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Vindolanda reconstructed in \"Medieval Engineers\"
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Hello all.

I wanted to introduce you all to a new piece of software that's now in early-release Alpha, "Medieval Engineers." It's a sandbox world-builder along the lines of Minecraft, but with much greater detail, and with real-world physics, including weight, tension, rolling, gravity, and destruction.

Over the past month, I've used the software to try to recreate Vindolanda, the Roman fort that sat just behind Hadrian's Wall. I've been well-impressed with the power of this software, even in such an early & unfinished stage. I've been able to recreate a fort & vicus that actually respect the known archaeology very well. (Still working on terraforming the landscape around it, a big job.)

The game is being hosted by Steam. The direct link for the Vindolanda build is http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/fi...=432593889. There you can find a number of images, a couple short videos I've created, and a build history.

[img width=400]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/716415927283986457/F3F7FF00F441447C02BC9CE93A7D20934163BFA7/[/img]

[img width=400]http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/719792825670921437/5466669B7650DF9E1E3A3FD7ED9258706BFF0A56/[/img]

Obviously there are limitations -- for now the only stone walls are, well, stone walls. No whitewashing or plaster or paint yet. And the roof choices give generic thin red tile, wood shingles, or thatch. In addition, being "Medieval," the placeable items so far don't include amphorae or samian pottery. But the game is built with modders in mind, and as the community grows hopefully some folks with the talent for it will begin creating more Roman-era materials that can be placed. (I wish I had the talent for it!)

Anyway, I wanted to let the community here know about this new resource. I'm pretty bullish on it as both a source of fun and a way to educate & even test out ideas of how a Roman fort/town would have functioned. Just walking through Vindolanda's streets now in the game has got me thinking of things like, how did carts maneuver the narrow alleys? Where was the rubbish kept? How was the town planned/managed?

Just a lot of fun. I hope you enjoy it.

- Harry
Everything old is new again.
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Vindolanda reconstructed in \"Medieval Engineers\" - by sacoharry - 06-02-2015, 12:13 PM

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