Topic: Re-modelling Barbarian Buildings

@chuckw

All new headquarters models looks very good, so it is hard to say which is the best

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A question of size:

Comparing the relative sizes of the buildings used in the game leads to some interesting observations that I thought I would share.

There are three size classes of buildings: small, medium and large. The images used to represent those classes have the following general dimensions:
small - 60 pixels square
medium - 75-100 pixels square
large - 120 pixels square

Comparing the barbarian military buildings by the amount of wares needed to construct them, this is what you find:
Small Buildings
* sentry - 2
Medium Buildings
* stronghold - 6
* barrier - 8
* donjon - 12
Large Buildings
* battle_arena - 12
* fortress - 23
* trainings_camp - 23
Enhanced Large Buildings
* citadel - 20

The stronghold requires 3 times more wares to build than the sentry, so logically one could think it should be 3 times larger than the sentry. If we follow that logic through to the citadel, however, we end up with a building over 20 times larger than the sentry! (Remember the citadel is an enhancement to the fortress' 23 wares.) While that is realistic, it is impractical in the game.
So to stay within the size parameters for each class, the buildings need to be scaled appropriately, i.e. doors and windows, campfires, flags, etc. that could be common to many buildings should be scaled differently depending on the limitations posed by the size class of the building.
One might try to keep a 1:1 ratio within a size class, but the ratios will be different between the size classes.
Ultimately, however, a building's size/scale must be left to the "eye" of the developer as long as the impression of the image relative to other images in the game is consciously or even sub-consciously "acceptable" to the player.

Now that I've totally confused everyone, including myself :), let's look at that stronghold again with regard to the existing stronghold image and the sentry. These images are the size they would be in the game:
sentry ... Model 2 ... Model 1 ... original

Does the impression of their sizes compare favorably in your eyes?

So the challenge to the graphician, in addition to conveying a consistent architecture style, coloring and material, is to keep the "look" of the building's size believable when it is placed on the game map with other images.

Just thought I'd share this and, as always, I welcome your comments.

Edited for format. (I'm still learning markdown.)

I see little people.

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I feel your assumption n = const * s with n = nr of build wares and s = size of building is flawed. The build wares can be modeled to be evenly distributed along the surface area S of the buildings (which underestimates the usage of wares): n ~ S ~ sqrt(s). Another model would be that the wares are evenly in the volume V of the building (which overestimates it): n ~ V ~ s^(1/3). Therefore, the size of the buildings should not grow as drastically as you put it in your first post, the citadel should then only be between 6x and 3x larger than the sentry.

that said, I like the model 2 a lot. Model 1 is also great but seems to mighty for the stronghold imho. Model 3 is a nice design but with it's towerlike appearance it suggest that the stronghold would be a good choice for seeing far imho. I also think it is a weebit to small for the stronghold (which is a medium sized building after all).

Cheers, !SirVer

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@SirVer - Your formulas are awesome! They present a formidable argument. I only wish I understood them.
Yes, I thought Model 3 might be too suggestive of a tower. But you have to admit it would make a fine place to fend off an attack.
So we have +1 for Model 1 and +1 for Model 2. (I'm reserving my vote because I created them unless a tie-breaker is needed and, so far, we HAVE a tie.)

I see little people.

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Hi :),

well that's hard - I like them all very much, but as we need only ONE building: I am for model 2.

However, please do not delete the other models, but please upload them to the media bzr as well (perhaps a seperate directory structure?)"! They are really great as well and looking at them, my thoughts are building great scenario maps using the "special" buildings :).

One more thing to say: Great job!

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