A timeline or More Tilesets?

[jigsaw 227]

I personally spent an awful lot of time on actually separating the different eras/styles of architecture in my games. if i was trying to make a city/region based on a particular theme it drove me insane trying to stop skyscrapers growing in a 18th century themed city i was trying to grow/plop.

the same goes for IND, as tilesets were not controlling IND's growables.

If SC13 is going to follow the concept of tileset choice, i hope they expand on it vastly. over the years of community content being created, the game default choices obviously became too narrow in diversity against what the community actually created, and what has naturally become the most popular choices.

European w2w sets and Hong Kong sets by far became the most common community choice for new themes that the community created. Med sets are also very popular today.

The last games theme was very US centric across the board, the schools, the buildings, the look and feel down to automata, the police, hospitals and fire etc.

over the years, the community made the game diverse to incorporate content from all around the world. i personally hope Maxis consider this when they create the new game.

the game is sold all over the world. this time round i hope they make it a global game.

i would absolutely love it if they somehow incorporated an architectural timeline of sorts into the game... i dont see this happening, but it's a wish that if executed correctly would make this game near perfect.

what is your thoughts?

jigsaw

p.s.... spare menu slots or the availability of creating them would be wonderful.

[packersfan 666]

I think the game needs to be more global. I would love to see options for locale of your city (so if you want European select Europe), (US select American), then the timeline and the tilesets will reflect those choices...of course in the middle of your city building you can have the option to have different sets.

What I would hate to see is a GLOBAL game that would thus have no basis in the real world, thus making it impossible to recreate a U.S. city - or - a European or Asian city, etc. I would like to see more options for players, but not limitation.

[woodb3kmaster 342]

I take it you haven't looked at the Origin store's page for SC13. There's already a "Digital Deluxe Edition" of the game on pre-order which will include three extra European tilesets - British, French and German - along with more transportation options to go along with each tileset. Even so, I agree that more options would be great, and I hope that Maxis will be quick to offer additional tilesets for download/purchase once SC13 comes out.

[Mark Waybill 242]

Ideally one could play any country any era with a timeline, or use a tileset like in 2000 without a timeline etc. As for suggestions for tilesets I would suggest an Australian one to add to Europe and America, and also various eras like medieval, roman etc

[jigsaw 227]

if a timeline is to be incorporated, utilities etc would have to match... we dont want solar power plants in an old euro environment.

[Mark Waybill 242]

But purely aesthetic tilesets like say an art deco inspired one that didn't have to actually be in the 1930s etc

[JcCali1214 34]

I voted for various ones, namely modern and eastern tilesets (I think colonial and medieval just aren't for this game), but also choose other styles not mentioned. Namely, South American and Caribbean styles. Though Simcity 4 lacked many, with the STEX and other fabulous communities, many tilesets from around the world were available yet, what was severely lacking were South American and Caribbean tilesets.

And I guess you could take colonial t mean South American and Carribbean styles but, it in my mind and experiences, they are two distinct, separate styles.

[emperordaniel 1,281]

if a timeline is to be incorporated, utilities etc would have to match... we dont want solar power plants in an old euro environment.

Alternatively, you could just... not plop the solar power plants down in the first place

[Crazy_Ivan80 35]

't Would be nice if Maxis made a Low Countries Golden Era set:

- Medieval and Renaissance Gothic from Flanders (think Brugge, Gent, Kortrijk, Brussel, Antwerp, Rijsel, Doornik, etc)

- Renaissance and Baroque to 17th and 18th century from Holland and in lesser amount Flanders (Antwerp, Amsterdam, etc)

After that the region connects with industrial revolution style building.

Would be pretty nice imho

[Catmando 7]

A distinction needs to be made for the Old European themes. Styles in different countries in Europe are unique. An old street in Lisbon would not look like an old street in Madrid would not look like an old street in Paris would not look like an old street in London and so on—you get my point. I feel having one theme for all of them would look like some kind of eclectic mismatch of old Western European wall-to-wall buildings. Having thirty themes seems kind of excessive, but I guess we could compromise and just make User-created styles an option. That way we could fix up the styles to our taste. I'd be really interested to see how Maxis would pull such a thing off in a remotely useful way, though. Designating the style of buildings one by one sounds tedious.

Perhaps overarching themes (Old, West, East, etc.) could be implemented with more specific styles as lower levels (Paris, London, New York, etc.)?

[jigsaw 227]

nontheless, anything must be better than just 4 tilesets, and 3 of them being american building types

[jacksunny 741]

Personally though, I think a timeline feature would have to be DLC released after the game. There is just too much involved in the creation of such a thing. You have to basically re-make everything in the game, but make it look historical, then remake some things several times so they change as time goes along.

[mattyriddy 12]

Personally though, I think a timeline feature would have to be DLC released after the game. There is just too much involved in the creation of such a thing. You have to basically re-make everything in the game, but make it look historical, then remake some things several times so they change as time goes along.

I think the timeline was defining what era of buildings you wanted to build. Rather than having each building develop over time.

[jacksunny 741]

Personally though, I think a timeline feature would have to be DLC released after the game. There is just too much involved in the creation of such a thing. You have to basically re-make everything in the game, but make it look historical, then remake some things several times so they change as time goes along.

I think the timeline was defining what era of buildings you wanted to build. Rather than having each building develop over time.

Really? From what I had read in other threads, the timeline feature had you start building in the past, around the 1700s for example. As time went along, new technologies would begin to develop such as trains and other modes of transportation. Eventually, you would come into the present era and advance into the future. In the future, there would be more new stuff, such as hovercars.

[mattyriddy 12]

Personally though, I think a timeline feature would have to be DLC released after the game. There is just too much involved in the creation of such a thing. You have to basically re-make everything in the game, but make it look historical, then remake some things several times so they change as time goes along.

I think the timeline was defining what era of buildings you wanted to build. Rather than having each building develop over time.

Really? From what I had read in other threads, the timeline feature had you start building in the past, around the 1700s for example. As time went along, new technologies would begin to develop such as trains and other modes of transportation. Eventually, you would come into the present era and advance into the future. In the future, there would be more new stuff, such as hovercars.

I think the technologies would be unlocked in that way and new tile sets. Each individual building wouldn't have a different version for each time period though. They would just grow in that set time zone and stay there unless you demolished it for a newer building to grow.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

If a start time for anything were to be incorporated, I think it would have to be a region creation time. You cannot have a multi-player region operating in different time lines. It doesn't make sense.

[logintime 93]

I don't know about timelines, but I'd definitely like to see a greater breadth of tilesets. The SC4 Maxis ones were bizarrely slated toward the US, and the Euro tileset was pretty lackluster. The community on here has been phenomenal about creating new things, and we can now feasibly build a number of different types of cities. I even remember the Medieval project which tried to relot game buildings into a Middle Ages setting. But it'd be great if the game itself shipped with a broader set of building types so we didn't have to create them for ourselves. I'm thinking a US set, English/French/German sets, a Japanese/Hong Kong set, a MiddleEast set, and a Latin American set. Basically, the main popular sets. Then the Simtropolis community can turn to expanding them and creating less common ones like an Indian set, for example.

[croxis 150]

I personally would rather have one tileset with a lot of diversity, less US-centric, than multiple tilesets with less diversity.

[MandelSoft 2,775]

^^ You can have lots of diversity AND lots of tilesets; just turn multiple tile sets on. Problem solved, everyone satisfied!

Of course, anyone can add more buildings to a tileset by modding...

[Mark Waybill 242]

I'd agree that timelines should be region set, but that would require all cities being played at once to make sense unless one only spent a short amount of time playing each city, or I'd be playing one city for 100 years and another for 5 and they would have different tilesets/times.

Maybe starting a timeline when one plays ones first city and then any time one is playing a city it adds to the total regional time variable? unless there is an absolute regional/simearth time and this continues playing cities while you aren't playing them, which would be memory intensive surely

As to tilesets/timelines one could have an option to create a new timeline and change the default settings and include different tilesets in different eras.

[hamsterTK 93]

NO CLICHED Parisian or Hong Kong buildings!!! Even in Asia and Europe people live in suburbs and work in high-rises(actually the reverse, in many cases). Believe it or not, China is not filled with red pagoda roofs and neon like some cartoon, actually, its mostly concrete everywhere.

Think about how Cities XL looked. You couldn't build small towns or suburbs because at low density and low income many of the buildings were dense, urban village-like old-world style. That is far more "wrong" for a generic small town anywhere in the world.

Since the 1930's architecture has been global, and modern cities look similar around the world. Johannesburg, Los Angeles, Kuala Lumpur...one has red tile roofs, another has palm trees, and another slums, but they are just as similar as they are different.

Seriously the "American" style is actually more generic and global than you think. There needs to be a diversity of building sizes and densities, and the architecture and color palette of materials should be balanced to maintain the right look for the game. If you added too many old world buildings or skinny tenements as low-density game starters, it will bother more people than please IMO.

My suggestion is to go with recognizable modernism and a hint of art-deco. That works everywhere. Maybe using the modifiable palette as hinted in that teaser shot, you could specify if your houses will have shingle roofs or red tile roofs. Now you can recreate everywhere from the UK to Malaysia with no problem

  Edited March 16, 2012 by hamsterTK  

[jigsaw 227]

NO CLICHED Parisian or Hong Kong buildings!!! Even in Asia and Europe people live in suburbs and work in high-rises(actually the reverse, in many cases). Believe it or not, China is not filled with red pagoda roofs and neon like some cartoon, actually, its mostly concrete everywhere.

Think about how Cities XL looked. You couldn't build small towns or suburbs because at low density and low income many of the buildings were dense, urban village-like old-world style. That is far more "wrong" for a generic small town anywhere in the world.

Since the 1930's architecture has been global, and modern cities look similar around the world. Johannesburg, Los Angeles, Kuala Lumpur...one has red tile roofs, another has palm trees, and another slums, but they are just as similar as they are different.

Seriously the "American" style is actually more generic and global than you think. There needs to be a diversity of building sizes and densities, and the architecture and color palette of materials should be balanced to maintain the right look for the game. If you added too many old world buildings or skinny tenements as low-density game starters, it will bother more people than please IMO.

My suggestion is to go with recognizable modernism and a hint of art-deco. That works everywhere. Maybe using the modifiable palette as hinted in that teaser shot, you could specify if your houses will have shingle roofs or red tile roofs. Now you can recreate everywhere from the UK to Malaysia with no problem

it is not necessarily for the present or the future that we need multiple tilesets, but for the past.

it is fairly true that modern architecture is fairly global, and most of that occurred post-WW2 with the birth of globalisation. However, as a lot of members like to 'back build' (to an earlier timeframe with distinct regional influenced forms of buildings), it is important that the new game attempts to consider this and (hopefully) allow spare slots for future expansion (if the new game actually follows the older one in terms of tileset variety).

as a world traveller i still see distinct regional flavours of architecture, but as hamster has raised it is fairly generic in modern times. SC4 has by default 50yr increments of american cities as tilesets as we all know. what is obvious is that the community demand a global expansion on that through a combination of eras and locations beyond the borders of the USA, and with more diverse styles... and there are distinct differences out there.

i personally would rather see a Hong Kong tileset over another Houston one... i have been to both, and HK has multiples of distinct architecture creations over what Houston offers. the other fact is in simple research of our custom content across the community; (within the CJ's and STEX over the years) i see more paris buildings, berlin building, HK buildings, dutch buildings available than i see from Chicago or Houston. give me one Houston or Chicago themed CJ and i can show you 10-15 more 'old euro' themed ones, and 5 HK themed ones.

  Edited March 16, 2012 by jigsaw  

[MandelSoft 2,775]

Even in the modern era, there are some distinct differences in architecture. For instance, in the US, you see a lot of single homes in the suburbs, while in the Netherlands or Belgium, row homes are more common. In Sweden, for example, you don't see free-standing homes in larger cities, but rather small appartment blocks, even in the suburbs. For the modern era, you could have styles depending on building fashion (free-standing, W2W, appartment complexes) instead of per country.

But I have to agree most modern architecture is pretty generic; it's the old styles that are different. Let's say, some Danish, German, Dutch and French suburbs look pretty simmilar, while their corresponding old city centers look very different. Most players pick one of these styles for their old city centers and build some more generic suburbs around them...

  Edited March 16, 2012 by mrtnrln  

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

One needs to be careful when designing tile sets. One for Paris won't suit cities like Bordeaux. Bordeaux has an ordinance that mandates that the local yellow/gold limestone shall be used on all downtown buildings along the main drag. If there are any people who stick to things like that it is the French who have a very long heritage in architecture.

Many other peoples have similar local rules, so a general tile set per country may well be impossible. Architectural styles change, even within cities. In Paris buildings in the Rive Gauche are distinct from those at St. Cloud. Let us not get too excited about a "national" tile set.

[Mark Waybill 242]

Firstly I agree with Nonny on 'National Tilesets' to a degree, or at least to the extent that I agree IRL, although to keep things simple and because this is Simcity, not 'Google Earth but Alive', a 'national' or 'regionally' themed tileset is logical rather than a million town tilesets, which can be modded on later.

I believe the default tileset (or spectrum of tilesets) should, if timeline is set to 2000 AD or there is only one age, be the usual American style one, and the usual additions. However if there is a spectrum not only in a timeline but a 'cultural' spectrum of tilesets as well which have their own timelines, for instance Australia as an example, you could have colonial, federation, modern and postmodern styles. Also a 'tileset' would also apply to trees and animals and cars and people as well, as they have hinted with the Digital Deluxe edition tilesets. So for instance in an Australian tileset, don't expect everything to look like Adelaide or everything to look like Canberra, but it should at any rate feel like a real Australian town or city.

Same with a British tileset, although the timeline would go back further to (well in theory to the Roman conquest and the beginnings of modern cities) say the civil war era or what have you.

I think therefore that tilesets are good but all should have timelines too (like alternate realities). And of course with the modular system we could mix and match I am sure if we felt thatway inclined, and with modding one could do anything.

[JcCali1214 34]

I actually hope tilesets aren't region- or nationwide specific or, if they are, that I can choose to build a city with multiple, various types of architecture and tilesets - a way of making diversity really visual and appealing within a city (to me anyway). I know this isn't necessarily realistic but, it should be up to the players choice to build the city they choose. Plus, there are some real world examples with a city containing various regional architecture, such as New York, Los Angeles, and even Japan.

My biggest fear is that we won't have many various types of architecture/tilesets and if we do, they are mandated or limited to one per city/region/nation. Think about how bring it would be ....

[Mark Waybill 242]

I'm sure the possibility to make a mix and match city will be included somehow, though personally I'd find such a city unless it was timeline based somewhat aesthetically unpleasing and imbalanced

[Catmando 7]

I'm sure the possibility to make a mix and match city will be included somehow, though personally I'd find such a city unless it was timeline based somewhat aesthetically unpleasing and imbalanced

I do like a little mixing and matching, but I hate when styles are obviously clashing. That's the problem I was trying to highlight earlier with having big, overarching styles. "Euro" is such a huge term and it could mean anything from a rowhouse in London to a skyscraper in Frankfurt to a Mediterranean villa in in southern Italy.

EDIT: Whoops, that wasn't entirely relevant, was it? Let me amend what I said: Throwing "American" into the mix might create even more problems. A skyscraper in New York might look all right alongside something out of Canary Wharf, but for the majority of buildings from other styles it might not fit very well, especially if Maxis tries to play up the diversity (like introducing distinctly Art Deco styles; I'm looking at you, Simcity 4 New York style).

  Edited March 18, 2012 by Catmando  

[Mark Waybill 242]

"A skyscraper in New York might look all right alongside something out of Canary Wharf"

Last year I walked along the Thames from the city to Greenwich and I would agree. I think that if one wishes to build a city with a timeline then as long as the styles progress forwards in time it will look alright from a purely fourth dimensional viewpoint, but from an aesthetic viewpoint the type of city is also a factor.

If I am creating a seaside fishing village that turns into a city like Brighton then naturally the architecture will reflect that, and so even though Canary Wharf is 'English' it will not fit in well with the architecture of Brighton and Hove. Likewise the 'English Village' style isn't quite so uniform throughout as an American player might think, as regional building types/materials change throughout the nation.

Even here in Australia which is fairly uniform throughout as regards modern buildings, each city has a character of its own, and one sees different 'tilesets' to an extent in Sydney than one does in Melbourne, although there are similarities.

However as this is Simcity and not 'paint a perfect representation of a particular exact location for us in an encyclopaedia article' I should think that a basic 'regional' or 'national' style is the logical way to go, certainly at the start. I'm sure, however, that players will eventualy be able to tweak settings so that if we wish to we can make our own 'Berlin' tileset from the German one and a 'New Orleans' tileset from the American one and so forth, and also mix and match if we feel like doing so.

Also there's nothing wrong with inventing architecture or tilesets/timelines just for the game. In some Maxis created universe who knows how styles would change over the years in Maxis invented countries.

[jigsaw 227]

IMO it will be impossible to pursue complete timeline/regional influence harmony that this topic is now leaning towards. Back to my original point what we need to see is Civics options that are not US Centric, or have US flags emblazoned all over them.

If they just look at the most popular types of styles that the community has made, and uses and incorporate them that would be suffice... there is roughly 6 or so different mainstream styles we use and if the game has that ability, and room for a couple more we will be fine.

the timeline option would be good running parallel with rewards. ie: coal stations appear first, then when the year hits the right time nuclear becomes available, then solar etc. etc.