UNOFFICIAL statement on the map size from Colossal

[Sinbuster]

Didn't mean to lose my cool, I'm just tired of these endless threads about why [insert game] isn't optimized for my i12 quantum computer. Pc gaming shouldn't be restricted to elite first-worlders, especially when the game has the ability to inspire people. Sorry, I'll get off my socialist soapbox now.

 

[Inge Jones]

I don't get the love for CXL, XXL, XXXL, or XXXXL... All incarnations of that "game" have been dire - I feel dirty whenever I fire it up just to see if I have changed my mind.

It's not much of a game, but a "city builder" doesn't have to be a "city builder *game*". I like the amount of control I have over what goes where, and that it looks really good (until one of their zombie freaks lumbers into view)

 

[Hannodb]

This is pure speculation but increasing the map size could lead to severe performance and memory issues causing the framerate to drop, simulation becoming so slow it's unplayable, running out of memory and crash to desktop. Also you might hit some hard coded caps like the amount of citizens and other assets that could cause severe graphical issues as well as issues in the pathfinding. There might be something else too and it's also depended on the system running the game.

We focus on making everything work in the 9 map tiles available

CitiesXL anyone?

 

[Domidragon]

Perfect solution. Thank you!!

 

[EvilTom]

I would quite happily have it so that the tiles are not contiguous. That is that they don't all touch each other. So perhaps 2 cities smaller cities on other sides of the map.

 

[PocketCity]

with the multiple issues this may cause.

Don't want to read six pages, did they list these issues somewhere? I don't want to ruin my city somehow after unlock.

 

[Voxxel]

Great! Thanks to you that we can test the map size on our own. If we or our computers fail, its ok. Great news!

 

[McWrisk]

CO I would be curious to find out what the system specs are running in your office?

Mine is:

Intel i7 4790 3.5GHz (4.0GHz Boost)
Nvidia GTX980 4GB Graphics Card
16GB Ram

 

[Brazilian Joe]

CO can you answer this one then:

Suppose I want to have a stabler usage of 25 tiles. I may want to have a sprawling city, but not to have the map covered with buildings. Can you give us a new map view of "resource usage" specifically to know how close we are to the engine's limits?

For example:

The engine has a limitation of 1M agents, how close we are to that? A current vs. max. agents bar would be handy.
The pathfinding code might have an upper efficiency limit, e.g. 65.536 road segments. Maybe it even works above it, but performance will degrade. You could have a count of the current number of road segments compared to the max. number so that the limit-pushers can control their impulses of creating lots of mini-city-blocks.

These (and more which didn't come to my mind right now) could help/guide us on using the extra terrain without pushing too hard.