# Towns having names is friggin awesome!
**URL:** https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/towns-having-names-is-friggin-awesome/14196
**Category:** The Drawing Board
**Created:** [September 4, 2017, 2:47am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/towns-having-names-is-friggin-awesome/14196 "2017-09-04T02:47:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 19
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@SpadeDraco](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/SpadeDraco)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2017, 2:47am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/towns-having-names-is-friggin-awesome/14196/1 "2017-09-04T02:47:28Z")
Just thought it needed to be said.
_flies off into the sunset_
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### Author:  [@DeWolf](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/DeWolf)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2017, 2:56am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/towns-having-names-is-friggin-awesome/14196/2 "2017-09-04T02:56:37Z")
[quote=“SpadeDraco, post:1, topic:14196”]Just thought it needed to be said.
_flies off into the sunset_[/quote]
Is this a suggestion or a feature?
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### Author:  [@kevin.granade](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/kevin.granade)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2017, 4:23am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/towns-having-names-is-friggin-awesome/14196/3 "2017-09-04T04:23:12Z")
Its a recently merged feature, town names are now displayed in the overmap view. You can toggle them if they get in the way.
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### Author:  [@TheFlame52](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/TheFlame52)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2017, 9:35pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/towns-having-names-is-friggin-awesome/14196/4 "2017-09-04T21:35:29Z")
I was a bit leery about it at first, but now I love it. It adds so much flavor to the game for such a small feature!
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### Author:  [@endders2](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/endders2)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2017, 1:03am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/towns-having-names-is-friggin-awesome/14196/5 "2017-09-05T01:03:08Z")
Yeah! Makes making story so much better… I used to grow up in Shades Ville… and then all hell broke loose and I have a meth and alcohol addiction…
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### Author:  [@ZoneWizard](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/ZoneWizard)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2017, 12:40am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/towns-having-names-is-friggin-awesome/14196/6 "2017-09-07T00:40:16Z")
How are towns named at all, given the nature of the “tiling” of the map generation?
How did you folks figure the borders without giving exacting and repetitious shapes?
lol
…or did I just touch the answer?
Do we now have uneven configurations like real towns/city borders?
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### Author:  [@\_k1](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/_k1)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2017, 1:02am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/towns-having-names-is-friggin-awesome/14196/7 "2017-09-07T01:02:41Z")
There is center and then border naturally grows, I think.
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### Author:  [@kevin.granade](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/kevin.granade)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2017, 3:26am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/towns-having-names-is-friggin-awesome/14196/8 "2017-09-07T03:26:02Z")
> [@§k](#):
>
> There is center and then border naturally grows, I think.
This is correct.
Cities have a center point that is schosen in mapgen, and they “grow” in all directions to fill space. They stop when they hit obstacles like rivers or swamps.
That center point is recorded in the overmap for later use, and now it’s actually being used. We don’t track where the border ends up, but we do track the radius of the town, so we could use that to limit the labels to only apply near towns, but it looks like we aren’t doing that yet, instead each spot is labelled “ to the of ”, gor example, “Forest to the North of Townsville”.
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### Author:  [@Rot](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Rot)
#### Post date: [September 9, 2017, 9:35am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/towns-having-names-is-friggin-awesome/14196/9 "2017-09-09T09:35:36Z")
So, say if you have a massive explored map… Is there a possibility that town names will be reused?
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### Author:  [@kevin.granade](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/kevin.granade)
#### Post date: [September 9, 2017, 3:43pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/towns-having-names-is-friggin-awesome/14196/10 "2017-09-09T15:43:53Z")
Yes, and we only have a thousand or so names, so it’s pretty likely over time.
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### Author:  [@Zhilkin](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Zhilkin)
#### Post date: [September 9, 2017, 6:01pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/towns-having-names-is-friggin-awesome/14196/11 "2017-09-09T18:01:29Z")
> [@Rot](#):
>
> So, say if you have a massive explored map… Is there a possibility that town names will be reused?
That’s not so strange - town names are actually reused in the real world too. For example, there are Saint Petersburg in Colorado, Florida, Pennsylvania, Russian Federation and even in Mark Twains’s Missouri.
> [@Kevin Granade](#):
>
> Yes, and we only have a thousand or so names, so it’s pretty likely over time.
1156 in English version.
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### Author:  [@ZoneWizard](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/ZoneWizard)
#### Post date: [September 10, 2017, 8:40pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/towns-having-names-is-friggin-awesome/14196/12 "2017-09-10T20:40:43Z")
Will the map have a Zoom feature? It is so zoomed out atm that I have trouble discerning a lot of buildings. Colors and letters bleed into similar looking letters and colors.
S looks like a lower case G etc. F looks like a P.
Being able to set the map zoom even permanently would be great =)
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### Author:  [@kevin.granade](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/kevin.granade)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2017, 12:01am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/towns-having-names-is-friggin-awesome/14196/13 "2017-09-11T00:01:56Z")
In SDL builds zoom is possible, in curses builds it’s a matter of setting your font size.
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### Author:  [@Litppunk](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Litppunk)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2017, 2:59am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/towns-having-names-is-friggin-awesome/14196/14 "2017-09-11T02:59:49Z")
Maybe have system count how many times name has been used in generation and “erase” from the draw pile until options = 0? Then reset, with min distance from previous spawned town
random gen the names for more range?
smithsvile
smithston
smithsixigton
smithsford
smiths
If you need more suggestions drive through Tennessee sometime. They seem odly obsessed with clarifying that towns are some kind of town
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### Author:  [@stk2008](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/stk2008)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2017, 12:25pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/towns-having-names-is-friggin-awesome/14196/15 "2017-09-11T12:25:48Z")
> [@Kevin Granade](#):
>
> In SDL builds zoom is possible, in curses builds it’s a matter of setting your font size.
May sound silly u say its possible in SDL is that the tiles builds as thats what I use.
If so having a zoom in map view would be incredible as I have wished for that a lot 🙂
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### Author:  [@kevin.granade](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/kevin.granade)
#### Post date: [September 11, 2017, 2:49pm UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/towns-having-names-is-friggin-awesome/14196/16 "2017-09-11T14:49:53Z")
Sorry for my poor wording, I meant possible to implement.
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### Author:  [@Squaggly\_Maggleton](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Squaggly_Maggleton)
#### Post date: [September 13, 2017, 11:06am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/towns-having-names-is-friggin-awesome/14196/17 "2017-09-13T11:06:07Z")
I second the ability to zoom on the map screen, preferably a large amount. Also, is the list of names hardcoded or am I just not finding it? I want to check to see whether my hometown is on there.
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### Author:  [@kevin.granade](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/kevin.granade)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2017, 1:42am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/towns-having-names-is-friggin-awesome/14196/18 "2017-09-14T01:42:49Z")
Names live here [https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/tree/master/data/names](https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/tree/master/data/names)
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### Author:  [@Squaggly\_Maggleton](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/u/Squaggly_Maggleton)
#### Post date: [September 14, 2017, 6:26am UTC](https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/towns-having-names-is-friggin-awesome/14196/19 "2017-09-14T06:26:56Z")
Sweet, I was looking in the data/json folder