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[BlindKitty]

I would say that courthouse and opera/gallery/theater/amphitheater/circus/arena/something like that would be a very good idea for a city center. Some guilds could have guildhouses/HQs in the city centers too, especially the more elite ones. I don't know - lawyers or something? I could imagine a bank spawning in the city center sometimes, especially bank HQ, if not the normal branch (I'm not sure how are banks working in the URR, really). Some kind of monument/memorial also seems like a good idea. In places that unified measurements and scales you could have a place where you can calibrate your yardstick for a fee, and check whether the merchant is trying to screw you over on the stuff he is selling with a weighted scales (it probably won't see much use, but it would be nice touch). A place of general knowledge might not be a bad idea too - some form of school, maybe not full of books, but with a teacher or two, especially in more advanced civilizations. It might even be a school on level too low for most players to use - some form of elementary school, perhaps? It should not throw the game too much off-balance. Also, some form of high - end sleeping place, like modern five-star hotels, for foreign dignitaries and diplomats, for example? Not everyone is going to sleep in a tavern in some run-down merchant district!

I might come to some other ideas later, too.

[Willfor]

Also, some form of high - end sleeping place, like modern five-star hotels, for foreign dignitaries and diplomats, for example? Not everyone is going to sleep in a tavern in some run-down merchant district!

In the context of history (which could, of course, turn out differently in URR), diplomats and dignitaries would stay at the castle/palace of the place they visited as official guests, or if they were there for a long duration they would buy a manor of their own to manage while they stayed to petition for their causes. It was the responsibility of the people they guested with to ensure their safety, and it looked bad for you if you couldn't ensure the accommodations of your friends who visited you in your own home.

Politics was more akin to family relations. When the distant cousins come over, you put them up.

Hotels were not really a thing. Though as I said, they could definitely change depending on how things developed in the world.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

Though I always aim for an update on Saturdays, this week's will be tomorrow, but city centres are looking infinitely better now and we'll have some screenshots tomorrow. Now, to some replies:

Very interesting. In terms of other centre buildings I think this is absolutely the most important time to strongly differentiate the cities on policy and really give each one a distinct feel. This would also help differentiate cities that belonged to the same empire (as each empire should probably only have one type of each city).
 
I'd say some would have a major market (perhaps if they had the 'mercantile' policy) or the headquarters of something akin to the East Africa Trading Company.
Ones with some sort of artistic policy might have an opera/playhouse/gallery of some sort.
Ones with a 'law' policy might have a courthouse/gallows.
Ones with 'aristocracy' policy might have the big houses of nobles.
Ones with a 'medical' policy might have a big hospital/apothecary.

Really, each city needs to have a 'focus' I feel, even if historically most cities in history haven't really had such divisions. I always liked this in the elder scrolls series, where you could go to say a mages guild hall in each city for minor magic stuff, but if you wanted to get REALLY good stuff you needed to go to the imperial college. Basically, to give you a reason to go to each city if you want to focus on something or need something particular. I could imagine that if you might be badly injured or get uniquely poisoned - you'd perhaps want to go to a medical city. If you want to do some heavy trading, you'd want to go to a mercantile one (but might be happy to do normal trading in any city).

Also, I'd imagine big statues/monuments might be in there. It'd be really awesome to be able to see a big monument to a historical war in the centre of the winners, and a memorial to the fallen in the centre of the losers.

Lastly, whilst I know you're trying to keep this quite historical/grounded, I feel city centres are the one place where you can add a bit of flair. I was thinking that some sort of 'seven wonders of the world' kinda thing could be scattered around the world, with these marvels mainly being in the city centre.

I agree on differentiation, though as I say I still want to maintain a focus on buildings that can/will have gameplay value - I could produce an "office of X", but unless that's going to have value from the NPCs/items within, I'm... reluctant. However, I think I've found a good selection of valuable buildings. There will be some gardens in city centres, but there will also be Parliaments, Mints, Mercenary Guilds (a higher "class" of recruited ally than you'd find in taverns/slave markets), Slave Markets (if a slaving civ), Courts (if a civ has a Penitentiary/Ordeal/Frontier justice policy), embassies (which will have the brick colour of their home nation, just a small but quite nice detail), a Memorial (this will be to a historical event relevant to that civ), and also an art gallery (more on this in some later version, but it'll tie to the history-changing mechanics), and, of course, the cathedral for a religion if that civ is the home civ for that religion. I do actually like the idea of there being a major market in addition to the market district, but I'm thinking maybe a single, huge shop of one type, that has nothing but high-quality items of that type. So the market district has 10 markets of 10 types, some city centres have a single shop (say a Swordsmith, or a Chemist, or an Apothecary) but it will have a large number of high-quality items for just that shop type. Also thinking about gallows etc, but not sure how to display them yet, but working on it.

Seven wonders of the world - I am pleased to say I love the idea and have something like this planned! Not for this version though, but there will be one unique building for each of the "dungeons" that can spawn in one city in the world and give you some information/items/preparation relevant, so finding one of those in your home civ or a nearby civ could potentially influence your order of completion (unlike Crawl which has a fairly "fixed" order of dungeons unless you do the extended and do/don't find rMut early, I'd like to have some factors which will influence the order you plan to attempt them). These wonders include the Institute for Anomalous Flora, the Panopticon, the Ruins of the Ninth Court, the Sanguine Hall... which will all be connected, Dark-Souls-style, to the story.

 

Dude, your MS Paint Infographics get to me every time. It might be the lead-in that does it. Should make a tileset using your mastery of paintsmithing.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Teaching myself python went on temp hold for about as long as I haven't posted for. Issues at work with all but one of the managerial staff caused much undue stress, so I wound up not wanting to teach-learn. Still did plenty of brainstorming though, so I return with more ideas:

Real-time was decided upon. The main reasons are the intensity of the combat and the crawls.
The power of the player to cause actual effect on the battlefront was a topic briefly mentioned before. I had a good idea to fix the inconsequentiability of the PC. As mentioned before, Shovel Buddies is WW1 era, not WW1 itself. While trying to stick to historical warfare, WW1 was practically devoid of special operations. That's changed in Shovel Buddies. We plan on allowing you to take yourself and, if you want, a squad, deep behind enemy lines to hit their supply lines, factories, ports, airfields, and command posts. Each facility will have locations to enter and things to sabotage, and we want the destruction of your targets to have a tangible effect on the enemy's ability to commit resources to the war effort. Each facilities enterable locations can be easily seen as mini dungeon crawls, where your baddies are replaced by the Centric Powers or The Alliance depending on the side you're on. And those are the names we decided on for the sides. Country names will likely be randomized. The prospect of WW1 Real-Time Dungeon Crawl seemed to appeal to something in me.

With the introduction of special operations in WW1 we then have to look at the repercussions of inclusion. Namely the technological. Equipment for the only notable special operation in WW1 included a massive mine and a hill. Some small changes, like the introduction of the shaped charge before the Germans used it on Holland in the next war, are palatable to me. I almost want to stay historical with equipment and see how often people shovel some buddies. Any thoughts on what I should or shouldn't include?

Ha, glad you like them. I think that is where my real talent lies.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Shame about Python learning . I've made progress this week but not as much as I wanted, had to do a lot of house-hunting, get a bunch of injections, blah blah.

Real-time, very interesting! As time goes by, I think you will find you have a lot of freedom going WW1 era, not "literal" WW1 (as I'm going Scientific Revolution era, not literal SR). It gives you quite a bit of leeway for alternative histories without going full-on WW2-the-Nazis-won level of alternative history, and as you say, allows you to have a focus on special ops (an interesting idea/focus given what we discussed before). Country names randomized, cool - so a randomized map? Will each IRL country have a counterpart, or just a selection of randomized nations? You could (the worldbuilder in me is speaking now) have some variation in terms of the military capabilities of each nation, their preferred tactics, weapons, vehicles, maybe personalities of their leaders affect their military operations... etc. In terms of staying historical with equipment, again on the "freedom" question, I'm using some technology/ideas from a little before the SR, and some from a little after. I think it's very fair to say those could have happened had history played out a little differently in either "direction". In that regard, I think you can safely use a tech or two from after, BUT - I'd be wary about it going too far from a WW1 simulationist-ish roguelike, as that seemed to be what you had in mind at the start. You could make these "future" technologies extremely rare, or you can only use them after particularly hard (optional?) missions, perhaps? You clearly want to stay away from Wunderwaffe etc, but I think you could include a few future things, so long as they are maybe explicitly stated as first, or they are core objectives, or you hint towards the ideas that some nations are already planning for the end of the war, thinking ahead, playing larger technological/geopolitical games beyond the immediate war?

I would say that courthouse and opera/gallery/theater/amphitheater/circus/arena/something like that would be a very good idea for a city center. Some guilds could have guildhouses/HQs in the city centers too, especially the more elite ones. I don't know - lawyers or something? I could imagine a bank spawning in the city center sometimes, especially bank HQ, if not the normal branch (I'm not sure how are banks working in the URR, really). Some kind of monument/memorial also seems like a good idea. In places that unified measurements and scales you could have a place where you can calibrate your yardstick for a fee, and check whether the merchant is trying to screw you over on the stuff he is selling with a weighted scales (it probably won't see much use, but it would be nice touch). A place of general knowledge might not be a bad idea too - some form of school, maybe not full of books, but with a teacher or two, especially in more advanced civilizations. It might even be a school on level too low for most players to use - some form of elementary school, perhaps? It should not throw the game too much off-balance. Also, some form of high - end sleeping place, like modern five-star hotels, for foreign dignitaries and diplomats, for example? Not everyone is going to sleep in a tavern in some run-down merchant district!

I might come to some other ideas later, too.

Agreed, a bunch of those have now gone in! (See my earlier reply). I've decided to add Mercenary Guilds (maybe other types of guild later, we'll see) - these will have more expensive but more skilled allies than you can find anywhere else, and particularly types of allies, i.e. some guilds will prefer heavy armour and long weapons, some light armour and slashing weapons, etc etc. Yeah, mints spawn in the city centres now, and banks spawn in middle-class housing districts throughout the nation (though you can use a Mint for the same purpose as a branch of the bank). Heh, school is an interesting idea - for now, food and children are both magically not present in the world, and I probably intend to keep it that way. That is straying a little far towards the path of simulation vs game right now (and I dislike the idea of a food clock, I have something much more interesting in mind), but I'll definitely keep the option in mind!

In the context of history (which could, of course, turn out differently in URR), diplomats and dignitaries would stay at the castle/palace of the place they visited as official guests, or if they were there for a long duration they would buy a manor of their own to manage while they stayed to petition for their causes. It was the responsibility of the people they guested with to ensure their safety, and it looked bad for you if you couldn't ensure the accommodations of your friends who visited you in your own home.

Politics was more akin to family relations. When the distant cousins come over, you put them up.

Hotels were not really a thing. Though as I said, they could definitely change depending on how things developed in the world.

Yeah, castles are being left until 0.7 (the version after this one). They are going to count as large "interiors" in cities, so they go in the next version, and also because I want them to be very detailed and have a lot of variation, so that will need time and thought. Good thought re: rooms for diplomats, guest rooms, etc, this makes a lot of sense to me.

[Leatra]

How will you handle castles? Castles were crowded places and as a result, a lot of intrigue took place. It sounds difficult to create that atmosphere.

[guessingo]

when will the next version be released?

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

How will you handle castles? Castles were crowded places and as a result, a lot of intrigue took place. It sounds difficult to create that atmosphere.

HMMMMMM. I hadn't considered that kind of atmospheric issue. I'm honestly not sure yet - I've started some research into layouts, and as they count as interiors they'll be in the next release, but I haven't thought yet about what kinds of NPCs we'll find there and what role they'll all play. There is also as ever a question about displaying different types of NPC - all the capital letters are used up with combat NPCs, and some of the lower-case are too, but I've worked out quite a good system for displaying different NPC types. Nevertheless, you've raised an interesting question, and I'm not really sure. I'll need to think first about "what kinds of people would be in the castle?" and go from there...

when will the next version be released?

0.6 has been in development for around six months (longer than anticipated due to external issues, severe illness, biting off too much for one release, etc) but its going to be released in November . It is the 6th of the 7/8 worldbuilding releases, depending on your definition. 0.7 will handle building interiors and a major overhaul of saving/loading to further maximize speed and memory usage, and 0.8 will be NPCs (much excitement).

[Leatra]

How will you handle castles? Castles were crowded places and as a result, a lot of intrigue took place. It sounds difficult to create that atmosphere.

HMMMMMM. I hadn't considered that kind of atmospheric issue. I'm honestly not sure yet - I've started some research into layouts, and as they count as interiors they'll be in the next release, but I haven't thought yet about what kinds of NPCs we'll find there and what role they'll all play. There is also as ever a question about displaying different types of NPC - all the capital letters are used up with combat NPCs, and some of the lower-case are too, but I've worked out quite a good system for displaying different NPC types. Nevertheless, you've raised an interesting question, and I'm not really sure. I'll need to think first about "what kinds of people would be in the castle?" and go from there...

Well, my information would be limited to playing Crusader Kings 2 and watching Game of Thrones I suppose Learning European Medieval history by watching a fictional one created by Americans! I'm in one of my mindless brainstorming moods, so I'll just start blabbing.

We have the generic council from CK 2. 5 Councillors; diplomatic, religious, economic, military and finally, the spymaster. CK is more focused on characters than actually running the holdings, so it simplifies things with 5 council members. I'm sure you can build on that just by logic. Like, if a country isn't landlocked, it's ought to have a ministry of navy or something like that, with a luxurious room in the royal palace to go with it, if the country places value on the navy. And policies of a country would definitely affect what kind of people would live in a castle. A secular country (as secular as one can get in Medieval times) may not have a representative of the religion living in the castle, and it might have a councillorship of technology if we are talking about a technocratic one.

Usually, those important Councillors people resided in the castle. Even those who are noble and have a land could end up with living with living beside the King if their task is important. Think of Hand of The King in A Song of Ice and Fire. Both Ed and Tywin had to leave their lands despite being a ruler themselves because their liege appointed them to the position of the Hand, and they went because they had their own council in their capital castle to run day-to-day things. This is another point. Every dynasty that rules is ought to have a capital.

Here is the fun and interesting part. I'm not gonna give a suggestion, just giving historical examples. Listen up people, a story of intrigue and history incoming! Or more like a boring history lesson. Need a better entrance... Ahem. Did you know a concubine could rule Ottoman Empire?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If you are gonna depict an Eastern culture, you gotta have dem harems in palaces and you gotta know concubines weren't just sex slaves. Ottomans had harems. Imperial harems, against the common knowledge, were not brothels. There were sections inside the palace where dynasty members of House Ottoman resided in. But there was a living quarter inside the harem section where concubines and wives lived in. Besides concubines and dynasty members, servants and eunuchs also lived here. It's a sin to castrate in Islam, but it was okay to buy those who were already castrated.

Head Eunuch was the second biggest power inside the court. Outside of the court, they were the biggest third position (first is Sultan, second is Grand Vizier). They were mostly black, and had the previlige to contact the Sultan without prior notice or without being summoned. They acted as a channel between Queen Mother (called Valide Sultan) who was the biggest power on Harem, and Sultan. They dealt with court intrigue getting out of hand, recruitment of new concubines, and execution of concubines who committed great crimes. Regarding the last one, the guilty would be executed by drowning right in front of the palace. But it wasn't really common, considering concubines were good at hiding their skulduggery.

Being a concubine to the Sultan was a thing to be proud of. Of course, concubines were slaves all right. They didn't go running to Sultan's palace. They were also foreigners in a new land with new friends, new families and new enemies. They faced new people who welcomed them with open arms, people who resented the arrival of new competition, and people who were assigned as the servant of her. They weren't happy when they were taken to the palace but they usually come to like the previlige of living inside a palace, having servants, etc. They didn't have much to lose. They could wield great power if they were ambitious enough.

Concubines were often rivals trying to bear the Sultan's heir or become his favorite concubine. A lot of intrigue ensued over this. A concubine couldn't just show up at Sultan's bedroom and the Sultan didn't have sex everyday. She had to gain the support and trust of Queen Mother (which wasn't easy, since Queen Mothers had their own agenda), keep clear of Head Eunuch and don't try anything funny near him, use servants to collect intelligence, power struggles against other concubines. This stuff is Holywood. You can even create a video game where the protagonist is a concubine of a Sultan. If you are interested, you can take a look a this section to see the women that practically ruled Ottoman Empire behind Sultans' backs. Some were slaves, some were foreigners, some were not concubines but Mother Queens. It's kind of interesting. The court intrigue and back-stabbing that happened during that period could double what goes on in A Game of Thrones.

The most famous concubine is Hürrem Sultan (original name: Roxelana). She was the first woman to marry an Ottoman Sultan and most powerful woman ever lived in Ottoman Empire. She was a mastermind plotter and considering how this kind of stuff doesn't get recorded in the books of history, we could say she was behind a lot of things. It is rumored that she was behind the assassination of Grand Vizier İbrahim Pasha who supported Mustafa as the heir as opposed to Hürrem Sultan's son. You don't just oppose a woman like that. She repeatedly convinced the Sultan to appoint certain people to powerful positions and fire those she didn't like. She was also the mastermind of heir Mustafa's fall from grace and assassination. But it's a long story and I'm getting off-topic enough already. In the end, Sultan Süleiman the Magnificent naively loved his wife Hürrem Sultan and named a city in the Persian region after her.

In the end, even the greatest Sultan or Emperor who never bowed to anyone did comply with the demands of their dicks. Crusader Kings could really use this intrigue stuff with the Muslim nations. I think there are some events regarding competition between wives. I could talk hours about this stuff. Oh well. At least there was a TV series about the life of Hürrem Sultan.

I don't know what any of this means gameplay-wise, but I'm sure you can take something out of it. The difficult atmosphere thing I mentioned was partly this.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

These are all excellent thoughts! Gives me some good ideas for what kinds of NPCs could turn in the castle. Perhaps castles should have different sections that would be devoted to different people or different tasks for the running of the castle/empire. As I've said before, only Monarchies/Stratocracies are run from their castles, so that merits two different types of generation, one which has thrones rooms and all the appropriate finery, and one which is more focused on being a defensive castle with administrative roles. Obviously both are going to share things like stores, dungeons, etc.

Perhaps.... hmm... I've just come up with an interesting idea. Perhaps the upper floors of a castle are entirely determined by the policies or that civ? So for each policy there's a room or a branch of a castle, so there's thousands of possible castles depending on the combinations of policies. That could make for some interesting variation, and also another way to connect the world you walk around to the information in the Encyclopedia, the history books etc. If it's a zealotry civ, that's reflected in religious presence in the castle; if an organized religion, maybe they have a lot of records there; if collective faith, perhaps they have shrines or altars within the castle; if cultism, perhaps there's a hidden room relating to one of the cults; and if it's free religion, perhaps a range of different worship rooms? There's eight policies, so maybe four on a ground floor, four on the floor above... or maybe four floors, with two unique parts on each floor, and two parts general to all castles (stores etc). The more I type this, the more I like this idea! Clear segments related to each policy. You've also made me wonder if maybe there should be smaller manors and things spawning in towns for individuals lords to appear... though if so, I'd want to think about making it very clear who controls each "county"/duchy/whatever. Still a possibility, though with that said, I'm very happy with how towns are looking already.

Also, awesome story.

[rumpel]

I don't know why I didn't start to follow your blog earlier, but count me in now. :3

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

I don't know why I didn't start to follow your blog earlier, but count me in now. :3

An excellent choice! Check the homepage for recent highlights

[rumpel]

I read them all at 'work' today. 

[Retropunch]

I very much like anything that distinguishes cities (or buildings inside them, like castles) by policies. I think this will be key to making places feel unique and different, especially when you you're using ASCII (even as expertly as you do!).

Just a few quick thoughts:
-I feel 'exhibitions' would be better than art galleries. Art galleries seem a bit...small for a major thing in a city somehow, but throughout history many major cities have had exhibitions. These could be even things like exhibitions of previous wars, with the loot and captured prisoners on show (possibly a 'gloating' policy?)

-In a country, are there going to be capitals and then the head city of a barony (or whatever sub division you are using), followed by lesser cities/towns? If so, a small castle (fort/manor) might be in each of the barony cities, followed by an administrative centre in each town? There could then be some sort of homage to the next highest level, so perhaps portraits of the baron for towns, and of the king for in baronies, or possibly just in terms of having a few rooms dedicated to the main policies of the governance?



-

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

I read them all at 'work' today. 

Hope you enjoyed them (if you read them all, I assume you did). Let me know if there's anything you'd be interested in reading about there, I'm always open to ideas for posts both on URR and on game design more generally.

[Ultima Ratio Regum]

I very much like anything that distinguishes cities (or buildings inside them, like castles) by policies. I think this will be key to making places feel unique and different, especially when you you're using ASCII (even as expertly as you do!).

Just a few quick thoughts:
-I feel 'exhibitions' would be better than art galleries. Art galleries seem a bit...small for a major thing in a city somehow, but throughout history many major cities have had exhibitions. These could be even things like exhibitions of previous wars, with the loot and captured prisoners on show (possibly a 'gloating' policy?)

-In a country, are there going to be capitals and then the head city of a barony (or whatever sub division you are using), followed by lesser cities/towns? If so, a small castle (fort/manor) might be in each of the barony cities, followed by an administrative centre in each town? There could then be some sort of homage to the next highest level, so perhaps portraits of the baron for towns, and of the king for in baronies, or possibly just in terms of having a few rooms dedicated to the main policies of the governance?

Ah, this appeared whilst posting the other reply! Cool idea re: exhibitions, I will definitely widen the possible items within a gallery. In each feudal nation there's a capital city, and towns. Each town currently does not have an assigned leader/mayor/baron/whatever, though I increasingly think something to help identify this leader might be useful. Maybe a larger building, or a special mayor's house, or possibly that person lives in the town hall (above?), though... I guess I probably should add some "Baron" buildings. I'll have to think about what term I want to use, but I think Baron or Mayor would be the most appropriate. Perhaps a building with some walls and a gate would be nice, and would certainly make it very explicit who ruled over that town. I like this idea, unless I think of an issue I'll chuck it in. More variation is (almost) always good, and these could be an interesting addition to towns.

[Retropunch]

In each feudal nation there's a capital city, and towns. Each town currently does not have an assigned leader/mayor/baron/whatever, though I increasingly think something to help identify this leader might be useful. Maybe a larger building, or a special mayor's house, or possibly that person lives in the town hall (above?), though... I guess I probably should add some "Baron" buildings. I'll have to think about what term I want to use, but I think Baron or Mayor would be the most appropriate. Perhaps a building with some walls and a gate would be nice, and would certainly make it very explicit who ruled over that town. I like this idea, unless I think of an issue I'll chuck it in. More variation is (almost) always good, and these could be an interesting addition to towns.

I'd definitely go for Baron (or Count, or Duke) rather than Mayor, as Mayor sounds a bit of an administrative title rather than a ruling one. I think them having their own building (or sort of mini castle) would be great, especially as then you would immediately know where to go if you needed to talk to the person in charge. This special house/building would also allow minor nobles from other nations/ people of importance (and possibly the player!) to have a sensible place to congregate and stay, which would again help in being able to locate interesting people naturally.

Also, have you thought about national items? Many nations have something physical that is associated with them (The Scottish bagpipes, the Irish clover) and giving each nation something like that might allow you to decorate interiors/show things internally that keep harking back to the nationality.
Similarly, and perhaps more easily, this could be something like a national colour or building material instead. So one nation could prefer wood crafts, which would mean that a large proportion of items/furniture would be crafted out of wood (especially in the richer house holds).