Small roads , are not that small

[eugenio1982 6]

i wanted to give a big thanks to steam guys , COs , and Paradox guys who finally gave us the city simulator this community deserved,

the game is just awsome 

 

 

but as a community let's do what we are expected to do ...criticize ( hehehe )

 

i notice 2 things basically :

 

1) city population is too low related to the city size  ......( already said by various gamers )

2)aren't small roads  just a little too wide ?? from up above road related to the residential house seems just too large, is only my impression ?

[BorisS1990 27]

The devs addressed the population issue before in a video. Basically since the game is doing a full simulation of every resident of your city. (Unlike Sim City for example) there's a limit as to how many people you can have before your PC just can't handle it anymore. The devs decided that limit was 1million. But 1 million doesn't really make for a very large city. They had to fudge the building's occupancy numbers to make the city look right. So the buildings generally hold less people than you would expect them to. This is more the case with higher density buildings. It will probably only be a matter of time before mods come out that readjust the building stats to a more realistic occupancy. And if you don't care about making a large city (area and height-wise) then there you go. Or perhaps a mod that raises the population limit AND readjusts the building stats. Then you can have your cake and eat it too..... If you got the hardware for it.

 

As for the roads they seem right to me. A standard 2-lane street in C:SL is 2 grid tiles wide. The tiles are 8mx8m if I'm not mistaken. So 16m wide for a 2-lane street. We'll call it 52.5 feet cuz I'm in 'Murica and we don't do metric here. 

 

A typical 2-lane street here in NYC is 55-60 feet wide building to building. That includes both lanes, space on both curbs for parallel parking and both sidewalks. That's a pretty close match.

If anything, the streets where you live are probably too small.

It would be nice to have single-lane streets but the way they work in C:SL they would probably still be just as wide as the standard 2-lanes. The streets in the game conform to the grid system as far as width goes. The 2-lanes are 2 tiles wide, the 4 and 6-lanes are 4 tiles wide.

So how big do you make a 1-lane? 1 tile? Well if going by the NYC standard, that would be kinda small, though I guess for gameplay purposes it might be alright if it doesn't allow space for parking.

And making it 2 tiles defeats the purpose when you can just use a 2-lane one way instead.

[MINIggy03 227]

I've seen 9-25 tile cities stuffed with tall buildings and with around 400,000 population.  I think they were a little TOO stingy when it comes to how many cims are in a building.  I bet it can be bumped up just a little and we'd still be able to make massive cities while feeling a little more balanced with the Cim count.   

[Indiana Joe 1,752]

I don't think it would be too bad of an idea for them to borrow something from SC2013.  Inflate the population to match what the city looks like.  Within reason; don't over-do it like Maxis did.  If an apartment building looks like it should hold about 40 people, but only 10 of them are simulated, call it 40 people in the population counter and only simulate 10 of them.

 

You still get really immerse simulation.  But it's more like a sample of your city.  Kind of how city management works in real life.

[xonedl 342]

I don't think it would be too bad of an idea for them to borrow something from SC2013.  Inflate the population to match what the city looks like.  Within reason; don't over-do it like Maxis did.  If an apartment building looks like it should hold about 40 people, but only 10 of them are simulated, call it 40 people in the population counter and only simulate 10 of them.

 

You still get really immerse simulation.  But it's more like a sample of your city.  Kind of how city management works in real life.

Unfortunately from the looks / sound if it, that's the opposite of what people want / talk about around. What they want is simulate every single citizen and no "make up number".

I personally OK with the make up number just to make thing looks more appropriate.

 

About the road. Yes they are actually 4 lane... Either 2 lane + 2 parking lane or 2 lane + decoration lane. Definitely need smaller one. I currently restarted a map with about 10k people, 90% of road is that dirt road lol.... There are still no congestion on dirt road so I just leave it there. I don't think I like that tarmac road much, which I hope they add a street later.

 

If I ever use road I will just upgrade from dirt to road with deco. Starting city with tarmac road seems like a suicide, it cost a lot more and money ran out quick.

[Indiana Joe 1,752]

Unfortunately from the looks / sound if it, that's the opposite of what people want / talk about around. What they want is simulate every single citizen and no "make up number".

I personally OK with the make up number just to make thing looks more appropriate.

 

About the road. Yes they are actually 4 lane... Either 2 lane + 2 parking lane or 2 lane + decoration lane. Definitely need smaller one. I currently restarted a map with about 10k people, 90% of road is that dirt road lol.... There are still no congestion on dirt road so I just leave it there. I don't think I like that tarmac road much, which I hope they add a street later.

 

If I ever use road I will just upgrade from dirt to road with deco. Starting city with tarmac road seems like a suicide, it cost a lot more and money ran out quick.

 

 

You have a city with 1 million Cims.  Only 50,000 are simulated.

 

Can anyone tell the difference between 1 million cars or 50,000 cars in their city, unless they are comparing them side-by-side?  No.  The idea of simulating every detail is a stupid fantasy and I think it's dragging down new city simulators from their full potential, including Skylines.

[eugenio1982 6]

i wanted to give a big thanks to steam guys , COs , and Paradox guys who finally gave us the city simulator this community deserved,

the game is just awsome 

 

 

but as a community let's do what we are expected to do ...criticize ( hehehe )

 

i notice 2 things basically :

 

1) city population is too low related to the city size  ......( already said by various gamers )

2)aren't small roads  just a little too wide ?? from up above road related to the residential house seems just too large, is only my impression ?

 

so basically regarding the 1st point i agree with indiana joe ...u can't ( this decade for sure ) simulate it all , but we could have something like a "virtual multiplier" showing you

stats with realistic number ,and btw i really don't care if i can't see any single Virtual Person running my city [ THAT's my opinion]

 

the point number 2:

i understand  that NYC have got big roads at most , but is not Cities:NEWYORK Skyline , is a simulator , and i guess we need streets to fill that "1tile" space in order to create for example 

a european country town .

 

Plus , i don't know u guys

 but there's one more thing i really miss :

 

3) i don't want to build mandatory in this order 1)road 2) zone 3) district

i would like for example to have small streets contructed automatically as i do zoning , like it was in SC4 or CXXL

 

feel free to criticize !

[Jasoncw 11,949]

Yes I'm very happy that roads seem to be scaled correctly. The heights of the raised roads are kind of silly but I'm sure that will be correctable with modding. 

 

The scale looks funny because the buildings themselves are really small. A typical suburban house would normally be on a 1x4 or 2x4 lot. A Taco Bell (not a big building at all) would be a 1x3, not even including the parking lot or drive through. The maximum growable lot size in C:S (which I'm guessing will be moddable) is 4x4 tiles, which is equivalent to a tiny 2x2 lot in SC4.

[Shy Dude 149]

Funny thing is I think those small roads with the parking are actually about the same width as the roads in SC4. The cars and roads in SC4 are like scaled at 133.33%.

[Nique 291]

About the roads: I'm waiting for a 'street' road that's just 1 tile wide.
About the pop: I totally agree. I rather have a 'smaller' looking 'realistic' city i can build in any shape i want (not a freaking tiny square) than having to build tons of skyscrapers to reach 50.000 population. It's weird.. My 2.000 town looks like a 80.000 city.

 

But there is hope. The modding API is really 'open'. It's dangerously open . This means modders can do to the game whatever they want. Maybe even rewrite the whole road system (prefering lane based). There is already a project running for rewriting the whole GUI. (I'm 'ok' with the current one but it could be better).

Colossal Order build a city builder game core from where the comunity can expand in all directions, limitless. I believe this game will be rewritten by modders in a few years . Of course, with the core still there but i can't wait for nice terrain textures, better, more and realistic buildings, props and vegetation. A better UI with better 'item stacking features' (scrolling madness is already there, and now even without a mouse-wheel). I must say, the game isn't really 'that' great. It feels like the Simcity 4 release. It's not finished, but I already knew that before I bought it. I believe in the developers of the game, the publishers and the community. A lot of 'city-builder-gamers' are 'creationists' as  a profession: Programmers, designers.. name it. It's an overall 'nicer' community than those from shooters. 

The game only got released a few days ago and there are really great (advanced) mods out there: Camera Mod, Tree Brush.. Whats next? Terraforming? This quick? This game is fantastic.

[89James89 1,169]

I don't understand the whole 1million people limit being a really unrealistic thing. Take Birmingham (in the UK) for example, it has population of 1,092,000 and covers a area 3 times the size of the 25 tiles in SC. Even London, one of the largest cities has a smaller ratio of area to population density than can be achieved in SC.

 

Cheers

 

James

[BorisS1990 27]

Adjusting the population should already be possible I think. The building editor does allow you to set the various stats of the buildings. So it's just a matter of loading every single building in the game into the editor and changing it's occupancy stats to a more realistic level. Kinda tedious but doable.

 

But then you would run into the issue that the devs were trying to avoid in the first place. You would hit that 1 mil limit pretty quick. Atleast if you like building a skyscraper forest. If you make the city more realistic with just a small highrise core and alot of sprawling low density covering the rest of the map. And waste some of the space on big airports and sprawling parks, then you could probably stretch that 1 million out pretty far.

 

Bigger issue I think would be the traffic. It's already bad enough and that's with your population spread pretty thinly across the map. What about when you have a city block that can house potentially thousands of people. How's your road network gonna handle that?

[ReneXL 16]

This is a city simulator, not sims or cims simulator. So the stress must be on simulating the city, not every resident, albeit it's the cims that makes a city (not cars). If Ihave the capacity i don't wont to be locked to 1 million.

[bluespottedhorse 49]

I would compare a real city to Cities Skylines to get an idea of size versus population. I don't think the game is too far off because realistically 5x5 tiles is not a large space to build nor could one get a large population on it unless you created a city like Manhattan, Tokyo or Hong Kong. Most of the cities in the world with a population of 1 million are very large in size.

[eugenio1982 6]

i noticed that the highway ramp is 1tile wide , but create no room for buildings ,

i'm asking you "senior" modders if is difficult to modify a little that kind of road in two way :

 

-get away the "dirty-road" effect when placing the street

-have construction at road-side enabled

 

any ideas , suggestion ?

 

thx

 

eugenio

[Deed_Poll 32]

The roads are big by UK standards. I think it would be cool to have a tree lined street that has half the traffic capacity, but allows for parking. If you could make them "no through roads" to regulate the traffic density. This would fit great with Victorian / Georgian / Recency terraces.

[Superbacon 380]

I found a mod today that adds a zoneable pedestrian-style "street". It looks like the pedestrian paths in the recreation menu so it doesn't have any lanes, sidewalks or crosswalks. But it's still 2 tiles wide. One lane streets would be great though. When I build, I try replicating Japanese cities. Having narrow streets is a critical part of that.

[eugenio1982 6]

it's the same for european streets...........2 tile wide roads are just too much for a little burg for example

[flatron 83]

@ population numbers: Don't you have an imagination? Do you really need the game to tell you the number of citizens? Can't you just pretend it's higher?

[eugenio1982 6]

it's about dev & not PRETEND .......LOL

[flatron 83]

In how far is it important? I mean, there's also much too much traffic(at least in my hometown with 3000 inhabitants, there's never any heavy traffic, whereas in CSL, you need four-lane-roads in small villages) If your only goal is to have millions of inhabitants, you can also just create an excel-document that calculates such stuff for you.

 

Have you never built cities in the sandbox as a kid? or dams in small creeks?

[Linoa06 1,374]

The roads are probably a bit large by Euro standards, but in the US they feel just right.

 

I don't need four lane roads in small villages and I've seen traffic jams in RL 5000 inhabitants cities..

[fleander 0]

do you think it's possible to let the two pedestrian roads in the game create space for buildings? they are just one tile wide, but you had either somehow let cars drive on it or, and i would prefer that, manage that cars stop at the closest street and let the people walk the rest of the way. but my modding skills are way below that skill... what do you think?

[Marla_Singer 46]

I agree about smaller roads being not that small. We need smaller ones that could be used as Mediterranean narrow streets or British mews. Even in the US grid layout, there are often small alleys within a block. These smaller streets could be either a single-lane one-way street or a smaller pedestrian alleys which I feel is missing. Indeed the pedestrian overpasses often feels "fat", they generally are narrower bridges in real life.

And as we go at throwing ideas, it would be interesting if the pedestrian overpasses would automatically generate stairs if the slope is getting steep. The slopes as we're currently allowed to build often feels unnatural.

The narrower alleys could be great to plop parks at the core of a block. Or to make larger, denser blocks as they exist in my home city of Paris. It would also be easier to create things feeling like European villages or hamlets nearby the farmlands out of the core city.

It would ultimately make it easier to feel a hierarchy on our road layout. Current standard roads in the game still feels like actual roads, that could be crossed at higher speed. Narrower ways would really feel as being more dedicated to local traffic, to only serve the surrounding buildings.