Area Mapped for City Services

[tristanrob 0]

A good idea I thought about while playing because I keep having burned down buildings and what not, if we could limit the area of coverage.  Like I have 2 fire departments, one is on one end and the other somewhere else, and why all the trucks are in one location? Who knows, but if we could draw out a certain area like vicinity for them to extend to without leaving that so if a fire is closer or in their zones they can take care of the situation same thing for all city services.  This game should be alot more complex than it is.... hummmm

[infoman96 27]

I've thought of this very thing and I believe EA must introduce this whenever they decided to unveil larger maps. Imagine being on the 4x4 found on SC4 and when a fire happens, all fire trucks in the entire 4x4 respond to it. I think that's one of the reasons why Maxis hasn't released a larger map yet, it could be graphics but also probably the traffic flaws as well.

Once the traffic is fixed, which actually may need to be fixed by making traffic less complex, then we'll see larger maps. But as you said, zoning who goes where will be essential in this game.

[Monster's Cat 120]

I've thought of this very thing and I believe EA must introduce this whenever they decided to unveil larger maps. Imagine being on the 4x4 found on SC4 and when a fire happens, all fire trucks in the entire 4x4 respond to it. I think that's one of the reasons why Maxis hasn't released a larger map yet, it could be graphics but also probably the traffic flaws as well.

Once the traffic is fixed, which actually may need to be fixed by making traffic less complex, then we'll see larger maps. But as you said, zoning who goes where will be essential in this game.

 I don't think those are the reasons why they haven't released bigger maps yet. Have you noticed that once you get a big city the simulation has already slowed down. The game may be running thousands of tiny animations at once and if they introduce bigger maps the game may randomly crash at a city's height. And think of the people who have low-end pc's. They can barley just watch a city without it lagging. I know because I have one.

[TruthinessHurts 2]

yeah, we could do it like old roller coaster/mall tycoon games, where you would highlight a grid for your janitors to sweep up when there's a mess or something. The service vehicles would then only spend time in that location. if you add another garage, you get another grid to put down. I think that's a great idea haha