Regional Play

[UrbanSprawl 5]

I would like to have regions but done differently.    Instead of the cities being set squares you can draw the boundaries and annex like in City Life.  But the region as whole can be much much larger than the ones in City Life, as large as you want it or as your computer can handle.  You should be able to create counties as the standard unit. 

Within the counties there can be multiple cities or just one consolidated city-county.  All the cities in the county should all run at the same time but you can set different rules or ordinances and separate funding in different cities of the county.  This way you can have true suburbs. You could grow the city by annexing unincorporated areas within the county or creating other cities within the unincorporated area. 

You could grow the county by annexing other portions of the undeveloped region.  When the county gets too large for your computer to run then you can create neighbor counties within the region and you can run them separately.  You can only run one county at a time. Counties would work somewhat like the cities in SimCity 4 regions but this would be a lot more flexible sine the boundaries won't be fixed and you can have multiple cities you can play at the same time.  The county's growth or decline would affect other counties within the region when you play them.

[KeanoManu 42]

I really like your idea with countries, UrbanSqrawl!

The economy should be more country-based than city-based too.

With countries we can, in time, build our own world or continent.

[rctshack 182]

Maybe this game isn't about running one city... the name is cities unlimited, maybe it's about running complete regions?

[gabry85 2]

Hmmm, if you want a metropolis, in SC4 you must have at least a 10x10-large-city map (I think calling "neighborhoods" is more correct). It's insane to control the whole thing at the same time!

I agree to have irregular boundaries (and why not, I can "buy" more land I terraformed earlier for expanding the city), but I don't want to stop my growth because my computer can't handle it anymore.

UrbanSprawl: Maybe, if you want to create a county (or a country, as KeanoManu said), you might have cities and sub-cities that behave like Windows folders. I'll get this straight: a "main city" is the Earth (or any fantasy planet, I'm speculating on the latest screenshots) that has many others "sub-cities" that you choose like continents, then you open nations, then again counties, the city itself and its neighborhoods. It's not my style, but that would be cool nonetheless.

[Androv 6]

Wouldn't that be SimNation? There's only so much detail one game can have, if you're running a whole nation then we're not going to be able to see individual houses :-)

[Micah 16]

There's only so much detail one game can have, if you're running a whole nation then we're not going to be able to see individual houses :-) quote>

Ha! Tell that to Will Wright and his creation, Spore.

[longhorn 25]

What I want is to develop my city, not as an island, but among other cities that grow on their own by the computer or perhaps from online players. Those other cities can request connections, but their city management would be up to them.

[Voulpiotis 4]

Really interesting... Can't wait for some pictures!

[+Guest]

Why can't spore be incorporated into a city simulator? I remember a couple of years ago, Will was excited y the idea... now it seems he isn't even apart of the latest SCS project. Though I can't blame him, I hope that the SC franchise won't die after SCS and we will see Will come back to the game, and really change the way city simulators run.

[trolleyman515 0]

It would be neat if we could have each region as a city and beable to attach other regions together making a super region and be able to slect which city is the regional capitol city for which all regional bussiness and monies are allocated such as Desmoines as capitol and council bluffs as a city but desmoines set the buget for council bluffs

[owenluby 1]

I like the idea of one large city tile (say, as big as a whole metropolitan area). I hope the game doesn't take a metropolis-oriented stance. I want to be able to make small cities like Bendigo and Geelong or tiny towns in the mountains. I'm guessing we will be able to due to the "unlimited" nature of the game.

[Tropod 144]

*starts rally with opening statement* I have a dream! LOL

From a technical viewpoint Region Play in SC4 was implemented quite well given the technology, unfortunately it was done half-assed. If a proper RegionFile had been implemented, to handle region-spanning data like Traffic-Mapping Globally, it would have done wonders for the game. anyway.

Personally, given current & potential future state of technology, I can not see why it would not be possible to be able to accomplish some if not all the following in one way or another. It may/may not be the most ideal way, though I think it would be, but one way implementing it perhaps; This goes into some detail & steps into what I have a mental imagine/vision of as far as Region/Global Play goes, so hopefully it's understandable enough. (From what I have seen, some of this may already exist in CU. One can only hope).

1. Load game.

2. Choose size of the landmass you wish to play on (or pick existing one).

3. Size: here we would be able to choose the size of the landmass in some kind of relative terms (relative to whatever: Klms, miles, CU measurement etc). It is important here that there be no size restriction on the size of the landmass, at all. The only restriction should be a persons computer & its ability to handle whatever size (bit more on this further down).

4. Once size is done we have an overall view (or preferably zoomable/scrollable map or both) of the landscape, regardless of the size. This is important.

5. Ability/option to implement our own map (layout of the land/water), like USA, UK, Aust, whatever.

6. Terra form land/water mass (trees, forests, deserts, coral reefs, ice, snow, etc). Having an optional auto-terraform function would be preferable.

Now here's the tricky/interesting part. I imagine this would be the painful part due to possible technological restraints.Following step(s) would apply to both step 3-6 above & also once city play has begun;

(Note: by data I do not necessarily mean visuals, done visually or visually related)

7. Basically, you have a set view of how much can actually been seen on the screen at any single time (closer zoom in, less on screen. Further out zoom, more on screen). Having said this though, the whole of everything data wise, the whole landmass size in step3, is loaded by the game/computer (in a sense) (well maybe not everything-certain data, like all traffic, economy, education, environment for example that can affect or travel elsewhere). This would equate to loading every single city in a SC4 Region at the same time (which it kind of does, but doesn't-it really only loads the PNG image of the cities in Region view + some other data). From a technical standpoint, I guess/imagine the on screen data & immediate surrounding data might be handled by RAM, whereas the rest of it might be handled by VirtualMemory? Or some other variation. So essentially we have no Region map with different cities like SC4 (where one has to be saved, exited & another loaded); only one Global View/landmass in gameplay & technical sense. We would still have an overall zoomable & scrollable view/map (with various optional data) which can have custom names/labels/identifies put on it (suburb names, highways, landmarks, etc), but this would not define any underlying technicalities of how the single landmass is implemented.

8A. So going from one area of the Global landmass to another; Simply by the click of the mouse, scrolling or using the Overall view/map. Now this may require saving data for the existing view & loading data for the new view, swapping out RAM<>VirtualMemory for the different areas or something along these lines.

8B. Scrolling on the current area (like close up on a city) might only involve saving localised data automatically &/or in the background while the player is playing. So we are able to play in localised areas without having to constantly save manually. So it may only need to save localised data.

8C. Jumping from one area to another, like on the other size of the Global landmass (or for example; jumping from UK to USA). The Overall View/Map could be used to do this, clicking on an area to Jump to. This might take couple of minutes (potentially longer), so possibly a pop-up to confirm (& an option to disable popup). Now this may require saving ALL data, everthing, or that data which has changed &/or can travel/affect elsewhere; like all kinds of networks & traffic (land/sea/air), economy, education, environment & possibly other kind of data. Now for this kind of data it may require re-mapping the the data for the whole landmass, so it gets updated for anything/everything that's affected by it (for example; commuter traveling from UK to USA by air or road or sea). Or something along these lines.

8D. With Steps 8 there should still be an option to save manually; possibly 2 types of manual saves; Local & Global. Saving Local would save those things that have changed for the local area. Saving Global would save everything, absolutely everything for everything; so it would update everything globally, map out everything globally (like traffic) etc.

And that's about it, least all I can think of for the moment. I know some bits might be a little vague, but hopefully the idea comes through.