The Cities Unlimited Archives: Improving Regional Integration

Another archive from the Cities Unlimited boards, this time on the subject of region play. Posted with the permission of their orginal author, tr0ub1e, these are articles archived from the Cities Unlimited website (along with the first page of their respective comment threads) before the boards were closed down. A huge thanks to Metropolis member Ephemeron for his foresight in hanging on to these, and his hard work cleaning up the formatting! The usual Drawing Board disclaimer applies. Note: dark red text indicates links to other pages on the boards that are no longer active.

Improving Regional Integration

a Conceptual article by tr0ub1es0me

#11596 tr0ub1e

(author & contributors: djvandrake, KeanoManu, Patience, sbroadbent, soltan gris, tr0ub1es0me)

Links to relevant CitiesXL.com discussion threads:

• SC4 Type Region Play Does Not Work
• Neighbour/Other City Interactions
• Regions & Time

One thing that bothers me in SimCity 4 is that if you build (for example) a hospital at the edge of a municipality, then it won't cover into the neighbouring area. Another problem is that universities, airports and similar facilities which have a regional or nationwide effect in the real-world only have a much more local effect in SimCity 4. This needs to be changed so that their real-world effect radius is represented accurately in the game, with the scale of their impact on any given area being proportionate to the time it takes to commute from the area to the facility.

In CITIES XL it really is going to have to be necessary to give much greater thought to the dynamics of a region, and how cities (and the municipalities within your cities) interact with each other. Large infrastructure items that exist in one city should be able to benefit all the cities around it. For example, why should it be necessary to have an International airport in every city to alleviate the demand caps? That's silly. If there is a large airport or seaport within a realistic and relevant (to the type of facility) commute, then the demand cap should be lifted in all cities within a specified commuting time from the airport or seaport, across municipality and city boundaries. I'm really tired of having to put airports so close to the skyscrapers of my central business districts.

Parents should also be allowed to send children from one local area to another for their education. After all, many kids have long rides to school, especially when they reach the high school level. The same principle should be applied to hospital care. As with everything, their effect radius should be much larger than SimCity 4’s, spanning multiple municipalities or even an entire region (depending on the type of facility) - but also tied to the commuting time from any given area to that facility. Cities should be able to cooperate and share the cost of larger projects too (such as an airport, seaport, and highway system) for which the benefit should be spread to all. Take a look at the Regional Budget setion below for more info on this aspect.

There is a flip side to this as well. It's not at all realistic that negatives like pollution don't spill over municipality boundaries. They do. These negative desirability factors should also have a distance that they affect and it should cross the boundaries of the local government’s municipality, the boundaries of the city, and the region too.

This is definitely the way to go for CITIES XL. Having these artificial city boundaries that pollution, desirability, and demand caps do not transcend is silly.

Additionally, in "Mayor Mode" view (or regional, or national views for that matter), we should be able to pan our view across the boundaries of the area in which we are working on. This would enable us to see into the surrounding areas; and if not across the entire region (or nation), then at least a fair distance into the directly neighbouring municipalities (or regions). More on this idea of active and inactive "scope" (to save on PC resources while playing) is described in the Concepts article Planetary Idea.

You should also have multiple cities or different municipalities within a city competing for facilities, such as a university campus. The demand cap effects would be applied region-wide, but it would be your job to decide which city or local municipality will be allowed to build a specific item. Then, once you have zoomed down to the city/municipality level, the facility you decided to build there would appear in the options for city improvements.

Which brings us directly onto the next aspect...

Regional Rewards

In CITIES XL, some rewards should be regional - available to place in whichever local area you wish, within your region, and not available to place in every city or municipality. In SimCity 4 the requirements for a Space Port, for example, are suitable enough - the problem is that it is highly unlikely that such a thing would be built in the same city which has reached those requirements (I think it is a certain population of High Tech industry). It is much more likely to be placed in a remote location with a flat landscape and not developments because of the safety factors. I think that instead of how this works in SimCity 4, the requirement for a Space Port could be a regional population of High Tech industry rather than an individual city; and when you receive the reward it becomes available to place in any city within the region (but of course, only within one city in the region). You can then place it in a much more likely and realistic isolated location, not in a developed city.

There are many other rewards which should also be "regional" and so would be available to place in any city of your choice, such as theme parks, motor racing circuits, and so on. You would possibly be able to obtain more than one of these rewards region-wide, but they would not be regarded as only a municipality-wide reward available to place in each and every single different municipality in your cities and regions.

It would be ridiculous to have a university in every city or even in every municipality within each city! Now, what we could have in addition to the main university is campuses, or faculties. In Europe we have campuses of the same university within different cities, and each one of them is dedicated to a particular branch of science. For example you have the Faculty of Medicine, of Music, of Mathematics, etc. Perhaps once you build the central university campus, you could build smaller branches in other cities as the university attendance grows and education continues to improve in your city and region.

The "Greater Infrastructure" & Utility Deals

Although power, water or garbage must pass through neighbouring cities creating long chains to distant cities, I don't think it makes much sense to sell the power, water or garbage to the neighbour, who sells it to their neighbour, and their neighbour sells it to the next neighbour, and so on. The actual deals should be made directly, not chain-linked. Trade deals and transporting goods/freight should be direct too. Roads, water mains, and power lines are part of a greater infrastructure owned and sometimes maintained by the government, and an individual city does not have the rights to charge for neighbouring commuters, power, water, or dump trucks crossing the borders and using the infrastructure within that city (except in the case of tolled roads).

So as long as two cities have a complete network connection to each other through the region either by means of road, power lines, or water pipes, then they should be able to deal direct with ANY city connected to that same infrastructure - rather than creating a chain of deals linking through each local municipality. The "chain-link" is how long distance deals were created in SimCity 4 and it was extremely unrealistic and time-consuming as you would have to load each city, make the deal, save, and exit countless times through many different cities. It also presented a problem because if you accidentally broke one link in the chain when a deal got cancelled for whatever reason, it destroys the entire chain meaning you must start from scratch.

In the real world, those transportation and infrastructure networks would be managed usually by the state/province, therefore the cities between wouldn't generally be involved, unless they are responsible for just maintaining their part of the network.

This "greater infrastructure" not only simplifies making utility deals (as almost everyone wants), but also creates more realism in the game. This way, as long as there are the necessary connections, and spare capacity in the main facility, the individual cities will all be able to benefit directly!

External Sources

Post any other comments, suggestions, additions, or adjustments here too.

#11601 goodguy

Very good idea. I hope the Cities Unlimited fokes will take this as a serious part of their game.

#11632 ckwong

Hi tr0ub1e,

Well written and nicely summarised. I, and I believe the majority of posters her, share your views. Some related threads below for your info:

Neighbour/Other City Interactions

Regions and time

#11762 Matt

5. Very Important

I very much agree with the summary. The only clarification I would make is in regard to "mayor mode". I'm not quite sure what that means in regard to the original post.

For my 2 cents worth, I don't like the way SC4 rigidly separated city from city and city from region. To that end, unless there's some kind of operational or programming reason why it can't be done, I am very much looking forward to a single game view which you could navigate like GoogleEarth.

I'd like to see the game dynamically and intelligently switch from city to city as I scroll across my gaming screen. I'd like to see the sorts of cross-border effects mentioned in the original post. And I'd like to see a seemless integration of city to city and city to region; the latter being nothing more than zoomed out view of your CU world.

Thanks! :)

#11854 aibo

Congratulations, excellent approach.

5.very important

#11880 tr0ub1e

Matt wrote:

I very much agree with the summary. The only clarification I would make is in regard to "mayor mode". I'm not quite sure what that means in regard to the original post.

What it means here, is that when you enter a municipality (or city, using SC4's terminology), you cannot see anything beyond the square city boundary. Just empty space. What i would propose is that you can see beyond the boundary. You can look at (but not touch) the neighbouring areas. This would help emmensely - not only for when making developments and terrain blend naturally over boundaries, removing the visually rigid edges - but also for developing your transportation networks.

Although, this would be even greater if it were possible to incorporate your suggestion into the game:

Matt wrote:

I'd like to see the game dynamically and intelligently switch from city to city as I scroll across my gaming screen.

#11889 uretra

thanks for writing down one of my biggest concerns!
this should be the basis of any city simulator

Very Important 100%

#11890 EddyG

these are some really excellent ideas! :) i really hope they incorporate such ideas...it would really make city planning waaaay easier because you don't have to guess whats on the other side because you're stuck looking at a gridded background. well like I said...excellent ideas...but are they practical?can PCs handle the processing power needed for such features? its a matter that is left in the hands of the games programmers...i really hope its practical though!!!

#15635 Nick

i give it a 5, it's was really annoying in sc4 to have to have a water pump, and power plant in every city, it would make the game much more realistic to have the features you suggested

#15778 john2218

5- this is the biggest key. What I would like to see is a playing area that is small enough to not be laggy, but the ability to build tremendously huge cities. This would obviously require some kind of zones, but they must interact much better than they did in SC4. I actually think SC4 was the perfect game if they had only made the traffic routing between the cities work correctly.

#15878 ckwong

john2218 wrote:

....they must interact much better than they did in SC4. I actually think SC4 was the perfect game if they had only made the traffic routing between the cities work correctly.

5 - too for me. I agree with john21218 - SC4 region play is problematic. There some good discussions in Regions and Time, Neighbour/Other City Interactions and SC4 Type Region Play Does Not Work threads.

#17336 Andi

big fiver (5) from me

#17341 DymeKing

5. Cities Unlimited NEEDS realistic radii for hospitals, schools and everything.

#17346 g314

6 - Very VERY Important. These features DO are a must-have! (110%)

I can't find a point to criticize, tr0ub1e! The ideas of regional rewards and civic influence are brilliant!

I know you'll count it as 100%, but you get the idea! ;)

#17349 Deimo

5 - And I agree with Matt. Why have these Regional "cities" that are all squares? It should be a single view that you can navigate like Google Earth. Maybe when you scroll over the active city, the funds and everything can reallocate to be specific to that city and it is highlighted while everything around it is gray. You should be able to set and expand or contract the boundaries of your city as you see fit.

EVERYTHING should be regionally applicable to an extent and you should be able to set their boundaries as well (not just a default "radius")---schools, police, fire, hospital, etc. All should be applicable outside the city boundaries as far as they can go unless their jurisdiction is only for that city. for example, county police has jurisdiction over unincorporated cities and stuff, state police may have jurisdiction over everything, (however this really works) and city police only for that city.