I am a warhammer fantasy nerd. In my early teenage years, a good friend introduced me to WFRP, 1st edition. We spend next to every weekend playing, and I still fondly remember my characters. Still have them in my binder.
Then came Warhammer Fantasy Battle, 6th edition. Orks, Ogres, Beastmen, finally Lizardmen. I couldn’t really play the game well at all, but I kept hoping that another army will be better. I played a lot in 7th edition, couldn’t quite get into the 8th.
Eventually Warhammer Underworlds happened, played that one a lot, and around the same time I discovered the Warhammer Total War 2. I’ve spent several hundred hours in that one so far.
Warhammer was always there.
In early 2021 I learned about WFRP, 4th edition, wonderfully translated to polish by Copernicus Corporation. I listened to several podcast sessions, and finally bought the main book. Then the next one, and next one, to make that inner 15-year-old happy.
Eventually, my lovely wife convinced me to give game-mastering a shot. I presented the idea to several friends, and here we are: 10 meetings done in last year, and always planning what’s next for my players.
As an engineer, I also love learning new things. When I discovered https://acoup.blog/, I fell in love with it. I absolutely love learning how really things were looking in ancient/medieval times, as opposed how they are often represented. Actual historical facts are so much more interesting than their popular representation!
But here is the thing: The more ACOUP I’ve read, the more at odds it was with the source material for Warhammer. Warhammer, turns out, is not scientifically accurate!
That made me think. Made me ask questions. How does Ubersreik feed it’s people, if maps show it’s just surrounded by grass? How much food does it actually need? How many imperial people should work on farms, to feed the empire? Those are just the starter questions.
So, to answer these questions, an idea was brewing in my brain, and I finally decided to do it.
I shall implement an economy simulation for the Empire!
The dream is to simulate the economy in much depth for millions of people, based on (broadly) realistic constraints. But in order to do that, I need a world to simulate. This means, that for the forseeable future, I am making a map-drawing app.
Initial focus is on introducing points of interest, rivers, cities and roads. I want to represent the empire, as a graph of cities, and their connections. And not even that, Reikland for now.
I, quite frankly, already implemented a little bit of it before I decided it’s a blog-worthy material. The following several posts will be my attempt to present what I already have. I will try and explain my thought process and why I made certain decisions. Once that is documented, I’ll move on to figuring out new things.
The project is coded in https://crystal-lang.org/. Onwards to the humble beginning!