Skylines is Looking Fantastic in Some Areas, Not Good in Others

[CalPolyFan]

So, I am just saying this as constructive criticism, not to take anything away from the brilliant game engine you guys are assembling, esspecially the traffic simulation which appears to be your forte.

I know you have a background in traffic sim, and it shows.

Things that impress me:

1. The flexibility of road layout, and beautification of roads with trees and boulevards.

2. The sharpness of the graphics, and the tilt-shift effect. I really think the tilt-shift effect is going to be huge. I love that effect, and making a city look more "toy like" is going to be completely amazing. I know some people will want to turn it off, but I have a feeling that except when I'm really trying to lay out a design and want clarity, it's great to watch a city "come alive" with that effect.

3. The water flowing and potential uses of that- Real waterfalls? I mean, there is huge potential for this, and is something a lot of city builder fans have wanted since Sim City 2000.

4. The cars appear to drive with a purpose and a destination, which is huge

5. The landscapes look pretty good, and the size of the maps is enormous (maybe I should have listed this higher)..

It is so important that the map sizes are large, as the recent total complete burning wreck failure Sim City showed us- map sizes that are too small are totally bogus for a city builder.

6. I love the blowing trees, that is so amazing, also, I look forward to seeing dark rainclouds and darkened skies, and a nice storms blowing in, if even if all it does is cosmetic, and doesn't cause flooding.

7. Sound track sounds good so far. Like the instrumentals.

8. This should probably also be close to #1 - The MODABILITY!! Whatever CO screws up (assuming they screw something up, and maybe they won't

If other modder's put their minds together they can fix most any issue, I just hope CO gets it right the first time, because nobody wants to end up downloading patches just to make a game playable, like Sim City 4 for example.

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Things that could be improved on:

1. 4X4 Lot sizes are as large as it gets? Are you serious?

2. "Plopping Skyscrapers".. ummm, what?

3. No tunnels? Sneriously?

4. No building scalability as far as I know

5. A lot of buildings appear to be almost the same height, maxing out at about 6 or 7 stories in a lot of screenshots, with hardly any lower density buildings around them.. that doesn't look realistic to me.

6. Realism and scale should be adhered to.

I'm afraid this game is getting a little too "Farmville" and not close enough to reality.

I don't even really think farms should be part of a city builder.. I could see them just kind of spawning on land around your city or something, but shouldn't really be managed by the mayor per se.

What I'm afraid of is the building scale is getting way too out of whack and airports are too small, farms are too small, power plants are too small.. it's just not looking realistic.

I personally would like to see a city simulation game at least realistically attempt to adhere to a realistic model of reality.

That means, ports that would be about the same size as real life, not small little things, airports that are the size of real life airports, power plants that aren't the size almost of another building near it (like CO showed in a recent preview video: Gameplay Infrastructure - Part 4

 

[CalPolyFan]

One more thing I have to say to CO is: PLEASE DO NOT RUSH THIS GAME!!!

This COULD be the next Sim City.. but that's a big COULD.. Take Cities XL for example- Totally promising game, but the game engine wasn't good. You appear to have fixed the game engine.

Anyway, the worst thing that could possibly happens is you rush to introduce this game to market. Please keep working on it and keep bouncing what you have off the fan base to correct it, and THEN sell it- if you do you guys will have a HIT beyond your greatest imagination.. if you rush this game into market as it is looking now it will be the next Sim City 2014 or Cities XL..

 

[medopu]

Yeah... plopping skyscrapers is wrong, unless we're talking about landmarks like in SC4 (Bank of america, Bank of china, ESB...)

other shortcommings can be fixed with mods or expansion packs or (tunnel) DLC's.

 

[NickSlip]

I agree: Paradox, you're shooting yourselves in the foot if you choose to keep the max lot size at 4x4. There's absolutely no reason why larger lot sizes couldn't work with the current zoning system that I see, save for a few modifications. In order to accurately represent the diverse sizes and shapes of larger office/retail buildings, you're going to need something bigger than a 4x4 square lot - maybe something like 6x4 and 8x4, to start. Also, please consider adding a medium density option. Being able to create districts to restrict the height of buildings is all well and good, but at the end of the day, eschewing a medium density option is needlessly robbing the player of control and deviating from a fairly set and successful precedent.

And as for the farms and airports, I also agree that something really needs to be done regarding their scaling. Yes, they don't have to be 100% congruent to their real life sizes, but they should certainly be a good measure bigger than what we've been shown. Modern, big-city airports that fit 747-size jets are not composed of one short runway and a puny-looking terminal building. Typical agriculture is not composed of "farms" that are the size of a downtown lot. I suppose that modders could take care of the airport issue, but the current farm system needs to be seriously overhauled in the base game if we want anything approximating realism. Sure, modders can fix things up, but it's completely silly (and quite irresponsible) to rely on modders to fix a blatant mistake when it could be remedied by the devs before release. If Cities XL and SimCity 4 can make farms and airports work well, there's no reason why Cities: Skylines can't.

Otherwise, this game looks like it's shaping up to be something pretty awesome. The district system in particular is a really unique and cool idea that I can definitely see playing a big role in the formation of cities.

 

[CalPolyFan]

I agree: Paradox, you're shooting yourselves in the foot if you choose to keep the max lot size at 4x4. There's absolutely no reason why larger lot sizes couldn't work with the current zoning system that I see, save for a few modifications. In order to accurately represent the diverse sizes and shapes of larger office/retail buildings, you're going to need something bigger than a 4x4 square lot - maybe something like 6x4 and 8x4, to start. Also, please consider adding a medium density option. Being able to create districts to restrict the height of buildings is all well and good, but at the end of the day, eschewing a medium density option is needlessly robbing the player of control and deviating from a fairly set and successful precedent.

And as for the farms and airports, I also agree that something really needs to be done regarding their scaling. Yes, they don't have to be 100% congruent to their real life sizes, but they should certainly be a good measure bigger than what we've been shown. Modern, big-city airports that fit 747-size jets are not composed of one short runway and a puny-looking terminal building. Typical agriculture is not composed of "farms" that are the size of a downtown lot. I suppose that modders could take care of the airport issue, but the current farm system needs to be seriously overhauled in the base game if we want anything approximating realism. Sure, modders can fix things up, but it's completely silly (and quite irresponsible) to rely on modders to fix a blatant mistake when it could be remedied by the devs before release. If Cities XL and SimCity 4 can make farms and airports work well, there's no reason why Cities: Skylines can't.

Otherwise, this game looks like it's shaping up to be something pretty awesome. The district system in particular is a really unique and cool idea that I can definitely see playing a big role in the formation of cities.

Totally agree with everything you've said.

 

[medopu]

Also, please consider adding a medium density option. Being able to create districts to restrict the height of buildings is all well and good, but at the end of the day, eschewing a medium density option is needlessly robbing the player of control and deviating from a fairly set and successful precedent.

If devs enhance this game with height-restriction ordinances of districts, then we wouldn't even need medium density zoning (and even high density zoning for that matter) in the first place.
If we have this tool, that allows us a controlled growth in districts that we design, adding medium density zoning would be a step backwards.

This technique, that is called "density-zoning" was first presented in early simcity games, because it was easy to implement and relatively easy to handle on the average computer back then compared to what Colossal orders Unity engine can offer TODAY .
A new game, such as Cities skylines should not try to copy that part of ancient game mechanics, and should be able to offer a district-orientated zoning that abides the hight restriction rules.
I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's MILES ahead of zoning: low, medium and high density.

Other points you made, I agree.

 

[Zed68]

Yup... maybe they missed an opportunity. No zoning blocks at all.

We could have drawn roads and "painted" zones of density, the way the districts seem to be working.

This would have supressed the problem we see now which is 4*4 max for growable.

 

[Zed68]

Things that could be improved on:

1. 4X4 Lot sizes are as large as it gets? Are you serious?

2. "Plopping Skyscrapers".. ummm, what?

3. No tunnels? Sneriously?

4. No building scalability as far as I know

5. A lot of buildings appear to be almost the same height, maxing out at about 6 or 7 stories in a lot of screenshots, with hardly any lower density buildings around them.. that doesn't look realistic to me.

6. Realism and scale should be adhered to.

7. No Night/day cycle (maybe in a dlc but very bad idea IMO)

 

[fefenc]

I believe that Cities: Skylines will be a good citybuilder, but if the game development keep being rushed to go to a unrealistical way like it's going right now, Cities Skylines will never take off the crown from Simcity 4 as the best city builder to play.

Seriously Paradox, you guys shouldn't expect that all the Simcity 4 modding community will suddenly swap to Cities: Skylines to mod it and fix all these flaws on the game like the babysized airport and the 4x4 growable thing, things don't works that way.

The game must have its own attractive first, so that the modders can see themselves attracted to modify C:S, and this attractive is called Realism. Realism on the simulation and the aesthetic realism, both are crucial to a game that wanna take off the crown from Simcity 4.

Embrace the realism, it's not that hard for you

 

[Ivir Baggins]

I believe that Cities: Skylines will be a good citybuilder, but if the game development keep being rushed to go to a unrealistical way like it's going right now, Cities Skylines will never take off the crown from Simcity 4 as the best city builder to play.

Seriously Paradox, you guys shouldn't expect that all the Simcity 4 modding community will suddenly swap to Cities: Skylines to mod it and fix all these flaws on the game like the babysized airport and the 4x4 growable thing, things don't works that way.

The game must have its own attractive first, so that the modders can see themselves attracted to modify C:S, and this attractive is called Realism. Realism on the simulation and the aesthetic realism, both are crucial to a game that wanna take off the crown from Simcity 4.

Embrace the realism, it's not that hard for you

Hats off to you sir, because that's what this game needs. It is all well and good to expect the modding community to add content, but expecting them to fix content smacks of laziness. Modding capabilities should not be treated as a way to avoid responsibility. It must be treated as a core component in addition to all other core components.

 

[Zed68]

Modding capabilities should not be treated as a way to avoid responsibility. It must be treated as a core component in addition to all other core components.

Allowing modding should simply be a way to make a game richer, not an opportunity to fix it.

 

[medopu]

I believe that Cities: Skylines will be a good citybuilder, but if the game development keep being rushed to go to a unrealistical way like it's going right now, Cities Skylines will never take off the crown from Simcity 4 as the best city builder to play.

Seriously Paradox, you guys shouldn't expect that all the Simcity 4 modding community will suddenly swap to Cities: Skylines to mod it and fix all these flaws on the game like the babysized airport and the 4x4 growable thing, things don't works that way.

The game must have its own attractive first, so that the modders can see themselves attracted to modify C:S, and this attractive is called Realism. Realism on the simulation and the aesthetic realism, both are crucial to a game that wanna take off the crown from Simcity 4.

Embrace the realism, it's not that hard for you

simcity 4, for the most part had a max. of 4×4 lot size (those few buildings of which only one comes to mind become repetative quick so it doesn't matter really), and airports were even smaller. The only thing better in simcity 4 were the farms, where you could build really big farms, not just 4×4

 

[Johnnysims]

simcity 4, for the most part had a max. of 4×4 lot size (those few buildings of which only one comes to mind become repetative quick so it doesn't matter really), and airports were even smaller. The only thing better in simcity 4 were the farms, where you could build really big farms, not just 4×4

I know they were 4x4 but their tiles were bigger. These squares are a bit smaller than simcity tiles.

 

[Zed68]

The original grow buildings were 4*4 max I believe... but I think the max growable size for custom buildings is 6*6

 

[WarOnCarbs]

If devs enhance this game with height-restriction ordinances of districts, then we wouldn't even need medium density zoning (and even high density zoning for that matter) in the first place.
If we have this tool, that allows us a controlled growth in districts that we design, adding medium density zoning would be a step backwards.

This technique, that is called "density-zoning" was first presented in early simcity games, because it was easy to implement and relatively easy to handle on the average computer back then compared to what Colossal orders Unity engine can offer TODAY .
A new game, such as Cities skylines should not try to copy that part of ancient game mechanics, and should be able to offer a district-orientated zoning that abides the hight restriction rules.
I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's MILES ahead of zoning: low, medium and high density.

Other points you made, I agree.

I agree, that the ability to height restrict is a big step forward. It's been needed for a long time and will be very useful. However, it's also one more thing to micro manage that wouldn't be necessary if we had a medium density zone. With SC, if I want to do a big single family neighborhood and then put some medium density apartment buildings adjacent to the main thoroughfare, it's simple to do. Low density neighborhood, medium density thoroughfare.

Now, I have the benefit of being able to limit that thoroughfare to three story walkups, which is good, but now I have to take that additional step for basically every medium density zone in the city if the service level is high otherwise I will have unbridled growth and sprawl. I can see it becoming tedious.

However, we're getting the latter, which I think will be fine even if it makes the learning curve steeper.

 

[medopu]

I agree, that the ability to height restrict is a big step forward. It's been needed for a long time and will be very useful. However, it's also one more thing to micro manage that wouldn't be necessary if we had a medium density zone. With SC, if I want to do a big single family neighborhood and then put some medium density apartment buildings adjacent to the main thoroughfare, it's simple to do. Low density neighborhood, medium density thoroughfare.

Now, I have the benefit of being able to limit that thoroughfare to three story walkups, which is good, but now I have to take that additional step for basically every medium density zone in the city if the service level is high otherwise I will have unbridled growth and sprawl. I can see it becoming tedious.

However, we're getting the latter, which I think will be fine even if it makes the learning curve steeper.

well now that i think about it, it is quite frustrating in the very rare/yet possible situations, where you would want to divide a district into different zones. That's impossible with the current game mechanics.

It has shortcommings, but I got so frustrated, that many people on these forums behave as if this low-medium-high density zoning mechanism is some sort of god-given gift to humanity, that no one could possibly improve.

 

[fefenc]

simcity 4, for the most part had a max. of 4×4 lot size (those few buildings of which only one comes to mind become repetative quick so it doesn't matter really), and airports were even smaller. The only thing better in simcity 4 were the farms, where you could build really big farms, not just 4×4

You're getting fooled with the tiles measures between both games. Even the municipal airport from simcity looks bigger and realistic than C:S airport, the same thing goes to the seaport and we could make a single farm that could occupy 90% of the city tile.

The smaller one without upgrades:

The medium one without upgrades:

The international airport without upgrades:

The majority of the spammed buildings on simcity 4 are 2x3 tiles (those damn mansions and white buildings), but we must look to these buildings real sizes from both games and we must compare them, because C:S is a "gridless" game. I mean, some 3x3 growable buildings of Cities: Skyline would fit in a 1x2 or even 1x1 tile of simcity 4. Saying in the way you've said is like telling Simcity 2013 map is as big as the biggest Simcity 4 city tile for being "4x4km" just because the biggest city tile of Simcity 4 is "4x4".

As far as I know, the "36x36km" city tile of Cities: Skyline would be equal to a 6x6 Simcity 4 city tile if such large tile would exist on Simcity 4.

Now, try to imagine some of these big industrial buildings growing in a C:S 4x4 measures without going BSOD:

Or larger farmlands like these I've done on Simcity 4:

Apart of the modded looking fields, we can do farm fields with the same size and shape without any mod on Simcity 4.

Let's remember that we're talking about a unmodded 2003 game that has been done almost perfect VS an up to date 2015 game, I won't even mention the modded airports, seaports, seawalls, railroads stations, 6x6/8x4 buildings via CAM to be fair with the unmodded Cities: Skylines.

 

[medopu]

Yeah, but even the municipal airport from simcity looks bigger and realistic than C:S airport, the same thing goes to the seaport and we could make a single farm that could occupy 90% of the city tile.

The majority of the spammed buildings on simcity 4 are 3x4 tiles, but we must look their "real size" and compare them, because C:S is a "gridless" game. I mean, some 3x3 industrial buildings of cities skyline would fit in a 1x2 or even 1x1 tile of simcity 4.

.

1.)I don't know... how can you take SC4 airports seriously? The municipal "airport" has 500 metres long runways, and this alone means they're in the trash, if you only want to build up-to-scale airports in Simcity4. Cities XL is an even bigger shitshow, i'm not going to go into details but lets just say those airports were comparable to that airport from Tropico 4 fun-game.

Even if Cities skylines has an even smaller airport, with a 200 metres long runway, it doesn't make SC4 airports suddenly realistic, just because a different game has an even smaller airport. If you want to build a realistic airport, you will have to wait for a mod to offer it to you, because devs have said more than once, that they're keeping their airports as they are. One of the very first screenshots on this website offers a look of an airport, you can look for discussion there and the CO strict answers regarding this issue.


2.)Having a so many different lot-size variations means absolutely nothing, if you don't have enough of buildings to actually accomodate them. Look at some industrial areas from City Skylines screenshots. See how many repetative buildings there are?

In SC4 it's easier to create different models and lots compared to real 3D games such as Cities XL and Cities skylines.

As far as I know, roughly 10 people work for Collosal Order, making this game, and I believe Mone Christo was a much bigger studio creating Cities XL, and just look at that game. 2!! different Lot sizes. Small and big. In Simcity 4 terms, they could be roughly translated to: 3×3 lots and 2×2 lots in terms of surface area. And just look at how repetative those buildings in Cities XL are. I played 500 hours of Cities XL, I have all the important mods, the biggest unlocker, and the platinum version of the game, and still it astounds me just how repetative buildings can become.
Lets face it. Collosal order is a small studio, and they just cant pump out an odd 2000 unique buildings to accomodate all the crazy lot dimensions. They can offer an option to create biggerlot sizes than 4×4 for the modders, but more than that, they just don't have enough resources. Just look at the screenshots they posted, look at the timeline (mid 2015) of the release and make an honest guess if making unique buildings for enormous lots is worth it and possible to strive towards.

Don't get me wrong, i'd love to see big lots, especially for industry, but as much as devs keep going on with their constant mantra that this game is "very early stage", you just have to face it, that it's too much work to finish this game in time.

regarding farms, here's my quote, so at least we agree on one thing:

The only thing better in simcity 4 were the farms, where you could build really big farms, not just 4×4

Farms can be salvage-able.... I THINK/hope... that devs come up with a solution using some sort of "decoration-tool" or some other variation of wonderful ideas that were pointed out regarding the sizes of farms.

 

[fefenc]

1.)I don't know... how can you take SC4 airports seriously? The municipal "airport" has 500 metres long runways, and this alone means they're in the trash, if you only want to build up-to-scale airports in Simcity4. Cities XL is an even bigger shitshow, i'm not going to go into details but lets just say those airports were comparable to that airport from Tropico 4 fun-game.

I agree with you in that point aswell, Simcity 4 airports are too small and they can't be taken seriously, but I'm considering that the game was released in 2003 with the "EA bear hug" to "infantilize" the game and with several hardware/software limitations that even cripple the SC4 performance after 11 years and modders can't fix it because the single core thing is hardcoded and EA does nothing to help the community. I'm using the small Simcity 4 airports to make a comparison with the the C:S (2015) airport that's lacking size and little details that they're expecting to the modders to fix it for them.

I'm comparing a 2003 game with a nowadays game with a lot of resources (almost no hardware/software limitations in comparison to 2003) that can break several development limitations, but the game is getting a lot of creative and technical limitations as the lacking of tunnels that was even present in Simcity 4 and the farms sizes being limited to 4x4 C:S lots, such limitations that're being imposed by the own devs (or paradox press?). It even looks like that the game is being rushed to meet a deadline. If the game would need to be delayed for a better result, then I would agree 100% with that decision.

I believe that the majority of the people who roam through C:S forums is/was a Simcity 4 player awaiting for its sucessor and what they want is a realistical city builder.

EDIT: I understand that the C:S team is ~9 persons and I don't like to blame the programmers for a company decision, but it isn't like this is a indie game. I think if this was a indie game, the devs would have more freedom to polish the game instead of cartoonising the game to desperately meet a deadline imposed by their bosses.

 

[medopu]

I agree with you in that point, Simcity 4 airports are too small and they can't be taken seriously, but I'm considering that the game was made in 2003 with the "EA bear hug" to "infantilize" the game and with several hardware/software limitations. I'm using the small Simcity 4 airports to make a comparison with the the C:S (2015) airport that's lacking size and little details they're expecting to the modders fix it to them. I'm comparing a 2003 game with a nowadays game with a lot of resources that can break several development limitations, but the game is getting a lot of creative limitation that're being imposed by the own devs (or paradox press?).

I believe that the majority of the people who roam through C:S forums is/was a Simcity 4 player awaiting to its sucessor and what they want is a realistical city builder.

As much as I WANT "realistic airports" out of the core game, I somehow understand CO mantra of "artistic freedom" when it comes to airport scales.
I will not give Simcity 4 any consolation for being a 2003 game when it comes to airport size. If Maxis honestly wanted to create realistic airports, they could've done it. It's a ploppable lot and has all the correct models such as hangars, terminals, taxiways etc..., they're just scaled-down.

Why?

Frankfurt airport for example, would not fit even in the largest city-tile in Simcity4, that's how big airports really are. So developers decided they wanted to scale down airports quite considerably because their decision was, that plopping them in-city was more fun and rewarding than having the largest city consisting of: 1 airport.

And they would probably give you the same answer as CO did to your question: why are airports so small?
Artistic freedom, that's it.

City skyline default region size is what? 6×6 km i believe. Have fun having a realistic sized airport on such a small region.