Badfish301

Totally agree, high rise buildings should appear only under 'special' conditions. When a city has matured past the 'town' and 'city' phase toward larger city. There should also be a certain level of industrial and economic sophistication. They shouldn't just be a birthright... In a perfect urban simulator, certain special geographical settings should be more conducive to skyscrapers and high rises. Examples of such would include peninsulas, riverfront land, isthmuses, or just high enough land values combined with a more diversified economy and good transportation links could suffice. I think many SimCity players didn't even realize how much they missed having transportation a more central part of city planning gameplay. Elements such as railyards, and seaports, as well as their close relationship with industry are important. Think elements of Transport Tycoon/A-train for the train networks, cargo management system for seaports and railyards, and Aerobiz for the airport route management interaction with other cities. This would make make transport a lot more fun. I'm not necessarily talking about lots of different industries, just perhaps generic 'goods' you have to get to and from industrial centers to the Seaport and airports, and conversely from seaports stockyards to commercial centers, or to long-storage in warehouse districts (if a city is industrial-oriented).. I think the team should be able to handle that

I forgot to mention before, that I hope CU ends up looking something like this: it's from microsofts virtual earth, but you get the idea. Imagine if that building variety, and realistic city engine existed, and the gameplay was there.. I would never stop playing that game. Also, this image reminds me that you don't need a Police and firestation every 10 blocks, you just need appropriate funding and a few citywide. This also goes for hospitals. The fun part is laying out neighborhoods and commercial areas, not dicking around with firestations and hospitals every 6 blocks. Anyway, really excited about seeing the website.. have a feeling it should be soon.

Phillipe, that's roughly what I'm saying. It's highly unlikely a city with 50,000 people will have a 40 story buildings (unless it is close to another large city). It is also unusual to find a city that has kyscrapers covering a majority of its land area. In fact, most cities with a large number of residential condos see this as a result of restricted geography, usually peninsular settings, or locations restricted by water. Even land-sprawling cities like Minneapolis, and Dallas, and Denver eventually see large residential condos, but only after they get large enough population, and even then not to the extent to which land-restricted cities do. Residential highrises and commercial highrises should be dictated by different forces, and shouldn't always have to be equal. Commercial towers should result from strong business sectors, shipping and airline links, while Residential towers should be driven by good healthcare, schools, and parks/entertainment. Vancouver is mostly a Residential high-rise city, while Los Angeles is mostly a commercial high-rise city. Adding things like streetcars should bring higher densities within walking distance also, as should subways and other mass transit.

yeah, that kind of came out the wrong way.. I just really don't want to see plateus of tall buildings everywhere, that's all. I want tall buildings to be a smaller percentage of the entire urban area.

Once again, doing a great job Phillipe, and the entire CU team.. Hopefully a few CityLife2008 programmers start working on CU.. Heavy Fog, the likes of lace>Londonlace> should be included and atmospheric weather. You could walk in the outskirts of town by a cottage in heavy fog for example. By atmospheric, I mean, somewhat dreamlike, or almost too beautiful to be true. (credit:Arnold Pouteau http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=134257663&size=m) Other weather, such as heavy rainstorms when viewed near the sun should produce rainbows, or just amazing sheets of rain in the distance. I may have lost a few of you, perhaps, just a way to edit the weather, or have weather plug-ins would be the solution, so people who want more realistic looking weather, or more exaggerated weather could be accommodated. I want my City Builder Physics as realistic as possible, but I want to make my weather a little over the top if I wish. Most importantly, and I'm echoing what others have said here, but make sure the sense of scale is correct. This is of utmost importance really.

Somewhat rambling, perhaps intoxicated post added at will2real today.. nothing new to report really, just anxiousness about the website and game launch.

Can't wait to see an overall city view.. that will be when we know what we're dealing with. Anyway, I just hope CU incorporates large railyards, and multi-platform railstations (grand railstations), as well as the ablity to create new transport lines in an editor such as maglev (or maybe your own, more advanced ground transport link that investment in a high-tech sector might yield, which you could design the look of). I also hope to see a wide variety of road options, such as cobblestone streets, back alleys. Mostly I hope zoning is introduced. Need a tester? I've got a degree in Human Geography.. just thought I'd mention it. Finally, I can't mention how happy i'd be if you'd throw us forumers a screenshot to tide us over for a while.. maybe something with transit in it.. can't help but be greedy.

cities don't grow skyscrapers right after conception. sim city 5 should have cities grow out for a while by default (this could be modified by city height ordinances). i don't know why all simcity games seem to think cities get 10 story buildings right away. furthermore, the economic impetus for high-rise development at such low populations makes cities look, well.. just plain goofy. realistic cities have relatively small (but disproportionately important) Central Business District. a good simcity would demand you had a sprawling metropoitan of 500,000 or so before you were rewarded your first high-rise. large cities only have a few very tall skyscrapers, all sim cities have CBDs which are huge for the land volume of the city. please make CBD's more constricted in the next version.. market forces and real estate values build skyscrapers, and location location location matters, not simply the simulator satisfying it's urge to build ASAP. that said, simcity rocks, let's keep 'em going! (maxis please hire me)

Date: 12/13/2005 9:25:25 PM Author: GDDan i found this picture on a website. Could this be the early stages of SC5 or some other city simulator? It looks like the city of Shanghai Obscenity deleted. that picture is obviously a model of shanghai. You can even see florescent lights reflecting in the river. If you are going to call someone retarted, consider spelling it right so you achieve a greater impact. Otherwise, you may just look stupid. -SIMp

Sim City needs to rethink the idea of skyscraper and the way a city develops. I have seen very few cities which are simply a wall of very tall skyscrapers. Instead, the simulation should calculate a good CBD (central business district) and this would act as the heart of the city. This center of the city could shift slightly, according to changing trends in the commercial market (as a result of population shifts, traffic pattern changes etc) but would always be a critical force where the tallest buildings develop around the center. Tall office buildings develop in large cities even on streets with little traffic believe it or not. The CBD would allow the tallest possible buildings for a city of your size and importance, and would discourage tall buildings in your cities hinterlands. In order to get the tallests talls your CBD would first have to become large and reputable. Closely attached to this would be the ability to set height caps. There should be a general option where you can set a city ordinance to restrict height to a given level citywide, or on a neighborhood basis. Many real world cities have such ordinances. This would allow you to better sculpt the look of your city (without being restricted to 3 different levels of zone density.) I agree with a comment made earlier that minerals and resources should be taken into account. Ports should definitely be rethought, and container shipments should be incorporated. It would be a much more interesting game if large container vessels pulled in to the new state of the art deep water facility, which would have to be well connected to rail links. The rate at which your city grows should also be linked to how well your industries are connected, where the more interconnected you are, the more competetive your city becomes (expanding on just roads). This would be a nice reward for setting up good transportation networks. Finally, skyscrapers should have varying heights. there should be some more generic skyscrapers, which grown to a height appropriate to their position relative to the CBD. This would help to break the monotany of the simcity 4 skyline. Other things briefly: 3D view, Cloudy Days/ stormy days (where waves get large, winds intense). The ability to turn off distasters! the game runs to slow to deal with fires all the time. Groweable airports/Ports. Ability to build tunnels underwater easily. LESS MICRO MANAGEMENT!!! Can't the advisors adjust spending for me??!!!! Most importantly - fix the way a CBD works - a skyscraper, or a building of 10+ stories doesn't usually show up in a city until there are at least 100,000 residents. Tall building should be a reward, not everywhere in a city.