Community Suggestion: Intelligent Road & Trade Route Simulation for World Anvil Maps
Intelligent Road & Trade Route Simulation for World Anvil Maps
New Feature Addition · Maps · Created by Tyrent620
closed
What functionality is missing? What is unsatisfying with the current situation?
Currently, World Anvil allows for rich worldbuilding and detailed map creation, but the infrastructure layer — such as roads, trade routes, and their logical placement — must be manually designed. This becomes especially time-consuming and complex when trying to reflect realistic geopolitical relationships, elevation changes, or economic trade between cities. There is no built-in system that accounts for terrain difficulty, faction alliances, or resource distribution when designing infrastructure, which limits immersion and consistency.How does this feature request address the current situation?
This feature would introduce a simulation system that automatically generates intelligent road and trade networks based on user-defined parameters like terrain, city size, trade goods, alliances, and hostilities. By running a simulation, users could visualize how trade naturally flows between allied cities or how mountain passes affect road development. This removes guesswork, reduces time spent on micromanagement, and improves realism in world design — all while integrating seamlessly into the existing maps.What are other uses for this feature request?
Great for strategy-style campaign planning (e.g., controlling chokepoints, defending trade routes). Can be used by novelists and writers to add realism to world infrastructure without needing expert knowledge in geopolitics or logistics. Ideal for video game developers or RPG designers who need quickly generated and believable world maps. Adds a powerful teaching tool for understanding how geography and politics shape civilization growth.Follow up
As to whether or not it is possible, I have no clue. Just speaking into the world a hopeful request lol
The Team's Response
Thanks for the suggestion! We love this idea (we've had similar ideas in the past), but that would require a massive amount of time to develop, which is not worth it for the amount of support this got.
Current score
23/300 Votes · +1396 points
Votes Cast
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+100
by The Empathist
on 2025-04-16 20:28 -
+100
by A Mischievous Ooze
on 2025-04-15 21:58 -
-1
by trossm
on 2025-04-15 07:11 -
-100
by oaster2000
on 2025-04-11 17:27 -
+300
by PaperFoxx64
on 2025-04-11 01:03 -
-1
by Michael Chandra
on 2025-04-10 08:11 -
-300
by A Thundering Ooze
on 2025-04-10 04:47 -
+300
by Nara_theWarlock
on 2025-04-07 17:03 -
+300
by Wobbix
on 2025-04-05 04:46 -
+100
by Frostifjell
on 2025-04-02 10:27 -
+300
by Fearandramen
on 2025-04-01 18:34 -
-300
by DramaticDragons
on 2025-03-31 05:04 -
+1
by AuraGuard
on 2025-03-31 03:10Azgaaar's Fantasy Map generator might be what you're looking for - and that program allows you to export as PNG, so you could then upload those maps to WA.
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-300
by A Enfeebled Mimic
on 2025-03-30 06:12 -
-300
by Asmo
on 2025-03-29 20:17 -
+300
by UncreatedLemon
on 2025-03-29 20:15 -
+100
by ss2020
on 2025-03-29 17:33While this would be cool, WA doesn't generate maps. Nor does it interpret them. I think this would be crazy impossible for WA.
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+100
by Shiroe1331
on 2025-03-29 15:00 -
-1
by Those2Nerds
on 2025-03-28 14:56While this would be cool, WA doesn't generate maps *at all*, and instead asks people to upload images generated from other services. Running this sort of simulation is a complex system on its own, and this is asking to be able to do that on basic image files uploaded from any other service people could find on the internet. I don't see this as being remotely feasible for the small WA team. Even if it was feasible, there are other services that generate maps, including adding roads. I'd rather WA focus their limited resources on what we can't do elsewhere.
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-1
by DMFW
on 2025-03-28 14:26Honestly this feels like a long way from the core of what World Anvil is. It isn't actually a game engine and it doesn't have ANY kind of simulation software. It doesn't even generate maps, just provides some nice tools to overlay and present them on the web. As cool as this concept is (and I do like the idea) it would need to be built on an entirely different framework that "understood" the world in a deeper way. Advanced map making software might do it (although I know of none that does) but it feels more like something from SimCity. As much as I'd like to see such a tool somewhere, I doubt if WA is the right place for it to be developed.
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-1
by A Rambunctious Velociraptor
on 2025-03-28 10:46 -
+300
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+100
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+300
by Tyrent620
on 2025-03-27 15:07
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