Victorian Terraces - a test revealing CO's inability to produce 'styles' DLC

[ds01]

Hi all. I'm a bit worried that CO have shot themselves in the foot financially with regards to architectural styles DLC.

When the game was released I was hoping it would be possible to do this, using policies that change the style of a district. Surely this was part of CO's financial model? Indeed, making buildings such as low wealth Victorian terraces is easy enough:

However, big problems:

- The game obviously can't filter buildings in any way - clearly architectural style DLC is a no go then, Paradox won't be happy with CO on that! (I know this has been highlighted before). Not sure it will be possible for CO to add this now.
- It's not possible to create a consistent building line as the asset editor won't let you choose where the building sits on the plot. I've used a workaround using a small plane at the other end of the plot and reversing it (you don't see backfaces in game). This is... silly! Again, DLC not possible in this instance without major changes.
- Again RE the building line - the game selects the wrong plot size and places it at the back of the plot. Fine if you want all front gardens - but gardens in most countries are at the back, not the front! Oops...

Any suggestions as to how I can fix the above? Would be great if modders could look into this visual stuff. I get the feeling it's not possible though, even for CO... real shame

 

[ds01]

BTW, this is the building:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4...ata=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1srOX3a9cEU6bu3QJLTmY38A!2e0

But it could be anywhere in London - typical smallest size of 1860s house - the 'railway terrace'

 

[Method0ne]

Copying this from the old forums since you posted this there initially.

It's down to how you are allocating the plot, if you want a terraced street, you DONT select the entire 4 square deep lot, thats why you're getting all kinds of stuff. I have actually made a detailed guide about this very subject on Steam, go have a read, it should help >> http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile.../?id=411155282

As the poster above said, zoning them that far back is the problem.

Terraced housing such as this is commonplace in areas where cheap housing for industry workers was needed, and as such they crammed them in to as tight an area as possible, the whole point of them was to not waste land space with gardens, you just enter/exit directly onto the sidewalk/pavement outside the front door. Like your model, most just had a small concrete yard at the rear which was fenced/walled in with access to an alley which ran the length of the terrace for garbage services since there was no streetside space for it.

As an aside, your model isn't perfect, the roof is inverted over each building, should be /\/\ not \/\/ if you're running the roof from front to back like that, though more commonly on terraced housing you'll note that the roof runs the whole length of the terrace horizontally, making it look like one long building (or several long buildings if the ground wasn't flat on the build site).

Addendum;

If you want gardens at the rear of a terraced property such as this you'll have to add them to the plot you design, so your 1x1 house would become a 1x2 house with rear garden.

This to me seems intended behaviour, if you zone a 1x4 area the game intentionally moves a smaller asset such as 1x1/1x2 to the furthest point from the road as it's far more common to see houses set back from a street than it is to see a streetside house with a massive rear garden.

 

[ds01]

Thanks for your suggestions, forgive me for the architectural corrections here! Hopefully taken in the sprit of friendly conversation ...

RE the roof, if you look at the building this is modelled on from above (see the google link), you'll find it does indeed have a centre valley. As an architect who works on historic buildings from this era I'm fully aware of such things Centre valleys were standard on this type of building.

Also long back gardens are quite typical especially in the south east. The building modelled has one. There are no alleys of the type you mention in London really. I think you are sterotyping all terraces as Northern somewhat

Also it IS more common for buildings from that era to sit on or close to the street - also, try getting a building that sits back and breaks the building line through the British or French, or even Finnish, planning systems today - good luck!

The issues with building selection / filtering and back of plot placing still stand - CSL will select a one plot building and place it 3 plots back, it happens with dev buildings. Very odd!

 

[ds01]

Also can you explain how you can force the asset editor to NOT make plots always 4 deep and place the building at the back - could be my settings in Max - suggestions appreciated - frustrated!

Re the garden length, search google for Thoday Street, Cambridge. You'll see the garden length typical of this period in South East England, and also how the front doors open directly onto the street. An essential part of the character of 19th century housing here.

 

[CultivarDesigns]

Paradox won't be happy with CO on that! (I know this has been highlighted before)

So I guess gated communities that all have similar house types is out then?

 

[ds01]

The suggestion on zoning one square at a time to force terraces is a good idea. Will try. Not what I was hoping to achieve though - I made 8 different plot sizes using the same model and attach in max, which preserves uvs.

 

[Method0ne]

Thanks for your suggestions, forgive me for the architectural corrections here! Hopefully taken in the sprit of friendly conversation ...

RE the roof, if you look at the building this is modelled on from above (see the google link), you'll find it does indeed have a centre valley. As an architect who works on historic buildings from this era I'm fully aware of such things Centre valleys were standard on this type of building.

Also long back gardens are quite typical especially in the south east. The building modelled has one. There are no alleys of the type you mention in London really. I think you are sterotyping all terraces as Northern somewhat

Also it IS more common for buildings from that era to sit on or close to the street - also, try getting a building that sits back and breaks the building line through the British or French, or even Finnish, planning systems today - good luck!

The issues with building selection / filtering and back of plot placing still stand - CSL will select a one plot building and place it 3 plots back, it happens with dev buildings. Very odd!

Well you have me on the architecture there, until now I've never seen a roof made like that, interesting.

Terracing being streetside is of course very common, but outside of terraced housing areas it's rare in my personal experience that you see a home built at the streetside with a massive rear garden, especially nowadays with the prevalence of semi-/detached buildings. I believe this is why the devs made the game act the way it does when it sets a house away from the street, all of their in-game assets are detached properties.

The only solutions really are to either make your model come with a garden in whatever rendering program you're using, make your assets align streetside and give them a garden in the editor, or just zone them streetside in the game and pretend the open greenspace between rows is a communal garden area.

I do have to admit though, given the original model I saw on the old forums which had the walled in rear area on the property, I did assume the building was of a more northern terrace design, which is why I mentioned how northern terraces were laid out.

 

[Azurespecter]

I think you're wrong to assume that CO is unable to make building styles or types, and implement them into the game either through districts or other means. Really, it comes down to the game not needing them at launch, since building variety was rather limited. The game is quite flexible, and open for upgrades and improvements.

 

[ds01]

Yep the centre valley is designed to keep costs down whilst maintaining a flat parapet at the front.

The wall I made previously was more of a technical solution to the problems above. Part of it is still there - just that it is a backface facing up so it's invisible! I hope to use props to do walls / fences / hedges, no suitable ones there at the mo but can make.

Until the asset editor is tweaked and we can filter types of building, I can do the above but the game will still defeat me through 'small plot selection' and mixing up all buildings. I'd hoped to create a few sets of buildings and have found a very efficient way of using a single building to make multiple plot sizes, but will wait now and see what developments there are over time. Live in hope!

 

[ds01]

Hmmn there don't seem to be any tags that allow the filtering currently beyond resi, com, ore, oil etc... Have delved quite deep using modtools... Surely this is a major change for CO, to add tags to each and every asset? Anyway that's the purpose of this thread - to highlight that what we are assuming only affects modders and mod users could be a big block to the buisness model. With that in mind hopefully it'll get looked at.

 

[Letar]

However, big problems:

- The game obviously can't filter buildings in any way - clearly architectural style DLC is a no go then, Paradox won't be happy with CO on that! (I know this has been highlighted before). Not sure it will be possible for CO to add this now.
- It's not possible to create a consistent building line as the asset editor won't let you choose where the building sits on the plot. I've used a workaround using a small plane at the other end of the plot and reversing it (you don't see backfaces in game). This is... silly! Again, DLC not possible in this instance without major changes.
- Again RE the building line - the game selects the wrong plot size and places it at the back of the plot. Fine if you want all front gardens - but gardens in most countries are at the back, not the front! Oops...

Any suggestions as to how I can fix the above? Would be great if modders could look into this visual stuff. I get the feeling it's not possible though, even for CO... real shame

Now I don't really see why CO couldn't do any of this if they want to? If the game doesn't currently support something, for modders or otherwise, it shouldn't tell you anything about what could be done in the future. I'm certain CO will do something in the future that is not currently possible for the modders to do.

 

[ds01]

Hopefully. Personally I reckon whether or not this is implemented will determine CO's future as, despite sales, they won't make enough money without DLC, that's the nature of the industry.

This is a great game, and for me personally it is more engaging than SC4, CO have done well to be the first to achieve that. Like all of us I still have high hopes. Hopefully someone at Paradox will now ask CO in private about these key road blocks to the 'long term' future Mariina has claimed

 

[Letar]

Well, I hope CO is developing some other games as well in the future to boost their income

Honestly, I don't see any of the "road blocks" you mention. There hasn't been a single DLC announced yet, so we are just guessing what the future will look like, but as we have seen the devs are hard working on patches and stuff so I wouldn't be very worried about the future just now.

 

[Brazilian Joe]

They coded the whole game, OP's topic is inflammatory. More features can be added at any time.

The game currently has Services and Subservices.

Residential is a Service. Low and high density are Subservices.

Building spawn logic uses this to select what to spawn.

A cosmetic, visual style could be implemented as a sub-subservice (whatever you choose to call it). It's not baked in game yet, but much of the foundation upon which to build is there.

The game is in its infancy and future update will increment its functionality.

 

[ds01]

Glad to hear that it's generally felt possible.
Will have to wait and see I guess. Not meant to be inflammatory towards the modding community or individuals, hopefully didn't come across as such, I'm on your side here. If it makes CO and Paradox a bit annoyed /jump, that's different We are allowed to report problems and this one is complex enough to need a draw in, can't be explained as a one liner

 

[Chyll]

The game is in its infancy and future update will increment its functionality.

Exactly. Too early to cry impossible, when new lines of code and capability can be added in the future.

 

[slornie]

I think you're wrong to assume that CO is unable to make building styles or types, and implement them into the game either through districts or other means. Really, it comes down to the game not needing them at launch, since building variety was rather limited. The game is quite flexible, and open for upgrades and improvements.

Although it wasn't needed for launch so far it seems as though it might have been a missed opportunity for CO. Sure, the base game probably didn't have enough asset variety to utilise such functionality itself, but if the tag (or whatever) for style/theme had been there from the start then every asset now in the Steam Workshop might be tagged already. If the functionality is built in now everyone (and not just CO) will have to go back and update/re-publish their assets if they want them to belong to a theme.

 

[LisaLionheart]

From looking through the code I feel pretty safe saying it wouldn't be hard to implement. At some point you have code that chooses which building to spawn from all the prefabs loaded. All you need to do is limit it based on a district policy or whatever.

Really the hardest bit would be creating the tools to curate all the content that is being created on the workshop.

I would be amazed if this wasn't very close to the top of the new features list. Its something that potential be added as a mod, but why bother when its a no brainer this will get added to the base game pretty soon.