The Cities Unlimited Archives: The Planetary Idea

Another Cities Unlimited archive, sketching out the idea of Planets, which could serve as a setting for both region and online 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 Note: dark red text indicates links to other pages on the boards that are no longer active. As always, you can find my brief critique after the main article!

CITIES XL World (aka 'Planetary Idea')

a Conceptual article by tr0ub1es0me

#11581 tr0ub1e

(author & contributors: DHamp, Lord David, tr0ub1es0me)

Links to relevant CitiesXL.com discussion threads:

• Cities 'Unlimited' ?
• City Planner Mode & City Borders
• Big, Huge Cities
• Creating Continents, Islands, Archipelagos?
• Some VISUAL Ideas from Sixu

This may sound like a wild idea, but following the game Spore developed by Maxis, I think it may make more sense: Custom planets for CITIES XL! Who wants these blocky regions like we have in SimCity 4? In Spore, we are going to be able to make custom planets. Why not have them in a city-building simulator? The limitation, at least in the initial release, will be that the custom planets will essentially be different versions of earth with approximately the same atmosphere, climate zones, and life forms, but with customizable continents, different ratios of land to sea, and so on. A further possibility would be the option to have a random world terrain generated; based on a number of preset options to choose from (like the random terrain generator we had in the games SimCity 2000 and SimCity 3000). There could even be a pre-civilization Earth as a default planet. Perhaps non-Earthly planet possibilities could be left to expansion packs.

This could make the game horribly addictive. I mean, some people will spend countless days and months populating their entire planet with cities and towns. I think agriculture should be a compulsory thing to have to deal with no matter how far you develop your world - there shouldn't be big cities and then blank land. It would have to be a requirement to provide food and other products needed for your cities to survive. The more population you have, the more farmland you would need. In real life, farms also cover vast areas of land. See the Concepts article Agriculture, Fishing & Food Supply for more on farming.

An "active scope" system must be used so that the game doesn't have to keep running all other countries, regions, and all of their cities on the planet in real-time, while loading up all of their visible details and data. By isolating the rest of the planet not in use, resources can be focused on the country, region or city at hand. A breakdown of this system follows:

World Mode View

You would be given a simplistic round world view with landmasses, bodies of water, and north/south arctic poles; which you can scroll and rotate around freely along any axis. It would already be divided into Countries that players can claim. You can then select a unclaimed Country to make it yours, or select an existing Country, where you can then zoom in to Country Mode. All Country Data will be loaded at the start of the game, meaning you can compare Country Stats in World Mode. Once you zoom into a Country, the images for the view of the Country will be loaded along with the data for all Regions in that Country.

Country Mode View

Once you've selected the Country and zoomed in, you will see a more detailed view. This is the Country Mode view. Here you would see a closer, non-spherical, and pan-able view; showing more detail of the terrain and including distant, but not distinct, city details and such. There would not be much rendering in Country View - not as much detail as in Region or Mayor Mode view, but a hell of a lot more detail than in World View. It would be like the Region View in SimCity 4 but in a more simplistic format with a lower resolution. Here you can select any existing Region to enter, or if you have the 'Rights to Claim Land' in this Country when playing multiplayer, alongside AI or online players (see the Concepts article Multiplayer & Online Play for more on multiplayer) - draw out the complete borderline on any currently unclaimed land of a New Region you wish to create. The border does not have to be a square; it can be as big or as small as you desire and be as un-square, with as many sides as you want. Once you enter a New or Existing Region, the images for the view of the Region will be loaded along with data for all Municipalities in that Region.

You would be able to see a short distance across the borders of the Country which you are viewing, in order to observe what is directly adjoining the borders of your Country. In addition to viewing Country Data, you can compare internal Regional Data in Country Mode view.

Region Mode View

This would be basically the familiar Region View from SimCity 4 with City/Municipal Borders. One of the new features would be that you can now draw out the local Municipal Borders - they do not have to be square as they were in SimCity 4. They can be as big or as small as you desire and be as un-square, with as many sides as you want. The only limit on the size of your area would be the power of your computer. These Municipalities will be what you use in Mayor Mode to build your cities on. By clicking to enter a Municipality, it would be loaded into the game and you would enter Mayor Mode.

You would be able to see a short distance across the borders of the Region which you are viewing, in order to observe what is directly adjoining the borders of your Region. In addition to viewing Region Data, you can compare internal Municipal Data in Region Mode view. The Region View should be of a slightly higher resolution with more detail than SimCity 4's Region View.

Mayor Mode View

This would be the standard play mode as it was with SimCity 4. More details on ideas for Mayor Mode features are described throughout other Concepts articles in threads at these forums.

You would be able to see a short distance across the borders of the Municipality which you are viewing, in order to observe (but not touch) what is directly adjoining the borders of your Municipality. This would be essential for ensuring borders blend together naturally - and also for creating neighbour connections (without exiting your Municipality, loading the neighbouring Municipality to take a look, exiting that Municipality and returning to where you started, while remembering what you saw in the previous Municipality..)! Building and organising neat neighbouring connections and blending borders would be much easier with this view across the borders in Mayor Mode.

You would not have to develop your whole planet, nor would you have to interconnect the cities on your planet with deals and such. I just think it would be cool because you can build all of your cities on the same planet. So instead of creating new regions all the time, you can just pick a region within a country on your planet, do some terraforming if necessary, mark out your municipal areas - and start building! When playing against AI or online players; (so long as all your regions are connected to the developed and inter-connected parts of the wider world at whole) they will still be inter-connected with each other too. If they are on opposite sides of the world however, then the effect on each other would be as good as none without partaking in global trade with one another; but would be visual both as individual parts of the larger world.

External Sources

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

#11597 Joe2102001

Intriguing Ideas! ;) I'm actually going to wait though, to comment until I have a better idea of the scope of the game from the developers. I've never been big on online type games or multiplayer. But as a stand alone game I like it. My main fear with this of course is this would begin to steer away from a city-builder like simcity and begin to turn more into a nation-builder like Civilization. While I love the Civilization series I hope that this doesn't turn into it. :)

#11602 ToeJam

Joe2102001 wrote:

Intriguing Ideas! ;) I'm actually going to wait though, to comment until I have a better idea of the scope of the game from the developers. I've never been big on online type games or multiplayer. But as a stand alone game I like it. My main fear with this of course is this would begin to steer away from a city-builder like simcity and begin to turn more into a nation-builder like Civilization. While I love the Civilization series I hope that this doesn't turn into it. :)

i agree.

i'd like to see what the developers are planning too a bit more.

#11603 CottonO

I very much like the ability to see into neighboring cities in the "Mayor mode", but I don't think I would buy the game you propose.

#11636 MrCinatit

I for one would love to terra form an entire planet - but I do have a feeling it could be a memory hog, if not properly implemented.

#11639 ckwong

I actually don't think your idea is that wild (not sure about Multiplayer though). Only thing is that there may be different players within the family and I am not sure if everyone wants to play in the same World. Maybe, the game should identify player before loading his/her World.

On a more micro level, I don't think the computing limitation is at the Regional (or World/Country) Mode View but the Mayor Mode View (in SC4, 512x512 already bogged down the best PC).

#11684 uretra

That follows my idea of a multiplayer global city builder. I agree with all you said but only in an online mode. While playing solo it would be odd to control a whole world.

I think it would be nice to create a multiplayer city builder where each player controls a city, a group of cities controls a country and cooperate (players would actually have to chat with each other to define budgets, political strategies...), and may be have some economical wars(embargos...), unite with other countries and perform all the diplomatic manoevers there is.

#11759 someone

uretra wrote:

That follows my idea of a multiplayer global city builder. I agree with all you said but only in an online mode. While playing solo it would be odd to control a whole world.

I think it would be nice to create a multiplayer city builder where each player controls a city, a group of cities controls a country and cooperate (players would actually have to chat with each other to define budgets, political strategies...), and may be have some economical wars(embargos...), unite with other countries and perform all the diplomatic manoevers there is.

I think this is a great idea, but you wouldn't need to chat as such (although there would deffinatly need to be a chat panel). A player could suggest something and a vote would appear (in a news panel or something which you click on to open the vote) and you would select either agree or disagree or whatever depending on the subject. And the majority wins, if the result became equal between 2 it would go with disagree (or which ever option along those lines).

I don't know how many people you were thinking of involving in a multiplayer game, but perhaps it should be no more than 4 or 5 countries with about 4 or 5 people/cities per country (reducable so you could have, say, 3 countries with 3 cities. [you cant really have less than 3 though for obvious reasons] which would mean 9 people per game [quite a few]). Also, if it was involved in the game there should be a lobby or such, and you should be able to choose which country you were in, as if friends were playing at the same time they may want to be in the same country or a differant one, or a random option which would all be selected in game set-up whe a new game was hosted.

That would all be very well, but as for saving a game and then getting everybody back at the same time would mean you would have to have an in game email system so when you next went on cities unlimited, it would give you a message (and everyone in that game) saying someone would like to continue the game and would ask some questions. The first would be:

Can you play at [the time/date]?

Yes/No

and If not are you happy to let others continue without you?

Yes/No

or would you like to leave the game permenantly?

Yes/no

if not enough people were playing, the game would not continue and everyone would be told so. If the game did continue, but player 3 was not involved his city would still function, but could not be edited/ affected by what happens untill player 3 is back (in another game) to deal with what happens.

If player 3 realises he can play but had sent the message saying he can't, he would go to multiplayer lobby go to a section called 'my current games' and there would be a list of the games he is involved in and they would be indicated which were currently 'in session' and you would be able to join from there.

Thats all i can think of at the moment but again i love the idea and definatly hope it gets put forward.

#11764 Matt

The inherent problem I see with integrating "global play" with "muliplayer play" is, "What happens when two people want to develop the same area?" I don't see how you can overcome the inherent overlapping problem. Would people have to "purchase" land from one another or from a central source? If so, are you suggesting an online banking system in order to make that possible? Would there be bidding? Could you "sell" some of your land to another player? And on and on...

It's an intriguing idea, and certainly one I've thought about after seeing the globe icon on the home page, but it does open up a whole bunch of messy issues.

#11676 someone

Matt. At the start of the game the land would be seperated equally between the members of a particular country/map/world exactly like counties/states.(In one chunk so it isn't like a patchwork quilt [however its spelt] unless you want it like that but that could be done when land is bought and sold) then perhaps as you said, as the game develops you could buy and sell land between each other. but initially it would be seperated equally.

Come to think of it, it would be pretty good to be able to sell developed land (if it hasn't already been said somewhere) but obviously for a much higher price.

That would also link in with contracts and the such.

Better yet, you could even rent out land (unused).

#11768 Matt

I'm trying to understand how your conceiving of this and how it would work. If you have the time, please help me better understand your idea with the following questions:

1. So, are you thinking of this as an optional way to play or the main way to play CU?
2. When you say "exacly like counties/states", do you mean like actual recreations of real counties and states, or something more arbitrary? If you mean real recreations, do you mean to recreate all of the major subdivisions of every nation on earth or just the U.S. or Europe or somewhere else?
3. If you "buy", "sell", or "rent" land where does the money come from? Does it come from a central online bank? Would all of the land parcels be of equal value?
4. Could you buy parcels of land or would you always have to buy the equivalent of a full city?
5. How exactly does "rent"ing land work? I'm not familiar with that.
6. Would there be unincorporated areas with infrastructure? If not, how would you have inter-city play unless every city is built contiguously?
7. If there was infrastructure (like Power Plants and roads) in unincorporated areas, who would pay for it? Who would design it?

Thanks for helping me better understand what you're getting at. :)

#11780 goalieump

I think one of the messiest issues with a global sized version of CU would be the massive scope of data that the game would have to track. The game is, to my knowledge, currently being designed to handle details as small as the lines on roads. Having detail at that level requires programming horsepower and your computer's ability to use that horsepower in real time.

I like the idea of a "planetary simulater" per se, but I doubt the devs will take on something like this right away. Imagine having to automatically grow neighboring cities around a globe. How many cities exist in the world? Tons!

I think your idea is better suited towards a game that doesn't handle nearly the ground level detail that CU is supposedly being built on. I've heard good things about Spore, but haven't checked into it very much.

#11808 Hummer

I dont think that I'd play multiplayer but I like the planetary Idea, but it should definately be on a smaller planes as that would be tons of data that most computers could not handle. But I would love if me and my bro inhabited different continents and saw how much better and more economically better than his. ;)

#11818 Bountytaker

5.

Make sure there's a capped world population as well. One that we draw our citizens from. I always found it unrealistic that our cities were filled from a magic, unending supply of people.

#11827 joey

Everything I love in the approach so far with SPORE and what was lacking in Sim City up to this point, you have incorporated in to these ideas. Brilliant to say the very least. If this is truly a good idea of what is in store when released, Cities Unlimited won't just be a game anymore, it will become a world wide form of communicating with one another. It would be like virtualising myspace or AOL or something he he he... In fact, that is exactly what it can be like, except through an outlet that allows you to express yourself culturally. it's hard to imagine what will top this idea in the future, and with the release of EA Games "Societies", Sim City lifers are widely disappointed and are frantically looking for their next answer. To say the least, you can win their hearts and put Sim City out of business. Their work is slow and over waited for with each release, and so long as they will not fix their sloppy Societies, they have a huge disadvantage to you.