Rewarding the use of bending roads

[SPAMbuca]

It might be a really strange idea, but at the moment, if you want to play efficiently (and the game sort of forces you to at the start of the game), you're more or less forced to start with building grids to get things going. As far as I know, grids are the most efficient way to build, transport wise, building wise, money wise and space wise. Would it perhaps be an idea to find ways to reward people that do not stick to grid building to encourage people to become a bit more creative? Maybe add some modifiers for traffic, land value etc. Maybe have areas that are on bending roads spawn different buildings that are more efficient in a way.

 

[RaTeFS]

Yes, I like that idea!
At the moment it's only possible when limiting yourself with using only maps with much height differences.

My playing style is to not plan ahead too much. No Mayor of Chicago in 1850 would (and could) have planned the path of a highway a mile west of Lake Michigan. I like to build by just developing what already is there (evolutionary).

So, why are roads bended in reality? Besides of artificial reasons (in an area without limits) I think the main reason is the existence of geographical features; avoiding little lakes, little streams, or to cling to edges of patches of forest (all examples expressed in-game by different textured areas), or even using pre-existing old pathways. Maybe it would help having maps with such features? Is it technically possible?
And when it's possible, one way for rewarding building bending roads is via the money (higher cost and maintenance for all those little bridges needed, lower cost for using existing paths or following edges of areas of same texture). Another way is rewarding bended roads with a higher land value. But for all this having a real impact, the budget balance must be tighter...

Just my ideas...

 

[Drachenfels]

Well I will start from saying, for traffic actually not grid but roundabouts are doing great. This is reason why in England (but in Brasil) all the cities have roundabout everywhere. It just allow to move traffic as stream not as signalled death crossroads (literally and figuratively speaking). That being said, indeed some area is of value because it's secluded and yet close, some area is less of value because it's flat but has huge problems with soil (swampy terrain or underground river). It would be lovely when games started to look not only what is on top of the ground but what is below. As my geography teacher used to say. You people think world is low land, flat land and highland. While you can have high flat land or lowland mountains. Please Paradox, make it alive!

 

[Promethian]

CSL isn't a meta-power-twink game. The reward for not using grids is designing a city that you find more pleasing to look at.

 

[Tomnoddy]

Actually I do think this game rewards curving roads to an extent, at least more than SimCity did.

Cars slow down for sharp corners, so using the curved road tool (especially on highways) keeps traffic flowing at the speed limit.

Going with square grids means lots of intersections, which are awful for traffic flow, as well as right angle corners.

Finally grids may allow highest density but space is not as limited as other games in the genre (*cough* Simcity *cough*) and when you inevitably make changes to one street it inevitably forces you to bulldoze it's neighbours if you left absolutely no gaps. Also, those little gaps between buildings you get from curves are ideal for pavements and cycle paths, which allows pedestrians to shortcut one-way systems.

 

[Spec. Tater]

Curves and angles can also help with traffic by having more distinct possible route lengths to a destination.

In a grid, a non-orthogonal NE path has multiple identical solutions for route time depending on which combination of North and East is chosen. But instead of spreading out among all possible paths, the AI will tend to send all the traffic on only one. The clumping of routes into discrete bundles because of similar route times means that all traffic will end up funneled onto a few major roads based on the same slight variations in speed limits.

Using curves and angles results in ac substantially more uniform distribution of potential path lengths and times, reducing congestion.

That's why grid designs tend to lead to ugly cities with some permanently congested major arteries. Each attempt to increase capacity results in an increase in speed (larger roads have higher speed limits on the default game), which draws more traffic onto the road from the parallel but slightly slower adjacent streets.

 

[MotownCountry]

the game forces grids because each building always is in a square.

if you build a curvy road, then it just looks off when a square lot builds against it and you have a lot of 'dead space' or 1 by 1 lots

i really wish it was more free form. i mean, if they can program/code curvy roads, why not curved lots?

 

[Mücahit Şenol]

Well for example if trees have some effect in game (increase land value, decrease pollution, make cims happy etc) we can put trees in the empty areas caused by curved roads.

 

[Alex24]

In the end this all leads to a major problem of the game as it currently is (and probably will always be): it's way too easy and simplistic

Bending roads shouldn't be rewarded - they should be necessary. So why is this not the case in CSL? Here are some factors:

• Roads are too cheap to build: You quickly hit a certain city size which allows you to have enough income to put down every road you want. Heck, you could just use bridges and tunnels everywhere and it wouldn't hurt you too much.
• Physical limitations are not strict enough: The game allows road being too steep. Adding to that there are no real extra costs for infastructure in difficult terrain. Ever seen how highways are built in hilly terrain? Sometimes they are on a plataeu, sometimes they seem like the cut through parts of a hill. This allows a minimal slope, natural noise protection and it costs less than tunnels or bridges (which are also expensive to maintain). But this also reminds me of another factor...
• Maps and their topography are too easy: I am especially talking about the vanilla maps here - some rivers, some weird lakes and maybe one or two seemingly perfect hills here and there. But apart from that it's mostly flat.
• No environmental factors are taken into account / non existing: A major road through the woods isolating one animal habitat from the other? no problem, because in CSL nobody cares about that. But in real life that has become one of the major concerns when it comes to new infrastructure projects. There are also some more basic environmental factors like the soil and water drainage.
• No pre-existing owners and buildings: In CSL you start on land which is essentially owned by the city. So nobody is telling you where you can build and where not. IRL figuring out a way which conforms ownership and multiple interests is a very complex process. Well for regionally important projects the (regional) government usually got the possibility to enforce their demands and compensate the owner for the lost land. This is different from country to country and is usually not that popular to the people, as you can imagine. Apart from the ownership pre-existing buildings usually enforce curvy roads. First of all you want to connect as much as possible with one road. Also you cannot just cut trough a settlement just because you want your road to be straight (Unless you are Haussmann).

That doesn't mean that there should be no orthogonal road infrastructure. There are a lot of good reasons why it's so common (especially when cities were expanding rapidly during industrialization).
Though there is a good point about rewarding bended roads in "Image of the City" by Kevin Lynch: A bended road creates more exposed places which are more attractive and often used for representative buildings (like post office or department stores).