Quest To Make A SimNation

[Alrowan 0]

well guys, ive been thinking, its time someone attmpted to do the greatest thing to be since simcity came to be.... to create an entire nation, complete with independent cities, towns, farms, forests, the lot. Perhaps England might be an interesting choice. Of course it would require a HUGE region, but if we keep the city tiles to medium, do you tihnk its possible?

toughts?

[Aronion 9]

Anything is possible if you set your mind to it. 

[x-man 0]

Nice idea!
Let's start with what we have...
USGS maps of the entire USA, using these would save us a huge amount of time spent on terraforming. Then only forests etc have to be added and maybe a little patching up where SC did not import the terrain correctly. Since the USA will probably be too big to do at once we could do its separate states.
If we'd start out with a small state as a test, I'd say Rhode Island or maybe Connecticut, then we will have a better idea of what the task of simulating a bigger state will be.
It would be a nice effort if several people teamed up to make a good organic region resembling an area as large as a state.
Dedicate a website to it and let everybody share opinions and decide on the general direction that development should take. Then all participants get a city assigned and do their creative trick. They'll meet up a week later and share their results for everybody to download. After that, another round follows, etc. When somebody decides to quit, no problem... he has some nicely developed superregion as well as everybody else, that's where the regions maintained by the players will diverge, so be it..
Considering city sizes, I prefer a mixed approach.

[Norwegian Neko 12]

"probably too big"

?!

Are you insane? It would take 2,000 medium-sized cities just to span the width of the United States if it 2 miles per side!

[Ralley22 1]

Actually a medium city map is one mile.

[themallard12 55]

----------------

On 7/17/2003 2:28:28 PM zilfondel wrote:"probably too big"

  ?!

Are you insane?  It would take 2,000 medium-sized cities just to span the width of the United States if it 2 miles per side!

----------------

I'd like to see someone try and map out Texas.

[The_Dalai_Llama 15]

Well, to create an entire nation like the United States, at the current scale, you would need approximately 600,000 large city lots!

 

Since England is smaller, you might need only 10,000 large city lots, but unless you have some giant supercomputer, it won't happen.

 

Start with something small, like Liechtenstein or Monaco.

[Vatt3 8]

Or if you wanted all medium maps the United States would cover around 2,407,273 maps so unless we can get 2 million people to each hold on to a few maps that make up the larger map, we would need some computer or server with a whole lot of space.

[Vatt3 8]

Also...
If you really want to get some large-scale SimNation going, then I would think after all the cities are done and made, people are going to want to download them or something, since putting them all on one computer is out (unless its a tiny country), then maybe a whole bunch of computers, say thousands. Even though it sounds a little far out, it could work, slowly, but it is a way.

[Andy80586 1]

----------------

On 7/17/2003 3:47:45 PM Vatt3 wrote:

Or if you wanted all medium maps the United States would cover around 2,407,273 maps so unless we can get 2 million people to each hold on to a few maps that make up the larger map, we would need some computer or server with a whole lot of space.

----------------

hmmmmmm... i wonder how many terabytes of space THAT would take up... hard drives could probably hold that in ten years if moore's law is right

[brett_131 0]

I agree, the "simnation" now is more like a "simregion", that would be a true simnation...

[Alrowan 0]

i guess we could try simstate, then maybe after we make a few states, we can see how we go, though it might be better to make some english counties or something

[Huntzman 0]

Why couldn't you just make everything to scale? It wouldn't have to be 2mil maps then. Rhode Island could be defined as one small map and work from there. But then Alaska would still be huge.

I guess another reason not to scale is because it's not in the "spirit" of a simnation...

[mplex03 0]

I was intrigued by this post a few weeks ago and I have worked diligently to create Rhode Island. There are a few problems that I have noticed.

1. The USGS data (using techniques from the simtropolis omnibus - pardon the spelling) does not cover adding realistic lakes to a region. If you try to create lakes for this state you get a thousand random dots. To combat this I tried to keep the microdem program to detect oceanic water. This created more problems. Much of the shallow water in the RI area around Newport was missing. To combat these probs I used a combined technique where I combined the Lake and No lake maps to create an accurate region map.

2. The size of this region is larger than reality by a few miles to fit into SimCity 4. This being said- a map full of roughly 14 X 20 full sized cities does not phase my computer or processor.

3. The only actual roadblock to this project is most photo paint programs. A scale accurate region (That includes some of MA and Conn.) takes up something like 3395 PX by 4693 Px. The problem is that most paint programs have a limit of 4096 px. Period! Although windows paint can handle larger PX maps- it cannot save the map in proper grayscale format for SC 4. Until we can find a photo program that allows for works larger than 4096 PX on each side- we cannot create our beloved simnation. I got close- however the map looks cool at half scale though too.

Mplex

[Dukee101 0]

This idea is awesome, but instead of taking a real country, make your own imaginary SimNation. That way you get to make the size you want, create wherfe you want forests, coastal, and built-up city areas to be, and just have a whole bunch of fun with it. Think outside the box! Don't limit yourselves ever!

[spike284 0]

I like the idea, we have to do everthing to scale to fit it in a region.

[ALTX 40]

im planning to make my Nighthawk X region with everything too

[Wyldkat_Murray 0]

This is a great idea for my next big timekiller project. Just make a region that takes up about the same disk space as a full DVD, and you will have something to keep you busy for a good long while.

Great idea, but I don't think that my computer could handle such a large amount of processing for such a long time. I already have problems with overheating with my video card and CPU. Maybe when I upgrade from 900Mhz to 2.8Ghz...

Also imagine the size of that .jpg!

[Psilaxs 0]

I think this is possible, And will not take as much space as you would think.

I am thinking an entire nation may weigh in at around 20 - 30 gigs(!)

And if you have a VERY powerfull top of the line computer it will handle it, because it is not processing all of that data at one time.

The only real problem i can forsee would be who is going to be willing to pay for the hosting of such a GINORMOUS region?

I think we should really work towards this, we will not know if it is feasable or possible until we try.

BEST regards,
Psilaxs

[OniKun 1]

...You people talk of needing a HUGE Server to host such a monster, but there is an easier way : Bittorrent

basically, you would distribute the torrent files, and you become a temporary server, until someone becomes a download. Then they are a seed, which is like another server. Example:

Bob has the USA into 1 region, perfectly made. Say its 500 MB big.

Jim, Joe, and sally hop onto the Torrent.

Bob uploads slowly, but finally Jim finishes.

Now Bob and Jim are 'seeding' the file, 2 servers essentially.

Joe and sally get the file faster, and now there are 4 servers. If one of them is an ass, they can close their torrent and be down to 3 servers..

Torrent files are 5-200k, usually.

If you put something together, you could have like 5 people seeding a file, for everyone else to download off of.

Oh, and its forced sharing, so people can't be an idiot and not share, unless they close their file when complete.

[+Guest]

Correct me if I'm wrong but what you guys are talking about sounds just like (SCR) SimCity Community Region.

 

But I'm not exactly sure about what u ppl's intentions are.

[SLiDE 1]

Sorry to butt-in but there are eaiser ways to make ralistic state maps--with all of the trimmings; and I mean defined lakes, realistic river crossings and even sea floor elevations--the only limit to your nation is the actual "SC4" program that may not let you enter specific elevations to scale. BUT...if you wanted to make each state--to scale, the best it could be possibly done--it would take me roughly 3 weeks (on my off time) to convert all of the states to scale, so they are scaled to each other and to the be as acurate to an actual map.

I't wouldn't be much trouble, I would just need 2 different maps for each state; 1st a "real" color map showing above sea-level growth and 2nd a US map showing elevation. I do it all the time to render 3D graphics for animation.

[Cybocus 0]

well, if you ask me, I think they should make an entirely different game called simnation, where you can make cities, train armies, and go to war. Kind of like "Civilization", if you've ever played that.

[Midget*Toilet 0]

It could work. But, somebody would need a super computer with over terrabytes of hard drive space, about 10ghz processor, and at least 3gb of ram, along with twice the pwoer of a 9800 Pro. Like one of you said before, it'll probably be possible around 2010.

[Link167 0]

I think this is a great idea but i think it would be easier if we did a "SimStates" as listed above. and programmers out there... would it be possible to connect REGIONS together? (ex. region A has all residental/commercial with regoin 2 having all ind. ... this is very logical for gameplay with regoin play but we could have 1 regoin=1 state then add em up. or make a mega region and work from there

[brett_131 0]

Everyone is saying "simstate," what about sim province??? come on (tho they are all way to big except the maritimes)

[Blue084 0]

yes i know it sounds great, i've had this idea for years. Two years ago I was deadset on becoming a computer programmer so I could make such a game. Then of course I realized:

1) 90% of ppl who try to become programmers do it only to make games, the failure rate of programmers are also 90% (learning to program games is extremely complex, and you must first have a few years of basic data programming.

2) Programmers make around 60,000 per year , the average Lawyer makes 100,000 to 120,000.

3) I suck at math, i'm only ok at visual basics/ perl and i'm horrible with C++... and i love law and social studies....

needless to say the dream was destroyed :-) I decided to be a lawyer though...

anyway good luck to you, i hope it's successful because it sounds great!!!

[OriginalAndy 1]

it would be possible... and it would look really great if you ever get finished with all those cities to build.

 

i wish there were more of those geological maps for Australia .. i had 2 maps for the city where i live (Brisbane) one i cannot get the scale right and if i increase the size of the grey scale picture... it wont compile the region ... nothing happens when i click ok after choosing the pic to compile with.... (anyone have solutions it would be greatly appreciated)

 

the other pic is of only the cities CBD and is only like 3x3 medium maps.

 

i would really like the bigger region of the whole city area.. but theres that problem...

[phungus420 0]

Well currently SCC is home to a few region games. I've recently started a non cheating one if that's what you all are interestead in. Unfortunatly, I personaly have found round by round region games to be too slow for my tastes, but they are definatly a little more interesting, if just for randomness sakes, then toying w/ my own region.

[Inatey 0]

try a realy small arab or african country or island country or prvoince ie hawyi or lebanon it wont take up to much space and it will be so much fun!!!