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Greentop Priory

altasilvapuer

Well-Known Member
Messages
166
In vinum, omnia toleratum poterant. Ave vinum!

Before the cataclysm of The Great War, the monks of Greentop Priory lived a relatively quiet life of seclusion in the hills North of Malden. In their small greenhouse, they cultivated grapes and other foodstuffs both for subsistence and for the brewing of sacramental wines. Little remains of the order, itself, its name as fleeting as dust in the wind.
Front Gate L3 Final.jpg
Priory Graves 2.jpg

Now home to a thriving settlement of farmers and vintners, the legacy of Greentop's wine-making lives on. Where once grew grapes, mutfruit now thrives. In the priory house proper, the settlers brew stout beverages enjoyed across the Commonwealth.
Priory Interior - Brewery 3 [L3].jpg
Wine House Interior.jpg

Far from simple farmers and wine-fermenters, the settlers of Greentop have raised their practice to an artform, as evidenced by the smaller, more experimental Garden House. Home to a varied range of cultivars and projects, it is difficult to say where living space ends and working space begins.
Garden House Interior.jpg

Man does not live by wine, alone, however, and the settlers of Greentop are as adept as hunters and gatherers as they are as farmers. Adjacent to the Garden House is the airy and sunlit home of the settlement's Gourmet. In later levels, the hunters will expand the house to include a weapon shop, scouting tower, and small armory room. [N.B. the 'armory' is thematic-only and will not add any Conqueror functionality.]Gourmet House 1F.jpg

Not all in the Commonwealth will be easily dissuaded by a friendly smile and a hearty drink, however, and the settlement's defenses will become increasingly substantial throughout its growth. While it will never be truly self-sufficient in its defense, the addition of a palisade and guard towers should enable it to defend itself until help can arrive from neighboring settlement. In addition, a freshwater spring and numerous small "Victory Gardens" within the walls ensure it will not be easily starved out of a siege.
NW Corner Guard Towers.jpg

In such a small settlement, however, space within the walls is always at a premium. Always careful to never shadow the greenhouse that is their lifeblood, the settlers nevertheless have built ever upwards. From rooftop agriculture to cluttered alleys, the settlers continue to worm their way into every nook and cranny available.
Rooftop Agriculture 1.jpg
Southern Alley.jpg


This go-round, there are a lot more overlapping interiors in the overview, so it's a little harder to read the annotations, I think. Below is a clean view of the Overlook with just the legend to list the Designer's Choice plots.
00 City Layout - L3 vFINAL [Semi-Blank].jpg

For those who liked my annotated version from last time, here's a dropbox link to one. WARNING: It's just shy of 40MB.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qlj8gmvei0s3f7b/00 City Layout - L3 vFINAL [600dpi].jpg?dl=0

To everyone entering this month, a toast: May your settlement builds be as fruitful as your settlers' crops.

-asp
 
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I may have gone mad. MAD, I TELL YOU! MAD!
SlowFairAllosaurus-small.gif

If you're nice, I'll share some of what I'm drinking, though. :wacko:shok1

So, I was wracking my brain, trying to decide A: which settlement to use and B: what in blue blazes to do with it. Eventually I settled on Greentop practically by coin flip. It whispered to me the faintest bit more than The Slog, but it was a close race.

Since I couldn't scrap the sanctuary house OR the greenhouse, I knew I had to incorporate them somehow. Seeing all the mutfruit plants in the greenhouse and all the pots full of them in the house, I decided to build around that. Maybe they're canning them? Preserving them? No, wait - they're fermenting them! Aha! Mutfruit Wine! Okay, so now I've got a plan for the settlement: They're a winery/brewery/what-have-you.

After an abortive settlement half-laid out around this idea, I was extremely dissatisfied. It was too... square and regular. I was inspired by @Myrmarachne's beautifully-cantilevered rejection all things right-angled last month. So I scrapped it and started over. C'est la vie.

A week or two ago, I began reading A Canticle for Leibowitz, and somewhere along the way, the idea of monks brewing sacramental wine or something similar came to me. Aha! The brew - sorry, plot - thickens! Now I just have to figure out how to make a pre-war metal house and greenhouse look like they're somehow connected to monks. I know, I'll encase the house in stones, like it's made out of them!

What's the worst that could happen?

If I never see another stone again, it may be too soon.
Stone Wall Mostly Covered.jpg

As you can see, it looks rather poor with all that "House of Tomorrow" interior clashing with my mad vision. So clearly, I had to panel the interior to hide the white walls.

It couldn't be that bad, could it?
Priory Interior - Common Room [L3].jpg


It's fine, honest. I'm only twitching a tiny bit and I only burned the entirety of the vanilla build limit on this house and one tower behind it. It was a noble sacrifice, fair build meter. Thank you, @kinggath for that small concession with the doubled-limit. I'm now sitting at just over halfway, I think, on the build meter (after having doubled the build limit). I'm not 100% done, though, either.

Here's a decent shot of the Priory House in the current version:
Priory Graves 1.jpg

Here's version 1 of the overview:
00 City Layout - L3 v1.2.jpg
Ignore all the zeroes along the edge of the platform; I was using them rather like a painter's palette to quickly throw the numbers out on the map. I'll also probably strip Residential slots 11-15 from the list on the left, since I'm relying more on beds this go-around.

I also think at least half of those windmills may be going. I had a weird glitch early on where it was always showing my power in the red as I built, even when I hit 200-something. It's now green, even after I lopped it down to low 100s while testing. Next on the slate is to put all the plots at Level 3 and do a bit of a stress test on my power consumption to balance it better. I'm also debating whether to cram any more shack buildings in - maybe between Industrial-3 and the lower gate. We'll see.

The hardest part with this settlement has been decorating. I'm drawing a blank on ways to really sell the "alcohol-brewing monks" ethos.

Ideas, Suggestions, & Psychiatrist referrals are greatly appreciated!

-asp
 
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Yeah I can imagine.
How do you plan on dealing with the stone walls in the lower levels?
They are not something that settlers would build for themselves.

What is the perimeter fence made from?
 
The stone house is the one definitively planned for the lower levels: Because of the way it's constructed, it can't change. My design ethos was that 99% of it predates the war, anyway. What's likely going to change is the settlement that grows up around it.

The palisade is made from Park Posts - an idea I saw a few months ago on a settlement design... somewhere. I wish I could remember where, because I'd like to credit the design. My guess is Yagisan/Yagichan, but I haven't gone through their settlements to check, yet.

-asp
 
After this settlement, I think I may need to dip into some of the Priory's stocks, myself... In celebration or collapse, though, I can't yet say. I'm loving this contest, so far, though. I think it's really pushing me to improve my settlement building.

Original post updated with current progress.

-asp
 
Man really loving the look of this place! I feel the same way about the animation markers, I have a ton all over my city but rarely do settlers actually use them. Also having the same issue with the assignable sleep marker not counting in the city check via the holotape but showing up fine in workshop mode.
 
At first, I just figured it was probably a missing variable or something like that in the code that the Contest Holotape uses to check the settlement, but the fact that my settlers are complaining about beds makes me wonder.

@Phil_T_Casual, you tend to be pretty active across the boards. Have you come across anything like this elsewhere that would give us a place to start with trouble-shooting?

-asp
 
As far as I know this problem was fixed in .08
This is the first I've heard of it since that patch.

As for the animation markers, they seem to work properly once your design becomes a functional city plan. I also find if you refresh the cell on the regular it has more chance of getting NPC's to use the blue men.
 
The stone house is the one definitively planned for the lower levels: Because of the way it's constructed, it can't change. My design ethos was that 99% of it predates the war, anyway. What's likely going to change is the settlement that grows up around it.

The palisade is made from Park Posts - an idea I saw a few months ago on a settlement design... somewhere. I wish I could remember where, because I'd like to credit the design. My guess is Yagisan/Yagichan, but I haven't gone through their settlements to check, yet.

-asp
You need a champions medal with gold trimmings, and medical help, for making that wonderful palisade. That is some serious obsessive stuff going on right there! Love it. The entire city build is really cool!
 
Dang.

This is really impressive stuff.

The Priory is my single favorite remodel yet.
 
Original post updated with my final entry photos. This month had some really hard choices in my top 10 shots.

The priory house was especially difficult. You kinda just have to walk up to and into it to get a good feel for it.

Also, I want to give a great shout-out to @Tinuvia for her fantastic plot designs. A Rose by Any Other Name was absolutely perfect for the garden house, and that fifth screenshot is one of my favourites from the whole set.

EDIT: There seems to be a glitch with the annotated overview link. I'm re-uploading it to dropbox, now, and will update this message when it's reuploaded. If you have issues accessing it and wanted to see it, let me know.

-asp
 
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I've just started to let this lovely settlement build in my game. Was my favourite of the finalists and the buildings don't disappoint even at foundation level. How you've altered the main house works really well and the hand built other buildings feel so natural and practical (will hopefully learn a thing or two from them).
Slight problem I did find was a real imbalance with water and defence. At foundation it has over 100 water meaning that defence has no chance of getting to a point were plots will upgrade. I guess you maybe have a lot of the default settings turned off, it was a problem that some of the early city plans had and can be easily fixed by players if they know where the excess water is and scrap it themselves. For anyone who wants to know, there is a 100 water hosepipe on the outside of the green house on the opposite end to the main house.
 
I actually waffled on the water amount and honestly forget why I stuck with the much higher number. I think the idea thematically was the pond in the Designer's Choice functioning as a natural spring. I couldn't tell you why I didn't use a smaller source, though.

To be honest, I don't think I considered the defense balance, but that also somewhat fits with the early theme of an undefended priory that has to build some defenses (i.e. the palisade) in a hurry. I do keep forgetting that that affects plot growth, too. I still think of it more in terms of how often you'll need to actually show up to defend. (I tend to use the mods that uncap the defense & resource values in my non-designing playthrough.)

All that defending aside, this is really good feedback and will help make future settlements of mine even better. I love that you're enjoying it and I really appreciate you taking the time for the feedback. Let me know if you see anything else that could've been improved. I love the challenge!

-asp
 
Hi! @altasilvapuer - I am trying this settlement in my current game. The video tour and screenshots are very impressive. Is there a special mod I should have to allow the workshop to properly relocate?
 
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