Great Works Blog

[Vampirovibrio 43]

The new article talks more about great works in this case Internationsl airport. There is an interesting piece of news that got me quite excited. Below is a quote from the article:

"Large jumbo jets will bring in bellyfuls and bellyfuls of tourists. Far more tourists then your (formerly) small city can handle. You can’t let all those poor passengers sit out there with nothing to do, can you? I thought so. You’re going to need something to help get them in and around. Those highways are looking pretty crowded already. And your attractions have gotten awfully crowded. You’re going to need a much bigger city…"

Note the last sentence. You're going to need a much bigger city... Does this mean that perhaps after building the International airport and your city size outgrows its demand, you may be presented with a reward that would expand the boundaries of your city? Am I reading too much into this?

  Edited September 29, 2012 by Vampirovibrio  

[aereus 106]

Lets just hope that "need a bigger city" doesn't just mean that the houses and low-rise buildings become skyscrapers instead. Because if you look at that concept art, it pictures like FOUR or FIVE cities in the area near that airport... I sincerely hope the maps are larger than that, because thats what? maybe 3 dozen buildings?

[Greyflame 54]

EDIT: Ack! I was writing this at the same time as someone else posted the topic it seems. Topic merge maybe?

I didn't see a topic for this yet, so here it goes. Sorry if I missed it!

http://www.simcity.c...ional-airport

Today's SimCity insider article. It doesn't tell us a whole lot we haven't been told already, but there's some neat facts to glean.

One being the emphasis on resource management. I know some people won't be or aren't a fan of this, but I believe that resource management is something that always felt lacking in previous and alternative titles. I'd just get enough money, then click and suddenly I have an airport. In the real world, building things like international airports provides thousands of jobs and can fuel an entire economy. Cities that provide materials for building the airport can see a huge boon, etc. This never really happened in SimCity 4.

I wish they would have provided a new screenshot to go with it, and they weren't very clear on whether you can attach heavy rail or light rail to the airport directly. (I'm hoping we can. I live in Portland, where the light rail runs from practically next door to me all the way to the international airport a couple hours away.)

I also generally support the great works design principle in general. Although I'm hesitant about the game forcing you to put things in certain places in your region (relatively speaking at least), an international airport can be the size of a city in and of itself. A runway can be literally miles long. Plopping one down in the middle of your downtown just isn't realistic. Well. Safe, at least >_> It should be noted that in the comments they mention that municiple airports can be placed in your city, though if they're realistic with their scaling that may take up a good quarter to half of your building room. (MAXIS PLEEEAAASE. Give us bigger tiles!!! Pretty please!!!)

Also curious about other great works. It looks like solar farms might be one option, based on the concept art. I would also expect something like a space shuttle launch zone, or perhaps large scale military bases.

  Edited September 29, 2012 by Greyflame  

[Monster's Cat 120]

Yeah, I'm hoping that it will help the economy too. Instead just sit there and giving a few jobs.

[Hamish 1,369]

Merged the two topics.

I liked the article. Sounds like a nice addition thats different to just city building. Will be interesting to see what other great works there are.

The airport sounds complicated, and if they are saying that this is the easiest of the great works, it will be very interesting to see what the harder ones involve.

If arcologies are included in the game, I think they would fall under the hardest great work.

[Frode789 70]

I just hope they scale it more realistic then the shoe-box airports from Sim City 4..

[kwetzel345 101]

Vampirovibrio, saw that last part too about going to need bigger cites, hope that means expanding your boundaries! This tho sounds like a too good of a feature that could be in the new simcity, but maybe they will surprise us.

I know, unrealistic probably, but you can hope!

[Ocram's Razr 964]

That is a pretty good article. SimCity 2013 just keeps getting better and better. I hope that mayors will get the opportunity to connect light and heavy rail to airports because the SeaTac Airport is connected to the Light Rail from Downtown Seattle.

--Ocram

[VeritaScientia 150]

I just hope they scale it more realistic then the shoe-box airports from Sim City 4..

Amen to that!

Vampirovibrio, saw that last part too about going to need bigger cites, hope that means expanding your boundaries! This tho sounds like a too good of a feature that could be in the new simcity, but maybe they will surprise us.

I know, unrealistic probably, but you can hope!

*lightbulb moment*

Anyone ever played Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 or 2? You could buy extra land to expand your parks, you didn't have to buy a straight square either. That could work for something like Chicago, where they annexed a strip of land through the suburbs to connect O'Hare, or Los Angeles, where the city limits go south along Alameda Avenue (/) to connect the Port of Los Angeles to the city itself continuously.

[robloxkiller 25]

airports in simcity 5 should have variety for example a cargo airport or maybe an executive airport

[VeritaScientia 150]

airports in simcity 5 should have variety for example a cargo airport or maybe an executive airport

There's no cargo-only airports in the world that I know of, so maybe a cargo terminal and and executive terminal as modules?

[Greyflame 54]

I don't have high hopes about "bigger city" meaning more actual land mass, but it would certainly offset a lot of my concerns about tile size if you could in fact EXPAND your tiles. But I generally assume they're instead referring to the density of your infrastructure and so on; ie wider roads, more services, etc.

[efgrib 45]

airports in simcity 5 should have variety for example a cargo airport or maybe an executive airport

There's no cargo-only airports in the world that I know of, so maybe a cargo terminal and and executive terminal as modules?

sure there are some. the "europort vatry" near paris is one of them.

[VeritaScientia 150]

airports in simcity 5 should have variety for example a cargo airport or maybe an executive airport

There's no cargo-only airports in the world that I know of, so maybe a cargo terminal and and executive terminal as modules?

sure there are some. the "europort vatry" near paris is one of them.

From what Wikipedia has, that airport has commercial passenger flights, seasonal mind you, though it's not a 100% cargo airport, which is what I was referring to. Cargo is a very difficult thing for an airline to specialize in. most air freight carriers in the world are offshoots of commercial passenger airlines, because the air cargo market is pretty slim. Airports won't be dedicated to cargo completely unless there is a large increase in cargo traffic. For realism's sake, I would hope that the developers make airports less capable of handling freight than compared to rail or maritime port to illustrate that airports don't handle nearly as much cargo as rail and ships.

[paperboy15 4]

In the US, Louisville (thanks to UPS), Memphis (thanks to Fedex), and Anchorage (thanks to Asia - Europe air trade) are the busiest cargo airports. All have huge cargo operations, but not 100% cargo.