Welcome to the site, it may or may not prove to be a worthwhile exercise. This is a place to talk all things S & M (by which I mean Sim & Medieval, of course)
What I do want is to start posting images of lots & bats (as well as the lots & BATS themselves). I think we need to start from square 1 and that we should all have the same setup (meaning as new additions are created that we post them here for the others to get so that everything is being tested in multiple setups (and we can all have less boring cities quicker) Also having pictures up will aid the process of getting our heads around the overall visual design so there's some level of consistency in the project (and to pinch ideas from/be inspired by)
Well I needed to learn more but I'm back. I will soon start inviting people (and if you're reading this I most likely have). I am committed to this project, but hopefully won't be committed as a result of it.
There's a lot to try and figure out as I want to completely change the game (as much as is possible). At this point at least 2 of the tilesets will be used, representing rural and urban. This seems the best way to divide towns/cities from manors and villages. Thanks for joining and I want to hear ALL ideas, even if it means scrapping everything done so far and going in a different direction. It's clearly going to be a challenge to replicate feudal life, but I like challenges.
Sorry about the lame emoticons but you can't get everything in a free site. FWIW I use my own emoticon pages to copy & paste them when something better is required: emoticons.yolasite.com (which is the standard SC4D set), which links through to emoticons2.yolasite.com (for some less standard ones). I'll set up a links section in the menu bar above that will open the emoticons page in a new window/tab.
At this point I'm mostly just trying to get my head around the best way to tackle certain things. The biggest question seems to be whether tilesets or zoning density should be used to divide villages/towns/cities...
Horses as automata would be really great Dobs. I guess they sort of already are (as wild animals), we just need to get them in with the humans.
I think the idea of using different tilesets for villages and urban development will not work very well. There was not a big difference between a small town or a large village. You will pretty much need the same buildings for both kinds of development.
Also don't forget industry is not controlled by tilesets
You can use the tilesets to add new buildings over time, I do not think there is a way to block anyone from using all tilesets from the time they start the game.
Zoning is in my opinion the best way to control what will be growing where. But again I don't think there is a way to stop a player from developing a village with high density zoning if he/she wishes to do so. Low density buildings will grow on high density zones, but high density buildings will not grow on low density zones.
The pleasures of talking to a fellow northern European. The style would have indeed been very much the same almost up to places the size of Brugge or Gent, which had the cash to be different. And even so, the 'outskirts' wouldn't have differed much from the next village.
The industry question is a totally different one, at least so far. There just wasn't all that much of it around. A couple of mills, the smith, textile production,... and usually concentrated one type per street. All the bakers of town in one street, all the dyers in another one...
At least as far as I am concerned, no forcing a player to adopt a style is intended. I'ld like it though if the hd buildings where in some way connected to the size of a place (not just the demand) or just so expensive that one couldn't start the game using them straightaway. This again not to force a mode of playing, but to try and include some form of realism.
-- Edited by Simarillion on Sunday 4th of July 2010 11:53:52 AM
-- Edited by Simarillion on Sunday 4th of July 2010 11:58:50 AM
As long as we are talking about Simcity you will need to have industry. It is not possible to get a proper development without it, even plopping industry has its drawbacks when it comes to the functionality of the game. I think you would need to rethink what kind of development would fall under industry for the medieval period. Like you say industry in the way we know it since the 19th century did not exist. What I have been doing for Andau is to make small lots of industry (1x1,1x2,2x2) and then zoning small areas throughout the villages and towns. Industry is mostly lotted in a way that does not make it look very different from Res or Com lots.
As far as I know there is just no way to connect HD to the size of a place, also to make it too expensive is not possible if you would like to have a city growing and not being plopped. It is not that I think these are bad ideas, it is just you will need to look at what is possible within the game. How the game engine works will have to be the starting point of what you want to achieve, as far as I can see there is no one on this site who have the technical skill to actually start altering this kind of functions.
My line of thought regarding industry is very similar to your way of using it.
Basically the only type of building that I just can't see as growable are the water mills. Would be rather strange having them pop up everywhere.
As for the game engine, that's way beyond me. Was just thinking loud about what could be a way, if it could be done in practical terms.
I plan on making rather conventional lots that can be used in the standard way of playing the game, that way everybody can act as he wants, but leaving open the backdoor of remodding some of it should somebody come up with a functional idea.
At this stage Kwakelaar, we are merely throwing ideas around, that is all. There will of course be industry. And Sim, I think you're right about water mills.
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