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Medieval Fantasy City Generator

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71–80 of 119 posts

Re: Medieval Fantasy City Generator

#71
post #25

Serious application for these tools: crowded countries like the UK often talk about building new towns rather than annoying everyone is existing towns by more and more building work. Unfortunately, new towns tend to be rather formulaic and dull. With tools like these, you could start with a medieval city generator and use algorithms to apply changes that would have happened over 500 years and then build the new town…

The Prince of Wales is already on that!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poundbury

Re: Medieval Fantasy City Generator

#72
post #41

I love this sort of thing, but the far more interesting challenge to procedural games is engaging the player emotionally and intellectually, and giving them a sense of long term narrative progression. I'm mainly thinking of RPGs here, but it's a problem that surfaces up to this day in things like No Man's Sky. Even in non-procedural games that nevertheless allow you to continue playing in a world after all the storyl…

This seems to be geared more at tabletop RPG. When you're running a game, it's helpful to have these sorts of artifacts to enhance players' understanding, but it's not the sort of thing that GM's really want to spend a lot of time on, unless there's some specific thing you need. Having this just be generated potentially saves a lot of time.

Re: Medieval Fantasy City Generator

#74

This is great! Would love to see it used by city planners too - turns out a lot of medieval cities/towns are really pleasant places to walk, and just be.

There's a really good video on a cityplanner playing simCity 3000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUQaCoxybW8&t=1736s

Its interesting to see how real life mimics the simulation here

Re: Medieval Fantasy City Generator

#76
post #41

I love this sort of thing, but the far more interesting challenge to procedural games is engaging the player emotionally and intellectually, and giving them a sense of long term narrative progression. I'm mainly thinking of RPGs here, but it's a problem that surfaces up to this day in things like No Man's Sky. Even in non-procedural games that nevertheless allow you to continue playing in a world after all the storyl…

IMO the best is a hybrid approach, where the world and places are hand-designed, but procedural generation tools are used to amplify the creative potential of the person doing the design. I believe that the developers of Horizon Zero Dawn used this approach, and it shows— the world is lush and appears very organic, but is also thoughtfully laid out and not at all same-y.

Re: Medieval Fantasy City Generator

#77
post #41

I love this sort of thing, but the far more interesting challenge to procedural games is engaging the player emotionally and intellectually, and giving them a sense of long term narrative progression. I'm mainly thinking of RPGs here, but it's a problem that surfaces up to this day in things like No Man's Sky. Even in non-procedural games that nevertheless allow you to continue playing in a world after all the storyl…

IMO the best is a hybrid approach, where the world and places are hand-designed, but procedural generation tools are used to amplify the creative potential of the person doing the design. I believe that the developers of Horizon Zero Dawn used this approach, and it shows— the world is lush and appears very organic, but is also thoughtfully laid out and not at all same-y.

That's how Star Citizen is doing their planets; different procedural biomes that an artist can take and brush around to quickly build a whole world with details that you can walk around, but they can also zoom in and move rocks, make lakes, place structures, and whatever else. It's a much bigger scale than an artist could design by hand, but we're not at a point where an algorithm can fill a universe with memorable landmarks.

Re: Medieval Fantasy City Generator

#78
post #41

I love this sort of thing, but the far more interesting challenge to procedural games is engaging the player emotionally and intellectually, and giving them a sense of long term narrative progression. I'm mainly thinking of RPGs here, but it's a problem that surfaces up to this day in things like No Man's Sky. Even in non-procedural games that nevertheless allow you to continue playing in a world after all the storyl…

In one article about Dwarf Fortress they talked about how they would write stories, then pull apart the stories to figure out how they are made and then how to make them randomly. It's a bit different from physical/realistic inspiration, and likely to lead to more fun in the results.

If I vaguely remember, there's this sense of major plot points, and then everything else is connective tissue. You can imagine the same thing in a city design – what are the parts of a city that make it distinctive, or fun, or notable? You randomly choose some distinctive design elements, and then fill in.

This generator has a bit of that. I like how the rivers or an ocean can dramatically redefine a city in this generator. But there could certainly be more. Interesting topology. Highways, instead of a couple equally-sized roads. A scattering of distinctive building forms, like a military base, convent, marketplace.

Re: Medieval Fantasy City Generator

#79

One thing I would love to see in a city generator like this is a simulation of time and how gradual evolution shapes a city. There's a picture book called "Barmi: A Mediterranean City Through The Ages" by Xavier Hernandez and illustrated by Jordi Ballonga. It illustrates a fictional city from Neolithic settlement to Roman outpost to medieval town to modern city. Some images can be seen at http://jordiballongaen.blogs…

Split in Croatia is a great example of this - where a part of the layout was based on the Emperor Diocletian's Palace:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split,_Croatia

Maybe Edinburgh and volcanoes as well...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edinburgh_Castle#Geology

Re: Medieval Fantasy City Generator

#80
post #41

I love this sort of thing, but the far more interesting challenge to procedural games is engaging the player emotionally and intellectually, and giving them a sense of long term narrative progression. I'm mainly thinking of RPGs here, but it's a problem that surfaces up to this day in things like No Man's Sky. Even in non-procedural games that nevertheless allow you to continue playing in a world after all the storyl…

One game which for me is closest to Dwarf Fortress and which for me, tend to beat it in few areas ( graphics, while still being text only, structure of the world ) is Ultima Ratio Regum[0].

It is still in very deep beta state, but this doesn't stop richness and complexity of worlds generated in it. It is seriously underrated project, and whole blog if worth a read

[0] http://www.ultimaratioregum.co.uk/game/

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