Discussion about City Tile Size

[Exe19 22]

@TommyWebster: Max 16 tiles per region, it's 16*2^2= 64 sq. km total. My smallest SC4 Region is bigger than that!

[pcwhiz24 1,187]

There are many ways EA could've pulled off large cities (single player)

Best Approach:

- They could have the cities adjecent to each other similiar to SimCity 4 with sizes varying from 2 km x 2 km (being the smallest) to 16km x 16km (or even 32km). That way, you could work in separate sections and the simulation would only run in that area and you could still see the area past the boundries (view distance could be a graphics option). You can click on the outer boundry and go to the other city/district.

(2nd Best approach)

- Keep the cities apart but have different sizes. The sizes can still range from 2 km to 32 km.

In my opinion,

They have chosen the worst possible way instead, which is 2km x 2km maps scattered not adjacent! 1.25 miles across is a sadistic joke. I better hope they're going to surprise us with larger maps, either at release or after release, their method is...hmmm, how do you say... an Abomination. I wouldn't say cruel, as they AT LEAST put some effort to make us anything at all. But they're upsetting the hardcore fans.(myself included)

I know this is off topic, but this is how Simcity 4 modding affected me:

I bought Simcity 4 in 2007, (I was 6th grader at the time) and I was still at tutorial levels. Enjoyed it, and then played it all summer in 2008, made a city with over 1 million people, then lost interest. Then, I started playing this game again, that's how I stumbled upon here and all these mods, such as NAM and RHW. Since then, I regained my interest, I still play simcity 4 till this day! (I play it today, in 2012, It'll be almost 5 years in a month since discovery!

Sorry for going off topic, but I felt I needed to say this. THIS game needs to be moddable, especially with Tile sizes.

*PS, I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't include highways, there are interchanges that take up the entire 1.25 mile maps! Why would you put a highway in a village?

[Morbx 16]

I never really used anything but the 2k-by-2k sized city in SC4... I mean, built a few successful cities on the larger tiles, but for the most part, my best cities were 2km. Yeah, I know that it's unrealistically small for a real city, (my town of 800+ people is barely larger than that) but It's what I've always worked with and I'm fine with it. I was thinking that the uproar (like this post) was due to the fact that the cities would be even smaller than in SC4 (like the small tile size there). I'm not appalled with the tile size, but more the fact that the tiles won't border each other, so you can't make a realistic metropolitan area like in SC4. I think that there should be larger cities than that, but I think there are more pressing problems with the new game.

[cirugo 1,889]

I never really used anything but the 2k-by-2k sized city in SC4... I mean, built a few successful cities on the larger tiles, but for the most part, my best cities were 2km. Yeah, I know that it's unrealistically small for a real city, (my town of 800+ people is barely larger than that) but It's what I've always worked with and I'm fine with it. I was thinking that the uproar (like this post) was due to the fact that the cities would be even smaller than in SC4 (like the small tile size there). I'm not appalled with the tile size, but more the fact that the tiles won't border each other, so you can't make a realistic metropolitan area like in SC4. I think that there should be larger cities than that, but I think there are more pressing problems with the new game.

yes, the tile size isn't the issue as much as the fact that they aren't adjacent. that's what really kills it.

[TommyWebster 7]

Thanks @Exe19 that puts things into perspective nicely!

[whitesox130 50]

What got me twisted up were the crater maps and mountain maps where the mountain was the centerpiece....Where is the city supposed to be?

Mountain village tile?

The region view with itsy bitsy squares looks just so unappealing. Even if the square blocks were towns, they still look weird. I have never seen a town that is an exact square, or has one corner that is right angle. I have never seen cities made up of same size square blocks of suburbs!

The ridiculous looks of the region view makes me wonder if those developing the game still play or care about SimCity the game.

Just wanted to point out that Chicago's suburbs, particularly the closer-in ones, are mostly squares and rectangles.

Not that I like the idea of what you're mentioning. Who ever heard of a town with nothing else around it building all the way to its township borders with possibly high-density zoning? Nobody, since SC3K, that is.

[Hybr1d 20]

Seriously, why does each city have to be the size of a small city in SC4? This is honestly the only thing that will keep me from playing SC2013 for an extended period of time.

Could somebody from Maxis explain to me what the reason was to design the cities so small?

[nukeu123 307]

uhhhg.... i aint from maxis but,

in a simple answer, most affordable computers would not be able to run a massive metropolis with its current graphics setup....

plus its the same size as the medium sized tile as in sc4

[basty_goofy 24]

But you cannot use the entire size of the tile - at least that's what I saw.

[Skyrunner27 23]

It has to do with the complexity of the simulation engine, remember the one thing that keeps Simcity form CitiesXL is the simulation. How do you think the average computer will fair when running hundreds of thousands of agents. Transferring tons of resources, and running a path finding system. This is not Simcity 4 with statistical simulation.

[mapboy 106]

But you cannot use the entire size of the tile - at least that's what I saw.

You can use the whole tile (that was the definition of the tile is...), but the tiles are just not directly adjacent.

I'm fine with the tile size.

[Indiana Joe 1,752]

How hard is it for Maxis and Electronic Arts to understand that I play SimCity games to make this:

That, right there, is awesome. Can I do that in the new SimCity?

[croxis 150]

Here is a math analogy. Your cpu is only able to handle so much "area" of a simulation. You can have a shallow simulation using statistics to simulate the effect of things like crime and pollution and, as a result, have a wide simulation with large cities. On the other hand you can have a deep simulation where individual sims are simulated, power and water units actually flowing through pipes, real resources moving around your city. But, because your cpu can only handle so much simulation area, you have to narrow the width of the simulation by having smaller cities.

Maxis/EA chose to go for a deeper simulation but have to make it a more narrow. This I am personally ok with. Also, because this is a totally new engine from scratch it can't use existing code from past sim cities. SimCity classic through sim city 4 used cells (the "grid") for much of the simulation logic. It would not surprise me if parts of SC4 used code that has been reused going all the way back to SimCity 1.

Indiana: While that city looks cool and massive in the region view, in reality only one chunk of that is "alive" at any one time. The simulation of neighbouring cities is limited to only a few things. Not even pollution is spilled over. So while the region view looks very awesome, really you are only playing with a mostly isolated chunk.

[Tarkus 6,933]

Yup. It all comes down to processing power. Dynamic city simulators are very complex and CPU-intensive beasts, and when you go into full-3D that burden increases all the more. If you ever tried playing SC4 with anything close to the minimum requirements (I remember playing it on a P3-533 back in '04), it lagged pretty bad once you got above 20,000 population on a large tile. We're finally at a point where it's actually somewhat feasible with the hardware (hence why there was 10 years between SC4 and the next SimCity), but there's still limitations, and developers of city simulators inevitably come to crossroads of which direction to go within those limitations.

As croxis eloquently stated, EA Maxis has decided to go for a more in-depth simulation of smaller geographic areas. And as they have what appears to be an impressively scalable engine in GlassBox, when the hardware catches up, the breadth of the simulation can then be expanded.

-Tarkus

[flyer2359 92]

The thing is, they developed the game so people with older computers can play it. At the end of the day, they have to cut stuff in order to do that and map size was what they decided to cut. I wish we could have at least 2.5km^2 maps, not that much bigger, but enough to make a difference.

People with the minimum specs will probably still have trouble running this game just because of how much stuff is going on in the background.

[Indiana Joe 1,752]

Why they ever thought they should do in-depth simulation on a level similar to The Sims in a SimCity game is beyond me. It's just not worth only being able to make small towns.

I'll take 4 km maps over not seeing any cars at all in the streets.

[JaceTwice 115]

Why they ever thought they should do in-depth simulation on a level similar to The Sims in a SimCity game is beyond me. It's just not worth only being able to make small towns.

I'll take 4 km maps over not seeing any cars at all in the streets.

I'm afraid you're probably in a vast minority on that one. Simulating how the cities work is the top priority, even if it means abstracting how the cities look.

Anyway, It's not been confirmed that the smaller cities are a result of the Glassbox engine. There's so much stuff getting simulated under the hood that 2km by 2km is the best they can do.

[cirugo 1,889]

But you cannot use the entire size of the tile - at least that's what I saw.

You can use the whole tile (that was the definition of the tile is...), but the tiles are just not directly adjacent.

I'm fine with the tile size.

yup the dealbreaker is the gaps between them. And a MAXIS dev on the official forum was talking about this very issue and they said they didn't want to give up the real time/same time simulation in the next cities that would be required to fix this...according to him it was "awesome" to see your friend's city growing in the distance...

[coolwiththecool2 827]

Here is a math analogy. Your cpu is only able to handle so much "area" of a simulation. You can have a shallow simulation using statistics to simulate the effect of things like crime and pollution and, as a result, have a wide simulation with large cities. On the other hand you can have a deep simulation where individual sims are simulated, power and water units actually flowing through pipes, real resources moving around your city. But, because your cpu can only handle so much simulation area, you have to narrow the width of the simulation by having smaller cities.

Maxis/EA chose to go for a deeper simulation but have to make it a more narrow. This I am personally ok with. Also, because this is a totally new engine from scratch it can't use existing code from past sim cities. SimCity classic through sim city 4 used cells (the "grid") for much of the simulation logic. It would not surprise me if parts of SC4 used code that has been reused going all the way back to SimCity 1.

Indiana: While that city looks cool and massive in the region view, in reality only one chunk of that is "alive" at any one time. The simulation of neighbouring cities is limited to only a few things. Not even pollution is spilled over. So while the region view looks very awesome, really you are only playing with a mostly isolated chunk.

Well thats where SC4 comes in, where you have map makers, region makers etc. to adjust the size of the region, and if it goes slow cuz the region is too big, thats their fault, and those cities xl maps are so much bigger than sc4 large city tiles, combine with graphics and everything else and you still can run it on a low end computer

[Ocram's Razr 964]

The fact of the matter is that GlassBox has a less in-depth simulation in many aspects than the Sims 1 even and it has smaller requirements than Bridgeport for the Sims 3. As computer hardware improves, they will most likely release an expansion pack with much higher minimum requirements that brings a lot of lost features. I also hope for farms to be delegated to Regional Minor Works.

--Ocram

[coolwiththecool2 827]

wow I never though of it that way, but I don't think they could change the form of the region with an expansion pack, that will be kinda hard to me, and plus you might have to erase your cities too

[Tarkus 6,933]

those cities xl maps are so much bigger than sc4 large city tiles, combine with graphics and everything else and you still can run it on a low end computer

Cities XL has considerably higher system requirements than the new SimCity. I can actually run the new SimCity on my current laptop, but I can't run Cities XL. CXL was optimized for single-core 32-bit CPUs with high clock speeds, which don't really exist on the market, as the CPU makers have shifted their primary developmental focus toward multi-core processors and energy efficiency.

As Ocram pointed out, as technology advances further, even in the next year, it'll allow the game's developers more latitude, and because they've built GlassBox in such a way that it's easily scalable, they'll be able to pounce on it.

-Tarkus

[zimmie 521]

Let's all really hope that is the case. If it is truely scalable and modable combined with a solid core similation then this really could replace SC4 for the next 10 years. Cause let's face it, as much as we love it there really are issues with SC4 that make it stale no matter the amount of custom mods and lots, atleast imo.

[Indiana Joe 1,752]

Let's all really hope that is the case. If it is truely scalable and modable combined with a solid core similation then this really could replace SC4 for the next 10 years. Cause let's face it, as much as we love it there really are issues with SC4 that make it stale no matter the amount of custom mods and lots, atleast imo.

Nope. SimCity 4 is one of the best games I've ever played. I think I will continue to play it well into the future as EA comes out with all of this fancy new stuff that is garbage to me.

[Tarkus 6,933]

Let's all really hope that is the case. If it is truely scalable and modable combined with a solid core similation then this really could replace SC4 for the next 10 years. Cause let's face it, as much as we love it there really are issues with SC4 that make it stale no matter the amount of custom mods and lots, atleast imo.

Nope. SimCity 4 is one of the best games I've ever played. I think I will continue to play it well into the future as EA comes out with all of this fancy new stuff that is garbage to me.

I think this misguided notion of "replacement" is a large part of the reason why there's been so much hullabaloo blown about since the details about the new game began to emerge. There's a lot of people acting like the mere existence of a new SimCity means that they can never go back to SC4, and that they're somehow going to be "forced" to play the new one instead, simply because it is new.

And as much time and effort as I've invested into SC4--and as much enjoyment as I've gotten from it--I'm certainly going to keep playing it, regardless of the new SimCity. It's safe to say that SC4 is one of my all-time favorites. The alleged "bugs" in SC4 are pretty minor, and they've never really bothered me, and I've never had issues running it on newer hardware/OSes.

-Tarkus

[coolwiththecool2 827]

those cities xl maps are so much bigger than sc4 large city tiles, combine with graphics and everything else and you still can run it on a low end computer

Cities XL has considerably higher system requirements than the new SimCity. I can actually run the new SimCity on my current laptop, but I can't run Cities XL. CXL was optimized for single-core 32-bit CPUs with high clock speeds, which don't really exist on the market, as the CPU makers have shifted their primary developmental focus toward multi-core processors and energy efficiency.

As Ocram pointed out, as technology advances further, even in the next year, it'll allow the game's developers more latitude, and because they've built GlassBox in such a way that it's easily scalable, they'll be able to pounce on it.

-Tarkus

I recently looked at the requirments, and yeah it said 2.5 ghz, thats wierd though, my old pc was 64 bit, 1.6 ghz. and 3 gb of ram, and it ran as smooth as a console game

[zimmie 521]

Let's all really hope that is the case. If it is truely scalable and modable combined with a solid core similation then this really could replace SC4 for the next 10 years. Cause let's face it, as much as we love it there really are issues with SC4 that make it stale no matter the amount of custom mods and lots, atleast imo.

Nope. SimCity 4 is one of the best games I've ever played. I think I will continue to play it well into the future as EA comes out with all of this fancy new stuff that is garbage to me.

I think this misguided notion of "replacement" is a large part of the reason why there's been so much hullabaloo blown about since the details about the new game began to emerge. There's a lot of people acting like the mere existence of a new SimCity means that they can never go back to SC4, and that they're somehow going to be "forced" to play the new one instead, simply because it is new.

And as much time and effort as I've invested into SC4--and as much enjoyment as I've gotten from it--I'm certainly going to keep playing it, regardless of the new SimCity. It's safe to say that SC4 is one of my all-time favorites. The alleged "bugs" in SC4 are pretty minor, and they've never really bothered me, and I've never had issues running it on newer hardware/OSes.

-Tarkus

I knew that comment would ruffle some feathers. I didn't mean "replace" in such a literal sense. I was just talking about a fresh game that could rival SC4 in it's lifespan.

I agree that SC4 is the best city builder to date. But if we weren't all interested in something even more then we wouldn't even really care about the direction SC'13 is going in.

[spa 970]

But you cannot use the entire size of the tile - at least that's what I saw.

You can use the whole tile (that was the definition of the tile is...), but the tiles are just not directly adjacent.

I'm fine with the tile size.

yup the dealbreaker is the gaps between them. And a MAXIS dev on the official forum was talking about this very issue and they said they didn't want to give up the real time/same time simulation in the next cities that would be required to fix this...according to him it was "awesome" to see your friend's city growing in the distance...

Yep indeed. I could live with the smaller tile size, but those gaps are just killer. I have always thought of SC4 as more of a hobby rather than a game. It's basically the modern day equivalent of the model railroad. That is going by the wayside here though. The gaps mean we're going back to Sim City being a "game" rather than a "model", which for me is a real shame. SC4 is a great model, but the simulation really lacks depth in some areas. I was looking forward to having a new model with more depth, but that doesn't seem to be where we're heading. I may still buy SC2013, but if I do, I'll be buying it as a game not as a model and it probably won't be at release.

[snick25 384]

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/14umm1/we_are_the_simcity_dev_team_from_maxis_amaa/c7gmuw3

Apparently the whole "reconciling edges" thing along with road connections between cities was also a factor in segregating the player's cities.

Not sure why, but apparently the devs thought it was a big problem in SimCity 4.

Again, I'm not sure why, since I've played SC4 for almost a decade and so do many people I know and none of us have ever experienced issues with those features.

So, apparently it was either just a big problem in SC4 no one in this community was ever aware of or Maxis is getting desperate for excuses.

[croxis 150]

According to one of the maxis devs in a reddit thread, they actually tried adjacent cities. The issue they ran into was both simulation and cosmetic. Unlike SC4 you can see neighboring cities in SC2013. To keep cpu costs from being stupid high they disable the simulation in neighboring cities. It resulted in the neighbor city looking "lifeless" with no people are cars walking around. If they simulated the neighboring cities so it didn't look dumb then the cpu and ram required would be beyond most people's computers.

While it is easy to say to "make it an option," we don't know what the code looks like to determine how long that would take.