Devs - talk to us about "Sim" pathing and decision making

[Niclistin]

In SimCity13 you could see a building that had residents and that they were unhappy. For example, Sims might desire more parks nearby. So, you would place parks and they were still unhappy, couldn't or wouldn't (for whatever reason) go to or get to the park and the building would go abandoned, catch on fire and burn to the ground. Rebuilding that building would then replicate the same exact negative effect and it became a loop you couldn't get out of.

My question is will unhappy sims actually utilize the changes you make for them? If they want shopping and you add it close by will the Sims take advantage of it rather than wandering around the map aimlessly and bumping into shopping by chance? I would really hate to see two districts set up and sims are driving across the map to get to a sstore instead of visiting one that's closer to them.

 

[wakko2k]

Good question, would like to know this aswell

 

[Zarine]

One of the major problem of SC13 is that people would leave a place with a goal like "go to work", "go shopping", "go to the park". And then each building had a limit of people in at the same time.
They would go to the nearest building with a free spot. However, if someone go there before them, they will switch to the new nearest and so on making them go all around the map.

SCL is different in that a character will leave to go to a specific place. When he reaches that place, he won't have to find a new one because it's full (or so I hope).
After, whether they go to the nearest one or not is another question.

 

[wakko2k]

Hopefully they go to the nearest. Which makes me think of something, it would be cool if the "sims" had different needs as well, which leads to different buildings depending on the citizens needs and demands.

For example, you have 3 stores nearby a set of houses. They are just regular stores, but then a citizen feels like he wants a pizza. But there are no pizza shops nearby, so the citizen has to drive around town to get it. One of the store owners notice the pizza demand and remakes his store to a pizza hut.

This would probably also lead to where rich people live, they probably dont want your regular pizzas. So a shop owner opens up a real fancy pizza hut nearby their houses instead.

This is probably a little too much depth to the simulation, but would be cool nontheless

 

[grandad1982]

Not "Sims" but "Cims"

 

[Miwi]

and since when do you get good pizzas in pizza hut hmy: ??

 

[wakko2k]

and since when do you get good pizzas in pizza hut hmy: ??

Maybe if its a fancy one? ;P

 

[Von Graff]

Hopefully they go to the nearest.

Oh no, hopefully they don't all do that or else we'll have the SimCity 2013 problem of roving hordes of Sims again. Hopefully they find the closest WITH CAPACITY in an acceptable range, and only after all of the desired services within range are full would complaints arise. Maybe even do it the old SimCity 4 way where they would still go if it WAS full, but its efficiency would be severely affected (overcrowded hospitals and such).

I also don't know if providing that much detail for commercial services is viable (though it would be cool)

 

[TotalyMoo]

Sure there might be eventual hiccups in pathfinding if you add a new building/service while a cim is already heading somewhere else, but generally this would not happen no. Don't worry, we aim to have a working simulation, hehe.

 

[wakko2k]

Hopefully they go to the nearest. Which makes me think of something, it would be cool if the "sims" had different needs as well, which leads to different buildings depending on the citizens needs and demands.

For example, you have 3 stores nearby a set of houses. They are just regular stores, but then a citizen feels like he wants a pizza. But there are no pizza shops nearby, so the citizen has to drive around town to get it. One of the store owners notice the pizza demand and remakes his store to a pizza hut.

This would probably also lead to where rich people live, they probably dont want your regular pizzas. So a shop owner opens up a real fancy pizza hut nearby their houses instead.

This is probably a little too much depth to the simulation, but would be cool nontheless

Also, with this system you'd probably eleminate a problem where everyone goes to the same commercial store. Seeing as they're going to the store that they have a interest in at the moment. Rather than just go "a store" to buy stuff, they think "buy food" or "buy clothes". So hopefully we'll have more variety where people ends up traveling and not everyone will end up at the same store all the time just because it happens to be the closest because doubtly everyone wants to buy the same thing all the time.

I'm really bad at explaining, but i hope that makes sense

 

[charlesnew]

I don't really think that they should go to the nearest store, but go to one that is near. I do like the idea or cims having different types of demands for stuff. Like, maybe 4 types: Food (restaurants, fast food), General (clothes, furniture, groceries, tools...), non essential (electronics, toys...) and entertainment (cinema, tourist attractions, theme parks (if in game)...). So that's my idea.