A Guide to Nothing and Everything

"Castle Building in Foundation 101"

Good morning. This is less a guide, and more of an answer to the question; "What mods are you using" with an implied; "why doesn't mine look like yours if we are using the same mods?". The answer is coming in the form of a friendly and mini lecture, "Castle Building in Foundation 101". So who am I and what do I know about anything? I'm a 27th Matrilineal Great grandson of The de Clare Family who in 1066 sailed alongside William I to conquer England and whose family in the service of what was to become the Plantagenet Dynasty set about one of the greatest castle building eras in Norman English History, culminating with the construction of what is arguably the greatest and few truly impregnable fortresses by practical history, Caerphilly Castle, in Wales. I grew up steeped in family history, good and bad and with that personal connection have soaked up quite a bit on the subject.

I've come to realize that many are already using the same basic mods, the meat and potatoes of my builds are StoneGate V7, Terrain Mod, Nature Decorations, Windows Mod and Fantasy Decorations mod. So why do some peoples builds look like they have that certain something that one cant put a finger on? This Guide will attempt to pass on some of the constant mental notes that are running in the back of my head during builds.

Guiding thoughts behind each build

1. Back Story:

Every build needs a backstory whether historical recreation or pure conjectured fantasy. For historical recreations and known fictional castles do your research. Pick your place and time and stick to it.

When doing known fictional castles, film and book don't always agree so when that happens to me, I take the liberty of blending the two or picking whichever looks best. Just watch out for purists. :-)

Spend some time thinking about what you want to accomplish before starting the game.



If I place a section of castle that seems to indicate some function, I know exactly what that is. The detail at left depicts plan view of two twin "Housing" structures on each side of the courtyard the upper is where the Master of Horse lives when at court and is above the Kings riding stables.

The lower is the Marshal of Foot and his housing overlooks the castle barracks. "Backstory". Think about the jobs that had to happen and accommodate them with space and details for a more finished look. The two below are my livery and draught stable in my most recent build.









2. Map choice:

For historic builds It all starts with the right map which means having your basic plan in your head and some basic knowledge about the lay of the land before choosing the map. You can also play roulette and let the map inspire, however, if you're doing a historical or known fictional castle, map choice is everything.

I'm not a big map editor or creator so I've spent the first day loading maps without ever laying down a city center just to find the right or least wrong space for my build. There is another great mod out there, "Terrain Mod", that currently lets you do hills and berms, basically add to the map but the game at this point doesn't support taking away land and back filling water for ditches or moats.

The Terrain Mod lets me take a 2D approach to moats by tricking the eye as best as possible which leaves a terrain level difference at some point which needs justification with spillways and or pumps or needs to be somehow hidden.






3. Castle Basics:

Mottes to Moats, the terms and what they represent matters even on a fantasy map. Castles are long live creatures and have a life cycle which gave them varying visages at various times in their life cycle, even in ruins they live on well into our modern day.

Focus in on the time era you want to most represent, dark age, early middle age, etc. as the technology changed and was developed or imported at various times, Castle Owning Lords depending on wealth and or status and strategic importance of their holdings, had to keep up with the Jones's, or in this case the Plantagenet's so what we see today is a snapshot of the last time that castle was strategically important whether in battle or socially but they had many lifetimes from keystone to finished keep. Castles are living things.

There is too much info on castle parts to go into here and the info is too easy to get online so I recommend checking out a wonderful illustrators work, "David Macaulay's Castle" in print or also available as a DL from most major e-book vendors. He does a wonderful job of detailing the inner workings of a castle from birth to death.

Form follows function. Castles are fortress, residence and government administrative centers. However, the blend of those vary widely based on location. A March-lords castle will be much more a fortress and not a court attended royal castle with all the trappings. So pick a back story and stick to it.






4. Download parts mods and challenge the parts.

StoneGateV7 is my favorite and no pun intended, the foundation of my builds. Honestly, the vanilla castle parts are wanting because this is an economic sym game, but I use it as a castle sym game.

Mods and the (Devs' Mod Support) make up for it 100 fold. Un-check snap-to and don't be afraid to experiment, use the parts creatively and if you have the system strength, "Nest". I get some of my most interesting builds by un-checking the little green snap to check-mark in the build window. Make sure to check and re check angles as the game visuals can be deceptive, what looks centered or just right from one angle looks wonky from another.






5. Justify Everything:

Even with a fantasy build, there needs to be a reason behind your elements and stuff needs to make sense. Water flows downhill, even in Avalon. If there's a wall, there needs to be access even if you don't plan on using the soldier assignment mod, ports and doorways on walls gives another layer of realism in the back of ones mind. "Suspend Disbelief" by justifying placement of every element. This What If Neuschwanstein were finished to plan is based on the Castle designers artwork, Ludwig simply ran out of money and couldn't finish.






6. Symmetry is asymmetrical.

Don't get caught in the trap of perfect symmetry. Castles took years to build and in some cases, lifetimes. Styles and tech change which means the style of additions changes. Arrow slots eventually gave way to gun ports which eventually gave way to glass windows.

A good example of this is Chateau Chambord. One of Europe's best known French Chateaus is nearly symmetrical from a short distance but a closer inspection reveals more variation than your eye first pics up. Using the same technique of avoiding perfect symmetry even on a symmetrical build will help add that je ne sais quoi.






7. The Devil's in the Details.

Bushes, shrubs, variation in the trees, bolt racks next to ballista, my favorite mods for these are Nature Decorations, Windows Mod, Fantasy Decorations and Decorations and Dragons.

If there is a building or decoration mod, I likely have it installed and loaded even if I don't use it or only use it for a single point in my build, i like having options.

That's it in a nutshell. I hope this helps.

Tips and Tricks

I'll keep this updated as i find them. I'm sure someone knows these but someone may not so here are a few biggies I've notice for myself.

There's a sneaky way to change the color scheme of a finished build using StoneGateV7 as its base. You have to do this for each iteration of the build site. Say you forgot it defaults to Red and you intended Seaside but you turned your back after hitting construct and low and behold your choice is go with it or demolish it and start over. I discovered this last night by accident and was able to recreate it. If you already know this, good for you, pass it on. In StoneGateV7, currently if it doesn't change, Open the build menu, pick an open node in snap to, it doesn't matter as long as its white not red. Change the color scheme to desired theme, place a part, any part, even as small as an arrow slit, you can always delete it later, with the color scheme changed and the new part installed, hit build and when finished, CTRL SHIFT R to reload the map. Viola! The whole build on that node will adopt the color scheme of the last added part.

I've seen some complaints about soldier assignment mod soldiers not having weapons or training. If you don't already know, build the access point, assign the soldier, wait for them to show up once to their post (not sure if that part is required I just do it in case), once verified that the soldier is there, use the same reload technique as above. Your Soldier will now show up in the army list, can be assigned weapons and even sent on missions which will help them train as they have no barracks assignment and don't seem to search out training dummies.

[Hardened_Mass]

Don't touch that button! It's the history eraser button!

[$100 Bill]

Can I push the button now?

[Mekan1k]

Where do I go to download mods?