The problem with more houses in games is that they add nothing exciting, but more walking time. The town looks small, but imagine your character inside, small enough to fit into one of those doorways, and crossing this town, say from the inn to the tavern, is quite a trip. No, we can easily make this town more "realistic" and twice as big, by making real neighbourhoods instead of a 3-building "rich area", but would that be a good idea? Opinions, please.
It sure would. My point was however that you could easily make it look like this was once a large site by adding more ruined buildings, rubble, lone walls, etc. Just the illusion that this once was a busy place is enough.
Again, it's a standard military camp turned into a town. The other towns are more natural, organic, and random.
Neat, but the way this place is defined in easily recognisable neighbourhoods is a bit odd. You've ever been to really old places? Jerusalem, Acre, Rome, etc are all a lot more randomn, without the clear boundaries that this place has. Even the old fortresses and camps look a lot more thrown together than this.
I'm pretty sure there are broken/damaged houses in the poor area. Take another look.
Oh, I did.
But does this mean these neat looking buildings are long since repaired? That city was seemingly hit by one big mother of a disaster, if the walls are crap, why should most buildings look peachy? If you want the richer buildings fixed, you can easily do this with the textures. Make it look as if some areas are refurbished or repaired and you get a much more immersive view of a place that's trying to get back to it's feet.
Technically, you are right. It's more of a modeling/texturing issue.
So put some piles of rubble/stones/building materials with tools and stuff near them. Have some npc's around that claim to be repairing the breach, et voila.
Good point. So, should we throw the columns out? More opinions on that, please.
Depends. Palaces tended to utterly dominate the city's they were build in and these columns could have been that predominant for a very good reason. However a smaller amount of collumns with some agora or other communal area thrown in between could look quite a lot better.
Finally:
Make the place interesting to explore. Have some neat text messages pop up at interesting points (like when the dweller first leaves the cave in fallout) Have npc's advert their wares/services, have some approach you with inane chatter/questions/offers.
Make the place lifelike. Think about how it would be to live in a destroyed old camp. What would people need/want, what would the leaders deem important to create/repair/provide. Do you eant to show a crumbling society, or one that is slowly getting back to it's feet after a disaster. All important in how to get the atmosphere right.
Good luck with the game, hope my inane chatter helps a bit.