Easier Way To Fill A Map?

[unmerged(429767)]

Is there any tips to fill a map up maybe a draw tool for different types of buildings? Maybe I missed it somewhere, but I've put in at least 20 hours in on the following map and all I have to show is tons of roads and a few buildings. Now I know CIM2 can generate buildings for you and it loosely generates based off of building types that are close by, but when I generate it never comes out how I want it to. When I click on generate a whole bunch of industrial buildings will tend to pop up right next to my downtown even though the closest manually plopped industrial buildings are a quarter of the map away. My entire downtown is manually filled will only landmarks and city center type buildings. I love CIM2 more than CIM1 due to the huge flexibility with the layout of the cities and transit, but I find myself dreading to load the game up at times. When I finally do load it because creativity inspires I end up shutting it back down within an hour of play just because I feel like I get no where with plopping buildings.

I've Played SC4 and other games such as this, and there is no game in this genre that is perfect. In CIM 1 there was a similar building plopping drawback in the map editor, but with modding community help you could still load up a game play normal and plop buildings while playing. So if I actually wanted to play my map I could build a bit of it at a time. Then build a portion of the transit system. Watch the fun commutes then go back to building my city out at the same time manually plopping buildings. Not exactly ideal, but I got by doing it. Here I feel that I have to complete the map before I can actually do any transit building.

I love this game so much I'll try playing my map for a week or so with the generated buildings and see how it self expands. Enjoy the screenshots :happy:

 

[douglasrac]

Hi djbori, welcome to the forum!

The auto generate tool follow some rules that might help you. If you want industrial buildings to pop up at some area, just place some industries in that area and the auto generate will them put more industrial buildings near the place they already exist. Same for commercial, residential, etc. So use this to tell the program where you want what.

But there are other rules, and if you don't have that in mind you might be disappointed. For example, industrial buildings tend to appear near highways. Commercial buildings and tenements tend to appear in avenues and roads of high traffic. Cottages and villas tend to appear in small roads. So if you have an avenue most probably you won't get small houses there. The type of road is very important to define the type of building that will populate the area.

 

[XanosEU]

djbori knows (at least some of) these "rules" the building generator follows. And djbori explicitly asks for an easier way. Of course the other rules help, however I don't see the point in rebuilding the whole road network just to fit the needs of a building generator.

Unfortunately I have to say: there is NO easier way infilling a map.
A "drawing-tool" to mark certain areas for specific types of buildings would make building cities way more easy and also would not be hard to implement, since it would help the AI.
Maybe such a feature will come, however we should not hold our breath Until this happy day may come, we have to build the cities by ourself or have to rely on the generator... (unfortunately)


P.S.: These pictures look very promising!

 

[unmerged(429767)]

Thanks for the feedback. I have been playing since the game was officially released and know some tips and tricks, but was hoping I was going about my city building incorrectly. I did TRY to lay out my city with the types of roads to force certain types of buildings to generate around them. Specifically the pedestrian streets which sort of force small houses in almost all cases which is a good thing. I did learn a lot from my test city I built before starting this one; in terms of how building generate and further more how transit types can also effect buildings. That is why I went about creating this map to fill in areas that I dont want to have auto generated with the right sort of buildings, but leave areas open that can be auto generated. I just didn't think the manual way would take so much time out of my life :laugh:. I'll go about testing how the city will self grow once the right types of transit are in place. Hopefully not too much industry where it is not needed. :happy:

 

[unmerged(334932)]

I like your map lay out by the way. Reminds me of new york city, with Brooklyn/queens on the right, Manhattan in the middle, and jersey on the left. I can't wait till you done so that we can play it.

+1