The Burning Question Thread

[mntoes 270]

ok quick question.

I play solo mode and the option came up to scroll through the buildings available so that you could choose which residance/shop/ manufacturing building you wanted to grow. This was by means of an extra menu button located if I remember correctly to the side of the factory button. It was great. Then all of a sudden it vanished again?

I didn't imagine it I'm sure. Does anyone know how to enable this option again please?

Thanks

Mntoes

[danny_1990 0]

@ mntoes:

It's an option you can toggle on/off. It's in the GAME OPTIONS tab in the options screen. Just toggle it on and then you can choose again

I've had great fun with it, and made my own little soviet-like city!

EDIT: I made a mistake!!

It's in the "menu".. NOT in the options thingy. Sorry for the mistake!

[mntoes 270]

Thanks Danny, That's great been looking for that option.

[Tuesday 0]

I'm less-than-***** at this as I've not bought the game yet so, here apologies for some probably simple questions. But here goes:

1. Does everything have to be zoned? I.e. can I build a row of houses on a single road like on Sim City or must I draw grids everywhere?

2. On Planet Offer, are user's cities linked geographically so that when I send off a rail link or road link across a boundary, will that match up "next door", as it did on Sim City? (I hope so, but can obviously see it causing conflict).

3. Can you walk around your city as an avatar or enter any buildings?

[soltangris 42]

1 - No, it doesn

[mr-tom 2]

Here's a quick question - is there some way of guaging the effectiveness of the different levels of city service? I.e. is the 10k police station twice as effective as the 5k? More? Less? Likewise the multipurpose stations which cost a massive amount and seem very non-specific in their effects?

(And no, I checked the wiki and couldn't find anything there, likewise I searched the forum and didn't find anything but apologies if I missed it)

Thoughts?

[soltangris 42]

Yeah, that puzzles me as well. It's clear that it's more effective, but as to HOW it's more effective, that's unclear. I'm hoping MC will refine the satisfaction layers so as to show the degrees of effect every particular building has and to where it currently extends (on the road network).

[mr-tom 2]

I wrote to them earlier in the week to ask how one went about assessing this.  Here's the reply:

Regarding your question, we cannot answer on questions regarding the simulation, but we invite you to partecipate at the Cities XL forums (like the one at Simtropolis

https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/index.cfm?FTVAR_SUBCAT=399&subcatname=Cities%20XL%20Forum

) to discuss your observations with the other users.

I have to say they've been great of late - I've been really impressed, but was a little disappointed with this one as frankly I'm after a little more information about the game mechanic - stuff that should have been in the manual.

However, I did find some stuff on a German website - not too sure of accuracy although I imagine it's pretty good as the UK wiki has used other bits of it and cross-checked.

I'm going to do some numbers and will then post back.

[mr-tom 2]

I must have my numbers wrong.

Here's the link to the UK translation of the German site I've been looking at:  http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?hl=en&sl=de&tl=en&u=http://www.citiesxs.de/wiki/TabelleGeb%25C3%25A4ude&rurl=translate.google.com&twu=1&usg=ALkJrhjRp68CBZ3Aqemi7MVP-OCyDTkxqQ

Now where it has given a radius, I've calculated the area of the circle to get the area of effect.  I've then multiplied the area by the impact to get the overall effect per unit area.  Finally I've divided this by the maintenance cost to get the "bang per buck".

Here we are so far:

EDUCATION	Maintenance	Impact	Radius	Area	Total Effect	Bang for buck	Best cost per unit
Elementary School	5,000	25	200	125,664	3,141,593	628	0.001591549
Middle School	10000	20	300	282,743	5,654,867	565
Private School	20000	15	400	502,655	7,539,822	377
FIRE
Small	5000	40	200	125,664	5,026,548	1,005
Medium	10000	50	300	282,743	14,137,167	1,414
Large	20000	60	400	502,655	30,159,289	1,508	0.000663146
SECURITY
Small	5000	40	200	125,664	5,026,548	1,005
Medium	10000	50	300	282,743	14,137,167	1,414
Large	20000	60	400	502,655	30,159,289	1,508	0.000663146
HEALTH
Small	5000	40	200	125,664	5,026,548	1,005
Medium	10000	50	300	282,743	14,137,167	1,414
Large	20000	60	400	502,655	30,159,289	1,508	0.000663146

The number at the far right is the cost of providing one unit of effect of the most effective building present.

As you can see - if the numbers are correct, schools make no sense at all, unless they are elementary schools.

Finally, I've had a look at the multi-centres that you get once your cities are larger:

Medium Multi	50000	Supplies:				Cost via best alternative
Education		15	80	20,106	301,593	480
Fire		60	80	20,106	1,206,372	800
Health		60	80	20,106	1,206,372	800
Police		60	80	20,106	1,206,372	800
					Total Alternative	2880
Large Multi	100000	Supplies:
Education		15	160	80,425	1,206,372	1920
Fire		80	160	80,425	6,433,982	4266.666667
Health		80	160	80,425	6,433,982	4266.666667
Police		80	160	80,425	6,433,982	4266.666667
					Total Alternative	14720

So what I've done here is to work out the effects of each multi, the radius, therefore the total units of effect.

What I've then done is to take the output from the analysis of schools, fire etc and plug in the cost of producing the same effect with the most cost-effective building in the first table.

What it shows is that none of the multis are even close to good value - the £50k one would cost £2.8k with other buildings.

And this is why the numbers must be wrong.  Firstly, schools don't make sense, secondly multis are a joke.

Which brings me back to the original point.  Without MC providing some more concrete info, how are we meant to make any decisions at all?

[soltangris 42]

First mr-tom - congrats on your persistence and will to do all this!

I've couple of observations though. If I'm not mistaken, all services (except leisure) are supposed to have as a radius the whole city. What actually limits the radius is transport and traffic. So, having this in mind, you actually can't gauge the real effectiveness of a building, because it changes constantly according to traffic conditions and transport options!

To give you an example, if you have a middle school in place somewhere in the middle of your city, it will technically affect the whole city. However, its effect will be strongest right next to it, and diminish the farther you go from the school, until it becomes practically nonexistent, right? But then suppose that you build a bus line going from one end of the city to the school. Won't this give better access of the areas connected by the line to the school's service?

I haven't tested this thoroughly, of course. I'm merely making a logical inference, following MC's own info on how the system works. I've also noticed that the elementary school you're talking about doesn't have such a great effect... I've currently changed almost all schools in the city (which is 850 000, by the way) to middle ones, with one high school in the centre. The coverage is very good, satisfaction ranges from 85+ (unqualified) to 55 - 60 (elites), and I must have a total of 3 middle schools, I can't really remember... Anyway, my point is: according to your observation, if I change back to elementary schools, they'll provide me with the same coverage/satisfaction?

[mr-tom 2]

Interesting.

Well according to the radii from the German site, only a proportion of the effective radius, so you would need more of them, but they cost less.

I might have to revisit my figures, so don't go rewriting your city yet!

Tom.

[mr-tom 2]

OK, so here's my problem. How do I revise my figures? MC say that buildings have a city wide effect, that this tapers with distance but is affected by various factors, transport being primary (my understanding of the gist of it). The German site publishes radii. My in game experience shows that there is certainly some sort of area of effect.

Now if I follow the German directions then my figures more or less stand. They don't model the degree of taper, but since that could be proportional, inverse square, exponential or something else, there's no clear way of doing that.

If I ignore the radius then we assume a whole city effect which we know in reality doesn't wholly apply.

There is of course no easy way of modelling effect on an unknown city grid (or frankly on a known one for that matter!)

So I'm cautiously sticking with my figures. Not because I like them. Not because I trust them. But because I have no better idea.

Come on guys - where am I going wrong?

[morriswalters 16]

Think of the radius as a marker which tells you how close you can put the same objects efficiently, the min max numbers are the falloff with the circle of effect.  The intersection of two circles which are seperated by  the radius of their object will have 100 percent of the  effect.  What that means is that two schools of the same type should never be closer than the radius of effect.  If you sat elementary schools side by side the effect would be the same as one by itself.  Once away from the radius of effect roads become the controlling factor.  Go in SP in expert mode, use the wetlands map and layout the road and place the schools and watch how they react, don't worry about starting a city, you don't need it to see the effect.

You didn't see me or hear me, I'm hiding from griefers.

[soltangris 42]

Good idea, morris, I might try it myself. Also thinking that you could start a real city from scratch and watch how the effects develop with time and growth.

I think the density in the radius of effect plays a role too - I've noticed that as I increase density in the areas around the school, for example, the satisfaction levels that were once OK, drop quickly. So, end effectiveness is also affected by how many people use the service in the vicinity. Thus the need for bigger capacity establishments.

[Tuesday 0]

How do the cities link together other than trade? While we've established there's no physical or geographical connection, does this mean that you cannot accept traffic or tourists from other cities? I think it would be great if, in future there were more logical connections so you feed or feed off other's cities in more ways than agreed trade deals.

I imagine that's probably quite difficult to make happen though.

[mr-tom 2]

Tuesday,

Everything is represented via trade.

E.g. if you trade holidays, then tourists "move" from one city to another. Likewise traffic (passengers) is simply the representation of the movement of people, which can also be traded.

Appreciate it's a bit bland at present.

I guess my suggestion is that CXL is still being shaped so let's develop a good workable idea and then submit it...

[MandelSoft 2,769]

Yesterday, MC released the second content pack, which makes the OmniCorp trading rate more reasonable in SP. Today I installed Hotfix 1.0.4.422, and guess what: the trading rates are back to what they used to be. Also, the news of the release of the second content pack dissapeared somehow. Anybody noticed that too?

[Tuesday 0]

4. Can you build Cul-de-sacs (believe they're known as "court" in US and AUS) naturally or does the game struggle with the concept like in SC4? I.e. do cars drive down them in their dozens, turn round and drive out again?

5. Are all the maps the same size (10-10km?) and does it seem/feel larger than the large map areas on SC4?

6. Do you see any dodgy characters or criminals roaming the streets like in SC4? Or can you build "rough areas" or ghettos? Everything I've seen so far looks pretty quaint.

[DazzaDazza 29]

Tuesday

4. Not at the moment

5. ummm, I don't think so, I seem to be able to fit more on a SC4 map then CXL map,

6. Not that I'm' aware of

I have question,

If you have been playing the game from the start, you would have downloaded over a Gig worth of patches, when you uninstall the game and reinstall it later, your game version is at 297 (or something) but when you go to download the new patches you only have about 300MB of download to get to the current version,

What happened to all the rest of the info downloaded in all the other patches?

Was it all not needed?

I don't get it.

[mr-tom 2]

My guess is that they've re-patched the same thing a few times - just tweaking the same (huge) bits of code.

That's fairly likely as let's face it, it'll be the most troublesome stuff that didn't work at the beginning.

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

Unpinned.   

[JackStraw 19]

Here's a quick question..... Does anyone remember what the map size demensions of a CXL map are?

[morriswalters 16]

10k by 10k

[bluespottedhorse 49]

SC4 4X4KM, CITIESXL 10x10KM

[Cob92 360]

Originally posted by: Tuesday

4. Can you build Cul-de-sacs (believe they're known as "court" in US and AUS) naturally or does the game struggle with the concept like in SC4? I.e. do cars drive down them in their dozens, turn round and drive out again?

5. Are all the maps the same size (10-10km?) and does it seem/feel larger than the large map areas on SC4?

6. Do you see any dodgy characters or criminals roaming the streets like in SC4? Or can you build "rough areas" or ghettos? Everything I've seen so far looks pretty quaint.

quote>

4: You can't make a true cul-de-sac (BTW, we call them cul-de-sacs here in America too), but you can create something close by making a loop of small road and then turning it one way.

5: All maps are the same size as far as I can tell. They feel larger than SC4 maps; when I tried to go back to SC4 after playing CXL, I was surprised at how quickly I was running out of space.

6: There aren't really many pedestrians to begin with, and I haven't seen one that could be qualified as a criminal. You can, however, build a ghetto. Simply toss a bunch of Unqualifed worker apartments into an area and provide terrible services. I usually surround my industry with a ghetto.

[mr-tom 2]

Originally posted by: Cobhris96

Originally posted by: Tuesday

6. Do you see any dodgy characters or criminals roaming the streets like in SC4? Or can you build "rough areas" or ghettos? Everything I've seen so far looks pretty quaint.

quote>

6: There aren't really many pedestrians to begin with, and I haven't seen one that could be qualified as a criminal. You can, however, build a ghetto. Simply toss a bunch of Unqualifed worker apartments into an area and provide terrible services. I usually surround my industry with a ghetto.

quote>

I dunno.  There's some dodgy geezer wandering around my cities with a sack full of something...  Red clothing, white beard, something of a "plump build".

[Tuesday 0]

Anyone know what MC are currently working on, update wise? Can't find much.

[Skimbo 304]

I'll think they arre working on the "Chinatown-pack" and on a lot of  bug fixes...

[Asheroo 53]

According to an article some time ago, they should now be working on a chinatown themed pack.

This was their original plan - http://www.citiesxl.com/content/view/989/171/?lang=en

[pianoblack 0]

So I've been reading around this forum as I sit on the fence (still!) to buy this game, and I have a couple BURNING QUESTIONS to which I have not found answers. If someone could enlighten me, here they are:

1. Can some current players tell me: is this game growing or dying? Are important things being improved, even slowly, with regular patches?

2. Do you have to trade with other players (who may renege!) or can you make an effective trading network just with your own cities?