100s of 1000s of City Maps

When I launched my free web-based city map generator, one of the big caveats (and planned updates) was that a less ordered road network was needed.  I’ve fast-tracked that as best I could, and so now two of the main city sections (the east and west, but not yet the southern section) have a second road network that is less ordered.  Roads connect at different angles, many roads don’t run true north-south or east-west, etc.

The chance of getting the more ordered road network vs. the less ordered network is 50/50 for those two sections.

Work on a second layout for the southern section has already begun, but it isn’t ready yet.  Then I’ll work on second layouts for the outer sections; add more special buildings; and whittle down the list of other ways I hope to improve  the generator.

I was trying to think of how many combinations are already possible with this tool.  Right now, the west main section has two possible layouts for each of low, medium and high densities (which makes 6) but that gets quintupled because each can have a keep and it can have a few variations (making 30).  But each of those may or may not have a wall and it may or may not have an outer section.  Each outer section can also be low, medium or high densities.  Then the outer section (if it exists) may or may not have a wall.  Which makes 480.  However there are a couple of rules that limit some combinations that don’t make sense, so erring on the side of caution we can safely call it 300.

The east section is almost the same, except it doesn’t have a possible keep. Two layouts are possible in three densities, with or without a wall and with no outer section or three possible densities for the outer section and the outer section may also have an outer wall.  Which makes 96 possible combinations.  But again a few are impossible so we’ll safely call it 60.  The south section is easier because it is the same as the east except there is currently just one layout so there are 48 combinations. Rounding that down to eliminate impossible layouts safely leave another 30.

300 x 60 x 30 = 54000.

Of course, the generator may rotate the results by 90, 180, or 270 degrees or it may leave it as is which gives 4 more sets of combinations. That means the total is already over 200,000!

Then keep in mind each of these may be joined.  And the join sections have varying densities.  And if two sections aren’t joined there are more possible combinations because those sections may have docks on the river and they may be joined by a bridge.  So I’m going to stop counting, but I think it is safe to say the total will be over a million!

(Those who did better in combinatorics are free to comment below.) 🙂