Looking through those models, I noticed the coliseum which made me think about landmarks. What were the landmarks? Personally I'm not a big fan of landmarks in SC4, they look too out of place. Certainly by having all the landmarks at least period appropriate in SM, might go some way towards making them suck less. I guess I'd like the landmarks to be more like local landmarks, not across time & space landmarks. Once again I think of markets. Markets are also going to have to be thought about carefully I think.
Since we are talking about the period 'just after' the fall of Rome and before the large scale wars, a lot of stuff from earlier periods was still around. Most of it was not in use anymore, but very visible. The 'real' landmarks would have been the Cathedrals. As for the markets, I see them more as a backbone for any commercial activity.
Obviously in terms of visibilty, but also in raising caps. Building a Cathedral provided a huge boost to C & I. Other cap raisers were Sanctuaries, 'saintly relics',... Markets existed in every village as a means of necessity. I'll give a thought whilst at work, more tonight.
Well, the thinking at work wasn't quite as usefull as I had hoped . The only landmarks feasible in the original sense of SC are roman left-overs; one or two funeral monuments, arches/gates,... and a couple of prehistoric/pagan sites.
That's OK, thanks for your ideas, I there's plenty there.
I think I might be getting confused between urban and rural a bit. When you say every village do you mean in a rural setting as well? And if so, per how many houses roughly? I guess in rural areas I expected there would be district markets. No doubt all the information I need is in the volume of links at hand, there's just more than I can take in at this point. (I've been busy collecting and rendering models, there's so much to do)
I'm not far away from formulating a basic multi-stage plan, of which we are already in stage 1 (the random, messy stage). I'm not going to get too bogged down with the models but it's been necessary to see what's available. Maybe I'll formulate now.
Stage 1: brainstorming ways of converting the game, collecting models, closed circle, no publicity.
Stage 2: approaching makers of relevant material in the SC4 community to contribute their models and/or time to the project, still brainstorming no doubt, still collecting, I will make the site link public and have a public updates area (the site will need to be refined a little before this)
Stage 3: with a good idea of what we have and what we need this will be the time for batting and lotting to begin in earnest, publicity will become paramount with active threads at ST and SC4D as well as letting people know in the other major sites, I am confident that once people see good progress shots, and get the impression that it's actually happening, than there will be plenty of contributors.
Stage 4: actually putting all the pieces together and testing within members.
Stage 5: BETA and public testing.
Stage 6:
I've never embarked on so large a creative endeavor before, and am naturally intimidated by the task (a fool wouldn't be). This is just to help me get my head around some of the major things to be done. Any additions?
The plan looks good to me. I'ld add to stage 1 the open thread for external (not even community linked) assistance though. Yesterday for example, talking with friends, I found an architectual student that lives for castles.
Hmm, architectural students often have models. It would definitely be great to attract some non-SC4 playing, medieval appreciating, people. A public thread is sounding like a good idea, thanks for the suggestion (thank your librarian too)
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