If there was a SimCity style game being made...

[DCottrell 3]

Hi all,

Long time user, worthless contributor but I wanted to start now

I would like to start a conversation...  about a "what if" scenario of a SimCity 5 game or something similar. I know a topic was created about an open engine and there are older topics I am sure but I want to see what you guys dream about in that type of a game. I find myself loving SimCity 4's style the most, something about it feel so much more alive, like an ant farm or something. I keep coming back to it and I can't get the same feeling from other games. The whole point is, I am just trying to get some feedback from what main aspects you would want to see stay, go, or be added if a project like that was in the works. I am not saying I have any power, interest, or even inkling of moving a project like that forward... but I am not saying the opposite either

Some caveats before you start typing furiously:
-Lets keep it to the point and short I know there a hundred different things to address but pick your top issues

-NO Corporate restriction talk, meaning no talking about "its impossible because of hiring a creative team/HR/Financing/Legal" etc... This is a dream topic not a feasibility concept meeting... for now.

-I get that this is a forum for SimCity 4 so most likely people are pretty diehard and a bit biased but I would love to hear some opposing views on certain aspects of the game even if you don't fully care that much, just gives some more colour and dimension to the conversation. Respectfully of course, not needing a debate here.

-Try not to point out "oh theres a plugin for that already" because again we are talking about a whole new fictional game. Although if you have some cool plugins that you want to show to illustrate what you mean by all means share it!

---

I'll start by saying I love the games art style, it keeps me engaged and I find it somehow has more life to it than 3D games, perhaps its the size limitation it feels like or just that a lot are PLOP there it is. I don't know exactly but I would like it to be kept the same art style at that isometric level although I don't know what others would think. The 3D models you can play in game really give it a bit more oomph too, it feels amazing to interact with your art even if limited.

Transit systems are awesome, I find them difficult to understand though, I don't know if it would be better more simplified or what but  I do enjoy the many different ways to shape a city around it.

Having changing seasons or at least weather conditions would be great but maybe not something entirely essential.

I live in Toronto and we have an underground PATH system which basically connects the entire downtown core through underground pedestrian walkways, I think that would be really cool see implemented in an underground view, adding light/medium commercial to a new layer.

I would LOOOVE if the the "advisors" actually did something or could be trained, provide some sort of buff but you have to choose. I think that would be more useful than your environmental advisor telling you the end days are coming because a cow from an agriculture lot took a dump near the sprinkler.

Also it would be amazing if there was random events that could occur like a teachers strike turns into a full blown riot or your city infrastructure gets hacked and your subway system is down for a bit or something (That last bit actually happened in Toronto) TTC Hack  . I like being engaged with my city not just looking at it, totally optional though I get some players enjoy the sandbox and not the waves.

Lastly I like the user generated content, I get its hard work and I think it helps create some amazing art and cities.

 

[Max4k 727]

Corporations are usually the restriction and main problem

[TheMurderousCricket 5,127]

10 hours ago, Max4k said:

Corporations are usually the restriction and main problem

I'd second that.

You say that you don't want to get involved in legal discussions but you need to take this into account at all times.

If you intend to use SC4 as a springboard for a community-made SC5 (is this what you have in mind?) you are bound to rub EA the wrong way.

Even if you do it "cautiously", I guarantee that a project like this will quickly experience what, in my daytime job, is called "a mission creep". In other words, at one point you may find out that you have actually crossed the line without realizing it until it's too late.

EA and Maxis have already been gracious enough to let us mod their game ok, with no royalties, no C&D orders and other crap that game companies are so trigger-happy to hand down. Let's not spoil it, hm? 

If you haven't stopped reading yet, I'd like to say a word about plugins as well. Sorry... 

But that's the deal. You've mentioned it yourself! With the number of plugins, mods and BATs one can find here and on SC4D, it is safe to say that SC5 has already happened. In a subtle, unexpected manner, but it did...

[Max4k 727]

This is as good as it gets until we get the source code and really take things to the next level.   These corporate pigs are only interested in making quick money with deadlines and tons of red tape.   The whole game industry has changed in the last 20 years.  We have to rely on fan created stuff to only advance at this point.  

Has anyone seen what fans doing to Quake 2 and Raytracing ?   It's all fan made

At this point is like relying on Duke Nukem and that whole dragged out drama that happened

[TheMurderousCricket 5,127]

2 hours ago, Max4k said:

These corporate pigs are only interested in making quick money with deadlines and tons of red tape. The whole game industry has changed in the last 20 years.

I think EA is a little different though, but I do know where you are coming from.  It's true - the times where you could turn Quake 3 upside down with just WinRar and notepad are, unfortunately, over. 

I'm not sure what happened as far as Duke Nukem is concerned... You sparked my curiosity, I gotta google that!

2 hours ago, Max4k said:

We have to rely on fan created stuff to only advance at this point.

This is precisely the reason why I'd be in no rush to switch to another city builder since lots upon lots of my desires and ideas are already being satisfied by the excellent modding community here and on SC4D. Sometimes, I even feel that the Simtropolites work around the clock to bring the players new ideas, new modifications and fresh options to play with. I continue to be amazed how vibrant and healthy this community is.

However, one needs to remember that many of us here have daytime jobs. I bet some of the people around here do more in one morning than I do during an entire workday! As such, I don't think anybody would actually want to dedicate their time to work on another game if we already have countless possibilities to adjust our playing styles, art, graphics and rules for ourselves. Also, don't confuse modding with developing a new game - these are two, entirely different things.

19 hours ago, DCottrell said:

Having changing seasons or at least weather conditions would be great but maybe not something entirely essential.

This can already be achieved by using seasonal props and trees as well as terrain or snow mods. Perhaps it could be better integrated with the game, but taking seasonal screenshots with various texture sets is still doable and fairly easy. Done!

19 hours ago, DCottrell said:

I live in Toronto and we have an underground PATH system which basically connects the entire downtown core through underground pedestrian walkways, I think that would be really cool see implemented in an underground view, adding light/medium commercial to a new layer.

This is a really neat idea, but I assume this is something that is well within the grasp of the @NAM Team. After all, NAM already has underground pieces for rail, roads and tram networks, so underground ped walkways seem like a possible option. This, mind you, can still be done within SC4 rather than 5.

[Jasoncw 12,030]

I don't want the game to have a bunch of industry chain micromanagement and stuff like that, but I would like for the simulation to include the types of thing that make our cities the way that they are. So things like income density affecting retail development, airports/seaports/logistics affecting industrial development, and things like that. Just more stuff like that happening in the background.

And also, especially, more detailed infrastructure planning. I don't want it to turn into a sewer simulator, but sewers and roads are some of the main costs to developing and maintaining a city but in SC4 they're not really a factor. In SC4 roads just have a tiny upkeep expense on your budget and then they're perpetually in perfect condition, but there should be higher maintenance costs and there should be a maintenance/replacement schedule that disrupts traffic with construction. And these things should have some degree of management so that playing the game and making good decisions makes good outcomes, but it should also be automatic enough that you're not micromanaging it either.

And while there are a lot of things that inspire an interest in cities, transit is near the top and there should be extremely realistic transit simulation. There should be every mode. You should get to choose between a variety of rolling stock, platform lengths, fare systems, etc. Choosing different alignments and different levels of grade separation and things like that should affect how expensive it is to build in a meaningful way. And then you should be able to set individual routes and schedules. Capacities should be based on vehicle sizes and frequencies and take into account in some way pedestrian flow through stations. There should be operations and maintenance centers. And within the context of a game I think this stuff would mostly be intuitive and self evident and whatever gap in understanding could be filled in with in-game text. But so far it seems like all city sim games have been designed by people who have never ridden transit before because of how nonsensical it has been implemented.

And then on the physical development side of things, when you build infrastructure and things start developing, and over time as the city ages, everything should automatically have a realistic feel to it. The simulator should automatically create good looking plausible cities. Part of this would be introducing gameplay mechanics which allow you to control setbacks and other things in individual zone areas, but part of it is also just paying good attention to the scale of the buildings and the cities and making sure things are realistic looking. It would also be nice to have a system where buildings can be converted to different things over time, so that things can move between different wealths and different uses, but making a system for that and actually making all the assets needed to pull it off would take a lot of thinking and a lot of time.

And then of course, modding is incredibly important. But there also needs to be the right combination of exposing everything in the game to modding, while also guiding and curating modding so that there's consistency and compatibility and quality control.

[DCottrell 3]

7 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

I'd second that.

You say that you don't want to get involved in legal discussions but you need to take this into account at all times.

If you intend to use SC4 as a springboard for a community-made SC5 (is this what you have in mind?) you are bound to rub EA the wrong way.

Even if you do it "cautiously", I guarantee that a project like this will quickly experience what, in my daytime job, is called "a mission creep". In other words, at one point you may find out that you have actually crossed the line without realizing it until it's too late.

EA and Maxis have already been gracious enough to let us mod their game ok, with no royalties, no C&D orders and other crap that game companies are so trigger-happy to hand down. Let's not spoil it, hm? 

If you haven't stopped reading yet, I'd like to say a word about plugins as well. Sorry... 

But that's the deal. You've mentioned it yourself! With the number of plugins, mods and BATs one can find here and on SC4D, it is safe to say that SC5 has already happened. In a subtle, unexpected manner, but it did...

I'm not talking about Open source SimCity, that topic was created shortly awhile ago so I don't want to rehash it. This is an entirely separate topic from Opensource, Community Made, Engine/Code "borrowing" and away from just copying and pasting or taking code from the original. Its like when the first FPS games came out, if everybody said that another FPS can't be done because id Sofware made Wolfenstein 3D (or an earlier game) then we wouldn't have Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Battlefield etc.... I think too these days focusing on the gameplay would require a completely new ground-up approach to it because of the limitation of a game as old as SC4. Yes its Soviet quality and it works through the decades, but its definitely got it limitations to begin with and to end with.

I am fully, if not professionally aware of the corporate side of things which is why we are throwing that stuff out, this is imagination time from the community! Although I, and I am sure others interested in the topic, are very grateful that everybody understand the basics of IP legalities. Especially these days with people getting shut down remaking fan made versions of things and not realizing that "whoops" kinda owned by somebody else, and then the lawyers show up

 

I love your route "it is safe to say that SC5 has already happened. In a subtle, unexpected manner, but it did..." brought a little tear to my eye.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,127]

14 minutes ago, DCottrell said:

I love your route "it is safe to say that SC5 has already happened. In a subtle, unexpected manner, but it did..." brought a little tear to my eye.

Why? I didn't want to make you sad. 

One of the ideas I like in your approach is the mechanism by which advisors could be used or tasked to take care of some issues.

Ideally, a player could even have an opportunity to appoint their advisors from a pool of randomly generated characters, each having their own skills and flaws.

On the other hand I would be a little bit afraid that it would reduce my own agency over the city. Depends how automated their actions would be.

[Barroco Hispano 26,975]

All I ask is that the sprite system be maintained 

[TheMurderousCricket 5,127]

11 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

Ideally, a player could even have an opportunity to appoint their advisors from a pool of randomly generated characters, each having their own skills and flaws.

On the other hand I would be a little bit afraid that it would reduce my own agency over the city. Depends how automated their actions would be.

Thinking a little bit more on this idea...

One could theoretically write a code that would essentially let the advisors "build" a water system through the use of procedural generation algorithms...

A game could be "taught" to build water system underneath a city. A code like that could also instruct the utility advisor to build most robust water system in the most densely populated areas by analyzing the population density on the surface. Then, one could design less accurate codes that could simulate less skilled (or even careless) advisors. 

But one way or another, the player's interference with the water system should still be considered as the final word, overriding the procedural utility creation if one wishes to.

[brianc1327 161]

On 11/1/2021 at 5:48 PM, DCottrell said:

I would like to start a conversation...  about a "what if" scenario of a SimCity 5 game or something similar.

I thought I would just jump in on this thread.  To my understanding, there already is a SimCity 5 and a SimCity6, they just are not called that.  They are called "SC2013" (I think) and "Cities Skylines."  Also, to my understanding, they are more than just "spiritual successors," they are actually made by Maxis or EA or whoever currently owns them.

I have never played SC2013, but there appears to be an active discussion group for it here on Simtroppolis, and it by no means is a isn't a "bad game," (some people obviously enjoy it quite a bit) but I think I read that when it was released it had an online option and EA (or whoever) just had 1 server running that did not have the capacity to handle the demand, and has never really recovered.

I have also never played "Cities Skylines," but it seems to be pretty popular as well.

Since I have never played either game, I really do not know what changes/improvements were made over SC4.

Brian Christiansen

[DCottrell 3]

Question regarding the graphics, would you all be interested in it becoming 3D or preferring the isometric art style it is now?

[DCottrell 3]

On 11/2/2021 at 4:58 PM, Jasoncw said:

I don't want the game to have a bunch of industry chain micromanagement and stuff like that, but I would like for the simulation to include the types of thing that make our cities the way that they are. So things like income density affecting retail development, airports/seaports/logistics affecting industrial development, and things like that. Just more stuff like that happening in the background.

By industry chain micromanagement are you talking about having to deal with trucks and trains coming in on your own or how do you mean about that? Its interesting from my perspective as I have worked in logistics and supply chain management but usually that would be done by the companies not by "the mayor" so to speak so I wouldn't see that being a feature in a city building game specifically unless we are talking ports, cranes, and inspection stations.

[Jasoncw 12,030]

50 minutes ago, DCottrell said:

By industry chain micromanagement are you talking about having to deal with trucks and trains coming in on your own or how do you mean about that? Its interesting from my perspective as I have worked in logistics and supply chain management but usually that would be done by the companies not by "the mayor" so to speak so I wouldn't see that being a feature in a city building game specifically unless we are talking ports, cranes, and inspection stations.

In some games, when you start a city different parts of the ground will have coal in them, and some parts will have iron in them, and some parts will have trees, or some will have fertile soil. And then you build special buildings on that land which convert those natural resources into steel, lumber, food, etc. and then they get shipped to other industrial buildings in the city which make things like products, which get trucked to retail buildings. Cities Skylines has this and I think some of the other recent ones have it too. It's even more common in the broader city builder game genre, which have resource collection and supply chains and crafting as their main gameplay.

Like you said, this isn't really something that mayors do. Cities zone land, and they build infrastructure to try to support businesses, and they try to entice companies to do industrial development. But cities don't plan out every single detail of the supply chains for multiple industries.

Also, adding this gameplay element doesn't have the result of making your cities more realistic. When you're trying to simulate a city, the simulation should create something that approximates a city. But the supply chain game mechanics encourage players to make these really goofy arrangements of buildings. The gameplay should naturally result in players making realistic cities, not the opposite.

And I don't personally think that the specific simulation of the supply chain is important. I think factories receiving raw materials and sending out widgets is probably enough. I don't whether a particular factory is making mattresses or books or whatever really matters much in the development patterns of a city. In real life it matters for the specific companies. But at the big picture urban planning level I don't think it's very important. But having good transportation infrastructure is very important in developing industry and it's also which the city has control over and which very directly affects the development of the city. So if your region has a lot of good seaports and airports and railways and highways then your city should be able to develop more industry and that industry should be more successful. And if a specific area in your city has really good access to that infrastructure it should be more attractive to industry than areas that don't.

[Jasoncw 12,030]

5 hours ago, DCottrell said:

Question regarding the graphics, would you all be interested in it becoming 3D or preferring the isometric art style it is now?

I would personally prefer it to be in 3d. Computers are getting better and better. Right now computers are good enough to be able to run SC4 with the original Maxis buildings in full real time 3d. And cutting edge games right now are introducing raytracing, and have better graphics than our best pre-rendered BATs from before around 2010. Since then, the 3d graphics industry has gotten more advanced and our BATers have gotten more advanced, so it will be a very long time before our more complex BATs would be able to get run in real time. But I think we'll be blown away by game graphics in the next few years.

The 3d industry, both pre-rendered (like movie effects) and real time are getting closer and closer together, and they're also converging on the same standards. So I think in a few years 3d assets will be standardized and compatible for the forseeable future. The main thing that will change is how good computers get and how much they can handle. So games will use raytracing but won't use very many samples and will depend heavily on denoising. And then as time goes on, they will be able to do more and more samples and will get better results without needing to denoise as much. And as time goes on, more polygons can get rendered, and bigger textures can get used, and computers will have more storage space.

So I think the goal for a new SimCity game would be to have very standard and open and futureproofed 3d graphics, that can increase in capability as time goes on without creating compatibility problems. It's more about having a platform that will still be good in 20 years, even if it means it's a little ambitious at first. I think we're getting close to having that.

I say this as a person who has only ever made pre-rendered 3d stuff, and who has always been conservative about graphics. I thought that SNES games like Final Fantasy VI, Super Mario RPG, and Yoshi's Island had strong cohesive aesthetics which were not matched by their successors. I think practical effects in movies looked better than cgi until relatively recently.

So I think the downsides of 3d are rapidly diminishing. Whether the game has fixed angles and zooms could be a design choice. But I think doing it in 3d will make the most sense.

[gviper 922]

oh boy, a new SimCity game? Man, not to name names, but, if it involved a certain corporate entity NO TRUST, and NO interest in it whatsoever. They've demonstrated time and time again that they simply do not care about anything other than their bottom line. They showed it with SimCity 2013 and another beloved franchise Sims. I've played them both since their inception and the reality of what they've become is a never-ending version of prop pox. 

oh by the way, I do know this is hypothetical and not a reality. TBH I wonder if the city simulation genre is ending with Skylines anyway. What exists in the world of mobile gaming is simply appalling. 

[Jasoncw 12,030]

There are tons and tons and tons of indie city builder games, like Banished or Frost Punk, but they're usually fantasy or sci fi themed because they're simpler and easier to make. There have also been other sandbox games like Planet Zoo which have been getting made and being successful.

Cities Skylines has been very successful, but it's still a niche genre, and the studios are probably figuring it's not worth the risk of investing a lot into a game that there might not be a market for. Also, in almost 20 years, Cities Skylines has been the only game to successfully follow up SC4. Most have failed and I'm sure that adds to the perceived risk.

There will definitely be more city sim games in the future. But maybe not until Cities Skylines runs its course.

[gviper 922]

On 11/2/2021 at 11:02 AM, Max4k said:

This is as good as it gets until we get the source code and really take things to the next level.   These corporate pigs are only interested in making quick money with deadlines and tons of red tape.   The whole game industry has changed in the last 20 years.  We have to rely on fan created stuff to only advance at this point.  

Has anyone seen what fans doing to Quake 2 and Raytracing ?   It's all fan made

At this point is like relying on Duke Nukem and that whole dragged out drama that happened

I really do wonder if the on the corporate side EA's philosophy loathes games like "The Sims" (1st version and 2nd) and "SimCity 4"  because they give the consumer a product that they actually want. These games were really close to perfection and thus folks are still playing them today. The goal of EA (and with any corporate entity is profit, not to please you at the expense of profit). thus, there is no drive to make a game that quenches your appetite at the expense of future profit. I've often looked at this in comparison to SimCity 2013; it really felt like more razzle dazzle than sheer quality and pleasure for the consumer. It was more about distraction than satisfaction...and thus the state of the Sims franchise is today. 

[Dutchdragon 74]

All in all I'd like to create pre-industrial cities, or at least cities that don't require a dictatorship of cars, electricity and exclusionary American zoning laws. 

I don't have to explain that cities have been around for millennia, with populations over a million, way before electricity was invented. So it should only be neccesary for large-scale buildings with electrified amenities, similar to how $$$ residents and higher densities require water in SC4. Electricity doesn't have to be centralized either; some buildings, like small industries, could power themselves, as could houses with solar panels, small windmills, generators etc.. 

Roads should not be code for "cars rule". Pedestrian paths and streets have been around for millennia, so those should be in the game, with asphalt or concrete roads being other options.  Streetcars and bicycle traffic, with their own lanes and paths should be an industrial alternatives as well. 

Zoning should have mixed use. It's impossible to create classic European cities, Asian cities , or even old USA city cores in (vanilla) SC4. You can alternate between the zones themselves, but aesthetically there's a huge mismatch between residential and commercial buildings, with the latter being plain ugly most of the time. Commercial districts in SC4 are an eyesore, due to the dominance of glass, steel, concrete, plazas and parking lots. Compare that to the inner cities of Europe where businesses are located in beautiful, historical buildings, which also have people living in them. So there should be zones with mixes: R+C, C+I, and R+I, to reflect the reality of most cities around the world. 

When you start a city, you shouldn't have to start with big polluting farms and factories. Small scale farms, workshops and guilds were there long before large scale industrialization and they are still around today, so low density "manufacturing" industry should be available by default. SimCity has always had it backwards: it was $$$ folks who built the first big factories, so why should a city with only $ residents end up with dirty factories and coal powerplants? The consequence is that $ people pollute the most and you want to replace them with $$$ as soon as possible. That's completely wrong. People living on smaller scales are always pushed around by people who hold bigger sway, and SimCity should reflect that. $ housing and working areas don't have to be ugly either. There's a lot of beautiful small, 'poor' houses and businesses out there. Just look at the villages in France; those people are "poor" but they still value beauty and the upkeep of their community, their culture.

This means that buildings should also have a bigger variety in employees. They could have slots based on RCI (mixed) and wealth. A big factory for example could employ a large number of $ or $$ residents while employing a way smaller number of $$$ residents.

 

[TheMurderousCricket 5,127]

23 minutes ago, gviper said:

The goal of EA (and with any corporate entity is profit, not to please you at the expense of profit).

I couldn't have put it better myself.

I'm afraid that the era of games made with passion and out of creative spark is over for now...

I have really been unable to play any post-2013 game. I have completely no interest in modern games as they are just a DRM-nightmare.

Besides, single-player mode seems more like an addon nowadays, rather than the essence of a game.

And don't even get me started about Take 2 and the GTA series games which are basically just a low-brow "Strippers n' dicks" parade, adorned with some irrelevant gameplay...

[DCottrell 3]

What do you all think about the zones themselves, should there be more options than just he regular 3 Tiers?

Also what are your takes on having the ability to "oppress" areas of your city, such as making sure it is lower income and won't randomly sprout a high wealth building or would that be something natural progression should just take hold of?

[catty-cb 4,413]

44 minutes ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

I couldn't have put it better myself.

I'm afraid that the era of games made with passion and out of creative spark is over for now...

I have really been unable to play any post-2013 game. I have completely no interest in modern games as they are just a DRM-nightmare.

Besides, single-player mode seems more like an addon nowadays, rather than the essence of a game.

They are out there, Luke Hodorowicz spent years created Banished with regular devlogs on his site which we were all following before releasing it in 2014, then once it was released he created a patch that would allow the game to be modded and then did another 7 updates of the game to either tweak things the players didn't like or had reported as problems.

He has now started work on its replacement and again is doing devlogs on his site so we can all follow along and make comments.

I've been playing Banished since it was first released so whatever the final game looks like I think it will be great.

https://shiningrocksoftware.com/devlog/

[TheMurderousCricket 5,127]

7 minutes ago, DCottrell said:

What do you all think about the zones themselves, should there be more options than just he regular 3 Tiers?

Of course!

Bringing back the seaport and airport zones would be a good starting point. This way they could have that nice, modular look, rather than just being some lifeless concrete blocks.

If I remember right, somebody has also discovered that SimCity 4 has, in fact, two unused zone types - military zone and spaceport zone. Not sure if I'd like to use these two but... who knows, maybe it would be a fun option.

I would generally appreciate the possibility of building marinas, seaports, airports and parks as modular structures rather than one-time plops. That could make building these entities really exciting.

[Dutchdragon 74]

In Cities Skylines there are districts in addition to zones, effectively creating a layered zoning system. It even includes building styles. You could go all sort of directions with this, so seperating wealth levels and creating social housing districts would be easy.

[CorinaMarie 29,926]

54 minutes ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

If I remember right, somebody has also discovered that SimCity 4 has, in fact, two unused zone types - military zone and spaceport zone. Not sure if I'd like to use these two but... who knows, maybe it would be a fun option.

They were discovered long ago in the notes in ingred.ini. Later @simmaster07 unlocked them with a DLL. See here. However, they aren't tied to anything which will grow. @BartonThinks has speculated on how they might possibly be enabled, but it would take a lot of work to even test the idea with no guarantee for positive results.

[Henry Crun 75]

Three wishes on my Ultimate SC4, eh? Some nice ideas in the OP and replies. For me, assuming the modern multi-core CPU and memory support is a given....

My first wish would be for a region-wide"Play" button. It would run time in all tiles in the region, updating the demand and neighbour deal values. I'm playing the London region and have 10 developed tiles. It can be a PITA to have to go into each tile in turn and run time, going back and forth through the chains to propogate the I-Ag demand from my residential tile #1 to my farm development in tile #4. I'd like a region view with a mini-info panel on each tile showing RCI bars, a blob for power, water and funds going from green through yellow to red for OK, Warning and Danger. Perhaps an auto-pause and auto-goto tile on danger similar to fire alerts in city mode. The Data Views in region view as well, please. The ability to run the region play button while on a tile, watching the effects in growth/decline/traffic etc. would be all the better!  As this is a "What-If", I don't have to work out how to make it all work!

Second wish would be for all the fantastic NAM work to be properly integrated. By that I mean getting rid of the little workarounds NAM needs to accomplish its functions. Like drawing the pattern for a street S-bend and vehicles suddenly start to turn sharp left off the road because of the spur to the side one has to draw. And the automata disappearing when going through the FLUPs. I've started using L1 roads, OWR and Avenues with the L0-L1 ramps to create overpasses just so I can see the little cars going over it. Little things please little minds.  Getting rid of the need to have x tiles of a network to stabilise it before a transition, curve, ramp, override, etc. would also make me very happy.

Third wish would be for totally functional ploppable lots. Plopping the perfect lot and seeing it die because the workers cant (don't?) go in and out is a shame. I know there's workarounds but this is my Ultimate SC4! (and we don't want "There's a mod for that") Similarly, removing the need for lots to be "connected" to a street. I always liked the SC2K/SC3K idea that so long as the lot is within x tiles of a street, it would grow/function. I liked having houses facing the sea or lake or cliff edge with the road running behind them.

- 
Dave

[monkeywater 910]

Expand the city builder to be a coun

On 11/8/2021 at 11:58 AM, Dutchdragon said:

All in all I'd like to create pre-industrial cities, or at least cities that don't require a dictatorship of cars, electricity and exclusionary American zoning laws. 

I don't have to explain that cities have been around for millennia, with populations over a million, way before electricity was invented. So it should only be neccesary for large-scale buildings with electrified amenities, similar to how $$$ residents and higher densities require water in SC4. Electricity doesn't have to be centralized either; some buildings, like small industries, could power themselves, as could houses with solar panels, small windmills, generators etc.. 

Roads should not be code for "cars rule". Pedestrian paths and streets have been around for millennia, so those should be in the game, with asphalt or concrete roads being other options.  Streetcars and bicycle traffic, with their own lanes and paths should be an industrial alternatives as well. 

Zoning should have mixed use. It's impossible to create classic European cities, Asian cities , or even old USA city cores in (vanilla) SC4. You can alternate between the zones themselves, but aesthetically there's a huge mismatch between residential and commercial buildings, with the latter being plain ugly most of the time. Commercial districts in SC4 are an eyesore, due to the dominance of glass, steel, concrete, plazas and parking lots. Compare that to the inner cities of Europe where businesses are located in beautiful, historical buildings, which also have people living in them. So there should be zones with mixes: R+C, C+I, and R+I, to reflect the reality of most cities around the world. 

When you start a city, you shouldn't have to start with big polluting farms and factories. Small scale farms, workshops and guilds were there long before large scale industrialization and they are still around today, so low density "manufacturing" industry should be available by default. SimCity has always had it backwards: it was $$$ folks who built the first big factories, so why should a city with only $ residents end up with dirty factories and coal powerplants? The consequence is that $ people pollute the most and you want to replace them with $$$ as soon as possible. That's completely wrong. People living on smaller scales are always pushed around by people who hold bigger sway, and SimCity should reflect that. $ housing and working areas don't have to be ugly either. There's a lot of beautiful small, 'poor' houses and businesses out there. Just look at the villages in France; those people are "poor" but they still value beauty and the upkeep of their community, their culture.

This means that buildings should also have a bigger variety in employees. They could have slots based on RCI (mixed) and wealth. A big factory for example could employ a large number of $ or $$ residents while employing a way smaller number of $$$ residents.

 

All of this!

 

Especially mixed use zoning and pedestrian-focused zones.

 

3D seems like a gimmick and offers nothing over the 2D game at present.

 

I'd also like to expand it more to a country builder than a city builder where one needs to import or obtain resources, and can export for profit and has other income options than taxes, such as state owned enterprises.

 

More disasters like floods or tsunamis which occur at random intervals and you need to build a resiliant city.  Right now there is no risk of putting buildings 1m above sea level!

[catty-cb 4,413]

19 hours ago, monkeywater said:

....Especially mixed use zoning and pedestrian-focused zones.

Banished had the same issue re single-use buildings, till it occurred to the modders that there was a way around this issue, if you look at this picture and at the what looks like three tudor style buildings.

Pink Awning = Ground floor is a shop, second level is a house and the area on the side with a door is another house

Blue Awning = Is the same as above, just with a different type of business on the ground floor

Brownish Awning = In addition to the above, the windmill is another business to complement the bakery on the ground floor

It can be slightly fiddly getting the separate building to line up properly, and also the modders can add different styles to the building design which is why the bakery/windmill has a black roof and a brown porch by the time I'd realized I'd selected the wrong colour roofs the villagers were half way thru building it and I couldn't be bothered getting them to knock it down and rebuild it.

The reddish building by the water is also at least five separate buildings based on the number of visible chimneys

[Edvarz 1,985]

Since we are leaving legal implications aside and just letting the imagination run free, i would want that hypothetical succesor of SC4 to also be isometric instead of 3d, for a very simple reason: the ability to import all the massive wealth of BATs the community has made for over 18 years. Maybe you wouldn't be able to import cities, since a new game would potentially have a new engine and new mechanics, but the option would be there to recreate what you have done in SC4 or to create all new cities with the plugins you've collected over years! Anyways, that would be my wish/pipe dream if a new SC4 style game were to ever happen.

[DCottrell 3]

Interesting stuff, I do fine that having modifiable building to be accessible to people a really good idea. I think community involvement is important in any type of endeavor. I think there could be a place for that for sure.

What do you all think about multiplayer type gameplay? I know its a hot topic and Im not talking about the dropbox nonsense I mean full on games going on where somebody could hop on and hop off anytime while playing with another person. That or is city building just for single player?