Freeform House Building

[timber fern]

Note: I searched pretty extensively, and didn't see this suggested.

I would like to be able to build a freeform house with multiple rooms, interior doorways, stone fireplaces, etc. Building a house of a custom size would increase variety and indulge creativity.

[oak coyote]

Sound like an interesting idea to be honest.

I agree with the whole having the ability to build freely of a house. I'm not sure how multiple room would work.

Do you mean like multiple room for decorations? Or each person have their own room with a bed inside with space to decorate it, and having rooms like for example, dinning room, kitchen, and ect.

[burnt lotus]

This would be awesome! And being able to actually furnish the houses. I find the large house very odd cause it's so empty inside.

[strong ledge]

I really like this idea. They could use something like a more intense version of Valheim's structural strength system to keep it realistic, too.

I was just thinking about how a longhouse would be cool for building multifamily "clan" housing late game, and that would be an even better way of doing it.

[light tangle]

love the idea so much, just imagine that which type of house we can design and build at our own will, plus decorate things inside them as well to make them more lively and more beautiful than ever.

[lavish scaffold]

I don't like the idea personally. We are in a valley full of simple workers with a simple life. I don't think they would have that large houses with multiple rooms.
But furniture would be cool.

[placid gorge]

Coming from Valheim, been decorator during 3k hours and i really don't want to see again stone tower etc, by the way i'm ok if we can change production building design the same as we change wall or windows on houses, decorating walls of herbalist hut by ourself, put a windows on food storage etc

[strong ledge]

I really don't get the "simple life" thing. My village of fifty people is sitting on ten thousand pounds of meat that barely gets used because we make so much other food that there isn't enough time in the day to make use of it and our neighbors are too poor to even bother trading with because we don't need anything they have. The only reason I haven't Mansa Musa'd the Valley is because I can't. In the century the game is set in, that kind of wealth went into insane architecture like the Vezelay Abbey, pictured below and finished in 1165.

This was the century between romanesque and gothic architecture, arguably the most over-the-top that it got until the pre-enlightenment. Especially when we're dealing with a timespan of generations, it feels incredibly artificial to be limited to one of three templates - though templates and simpler options definitely do still belong, and options for bigger stuff like higher square footage and second or third floors should be locked waay behind some advanced "supports" tech or something, and still given an upper limit.

[marsh lichen]

The game is mostly based on Slavic culture. In 1165 there were still Pagans in many places. Vezelay Abbey would have never been built on those land during XII century. There were simply no knowledge or specialist who could do it. And definitely that wouldn't haven been build in some random villages, middle of nowhere by peasants...

[strong ledge]

While it was definitely more rare in Eastern Europe, it was definitely not a case of "never". This, for example, is the Collegiate Church of Mary and st Alex in Łęczyca, Poland, completed in 1161. And it took less than 20 years to build.

I get what you're saying and I don't think we should be slapping megastructures like these down everywhere, but my point is that these little houses shouldn't be the limit. There's absolutely precedent for some crazy stuff, and the technology was undeniably there - literally, in this case, since the devs are based in Poland.

I have a really hard time believing that peasants - or anyone, for that matter, would reject better accommodation for any reason other than being limited by resources, which we pretty decidedly aren't. It's a very "he must be king because he hasn't got (word that's probably why this didn't go through the first time) all over him" view of history and class.

[marsh lichen]

As I already said 'not in some random villages'. The earliest gothic building on land you would call Poland nowadays was created in XIII century, so almost 100 later than the Abbey above. The were usually designed and built for orders, which you can image that illiterate peasant would not be a part of. Peasants wouldn't have not rejected better accommodation or life quality for sure (why would they?), however they simply did not have access to those resources and building knowledge. Polish villages stagnated almost until XX century (not only Polish actually, this was common in whole Europe), so much that you wouldn't see much different between XVII peasant house and XIX peasant house. The structures were usually wooden, not too big or complex.

Bigger structures would made sense if it was a city builder, so the buildings would be organically added. However it doesn't make sense for a simple village. I do agree that maybe more advances wooden structures would be nice to add. Not maybe as complex as abbey but anything agricultural woulde be nice.

[strong ledge]

If this game were in any way representative of some random village, that would be a fair point. But it's not. We, in a series of events that would quite literally never happen, were granted permission to build a settlement in an unbelievably rich area and within a few years, unfailingly, have more resources and wealth than we know what to do with. That does happen to some random villages, but they don't stay random villages for very long. They become cities like Paris, Cologne and Prague because that's what happens when you have the resources.

The Abbey above is in Poland. And as I said, it was finished in 1161.

[strong ledge]

If the goal was to have a realistic sim of some random village in Eastern Europe, the game would look more like that Life is Feudal MMO from however many years back but with NPCs, not where you can knock out a modestly sized stone house and then make five crossbows in an afternoon.

[marsh lichen]

The abbey in Tum is a reprenatative of a romanian style not gothic. You pictured Vezelay Abbey in your first post, therefore I was referring to gothic architecture. 'They become cities like Paris, Cologne and Prague because that's what happens when you have the resources' No, you get i wrong. Those places become mega-cities because they are the center of education, religion and state institution, cultural exchange etc. etc. This makes them to order and consume such amout of resources. They usually don't PRODUCE it. The exploit peripheries which produce it and deliver it to them. So simply creating and mining resources doesn't grant you the power to manage them and knowledge to use them. If it wasn't the case all workers would own their fruits of labor, Marks would never have created his works, there would be no October Revolution etc. As said, Polish village stagnated until XX century. Yes, small places become bigger, with advance structures etc. However to become one they would need to become a center of some influence for example religious, academical etc.

[marble leaf]

@strong ledge Do you even know in what time and where the game is set? Medieval contains the houses that existed at that time. If you don't like that, you have to play another game or read up on that time. There is a very interesting museum village in Volin (Poland) that was reconstructed on the basis of excavations that were made there. It shows the time around 1000, and the buildings look like those in the game. The Middle Ages did not develop evenly in Europe. Because of St Mary and St Alexius: Medieval takes place in the 11th century and not in the 12th century and in a small valley and not in a city.

[naive panther]

All of you are simply forgetting that this is a GAME and the restrictions of 3 different form houses is just messing with our creativity, you all talk about the game being super realistic although we are literally a random slave in the oxbow that gets the super unrealistic task to build an entire village by yourself, by hand. A single man would take years to build even a few houses especially when made out of stone. So Realism is really a variable that does not matter at all. Freeform buildings would undoubtedly and objectively increase medievals replayability immensely and probably also attract a huge amount of new players. All of you who don’t want it probably just can’t create something yourself, I suggest ya‘ll go try Minecraft.

Freeform building should be a top tier priority for this game and if that isnt an option there should be a lot more variety in house forms. Also fitting to this please decrease or change how hitboxes work, it’s really frustrating seeing the Main Village of Oxbow and how wonderful it looks and then not being able to create something that comes even close to it only because of game limitations, as if the game wants to rub it into your face

[undone tundra]

"Hey, it's just a game" is a very common excuse for all sorts of things the devs never intended to put into their game (and that's true for many a game, not just MD, whose devs said, that they would keep the game as realistic as possible). So why don't we have pink unicorns? It's just a game.
You see: It starts with a windmill and won't even end at pink unicorns.

[lusty socket]

I agree with you Thalassa, the "Windmill" issue (a slippery slope imo) always has been something I also have had an issue with tbh - as in exactly what you said - it starts there and ends where (?) 😉
Cheers mate

[muted elbow]

imho the windmill should unlock not with tech but with nb years in the Dynasty (= several generations later ^^)

[lusty socket]

I agree, I've always liked this idea https://discord.com/channels/1069629094871978074/1225698104242868277 of yours Crazy, it would add more purpose to gen shifting and long plays like alot of us enjoy aye
This could be applied (to get back on topic rofl) to the housing idea too
As the gens progress they "learn" new building techniques etc to customise housing (within logical reason, not "I can now build a castle/fort" but housing differentials is ok imo, like the freeform idea) 😉

[naive panther]

There is literal magic potions in the game. Nightvision.

[naive panther]

Also this is a recreation of a 9th century fortress in Poland. So no, Freebuild, to some extend is not far from reality and too far fetched

The Middle ages were definitely more advanced than what the game currently offers

Or this, this is from the 11th century and correct me but isnt the game set in 1080 something.

[undone tundra]

But this is not a humble hamlet as ours in MD.

[naive panther]

You can quite literally build over a hundred houses, that’s not a humble hamlet

That’s about the amount of houses in the pic

My issue is just that I‘m really unhappy with the 3 house blueprints were given, I never use the huge house as it’s too empty inside for me personally, and an entire village with 80 of the same 2 house variants tends to look extremely boring really quick. I just wish for more variation and ways to change it up

I do agree that it’s probably not so ideal if we can freely build whatever we want and then people start building skyscrapers although it would be somewhat really interesting it does not really fit MD but the game still lacks variety, maybe there’s a way to find something inbetween.

[undone tundra]

(That happens, if you are a "optimizer" and build every house the same, so it has the max insulation.
You know, you can build every wall differently and then it doesn't look boring any more.)

I do like the idea for "late game".

Very, very late game 😉

[naive panther]

For my mind it looks off if there’s a few wooden walls left, thinking about insulation and all

I‘m still unhappy there’s no max upgrade variants for as example the hunter hut

I do get what you mean tho

[undone tundra]

People weren't thinking about insulation back then. They build with what they had.

[naive panther]

Eh I think Insulation was actually really important hence why it’s a thing in the game, because otherwise you‘ll likely freeze to death in a harsh winter

Depending on regions of course

[undone tundra]

They were quite inventive and stuffed moss inbetween cracks in the wood.

And in those years, it was essential to have some openings in your ceiling for the smoke (as there weren't any chimmneys yet).

[naive panther]

That’s also insulation

I wasn’t talking about the absolutely perfect looking walls we have in md, of course that’s not really what they had back then

Anyway we are getting very off-topic

[undone tundra]

Yes.
As I said: I like the idea, but I doubt if it would be possible to create a fully functional ingame house from single pieces (but would love to be proved wrong by the devs 😄 ).

[naive panther]

Probably not due to npc coding yea

[undone tundra]

But even if there was no "free" building, it would be great to see a development in house building (like blueprints with an upper floor in very late game (e.g. after playing 50 or more years))

[naive panther]

10000%

[empty plank]

It would help if there were just some texture variations to the stone and limestone walls, so while they are max insulation some can be chipped, some have moss and vines growing in them etc

Might make that a separate suggestion forum

[naive panther]

Yea that’s been recommended I’m a thread about the ivy that’s growing on the houses in oxbow

It’s called growing ivy

[empty plank]

Like imagine really weathered and pale wood houses etc

[undone tundra]

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