An attempt at mapping using economics.

[Redrobes]

Cheers Crayons, Accumulated wealth: Yes its true that as Andy, Bob, Charlie, Dave, Eathan, Fred etc all build more and more houses their sense of house value drops. Its a symptom of the fact that there are no more transactions built into the system at this point. They cant go on to build a castle or whatever. When I add more and add more consumable transactions - like drinking beer etc then their wealth will get depreciated over time.

Right now all these people act alone with almost no person to person interaction. All the interaction is that one person can path beat and another can move easier across the map using that path and also when they build a house or plant crops then other people now cant use that square. But trade is the key to getting professions. All people at mo must be Jacks of all trades cos each man is an island. When they trade and their skills get adjusted by their successes of transactions then I think they will fall into roles. When a farmer can grow crops faster than the lumberjack he will have more crops and value them less till he sells them then the amount of crops he has will fall, he values them more and will grow some more. I.e. he will stick at being a farmer and Mr lumberjack will not grow anything but trade logs for food instead. In an ideal world - i.e. the target here - we want to add 3 people to the map and after a while one will be the farmer, one the lumberjack and the other the stone mason. Each will stick by their own resource and go off and barter for the missing ones. So we want the amount that a good farmer can grow, a good mason can produce bricks and a good lumberjack can produce timber to be all about the same wealth creating rate. At the start tho, everybody must be a farmer to satisfy their hunger and later on the chaos of the initial conditions will sort them into groups. It may also make people bunch up. Since two similar farmers standing next to each other would equalize their resources by trade. It may be tho that anyone else buying harvest will go to the one with the more harvest to get it cheaper and thus that farmer will be the one to get more (different -> valuable) resources. I don't know how that's going to pan out.

I will definitely add the transaction to extend an existing house so that it will be worth more with less cost than to start a new one. That is key to getting streets. Your right in that at present its all like infill. When a person has enough materials to make a house they look at the closest square that they can satisfy a house build from where they are not from the most ideal point.

I have the mill and smithy next on the build list but at mo no transactions to make one. But those will grind harvest into flour and the smithy will make what I am calling mechanical items like cart axles etc. It will be cool to turn planks into a boat and go fishing.

I would like to have shops too of course. The first will be a bakery taking flour from the mill and turning into bread. It would be better for people to buy bread than scavenge. Bread will go off after a few days but I am hoping that I can tune the costs so that people would prefer bread. Once its selling lots of bread then the mill will have a consumer of flour and thus keep the farmers all going. We need a similar sink of mech items to keep the smithy going. So maybe ill make carts out of them or that to upkeep the mill or something complicated requires nails or other thing all lumped under mech grade 1.

So with all that laid out. Do you have any ideas how I could bias the choice of a house build position ? It has to be done using numbers I have right now at the point of the build not a speculative AI thing about where you might think there is best chance of limiting the travel to and from the house. For example I could keep a long term weighted average of all the positions he has been so that its keeping a constant center of gravity type position of his routes and try to put the house as close to that as possible. That kind of thing ?

Yeah, this is where it all gets interesting cos most of the engine code is in there and we can mess about with all the tweaking to see what happens.

[Crayons]

So with all that laid out. Do you have any ideas how I could bias the choice of a house build position ? It has to be done using numbers I have right now at the point of the build not a speculative AI thing about where you might think there is best chance of limiting the travel to and from the house. For example I could keep a long term weighted average of all the positions he has been so that its keeping a constant center of gravity type position of his routes and try to put the house as close to that as possible. That kind of thing ?

I've have been thinking about this! However I can't really come up with anything you won't have already considered, I imagine. The following is likely very obvious but it's my thought processes...
Most of this is stuff I think you have on your "to do" list, and I'm really looking forward to seeing them arrive !!

Salent points?
I think a fundamental is the decision of profession.
In times of yore a persons workplace was also his home.
Most of a person's time is taken up with work (and sleep) - he cuts down trees every day but probably only goes to the "shops" once a week (say).
"Refined" products are easier to transport than raw materials.

So a person will generally live next to his raw materials. That is biased by
a) the quantity(/quality?) of raw materials present - ie. how long he can work the site - this is forward thinking but not really speculative - the quantity is measurable
b) "distance" from his customers - this is based on the "road value" factor - time and effort. This may be significant if aspects of "perishability" of the goods is considered. Grain can be transported further than bread. Bread goes "off" faster, for example.

What should transpire, I would imagine, is a radial pattern. Mining/forestry - any non-perishable product can be as far from the centre as it likes - proximity need is more about "shopping".
Long term perishables producers, eg. farms are closer.
Short term perishables, eg. processed foods, fish etc are even closer

So what is at the centre? The place where all this is traded.
Why is that place there? Because in the grand scheme of things that's where the next echelon of trade progresses. I call to mind the history of Stilton. It got its name from where it was distributed from, not where it was made.

On the detail side of house placement.
I think you might want to introduce building "sides" and "separation" - people don't generally build immediately in front of or behind someone else's house - I imagine there would be some sort of shouting involved! A "separation" factor would probably be required - this would be dependant on profession? A farmer is likely to shout much more about crowding than a blacksmith
One exception to this would be at cross roads, where building (say) one space away and behind someone else is "OK". I would imagine that the major of the two roads would get populated more first....? At some point adding to the end of this becomes "too far" compared to living on a "side street". A crossroads represents a minor "plus" factor for placement as it adds "value" in terms of ease of access, I guess.

Expansion
How a farm doesn't end up in the middle of a town that grows around it? Well, for this you need land values. A "close in" farmer will sell his high value land and eventually move? I'm unsure about this.

Ultimately, I think the town has to have that focal point - the market. That, in turn, needs the external communications links.

"Common Land" - I thought I'd throw this one in here. Market's and parks and some other spaces could be designated as Common Land, this should add a certain extra permanency and protection for such spaces...?

Like I said at the start, I can't help you on the code front, but I hope this sort of logical assessment is useful?
cheers!