Most important things which every city needs, but isnt made in city builders.

[Fujito]

I was thinking alot about things which every city - no matter if its huge metropoly or small village with 50 houses - have, but im not sure if any city builder game made so far had any of those.

Thats what i found:

1) Natural gas - I have no idea why all the city builder devs are always ignoring natural gas. Since togheter with oil its 1 of the most important natural resources which we all using. That is what most of us is using in kitchen to cook a meal, in bathroom so you can have hot water, in cars etc. Natural gas is used basicly everywhere no matter if its metropoly like New York or small village in the middle of finland.

I would love to have that resource in C:S. And IMHO it wouldnt be that hard to impelemnt it in game. Natural gas in delivered to our houses by pipes. So Devs could use for it exacly the same system as for water and seweg, just in different UI tab with separate pipes. The only difference would be connecting it to gas plant instead of water treatment etc.

Adding that 1 resource could open alot of new possibilities. And make C:S even more immersive and deeper without makeing it harder. That 1 resource alone would give us new specialization in addition to ore and oil. Gas plants could deliver gas to industries or residential areas, or simply export it outside. Well gas can be preety dangerous so city would need (duno how its called in english) some kind of gas emergency service which could be preventing your houses from exploding.
And again it wouldnt be hard to add as well. Lets take police or fire department system and change models or buildings and cars + a little bit of calculations.

2) Post Offices - Every signle city have that. Even small villages in the middle of nowhere with 20 houses, have at least small post office somewhere around. Our main source of income in game comes from taxes/bills which our citizens are paying. But to pay a bill first u need to recieve it right? I would love to see that IMO very important city service in our game.

And again. It wouldnt be that hard to implement such as system in game. Basicly it could work a little bit as our garbage distribution system, just with different models. And a postman driving from house to house instead of garbage trucks.

3) Gas Staions - To be honest, i have no idea if we have those in game already. But we all know that they are everywhere. I would love to be able to build a long highway in the middle of desert, between one and another city, while keeping in mind that i need at least 1 gas station somewhere in the middle.

I know that it can be more complicated to make than it looks, but i would be happy even with plopable gas stations + cims driving in and out + deliver trucks arriving from oil or gas plant from time to time.

4) Taxi Ranks - Same as above. I have no idea if we have those but i know for sure that its 1 of the most important things especialy i huge cities or in turism focused cities. Its clearly that turists which wont use their own cars to arrive to our citie, will come using one of the city public transport options. But what people do once they leave stain station or air terminal ? They usually look for a taxi.

Ploppable Taxi's Ranks should be 1 of the city transportation option. And since we all know that each citizen in C:S is simulated, they know where they want to go before they leave their houses etc Implamanting some kind of Taxi system shouldnt be very hard, at least IMO ofc.

Those are just some of my ideas on how to make C:S even better. Gonna post some more ideas later on. So guys, let me know what you think about those.
I'm super hyped about C:S. This and Witcher 3 are mine game of the year candidates XD​

 

[Fujito]

Sorry for my bad english btw XD Hopefully some can understand it.

 

[philby85]

Some nice ideas there for post launch. Your english is just fine. Good post.

 

[flyer2359x]

I like those ideas. I'm sure somebody will come up with them eventually but it's probably too late to add them now.

 

[magitsu]

Apart from 1 these are basically things that are not built or managed by public officials in real life. So in the game these would only provide graphical variety. Mayor certainly wouldn't place gas stations, organize taxis or operate postal services. These are all private jobs. Even number 1 is quite redundant. It really doesn't provide anything else than being visually different looking building. Functionally it's only doing providing energy twice. No new functionality.

Taxis would be the only thing that could potentially include a new mechanism. But the easy way out is to just recolour the normal car and make a sim walk to the curb instead of their own garage. That would look like taking a taxi.
Taxi rank could be fabricated from that Steam Workshop asset that looks like a small parking lot. Just by placing few of these recoloured cars.

 

[cRAGGLE]

Want. Just so I can rename all of my postmen to Postman Pat.

 

[Lord_P]

Apart from one of these, you are right.

SimCity 4 had natural gas plants.

 

[ChaplainDMK]

Apart from 1 these are basically things that are not built or managed by public officials in real life. So in the game these would only provide graphical variety. Mayor certainly wouldn't place gas stations, organize taxis or operate postal services. These are all private jobs. Even number 1 is quite redundant. It really doesn't provide anything else than being visually different looking building. Functionally it's only doing providing energy twice. No new functionality.

Taxis would be the only thing that could potentially include a new mechanism. But the easy way out is to just recolour the normal car and make a sim walk to the curb instead of their own garage. That would look like taking a taxi.
Taxi rank could be fabricated from that Steam Workshop asset that looks like a small parking lot. Just by placing few of these recoloured cars.

Actually in many European countries the postal service is nationalized, as are national gas pipes. Id add one more proposal: district heating stations are quite popular in parts of Europe. You have a central heating station (coal, gas, even nuclear was built in the SU) that sends out hot water or steam to buildings, so they dont need to have their own heating. You could make this system decrease city-wide pollution (one central station works better than thousands of tiny ones all over the city) and make cims happier for a pretty significant investment and revenue drain.

 

[Kane Hart]

Post office is a Gov thing here in Canada..

Anyways I love some these ideas. Not bad ideas for the future in updates and DLC's.

 

[Hinforta]

Sorry for my bad english btw XD Hopefully some can understand it.

You did good, son. You did good. I'm proud of you.

 

[Engioc]

Those are some good ideas, the only game I know of that comes close is A-Train 9 3.0 which has a lot of those things you listed, but then again its not a true city builder, most of its buildings are really just eye candy and generate passengers for your rail and subs.

 

[GrauPanther]

Natural gas would be interesting in more ways... In the northern Netherlands, Groningen in particular, earthquakes are occurring because of natural gas extraction. It causes damage to buildings endangering inhabitants and decreasing value. It has become a major political issue as well.

 

[AaronArx]

these are actually great ideas i hope they'll add them in a DLC or expansion pack.

 

[Eurofighter1200]

Nice idea but for me is a Gasplant a place where they burning the gas to make electricity. You mean a gasdeopot or tank where the gas frome the gaspump is stored. But i totaly agree that this could be a awsome expansion gas fields, tanks and a Gasplant to produce cleaner energy then by coal. Also for the residentals to heat the houses or Water.

 

[CaptRobau]

Apart from 1 these are basically things that are not built or managed by public officials in real life. So in the game these would only provide graphical variety. Mayor certainly wouldn't place gas stations, organize taxis or operate postal services. These are all private jobs. Even number 1 is quite redundant. It really doesn't provide anything else than being visually different looking building. Functionally it's only doing providing energy twice. No new functionality.

Taxis would be the only thing that could potentially include a new mechanism. But the easy way out is to just recolour the normal car and make a sim walk to the curb instead of their own garage. That would look like taking a taxi.
Taxi rank could be fabricated from that Steam Workshop asset that looks like a small parking lot. Just by placing few of these recoloured cars.

City planners definitely organize taxis. Most noticeable through assigning certain areas as taxi stands/ranks. Often near bus terminals, airport terminals and railway stations.

 

[TheRomanRuler]

If they add winter, then snow plow vehicles. In-direct quote from Top Gear, that maybe slightly inaccurate, but in one year 20 000 flights in UK are cancelled becouse of bad weather. In Norway, same figure is 2.
Weather effects are just as important in game like this as they are in strategy games.

 

[nobrainer]

I guess the natural gas idea could be modded, once the developers add in the possibility to create new policies and create new natural resources in the map editor.

One could easily have a "Natural Gas Specialization" for industry, and if a gas power plant was built the industry could send trucks not only to commercial buildings but to the plant itself. And when the player switched to the natural resources info map the gas resource could show up just like oil, ore, etc. do.

 

[Greygor69]

If they add winter, then snow plow vehicles. In-direct quote from Top Gear, that maybe slightly inaccurate, but in one year 20 000 flights in UK are cancelled becouse of bad weather. In Norway, same figure is 2.
Weather effects are just as important in game like this as they are in strategy games.

Possible the game speed (1 day in 10 secs) means weather effects are negligible in the model they use. Of course extended artic conditions would be different.

 

[Tooms]

As said many things aren't organized by mayors of cities. But so does some of the existing buildings also.

Maybe they can implement an permits system. Where you get requests from companies to build/deliver a service in/to your city. With off course different pros/cons.
For a taxi service you can give a permit to a certain taxi company (or more) but they have to deliver at least a certain quality or they get fined or you can retract their permit and give it to another one.

 

[Yar987]

Apart from one of these, you are right.

SimCity 4 had natural gas plants.

As does Tropico.