The Cities Unlimited Archives: Lots and Structures on Slopes

Today's Cities Unlimited archive deals with adapting lots to sloped terrain. 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 Note: dark red text indicates links to other pages on the boards that are no longer active.

Lots & Structures on Slopes

(aka 'Terrain Conforming/Reconciling')

a Conceptual article by tr0ub1es0me

#16849 tr0ub1e

(author: tr0ub1es0me)

Links to relevant CitiesXL.com discussion threads:

Terrain & Building Foundations
Building on Slopes

The way that a development on slopes and hills was handled in SimCity 4 was quite poor. To improve this, I would propose the following changes for CITIES XL:

• Some buildings and props or other structures, when built on slopes, should feature lower floors/storeys or basement levels that are below the highest land level that the building covers, rather than just seeing the foundations like we did in SimCity 4.
• All others buildings (and props) should require level land directly beneath and would therefore automatically flatten the land below; while placing gradual slopes across the empty land within the Lot in order to conform to surrounding land outside of the Lot. If there is no or little space because the building(s) and/or prop(s) completely (or almost) fills an entire dimension of the Lot, then instead of the horrible grey block we have under the Lot in SimCity 4 there should be a properly textured wall (or a steep embankment, if room) placed on the border of the Lot. For extremely steep terrain, the game would need to combine the two methods because the gradient of gradual slopes across a lot should be restricted to a realistic amount. So, if using the maximum gradient does not allow the Lot's land to conform to surrounding land, then the steep slopes on borders would be automatically placed in addition.

This would be a lot more realistic and attractive than SimCity 4 where the foundations used to appear under buildings on slopes, and the bland giant dark grey block that would appear under flat Lots built on slopes. Gradual slopes within a Lot can be used for any ground texture, including paths and driveways - although these should have another restriction requiring them to slope in the direction of the path/drive, much like transport networks. Objects like swimming pools and ponds should be props too and not textures, meaning they will always have flat ground underneath. (These improvements would be most notable when building hilly suburbs. Embankments here can also have grass on them, provided that they are not too steep ? otherwise a straight textured retaining wall should be used.)

Let us not also forget that some Lots cover vast amounts of an area (such as an airport). Why should the open areas of land within these Lots be forcibly made flat? It should only be flattened where there are runways or other ground textures, and structures - while the remaining land covered by the Lot should conform closer to the existing and surrounding landscape instead of being flattened.

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

#16851 mgarc1125

I wholeheartedly agree. Those blocks in Simcity 4 were hideous. Maybe they can use vector based buildings to make them look more natural.

#16854 g314

Agree, it's very hateful see suburb house "towers" and "cubist" parks.
I also want to suggest that roads, when dragged, shouldn't be necessarily flat on soft slopes.

5 - Very Important. These features are a must-have! (100%)

#16855 tr0ub1e

g314 wrote:

I also want to suggest that roads, when dragged, shouldn't be necessarily flat on soft slopes.

sorry for misunderstanding but could you explain what you mean for me g314?

#16856 Don Mikimax

5.

#16859 Joe2102001

5. This is a major concern for me! did I mention 5. 100%......:)

#16860 Pedro Rodrigues

Joe2102001 wrote:

5. This is a major concern for me! did I mention 5. 100%......:)

You took the words out of my mouth! ;)

A GREAT 5 for this one. Those grey blocks must be eliminated! ;) (100%)

#16872 ToeJam

4.5 :)

#16876 eric

"To improve this, I would propose" ...

hehe, these propasals has been discussed in great detail in many other threads. I do appriciate the work you put into your "articles" but im starting to get the feeling (and dont take this the wrong way :) )your trying to get your ideas (or re-circulation of other peoples ideas ;) )to be a "be all/end all" to the topic. dunno :p. i like the time you put into it :) have you thought of starting your own website? that would be cool!!!!! i think blogger lets you create way easier polls.

i did a cool little rendering of a level lot idea 2 months ago here i think you would like. i love to see you start a blog or something!!

#16891 Romaq

4. I'd mention that SC4 at least coped with slopes. CityLife's 'lots' are the same as buildings. By that, I mean that SC4 lots could flex some with slopes without flattening terrain over the entire area. By contrast, CityLife buildings and any extending lot space simply flattened the entire terrain. When I placed a town nestled within hills, the buildings would flatten the terrain. I could use roads and buildings to flatten an area until I have what amounts to a city dug deep within a hole that used to be a gentle valley. SC4 would have left room for slopes to still be slope-y, for lack of a better word.

I believe MC has SC4 in their library, and I strongly urge them to compare building on sloping terrain in both games. However you feel about SC4's handling of slope issues, CL2k8 is MUCH MUCH worse at it!

#16894 tr0ub1e

eric wrote:

"To improve this, I would propose" ...

hehe, these propasals has been discussed in great detail in many other threads. I do appriciate the work you put into your "articles" but im starting to get the feeling (and dont take this the wrong way :) )your trying to get your ideas (or re-circulation of other peoples ideas ;) )to be a "be all/end all" to the topic. dunno :p . i like the time you put into it :) have you thought of starting your own website? that would be cool!!!!! i think blogger lets you create way easier polls.

i did a cool little rendering of a level lot idea 2 months ago here i think you would like. i love to see you start a blog or something!!

yes i do like that picture there. that's pretty much what i meant in this article. i wasn't really active here back then though so i hadn't seen it before! i don't think it would be impossible to program the game to properly grade land. looking at the real-world in hilly areas, the common techniques for grading land can be seen. an algorithm simulating these techniques would need to be included.

i honestly don't want these articles to be completely definitive and put an end to a topic. i would much prefer further discussions to be created as a result, if it means that any further development of fans ideas can be added into the articles to improve them.

i did originally have a website for these articles (for SimCity 5), going back before SC: Societies was even announced. initially it was HTML pages coded by myself, using a little PHP to save repeating things. it also featured a PHP poll code which i downloaded and customised to fit with the question i wanted and how i wanted it to calculate tha average vote (as a percentage from 0 to 100).

i then later decided to try and re-create it as a joomla site so i could add other things like allowing viewer comments, and improve the appearance of the site. it was going well (except that i couldn't use my poll code with it) until i returned from holiday in october to find the site had been corrupted somehow. i gave up on it because Societies had been announced and showcased since and i could see it was never going to include any of the things the fans were asking for... not to mention that it wasn't long until the release date either.

late last year when i decided to resume working on these articles, but intended for CitiesUnlimited instead, i didn't want to get into trying to make a site again. i also thought that they would probably be better noticed by Monte Cristo, and get more public viewing, votes, and comments/opinions for further development of fans's collaborative ideas if they are placed here; than if i spent loads of time setting up a site again and once finally being functional and able to let the public to see it, find that hardly anyone visits or finds it.

ultimately all that i am trying to do is put everyone's realistic ideas together for each aspect of the game (from any city-building fansite communities) so that it simplifies things in the idea research/development department for Monte Cristo. i want to influence (and ultimately help) them make the game better by understanding what the fans want. the voting is meant to show what are the most popular ideas and therefore would be most worthwile for MC to implement, as this should mean a more popular game and more sales!

Romaq wrote:

4. I'd mention that SC4 at least coped with slopes. CityLife's 'lots' are the same as buildings. By that, I mean that SC4 lots could flex some with slopes without flattening terrain over the entire area. By contrast, CityLife buildings and any extending lot space simply flattened the entire terrain. When I placed a town nestled within hills, the buildings would flatten the terrain. I could use roads and buildings to flatten an area until I have what amounts to a city dug deep within a hole that used to be a gentle valley. SC4 would have left room for slopes to still be slope-y, for lack of a better word.

I believe MC has SC4 in their library, and I strongly urge them to compare building on sloping terrain in both games. However you feel about SC4's handling of slope issues, CL2k8 is MUCH MUCH worse at it!

i havn't played CityLife but judging by pictues, i had thought that Lots were always on completely flat ground. SimCity 4 did flex some Lots, but not others. i noticed that Lots with fences around them would not slope - which was silly. stepped fencing should have been used around the border. the other problem was that there wasn't a limit of the amount of flexing and so houses and buildings with flexible Lots could end up with gardens at a 45degree+ gradient!

#16896 SleepyHollow

I kind of agree with Eric, if feels like you're just re-branding a lot of the topics we had already, and the new people never know that these topics have been covered in detail.

Not that I don't appreciate your work in a lot of areas, but try and make sure there isn't that topic already, before it becomes a 'CUC article' and all discussion gets abandoned on the already working threads.

#16899 g314

tr0ub1e wrote:

g314 wrote:

I also want to suggest that roads, when dragged, shouldn't be necessarily flat on soft slopes.

sorry for misunderstanding but could you explain what you mean for me g314?

Yes sorry. I was a bit in a hurry yesterday.

To explain myself better I quote Jason's diagram from grading land - road cut and fill thread.

Jason wrote:

Red: House
Black: Lot/Property
Green: Hill

In this diagram, the hill poses no real threat to the house, the only reason why one would build a retaining wall. However, in Sim City 4 and many other city building games, there would be a 50/50 chance of a retaining wall on any elevation increase.

I'm focusing on the black line which represents a zoned lot in this diagram. What I wanted to say is that roads (all transports) should conform with the terrain so that it won't be heavily auto-terraformed after construction.

In SC4 the terrain conforms to the road and the hill will look jagged and ugly (even worse if you're dragging diagonally or "anti-grid"), let alone if you're zoning on slopes.

#16900 tr0ub1e

SleepyHollow wrote:

I kind of agree with Eric, if feels like you're just re-branding a lot of the topics we had already, and the new people never know that these topics have been covered in detail.

Not that I don't appreciate your work in a lot of areas, but try and make sure there isn't that topic already, before it becomes a 'CUC article' and all discussion gets abandoned on the already working threads.

i can understand that. but in those situations where there are existing topics, it would mean that they are excluded from the voting (and i'm not sure what to do about that...? i really don't want to take the wrong approach here or ruin existing discussions

i'm also used to seeing topics become dead, and duplicates showing up from time to time. while the actual good ideas from threads are also diluted down by all other posts in the thread that don't expand upon any of the already posted ideas but just repeat old ideas or comment on them. readers have to plough through countless posts to find all of the actual ideas.... i may be wrong - but i just think it makes sense if someone else ploughs through the posts to put the ideas together into a single structured post (article), making it easier for visitors and MC alike so they can see all the important detail that has been covered and discussed at a glance.

it probably would help (in that respect, anyway) if i had been through this thread to incorporate anything posted there that i may have missed.

the archive helps with eliminating the recurrance of duplicate threads though :)

if anyone has any suggestions or further discussion regarding the creation of these articles in general, please do post in the general CUC thread. i want these articles to be purposeful, and do more good than bad (in fact i don't want them to do any bad at all, not even the slightest bit of bad).

#16904 CottonO

Yes, this subject has been hashed about in the past, but without any firm conclusion, as I recall. It is of such concern that it should be brought up again anyway, if for no other reason than to remind CU of its importance.

And of that importance? I rate it a five.