Building system "overhaul"

[Maiku]

What if: Farthest Frontier, would have - whatever - building not bind to the grid system…Yeah a “Gridless system”… tadaah suprise. No seriously, other than having the grid system, what if the team COULD, implement a gridless system to the game? Like a “different game mode”.

In this way, it could satisfy those who love “building freedom”, and those who love “things to be well-ordered”.

Personally, i love building systems, that do not bind to a grid… (this doesn’t mean that i hate the counterpart). And I deeply think, Farthest Frontier would benefit so… SO MUCH, from having a gridless system. Given how visually appealing the game is made, to look like… Building without being constricted to “follow” a grid… would make the game look even more natural, than it already is.

Because… Well i do not have to tell you, neither i have to the developers, I’m sure they reflected bout this a lot… I don’t know why they went for the grid system. And i respect that… But i cannot ignore, how good the game would look like, without grids. I’ve been thinking bout this, from quite some time…

And the very first thing that drove me, to think that Farthest Frontier would be EVEN “better”, with a gridless system… Is the very first - gorgeous - illustration you see, when you start the game…

Imagine, if we could build that little town, by ourselves. The way the fields are disposed.

And i’m not asking to change completely the building mechanics, of the game, and get rid completely of the already good system they made… As i mentioned before, it could be something someone choses… Like before loading the map, you chose in what kind of system, “you would like to play”.

I think in this way, it would be “easier” to implement.

But i recognize, that without a grid system… the “rotation mechanic” of the buildings, should forcely change also. Becasue, since buildings are bind to a grid, we can face them, in four directions.
“Nord / East / Ovest / Sud”.

But with a Gridless system, that would change “drastically”, because a gridless system, implies you can rotate a building in whatever direction you want. “At full 360 degrees” lol.

/

I dunno for other players… I dunno if you can resonate with this kind of “play-style”, but the thing i love most in sim-building games, is: to make things look as much natural as possible.
I add plenty of roads, to make curves more pleasing, i almost always make road take a curve, rather than positioning them in a squared pattern.

This is an example, of a little town i made, months ago… Some days ago i’ve started the game again.
And i found a beautiful map to “work” with… an amazing seed, i’m glad to share also.
this one => 03F44425BC0

the example town, is from another map.

[medea_fleecestealer]

"Some city builders aim much more for simulation and crafting realistic cities - our goal is to create a more engaging and strategically challenging gameplay experience.

We did try free placement at one point and it felt very finicky, placing a sort of burden on the player to invest more time in building placement simply because they could, which was not necessarily always that satisfying. Most importantly, without grids, we felt like the game was missing a tetris-like strategic component of city layout that was very appealing in some of the old classics of the genre.

We do have spline based roads though and the buildable terrain is not all flat, so even with buildings on a grid, towns do not typically end up being totally grid-like in appearance. Plus the models for many buildings is angled, so that they are not all aligned.

It is a gameplay preference, not a lack of attention to detail. Some will enjoy it, some won’t but that’s how it always is with game dev.,"

Grid Based ? :: Farthest Frontier General Discussions

[Maiku]

I’m greatly thankful, for the reply… I will read this discussion, second… I see the point you’re making.
Ofc i cannot impose, my preference, also I absolutely did not thought it was a lack of attention, from y’all side, As i mentioned “Surely the devs, thought about this… etc.”

It is just the way i feel… that is why i provided, a kind of “solution”. thus “adding” a gridless system, like a “gamemode” / like “an option to activate”. For those who would like to have this kind of building freedom.

it is more or less a dispendious request from my side, at the end of the day… And i know you’re not forced to listen to it.

[Boris_Gonagan]

The game Settlers 6 had a ‘gridless’ system, and I still think could have been the basis for a magnificent Medieval city-builder, but Settlers went back to its semi-fantasy roots and missed the chance.

On the other hand, the Anno series, which had a bunch of games set in the late Medieval-Renaissance period (Annos 1404, 1503, 1602) has always had a very strict and rigid Grid system, which looked very jarringly un-Medieval after seeing the real Medieval city layouts in some European cities.

But I’ve played both the Anno series, and the old grid-based Sierra city builders like Caesar and Pharaoh, with a great deal of pleasure despite the anachronistic grid systems.

And as the screen shot shows, you can still get a pretty irregular city/town even with FF’s ‘grid’ system.

(Fun Fact: the Idea of laying out city streets in a grid started in the Indus Valley civilization about 2500 BCE, but in Europe was a Greek invention in the 5th century BCE by Hippodamus of Miletus, sometimes called the “father of European city planning” who formalized the idea of a right-angled street grid and a market-type city center - so our FF grids are Old News by the approximate time of the game!)

[Maiku]

yeah, the thing is… to make look that town, in that way… i spent a lot of time with adjustments, flickering with the roads and the buildings, to not look like horrible. It is kinda possible to create something “organic”. But it remains always limiting. Because with a gridless system, i would’ve made that town look even better, and obviously… i would’ve spared a lot of time lol.

I’m just saying FF in general, is so good… and extremely visually appealing. It is kinda “wasted potential”.
That someone cannot build in total freedom. And it is constricted to grid “rules”.

the discussion, the moderator linked. Has a lot of people pointing out this thing, and provide very well thought points, bout “the gridless system”.

[SLars]

Interesting! Foundation uses a non-grid system that is very organic.
What size map is your new seed 03F44425BC0?

[Sumpfink]

You can build a nice looking settlement with no apparent grid it just takes a while. This is one corner of a town that’s been going for 120 years or more and I dread to think how many hours I’ve spent on it. Far easier to build this sort of thing on pioneer difficulty of course.

[Maiku]

yeah looks gorgeous indeed… I don’t wanna look repetitive, but imagine what you could do, if there was other than the grid system, a gridless one, this town you made, would’ve looked even better lol.

[Maiku]

It is large

[opie]

What about rotation by 45 degrees while keeping the grid? I think that’s the best compromise between the aesthetic benefit that free building placement provides and the speed-of-use that the grid does.