This has been sitting around here for a while.
No questions about how to generate random wilderness – or sparsely inhabited – terrain. Appendix B is the base method I am referring here, but others should work just as well.
Derivated method for random generation of inhabited/ civilized areas:
- Generate the terrain type according to Appendix B. Do not check for inhabitation (yet).
- Choose the number of layers in the area. A layer corresponds – vaguely inspired by archaeological terminology – to a settlement period. The number of layers thus describes for how long the area has already been settled (potentially by different cultures/ groups over time).
- Randomly generate inhabitation for the youngest layer according to Appendix B. Settlements and fortifications generated have been founded/ built during this settlement period, i.e., the current era of the campaign world. Ruins generated are older settlements/ building which habe been abandoned/ fallen into disrepair during this settlement period.
- Randomly generate inhabitation for the second youngest layer according to Appendix B. Settlements and fortifications generated have been founded/ built during this settlement period, i.e., the era preceding the current one, but are still thriving. Ruins generated are older settlements/ building which habe been abandoned/ fallen into disrepair during this settlement period. It is thus possible for multiple settlements, fortifications, and/ or ruins to co-exist within the borders of the same hex.
- Repeat the inhabitation generation, layer by layer, until inhabitation has been generated for all layers in the area.
- Done.
Quick test, using just a single hex within a mountain territory, settled for ten layers:
Random terrain:
8, Hills
Inhabitation (from youngest layer to oldest):
65, none
74, none
13, Castle
92, none
3, Single Dwelling
97, none
29, none
81, none
4, Thorp
89, none
Interpretation:
Quite early in the mountain regions settlement history, already during the second settlement waves, a small thorp was founded on these hills, thriving since these ancient times until today. Generations later, a separate group struck up their dwelling near the village, but keeping to themselves, never abandoning their plot but neither growing beyond a single household either. More recently, but still well outside of living human memory in the time before the kingdom that came before the current empire, a castle was built on the highest point of the hills, overlooking both settlements.