Hello everyone!

This thread started out as a specific question, but the project has developed and I'd like to use this topic for general questions concerning my WIP. And of course I am happy about feedback!
Thank you unknown mod for moving the thread

Here is the previous text of the first post, so you don't get confused about the replies after this post


About the world:
It is a large map becaused I used the method where you paint the outer chunks with unroutable paint to create the world's egde
It is a mountainous river vale tape of terrain

About the theme:
The title sais medieval / renaissance because I find it extremely hard to create functional buildings that are realisticly medieval. So I settle for early reanaissance which is a lot easier The year may be 1450-ish. I'm not attempting to build an authentic historic world, but I try to incorporate as much realism as possible.
There are no roads, only sidewalks
The world doesn't correspond to a certain region. I used several building styles, but I seem to by influenced by buildings from my home (Germany)
Most of the city houses are gothic timber framework houses, some are typical renaissance stone and timber buildings.

Features:
Wide river with a smaller river leading into the big one
Big lake
City inside wall with one main gate (I use the walls from Monte Vista)
Fortess on a seperate island
Fortified port
Crop fields, farms and fishing huts outside the city wall
Routable forests with small lots in them (and also unroutable dense ones)
A monastery with vineyards surrounding it

Not yet built:
Ruin of the rival noble dynasty's castle
Old pagan settlement and cult sites
Outlaw camp
Quarry and mine

Things I want to do but am not sure I can:
A general storyline with lots of bits and pieces strewn over the world. I have the story, but don't know how well I can implement it


I will update this posting.
Some more pictures are in the posts further down

I would think, if your pattern/wall/floor selections would be a cause of lag, you definitely don't have a PC powerful enough to run the sims.

Routing is the main keyword when it comes to world performance. Next would probably be the amount of plants and lots. Then perhaps the amount of custom content in the world. But you can read a ton about routing in the CAW forum, as well as optimizing for performance anyways.

Just to add to what armiel is saying, you can keep an eye on the file size when you use something. That may be useful sometimes, mostly with CC though. Some like their stuff big trailer size. It's far easier as well

Thank you both Now I won't worry about using multi-color patterns; admittedly, the single-color stone patterns look a bit bland, and I'm glad I don't have to use them much. Also, I really cut down on the CC. There won't be more than 20 or so CC objects in the world (mostly build stuff essential to a medieval hood)

Now I have a question regarding routing in buildings, that is, buildings on community lots.
In my world, i like to scatter bits and pieces of quests and riddles in many places, some of which are hidden in public buildings as for example the library. In order to avoid that the townies mess with the prepared objects (for instance bookshelves that contain certain books as hints), I use doors that I set as unusable for NPC (using the cheat code).
So that raises the question: As the room behind the door stays visible, will townies try to autonomously interact with objects in said room, thus causing routing problems?
I tried to test this, and the townies that visited or that I invited on the lot didn't even attempt to enter the building! They just stood around idling, chatting, or using outside objects. Now I don't know if there is no problem, or if there is one and the townies staying outside the building were a result of corrupt routing. I would not like to risk my world ending up crashing because of townies that pile up in front of certain public buildings, so I'd like to be sure.
Any ideas on this? How could I test the building effectively?

I think you might want to split everything from "Now... " down and make a post of that to build forum. Might get more views, and better replies too, as no all builders do CAW as well.

I have to say I can't reply that question just now at least, too sleepy brain.

Er ... I'm sorry, but just now I don't know what you mean by build forum, I thought this is the build forum? Was I posting in the wrong section? :oops: Ooorrrrr did you mean I should post the question to the CAW forum?

No, I think I mentioned sleepy brain... I thought I was viewing a post in CAW forum as per title Carry on...!

*Gives armiel a chocolate caffeine cookie* There you go

Should anyone be interested, I did another test and am now 96% sure that non-NPC-usable doors (is this english grammar?) cause no problems on community lots.
That is because townies do use them perfectly normally (provided the room contains a highly attractive object, giving them a reason to enter)
Looks like the setting does only apply to another kind of sims, but I don't know which kind. Homeless service sims maybe, but those wouldn't have a reason to enter public buildings anyway, am I right?

But it sure is a problem for me, how can I stop townies from entering certain rooms (without making them tombs - hey this rhymes!) and meddling with the carefully arranged objects?

I don't know anything about this subject, I did know something about the first one though. So making a new thread may be a good idea.

On your NPC and Townie question I'm populating my world and realized there really is a difference between the two. That may or may not have something to do with it.

My world has developed quite a bit (I know, took me long enough It's a longterm project that lay dormant for a while ) I tried to avoid things that are known to cause routing troubles. But I don't know ho well that went. The world is not unplayable, but there seem to be a few problems that I can't find the reasons for.
So I am asking for help Anyone interested in taking a look? I've attached some sceenshots of what I got so far to give you a general idea.
The world isn't finished, there are still some buildings missing, it's not populated yet, parameters are still standard, and I have to do a cosmetic overhaul of most buildings (due to previously used cc that I dediced not to use in CAW)

Please reply or PM me if you would like to help test and improve my world
Of course I'll provide more info if needed, regarding the issues and troublesome spots



And I think this thread should be in the Creator Feedback subforum. How can I move it there, or is there a friendly mod who could please put it there?

Looks absolutely beautiful!

What are the issues you're having?

Have you looked into routing? Have you checked out this tutorial about routing? http://www.modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=439329
I would start there.

Thank you

Yes I read the tutorial and use the routing lines when I build new things. I also have certain places painted unroutable ( like heavily overgrown areas and steep slopes ) to prevent sims from getting lost in a maze of plants, or walking up the hills on the edge of the camera unroutable border. But that presents one possible problem; I am not sure if these unroutable areas are too scattered and might cause sims to get lost. There are no red routing squares, but as we know sims can easily loose their way for no apparent reason.

When ever I test a new version I move in some households to do their things for some sim days, and I have the active sims test a few things. That is how I discovered some problems.

One issue seem to be horses, they run just everywhere they shouldn't. Right through the town wall, under the bridge instead of over it, through walls in buildings and down the steepest cliff. I'm not sure if they also ignore unroutable-painted territory, that I will yet test. But I have no idea what I can do to end the ghost horse wall walking in buildings, it seems to occur only in certains spots like on the outer wall of the fortress on the little island. Edit: It wasn't the horses' fault, there were routable paths through the normally unroutable city wall where lots or sidewalks are directly adjacent to the city wall on both sides, so the horses glitched trough. I corrected that by painting the terrain directly under the wall unroutable

And my world has one huge problem that makes me want to give up. There is no bridge over the wide river, and there is nothing on the far side. It's meant to be only decoration and so that the city is on a river and not on the ocean shore. But there are still instances when sims end up on the wrong side, where they then find no way home and cause lag. One istance is pet adoption, for some reason the pets spawn on the wrong side. Also when a sim wants to travel to a destination, they want to do so by exiting the map on the other side, and also they spawn there upon return. And sometimes service sims end up there too.
So I need to find a way to either invisibly connect the river sides, or (which I prefer) make the standard waypoint for world entering and exiting somewhere on the right side ( I even have sidewalks along the river to the far map end, because silly me thought that would make the game recognize that sims are supposed to spawn there )

Edit: I added some screenshots. One shows my "way to the outer world" which is totally unusable because it becomes unroutable at the camera-unroutable-border (I have made the outer 2 chunks camera unroutable - the trees mark the chunk border) How is that done in Shang Simla? I know that travelling sims there use a sidewalk into the hills to leave/enter the map.

The other two are to illustrate my worry about a possible maze of unroutable areas. Although the routing lines look ok (and test sims walked there just fine) I don't know if there may be problems in the long run. Or do sims not get lost trying to find the shortest way when the only available path is winding around dozens of curves? The screenshots show an area in a little valley which I wanted to be accassable but only with some effort and pathfinding skills, like a click-through maze with no highly visible way and only the natural look of the terrain as hints (there is an invisible sidewalk up to a certain point where I plan to build some little things and I think NPC sims might go there, so they get a sidewalk to be sure they don't go astray)
I wanted to make a map where the sims can go everywhere that looks like they can get there, and not border off the entire hilly part with invisible walls, but I will limit the accassable areas if the "maze" is a lag-inducing problem

Hhm, those mazes might be too taxing on the sims engine, after all sims are really stupid when it comes to routing.

What is the size of your world? Maybe have a try where your non routable areas more unanimous. Also, how is your computer? Is it capable of running sims well?

If your sims end up at the other side of the world which is supposed to be completely non routable, there might be tiny tiny routable spots left. Have you noticed if there are certain specific spots where the sims tend to spawn?

I dont fully undestand your way to outer world, but Shang simla is about one of the worst wolds routing wise.Ellacharmed had made a fix for it though: http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=448919 In her threads she points out the problems, maybe you have similar issues?

Yes sims are really bad at finding their way The valley shown is in the far corner of the accessable part of the map, and sims have no real reason to go there except for exploring and gathering. There are no buildings or objects of interest that might cause an NPC sim to venture there. So if the only sims to wander in the valley are player controlled, there SHOULD be no big problems, like a pileup of stray paparazzi or something like that. At least I hope so I'm mostly concerned about wild animals to get trapped. Until now, in my tests I haven't seen a stuck NPC in the area, but as soon as I do I need to change it.

The map is a large one, but the outer two rows of cunks are completely camera unroutable, and there aren't that may lots so I hope the map to be managable for an average gaming PC such as mine. Its not very new but powerful enough for most things to go smoothly ( 8 GB RAM, 1024 MB graphic card RAM, Athlon II x2 processor running on 3,30 Ghz ) TS3 does run well except for Sunlit Tides. But I don't think that is my PC's fault ^^ resetsim * tends to solve most lag issues even in big worlds that have been running for 100+ sim days, so I really think it's just the routing problems that cause the most lags.

Thanks for reminding me to look for hole in the unroutable area! I didn't think of that because making the outer chunks camera unroutable was the very first thing I did even before terrain sculpting. I don't know where most sims spawn, because it seems to be ob the outer map edge where I can't go with the camera. When I adopt a pet and it spawns there I can select it in the household and look where it is, but that's not very conclusive because the camera doesn't go that far, there ist only the little round portrait with that arrow sort of thing pointing in the direction where the sim is located, and that seems to be near the middle of the northern edge of the map or somewhere between there and the city.
So after reading your tip I looked for holes in the unroutable area near that corner, but found nothing, nor anywhere near the edges, I checked multiple times. BUT I found a hole near the border of the accessable area. It's not where the sims seem to spawn, but maybe the arrow is wrong and points in the NW corner by default as long as the freshly spawned sim hasn't moved yet. I'll now test if the hole I found and closed was the cause

I don't understand the way to the outer world either. In my world, the road is useless In Shang Simla, there is a sidewalk to the edge of the map where the travelling sim appears. So it seams to be possible to define something like a spawning point, that's what I want to do.
Thanks for the link! I'll look it through and see if I made the same mistakes as EA :D

Your world is lovely! One thing I try to do in routing is to have an unbroken line that goes all around the edges of the routable area. This involves erasing single squares of non routable paint at the edges between the routing dots and re-building the routing. I also try to avoid single lines coming off of the edges by painting those squares (usually just one or two) as unroutable. This seems to make things run more smoothly and avoids the sims zigzagging around. Look carefully at the camera and sim non-routable areas at the edges of the map or on hills, etc. Just one unpainted square can cause a sim to try to route to or spawn there. Also, some of the world decorations don't block routing. I've had to paint non-routing paint behind waterfalls, rocks, under some fences, and behind the train tunnels too, if I remember correctly. Good luck with your project!

Ah I think I know what you mean. Makes sense! Looking at my routing there are a lot of areas that can be improved. I made a sreenshot of one particular spot. Is that what you mean?

Straightening out those routing borders in the whole world may take a while, but if you say it helps

Exactly! It is time consuming, but I think it really does improve routing. It's much easier if the grid is turned on, in case you didn't know. Then, I turn the grid off and pull the camera way back to look for single or isolated routing dots. Good job!

I'm not a worldbuilder as such (mine are flat, saves a lot of trouble ), but how does those terrain paints work, in regard to sims ending up on the wrong side? Isn't there a "don't go there" paint?

Oh, and I think your word looks gorgeous! Great work

Hood looks really really nice. I'll test if you want.

In CAW you should be able to go to the edges of the world even with non-camera routing paint to look for unpainted areas. The non-camera routing paint is for EIG in CAW and in game so that the camera is limited where it goes when a world is initially opened. At least, that's been my experience. The world I am currently working on is the first world that has sims/camera non routing paint under roads at the edges of the map. I've not yet tested it to see what happens EIG or in game. However, this is apparently the method used by EA. I'm not sure yet how, or how well, it works.

@Tigerdyhr Yes there is, it's the "camera unroutable" paint that I mentioned, it means that that ingame, you can't go there with the camera, and it also makes the area "forbidden" for the sims. There is also a paint that makes the terrain unroutable for sims only, so that you can go there with the camera but sims can't walk there. The wrong side of the river is completely painted, so it's really mysterious why the stuck pets seem to spawn there

@SimmyRN I did look at all edges very carefully in CAW. But didn't find any holes in the camera unroutable outer two lines of chunks, but there was that hole near the accessable part. I closed that hole and am exporting the map now, hopefully to see if maybe that hole was ehre they really spawned

@tizerist Thank you! I'll do some more work to create an uploadable version soon

I am in LOVE with the idea of a walled-in medieval Sims world. I've been looking for one for ages. Please upload when you can, I would be happy to test it out for you!

You might like Praaven.

This looks amazing!

Thanks
Yes I will upload as soon as this thing is playable. Still have to work out some mayor things concerning population and lighting parameters and such, and there are some buildings left that need redecorating.

The routing thing is driving me crazy though -.- There are so many unroutable spots that just won't work right when I try to get a nice and non-zigzaggy routing line around them. Like there are two white dots where routing lines end at the border, but that aren't connected. I delete a few single squares of unroutable, rebuild the routing data (which takes aaaaages when you do it every few seconds -.- ) and the result is that the two dots are now somewhere else and new zigzaggy end-lines have appeared. I mostly end up painting the unroutable areas bigger than I intended. But I think it may be less notable in game when a sim can't walk within two feet of an obstacle, rather it would be if sims have to bee-line their way through the thicket.

About half of the map is done now.

Also, I repainted the whole mountain terrain. As the city is supposed to be a centre of wine growing and trade, I wanted the landscape to look a little less moist highlands and more Cornwall meets Tuscany, to agree with the background story. The geology looks more realistic now, with layers of darker, hard rock that forms the peaks and softer stone which is more eroded. I want the city to look like it was built with stone from the area, and as the city walls from MV are sandstone colored (and I can't recolor) I thought sandstone sediments between other layers are logical. No idea if thats really realistic, but I think it looks quite nice now
The buildings in the city are all built with yellowish stone to match the walls or grey stone.

For the eroded sandstone I used Ashillion's rock terrain texture (New_Rock_Winter) from here: https://ashillion.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/897/
The darker rock is WA_rock_med by Martine from here http://modthesims.info/t/385025

And I added the quarry and the ancient village, or more precicely, the remains thereof (but I won't tell you what happened to it)

As for the routing maze issue, I decided that sims don't need to be able to walk up every hill and mountain pass that isn't too steep. But as I don't like it when they can't go somewhere that looks accessable, I decorated those areas with rocks and wild greenery so that the sims will know why they cannot go there (at least not in THOSE shoes, you puddingfaced clown *ranting at random non-medieval NPC*)

Have some pictures, and please excuse me for taking so long to have an upload ready version