The primary question at this point being will HW Res (rural) be the manors, or is there another way to do it?
Certainly we can't have manors popping up all over the place. So it could be a reward (with a maximum of 1-3 per city) but the manors come before the villages, so that makes no sense.
Maybe it will make the most sense to have the manors as ploppable and the villages divided into 3 classes (freetowners/serfs/slaves)
It would be great having Manors pop up all over the place. The word Manor in its orinigal use didn't signify Estate, but Village. Only later it came to be linked to single buildings of a certain style or wealth. That's were the saying 'Lord of the manor' stems from. It simply meant chief of the village. High wealth rural will have to be thought about very carefully, because it didn't exist. The rural environment didn't offer neither the income to bevcme, nor the safety to stay rich.
I must say I disagree with you on this point that High wealth did not exist in the rural areas. Unlike Italy where the nobility took up residence in the towns and cities, in NW Europe they would mostly live in the countryside, the place where their wealth would originate from. Not all nobility would have large castles or manors constructed. There existed a group of families that were promoted after taking on royal service. These families could even come from groups of the unfree. They were often used for the running of royal estates or estates owned by the church. Also there was a tendency for wealthy families living in towns and not being part of the nobility to start buying land outside the towns and cities. They would often live on one of their estates during parts of the year.
I think the way to control high wealth outside the towns/cities is to use the CAM as well as the size of the lots. Not to make a different version of SM, I would say making one version to cover both rural and urban development is the way forward.
-- Edited by kwakelaar on Sunday 4th of July 2010 05:30:44 PM
Well, let me disagree with you agreeing on what you said.
Obviously the Landadel lived in, and often came from, the countryside. As I said about the Lord of the Manor, its original meaning was something like chief of the village (or custodian). It's just that it appeared in any significant numbers (or rather, distinctive architecture apart from being the longhouse at the center of the village) only fairly late, especially up north or in the middle of nowhere. In particular the idea of going to the country for parts of the year is not something I'ld associate with the middle ages (remember that we started trying to talk up to 1400 at the most, but I get the feeling that we may well get pushed forward by a couple of years). Apart from that, the presence of a single custodians house (even though visibly larger) does IMO not completely fulfill the games criteria of zoning for High wealth. What I was talking about saying it didn't exist was the fact that there wasn't a chunk of the rural population that was wealthy, meaning there weren't zones or entire streets of HW. A village was rather a couple of dwellings, possibly a few IND and COM, the longhouse and the chapel, plus the square (or green for the English).
Using the lot size to implement HW seems logical to me since everything else would probably have been smaller. As for the CAM, still need to get my head 'round it... Creating two versions of SM would be the end of it before starting. All types of buildings will necessarily have to be part of the same version. The momentary focus on one aspect of it is simply due to the number of lots involved and to not get lost among subtle differences.
I have been reading Kleine Kunstgeschichte der Deutschen Stadt im Mittelalter from Cord Meckseper. In this book is mentioned Landsitz und Sommerfrische. This chapter starts out with: Im ausgehenden Mittelalter besassen Patrizier oder andere Vornehme auch ein Haus oder einen festen Sitz vor den Toren der Stadt. I would think this is something that started in the 12th century and later became more commonplace as the cities within the walls had less space for gardens, orchads etc. Wealthy cityfolks bought land outside the city for several reasons. Landed wealth was a more secure investment but above all it gave a higher status. These estates would also provide their owners with fresh produce.
You actually don't zone for High Wealth, it will grow, but I think you know this as well. My idea would not be to have chunks of high wealth residents in rural areas, but I would think that a few high wealth houses (with farms attached) would be quite a realistic part of rural areas even for the period we are talking about. You can of course plop these, but it is much more elegant IMO if you are able to let them grow.
I like your choice of literature, it's certainly not common. The ausgehende Mittelter refers, as you understood well, to the period leading up to the humanist and Baroque era, having started slowly from the 13th century on and gaining momentum from the 15th century, with its heyday in the time of Friedrich and Katherina.
You don't zone High Wealth, but you kind of zone for where you would like it to be according to the surroundings. Having high wealth houses will be inevitable I guess and, as you said, adding to the reality (of course as growables). The question is/was only keeping the timeframes kind of apart. But I guess we'll end up with beautiful estates next to weird dwellings (talking of great photo opportunities...).
There are certainly ways to keep the different periods apart, or to let one evolve into the next. This I would suggest is the way to use the tilesets for R and C, industrial lots need to be approached differently. My idea for Andau is to use the Ilive Reader to change the growth stage of the lot when it should not grow any more but still function in the game. This is possible to do, I have been testing this out.
About the Sommerfrische, they are mentioned for the year 1465 in Nurnberg when they were outlawed and had to be torn down because of strategic reasons. This means that it must have been going on for some years. But as I know no sources for an earlier mentioning I will settle for the 13th century. For Germany we then still have more or less a century to go before the Renaissance is starting to make is influence felt.
Keeping the tilesets for the different periods does seem the only possibility to keep them apart (for who wants them apart that is). The Reader is something I'll start to worry about once I get a good grip of the PIMX. Better step by step than straight away faulty.
The outlawing in 1465 is interesting, IMO it could have been down to peculiar local needs though. I just can't see anybody forbidding the merchants of Hamburg or Antwerp their pleasures, church rules apart. From the 1200's 'til mid 1400 is still quite a bit anyway and the Renaissance (like everything else in Europe) kicked in depending on where and, as I said, I thought it actually had the opposite effect, increasing the number of Landsitze and consolidating the practice.
Unfortunatly not everything can be done with PIMX, but give a yell when you come across something you can't solve with PIMX. I know the basics of Ilive Reader and can help out if it is not too complicated.
I assume the reason they were outlawed in Nurnberg at that time is that the buildings could be used as cover for anyone approching the city. Also at this time artillery became more commonplace being added to older city walls. The canons needed a clear field to be effective. The ruled applied for any buildings closer than a mile to the walls. Probably people would rebuild their landsitze further away from the city.
And you are of course right that the idea of having a country home became more normal as we go through the Renaissance period, but this is something that had started earlier than one might think.
