Alarming tile size discovery. Its really 1 km x 1 km

[The_City_Builder 299]

I don't mind the smaller size for cities. Though as computing power increases, they can more than likely increase the size of cities.

Putting the cities far apart with nothing in between is not a big deal folks, it's still in Alpha, what we've seen isn't going to be what ships in the live version. Look at "Artoo-na" (The R2-shaped city). It was pitiful and I caught myself going "omgwtfbbq are they saying this is what SC will look like? It looks pathetic!" Then I remembered "oh wait, they're just showing the road network's capability to do different angles and curves."

Folks, calm down, remember, this is only an Alpha, they'll probably work on Agriculture for Beta when there's a wider base of testers. If they don't release agriculture on release day, they may do an expansion pack. They probably saw how people loved Rush Hour and said "Okay, we'll put transport options at the top of the development list." If I'm understanding the engine right it can easily handle an agriculture component of the simulation. If they don't do agriculture, maybe we need a NAM-like group of modders to develop an agriculture mod.

Even the world's most beautiful diamond started as an ugly lump of carbon once.

Nicely said.

[Airbird 3]

I think so far the scale of maps and buildings that I have seen dictate real cities better than simcity 4 does. A large map in simcity 4 with hunderds of skyscrapers crowded together from one end to the other lagging any computer build isn't fun nor realistic. I'm sure they will address any problems with map sizes in closed beta.

[cirugo 1,889]

I think so far the scale of maps and buildings that I have seen dictate real cities better than simcity 4 does. A large map in simcity 4 with hunderds of skyscrapers crowded together from one end to the other lagging any computer build isn't fun nor realistic. I'm sure they will address any problems with map sizes in closed beta.

Glad you're sure. So far they haven't stated ANYTHING about what they're going to be putting in to stem the fears about what's removed...either in the base game or in future expansion packs.

[snick25 384]

Well... it's not 1 x 1 km, but it's almost as bad:

Sadly it seems that the city in the demo was a "standard" sized city...

@Jon889 That's our standard map size (2k square, the same as an SC4 medium city). Rendering everything in 3d, we're performance constrained.

https://twitter.com/...594511831236611

And it is the only size available...

@Jon889 Sorry for the confusion - yes, only one size, 2k square.

But he does say you can get much much higher populations in that tile.

As I said in the Gamescon thread, this confirmation of a detail most of us suspected (and was indeed confirmed by Maxis early on, but due to certain definite statements that the "maps would certainly be larger" I was, along with others I'm sure, sucked into a pocket of false hope) is a deal breaker for me.

Sure, it's better than 1 x 1 km, but not by much. That and all of that no-man's land surrounding each city will make this game completely unrealistic. At best, it'll offer you some interest with its flashy Glassbox simulation and its "wonderful Simcity World" trading feature, but that's pretty much it. The seamless region play/large cities so many potential fans wanted will never happen. Realistic recreation of real life cities is also off the table. Heck, we won't even be able to build highways for God's sake.

Yeah, I think I'm done waiting for the train to crash. For all of those who want to stay on the burning wreck, all I have to say is good luck to you.

  Edited August 18, 2012 by snick25  

[Urban Cartographer 601]

SC5 will be very silly. It would force players who want to create metropolises to develop their cities as dense as Manila, Delhi, or Kolkata, only for those cities to be surrounded by pristine farmland and each city being the size of a Toronto superblock (4km²). Hello tall skyscrapers next to farmland!

[-JD- 41]

Did anyone ever care to think that the tiles may be surrounded by fields so your city tile could buy the land and expand its borders?

  Edited August 18, 2012 by -JD-  

[Netuno 97]

Maxis loves small and fragmented things. Tile size is ridiculously small; it has no ability to create something bigger than these tiny maps.

With maps so small and the same patchwork quilt of SimCity 4, SimCity (2013) should be called SimCity 4, The Return.

[~Dee~ 215]

Did anyone ever care to think that the tiles may be surrounded by fields so your city tile could buy the land and expand its borders?

If that were the case don't you think Maxis would have gushed about by now?

Just look how they are about curvy roads, at every opportunity you hear them mentioned.

No...I don't think you can buy the land around cities.

[warrior 169]

It would be a shame to see this game fail because people don't buy it just because the maps size is a bit too small.

The game is fun to play, more people will see that when the beta comes out, when playing the demo Rushhour added a lot of new stuff and no-one complained that it wasn't in the original game and had to pay more for it.

The game is a reboot, not a sequel, you can't really directly compare, especially as the new one is in 3D. We've waited almost a decade for a new simcity, we can either buy this one and help it become better after release or just let it be released not buy it, it will still be a success in all likely hood (judging by the size of the queue at gamescom), and not get the game we are waiting for.

I do think the map is a little too small, but it's not that big of a deal when playing.

Also remember the people playing at gamescom are playing pre-alpha, things will change.

[cirugo 1,889]

It would be a shame to see this game fail because people don't buy it just because the maps size is a bit too small.

The game is fun to play, more people will see that when the beta comes out, when playing the demo Rushhour added a lot of new stuff and no-one complained that it wasn't in the original game and had to pay more for it.

The game is a reboot, not a sequel, you can't really directly compare, especially as the new one is in 3D. We've waited almost a decade for a new simcity, we can either buy this one and help it become better after release or just let it be released not buy it, it will still be a success in all likely hood (judging by the size of the queue at gamescom), and not get the game we are waiting for.

I do think the map is a little too small, but it's not that big of a deal when playing.

Also remember the people playing at gamescom are playing pre-alpha, things will change.

map size is just one of the many reasons people are angry about this game.

[Jim14409 448]

The maps appear to be considerably smaller and the roads and buildings appear to be larger. I'm thinking EA may be doing this for a nuumber of reasons and one is to appeal to those with a short attention span who are not interested in spending time on a project. They want to do something and move on and not interested in detail. Frankly I'm just the opposite of that if there be an opposite.

I spend a lot of time building cities, then I love to go back time after time improving them with new features, new routes and upgraded roads etc. One post I read a few days ago where someone had been four years creating her city! (sorry I forgot the name) Very commendable and not something I forsee happening in the so-called SC5.

For the upcoming game the scale seems cartoonish as does the overall look. It requires being online to play and the focus seems to be more on the residents (Sims) than on designing, planning, and construction of a city or area. These are the main reasons the game does not fit into my list of interesting games.

I'm going to wait for the real SC5. Thank you.

[chimeran 208]

I think so far the scale of maps and buildings that I have seen dictate real cities better than simcity 4 does. A large map in simcity 4 with hunderds of skyscrapers crowded together from one end to the other lagging any computer build isn't fun nor realistic. I'm sure they will address any problems with map sizes in closed beta.

lag will always be an issue no matter whether it's SC4 or SC2K13. the reason you have lag in SC4 is the game has a governor built into it that limits the amount of processor power that is used to protect YOUR computer. you have to remember that when SC4 came out dual cores were just coming out so it was written to use single cores only hence CPUCount. of course the tech has improved since then and should be able to handle the scenario you describe but only if you have a more top end computer with lots of RAM. you may not remember this but most computers back then were single core only and the RAM was limited to MB ONLY. the AMD64 changed all that and GB of RAM were theoretically possible when the architecture changed from 32 to 64 bits. now it's an industry standard and you take 4-8 GB of RAM for granted. back then it was only a pipe dream

fast forward to SCK213, it will have a governor built into it as well (small city tiles is one aspect) because it has to match the tech of the day. sure they could give you large maps but you will have lag like Airbird said b/c the governor will limit your processing power to protect your computer. think of a car, they have governors built into them to protect the engine. you can take it out and go as fast as you want but the risk of engine failure jumps tenfold because the governor was built into it to protect it from catastrophic failure. same as any computer program. somewhere in it's programming are lines of code that specify the max limit for processing speed and RAM usage to prevent crashes of the program and the destruction of your processors. 10 years from now people will be complaining about lag in SC2K13 because the tech will be more advanced thanks to Moore's law.

  Edited August 18, 2012 by chimeran  

[Ocram's Razr 964]

1. I sort of want to try SimCity 2013 myself.

2. I laughed when I read that SimCity 2013 had "vastly superior" graphics to Cities XL but "not as good" as SimCity 4. In reality, the graphics style of SimCity falls somewhere between SimCity Societies and Cities XL.

3. Anno 2070 has small maps and 5 graphics settings (low, medium, high, ultra, and super) but it is releasing an expansion pack with higher minimum requirements. Believe me when I say minimum requirements, any computer worse than minimum requirements has terrible lag and cannot display the game properly.

4. Because of Moore's Law, the average computer of 2014 will be twice as good as the average computer of 2012. If SC2013 is not future proof (it thankfully does seem to be future proof), where hard coded limits can be changed in an expansion pack such as a large (4x4 km) city would have quadruple the limit on everything, then it will have a short life span.

5. A good program does not use much server power unless it runs in a browser. A save file on Origin should be limited to the location, angle, and position of all buildings and infrastructure and the various levels of resources. That would mean that a 4x4 km city would use 4 times the server space as a 2x2 km city but the 2x2 km city should not be a problem.

--Ocram

  Edited August 18, 2012 by OcramSeattle  

[Netuno 97]

I'm starting to suspect that this limitation on the size of the maps is associated with the capacity of the EA servers.

Will the Glassbox Simulation Engine requires a level of processing information as large of current personal computers or only one way not to overload the Origin servers?

[fatbuster 44]

I'm starting to suspect that this limitation on the size of the maps is associated with the capacity of the EA servers.

Will the Glassbox Simulation Engine requires a level of processing information as large of current personal computers or only one way not to overload the Origin servers?

On the twitter conversation that posted earlier Ocean seemed to imply that city simulation would rely on your PC's performance. Also, He did say in this reply about larger sizes that it would be possible, but would require much more processing power. I'm wondering if it would be possible during the beta to let people play around with different sizes. It would be nice to see just what kind of computing power it would really take to run a larger city.

[chimeran 208]

On the twitter conversation that posted earlier Ocean seemed to imply that city simulation would rely on your PC's performance. Also, He did say in this reply about larger sizes that it would be possible, but would require much more processing power. I'm wondering if it would be possible during the beta to let people play around with different sizes. It would be nice to see just what kind of computing power it would really take to run a larger city.

when you sign up for the beta they ask for a dxdiag file to see your computer's capabilities so it's possible they will give beta players the chance to work worth larger maps

[warrior 169]

1. I sort of want to try SimCity 2013 myself.

2. I laughed when I read that SimCity 2013 had "vastly superior" graphics to Cities XL but "not as good" as SimCity 4. In reality, the graphics style of SimCity falls somewhere between SimCity Societies and Cities XL.

3. Anno 2070 has small maps and 5 graphics settings (low, medium, high, ultra, and super) but it is releasing an expansion pack with higher minimum requirements. Believe me when I say minimum requirements, any computer worse than minimum requirements has terrible lag and cannot display the game properly.

4. Because of Moore's Law, the average computer of 2014 will be twice as good as the average computer of 2012. If SC2013 is not future proof (it thankfully does seem to be future proof), where hard coded limits can be changed in an expansion pack such as a large (4x4 km) city would have quadruple the limit on everything, then it will have a short life span.

5. A good program does not use much server power unless it runs in a browser. A save file on Origin should be limited to the location, angle, and position of all buildings and infrastructure and the various levels of resources. That would mean that a 4x4 km city would use 4 times the server space as a 2x2 km city but the 2x2 km city should not be a problem.

--Ocram

2. If you're talking about what I said about graphics, then that's my opinion, I played the first version of Cities XL so it may have changed since then, I think the detail in SimCity 4 is very good, most importantly there is a lot of texture, the walls are not solid colors, curves look like curves and don't have edges. This was possible because it was 3D so everything was prerendered, some BATers spent hours and sometimes days rendering their creations. Although I admit the closest zoom in SC4 was not always very pretty

3. I haven't played Anno 2070, I don't know much about it, but the new Simcity is always online. If you're in a population challenge and the city size depends on you're computer power then that will not be fair. And if you mean the less powerful computers can have bigger tiles but lower graphic settings, glassbox means that all the animations and details actually mean something and are used to play the game, it's almost as if they have combined the UI and graphics to make a more engaging gameplay. For example in the demo I zoomed in on a factory to see for myself what it was like from the trailer videos, and indeed you see boxes being moved around, if the graphic settings are reduced details like that disappear and the game becomes harder or different to play.

4. Moore's law is about the transistors on chips, not the average computer, how many people buy new computers every one or two years? not that many.

I would think they could get a slightly bigger map out of the minimum requirements. They don't want to annoy people, it's not EA dictating the size of the map, they will have a reason for it. maybe in the beta they will see actually they can increase the size. In SimCity 4 (and I think Cities XL) the city is not simulated to the full extent it is in the new SimCity, eg parks would radiate their effect, in the new SimCity sims actually go to the park and actually play football to get the effect. The simulation is much more thorough.

The problem with SimCity societies was at it's core, it was just made wrong. The problem with SimCity 2013 (relevant to this thread) is the map size, which is a number that can be changed with an update later on. The core game is made very well, the simulation is the deepest. When computers get better the map can get bigger and the game will be better. You could run SimCity Societies on a super computer and it still wouldn't be a good game.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

2. Cities XL out of the box has boring but realistic buildings that were easy to convert into decent buildings in game. Things look boxier and duller on worse computers. CXL building makers have made high polygon count T4 building landmarks and are working on new lot sizes. My main point was that CXL has a "photorealistic" "real is brown" art style while SimCity Societies has a cartoon style. Tilt shift falls between these two extremes but depending on your system can come out as superior to both. However, for a computer with the bare minimum requirements, SimCity 4 might look better.

3. Anno 2070 works offline but half of its features are online only. Online mode uses asynchronous saves but at least the hosting player must be online for multiplayer to work.

4. I bought my computer in 2007, I increased the RAM, upgraded the OS, and replaced the DVD drive a year ago. This month I plan on upgrading the hard drive to make my PC on par with average gaming rig of this year.

[Cob92 360]

I wish that they wouldn't completely lock out the possibility of larger tile sizes because of potential performance issues without even giving the gaming public a chance to play around with them. Even allowing custom regions with larger city slots (accompanied by a disclaimer about performance) would be nice. And it wouldn't have to destabilize the global economy because the resource distribution would be the same in a giant city as it would be in the equivalent number of small cities. It would also be nice if Glassbox allowed for cities to purchase land to progressively expand their borders. This would also add another competitive dimension to the game, as players in a region would race to grab prime real estate before it is annexed by a neighboring city, something that RL cities have had to deal with ever since the concept of municipal annexation was invented. Players might even be able to buy and sell parcels of land between each other for economic or political reasons (in my imagining of SC, your Sims would not only have an opinion of you, but also of all the surrounding cities. Selling off a resentful, impoverished neighborhood to a neighboring city might be a good way to preserve order in your city, while your neighbor may want the land so that he can build a freeway to the oil field that he just acquired).

  Edited August 21, 2012 by Cobhris96  

[Selphy 69]

I wish that they wouldn't completely lock out the possibility of larger tile sizes because of potential performance issues without even giving the gaming public a chance to play around with them. Even allowing custom regions with larger city slots (accompanied by a disclaimer about performance) would be nice. And it wouldn't have to destabilize the global economy because the resource distribution would be the same in a giant city as it would be in the equivalent number of small cities. It would also be nice if Glassbox allowed for cities to purchase land to progressively expand their borders. This would also add another competitive dimension to the game, as players in a region would race to grab prime real estate before it is annexed by a neighboring city, something that RL cities have had to deal with ever since the concept of municipal annexation was invented. Players might even be able to buy and sell parcels of land between each other for economic or political reasons (in my imagining of SC, your Sims would not only have an opinion of you, but also of all the surrounding cities. Selling off a resentful, impoverished neighborhood to a neighboring city might be a good way to preserve order in your city, while your neighbor may want the land so that he can build a freeway to the oil field that he just acquired).

While I applaud your thinking of ideas, I abhor your actual ideas and think those would be terrible additions to the game given the suggestion of how you would implement them.

If we had a choice about buying land or having locked 2x2 km tiles, I'd stick with the locked size. Allowing players to buy land and sell it would inevitably lead to much griefing in non-locked games. As you said, people would be scrambling to buy as much land as they can possible because more land means more money. Some people would be left with little to no land for expansion other than playing absurd amounts of money to other players.

This is what most players fear, people having direct influence on your cities. If my development was stifled because some jerk bought all the land around my city and refused to sell it, I would be livid.

As of right now, there is little influence between cities. I'd like to keep it that way.

  Edited August 21, 2012 by Selphy  

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Glass box only allows "boxes" AKA square cities. So if you wanted to expand your borders, you would have to do it incrementally along 2 or 4 borders, like it is in Cafe World (if Cafe World is still around).

I support having special regions that have a mix of medium and large sized cities with various amounts of unplayable border areas within those tiles (or maybe have an expansion pack that adds 4x4 and possibly 8x8 sized cities but each of these cities would only have a 2x2 playable center and one would have to purchase an expansion 100x100m at a time to get to 4x4 or 8x8). This would have to come in an EP or DLC.

--Ocram

  Edited August 22, 2012 by OcramSeattle  

[Cob92 360]

I wish that they wouldn't completely lock out the possibility of larger tile sizes because of potential performance issues without even giving the gaming public a chance to play around with them. Even allowing custom regions with larger city slots (accompanied by a disclaimer about performance) would be nice. And it wouldn't have to destabilize the global economy because the resource distribution would be the same in a giant city as it would be in the equivalent number of small cities. It would also be nice if Glassbox allowed for cities to purchase land to progressively expand their borders. This would also add another competitive dimension to the game, as players in a region would race to grab prime real estate before it is annexed by a neighboring city, something that RL cities have had to deal with ever since the concept of municipal annexation was invented. Players might even be able to buy and sell parcels of land between each other for economic or political reasons (in my imagining of SC, your Sims would not only have an opinion of you, but also of all the surrounding cities. Selling off a resentful, impoverished neighborhood to a neighboring city might be a good way to preserve order in your city, while your neighbor may want the land so that he can build a freeway to the oil field that he just acquired).

While I applaud your thinking of ideas, I abhor your actual ideas and think those would be terrible additions to the game given the suggestion of how you would implement them.

If we had a choice about buying land or having locked 2x2 km tiles, I'd stick with the locked size. Allowing players to buy land and sell it would inevitably lead to much griefing in non-locked games. As you said, people would be scrambling to buy as much land as they can possible because more land means more money. Some people would be left with little to no land for expansion other than playing absurd amounts of money to other players.

This is what most players fear, people having direct influence on your cities. If my development was stifled because some jerk bought all the land around my city and refused to sell it, I would be livid.

As of right now, there is little influence between cities. I'd like to keep it that way.

Well then you would just play a region without other people to compete with, or with friends who wouldn't take over all the land. If you didn't want competitive gameplay, you would just stay out of the public games.

[kgw_games 11]

There is a solution that I even wanted for SC4.

The entire region is tiled with small 1x1 squares.

For SC5 pick any 2x2 area (for sc4 4x4) to be loaded for editing and playing.

When you want to work near a boundary, save and load the next 2x2 overlapping viewport.

One very huge city without taxing the graphics.