Discussion about City Tile Size

[DazzaDazza 29]

I agree with drdru7029 On the last post That's how I see it as well, from what I have seen and read, but from what little I probably know, I am only guessing

I rally hope they stay away from that, I love to make a balanced city with every aspect a, little bit of this and a little bit of that, I don’t wont to make “Feeder” Cities simply to make one city Grate(like other City building games), that’s not simcity,

as for the size 2x2, don't think it's very big, but will that detract from the game, ummmm it's hard to say, I like to put my CBD in the larger map, and the suburbs on medium map, then then switch back to a larger map when making far land,

  Edited March 19, 2012 by mrdazza_460  

[Mark Waybill 242]

What I suggest is that the community become very vocal about this fact, right now. We can't wait too long or else it will be too ingrained in their plan.

"Maxis:

[Dan] The size of our new cities are roughly equivalent to the SC4 medium sized city (2 kilometers square). That said, you can connect cities together inside a region and build out a network of connected cities - each city providing different resources and abilities to its neighbors and the region. For example, one city could be a residential suburb which provides workers every day to a nearby industrial city."

Depending on how much gameplay performance is affected I would be okay with that city size as long as regional play is easy and loading/saving of cities is handled well. However if effects from one city to another are realistic as we've been led to suspect, I doubt we could still use the old 'place industry in neighbouring city right on border and it won't affect lovely residential city on other side of border' system.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

That quote should not be considered as cast in concrete, but it may indicate that the minds of some of the designers are suffering from steel trap syndrome. As the largest user community of what they hope will be a successful sales campaign, I think we have to do something very soon to cure this problem if it exists.

They have a small design group, and can't think of everything we'd like. This is why we have this forum which I am sure they are watching?

Some of the stuff we have put out in this forum is not particularly possible, but the idea of an expanding city under one administration is really necessary.

I don't expect the regional granularity to be 16. That would limit the region to 64 Km² or an 8 x 8 square. This isn't enough room to swing a cat, let alone build any kind of city. For example, the City of Toronto is 12 miles (19.3 Km) across its waterfront but is not quite as deep because it runs into the suburbia which are separate municipalities. It also has several wards that at one time were separate cities before the consolidation. This whole area including the 905-cities is very large, and certainly much larger than a block 8 Km on a side.

The area I live in, Huron-Perth, consists of many municipalities, towns and villages in a large rural area. Many of them stand alone and others are gathered into administrative regions. If we are going to be able to make something approaching reality in this new instance, such limitations are unacceptable. The developers should perhaps review the City Journal sections if they have not.

I prefer the idea of a dynamic region that can add to its basic layout on demand. There needs to be a set of algorithms that can extend the region including its terraforming, resource distribution and all. This may or may not be within the purview of the players. I should prefer player control, of course.

The initial idea the developers have thrown out implies required regional play. I tend to agree that this should be there, but perhaps not required, at least at the outset. If I want to build a small area of farms and a village, I only want to be able to export my surplus produce, and import things I need from some virtual store in the sky. As other areas develop, these tasks can be taken over to the advantage of the newer "cities". I think it is pretty clear that as surpluses develop and shortages show up, neighbor connections become mandatory.

Actually I am hoping that this new version will be quite resource driven and that trade be the most driving force.

[Tarkus 6,933]

What I suggest is that the community become very vocal about this fact, right now. We can't wait too long or else it will be too ingrained in their plan.

"Maxis:

[Dan] The size of our new cities are roughly equivalent to the SC4 medium sized city (2 kilometers square). That said, you can connect cities together inside a region and build out a network of connected cities - each city providing different resources and abilities to its neighbors and the region. For example, one city could be a residential suburb which provides workers every day to a nearby industrial city."

Note the fact, however, that they suggested a similar gameplay paradigm with regions in SC4. Also note the use of the words "can" and "could"--those are possibilities, not directives (e.g. "must"). We don't really know enough at this point.

-Tarkus

[Cob92 360]

What I suggest is that the community become very vocal about this fact, right now. We can't wait too long or else it will be too ingrained in their plan.

"Maxis:

[Dan] The size of our new cities are roughly equivalent to the SC4 medium sized city (2 kilometers square). That said, you can connect cities together inside a region and build out a network of connected cities - each city providing different resources and abilities to its neighbors and the region. For example, one city could be a residential suburb which provides workers every day to a nearby industrial city."

Note the fact, however, that they suggested a similar gameplay paradigm with regions in SC4. Also note the use of the words "can" and "could"--those are possibilities, not directives (e.g. "must"). We don't really know enough at this point.

-Tarkus

SC4 still offered some limited variation in the sizes of our cities; even then I think the cities in SC4 were way too small. I have a city of ~180,000 Sims right now on a large tile that is completely built out. The only way that city will grow is to become more dense. Some people might be fine with that, but I chafe at limitations on my city layouts. If I want to build a sprawl city that is completely car dependent and where every Sim gets a 1/2 acre lot, I should be able to do so.

[The Prodigy 8]

Why stick to squares and tile sets set at 2x2k or 4x4k? I think that 10 years of tech advancement would allow for something more organic. I was thinking one has a region, say NYC for example and one would start on Manhattan, and as the city grows, the larger city could annex smaller cities (Brooklyn Bronx etc.) until a desired size is reached, maybe with a cap put in place(?), or annex open land. It would require a whole slew of improved features, like sims being able to travel longer distances and do it more intuitively. Also cities would have to be more readily fixable to compensate for highways and city centers. A good analogy would be games like RollerCoaster Tycoon where the player can buy land to expand up on the existing allotted land. And if a city goes under, smaller cities could break away. It would also make room for different processor capabilities. Those hardcore mega-city builders could make NYC2 while weaker engines could focus on smaller land types. Just an idea.

[Mark Waybill 242]

Realistic organic growth would be difficult because IRL there are heirarchies, not just Mayors running Cities (note my capitalisation of M and C), and so for instance there might be a State/County Governor/Council, municipal councils and governors, and local MPs within a municipality representing maybe even just a few suburbs. Also real boundaries as I've said before are definitely not square in most cases. Take Sydney for example. The city itself if you were to make a square to border it would also include parts of adjoining areas like South Sydney, North Sydney councils etc. If cities grew organically and could expand in size beyond a set border, then you'd have to deal with all sorts of new issues like how much of a region to activate at once, whether borders would still be linear or organic themselves, what would happen if two cities expanded towards the same point, would they merge or have a division between them agreed upon etc.

If an entire region could be activated by an Administrator or High Mayor who could set boundaries, and lesser Mayors controlled and activated individual 'cities' or boroughs within that region and applied to the High Mayor for boundary changes, it might be possible. But certainly all sorts of complexities would arise if they tried to implement organic city boundary growth. Possibly a 'sphere of influence' system? But then border issues would be very problematic.

[drdru7029 52]

All of the options being brought up are technically possible. In fact I (with my limited understanding of the internal mechanics of the game) can't see anything impeding their realization. However I've been around long enough to witness far too many games being handicapped not by technical limitations but by the bee-line visions of the developers who, seeking a format which will most perfectly connect with their 'main idea' (in this case this main idea appears to be the massive-multiplayer experience and an appeal to lower-end systems), just won't budge on the things which would really improve the game.

It is far too early to say for certain, yes. And I hope that I'm completely wrong about this. But they want small city sizes because:

-They think it better fits the demands of their new engine

-They want to appeal to the low-to-mid range computer systems and fear large cities will give poor results

-Large or multiple city sizes may for some reason not be conducive to their multiplayer model

-They apparently are willing to exchange realism for a smooth 'sim experience'-- I can easily imagine they have in mind these small 2x2 tiles producing skyscrapers in a well-developed region.

So like I said in a previous post-- change depends on our ability to get the logic of our requests through the clutter and into the ears of the ladies and gentlemen at Maxis... as early as possible.

[Vahr 343]

A major reason for square cities is data - it's a lot faster and easier to store your information and do lookups (ie for occupancy - you can speed up testing if an area is occupied or not by storing a general layout of the city in a 2D array and only using high precision bound checks if there's something in the vicinity instead of having to iterate through all the objects). Plus its convenient for defining city bounds - you remove the extra step of checking if an object is within bounds by replacing it with a simple statement checking if x and z are greater than the length or less than 0. Once you get into the actual simulation does such a benefit become apparent. For instance, in SC4 Maxis subdivided the city into 8x8 cells for simulation (including (IIRC) destination finding for the traffic simulation).

[alex macnamara 139]

THanks for stickying my thread!! harrrrr harrrr! I also hope this thread grabs the attention of the folks at Maxis as it was listed as the number 1 hot thread of this forum! Maxis if you have any questions please feel free to email me. Ill be more than happy to make this game be the best ever!

[The Prodigy 8]

Realistic organic growth would be difficult because IRL there are heirarchies, not just Mayors running Cities (note my capitalisation of M and C), and so for instance there might be a State/County Governor/Council, municipal councils and governors, and local MPs within a municipality representing maybe even just a few suburbs. Also real boundaries as I've said before are definitely not square in most cases. Take Sydney for example. The city itself if you were to make a square to border it would also include parts of adjoining areas like South Sydney, North Sydney councils etc. If cities grew organically and could expand in size beyond a set border, then you'd have to deal with all sorts of new issues like how much of a region to activate at once, whether borders would still be linear or organic themselves, what would happen if two cities expanded towards the same point, would they merge or have a division between them agreed upon etc.

If an entire region could be activated by an Administrator or High Mayor who could set boundaries, and lesser Mayors controlled and activated individual 'cities' or boroughs within that region and applied to the High Mayor for boundary changes, it might be possible. But certainly all sorts of complexities would arise if they tried to implement organic city boundary growth. Possibly a 'sphere of influence' system? But then border issues would be very problematic.

This is assuming that the next game will endow the player with authorial/god-like powers over the expansion of the city. I agree with your argument in reference to multi-player, although for single player I think it would work, maybe with some compromise. Even allowing say a 4x4 lot to absorb a 1x1 would allow for a more realistic growth (and an unreasonable amount of integration issues), but on the other hand... it would make the game awesome if this barrier were worked around.

[gweed123 33]

Realistic organic growth would be difficult because IRL there are heirarchies, not just Mayors running Cities (note my capitalisation of M and C), and so for instance there might be a State/County Governor/Council, municipal councils and governors, and local MPs within a municipality representing maybe even just a few suburbs. Also real boundaries as I've said before are definitely not square in most cases. Take Sydney for example. The city itself if you were to make a square to border it would also include parts of adjoining areas like South Sydney, North Sydney councils etc. If cities grew organically and could expand in size beyond a set border, then you'd have to deal with all sorts of new issues like how much of a region to activate at once, whether borders would still be linear or organic themselves, what would happen if two cities expanded towards the same point, would they merge or have a division between them agreed upon etc.

If an entire region could be activated by an Administrator or High Mayor who could set boundaries, and lesser Mayors controlled and activated individual 'cities' or boroughs within that region and applied to the High Mayor for boundary changes, it might be possible. But certainly all sorts of complexities would arise if they tried to implement organic city boundary growth. Possibly a 'sphere of influence' system? But then border issues would be very problematic.

This is assuming that the next game will endow the player with authorial/god-like powers over the expansion of the city. I agree with your argument in reference to multi-player, although for single player I think it would work, maybe with some compromise. Even allowing say a 4x4 lot to absorb a 1x1 would allow for a more realistic growth (and an unreasonable amount of integration issues), but on the other hand... it would make the game awesome if this barrier were worked around.

I think it'll all depend on how it's implemented. What bugs me most about the 'separate cities within a region' thing is not the fact that they're separate files, with separate but linked simulations, but that they have separate budgets. I would have no problem switching between 2x2 tiles, as long as the budget was for the entire region, and not that 2x2 tile specifically. Starting over again with each new tile is a pain, but if you were able to keep the same budget and just expand on it, it would make the game much easier to play.

Someone mentioned it earlier, but I think it bears repeating. What I'd like to see (if "amalgamation" isn't possible), is switching between tiles in a similar way to how Grand Theft Auto does it. Scroll to the edge, and then the next City would load.

You would scroll to the edge of the tile, and then a dialog box would come up "Do you want to switch to *insert name of City*?". If you clicked yes, it would take a few seconds and load the city next to it, while still showing the 5 or 10 closest tiles of the neighbouring city (which would gradually fade into the background the further out you go).

  Edited March 20, 2012 by gweed123  

[drdru7029 52]

"...as long as the budget was for the entire region, and not that 2x2 tile specifically."

"You would scroll to the edge of the tile, and then a dialog box would come up "Do you want to switch to *insert name of City*?". If you clicked yes, it would take a few seconds and load the city next to it, while still showing the 5 or 10 closest tiles of the neighbouring city (which would gradually fade into the background the further out you go)."

[Mark Waybill 242]

I like the idea of a regional budget, which would make competition between cities in MP more fair and realistic, like competition between suburbs in a city for residents.

[drdru7029 52]

I like the idea of a regional budget, which would make competition between cities in MP more fair and realistic, like competition between suburbs in a city for residents.

I know I may be pushing it here, but I would like to have the freedom to select which new city tiles will be part of the 'regional budget' and which will be separate. After all, if we want to be able to build true metropolises, several tiles will join together to create one municipality, while smaller adjoining ones may be separate and independent suburbs/satellites.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Well, doesn't it come to a matter of a lot of rather intricate programming if you want to be able to expand beyond the city granularity? It is merely coding to allow this, but it could be done within reason. The unit attached would have to be one granule which would probably be a 2 x 2 city cell. This can either be consolidated into the "city budget" or created as a "sub-region". Frankly I prefer the former as it eliminates an object that would otherwise need programming, while the expansion to a consolidate budget would just change the boundary and update the accounting panel. This idea, by the way, might well delay the release by about a year.

If it were possible in the time frame and could be properly quality assured, I am definitely for something along these lines.

[avalach21 2]

I don't care how long the game takes to come out, it's been almost a decade now. They better get this one right (Looking at recent Maxis releases, I wouldn't be surprised if this game doesn't live up to its expectations and legacy.)

There could definitely be some sort of system where there's a Region government, or sort of a County government, which will pick up certain expenses for the whole region. It should be up to all the mayors to vote and work together to figure out which expenses the County/Region government should be responsible for, and what each city will take on its own. This could make the financial aspect of the simulation much deeper, and it would create a new way in which people would have to interact and work together (or against each other).

I just really hope they see the potential and possibilities of the online multiplayer aspect all the way through. I hope they are doing this to make the game more realistic and a deeper experience rather than turning it into some crappy social game where everyone has a cute little 2x2 cities with little to no gameplay depth (ahem a game like SPORE)

  Edited March 20, 2012 by avalach21  

[Mark Waybill 242]

I agree with Avalach's sentiments. This is the one big chance to revive Maxis and SimCity, let's not throw all that away for a quicker release. Let's make this a nice good quality comprehensive game.

If we are to retain the good old square for our city boundaries for conveniences sake, and certainly I'm not in a position to offer advice on how to go about changing that status quo, then a possible idea would be this. A new region is created, and say we start with one 2 by 2 km city tile. Newburg. Right so, after say five SimYears Newburg has reached a stage of development where it feels a bit claustrophobic in that tiny 2 by 2 km square. So we start a new city, West Newburg, immediately to the left. This city grows also, and after a while we've made a fairly realistic situation by spreading farm hinterland across the region, with some small villages and unimportant towns, relatively speaking, scattered about.

The residents of Newburg, which is on a river connected to the sea, begin to become quite industrious fellows, and develop an industrial revolution within the textile manufacturing sector. Soon we have a situation where all these industries need more workers. The hinterland can only supply so many, so new Sims need to move to the region. Hence satellite towns and suburbs spring up about Newburg. Soon there is a conurbation along the river, with West Newburg having it's own cbd and administration, controlling that city and it's vicinity, and Newburg controlling the eastern part of the conurbation. Hinterland politics are handled by each village or small town.

But say we wish to create a satellite city at some stage similar to Parramatta in Sydney's west, which becomes an entity of it's own alongside Newburg or West Newburg in nature. It would make sense to have it's own administration. New Parramatta develops its own cbd and administration, controlling the surrounding hinterland as this becomes suburbanised.

Now in such a simply realistic scenario the administration based on a regional budget with local authorities to manage expenditures for local needs, the area of authority for each centre after suburbanisation (before this of course Newburg controlled everything with minor power residing in each village for local matters) has expanded to include adjacent tiles, as each centre has expanded also. Now if there was only one level of authority, and each city acted like a sovereign state, only all being under the same region wide budget, then the areas of authority would be each city tile, or those tiles in a centre and those cntaining smaller suburbs or towns. In MP mode thus if their were say three players to simplify things, one would be in charge of Newburg and hinterland, one in charge of West Newburg and hinterland, and one in charge of New Parramatta and hinterland.

However, if we are to embrace the concept of more realistic governing, there would be tiers of authority covering various aspects of administration. So Newburg would control the regional budget, and also have its local Council, and the other two centres would just have local authority.

So (sorry if this has rambled a bit off topic into Multiplayer) in such a scenario while cities could join neighbouring cities to form larger tiles, at the outset they could all be 2 by 2 km tiles.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

^ the only thing that seems a little odd is that you postulate that you can create a set of villages and farms without incorporation. This mean that you could play the region like a city. Rather an interesting thought.

[cammo2003 20]

Handling multiple tiles as financial entities could probably be handled pretty easily in code. You'd simply include a mechanism to designate Administrative regions (this would be accessed from a planning mode. In planning mode, simulation would be stopped, releasing resources. Planning mode would treat the whole city organism as one contiguous area. Within this could be several overlays:

-Administrative Regions/Councils/Local Government Areas. This could be a standard overlay in a region view. You could group tiles together by, say, Ctrl-clicking (this seems like the most intuitive method)

-Transport planning overlay (within this could be a sub-section for network diagramming. There's no reason this couldn't be generated, given the agent model's being used (this could be useful for designating stations marked as key interchanges. This would affect scheduling). This would be a region-wide overlay with simplified graphics.

-Utilities Overlays

I do hope we aren't limited to only 2x2, if only for the sake of Airports. It may be irrelevant if tile switching and airports are designed properly (if it's possible to drag runways and taxiways across borders (Terminals I could deal with not being able to go over borders; It'd be simple to plan your airports accordingly, and Terminals would rarely if ever be more than 1.5-2km long) for instance, or perhaps if airport "zones" were laid out in a planning view which allows you to work across tile borders).

  Edited March 22, 2012 by cammo2003  

[Epilef 57]

I liked the ideas about the overlay thing. Mainly on transport.

Imagine you are in the viewer's region SC4 and want to create a highway, for example. You simply drag across multiple tiles, shaping the way you want.

Finally could go to the tile and start creating the city (or district), from that basic layout of infrastructure. After all, cities usually arise from external infrastructure such as roads, railways, ports, airports, etc.

This along with the possibility of grouping tiles in a single city (budget, etc.), better simulation of population movement and coverage of public services, along with quick-change tile can alleviate the problem of the 2x2.

But I still think that Maxis has no reason to limit the size of 2x2 tiles. If I want small, I choose 2x2. If I want big, I choose 4x4.

At least 4x4.

[DmainEvent 195]

I seriously don't understand why they just don't allow for people with more powerful computers to just pick the size that they want there city to be. I guess if we had one regional budget, and switching between cities didn't take 5-10 minutes, then I MIGHT be able to stand having a city that is only 2x2km. But why can't we go up to 4x4 or 16x16 (<--My personal Dream city size) if our machine can handle it. I am personally going to be getting a machine with 32gb of Ram on it. It would be sweet if I could pick the city size I want based on the RAM that I have. Please Maxis, Please!!!!! Does anyone know when the next update is coming out? I need a steady stream of info from the design team. I don't need a new video or anything like that every week, but could we at least get some info on whether or not they are even considering this, or if 2x2km is set in stone?

[SimSome 1]

Maxis:[Dan] The size of our new cities are roughly equivalent to the SC4 medium sized city (2 kilometers square). That said, you can connect cities together inside a region and build out a network of connected cities - each city providing different resources and abilities to its neighbors and the region. For example, one city could be a residential suburb which provides workers every day to a nearby industrial city. The industrial city could be providing power to the suburb. You can play both of these cities yourself, or even run the entire region by yourself, or invite a friend to help out.

I think every post should start with this comment.Or at least keep this in mind.

I would like to believe that the developers are watching these forums and I'd like to think that some of the ideas/comments on these forums might be added to the game or at least guide the direction they take. That said the final product will be compromise between making the best simulation game and the best selling game. This means that whatever sizes are finally in the shipped version will be aimed at somebody between the millions of people who populate this world and the few thousand of us who populate these forums .They'll work backwards from this person. What will their rig be, what kind of things does this person want to do, what would be scary large to this person, what would be irritatingly small to this person.

[ In fact this person in the middle will probably be not be in the center but in the CG if you imagine the spectrum as a non-uniform rod where people are mass and and x-axis of serious gamer-ness]

The final game will make this person the happiest person in the world. It'll make people on the edges of the spectrum have some issues with it but play it anyways cos the pros outweigh the cons. Thats gonna be us right there. Or at least me. And im ok with it because that is the reality of a for-profit project.

What im thinking is that they might be ditching multiple tile sizes so they dont have to created a complicated region creator. You simply input a length and breath and viola! A region.This means that they'll work backwards from this Happiest person and figure out what their perfect size is.

If they do have mulitple tile sizes I KNOW that they'll make a good in-game region creator. Right? And that the sizes will represent multiple reference people on the serious gamer-ness axis with the Happiest person represented somewhere in there. So this is what us people on the fringes should be hoping for.

If I was to have a dream situation I'd I imagine a massive swath of area being visible in an equivalent of region view. And you'd have a selector tool which lets you highlight any (say) 2km x 2km square and lets you play that. Maybe the grid for this selector tool could be 0.5km x 0.5km.

The reason this is my ideal situation is that it overcomes my biggest problem. I just dont know what to do with the edges.What i described above will get rid of edges because there will be no edges. The ede of one playable area is inside the next playble area. Except edges to your region of course.[which was a maximum of 32 x 32 large city tiles(4km x 4km) I believe ]

Also it will also automatically incorporate the suggestions im gonna mention below into the concept.

A lot of suggestions have been made to tackle that edges for the upcoming game including instead of seeing the abyss being able to view but not interact with the next playable area (lets call em playable areas instead of cities).Also most of you seem to be optimistic that the interaction between playable areas will be more than agents(cars,pedestrians,freiht,water,power, garbage,positions open agents) moving between cities but also maps(polution,trees,oil water). What I understand the expectation is that say there is an oil or water table that expands across multiple playable areas then both aread can draw upon those resources because they will be draining the entire table and not just the section of the table in that area. Same way pollution adding and removing features will add and remove pollution to the whole region-wide table of pollution. What would be interesting is if plop's effects cross boundaries. Like a hospital on the edge.

This is a wonderful development. Equally enticing at first is the idea of region wide taxes or mayoral management. But I dont think I'd like that especially if I want to create special tax breaks for certain areas in the spirit of business parks or industrial parks. And im also pretty sure that the casual gamer would hate that feature. What would be nice is a common pool of money but tax levels and other policy should not be region wide. It would kill any hopes of having multiple centers of population which are not the same in their populace. ( 2 types of cities or a city and and rural area in one region)

Whatever your feelings I think my Ideal situation of not having fixed playable areas but a range to select from would overcome most problems and incorporate many improvements. But heres why it'll never happen. Not even in 2030 or 2050. Because any such game would only run under any of 2 conditions. A super duper rig at present day(when ever the present day is) graphics or a normal rig with ancient graphics(with respect to the present day). Neither of those will be a particularly large market.

That of course stems from my belief that the processing capabilities of whatever device is in use will never be way ahead of the latest graphics. Im prety sure its always gonna be the opposite. Developers will use high end rigs hoping that by the release date the average processor would have caught up to the game's specs.

Sorry if its does not flow well.Wrote it in bits and pieces.

TL;DR which isn't really a summary but just some questions for the lazy reader.

1) Does the number of tiles in a playable region matter? (besides defining the scale within the area?)

2)Do you think that SimCity 2013 is gonna be the first in what becomes a series of games released yearly? And does that mean that the series will focus down to the serious gamers every year? Or will the yearly releases be expansions/DLCs aimed at various demographics on the x-axis of gamer seriousness. I just think there would be no point to releasing a new game aimed at the same massive spectrum of gamers unless there are massive changes.

The 2nd question is purely speculative of course.

Be Scared of my Wall Of Text,

SimSome

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

The idea of the size of a city being dependent on the power of the local machine is rather moot. Machines these days are pretty swift, and who knows what it will be like in 18 months. I think this is a bridge that can be crossed when it is found in the road.

The general model of using smart PC stations with the actual simulation running on the server simply obviates this argument.

[Epilef 57]

We know nothing about performance, or how the game will be heavy. Given the recent history of EA / Maxis, they will probably make the game quite light, even at the cost of some features.

What we know is that they are targeting a general audience (not fans) and they will avoid the complexity of SC4 and seek to be close to the classical gameplay (3000 or less).

So, in my opinion, the choice of 2x2 maps is purely a market choice.

They will not commit to anything for a select audience (SC4 players compared with the general mass) and possibly make the game too complex or too heavy for the general public. Sad.

Vote in the poll Here!

So far, 87% of people agree that they HAVE to let us choose the map size and do not set a size for everyone.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I voted in your poll, which is a good idea. However, I feel it does not go far enough. I still like the idea of being able to:

1. Take over and consolidate an adjacent tile (of any size)
2. As a result, wind up with a city that is not square but has rectilinear boundaries.

[User_3D 4]

They should allow the city tile size to be mod-able so in the future, when better hardware comes out, they can release larger tile sizes.

  Edited March 23, 2012 by User_3D  

[emperordaniel 1,281]

They should allow the city tile size to be mod-able so in the future, when better hardware comes out, they can release larger tile sizes.

By that time, we might already be on SimCity 6 or 7 (at least, if they're planning to return to the pattern of "a new SC game every 5 years or so" that they had before SC4).

[Epilef 57]

They should allow the city tile size to be mod-able so in the future, when better hardware comes out, they can release larger tile sizes.

By that time, we might already be on SimCity 6 or 7 (at least, if they're planning to return to the pattern of "a new SC game every 5 years or so" that they had before SC4).

This is the main reason I think the game will be very limited in modding.

Will EA let the next Simcity have life as long as SC4?

I imagine that EA think that letting modders easily increase the game would be too dangerous for a possible and profitable series of SCs.

[Zelvik 0]

I realy would hope for at least a 4x4 square. I liked my 4x4 cities best in SC4 but I wouldnt mind a 8x8 or 16x16 square. Actually a 16x16 square would be great as thats about the size many larger (1 Mio-2 Mio) cities in Europe take to properly represent.