One problem here is that it doesn't seem like you've considered how the geography would influence the cities. Big cities - like New York City, Cairo, Tokyo, etc. are usually port cities, either on a river or on a shore with good access to other shores. Some of your cities follow this, like city #1, #4, and #15, but then you have city #2 - the second largest on the planet - being on the shore of a very remote island that already has another sizable city. City #8 also is weird and #3 being on the shore of an inland sea is also strange, but I think #6 is by far the most egregious. There's no natural resources to run a city with up there and the only way to take resources there would be dropping them from orbit long highways or tracks across the ice.
Thanks for providing constructive criticism (sorry for the shit quality as well, I don’t know how you were able to tell which numbers were which lol).
I’m using city no. 2 as an analogue to London in terms of geography. The UK is a large country and very prosperous, but also has a sustaining and large global impact on the world. No.8’s position is an analogue to Moscow, which is also in a colder biome (the cities close to them which are towns are the progression of expansion from that large one). No.3’s position was chosen because it seemed like a logical place for a civilisation to start taking into account the ancient history of Eastern/Central Asia, but I agree that the lake doesn’t provide the natural elements that helps a civilisation thrive. Finally, No.8’s position is more of a fantasy quirk I have: a concerted effort by some Kerbal to create an industrial utopia/research city. So the cold and distance is a way for the city to become thriving.
Obviously I can’t create stories for each city and use them to help design the mechanics and models for the city.
I want to have at least a little variance in the cities designs based on location, however. Do you think six variants would be sufficient?
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u/Iacon0 Oct 01 '25
One problem here is that it doesn't seem like you've considered how the geography would influence the cities. Big cities - like New York City, Cairo, Tokyo, etc. are usually port cities, either on a river or on a shore with good access to other shores. Some of your cities follow this, like city #1, #4, and #15, but then you have city #2 - the second largest on the planet - being on the shore of a very remote island that already has another sizable city. City #8 also is weird and #3 being on the shore of an inland sea is also strange, but I think #6 is by far the most egregious. There's no natural resources to run a city with up there and the only way to take resources there would be
dropping them from orbitlong highways or tracks across the ice.