2,707 Gaming subreddits on reddit - 10 subreddits on this page (/r/gaming - /r/gamedev). Browse and find thousands of subreddits categorized by topics. City-building games have made a massive comeback. We've had some good ones recently and I've got 22 more to show you that are on the way. Welcome to my 22 Upcoming PC City-building Games in 2019.
After reading a ton, and playing a range of games, I have come to finalize my ideas into 1 consistent idea with the various aspects working together well. See my previous threads to see each idea separate (and in more detail). This would most likely be mostly implemented in a mod that I will work on.I think that there should be noticeable differences in the appearance of each type of building based off occupancy type (more complex than just RCI), growth stage (single tenant/household detached with yard parking lot versus ultra-tall skyscraper), wealth level (there could be 4 normal tax brackets with those making under a certain amount only paying sales tax and those making a certain amount bringing in money to the city in different ways), and city (or district) wide architecture style (such as Art Deco/NYC 1930's). Ocram's Razor: Though 'more things shouldn't be used than are necessary,' they're just too fun to pass up! Expect many verbose arguments from me.
I will try to write abstracts before or short summaries after from now on.Words to live by:'Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually.' 1 Corinthians 4-11'Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.' Matthew 6:34'Do not judge so that you will not be judged.
For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.' Matthew 7:1-3. Some things can be broken down further.For example, there is a major difference between someone who prefers McDonald's and someone who prefers to eat at an independent gourmet burger restaurant.Perhaps instead of churches, there can be generic 'places of worship' for political correctness reasons (or if churches have to be included, then synagogues, mosques, temples, etc. Would have to be added in as well).Likewise, many major cities have ethnic enclaves and there can be two ways to implement it: a society of politically-correct generic but different races or one reflecting the real world with architecture to match the predominant ethnicity of the neighbourhood.Even sports attract different demographics. A football (soccer) stadium would attract a different demographic than a golf course would. Even ice hockey and basketball attract different demographics, despite some cities having both sports played in the same venue at the professional level (such as the Staples Center in Los Angeles, home to one professional ice hockey and two professional basketball teams).
I called it religious leisure for the generic term but that is an awkward and inaccurate name. I think that venues should have a category (ecological/destination/vacation, spiritual/religious, luxury services, cultural/educational, sports, entertainment, and possibly adult or blends) as well as targeted age group, wealth level, and education level. Restaurants (food retail/vendor plus leisure/service provider) would have wealth levels as well as how family friendly/kid friendly they are.
A family-friendly diner of the same wealth level as a bar and grill would attract different clientele (families with children versus adults without children). A gourmet burger restaurant would be a middle class restaurant and a fast food chain would be a lower class restaurant.
Ocram's Razor: Though 'more things shouldn't be used than are necessary,' they're just too fun to pass up! Expect many verbose arguments from me. I will try to write abstracts before or short summaries after from now on.Words to live by:'Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually.'
1 Corinthians 4-11'Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.' Matthew 6:34'Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.' Matthew 7:1-3.
I did not suggest mixed use. It is however, an option already in the game. I don't want to use that option because I think I will use Euclidean zoning most.2.
Ocram's Razor: Though 'more things shouldn't be used than are necessary,' they're just too fun to pass up! Expect many verbose arguments from me. I will try to write abstracts before or short summaries after from now on.Words to live by:'Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit.
But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually.' 1 Corinthians 4-11'Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.' Matthew 6:34'Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.' Matthew 7:1-3. Ocram's Razor: Though 'more things shouldn't be used than are necessary,' they're just too fun to pass up!
Expect many verbose arguments from me. I will try to write abstracts before or short summaries after from now on.Words to live by:'Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit.
But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually.' 1 Corinthians 4-11'Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.' Matthew 6:34'Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.' Matthew 7:1-3.
There should also be other factors to bring down land value such as eyesores (ugly buildings or very bright night-lighting). Radioactivity would only be implemented after nuclear energy and/or hazardous waste dumps are implemented and it would slowly lower every year, with 3/4 of the reduction turning into ground pollution (the other 1/4 of the reduction disappears). Ground pollution should also have more levels but at the same time dissipate extremely slowly on its own, which could be sped up with help from plants or technology. Air pollution would spread with the wind and dissipate as it spreads.
Rain would lower air pollution and hot, humid weather without rain would reduce dissipation (which when combined with lack of wind could turn warm summer days hazardous to the health from cars alone. If regions over 2,500 square kilometers are ever implemented, then there could be a global (or rather regional) 'greenhouse gas' statistic that would change weather patterns (and natural disasters) in large, polluting regions (making an assumption that half the developed planet has similar greenhouse gas emissions as the playable region), however large regions would work best with multiplayer (maybe have up to 20 players each start with a 4 square kilometer tile of land, buying more tiles as city grows in population and treasury). Ocram's Razor: Though 'more things shouldn't be used than are necessary,' they're just too fun to pass up! Expect many verbose arguments from me. I will try to write abstracts before or short summaries after from now on.Words to live by:'Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit.
But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually.' 1 Corinthians 4-11'Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself.
Each day has enough trouble of its own.' Matthew 6:34'Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.'
Matthew 7:1-3. Thank you, MarkKochan for the feedback. I never considered making roads require labour because roads would have to be one of the first things built in a city. Maybe certain early roads could be built without labour or materials but more advanced roads would need them. Ocram's Razor: Though 'more things shouldn't be used than are necessary,' they're just too fun to pass up! Expect many verbose arguments from me. I will try to write abstracts before or short summaries after from now on.Words to live by:'Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit.
But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit.
But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually.' 1 Corinthians 4-11'Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.' Matthew 6:34'Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.' Matthew 7:1-3.
If the question is whether roads or agents should be first, I think roads should be first. A basic highway (like Route 66) and railroad (and possibly a harbour) could be the first connection to the outside world and cheap dirt roads would have no requirements of workers or materials. Eventually, upgrading the highway and railroad as well as building normal suburban and city roads would require labour, materials, and time. I think that agents should only be able to exist on infrastructure with pathways/routes (or near to them if they are being remade), which would include pedestrian paths, train tracks, dirt roads, city streets, alleys, city roads, avenues, highways, etc. Once an agent has moved from a path (which could include surface parking lots, pedestrian paths, and possibly other parts of buildings designated for pathing, such as overpasses), it would become part of the statistical simulation (unless I am mistaken) with its data kept (so names and other tags don't change). Agents would first come from outside (people moving in and products being imported), eventually certain agents could be generated by buildings (products from industry and babies from housing and hospitals).
Utilities should be strictly statistical (like with Cities: Skylines) with either unlimited capacity and range or possibly with limitations (but only if Anzelm and Michael want to have tiers of capacity by pipes and power lines, which I hope not). That way, offices would not be able to be built or upgraded without a connection but as long as they are provided telecommunication services (which means they have access to the electrical grid of a city with a telecom provider), would not require workers to commute to them.I also think that zones should be able to be as deep as the depth of a square of farmland in Cities XL at 90% size (or larger).-OcramThis would be the growth stages for residential. Ocram's Razor: Though 'more things shouldn't be used than are necessary,' they're just too fun to pass up! Expect many verbose arguments from me. I will try to write abstracts before or short summaries after from now on.Words to live by:'Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit.
But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually.' 1 Corinthians 4-11'Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.' Matthew 6:34'Do not judge so that you will not be judged.
For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.' Matthew 7:1-3. I think that the lowest tier of each kind of transportation should be possible to be made without labor or materials and intercity connections be available on new maps (built by the country). That would mean something akin to Route 66 and a basic 1-track rail would already be there and the mayor could build dirt roads and zone low density along them to attract workers and expand and upgrade from there.-OcramFurthermore, height restrictions and requirements for parking, greenspace, and setbacks would also limit density. Height restriction to 20 short (office or apartment) floors (or 10-15 tall (luxury apartments or high tech industry) floors) that requires parking (that can be in garages) and at least 8 meters setback from the road, and greenspace anywhere (whether it is in the front or on top of the roof), the maximum density that can grow there is growth stages 12 to 15, depending on occupant type and wealth. If there is a ton of demand and at least moderately high property values, then the limits will be what will grow there (eventually).
Ocram's Razor: Though 'more things shouldn't be used than are necessary,' they're just too fun to pass up! Expect many verbose arguments from me. I will try to write abstracts before or short summaries after from now on.Words to live by:'Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually.'
1 Corinthians 4-11'Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.' Matthew 6:34'Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.'
Matthew 7:1-3. I think you have wealth levels wrong (with respect). Instead of having wealth level depend on education, it should depend on how much money that person has.
They gain money through one of five or so ways:. A Job. Investments. Inherited. Stolen (Criminals). Lottery / GamblingOne of the statistics tracked would be net worth, and this would determine wealth level.
In this way, you can still have a Bill Gates w/o a bachelors.Further, there are tons of middle, high, and stupidly high wealth individuals that frequent cheap, fast food.Further, McDonalds is not necessarily less healthy than, say, a steakhouse burger. They have salads and fruit parfet, too. And there's places like Chipotle, which is fast, and typically pretty healthy (depending on your toppings at least).I think your game (as described) would be better suited to work on a regional level, rather than a city level. Instead of designing individual roads and zones, the base would be on the neighborhood or village level.
Something inbetwix a city simulator and, say, Civilization in scale. Maybe instead of a city simulator, it could be a state/province simulator. Dunno, just think-typing aloud here.
Once a person has moved in, money can be gained and lost but when people first move in, each individual would have some information (based off demand with some randomization). In my system, I guess it is possible to get Bill Gates without a Bachelor’s Degree if he is born within the city and makes his billions while living in the city (or at least simulated region).
If money and education could only be gained within the simulated city or region, then every new arrival would arrive dead broke and completely illiterate, which would be bad. If no education is available in a city but there is plenty of economic opportunity, then it might be possible to have an illiterate millionaire. If education is free and easily accessible to everyone, then you might see plenty of well-educated poor folks. I also think that most jobs should have minimum education requirements and have a strong draw to workers already near the wealth level associated with the wage/pay-grade.
Having both of these implemented would allow the game to have more realistic distribution of educated workers in more logical positions but still allow over-educated workers to hold jobs that are 'beneath them' if there are no jobs available for their desired income.That way, demand, desirability, and education of workers could all be factors in upgrading industry (I think each workplace type (including type of input and output resources) should have 3 tiers. The higher tiers pollute the least and create the highest quality product (which ties into what I said earlier about shoddy/basic, average, and durable/luxurious tiers of products) as well as producing more of the product per worker (increased effectiveness and productivity) and using slightly less input material per product (increased efficiency). Profitability of businesses (and the taxes they pay) should depend on sales and costs. A Tier 3 plastic factory would have far higher revenue because it would produce more plastic with a smaller amount of chemicals (and can use petroleum or biological based chemicals for the same product, depending on supply), wouldn't have to pay as high for pollution (because lower pollution output lowers cleanup and healthcare costs), and produce more expensive product (durable quality plastic). However, it would have increased expenses because its workers are paid more and the factory itself requires more maintenance. Ocram's Razor: Though 'more things shouldn't be used than are necessary,' they're just too fun to pass up! Expect many verbose arguments from me.
I will try to write abstracts before or short summaries after from now on.Words to live by:'Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually.' 1 Corinthians 4-11'Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself.
Each day has enough trouble of its own.' Matthew 6:34'Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.' Matthew 7:1-3.
Think about the immigrant from some place like India who is a practicing physician when he emigrated but winds up driving a taxi in New York because he hasn't passed the qualifying exams to practice in that state.That seems far too complicated to simulate. In Cities: Skylines all immigrants are uneducated and in my mod, middle-class immigrants would be mostly middle school educated with some variation (lower class would be mostly elementary and upper-middle class would be mostly high school but depending on policies/ordinances/edicts and other conditions, there might be a boost to education level of immigrants). An immigrant who has to work in transportation would just be considered middle-school school educated. Then he could pursue higher education by going to community college then university.
If he has children, they would have far more opportunities to learn and become well-educated at an earlier age. I think that it would kind of be cheating if everyone who moves into the city already has a good education. It would just encourage immigration over natural population growth and might even encourage lowered birthrates because if all immigrants arrived fully educated and skilled to work any job, there would be no need for schools if no one is born in the city. That is neither balanced nor realistic. I think that education provided by the city should be vital to its economy.
Also, 'Political Leanings' would depend on visitation of leisure/service venues so all new arrivals would have no political leanings.-OcramI might as well write down what I think should draw each kind of immigrant.R¢ - They only show up in larger cities with areas with very low residential property values and at least moderate demand for completely illiterate and uneducated workers. R$ can turn into R¢ if they lose all their money and there are places for them to stay (R$ housing with very low land values, parks, and vacant buildings). Once you have them, free zones and unrestricted residential zones with extremely low land values turn into slums. R¢ are also the most likely to become criminals so slums tend to be wretched hives of crime.R$ - They show up in any city that demands uneducated workers.
Immigrate with 'preschool education' (which is similar to kindergarten) which means they have 5-10% skill level and basic understanding of arithmetic and reading. They tend to fill all positions that don't require education. If you provide elementary schools and middle schools regardless of whether you have preschool (because all elementary schools accept all children, even if they never went to preschool), the children of R$ will be better off than their parents.
If your city has no education at all (even free preschools) and no job opportunities for them, the children will likely become R¢ or criminals.However, even a city without any educational facilities can be without R¢ if it has a large agriculture, forestry, or mining presence. If preschools (free of maintenance costs, cheap construction costs) and private schools (free of construction and maintenance costs to the city) are common in the city, a high amount of class disparity will arise as the poor workers will only be literate enough for manual labor and basic factory assembly line or coal stoking jobs and possibly in retail.
This would look like a city before the end of the second industrial revolution. Educational facilities might even unlock with time progression if the calender/clock starts in historic times.
If time progression is implemented, then maybe education can speed up unlocks.R$$ - They show up in any city that demands elementary school educated workers. If they move in at this level, they cannot pursue higher education but can help their children lead far more successful jobs. They are your most common worker if you have at least a semi-successful city with plenty of educational and economic opportunities. Most citizens born in the city will reach this economic level if there are jobs that pay well for uneducated workers or if there is enough education that they can work common jobs. These include skilled workers, blue collar workers, and the lowest rung of office workers.R$$$- They show up in any city that demands middle-school educated workers for jobs that pay well. When they move in, they can work average jobs and go to community college right away.
Usually they are born in the city and are at least high school educated if not beyond. If you have a very-well-educated city with a bunch of high paying jobs in highly profitable workplaces, they might be the most common worker in your city. They are the middle-managers, average (educated) office workers, highly-skilled workers, professionals, typical B-list celebrity and academics.R$$$$ - These are the wealthiest people you can attract normally. If they move to your city, they start out at high school education.
That means they can immediately start working good jobs and pursue higher education at undergrad universities. These people are the highest upper management, executives, A-list celebrities, hedge fund managers, bankers, and politicians.Elite R$$$$$ - These are extremely wealthy persons.
They only move in if your city has a desirable plot of land (100x100m to 200x200m) set aside for their mansions. You can only attract one foreign elite per city but it is possible to get up to 10 elite households if your city is truly an economic powerhouse. These are the multi-billionaires. When they work, they are the CEOs of the Fortune 500 companies. They often retire early and become philanthropists.
They are limited to 2 Elites per Fortune 500 company but some companies might have only 1 Elite. There is a limit of 10 Fortune 500 company headquarters and 10 Elites per region.
Monolithic dome. If you have 5 Fortune 500 companies, each with 2 Elites, you will not be able to have any more. The spouse of the Elite (if the Elite has a spouse), will only work as an R$$$$ and only if there is demand for the job at the company and if the spouse is qualified for the position, otherwise the spouse will not work. Even the mayor's mansion of the wealthiest, most prosperous 10x10km city will be on par with the summer house of the lowest-level (net worth $2 bil) Elite.-Ocram. Ocram's Razor: Though 'more things shouldn't be used than are necessary,' they're just too fun to pass up! Expect many verbose arguments from me.
I will try to write abstracts before or short summaries after from now on.Words to live by:'Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually.' 1 Corinthians 4-11'Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.'
Matthew 6:34'Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.'
Matthew 7:1-3. I am trying to combine ideas from several projects into 1 consistent and logical system for my planned mod of CityBound.2. The Mayor's Residence would be a 'reward building' that need not be built. I really do NOT want to try to simulate player-owned units of private property for the purpose of the residence of politicians. By default, the mayor would be stuck inside city hall and if regional politics and government is simulated, the regional governor would be stuck inside the state house of the regional governor. If the player built a mayor's house, the player could upgrade it.
If the player builds a state house, then the player could build a governor's mansion. If the player built a state legislature, then maybe there could be a reward to plop the apartments of the state legislature. However, such rewards are low on my priority.3. I don't know of any multibilionaires who do not own single-family housing (estates/megamansions) although many of the wealthiest 2% of earners in the world own multiple properties.
I say that in order to have a fortune 500 company, the player would have to encourage the growth of companies in the city and designate a large plot of land for use by the Keystone Elite at the right time. It could not be placed where land value is low or where there is any noticeable pollution and it would instantly raise property values around it, even if no one moves in. That way, special communities of executives and Elites could be built and certain zones would yield high quality private services to ensure that the neighborhood stays prosperous. As the elites increase in wealth from $2 billion to $400 billion net worth, their estates (which are either all on the same sized properties between 100x100 and 200x200 meters, depending on scale in CityBound) would upgrade from small country estates to opulent mega mansions or palaces. I could help with the art. I think the style of the building should depend on the era and upbringing of the Elite.
If you start the game in 1800 and you focus on building up wealth early on with an export economy, the first Elite would live in an old fashioned country estate that upgrades into an old-fashioned palace.4. About education and immigration, I have thought long and hard about this and I think that the education level of the immigrants should depend not only on initial wealth but also on time period (earlier history had lower education, modern times have higher education), condition of the city (if the city has high education and demands more workers but all those demands are for educated workers, the immigrants will already be educated), and laws/edicts/policies/ordinances to encourage higher educated immigrants. HOWEVER, I still think that for most conditions, children born in the city with access to all levels of education should have higher education levels than immigrant parents.
That will encourage the player to provide education for as many as possible. I do NOT want this to be like Tropico, where the player could easily have a powerful export economy without a single college or school and have all the educated workers be foreign specialists.5. And yes, some of the immigrants are refugees. I have considered the existence of an entire social class in poverty. R¢ are the dwellers of slums (or public housing) with no taxable income.
They are rare and as I said, they only show up under extreme circumstances. If you have a large city with at least some residential neighborhood with lax building codes and low land value and at least moderate demand for completely uneducated and illiterate workers, then that neighborhood will become a slum. The easiest way to create a slum would be to have a moderately successful city have an area with Tier 1 industry (no upgrades, demands mostly uneducated and illiterate workers) surrounded (on at least 1 side) with residential zones with no building codes. Why someone would want to turn their city into Mumbai instead of NYC is beyond me but it should be possible.
R$ are working poor. They are just above poverty.
They are unlikely to move in during later stages of city development but are among the first to move in new cities and it is possible to keep their families poor (or bring them into poverty). However, no matter the era or education levels, R¢ will never move in with education and educated R$ are unlikely to drop into poverty. That is the only wealth level where there is almost exclusively 1 education level (which would be 0% educated) and that is because education lifts people out of poverty. I think that it would be a good idea to have education levels range from 0 EQ to 200 EQ, just like in SimCity 4. However, individual persons would have discreet education levels so they jump from 0 to 20 with preschool and 20 to 40 (or 50) with elementary school, and so on. With education levels being discreet (but have several steps) for individuals, cities with large populations would have continuous averages.-Ocram.
Ocram's Razor: Though 'more things shouldn't be used than are necessary,' they're just too fun to pass up! Expect many verbose arguments from me.
I will try to write abstracts before or short summaries after from now on.Words to live by:'Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually.' 1 Corinthians 4-11'Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.' Matthew 6:34'Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.'
Matthew 7:1-3. Honestly I ended up speed-reading through some posts but based on what I read, a game with this level of complexity will not only be hard to manage/render on 30%-60% of computers, but it will also make the spirit of the game jump tracks. What I mean by that is the game will go from being a City Builder-Management Simulation to full blown Construction and Management Simulation, which is the official genre of the game Tropico (it's not a City Builder). This isn't exactly a problem, but the point is to successfully build and manage a city along with certain economic factors, not to try to successfully build a city while worrying/managing thousands of other things at the same time.That's why Tropico's genre is City Building, because building a city/nation isn't the point, managing every single aspect (some which wouldn't be handled by a Mayor in real life) is the goal. Citybound is supposed to be a 'City Builder/Construction and Management Simulation' like SimCity4 or Cities Skylines (in contrast Cities XL is a full city-building game). With all the complexity suggested by the above posts the game will become way to complex for a person who wants to build the next sprawl-filled Los Angeles or sprawl-less Hong Kong.I'm not saying any of this is a bad idea I'm just saying it will add an unnecessary level of complexity to a game that was meant to be the opposite of that.
Also don't forget this game is being developed by one person, and this will also place a pretty big load on him too.Not to mention that the sound of needing to wait for labor, materials, and time reminds me of social games like Cityville and SimCity BuildIt. I get what you mean but this brings me back to my point, that is way too much for a the intended genre of the game.
If someone wants to build a massive Southern California style region with the same expansive freeway system and sprawling suburbs, waiting for those things will be too much for someone who just wants to watch their city grow. Ocram's Razor: Though 'more things shouldn't be used than are necessary,' they're just too fun to pass up! Expect many verbose arguments from me.
I will try to write abstracts before or short summaries after from now on.Words to live by:'Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually.' 1 Corinthians 4-11'Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.'
Matthew 6:34'Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.' Matthew 7:1-3. I will wait until the first public release of CityBound, working on other projects in the meantime (mods for Cities: Skylines and Cities XL, listening to books, and of course university related stuff).
Once CityBound has been released (probably as alpha, hopefully soon), I will dive into modding. It might be as simple as making new buildings with the same settings at first but I will see if it is possible to make new resources, which should be similar to cloning an existing resource and tweaking it (e.g. Fuel into coal, crude, gasoline, and kerosene), and if it is possible I will implement that.-OcramEDIT: I just watched the live stream showing off Anzelm programming, testing, demonstrating, and explaining his ideas for a complex economy from April 15 (from before I posted this thread). It seems like he wanted to implement some of these things before I codified them into one thread (though he might have been inspired by what myself and others posted in other threads and on Reddit).Here is a flowchart showing the generic supply chain for any end product, starting from it being extracted (or grown) from the ground.As you can see, it includes Primary Industry (extraction and refining), secondary industry (manufacturing), tertiary industry (sales), as well as logistics and storage.
Ocram's Razor: Though 'more things shouldn't be used than are necessary,' they're just too fun to pass up! Expect many verbose arguments from me.
I will try to write abstracts before or short summaries after from now on.Words to live by:'Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually.' 1 Corinthians 4-11'Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.' Matthew 6:34'Do not judge so that you will not be judged.
For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.' Matthew 7:1-3. I am learning linear algebra this semester (mid-term exam tomorrow) and I learned that all 114 pages of resources, products, and goods (this ignores services, which is also a long list but not as ridiculous) can be tracked and calculated with linear algebra and learning about and working with any one of the many materials, goods and services can be made easier by ignoring all independent equations (the price of tea in China doesn't impact the price of platinum in California), which usually gives you a good, small matrix that can be worked with (arithmetically manipulated) using pen and paper. I also looked at my list of proposed resources, products, goods, and services and I can fit it all on one printed page as a 10pt paragraph list instead of an enumerated one. This means my idea is not as bad as it looked at first glance, and can be easily tracked by the computer program, expertly fine-tuned (what some would call min-maxing, what others would call economics+civil engineering) by players with skills or programs to handle matrices, and adequately managed using common sense.
The complexity and forgiveness/flexibility of the simulated economy could even be a parameter in the difficulty. The simplest and easiest) would be similar to the videos shown earlier this year with the addition of utilities and factories importing raw materials from the neighboring cities. That makes 1 manufactured good, 1 raw material (imported), 1 food, 1 fuel (imported), 2 power plants (fuel and renewable), 1 water tower, maybe 1 waste treatment plant (cleans ground pollution and eliminates sewage and a small amount of garbage), maybe 1 recycling plant (eliminates some garbage, produces little raw material), 1 landfill zone, 1 wealth level, 2 types of shops, 1 type of office, and 1 type of factory. The most complex would have 4+2 wealth levels, 5 primary industries, and a plethora of variety for workplaces, shops, and goods.
The most forgiving allows big surpluses, deficits, long commutes and teleportation/automatic restocks. The least forgiving would require good balance and flow to keep a city running and paying adequate taxes.Edited October 15, 2015 by OcramSeattle. Ocram's Razor: Though 'more things shouldn't be used than are necessary,' they're just too fun to pass up! Expect many verbose arguments from me. I will try to write abstracts before or short summaries after from now on.Words to live by:'Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit.
But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually.' 1 Corinthians 4-11'Do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.' Matthew 6:34'Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.' Matthew 7:1-3.
How will mass transit be handled - as a 'road' type?Well, buses will just be cars, railways and subways will be different 'road types' like you say, ports and airports will be areas that you zone.Apr 10, 2014 17:53.pistolshit May 15, 2004I notice you say in the FAQ that roads will be customizable. Can you go into any more detail on what you mean? It would be really cool if you could essentially build a road out of a kit of parts either in plan view or as a cross section. Something like the below image. Where you could maybe drag and drop things like drive lanes, bike lanes, medians, Right-of-way(to allow for future expansion), planting strips, side walks, etc.
And then make them wider or narrower based on your preference. Certain aspects of the road could then inform what kind of buildings pop up. Wide lanes and no side walk creates out-lot style commercial, narrower lanes with a bike lane and a wide sidewalk would create something akin to new urbanism or traditional development, etc.Then again, only city-planning nerds might really be interested in that level of granularity.Apr 10, 2014 17:59.boner confessor Apr 25, 2013. Then again, only city-planning nerds might really be interested in that level of granularity.Not to speak for the OP but I don't get the sense this game is the Urban Planning Nerd Holy Grail. When the FAQ says that new zoning types are moddable internally I groaned and asked when there will be a game with a control panel to establish zoning types with setbacks, permissible FAR, parking min/maximums, land use types.Esablishing right-of-way would be a killer feature in a city builder. Games with variable street widths (CitiesXL) drive me up the wall when you have to tediously knock down every structure on a block just so you can widen the roads by a couple lanes.boner confessor fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Apr 10, 2014Apr 10, 2014 18:04.Wheany Mar 17, 2006. Now what reason will I have for going into the SimCity thread?Somebody will inevitably give EA some irony dollars and will announce it there.
You can mock those dudes.Apr 10, 2014 18:08.Iunnrais Jul 25, 2007It's gaelic.When it comes to traffic simulation, how many 'trip types' do you have?To my knowledge, in SC4, there were three types of traffic. 'Morning Commute to Work', 'Evening Commute Home', and 'Industrial Goods Heading Off The Map (and then vanishing)'Now, I understand fully why there's a seperate morning and evening commute- that's interesting.
I also think there's room for traffic to stores to buy things- walmarts, and big malls are MAJOR traffic generators in real life, and its not because they employ a lot of people. But this traffic likely should be segregated from commuting traffic. Midday or weekend traffic mode maybe? It'd have to handle round trips.You could also throw in recreational traffic that heads to parks. And if you're doing that, tourist traffic that starts off map, goes to a hotel, then goes to parks/stores/etc, then back off the map again. This would build up airport traffic and hotel districts.Midday traffic could probably stand to have higher road capacity to simulate people going shopping/tourism over the course of the entire day, not just during a single rush hour.SC4's 'traffic bonus' to retail stores really annoyed me because they didn't generate traffic themselves.
Doing this might help a lot. A midday traffic bonus to retail would work a lot better than commuting traffic granting that bonus.Apr 10, 2014 18:11.anselmeickhoff Mar 1, 2014.
I notice you say in the FAQ that roads will be customizable. Can you go into any more detail on what you mean? It would be really cool if you could essentially build a road out of a kit of parts either in plan view or as a cross section. Something like the below image. Where you could maybe drag and drop things like drive lanes, bike lanes, medians, Right-of-way(to allow for future expansion), planting strips, side walks, etc.
And then make them wider or narrower based on your preference. Certain aspects of the road could then inform what kind of buildings pop up. Not to speak for the OP but I don't get the sense this game is the Urban Planning Nerd Holy Grail. When the FAQ says that new zoning types are moddable internally I groaned and asked when there will be a game with a control panel to establish zoning types with setbacks, permissible FAR, parking min/maximums, land use types.But mods could allow for all of that.The procedural building system will contain most of this as variables anyways, but they will be determined automatically.Making that player controlled via a new UI would be pretty trivial. Esablishing right-of-way would be a killer feature in a city builder. Games with variable street widths (CitiesXL) drive me up the wall when you have to tediously knock down every structure on a block just so you can widen the roads by a couple lanes.You will be able to customize intersections as well and either place traffic lights or set right of way.Buildings will only be demolished by widened roads if the wider road actually goes through solid building structure.If just cut away their front garden, nothing will happen.Apr 10, 2014 18:14.anselmeickhoff Mar 1, 2014. When it comes to traffic simulation, how many 'trip types' do you have?To my knowledge, in SC4, there were three types of traffic.
'Morning Commute to Work', 'Evening Commute Home', and 'Industrial Goods Heading Off The Map (and then vanishing)'Now, I understand fully why there's a seperate morning and evening commute- that's interesting. I also think there's room for traffic to stores to buy things- walmarts, and big malls are MAJOR traffic generators in real life, and its not because they employ a lot of people. But this traffic likely should be segregated from commuting traffic. Midday or weekend traffic mode maybe? It'd have to handle round trips.You could also throw in recreational traffic that heads to parks.
And if you're doing that, tourist traffic that starts off map, goes to a hotel, then goes to parks/stores/etc, then back off the map again. This would build up airport traffic and hotel districts.Midday traffic could probably stand to have higher road capacity to simulate people going shopping/tourism over the course of the entire day, not just during a single rush hour.SC4's 'traffic bonus' to retail stores really annoyed me because they didn't generate traffic themselves. Doing this might help a lot. A midday traffic bonus to retail would work a lot better than commuting traffic granting that bonus.I basically want to do all of this.For every need that a citizen or tourist or business or whatever have, they will actually need to go there and get it.Apr 10, 2014 18:15.ExtraNoise Apr 11, 2007. Most of the discussion so far happens in the.But since some of you started talking about it in the SimCity thread here, I wanted to have a place for it here as well.Thanks for including a shoutout to the subreddit in the OP.I think a thread here will do great, and I'm glad to see the dev getting involved directly on SA. Too often you'll see devs shy away from these forums or, if they do get involved, do it behind an anonymous puppet they are masquerading as a fan.
Being able to interact directly with the lead developer is great because it offers us a chance to ask questions and have them answered instead of the thread devolving into wild speculation.Question: How many polygons/faces does it take before you start seeing a performance hit at this point in time? We've seen some screenshots with thousands of buildings but who knows how fast the game is running at that point.Apr 10, 2014 18:20.anselmeickhoff Mar 1, 2014. Thanks for including a shoutout to the subreddit in the OP.I think a thread here will do great, and I'm glad to see the dev getting involved directly on SA. Too often you'll see devs shy away from these forums or, if they do get involved, do it behind an anonymous puppet they are masquerading as a fan. Being able to interact directly with the lead developer is great because it offers us a chance to ask questions and have them answered instead of the thread devolving into wild speculation.Question: How many polygons/faces does it take before you start seeing a performance hit at this point in time? We've seen some screenshots with thousands of buildings but who knows how fast the game is running at that point.Hah, didn't know you were here too!When I first saw SA pop up in Google Analytics and I went there I thought 'what, you need to pay to register?'
But I think it's more than worth it, people here seem very interested and civilized.I wouldn't worry about poly count. How are you planning on handling player construction in the long run?In SimCity, things have traditionally just poofed into existence as soon as you release the mouse, which is obviously a 'game' thing, but also means you can't experiment with different layouts of a neighborhood before putting out the money and potentially having to bulldoze everything and start over.Would it be feasible, and do you expect to, have a planning mode, and once a city expansion/improvement has been approved it starts gradually building and draining cash? Or just stick to the old insta-build model?See this reddit post and my reply:Apr 10, 2014 18:30.bobby2times Jan 9, 2010Would you compare your project to Banished? I enjoyed Banished but in the end it was just too simple to have replay-ability.Apr 10, 2014 18:34.anselmeickhoff Mar 1, 2014. So, followup: SC4 only did commuting and freight for what are clearly CPU reasons. Heck, on big cities, SC4 -still- chugs just pathfinding what it has. How will you handle this?
How often will you update?I have an agent based simulation that is updated all the time.As I said above, I am confident that I can scale it from just medium sized cities as it is now to large cities.I don't know why SC4 pathfinding takes so much CPU when it doesn't even simulate individual cars.Apr 10, 2014 18:50.boner confessor Apr 25, 2013. In what ways did you find it too simple?Personally, there wasn't enough to do. Banished has a very linear progression of game stages.
At first you set up a village and secure food production. You slowly expand, adding trade facilities and trade good production. Once you can trade, you inflate your village over decades, keeping a stable rate of population increase while adding more food production and storage in such a way that you don't run afoul of citizen pathfinding.
At some point during this process the player will make a mistake or some kind of disaster happens which throws your equilibrium out of whack and mass death ensues. Then you rebuild or start a new game. That's the typical game of Banished.This combination of lack of gameplay features and the way the game will 'punish' you by straying from the optimal growth path inhibits replayability. I appreciate that the developer chose to make a simple, stable, polished game than an ambitious, unfinished, unbalanced mess.
Me complaining about the lack of replayability is in no way a criticism of Banished, which I thoroughly enjoyed.Apr 10, 2014 18:52.anselmeickhoff Mar 1, 2014. You say in the FAQ there are both day/night and seasonal cycles. Will the trip generation conform to this, as in during each daily cycle you will see an approximate daily level of trip generation?
Or are these cycles decoupled from the simulation and purely aesthetic, as they were in SC4?Oh, yes it will. People will drive to work in the mornings get back home in the afternoon, go shopping and relaxing inbetween or on holidays.The trips are not decoupled, they pretty much are the simulation.Apr 10, 2014 19:19.boner confessor Apr 25, 2013. Oh, yes it will. People will drive to work in the mornings get back home in the afternoon, go shopping and relaxing inbetween or on holidays.Do you mean actual special days, or just that some proportion of agents will have variant schedules on any given day to reflect non-work trips?I don't think I've ever seen a city sim that does actual holidays/weekends.Apr 10, 2014 19:22.Mice Everywhere Sep 7, 2007I love animal porn!
So F. you if you don't accept that!I hope there are real holidays and I can plan my town for maximum trick or treating efficiency for Halloweens.Apr 10, 2014 19:24.anselmeickhoff Mar 1, 2014. Do you mean actual special days, or just that some proportion of agents will have variant schedules on any given day to reflect non-work trips?I don't think I've ever seen a city sim that does actual holidays/weekends.Cities in Motion 2 sort-of has weekends, only they barely register with the default game rules. (It also lacks good generation of distinct city districts and mass-attractor buildings, making times of day and week even less distinct.)Apr 10, 2014 19:53.DarkSwordmaster Oct 31, 2011How do you combat a sped up day/night cycle with agents? As is from leaving a house and driving in real-time and obeying the flow of traffic, a commute would be hours long potentially. Would you either speed up the traffic animations (you monster!) or just allow them to take their time, have a four-hour work day, and leave at 5 get home at 9?Apr 10, 2014 20:13.anselmeickhoff Mar 1, 2014.
How do you combat a sped up day/night cycle with agents? As is from leaving a house and driving in real-time and obeying the flow of traffic, a commute would be hours long potentially. Would you either speed up the traffic animations (you monster!) or just allow them to take their time, have a four-hour work day, and leave at 5 get home at 9?A combination of both. Speeding it up isn't as bad as it sounds, the cars already have 3x the acceleration than would be realistic, but because they are so tiny, it looks ok.Apr 10, 2014 20:25.Frijolero Jan 24, 2009I love that you 'paint' the zones.
And I don't mind that it is not 100% precise. It looks pretty and it looks natural.Apr 10, 2014 20:51.Iunnrais Jul 25, 2007It's gaelic.Okay, now that you're saying the traffic will happen based on time of day, aligned exactly to the simulation's time of day.My favorite tool in SC4 is the traffic analysis query, where I click a road segment and it shows me the full route of every vehicle that passes through that tile, and I have to click a button to designate whether I want to see morning or evening traffic. Will this tool be available in your game? Will only the time of day we're currently in be available to query?I personally think the method of 'just calculate routes, then spawn widjets on the road based on density' is a fine method to use.
This design choice seems weird, and prone to SimCity2013 problems.I don't put much faith in agents as a simulation method. SC4's NAM is pretty good, just needs more traffic types.Sorry to keep harping on this, but in my opinion, the traffic simulation is the absolute most important aspect of the simulation. It practically IS the city- the living part, anyway. The part you simulate.Apr 10, 2014 21:00.anselmeickhoff Mar 1, 2014.
U wot m8?Just wanted to say it's great to see a developer who seems to really 'get' what people want from a city builder, and I love that you're taking people's suggestions on board.Just a simple thing and it's probably something you've already thought about, but it'd be great to be able to paint/zone parks instead of having set ones to use. One thing that annoyed me in SC2013 (among many things) was that you could never get the parks to fit nicely next to the roads, they always looked odd. Would be nice to be able to fill the awkward little gaps.Also, will there be a way to make buildings 'historic' like in SC4, assuming that buildings will be demolished/rebuilt over time? Or will there be an option for ploppable permanent buildings?
(Obviously the simulation stuff would take priority over this, but I like my pretty cities!)Apr 11, 2014 02:09.AriTheDog Jul 29, 2003Famously tasty.Chalk me up as another person very excited about your game since I first heard about it. I love the low poly graphics, and I hope you keep them.
The more sim-nerd this game gets, for me, the better. I'm particularly curious if your game will have rival neighboring cities competing for commercial economy (think big box stores the next city over) or model any of the economics of that sort. In any case, I'm looking forward to seeing your progress.Apr 11, 2014 05:10.Jamfrost Jul 20, 2013.