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Cities In Motion 3 - What comes next?

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Laser42

Recruit
May 1, 2013
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I've desided to start this thread to describe my wishes for the next Cities In Motion game.

As I read at this forum, many people wants to bring CIM features, concerning public transit, to Cities Skyline with its city-management features, such as defining city zones, external works connections, airports, harbors, etc. Sounds great, but it's not enough.

Current Cities in Motion 2 has great idea of building streets or even entire cities not only in editor but directly in game. It's interesting to start with clear landscape and to build some first streets, developing into big city and some towns around. But something I don't like in CIM2. What is, IMHO, needed to be improved or added?

Of course, I wish Cities In Motion 3 to have city zones marker as well as external connections, railway stations, airports, harbors. Like in case of CIM2 sightseeings (f.e. Munich Neue Rathaus), the possibility to build a new one or to improve existing harbour, railway terminal or harbor can depend from cities' or city's population, XP etc. So, there must be external boats and trains that goes to portals, and connect our map to external world. Of course, there must be also player-managed regional trains and boats, just like CIM 1 and CIM 2.

One more feature - more integration of trams and regional and subway trains. In CIM2 we could run a tram on subway rails, and the same in reverse, but tram can't use subway stations. I suggest to show in train or tram features, which stations it can use: low-platform suitable for tram or city light rail, or high-platform for S-bahn and subway. All this trains should be selling in one section in Buy Vehicles panel. And all rail and tram stop and stations should be in one section of Build Stations panel. The same is for rails, with some objective limitations - f.e. big heavy regional train can't use simple city tram rails.
Also, diesel buses can be in the same way united with trolley buses, electric battery buses, hybrid and hydrogen buses.
And each model should have requirements - trolley buses and electric trains require wires construction.

To be continued
 
Part 2

Now, I want to talk about the streets. It's complicated to change the type of existing streets in CIM - ether you have a lot of empty unused space or you have to demolish buildings. I suggest to add a custom build road instrument. Firstly, user defines road with (in lanes); secondly, player sets up the function of each lane (parking lane, common lane, transit only lane, sidewalks, bouleward - with possibility of tram rails/stops) and its direction. The instrument of existing roads editing is also needed. Also, it's hard in CIM2 to do realistic roundabouts and intersections because of "short range from previous intersection" error. Maybe, it will be good idea to add some intersection template objects?

Now about vehicles. In CIM2 vehicle are most futuristic and unusual. And unfortunately the are not well balanced to each other in its capacity, costs and attractivity. For example, 2-floor bus in CIM 2 has capacity higher than 2-section long bus. In the reality, capacity of long 2-section bus is higher. So, the capacity of vehicles should be good balanced. Also, I wish to have a families/variant of vehicles in the shop, for example, Mercedes Citaro (city short version, city long version, suburban version). Trams also can be with different number of sections. Also, for trains and tram must be a possibility to attach vehicle or car of the same model to each other.

Day and night cycle can be, but also historical motion must be, like in CIM1. For comfort time of playing, setting of day-night change and days, months, years change must be possible. For example, I want one game month be equal a minute of real time, and at the same time I set up one game day equal to two minutes.
 
I wanted to wait until I had tried Skylines before commenting on this, as I wanted to see what changed and get an idea of what was good/bad (or maybe stripped out for simplicity). I agree that C:SL is the main project now, but at some point the development of it winds down and they start on a new project and if that project ends up being CiM3, then its important to have this discussion about design choices before those decisions get made and many are set in stone.

Anyway, in terms of things for a CiM3:

Pathfinding:
- I'd like to see changes to pathfinding that allow for more flexibility in travel. In C:SL the paths are predetermined meaning many end up stuck in traffic, likewise they can't change their routes to take advantage of a faster options. For example if a Cim is at Stop A and there are 3 bus routes to stop B, they should take the first bus that goes there, not the predetermined bus route.

Roads:
- Road Tool: I like that C:SL has decorative roads and bus bays. Keep them, but I prefer the flexibility of the CiM2 road tool and in particular the map editor variant.
- Set which lane is the bus lane: Many advantages were lost when cars merged into kerbside buslanes to turn left. Even if this is in the form of a seperate custom road tool or at least a panel where various presets, including custom presets can be selected.
-Better use of Avenues: As mentioned the decorative avenues in C:SL are nice but we need more functionality from them, Concrete/Grass medians where you can lay down tram tracks or bus lanes/metro tracks for running a BRT/Light Rail system down the middle.
- Keep the C:SL pedestrian paths. Staircases would also be nice.
- Optional traffic light management - the ability to select an intersection and manually adjust timings/reset to default. Also a bus lane priority option? I say optional in that it would by default be automatic but allows people who want/need it a greater degree of micromanagement
- No Left/Right turns. Not sure how to implement this, maybe like a line tool type thing where you plop a point in one street and plop a second point in another creating a line that prohibits traffic from following it?
- merging lanes for highways.

Cities:
- I honestly wouldnt care if they reused their existing assets from CiM/2/C:SL like reusing buildings and such, though, Id also like to see some regional variants like european assets. (And roads)
- Keep zoning tools for map editor and new roads (but also a default option where it auto selects like in CiM2)
Transport:
- Capacity that makes sense: Artic Buses should have more capacity then smaller rigids.
- Clearer stats for acceleration/speed. Why cant a bus have a top speed of say 100 and numerical values for acceleration as to make comparisons easier. If all vehicles have good acceleration, which is better?
- Stats for loading speeds.
- External Connections: Keep Airports/Seaports/Regional Rail as per CiM/C:SL
- Vehicle Variants- Artic/Rigid/Long Rigid/Decker versions of buses and Long/Med/Short versions of trains/trams
Rail:
- Ploppable stations- Elevated, Ground and Subway. Both standard two track as well as various interchange types like what CiM1 had. (In addition to the default CiM2 station type.
- Terminus stations. But not just for
- As mentioned in other posts, the ability for trains and trams and metro to run on the same track.
- I like the idea of light rail and heavy rail station types and the ability to have some overlap.
- Tram tracks on avenue medians should have speed defined by the type of median (concrete/grass/seperate road/track)
- Trains can turn around at stations.
-Suburban Rail (aka Commuter Rail)-
Bus
- BRT features, like higher speed dedicated BRT roads that can be either separate or in the middle of an avenue
- Bus Priority Signals (as an optional thing)
- BRT platforms (much longer than the ordinary stop and improved height access =faster loading). Required for BRT Roads. Maybe as a ploppable thing? so it can have stuff like a pedestrian overpass and overtaking lane
- Better type bus stops should be slightly longer as to better accomodate a second bus.
- Bus Bays.

Waterbus/ferry.
_ Both CiM1 and CiM2 type wharfs
 
kensternation said:
All I want is pathfinding that makes sense; CiMs with intelligence and having a schedule the CiMs actually use instead of using average wait time.
Click to expand...

I was just playing the game (cim2). I gave it one final shot, built a complex city and a complex network. Many hours of creating. Used all tricks I had and had learnt on this forum from others. Promised myself I would not be looking at how individual CIMs are commuting, cause it would probably make me mad. Couldn't help myself. I watched Rosemery Wright, a pensioner as she was going from her tenement to Buckingham Palace at the other part of the city. I was watching her for 5 days (20% speed ruleset). She never got there. She went everywhere but to her destination. She took all kinds of transport, mass transit lines, local lines and she never got to her destination. CiM2 was broken. It was never properly patched and CO never cared about patching it. They just kept forums alive to make people believe something is happening and keep them being interested in DLC's. The game has a lot of potential which was never and never will be used.

Frankly, I do not believe that CIM3 will be any different. Sorry, for complaining in this thread but my wish for CIM3 is that it was not developed by CO. They never cared about CIM2, why would they care about CIM3, if it ever is created. If the developers are some dedicated team who love their games, I think a lot could be accomplished.
 
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jasiekzar said:
Sorry, for complaining in this thread but my wish for CIM3 is that it was not developed by CO. They never cared about CIM2, why would they care about CIM3, if it ever is created. If the developers are some dedicated team who love their games, I think a lot could be accomplished.
Click to expand...

This is simply not true. CO_Martsu, the CEO of CO, has stated on numerous occasions that she would like to return to CiM. It is true that we were led on, not realizing that their 13 member staff had moved on to CSL before they gave us a promised patch; but this is PDX's call not CO's. And with over a half million games sold it's hard to say they were wrong.

Be patient. This game is their first born and I am sure they are proud of it, and rightfully so IMO. I'm confident they will eventually come back to it.
 
If they do come back to create another CiM game or add to the existing one. I hope they keep the current map tile from CiM2. It is the reason for the smooth flexibility of the road and rail systems. I also like to see some extra road features like dirt and gravel roads to roads with grass boulevards with sidewalks like in Cities Skylines just for modding purposes. I love the way the vehicles travel on those dirt roads with dust trailing behind it.
I also would like to have brushes for types of zonings and densities. So you can take control of what buildings go up and how big.
If they can create the Sims people to have more character like in Cities Skylines that would be bonus.
Some of the other ideas that's other have talked about in this posting would be a blessing too. like out side connections to other cities so you can serve people coming in the city like taxi services airports, train stations and shipping areas for business and leisure. That would create a buzz in the city.
Even though this is a vehicle simulation game. These other types of transportation modes will help stimulate the game. Making it less boring!
 
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aj1304 said:
Pathfinding:
- I'd like to see changes to pathfinding that allow for more flexibility in travel. In C:SL the paths are predetermined meaning many end up stuck in traffic, likewise they can't change their routes to take advantage of a faster options. For example if a Cim is at Stop A and there are 3 bus routes to stop B, they should take the first bus that goes there, not the predetermined bus route.
Click to expand...
After the 1.0.6b patch I noticed that CiMs take the first bus from A to B, regardles if it's their prefered line or a duplicate one. The routening of all the lines between A and B have to exactly the same or it doesn't work.
 
My biggest issue with CiM2 is actually...

I shall explain it by using the Boston card. Which i love to play, recreating all original lines on it.

Lets start:

I got a person that jumps onto the B Branch tram (Green Line) at South street.
Everything is fine so far.
They then leave the tram at Packards Corner, to jump into a bus of route 57.

They take the bus for a few stops, and jump into the B branch again at BU west.
Which they then take to Kenmore. Where they change to either C or D branch.
Fromt here they go til Hynes, where they switch to another branch again.

And the final stop is then Copley, from where they walk the last few meters to their home.

Instead of just sitting in the B Branch til they reach their destination, they jump lines to get their.
Thats something that annoyed me since a very long time.
 
TriGlav_2000 said:
After the 1.0.6b patch I noticed that CiMs take the first bus from A to B, regardles if it's their prefered line or a duplicate one. The routening of all the lines between A and B have to exactly the same or it doesn't work.
Click to expand...

I have not noticed that. I have noticed just the opposite. I have a major bus stop with numerous buslines stopping there and some of them have several stops in common. They still line up for whichever line tickles their fancy and it has nothing to do with the next bus, or the schedule or even the average wait time.

If the lines are exactly the same why have both routes?
 
TriGlav_2000 said:
Because 30 capacity bus is not enought to keep up with the demand, even at the 150% funding.
Click to expand...
Up the schedule. In theory you can have 5 vehicles every 5 minutes on one line. If that's not enough capacity, shorten the line or re-route it or bring in a tram or trolley. Though truthfully that is why I increase vehicle capacity in the rulesets.
 
One thing I definitely hope for (if they evr make CiM 3) is that, like in CiM 1, they implement a german city pack with cities that are really close to their real counterpart.

That´s what I disliked in CiM 2 ... the cities just vaguely resembled their real life counterparts (for example Düsseldorf) and the street names were just default ones that didn´t have anything in common with the real life street names in those cities.
In contrast to this the german cities in CiM 1 were very close to reality ... for example cologne ... with streets being there where you could expect them and the street names being those of the real city.
 
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I really hope that Cities In Motion 3 is made one day. C:Skylines is fun and all but it feels really bare compared to CiM when you look at the transport part, and lets be honest that's the best damn part!! I think though, considering the success of Skylines... It'd be unlikely for them to 'waste time' on Cities in Motion 3 for a few transport nerds like us here :( Great shame because the game world is missing orignial ideas and I think CiM is one of them.

I agree with Kagemusha too, CiM 1 cities were awesome! 2 are kinda bland.
 
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