I have a Roman hood, and many Roman buildings had roofs that drained in towards the center of the structure, into a pool called an impluvium, in a courtyard or atrium. I suppose this was a solution for buildings built close together, where there was limited space for eaves to overhang the outer walls of buildings. In any case, I've had only limited success duplicating this in the Sim world. What I'd really like is for there to be a reverse-shed-hipped roof style, where the top edge was longer than the bottom, so as to fit seamlessly into a 4-sided interior space. But this doesn't exist. I've used hipped roofing on four sides of a building, leaving a space in the middle, and lowering the pitch of the roofing to match what was used in Roman days... and it looks okay... but there's still the problem of having eaves sticking out past the ends of the walls, which doesn't match what we know about building styles from urban areas in the classical world. Yes, I know that the Sim World is built on the suburban model with lots of space for eaves and such between houses... but that's beside the point.

The one other solution I've found is to have shed roofing around four sides, sloping down into the courtyard... but this requires building an extra story-height of wall, for the shed roof to rest against. And then, you get the ends of the roofs sticking out past the walls in an ugly fashion. As you can see in my screenshot, I've masked this by adding a second wall outside the above-mentioned second story wall, and decorating it with windows and interior lighting to make a faux second story. HOWEVER - this still leaves an undesired rooftop "walkway" running around the building, and the height of that second-story interior wall is too high (because of the low-angle roof).

I suppose there is probably some way to reduce the height of that second story, using ConstrainFloorElevation. This would solve the issue, possibly, of having a wall jutting up above the top line of the roof, but it wouldn't fix the unwanted flat "walkway". I suppose some element of this issue may have been resolved with Mansion & Garden, and its fancy ornamental roof styles, but I really have no clue.

Thoughts on any or all of this would be most appreciated. If I had created the game, I would have allowed for more bizarre roof types like an upside-down hipped shed.

It looks like most of the surrounding roofs can also be flat in the case of one story tall buildings, with the courtyard roof nestled between them (I assume the flat areas where a second story to the building may have been built more easily).

Here's some examples:
villa of mysteries, pompeii
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this cutaway image also shows how the roof is placed in the second story, and how the roof can be pretty equal on both the "inside" and "outside", with the "outside" overhanging to shade a balcony as well.

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here's also an another one showing the roof height being almost as tall as the 2nd story
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if you look at this area of the site, you can also get an aerial view of the area.

but basically - yes - if you're going for a one-floor height building, it does look like the atrium and peristylium type rooms with the courtyards DO have roofs that look goofy from the top, but that's not the view most people would have had. Here's also an example of the roof nestled in with other roofs - you can see that it's a lot higher up than the surrounding one story walls.


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Hmmm... interesting! The balcony idea is one I hadn't really considered, and I like it a lot... although I'll have to see how much of an overhang is allowed in the Sim world. And, the aerial shot you provided reminds us that, in cities occupied and continually built up over hundreds of years, there would've been all manner and shapes of roofing slapped together right next to each other. So, although the Romans of ancient times were prone to building symmetrically when the situation allowed it, pragmatism was of equal importance, and I should probably abandon my ideas of making things pretty, and just go with the "whatever works" philosophy.

Thanks for all that!