Astute viewers may notice that this is indeed a re-upload. Some editing mistakes made their way in at 1:56 and 3:37, where I had accidentally cut myself off mid-sentence. This video turned into quite the stressful ordeal to finish and get out by Sunday (my usual upload day). Even then there is still a lot I had to leave out of the video, but depending on how well this video does, there is always potential for a second part!
There are quite a few ancient-city-builder games, but none of them (at least that I've found) are anywhere as in-depth as something like Cities Skylines
I have always wanted a cities skylines style game that starts in ancient times and allows you to work your way into the modern era, forcing you to bulldoze, rebuild, replan, adapt with times, weather, technology, etc... And then all the while having the threat of outside invaders trying to conquer your city state.
Pompeii had a cistern on a hill that would release water to regularly flood the streets and wash away the manure and trash. The elevated sidewalk and stepping stones allowed foot traffic to continue when the streets were flooded.
Math is magic. If you don't have 2 miles of parking lots around each building, you don't need to traverse 4 miles of parking lots to to reach your neighbor.
I am not sure what a mile is, but towns don't have these. To take Aarhus as an example it is practically impossible to even find a parking spot inside the inner ring and the city council have declared that they will ban cars entirely in that sector by 2030
@@KhAnubis Please! The ending of the video made me longing for more. Making a video is a lot of work, but even releasing a script or notes would be awesome
9:15 it's always weird to be watching a video in my free time and hearing a reference to myself. 😉 I went to Pompeii last year and took a bunch of footage, but never got around to making a video about it, so thanks for making this. The "crosswalks" are really interesting to walk across in person. They also had what we would call "bollards" to cut off cart traffic from certain streets and busy areas (like the centre square). The Romans also had problems with carts being driven dangerously fast, so low speed limits were introduced to many cities, and as you said, cart traffic was often limited to only certain times of the day. We could actually improve our cities quite a lot by just copying what the Romans did. But maybe without the lead pipes and raw sewage in the streets.
Man, the more we advanced technologically, the more things stayed the same. Reckless and entitled cart drivers, carts polluting and spewing literal manure, the need to enforce speed limits, modal filtering, and even which side of the road to drive on...
Fun fact: President Ulysses S. Grant once got a speeding fine for riding his horse "too fast" on a busy street in DC Edid: upon further research this seems to be a load of crap
It's cool to look at how ancient cites and towns around the world were built to accommodate different environmental conditions. Like how the Incas built at high elevations in the Andes, and how Venice and Tenochtitlan were built on water.
I've seen a video of what Pergamon look like and my, it's a very dramatic position to build a city on. No wonder the famed altar look like that, it was on steep terrain.
Cross walks existed so that people wouldn’t step on horse feces. Furthermore rainwater would pass from the lower part. Crosswalks also helped keep horses on the correct track. Therefore, sidewalks and crossroads preceded cars.
I like how even though there was no internet in those times, the ancient civilizations all over the world followed similar design conventions when building cities despite them being separated from one another.
There was also a rather effective way of spreading your design conventions across the world. Build and empire, meaning conquer your neighbours, their neighbours, etc. etc. till you have the Roman Empire.
The Polynesians travelled all over the Pacific in their tiny boats. If they could do that, others could have done that before them. Or they could have transported passengers. People from a different civilization with the know-how to build big stone structures.
in stead of being an anonymous internet troll, i imagine back in the day id be the bloke at the back of the pub or back of the mob, shouting things from the safety of the rear 😉
I clicked this video half expecting to click away pretty soon but I was impressed with the thinking of this young guy. Well done you. I’ll watch more of your vids. Thanks and well done
It was my understanding that residents of insulae mostly used chamber pots... Sure there were public restrooms and villas with running water and sewer connections, but I remember reading that insulae were usually built on the cheap, and that a private connection to an aqueduct required special permission from the government.
Bruh please make or release an extended versions with all the details, I know none of the details it takes you to make it but if you did I would watch and I believe others would too
This is a fantastic video. You’re thorough but clear. Most of your examples are from the Mediterranean. Do you have examples of cities in other parts of the world, like sub-Saharan Africa, China, and Mesoamerica? What about island cities? Were they different in predictable/consistent ways?
Look at this Historic Footage of a Trolley Ride through Boston in 1903 when the other traffic on the road was carriages/horses. Crossing the street was very dangerous. Ancient stone crosswalks were like 'speed bumps' and SLOWED DOWN traffic because wheels had to go through the channels. It was a safety feature for crossings I'm sure. ruclips.net/video/HfH4Rx8Ao6A/видео.html
I think insulae (the Roman apartments) could be even taller; wikipedia says up to 9 stories (though no source) and says there's a surviving 5 story building. My understanding was that they often _didn't_ have kitchens though, given the fire risk, thus feeding the large demand for cookshop takeout. (Reminder of how much modern cooking benefits from gas and electric stoves, with instant and controllable heat, and not having to start a wood/charcoal/coal fire, or breathe the smoke generated.) I _would_ like to live in cities that drew more on pre-modern, or at least pre-car, principles. Japan's cities seem closest for modern industrialized city building. Not just a matter of narrow streets and such, but the flexibility of buildings including owner-residential, rental, or small shops.
A notable exception to the city size rule is Tokyo, which became more densely populated over time but still occupied roughly the same area it does today due to the flat land, good crop land, and easy access to fresh water. It is worth noting though that it wasn't a single city until a few centuries ago, and before this it was a bunch of smaller towns, cities, villages, and hamlets. Also worth noting that 1 AD Rome's density is more than some countries today, which is fairly impressive. Places like Iceland, Malta, Montenegro, Estonia, and Northern Ireland are around the same size despite being larger and more industrious.
Thanks for making this video KhAnubis im actually writing a fantasynovel where the Protag is currently in a greek inspired pre industrial city so this helps a bit with visualizations
4:24 Cool I can now say to my friends living in Neukolln that they live in a village, while I am a Berliner. It's crazy that the A zone is larger than the Berlin inside the customary wall. Edit: Now I know exactly why that place was called Rixdorf
2:13 I always wonder if the cart wheel gauge was the same all over the empire...or imagine you bought a new cart in gaul, took it to anatolia and then found out, damn, my wheels are too wide for the crosswalks here. that would probably suck.
One thing you forgot to mention is air pollution especially in temperate climate. Everybody keeps his house warm by burning combustible trash🤐 Oh and tubercolosis was also a very frequent problem. Also don´t forget that Rome was build on seven hills while most other ancient large cities were built on flat land. So a grid would be very inefficient. And insulae were built mostly 3 over 4.
Absolutely, car centric architecture is probably the worst thing to ever happen to human settlement design. Which is even more crazy considering the alternatives we’re now considering (like better trains etc) were there from the beginning.
"2000 years before cars were invented" Bro. Cars can be horse drawn. We just stopped pointing out that they were horseless or motored when that became the norm not the exception.
Ok even if you only considered the Middle Ages and just completely ignored the existence of antiquity… this statement still ignores the existence of Free Cities and Communes.
At the end of the video (9:47) where you speak greek the word "malaka" doesn't mean "nice to meet you" but it means "asshole" 🙂. Although your greek is very good
Astute viewers may notice that this is indeed a re-upload. Some editing mistakes made their way in at 1:56 and 3:37, where I had accidentally cut myself off mid-sentence. This video turned into quite the stressful ordeal to finish and get out by Sunday (my usual upload day). Even then there is still a lot I had to leave out of the video, but depending on how well this video does, there is always potential for a second part!
Ah damn. That’s neat in all. However, I know me alone won’t make it happen, But I’m just speaking my voice. I’d love a part 2.
You could do a "long version" of this one, fixing the mistakes and adding the rest. I would watch a 20 min version of this.
Imagine an ancient City Skylines game where you plan city’s with old technology they used in order to gain a better perspective
There are quite a few ancient-city-builder games, but none of them (at least that I've found) are anywhere as in-depth as something like Cities Skylines
I've been wanting something like this 😓 traffic would be so different
Try our songs of syx. It’s fantasy with races and more complex than city skylines but it’s medieval so low tech level.
Age of empires
I have always wanted a cities skylines style game that starts in ancient times and allows you to work your way into the modern era, forcing you to bulldoze, rebuild, replan, adapt with times, weather, technology, etc...
And then all the while having the threat of outside invaders trying to conquer your city state.
Pompeii had a cistern on a hill that would release water to regularly flood the streets and wash away the manure and trash. The elevated sidewalk and stepping stones allowed foot traffic to continue when the streets were flooded.
I hear they also had a cistern filled with magma on another hill that served a similar purpose but had much more gruesome effects
is that how they made cobblestone roads
That's awesome
Math is magic. If you don't have 2 miles of parking lots around each building, you don't need to traverse 4 miles of parking lots to to reach your neighbor.
Who could have thunk it
Who'da thunk@@kylezdancewicz7346
I am not sure what a mile is, but towns don't have these. To take Aarhus as an example it is practically impossible to even find a parking spot inside the inner ring and the city council have declared that they will ban cars entirely in that sector by 2030
I would honestly LOVE a long-format video talking about all the ins and outs of ancient city dynamics, with all the info you said you had to cut off.
If anyone wants to commission an hour-long documentary on historical city planning, I'm perfectly down to do so (just saying)
@@KhAnubis crowdfund it bro I'm willing to throw in a $20
@@KhAnubis Please! The ending of the video made me longing for more. Making a video is a lot of work, but even releasing a script or notes would be awesome
9:15 it's always weird to be watching a video in my free time and hearing a reference to myself. 😉
I went to Pompeii last year and took a bunch of footage, but never got around to making a video about it, so thanks for making this.
The "crosswalks" are really interesting to walk across in person. They also had what we would call "bollards" to cut off cart traffic from certain streets and busy areas (like the centre square).
The Romans also had problems with carts being driven dangerously fast, so low speed limits were introduced to many cities, and as you said, cart traffic was often limited to only certain times of the day.
We could actually improve our cities quite a lot by just copying what the Romans did. But maybe without the lead pipes and raw sewage in the streets.
Man, the more we advanced technologically, the more things stayed the same. Reckless and entitled cart drivers, carts polluting and spewing literal manure, the need to enforce speed limits, modal filtering, and even which side of the road to drive on...
Fun fact: President Ulysses S. Grant once got a speeding fine for riding his horse "too fast" on a busy street in DC
Edid: upon further research this seems to be a load of crap
My answer: baked sewage
Couldn't agree more!
Especially the gladiators would make for an awesome improvement ⚔️🤘🏻😎😎
Im actually dutch so stop the cap in your vids
It's cool to look at how ancient cites and towns around the world were built to accommodate different environmental conditions. Like how the Incas built at high elevations in the Andes, and how Venice and Tenochtitlan were built on water.
I've seen a video of what Pergamon look like and my, it's a very dramatic position to build a city on. No wonder the famed altar look like that, it was on steep terrain.
Cross walks existed so that people wouldn’t step on horse feces. Furthermore rainwater would pass from the lower part. Crosswalks also helped keep horses on the correct track. Therefore, sidewalks and crossroads preceded cars.
I like how even though there was no internet in those times, the ancient civilizations all over the world followed similar design conventions when building cities despite them being separated from one another.
Convergent evolution: if something works, it will be achieved independently by multiple occurrences...
@@adrianblake8876yup, the stacks of bricks that toppled over aren't around any more
There was also a rather effective way of spreading your design conventions across the world.
Build and empire, meaning conquer your neighbours, their neighbours, etc. etc. till you have the Roman Empire.
Same logic can be applied to the building of pyramids across different continents.
The Polynesians travelled all over the Pacific in their tiny boats. If they could do that, others could have done that before them.
Or they could have transported passengers. People from a different civilization with the know-how to build big stone structures.
In Pompeii, the carts were more likely pulled by slaves than by beasts. The horse drawn carts were too large to be allowed in the city walls.
This is like perfectly curated for my niche interests.
Give me the 2 hour long form deep dive into ancient city infrastructure and transportation!!!
in stead of being an anonymous internet troll, i imagine back in the day id be the bloke at the back of the pub or back of the mob, shouting things from the safety of the rear 😉
Humans truly never change
I clicked this video half expecting to click away pretty soon but I was impressed with the thinking of this young guy. Well done you. I’ll watch more of your vids. Thanks and well done
I can see all of the points given, around my local town here in Greece
It was my understanding that residents of insulae mostly used chamber pots... Sure there were public restrooms and villas with running water and sewer connections, but I remember reading that insulae were usually built on the cheap, and that a private connection to an aqueduct required special permission from the government.
Cant wait to put this into my worldbuilding projects
Bruh please make or release an extended versions with all the details, I know none of the details it takes you to make it but if you did I would watch and I believe others would too
Shout out for steady IBD treament! With you brother ✊️
This is a fantastic video. You’re thorough but clear.
Most of your examples are from the Mediterranean. Do you have examples of cities in other parts of the world, like sub-Saharan Africa, China, and Mesoamerica? What about island cities? Were they different in predictable/consistent ways?
Look at this Historic Footage of a Trolley Ride through Boston in 1903 when the other traffic on the road was carriages/horses. Crossing the street was very dangerous. Ancient stone crosswalks were like 'speed bumps' and SLOWED DOWN traffic because wheels had to go through the channels. It was a safety feature for crossings I'm sure.
ruclips.net/video/HfH4Rx8Ao6A/видео.html
A city of 1 million during that time is INSANE I live in a big city with like 800k people I couldn’t IMAGINE how grand Rome must’ve seemed then
Wonderdraft being used for a video like this is actually pretty cool. Was definetly suprised to see it here, but not dissappinted
They must have stripped the local forest bare for the wood needed for cooking, heating, construction etc.
Enjoyed the video.
I think we should start building city walls again, it is good for security and is beautiful and gives the city a good structure
this has been an amazing video! thank you. we need to rethink our cites.
The City as Resource is a great book you might like by the way :)
I think insulae (the Roman apartments) could be even taller; wikipedia says up to 9 stories (though no source) and says there's a surviving 5 story building. My understanding was that they often _didn't_ have kitchens though, given the fire risk, thus feeding the large demand for cookshop takeout.
(Reminder of how much modern cooking benefits from gas and electric stoves, with instant and controllable heat, and not having to start a wood/charcoal/coal fire, or breathe the smoke generated.)
I _would_ like to live in cities that drew more on pre-modern, or at least pre-car, principles. Japan's cities seem closest for modern industrialized city building. Not just a matter of narrow streets and such, but the flexibility of buildings including owner-residential, rental, or small shops.
A notable exception to the city size rule is Tokyo, which became more densely populated over time but still occupied roughly the same area it does today due to the flat land, good crop land, and easy access to fresh water.
It is worth noting though that it wasn't a single city until a few centuries ago, and before this it was a bunch of smaller towns, cities, villages, and hamlets.
Also worth noting that 1 AD Rome's density is more than some countries today, which is fairly impressive.
Places like Iceland, Malta, Montenegro, Estonia, and Northern Ireland are around the same size despite being larger and more industrious.
Is back!
Excellent video!!!
Pretty solid vid keep it up man
Lets not forget about one thing about pre modern times. Especially cities with lots of animal transport. Dung. And what goes with it.
Another quality documentary. Thank you
Thanks for making this video KhAnubis im actually writing a fantasynovel where the Protag is currently in a greek inspired pre industrial city so this helps a bit with visualizations
5:45 it reminds of the rules of town planning codified on the Laws of the Indies
Love the font 🖖🏻
I need this video to be 5 hours long. Do that please
The cross walks existed, there is a lot of them in Pompei
Amazing! Great job :)
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This is one of my favorite specific topics.
4:24 Cool I can now say to my friends living in Neukolln that they live in a village, while I am a Berliner. It's crazy that the A zone is larger than the Berlin inside the customary wall.
Edit: Now I know exactly why that place was called Rixdorf
Can i get a part two please.
@KhAnubis could you create a video about Where Is Italian Spoken Around the World?
2:13 I always wonder if the cart wheel gauge was the same all over the empire...or imagine you bought a new cart in gaul, took it to anatolia and then found out, damn, my wheels are too wide for the crosswalks here. that would probably suck.
We need to build some more new cool, walkable towns in the US
Part 2!!!!!! PLEASE
great video
@3:30 - Bah. Why does everyone else seem to have cooler star forts than the one in my city? :( [Fort George on Halifax, Nova Scotia's "Citadel Hill"]
One thing you forgot to mention is air pollution especially in temperate climate. Everybody keeps his house warm by burning combustible trash🤐
Oh and tubercolosis was also a very frequent problem.
Also don´t forget that Rome was build on seven hills while most other ancient large cities were built on flat land. So a grid would be very inefficient.
And insulae were built mostly 3 over 4.
Great video.
OUTRO SONG ?
Most American thing I've ever read
They worked similar but with horses and carts
Nope. Horses and carts can be mixed with pedestrian areas, cars largely require dedicated space
@@ezrafriesner8370
NOT IN MY CITY LOL
i liked the inclusion of green screen, fun video!
That's the sort of explanation only Americans require.
"Creative purgatory" is a good phrase.
5:56 Also NINE abreast horse carts??? That's like the width of a building!
the chinese sources are very cool!
modern cities have walls and bridges all over the place
where's the warden
Ancient lead stares in Rome
The same way ancient carless cities work today.
Great video, I hope we can move away from cars again. They have really screwed up modern society.
Absolutely, car centric architecture is probably the worst thing to ever happen to human settlement design. Which is even more crazy considering the alternatives we’re now considering (like better trains etc) were there from the beginning.
They did a carts which is a wooden car back then😅
Well to start the populations were far smaller as we're the resulting cities.
I literally watched this to get ideas for Minecraft... 😂 ❤
Lmao how many is this? Three times?
Btw interesting videos!
Give me the link to your minecraft Roman city now!!!
Very American question
Wait, this video is NOT 6 years ago?
its 2024 and i happen to live in a very walkable city... soooo
That picture is not from Porto, but from Guimarães
If you're referring to 3:09, then no, that was footage I took when I was in Porto last year
@@KhAnubisAh, yes, that's the Fernandine wall. Sorry, it looked very similar to Guimarães Castle
No one noticed the raw meat joke
It’s not anachronistic if it existed then
They mostly towns filled with death
Better
9:48 😂😂😂
*BCE
Nice Greek
More like towns amirite...
The old city walls of Moscow still stand called the Kremlin
You did not say much .
You speak Greek?
!
[BAD VIDEO, WILL REPLACE]
I'm sure Elsie Eiler can buy a Ferrari.
You don’t cover the great MesoAmerican cities. Shame….
tl;dw - even ancient cities were better planned, than most modern american ones, lol.
Why don't we build walls anymore?
Me: Democrats
People are using these videos to put together some sort of medieval fantasy world!?!? 😮 Get out of my head! 😂
I'm going to assume "better"
Hey man.. you can’t just start speaking whatever language that was so suddenly without warning.. 🤨🤨
dude, shave that neck.
and get some sunlight. or change your lighting to be more warm.
Please wash your hair bro 😭🙏
Cities worked before cars? Why did we do cars then? They're what makes cities not work.
"2000 years before cars were invented"
Bro. Cars can be horse drawn. We just stopped pointing out that they were horseless or motored when that became the norm not the exception.
Cities did not exist. Everyone lived in small towns built around the castle owned by the local Lord.
Negative braincells
Ok even if you only considered the Middle Ages and just completely ignored the existence of antiquity… this statement still ignores the existence of Free Cities and Communes.
@@flyingsquirrell6953 London, Paris and Rome started out as villages. Do not imagine that they were always great cities.
@@StevenHughes-hr5hp But they became cities before any motorized vehicle was introduced
Well they didn't work cause they didn't exist. We had towns and that's it outside of the much smaller than today town there was green space the end
they used horses, camels and others beasts of burden - video over
Except those don’t require gigantic parking lots around key infrastructure
At the end of the video (9:47) where you speak greek the word "malaka" doesn't mean "nice to meet you" but it means "asshole" 🙂. Although your greek is very good
That was the joke
Hey I just responded to your email request