# City layout model (round 4, 8 Oct 2026)

The part of the world model that says WHERE each kind of building goes in a medieval settlement and WHY. Sources: the
video "How medieval towns actually looked" (Grim Dream, youtube 5jvJUPrmS18; transcript and frames in
/tmp/medlay/transcript.txt and /tmp/medlay/ref/*.jpg while this round runs) and Watabou's Medieval Fantasy City
Generator (wards: craftsmen, merchant, patriciate, slum, administration, market, gate, farm, park, military, cathedral).
The planner (settlement.mjs) applies these rules; the house generator (styles/medieval.mjs) turns a plot's archetype and
wealth into a building.

## 1. Why a town is where it is
- Water first: a river or lake for goods, fish and mills. The town hugs the bank; a bridge and a water gate face it.
- A hill or a river bend for defence; the walls follow the terrain edge, so the ring is lopsided, never a circle.
- Few gates, relatively small, one per main road. Each main road runs from its gate to the main square.

## 2. Rings of wealth (centre to wall)
| Ring | Who lives there | Buildings |
|---|---|---|
| Main square (market) | the elite: clothiers, rich merchants | the tallest, most ornate tenement houses (3-4 storeys, glazed windows, dormers, grouped tall chimneys, gable to the square), shops in the ground floors, the town hall (or a tavern when there is no hall), the church with its bell tower at a CORNER of the square, a well or pump, a pillory near the hall, market stalls |
| Core streets (main roads near the square) | merchants, masters of guilds | 3-storey burgher houses, shop ground floors with hanging signs (90 % could not read: a boot = cobbler, a pig = butcher, a key = locksmith, a pretzel = baker) |
| Inner town | artisans | 2-3 storey craft houses, about half with a shop or workshop ground floor, mixed widths |
| Along the inner side of the wall | butchers, carpenters, wheelwrights, the poor | small 1-2 storey houses, built haphazardly, low quality wood, uneven gaps, more cottages than terraces |
| Far corners inside the wall | religious orders | orphanages, shelters, schools / a college: long plain blocks with a yard, next to a church or monastery with gardens |
| Just outside the gates ("stinky suburbs") | slaughterers, skinners, tallow makers, blacksmiths | hovels and workshops along the road leading to a gate, smithies, barns, vegetable gardens; a watermill on the river |
| Near one gate | | the fish market (smelly goods kept near a gate, not on the main square) |

## 3. Streets
- Main roads (gate to square) are wide and paved; most streets are narrow and muddy.
- The grid grows organically along paths of people, animals and carts: streets bend and fork. Only planned new towns
  (rare) are regular grids.
- Houses stand wall to wall along every street (party walls), gable or eaves to the street; jetties push the upper floors
  over narrow streets.

## 4. Houses (variety comes from wealth and place, not from noise)
| Archetype | Where | Storeys | Look |
|---|---|---|---|
| hovel | suburbs, field edge | 1 | low walls, thatch, no chimney or a louvre, 1-2 bays |
| cottage | along the wall, villages | 1 + attic | stone or plain timber, thatch or tile, small windows high up, shutters |
| craft | inner town | 2-3 | stone ground floor + half-timber, workshop or shop door, sign on a bracket |
| burgher | core streets | 3 | jettied half-timber, glazed windows, one or two dormers, grouped chimney |
| patrician | main square | 3-4 | wide (4-5 bays) or two gables side by side, gable to the square, dormers, ornate chimney stack, arched stone door |
| tower | core, corners | 4 | narrow (2 bays), tall, stone lower storeys, oriel window |
- Windows were mostly unglazed with wooden shutters; only the wealthy had leaded glass (small thick panes).
- Roofs are steep (45 degrees or more): clay tile, slate or wooden shingle in town, thatch on hovels and cottages.
- Chimneys are grouped into stacks; poor houses may only have a louvre.
- Back doors only where there is a yard behind the house; back-to-back rows have none.
- Every door touches the ground: on a slope the street door is at street level; a back door is either at the back
  ground (a cellar door in the stone base when the ground falls away by a storey) or there is no back door.

## 5. Ground, rows and fronts (round 5, operator review 8 Oct 2026)
- Roads are carved, not painted: a street is flat ACROSS its width (the hill is cut on the uphill side and filled or
  walled on the downhill side) and climbs gently ALONG it (streets <= 12 %; steeper means steps). People and carts walk
  on it.
- Every house stands on a flat pad at its street level. The ground meets each wall at its foot: no window or door is
  buried, the stone base reaches the lowest ground, nothing floats. Where the cut or fill is more than about 1 m and no
  house hides it, a retaining wall holds it.
- Roads, squares, stairs, yards and fields join each other cleanly: one ground, no strip overlapping or hanging over
  another, no road ending in the air.
- In a town, houses stand wall to wall along the street (party walls). The only gaps are alleys 1.2-2 m wide every few
  houses or a cross street. Villages keep detached houses with yards.
- A door always opens onto free ground: no wall, fence, stall or prop within 1.6 m in front of it.
- Trades show from the street: the smithy's open forge and anvil, the bakery's oven and counter, the tavern's big sign,
  tables and barrels, the shop's open counter, the barn's great door. A town has them on every longer street.
- Old towns are not perfect: storeys lean a little, ridges sag, eaves wave, plaster is stained, tiles are uneven.
- What real streets show (operator's references, 8 Oct 2026: Dinan rue du Petit-Fort and rue du Jerzual, Saint-Cirq /
  Monflanquin-style lanes, Troyes ruelle des Chats, Rouen, Rothenburg, Strasbourg): the paving runs from facade to facade
  (no grass verge in a town street; a gutter down the middle or the sides); the fronts form one continuous wall with
  small steps of 0.1-0.5 m in and out between neighbours; rooflines step up and down (2 to 4 storeys side by side, gable
  and eaves fronts mixed in one row); stone houses and half-timber houses alternate in the same row; on a climbing street
  each house steps up with the street and its door is reached by 0-3 stone steps; jettied upper floors lean over the
  lane; alleys are dark slots between two houses; outside stairs, balconies, hanging lanterns, signs and plants dress
  the fronts.