalition of Deccan sultanates defeated its army at Talikota and beheaded its de facto ruler, Aliya Rama Raya. The victors then looted and burned the capital for months. It was never rebuilt. The Italian Cesare Federici, passing two years later, found the houses standing but empty, with nothing living in them "but Tygres and other wild beasts". Some villages of its hinterland were never fully emptied, and settlements founded in its day are still lived in. A generation earlier, between 1525 and 1527, King Krishnadevaraya had lined the river with stone walls against floods.

How large a city?

Living there

Its woods spare enough to burn: about 3,500 tonnes of wood a year for its hearths and workshops. Provisional figure.

Its market sells grain, flax, cotton, sugar cane and spices, and buys iron and salt. About 27 market towns stand in its countryside.

About 25% of what its people eat does not come from the fields. Of that share: herds 33%, fish 35%, gardens 33%. That is some 1,800 livestock units on 27 km² of pasture, and about 430 fishers in 110 boats. Hearth estimate.

What makes it hard

• The river gives and takes. Its floods eat away the banks, and a ruler who wants to keep his fields must line them with stone.
• River water does not reach the fields by itself. Canals with sluices lead it into storage tanks, and whoever opens and shuts the sluices decides who has water in a dry year.
• Away from the river the country is semi-arid. Fields there live on wells, which the authorities watch over.
• A rich river capital unites its neighbours against it. One lost battle can bring months of looting and leave an empty city.

Hard years

About one year in 8, the harvest falls below four fifths of a normal one: the town is short of some 550 of the 1,900 tonnes of grain its land gives it, and the water lets it bring the gap in. A plague that kills 39% of the town, as the Black Death did in Europe's towns, would leave about 790 km² of its fields idle.

What it can make

Grain, Flax, Cotton, Sugar cane, Spices, Dye plants, Orchards, Herbs, Maize, Wool, Horses (at a cost), Cattle and hides, Cheese, Pigs and bacon, Goats, Honey and wax, Silk, Ivory, Timber, Charcoal, Fish, Shipyards

What it lives on

Millet, Rice, Pulses

Underground

What a city digs depends on the rock under it: Granite, Volcanic rock, Ultramafic rock (peridotite, serpentinite), Schist and gneiss, Marble, Limestone and chalk, Sandstone, shale and clay, Salt beds, River gravels and sands

Found here

Gathered (Rerum): Activated Charcoal, African Buffalo Hide, African Buffalo Meat, Agave Leaf, Amaranth Seed, Beeswax Block, Beetle Wing, Capybara Hide

Hear it

• The town: City in the Jungle (album RPG Ambiences Vol. 8)
• The market: Medieval Village Marketplace (on Patreon, Guardian tier)
• The quays: Medieval Harbor District (on Patreon, Guardian tier)
• The countryside: Walking in a Jungle (on Patreon, Guardian tier)

Tropical Dry Forest in Biomes: plants, animals, hazards and sounds

The same climate

A town in the tropical dry forest, A town in the tropical dry forest, on the coast

By city size

1,000, 3,000, 10,000, 30,000, 100,000, 300,000, 1,000,000

Sources

• Wikipedia contributors, Vijayanagara, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2026. en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia contributors, Vijayanagara Empire, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2026. en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia contributors, Hampi, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2026. en.wikipedia.org
• Wikipedia contributors, Tungabhadra River, Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 2026. en.wikipedia.org

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