jigsaw

I personally spent an awful lot of time on actually separating the different eras/styles of architecture in my games. if i was trying to make a city/region based on a particular theme it drove me insane trying to stop skyscrapers growing in a 18th century themed city i was trying to grow/plop. the same goes for IND, as tilesets were not controlling IND's growables. If SC13 is going to follow the concept of tileset choice, i hope they expand on it vastly. over the years of community content being created, the game default choices obviously became too narrow in diversity against what the community actually created, and what has naturally become the most popular choices. European w2w sets and Hong Kong sets by far became the most common community choice for new themes that the community created. Med sets are also very popular today. The last games theme was very US centric across the board, the schools, the buildings, the look and feel down to automata, the police, hospitals and fire etc. over the years, the community made the game diverse to incorporate content from all around the world. i personally hope Maxis consider this when they create the new game. the game is sold all over the world. this time round i hope they make it a global game. i would absolutely love it if they somehow incorporated an architectural timeline of sorts into the game... i dont see this happening, but it's a wish that if executed correctly would make this game near perfect. what is your thoughts? jigsaw p.s.... spare menu slots or the availability of creating them would be wonderful.

IMO it will be impossible to pursue complete timeline/regional influence harmony that this topic is now leaning towards. Back to my original point what we need to see is Civics options that are not US Centric, or have US flags emblazoned all over them. If they just look at the most popular types of styles that the community has made, and uses and incorporate them that would be suffice... there is roughly 6 or so different mainstream styles we use and if the game has that ability, and room for a couple more we will be fine. the timeline option would be good running parallel with rewards. ie: coal stations appear first, then when the year hits the right time nuclear becomes available, then solar etc. etc.

it is not necessarily for the present or the future that we need multiple tilesets, but for the past. it is fairly true that modern architecture is fairly global, and most of that occurred post-WW2 with the birth of globalisation. However, as a lot of members like to 'back build' (to an earlier timeframe with distinct regional influenced forms of buildings), it is important that the new game attempts to consider this and (hopefully) allow spare slots for future expansion (if the new game actually follows the older one in terms of tileset variety). as a world traveller i still see distinct regional flavours of architecture, but as hamster has raised it is fairly generic in modern times. SC4 has by default 50yr increments of american cities as tilesets as we all know. what is obvious is that the community demand a global expansion on that through a combination of eras and locations beyond the borders of the USA, and with more diverse styles... and there are distinct differences out there. i personally would rather see a Hong Kong tileset over another Houston one... i have been to both, and HK has multiples of distinct architecture creations over what Houston offers. the other fact is in simple research of our custom content across the community; (within the CJ's and STEX over the years) i see more paris buildings, berlin building, HK buildings, dutch buildings available than i see from Chicago or Houston. give me one Houston or Chicago themed CJ and i can show you 10-15 more 'old euro' themed ones, and 5 HK themed ones.

nontheless, anything must be better than just 4 tilesets, and 3 of them being american building types

if a timeline is to be incorporated, utilities etc would have to match... we dont want solar power plants in an old euro environment.

im gonna call it SC13.. to avoid ambiguity with SC:S

dont ask/hope for too much, you will build yourselves up for disappointment. sit back, relax and wait for their announcements. they put stuff into sc4 that surprised us, so let's see what they surprise us with tomorrow.

i hope a new game brings back some of the legends... Oppie, Cobbs, bigredfish etc etc.

im actually excited about the idea the we all have to start from scratch. we might not need a NAM like we do now... trams/GLR might be incorporated into the game. SC4 vanilla was step one, then we got rush hour... maybe an upgrade of sorts will come for the new game as well in time.

im hopeful they dont lock us out. if they are half smart they would know that our custom content kept the game running all these years. it will be an epic fail to not allow custom content.

and finally NO STEAM!

that's a fair call which i hadn't thought of. on a reality tip, if it all goes bad, and no anouncement goes our way, it's gonna get pretty ugly in here.

everyone has nailed it with the wishlist, but i want to add one more: it has to be less US-centric with tilesets. the amount of CJ's with euro/med themes clearly show the world wants a 'global' settings theme. NY/Chicago/Houston/Euro just doesnt diversify enough and cut it with all we have done.

if they dont want to do an EP, they should at least allow the community to make one.. an EP could be used as a litmus test for a new game.

161K.. that's more like it. that's still an enormous community.

.. and how many are inactive? how many have been active in the last 12months?

also, you can use the 'start-up manager' which allows you to rename regions.

if you tie some factors: they have finally got their websites back up to date, created a facebook page for one of their oldest games, the inactivity of some of the best BAT'ters in the community, the announcement that they are going to remake some old games, for the first time in a few years i actually think that a new game is in the works... trust me when i say they read the forums.

where did you get the bridge?

i've got some hot tip for CJ's students: 1. dont live in the one zoom. i've probably read 100's of CJ's over the years, and as a reader im getting sick and tired of seeing nothing but closeups of buildings... i can download the building myself and stare at it all day in my own game. a whole page of dribble just to show the world a church on a street intersection doesnt give us much to be honest. 2. with a CJ, it is hoped that you will show the entire region when you start it, and keep show the community updates of the entire regions. 3. we would also like to see entire city tile shots now and then as well. it allows all of us to see how the entire city you are talking about is progressing and growing. 4. stories are good, but not essential. the photo/story ratio should be balanced as well... having an entire page of a story only to have a single shot of a common building on every page is a poor CJ. "photos speak louder than words" 5. highlight what makes your city unique. it's not the just buildings that make your city unique, it's the layout, planning, urban design that makes your city unique. thank you

IF a SC5 game came out it would have to the polar opposite of modern video games; depth and quality that can last forever. so many games are just 5 minute wonders. the reason this game has survived so long is that we can openly mod it... if they take that away from us it will end up like societies. i personally think the the IF is a WHEN.....

i didnt waste anytime, i went straight for the throat.

looking fantastic. i have been studying the history of New york, and this CJ does it credit. i have found DEM data on Manhattan before colonisation that would be great to use in SC4. check out 'mannahatta' or 'gotham: a history of New york".... great pics and well researched history

you are doing well making a region that big. i once had a 100x100 region, but the game was unstable and i had to get rid of it the biggest region i have seen is dusktrooper's old one that was around 150 Million people.