[suggestion] Cities: quality over quantity

[bad karma]

Don't forget that some of the building types are/can be 'illegal' at some point (for example, some towns may allow whorehouses, some may not). Thieves Den is an underground building, which should probably have some sort of 'cover'. As I said in another post, any legal business may be a cover for an underworld organization. This is why you can't just plan to built a town/or a city with a certain ammount of buildings because there are will be few illegal ones. I like the idea of bureaucracy, which could be also exploited via bribes and other legal and illegal activities to make it more fun or realistic. For example, a family could buyout a land for the pawn broker, however this piece of land was originally intended for a tailor's shop etc. For that, they could bribe a town mayor or do a certain 'service' for him.

[Robinhood1990]

Don't forget that some of the building types are/can be 'illegal' at some point (for example, some towns may allow whorehouses, some may not). Thieves Den is an underground building, which should probably have some sort of 'cover'. As I said in another post, any legal business may be a cover for an underworld organization. This is why you can't just plan to built a town/or a city with a certain ammount of buildings because there are will be few illegal ones. I like the idea of bureaucracy, which could be also exploited via bribes and other legal and illegal activities to make it more fun or realistic. For example, a family could buyout a land for the pawn broker, however this piece of land was originally intended for a tailor's shop etc. For that, they could bribe a town mayor or do a certain 'service' for him.

I did not mean a real bureaucracy. It could be nice, but ther are more important things to implement. I merely meant, rather than have builable areas, you have buildable spots. You need to place a building on a dedicated spot (would also make it much easier to check against possible path finding issues). The building categories would be dedicated build space for residences. Dedicated build space for future public buildings (pherhaps guild hall or university is yet to come, or market area will expand). There will be a huge category of regular shops, but if there's a shortage of spots, and some need to have buildings haven't yet been built, then building any other building than one of those can be illegal. Same if there's to many of a specific building type in that town. However, I could see how especially churches should have dedicated spots, and pherhaps a few others (like hospital).

You could give rogue equivalent characters the possibility to hire thiefs at certain types of shops or a residence (ideally with a basement). These buildings would have additional upgrade option's similar to that of a thieves den, but only unlockable if you're a rogue character. I think it could work quite well, aslong as only you can see the extra room in the basement.

[bad karma]

I don't think there will be any pathfinding issues because current (and likely, the only) content idea does not include freeroam feature.

Unlocking certain building features for a specific class as well as bonding building to a certain class and/or having classes is bad idea IMO because it ruins the sence of Sand-box.

[Robinhood1990]

I don't think there will be any pathfinding issues because current (and likely, the only) content idea does not include freeroam feature.

I'll be dissapointed of there's no freeroam. It's very vital for immersion. What makes TG2 special is more than just building a dynasty. It is that everything that happens in the world is a physical object that you can see in realtime, and you can directly control everything that belongs to you.

Unlocking certain building features for a specific class as well as bonding building to a certain class and/or having classes is bad idea IMO because it ruins the sence of Sand-box.

Depends on how limited you make it. Sandbox does not necessarily mean that there are no rules. You can still place buildings where you want, just you have to choose among designated building slots, and there are a few special reserved spots for certain building types, and pherhaps a separation of residences and shops. Also a max limit (can't build 10 forges in a town), and reservation of build slot if the town still lacks a medical building. In many ways this is realistic, as there would be someone actually approving and disproving, and they may decide that there and there, there should be no shops but houses for non-serf families to move in. It's also logical that they restrict the 10th forge, or take the last build slot, build a much needed medical building, and put it up for sale.
Houses is important, because you want your town to expand from something small to something big, and it's natural that the town needs more families that can take on political offices and increase competition. Some build slots may not be buyable until the town develops, enabling the creator to make a town that looks small and cozy in the beginning, and expands to somethin big and powerful in the end, and at all stages look reasonably good.

[bad karma]

I'll be dissapointed of there's no freeroam. It's very vital for immersion. What makes TG2 special is more than just building a dynasty. It is that everything that happens in the world is a physical object that you can see in realtime, and you can directly control everything that belongs to you.

At first impression, I was against non-freeroam gameplay as well, but after thinking a bit on this topic I am 100 % sure that this will be better than having 4574574 map issues/bugs as in TG2 as well as pathfinding problems and terrifyingly small towns. Imagine if all medieval/early enlightening era cities were that microscopic as in TG2 games..it would be chaos. Non-freeroam map can also be different compared to other games with the same gameplay. In Europa 1400: The Guild or The Patrician, for example, map view don't really visualize any actions except aimlessly wandering town folk and/or some other animations. But these games are old and engines were much upgraded since then, so I am sure non-freeroam option can be made very realistic these days.

First of all, in non-freeroam mode towns/villages can be built much more larger and unique than in freeroam mode. Of course, some freeroam games like Oblivion have huge cities, but all the building types there are usually similiar and every town looks like a clone with minor architectural difference.

Second, as I already stated, non-freeroam mode saves us (players) from a lot of inconveniences such as map bugs that we encounter in TG2 as well as many other freeroam games (passing through walls, other citizens is the least example of this) and developers from consant reporting/having to deal with mapping headache rather than doing other, more important work.

Lastly, as I said, game engines are different now than what they were back in 2004. Non-freeroam mode can be much more interesting to develop and even more interesting to enjoy by the players nowadays. I do not suggest going back to tile-based maps like early Ultima series or having the same explore mode as in Mount & Blade. I wish that game world (or at least whole town/suburb will be fully customized (a player could watch the thieves robbing someone unconscious on the streets or stealing from the market, a magical potion is on the table etc). In other words, in Kontor a player should be able to view most of the actions being done in the world (or at least if his main character is nearby, because I am not sure if map scrolling will be avaiable). In Europe 1400: The Guild you can only see sabotages, some weather/season changes, a Death flying around the town during the plague and the citizens who walk around the town, but you do not feel the life of the city itself.

Depends on how limited you make it. Sandbox does not necessarily mean that there are no rules. You can still place buildings where you want, just you have to choose among designated building slots, and there are a few special reserved spots for certain building types, and pherhaps a separation of residences and shops. Also a max limit (can't build 10 forges in a town), and reservation of build slot if the town still lacks a medical building. In many ways this is realistic, as there would be someone actually approving and disproving, and they may decide that there and there, there should be no shops but houses for non-serf families to move in. It's also logical that they restrict the 10th forge, or take the last build slot, build a much needed medical building, and put it up for sale.
Houses is important, because you want your town to expand from something small to something big, and it's natural that the town needs more families that can take on political offices and increase competition. Some build slots may not be buyable until the town develops, enabling the creator to make a town that looks small and cozy in the beginning, and expands to somethin big and powerful in the end, and at all stages look reasonably good.

To be honest, it all sounds like a communistic planned economy where every minor change in the country is done by the scscheme planned by the government. How many forges or medical shops will be in towns, how much grain should be gaterred per year etc. Does not sound realistic in the vision of capitalism Europe at all. IMO cities should be build just like in Europe 1400 online game - with districts. This is how it used to be. Family A district, Family B district (watch The Borgias if you don't believe me), Taverns district, bandit area etc.

[Robinhood1990]

The Pathfinding in the Guild 2 sucks. Pathfinding is a difficult area, but there are available solutions that far exceeds that of The guild 2. If you're worried about number of units, there are optimizations. Let's say every building must be placed on a build slot, then you can create linear paths connecting everything buildable area together. Now, you could give trade carts the restriction that they can only follow these linear paths (there would be overlapping of trade carts). To remove most overlap, carts could be placed a little to the right of the direction they're going (won't overlap with cart going in opposite direction). Additionaly, if two overlapping carts is going in the same direction, one of them (the slowest), could slow down a little until they don't overlap anymore. A building could have 4 or more points connecting it to this network. When a cart enters this line, it will mark it as "in use". A new cart will pick one that is available if possible. You need to height adjust carts to the terrain, but you can skip any check if you can walk there. The designer would just need to make sure, that he don't make such a line over a mountain, water or similar, and that the path is wide enough. I guess this is a typical trick in pathfinding, just that, when they walk out of the path, they try to get back to the path. This network could also be used by npc's to navigate, by entering the network and then travel from there. They do seem to follow roads in The guild 2, but they never walk straight. Aslong as you allow overlapping of movable objects, you could remove any checks of collision with physical objects/terrain aslong as they're on the network. Haven't tested this, just an idea I just got.

To be honest, it all sounds like a communistic planned economy where every minor change in the country is done by the scscheme planned by the government. How many forges or medical shops will be in towns, how much grain should be gaterred per year etc. Does not sound realistic in the vision of capitalism Europe at all. IMO cities should be build just like in Europe 1400 online game - with districts. This is how it used to be. Family A district, Family B district (watch The Borgias if you don't believe me), Taverns district, bandit area etc.

You don't need to cluster residence build slots. They can be in different districts. A dynasty must by themselves try to claim property slots around their residence for that to happen. Just like usual. I don't see how this system changes that. I just think it's important to keep some build slots specifically for residences, to avoid the possibility to build shops everywhere, so eventually only your dynasty lives in that town, and can take political office. Low guarded areas, would be natural bandit districts, as this is an ideal spot for shady buildings.

[Roh]

Truth told I stopped reading this thread after the first admin response. :p So my comments are based on the OP and that. My feeling is that bigger is better sorry. But bigger doesn't have to mean bigger map with a screwier scale. I say make the game area as large as is reasonably possible. But try to use that large area to make things to a scale that allows for more of the detail and ambiance you were talking about.

[Zalzany]

You don't need epic maps, but I loath playing on anything smaller then 3 city maps. Also I do quite fine with games with large environments, and maps, I love the Fallout Series, and Skyrim specifically because of that, but of course those games you don't control more then a couple people at a time... To me the making of a good game is a bit of both, micro managing is tedious to some but fun for people like me, as long as its done right, hence my love for the Guild 2 series.

I am assuming in a game like Kontor, it will follow in Guild 2's foot steps and only allow small amounts of thugs per house, and a fistfull of employees per building, after all its not a military game, there is no need to conquest a city, or fight in mass in the streets. My biggest concern with Kontor is business, I love Tycoon games, and tossing in a whole dynistay angle makes it all the more better, but it gets rather tedious when you can't build your starting ventures with in the safety of the city, and even worse when there is not enough demand, because you got a single competitor.

The supply demand angle is the thing me and my roomates bicker about the most, we all no full and well unless there is a few cities to work with, having more then one of something in town results into market overflow from time to time. Heck my sister who plays refuses to own a building that an npc owns in town because early on hiring escorts is expensive, but running into bandits on the roads is far worse. Unlike her though I don't mind it, I simply look for wholes in the market and keep up back stock for when there is an opening on the more profitable goods. Early on though you don't got much to work with, and neither does the NPCs so it becomes a game of chance every time you send your cart to market in your town to see who gets there first lol.