European Theme - Cool, but...

[HeilLoki]

Hi!

I think playing on european "biome" maps is pretty cool and I really love them, but it seems that it could've been implemented in a different and even better way.

As far as I understand, you can either play on an european map or you can play on a regular map. You can't mix styles. But in real life there is almost no european city or town which hasn't both styles combined. Paris may be european style in the center, but it isn't in the suburbs - same is Vienna, Munich etc.

I wish you could zone european style rather than being limited to only having european buildings on a tiny fraction of maps. That way we could create a "core" city with european style and the rest of the city would be "generic style" - just like in real life. If someone wishes european only-style he would have a city-wide "european style" policy. You got this brilliant policy-mechanic! Why don't you use it!?

It seems buildings are already tagged as "european" and "non-european". So, I imagine it's not that big of a deal to program it. All the buildings from Workshop show up in european biome too... That's pretty silly and looks aweful. Disableing all buildings every time you want to play on an european map, is quite silly an annoying to be honest. I hope, you can do something about that.

This update was brilliant. I love it! I'm so happy you had such a big success with C:S! You deserve it!

Maybe this has been addressed already, because I'm pretty sure, I'm not the first person having this idea. In that case, please close this thread.


I would love to hear the opinion of the community too!

 

[namspopof]

I agree 100%

Why by Theme, not by District ?
It's just my only deception for this patch.

I hope a correction of this error quickly.

 

[Lakenstaken]

Hi!

I think playing on european "biome" maps is pretty cool and I really love them, but it seems that it could've been implemented in a different and even better way.

As far as I understand, you can either play on an european map or you can play on a regular map. You can't mix styles. But in real life there is almost no european city or town which hasn't both styles combined. Paris may be european style in the center, but it isn't in the suburbs - same is Vienna, Munich etc.

I wish you could zone european style rather than being limited to only having european buildings on a tiny fraction of maps. That way we could create a "core" city with european style and the rest of the city would be "generic style" - just like in real life. If someone wishes european only-style he would have a city-wide "european style" policy. You got this brilliant policy-mechanic! Why don't you use it!?

It seems buildings are already tagged as "european" and "non-european". So, I imagine it's not that big of a deal to program it. All the buildings from Workshop show up in european biome too... That's pretty silly and looks aweful. Disableing all buildings every time you want to play on an european map, is quite silly an annoying to be honest. I hope, you can do something about that.

This update was brilliant. I love it! I'm so happy you had such a big success with C:S! You deserve it!

Maybe this has been addressed already, because I'm pretty sure, I'm not the first person having this idea. In that case, please close this thread.


I would love to hear the opinion of the community too!

I agree, I was disappointed to find out that the Euro buildings weren't just a new zoning tool or district policy, instead we're stuck with these medium density buildings. What about the suburban apartments blocks that are everywhere in Europe? What about the offices? Sure some offices and much commercials are to find in these wall to wall medium density buildings (most in a hybrid with residential, but its understandable and fine that that's not doable), but not nearly all. Most Euro cities have a mix of old (wall to wall) and new architecture...

 

[GeorgeT93]

I like the idea of using a policy to use the european buildings only where we want them, while using the regular 'generic' buildings everywhere else on a map. To take it a step further, I'd like to have the option to choose a building set for a map before starting a new city. So if and when new building sets are released (potentially as DLC), we could choose which building set we want to use on any given map. Then the policy could be 'Use only themed building set' so that whatever building set is associated with that map (which would be chosen when starting a city) would be built in the area covered by the 'themed building set' policy.

So, for example, I go to start a new city. I select a map, and either on the map select screen, or on a separate pop-up before the map loads for the first time, a drop-down box would be available that would allow me to choose the building set I want to use (we'll select 'European' for now, since that's the only additional building set available at this time, though 'None' should always be an option, which would only use the standard generic buildings in that city). Once the city map has loaded (and policies become available), I can then either create a district with a 'Themed Buildings Only' policy, or, if I prefer, I could make it a city-wide policy. This system would allow us to use any themed building set on any map, so if new themed building sets become available (a couple of examples could be Asian or Middle-Eastern), we would have the ability to use any building set in any new city, while still having the ability to have the generic 'stock' buildings also available.

 

[Darkath]

I like the idea of using a policy to use the european buildings only where we want them, while using the regular 'generic' buildings everywhere else on a map. To take it a step further, I'd like to have the option to choose a building set for a map before starting a new city. So if and when new building sets are released (potentially as DLC), we could choose which building set we want to use on any given map. Then the policy could be 'Use only themed building set' so that whatever building set is associated with that map (which would be chosen when starting a city) would be built in the area covered by the 'themed building set' policy.

So, for example, I go to start a new city. I select a map, and either on the map select screen, or on a separate pop-up before the map loads for the first time, a drop-down box would be available that would allow me to choose the building set I want to use (we'll select 'European' for now, since that's the only additional building set available at this time, though 'None' should always be an option, which would only use the standard generic buildings in that city). Once the city map has loaded (and policies become available), I can then either create a district with a 'Themed Buildings Only' policy, or, if I prefer, I could make it a city-wide policy. This system would allow us to use any themed building set on any map, so if new themed building sets become available (a couple of examples could be Asian or Middle-Eastern), we would have the ability to use any building set in any new city, while still having the ability to have the generic 'stock' buildings also available.

Hear ! Hear !

 

[Azurespecter]

Hey! We just concluded a developer AMA and this was of course a hot topic and commonly suggested idea. Honestly, I think it's a great idea, and so do many of us. But the short answer is that we are bound by our minimum requirements.

HenkkaArt (ARTIST / DESIGNER AT COLOSSAL ORDER - CITIES SKYLINES)
"One of the reasons the European buildings are their "own set" so to speak is because they add quite a lot of graphical assets into the game which, if simply added to the vanilla game assets, would most likely exceed the system specs set for the game, making it require more powerful hardware and in worst case, render the game unplayable for the lower end machines."

• TotalyMoo (COMMUNITY MANAGER AT PARADOX INTERACTIVE)
  "This needs more upvotes for visibility! We're pretty much obliged to stand by our system requirements as far as I am aware."
  

We hope you can accept and understand this reasoning =) and this doesn't mean that we won't look for new and improved ways to use districts!

 

[Keltia_Vikinga]

Menno, if I understand your question correctly, the reason is that the European landmarks are only available in European theme maps.

The reason for not having Euro buildings as a policy is that we try to avoid possible memory issues that could happen when loading all different theme assets at once. There has to be lots of room for user created content, so we try to keep the themes separate so the amount of items loaded doesn't get too large. It is possible that we might look into making them policy based at some point, but I cannot promise anything, as having a stable game is very important.

What about to include one option for EU buildings, the users would tick or not in the options ? ...Within a system the game would reckon... and would tell us if possible or not..

I understand that memory consumption problems are interesting for 32 bit programs, but not really for 64 bit programs (except for swapping). Please consider to make mixing city stiles optional for those who want it. You can still warn the user that this may use a lot of memory and overall performance may drop.

BTW the same is true for user created content. I installed like 100 new buildings from the steam workshop, which should have the same effect. But there is none.

NYC may be another nice example...

(also, I wonder if that choice from them isn't a marketing one for the paid releases later x) )

 

[Raph]

Hey! We just concluded a developer AMA and this was of course a hot topic and commonly suggested idea. Honestly, I think it's a great idea, and so do many of us. But the short answer is that we are bound by our minimum requirements.

HenkkaArt (ARTIST / DESIGNER AT COLOSSAL ORDER - CITIES SKYLINES)
"One of the reasons the European buildings are their "own set" so to speak is because they add quite a lot of graphical assets into the game which, if simply added to the vanilla game assets, would most likely exceed the system specs set for the game, making it require more powerful hardware and in worst case, render the game unplayable for the lower end machines."

• TotalyMoo (COMMUNITY MANAGER AT PARADOX INTERACTIVE)
  "This needs more upvotes for visibility! We're pretty much obliged to stand by our system requirements as far as I am aware."

We hope you can accept and understand this reasoning =) and this doesn't mean that we won't look for new and improved ways to use districts!

Why not make it optional then? Release the European assets as a modpack so that those that have the hardware for it can enable the European mod when playing a non-EU biome. Think of it as with the 25 tiles mod: a way to bypass a restriction imposed because of hardware limits for those that have good enough specs.

EDIT: Oh, and preferrably that mod should include the excellent district policy idea so that we can customize where in the city we see the euro assets!

 

[Darkath]

Hey! We just concluded a developer AMA and this was of course a hot topic and commonly suggested idea. Honestly, I think it's a great idea, and so do many of us. But the short answer is that we are bound by our minimum requirements.

HenkkaArt (ARTIST / DESIGNER AT COLOSSAL ORDER - CITIES SKYLINES)
"One of the reasons the European buildings are their "own set" so to speak is because they add quite a lot of graphical assets into the game which, if simply added to the vanilla game assets, would most likely exceed the system specs set for the game, making it require more powerful hardware and in worst case, render the game unplayable for the lower end machines."

• TotalyMoo (COMMUNITY MANAGER AT PARADOX INTERACTIVE)
  "This needs more upvotes for visibility! We're pretty much obliged to stand by our system requirements as far as I am aware."

We hope you can accept and understand this reasoning =) and this doesn't mean that we won't look for new and improved ways to use districts!

Can it be made moddable if it is not already then ?

 

[Soduka]

I am extremely disappointed if what they're essentially saying is they're never going to allow us to change how many tilesets are in one map because of 'sticking to minimum advertised computer spec requirements'. Correct me if I'm wrong since I don't follow this too closely but aren't we still stuck with a hard limit on how many different flavor art assets appear in a single city no matter how many community assets are installed?

 

[Rabiosa]

I predicted that we would get the usual CO "working as intended" reply lol there's a clear smell of BS in the air

 

[Azurespecter]

!

Why not make it optional then? Release the European assets as a modpack so that those that have the hardware for it can enable the European mod when playing a non-EU biome. Think of it as with the 25 tiles mod: a way to bypass a restriction imposed because of hardware limits for those that have good enough specs.

EDIT: Oh, and preferrably that mod should include the excellent district policy idea so that we can customize where in the city we see the euro assets!

I'm not 100% sure on the legalities, but I think that even a free modpack has to follow minimum requirements. I could be wrong here.

And remember that 25 tiles is a mod, not created by CO, so the rules don't apply. For now, we have European buildings in the game. Yes, we have a restriction. That doesn't mean that clever modders won't change that, or that we won't all find ways around those restrictions together. This game is very subject to change, if you haven't noticed, so don't despair! =)

As I've said before, I love the idea of using districts to restrict building types. I know I'm not the only one. But just because it wasn't done immediately, doesn't mean we won't see more district implementation in the future.

I am extremely disappointed if what they're essentially saying is they're never going to allow us

Nope, we're not saying that

I predicted that we would get the usual CO "working as intended" reply lol there's a clear smell of BS in the air

There is no BS here. I told you exactly what our developers have said. There is a restriction based on our published minimum requirements that must be respected. You can't get a more straightforward and transparent answer than that.

You simply don't like the answer. I'm sorry you don't, but being rude definitely isn't going to change our answer.

 

[Evie HJ]

If a way could be found to allow us to switch pre-existing cities to European mode (even if that resulted in razing some buildings, with a warning "This will destroy some of your buildings"), that would already be a vast improvement.

Or even if it destroyed every building. I really don't fancy having to rebuild the street plans of Ottawa from the ground up to get the proper building set (which is definitely the Euro one)

(and no, Cimtographer, with its inability to handle road elevation and the like, just doesn't cut it)

 

[Rabiosa]

There are already strict limits to prevent exactly what you're saying, such as the object limit. An additional 50 models making the game too slow to play looks unlikely when there are already 300+. what are the effects, a slightly slower loading time?

 

[Evie HJ]

I don't think the object limits and the model limits interact with each other at all. I could be wrong, but I think they adress entirely different issues.

 

[BackwaterKing]

Here's an idea:

You could put the European style buildings or standard style buildings in a a checkbox choice to be selected when chosing a map at the start (Similar to the way you can select between left and right traffic).

Option A: When you check both boxes (European and Standard) you get a message that that is not officially supported by the game and you do so at your own risk. (The game then activates a ruleset which determines building by zoning)

Option B: If you are concerned by the possible legality of option A just put in the required code and let the modders create maps that offer the option to use the aforementioned "mixed ruleset". That's just giving tools to the mod community (similar to allowing for a 25 tiles mod) and you should be in the clear.

 

[Cymsdale]

There are no legal issues with having game options exceed minimal requirements, that's ridiculous. It's not unheard of for people on min req to need to lower settings and disable features in games.

 

[KeanoManu]

CO should add a button called "extended options" or something like that when we start a game. In there they can add a whole lot of extra options in the future. One such option should be to select which building sets that should be loaded on the new map.

At the moment it will just be "Generic/Standard", "Custom" and "European". In the future I hope modders will be able to create their own building sets and that maybe CO will create a few more.

It could also be made so that we can select/deselect additional building sets along the course of the game. So if we at the start don't think we'll use the European buildings but after a while starts to think that it would be nice to have a historical district then we can just add it to the save. I guess it would require a small load time though.

And if we selects the European buildings at the start and then after we're almost finished with the city we feel that we don't need it for this particular city then we can just go into the options and deselect them for a slightly faster gaming experience. Under the condition that there's no buildings from the set is active in the city of course.

 

[Greygor69]

Keeping in Mind Steam/Reddit and here only represent a small group of Users (if vocal).

I have to say there is a strong desire to allow W2W buildings to be invoked via districts regardless of Map Type.

I voiced this opinion immediately after the patch was announced as it was so obvious to me that this is what people would probably request.

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...p-type-and-not-as-a-policy-option-why.856789/

I'm not sure what @TotalyMoo meant by upvotes, Likes on messages requesting this? Number of threads created?

Can we have a voting option for Steam or Reddit or Here so that we can say what we'd like?


Personally I don't know the ins and outs of legal requirements, but I don't think there would be an issue in having the Vanilla Game with it set up as it is now and an in-game option that would allow users to select to use W2W buildings in districts at their own choice with warnings.

In the past I've played games where Video Quality is selectable between Low and Ultra settings. The Ultra requiring much higher specs than those recommended on the Steam page. As far as i know this wouldn't be any different.



If you are constantly going to be hamstrung by what you've specified on the Steam page how will you ever be able to advance this game.

 

[stilgarpl]

You already have graphical options that exceed minimal requirements. If I enable max anti-aliasing, anisotropic filerg, some insane resolution and all those cool shaders, will it still run on old hardware? I don't think so.
What makes European style different than those options?