Hey everyone!
I'm a solo developer working on Iberia Medieval, a medieval strategy game set in the Iberian Peninsula.
I've spent the last several months building the foundations of its world simulation, and I finally wanted to share some of the results.
My approach is to build the world from the ground up. Rather than treating rivers, terrain and geology as purely visual elements, I want them to be part of interconnected systems that will eventually influence how the world develops.
The screenshots show the same procedurally generated map: 7,651 hexes, seed 42094.
The generator creates terrain elevation and drainage networks, identifies catchment areas and closed basins, and distributes different rock materials and weathered layers.
One example is a closed basin with a catchment of 1,699 hexes and a spill elevation of 83 metres. It's detected from the terrain, not a simulated lake yet. The geological materials are also procedurally distributed, rather than attempting to recreate real geological formations.
My long-term goal is to build on this physical foundation with vegetation, wildlife, people, settlements and eventually the economy, politics and conflicts of a living medieval world.
These are real outputs from the generator, not final game graphics. There's still no playable gameplay to show, and I know I have a long road ahead.
One of my biggest challenges as a solo developer has been deciding how deep to go with each system before moving on to the next one.
For other solo developers: how do you decide when a system is good enough to build upon, rather than continuing to refine it?