Roads, not what I expected

[muttoneer 0]

I've been playing for a couple of days now (and have already deleted two planet mode cities which were planned poorly!)  I'm still frustrated at the lack of mass transit out of the box but have decided to trust that MC will deliver and so I signed up for 3 months of planet mode in order to do my bit and support them.

In the meantime I'm trying to build the perfect city using just roads and am getting a bit frustrated with a few aspects.

Firstly there's the junctions. Everywhere a road meets, traffic must stop. I would love to be able to assign priority to my main roads with simple T-junctions, but after building a few sidestreets the journey down one of my main routes becomes very stop-start. Is there any way to do this, or will it be implemented in a future patch?

Being able to assign priority would also give me the option of adding slip-roads (exit lanes) to roads other than highways, which would help planning traffic flow greatly.

Another slight gripe is that citizens appear to drive everywhere! Everything you build needs a road attached to it, so my thoughts of building self contained little communities with footpaths and pedestrian areas aren't really possible at present. Maybe we'll get car parking areas, footpaths, cyclepaths etc in a future update - I certainly hope so!

Finally, the requirement for decorative areas to be surrounded on all sides by roads is a bit frustrating, though I note an icon for trees blanked out on the decorative item menu so I assume there will be options to beautify ones city without using flood-fill after future updates...

Overall at present I like the game, despite the limitations over transport. It does feel at times like an exercise in balancing residential plots with available jobs, but the overall look and feel of the game does make me hopeful that in a few months time this will be a very good game. It's not quite there yet though.

[tikvaw 0]

Hm comparing to the other limited aspects of the Game,

I don't think you will ever see such an involved and complex Traffic System in this game.

We don't know much yet about the Mass Transit Gem's, so we don't know how close it could come

, but as far as I heard, Gem's a more of a detached thing not completely incoporated into

the city itself?

[muttoneer 0]

As far as I was aware Mass Transit will be an update, not a GEM. Hopefully therefore it can be fully incorporated into our cities.

I suppose I'm thinking back to all the transport discussions on the now defunct Cities XL forums, where it seemed we would be able to have much more control over our traffic lanes, being able to make our own intersections etc. I guess that was too difficult or too memory hungry to pull off

[Kredit 0]

I agree the options for placing roads are limited. It would be great to have more control over the traffic flow.

I would also really like to be able to upgrade roads, instead of having to replace them, since a bigger road will be, well, bigger, you often can't put it where the old road was.

[Jokurr 175]

I don't think intersections have an effect on traffic flow. Realistically they would, and it looks strange in game to see traffic stopping at every single intersection, but I don't think they affect the game's mechanics for determining traffic volume or commute times.

[beebs 129]

Originally posted by: tikvaw

Hm comparing to the other limited aspects of the Game,

I don't think you will ever see such an involved and complex Traffic System in this game.

We don't know much yet about the Mass Transit Gem's, so we don't know how close it could come

, but as far as I heard, Gem's a more of a detached thing not completely incoporated into

the city itself?

quote>

Hmm.. I thought that GEM's were basically small expansion packs, adding to the available content available for your cities.. did I misread somewhere?

Regardless, it seems like MC designed the game to be wide open for many possibilities for GEMs, addon packs and whatnot. Once larger concerns are sorted out, I wouldn't be suprised to see some additions and "fixes" for the roads and highways.

[0wn3d 2]

Originally posted by: beebs Hmm.. I thought that GEM's were basically small expansion packs, adding to the available content available for your cities.. did I misread somewhere?

Regardless, it seems like MC designed the game to be wide open for many possibilities for GEMs, addon packs and whatnot. Once larger concerns are sorted out, I wouldn't be suprised to see some additions and "fixes" for the roads and highways.

quote>

GEMs are basically mini-simulations inside the game.  Its like a game inside of a game.  A good example of a GEM is the ski GEM that they will be making.  You literally run a ski resort.  It basically takes something that could have been a small feature in the game, and lets you do much more with it.

Mass transit will not be a GEM, it will be a new feature.  In terms of mass transit, the only kind of related GEM I could think of would be building and managing a train station or bus stop.

From what I can tell, you will basically "enter" your GEMs as if your entering your city, and when you are inside of the GEM you wont actually have normal control over your city, its like your in a new game.

[Centaur 0]

Originally posted by: muttoneer

Finally, the requirement for decorative areas to be surrounded on all sides by roads is a bit frustrating,

quote>

Yeah that is annoying.  But you can put roads down, fill inside with decoration, then delete the roads and the decoration stays.  A cheat, but it allows you to have large decorated areas

[Rutgar 0]

Originally posted by: Kredit

I agree the options for placing roads are limited. It would be great to have more control over the traffic flow.

I would also really like to be able to upgrade roads, instead of having to replace them, since a bigger road will be, well, bigger, you often can't put it where the old road was.

quote>

I really wish they would follow SC on this one, and allow a larger road to replace the smaller road, and simply 'auto-buloldoze' any surrounding properties which would encroach on the new road.

It would also be nice for the building areas to be scalable.

[Kredit 0]

Yup, that would indeed be good

While playing yesterday evening I did find that when you click on a piece of road, you get some customising options. You can "upgrade" (or downgrade) roads, but only to other roads of the same size (small road <-> small farm road, simple road <-> large farm road for example), and you can change the lanes, either making it a one-way road, or in the case of uneven lanes, 2 in one and 3 in the other direction.

This can help solving traffic issues without having to destroy/add anything, though it's still a bit limited. Also, you can only change one piece of road at a time, and the directions are inconsistent, so it's a bit of a hassle.

[MandelSoft 2,769]

To confirm that GEM's are not like expansion packs, here's the defenition of the GEM from the support page of the CitiesXL website:

The GEMs (Gameplay Extension Modules)

GEMs are independent games within Cities XLtm. While in the main game you must run an entire city, with the GEMs, you can swap your mayor's sash for an executive's suit as you manage a seaside resort.

GEMs are made up of a pack containing dozens of buildings with which you can create a new company. You can then decide to link to your city or not. GEMs are genuine management games, so micro-managers will have plenty to keep themselves busy with!

It's up to you to do what it takes to make your new company as profitable as possible - be it in tourism, engineering transportation, or entertainment.

GEMs can be used to increase your city's attractiveness and to create new resources in Planet mode.

quote>

[blinger 0]

Originally posted by: Kredit

Yup, that would indeed be good

While playing yesterday evening I did find that when you click on a piece of road, you get some customising options. You can "upgrade" (or downgrade) roads, but only to other roads of the same size (small road <-> small farm road, simple road <-> large farm road for example), and you can change the lanes, either making it a one-way road, or in the case of uneven lanes, 2 in one and 3 in the other direction.

This can help solving traffic issues without having to destroy/add anything, though it's still a bit limited. Also, you can only change one piece of road at a time, and the directions are inconsistent, so it's a bit of a hassle.quote>

thanks for the info. I forgot they touched upon this in the demo. I've been having nightmares over my traffic issues, maybe 1 way road upgrades are the way to go instead of deleting large portions of my city to upgrade the infrastructure.

[Brandon8181 0]

I always thought it would be cool to be able to control the timing of red lights to the traffic flow, and update them as the game went on.. or even be able to install "traffic sensors" on the red lights so they can adjust depending on the amount of traffic control. Either way though, more traffic control would be better.

Brandon

[USA_Pride 49]

Yeah, this is one of the biggest dissapointments of the game. You cannot easily upgrade a road. In SimCity you could just do an in-place upgrade and it would demolish anything in the way on only one side of the road. But in CXL if your road curves at all you have to destroy the building on both sides of the road, the road itself, and any adjioning roads because it's impossible to get a curved road replacement in the same exact spot.

[bluespottedhorse 49]

All the concerns you have raised with the exception of stopping at every intersection I also brought to the attention of the CITIESXL team during the beta. So they were aware of these concerns and issues before releasing the game. I hope that they have taken mine and hundreds of other beta testers advise and implement our requests into future patches. They never ever confirmed that they would make the changes and always responded back that they are looking at it.

On your statement about the fill tool I requested additional options added such as; parking lots, etc. Playing the game one notices the lack of tarmacks and parking lots and many of the commercial areas have very little parking not consistant with real life cities. They advised me that they have a great tool for making parks which obviously hasn't been implemented yet.

On the road upgrade issue we complained profusely about the inability to upgrade without destroying huge sections of neighborhoods. My suggestion was to unlock avenues so that a person could start with a larger road at the beginning of the game, they finally opened up the avenues at the beginning of the game which really helps.

I'm looking forward to seeing new patches released to enhance the game.

[USA_Pride 49]

Originally posted by: bluespottedhorseOn your statement about the fill tool I requested additional options added such as; parking lotsquote>

Brilliant idea!

[0wn3d 2]

Originally posted by: USA_Pride

Yeah, this is one of the biggest dissapointments of the game. You cannot easily upgrade a road. In SimCity you could just do an in-place upgrade and it would demolish anything in the way on only one side of the road. But in CXL if your road curves at all you have to destroy the building on both sides of the road, the road itself, and any adjioning roads because it's impossible to get a curved road replacement in the same exact spot.quote>

I disagree... I think its actually a good thing.  It makes it realistic and creates consequences for upgrading your roads.  You dont just click one button and everything is done for you.  You have to get rid of surrounding businesses first, generally one by one, which is going to cause you to lose tax money.  Then you have to destroy the road and rebuild it.  It just makes it more difficult, which it really is to widen a road.  The idea of the game doing it for you seems really boring...

[USA_Pride 49]

Originally posted by: 0wn3d

Originally posted by: USA_Pride

Yeah, this is one of the biggest dissapointments of the game. You cannot easily upgrade a road. In SimCity you could just do an in-place upgrade and it would demolish anything in the way on only one side of the road. But in CXL if your road curves at all you have to destroy the building on both sides of the road, the road itself, and any adjioning roads because it's impossible to get a curved road replacement in the same exact spot.quote>

I disagree... I think its actually a good thing.  It makes it realistic and creates consequences for upgrading your roads.  You dont just click one button and everything is done for you.  You have to get rid of surrounding businesses first, generally one by one, which is going to cause you to lose tax money.  Then you have to destroy the road and rebuild it.  It just makes it more difficult, which it really is to widen a road.  The idea of the game doing it for you seems really boring...

quote>

SimCity was realistic, in that larger roads take more space.  However, SimCity made it easy yet realistic, as opposed to frustrating and somewhat realistic.

In the real world many road expansion are done with existing right of way (the extra space between the road and the sidewalk\property line).

Expanding roads in CXL just plain stinks.

[0wn3d 2]

Originally posted by: USA_Pride SimCity was realistic, in that larger roads take more space.  However, SimCity made it easy yet realistic, as opposed to frustrating and somewhat realistic.

In the real world many road expansion are done with existing right of way (the extra space between the road and the sidewalk\property line).

Expanding roads in CXL just plain stinks.quote>

My point is its realistic that its a pain to upgrade roads, and its one of those things that bennefits planning ahead.  It also allows for a more realistic approach to builing your city to be more realistic in that your gonna have to spend some time to upgrade your roads.  Maybe they could include some sort of easy mode or something that would do it for you... but I still like the challenge of doing it myself.

[UrbanLegend 63]

Originally posted by: Centaur

Originally posted by: muttoneer

Finally, the requirement for decorative areas to be surrounded on all sides by roads is a bit frustrating,

quote>

Yeah that is annoying.  But you can put roads down, fill inside with decoration, then delete the roads and the decoration stays.  A cheat, but it allows you to have large decorated areas

quote>

It's not really a cheat, it's actually sort of realistic (if somewhat tedious).  I mean you can't just replace a 2 lane road with a 6 lane expressway without demolishing some buildings IRL.

A trick I like to do, since I can't afford highways at the start, is mark off where the right of way for my future highways will go with the farm roads.

[USA_Pride 49]

Originally posted by: 0wn3d

Originally posted by: USA_Pride SimCity was realistic, in that larger roads take more space.  However, SimCity made it easy yet realistic, as opposed to frustrating and somewhat realistic.

In the real world many road expansion are done with existing right of way (the extra space between the road and the sidewalk\property line).

Expanding roads in CXL just plain stinks.quote>

My point is its realistic that its a pain to upgrade roads, and its one of those things that bennefits planning ahead.  It also allows for a more realistic approach to builing your city to be more realistic in that your gonna have to spend some time to upgrade your roads.  Maybe they could include some sort of easy mode or something that would do it for you... but I still like the challenge of doing it myself.

quote>

But it doesn't matter how much planning you do, you'll still have to destroy all buildings on both sides of the road, the road itself, as well as many of the connecting roads.

Being a pain does not equate to being realistic.

Road upgrading is a chore and is very unpolished in CXL and one of the reasons I played CXL for two days, and then went back to Sim City 4.

[gadge75 0]

I personally would rather spend my time on traffic flow, efficiency, direction problems than on manually demolishing each block of buildings to upgrade. I understand that buildings have to be removed and I would never argue that. But I would like to be able to demo the old road, place the new road, and leave the demolishing of the affected structures to the AI demolition Union.

That said, because of this inconvenience, I do spend more time planning future routes for my roads for freight, passengers, etc. and leave ample space for entering/exiting zones that will be affected during future growth. So far it's ok, but i'm not the best at planning and still have to spend time in my dozer taking care of structures. (MASS EXODUS!!!) Love that warning when I doze out entire neighborhoods for my intergalactic freeway, err, large avenue...

[lots 0]

I design my big main roads with park areas on either both or one side. That way, when i come back to upgrade, I just need to delete the park and main road I am upgrading. There is no problem upgrading a road made like this if it is touching buildings.. The real issue is when one of my "super blocks" ( a 2 x 3 collection of regular sized blcoks [ which is 2 x 3 buildings each]) needs to be revamped for traffic flow because the small streets can't take the traffic. At that point though, I think i would delete the middle row of the middle blocks and rebuild with an avenue or something... Anyway, the idea is the smaller roads can get traffic from residenes to my big roads, and the big roads can get to useful places. Health, Edu, shops, work, etc.

I do have some complaints about the expressway. It should be like a real interstate or whatever, in that I can say "be this many lanes wide." I say this, because I just got used to the smaller roads having all kinds of 1 way traffic, 2x3 lane traffic, and more configurations. Clicking on an express way reveals no alternate configurations. It would be nice to add a few more lanes, or configure their directions, carpool lanes, etc. to the larger roads....

I've also been considering tunnels for direct route connections between my residential areas and work. That way I can keep the work traffic isolated from the rest of the surface traffic. But long tunnels like that cost alot Not to mention the size of the area I'd need at each opening of a tunnel... Tunnels can't make very sharp turns

[Rutgar 0]

Originally posted by: lots

I do have some complaints about the expressway. It should be like a real interstate or whatever, in that I can say "be this many lanes wide." I say this, because I just got used to the smaller roads having all kinds of 1 way traffic, 2x3 lane traffic, and more configurations. Clicking on an express way reveals no alternate configurations. It would be nice to add a few more lanes, or configure their directions, carpool lanes, etc. to the larger roads....

quote>

Carpool lanes don't work in real life.  So why would want the simulate that failure in the game?

[DazzaDazza 29]

ya there is like buss lanes, o'h I really hate bus lanes, the only time I every see anyone use them is the cops when they wont get though the traffic, while us suckers have to put up with going 10 in a 100 zone

[JakeMD 107]

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