The Circulatory System of SimCity
Hi everyone! I’m Tyler Thompson, the Gameplay Producer here at Maxis and I really enjoy helping the team make the new SimCity into a great game.
The new SimCity’s simulation is driven by Sims, road networks and traffic. I enjoy explaining it with a biological metaphor: The roads are the city’s arteries and veins. The Sims circulate through those roads. They help keep the city alive by going to work, making factories run, keeping stores open, taking home money, going shopping with money, etc... Power, water, and sewage also flow under the roads. Almost every building relies on a vehicle to be effective: garbage trucks, police patrol cars, coal delivery trucks, school buses, taxis and more. The result is a city where the streets are filled with a variety of vehicles and pedestrians, streaming from place to place and keeping the simulation alive.
Traffic jams strangle like a heart attack. Several times, I have looked up from decorating a casino to see dreaded lines of red tail lights. The consequences are pretty dire: Ambulances don’t get to injured Sims before they die. Police don’t make it to the bank in time to stop a robbery. The coal power plant shuts down from lack of workers. Homes and factories are starting to become abandoned at the edges of the city. In a panic, I start demolishing troublesome intersections, replacing roads, and adding new avenues across town. I also apply some civic “blood thinner”: I create a mass transit system featuring shuttle buses, large inter-city buses, light rail and heavy rail. This usually clears the major arteries and gets things flowing again.
Power up: Watch the Coal Power Plant light up the city!
Combine this circulatory system with our curvy road tool, and it means that you can make functional, organically shaped cities. We’ve made face-shaped cities, concentric rings, guitar-shaped cities, and on and on. Often, the city’s topography encourages curves: River-side towns can have a snaking boardwalk. Mountain-side cities bend around the base. Lake-side cities with a high-wealth district hug the waterfront. Yeah, I love to play optimized grids, but this game is frequently tempting me to throw away the ruler and start painting roads with a brush.
These curvy, organic cities can be effective because the simulation isn’t about distances – it’s about flow. When you start to understand this, it totally changes how you lay things out. When I place a fire station, I usually try to find a place that is central, well connected but not near heavy traffic. When I create a central avenue, I often limit the number of intersections with it so that cars don’t wait for light after light. I sprinkle commercial sectors at the ends of residential roads to encourage pedestrian traffic. As the city grows, I watch for the long line of red brake lights and plop down bus stops like crazy.
Many times, I find myself just sitting back and watching the flow.
Comments
"I find myself just sitting
"I find myself just sitting back and watching the flow."
I could already see myself doing the same thing, for hours on end... Assuming Bowser doesn't decide to troll my city.
Or Origin. I'd go on a
Or Origin. I'd go on a rampage if SimCity would mess with my like BF3 does.
Still, looking forward to see traffic managment at work, roads aren't everything you know...
That is one cool animation by
That is one cool animation by the way.
omg, it's the electricity
omg, it's the electricity data layer! nerdgasmic!
I would turn on fast forward
I would turn on fast forward and listen to some techno/rave music. Seems fitting to me.
Agents carrying water, sawage
Agents carrying water, sawage and goods are quite good idea... but agents "carrying" power NOT. Electric current flows with almost speed of light. Agents trawelling much much slower makes SimCity's power conducting system a bit unrealistic.
(I apologise for my bad english.)
Electricity flows at light
Electricity flows at light speed but power networks in real cities don't come online at light speed. Though I would expect to see certain blocks or chunks powering on at once. This seems close enough for me.
Most street lights are
Most street lights are controlled by light sensors on the top so come on at different times, the ones in my street come on at different times all the time and that's just one road... A city would be much like this.
You know what I think would
You know what I think would be really kool... Having lanes for emergency vehicles. Some Cities have this in reality, it would be great if Avenues have that feature, not to mention, it would be kool if emergency vehicles are allowed to run through traffic lights and have others wait while they pass.
yeah great idea! That would
yeah great idea! That would be a great feature.
I agree, this feature would
I agree, this feature would be fantastic to see...
We should have buslanes & no
We should have buslanes & no-buslanes, trucklanes & no-trucklanes. Also, I would like to see a more healthy way of moving around town: cycling. It would add a whole other dimension and with some great micro-management you would be able to make a city where people can move around really smoothly.
I am curious how the glassbox engine will work, if a construction worker dies, will it slow down the production of the building he was working on? Or if your nobelprize winning engineer dies, will your city lose strength on the education and science fields.
Other than that I really hope there are no easy ways to get a lot of money and awesome buildings. An easy way to an average city would be nice, but if it wasn't planned out properly it should be extremely (yes extremely) hard to recover and maybe a complete overhaul would be the thing that your city needs. But if you planned it out "properly" (many solutions ofc) it should be rewarding.
Hmm.. Seems like I went offtrack for a bit on my reply. Anyways, hope to see more soon1
Would be cool if they also
Would be cool if they also included random accidents, and that you'd have more accidents if your city/intersection wasn't planned properly. And it would be cool if they had a ripple effect by killing your sims if they're bad, closing roads, causing businesses to open late, make people late for work, etc.
Kind of went off track also....o well.
I meant like if the accident
I meant like if the accident was bad enough, not the sim; that would be cruel.
I meant like if the accident
I meant like if the accident was bad enough, not the sim; that would be cruel.
My aunt lives in Buenos Aires
My aunt lives in Buenos Aires, and they have that. But, there people drive in those lanes anyway.
I love that idea, and I'd love to see the emergency vehicles run redlights, drive on the wrong side of the road, drive on the sidewalk, etc. Would be cool if they crashed if they weren't careful. That would keep you on edge if a power plant caches fire, or the mayor gets sick, and stuff.
Now Stfu haters
Now Stfu haters
Don't wet your panties fan
Don't wet your panties fan girl.
Your sexual insecurity is too
Your sexual insecurity is too obvious.
give us a video where we can
give us a video where we can just watch the simulation (at high speeds) and get amazed and loose track of time :)__
even we want to see the flow...
Or something like a timelapse
Or something like a timelapse city being built...
That is pretty exciting. We
That is pretty exciting. We already new that it was going to be deeper but this is more detail than before. Will there be bus lanes? Can we place pylons (I know electricity runs under roads, but pylons would be nice). I wonder if there is a broadband data layer where you can see who has internet access and you have to place servers and towers...
and let those sims go to the
and let those sims go to the store and buy their own simcity! now that would be an awesome detail in the simulation!
Love it!
Love it!
In The Sims 2 i think, you
In The Sims 2 i think, you can buy The Sims, play The Sims. Then you can make your sims buy The Sims so that your sims can play The Sims while you are playing The Sims. It's Simception!
I'm sure in the first video
I'm sure in the first video they released there was footage of pylons being placed. The cables actually acted in a way like they suffered proper tension, it was very cool. I haven't seen anything to do with pylons since though, which is a shame, I hope they haven't removed them from the game.
completely power lines would
completely power lines would look awesome and realistic and ive been hoping they would include cell towers in this game that would be frikin amazing
Ok, its a much better blog
Ok, its a much better blog than the funny-shaped villages. I like the new animation. Hoping beta comes soon so i can create my own flow ;) Keep up good the good job
not bad looking
not bad looking
I was shocked/appalled when I
I was shocked/appalled when I went to Florida, there was a huge traffic jam (the last space shuttle had just taken off and viewers were trying to get out of titusville), and an Ambulance was trying to get through with it lights/siren on. Many cars didn't move out the way for it, despite an empty hard shoulder, and the ambulance didn't seem to try to use the hard shoulder, and when cars finally moved it didn't move very fast.
Here in the UK cars will do everything they can to get out the way of an emergency vehicle, they stop and pull as far off the road/lane as possible. Emergency vehicles can use the hard shoulder, go faster than the speed limit (by quite a lot) and even drive on the wrong side of the road. This also applies to human organ transfer vehicles.
The traffic doesn't have as greater effect on emergency vehicles as normal vehicles, and judging by what I saw in Florida, traffic has far less effect on emergency vehicles in the UK than the US.
We'll be talking more about
We'll be talking more about traffic next week, so stay tuned!
We have the same policy for
We have the same policy for emergency vehicles in South Africa...
I second the idea above! Add
I second the idea above! Add the option of road shoulders for Emergency vehicles and mass transport! So cool.
"I find myself just sitting
"I find myself just sitting back and watching the flow."
Then 10 years goes by and I realize that it's probably time to start working on a new game!
Of the topic, but Is it true
Of the topic, but Is it true that we can no longer dictate zone density? I can't think of one single slightly logical reason to take this option away from gamers. After all, councils frequently dictate height restrictions in their jurisdictions.
It is apparently dictated by
It is apparently dictated by the infrastructure you provide; at least that is what I read a few months ago. But you are right, even in big cities in real life with expansive infrastructure height restrictions are used for whatever purposes. Newcastle, Australia comes to mind. LA too in another way.
Hey, i love it!!!!
Hey, i love it!!!!
it seems that we will have time accelerator...
but we will can walk around the city with a car or bike? With new missions?
Thanks Maxis Team with this powerful game!
Brazil!
I have to say it, it looks
I have to say it, it looks great! glassbox looks like SC's big selling point!!
You could take the
You could take the circulatory system analogy literally by making a city shaped like the human body. It would be cool to see the cars move around like blood cells.
Are there not going to be
Are there not going to be customizable freeways? interchanges? onramps? offramps? the ability to build frontage roads with different types of entrances and exits to the freeways?
The Network Addon Mod kept SC4 alive for so many years and should be replicated and improved upon in the new SimCity.
Freeways are an integral part of every city and I sure hope they are incorporated into the game. Playing with transit and watching the Sims commute and live is one of the most fun parts. Please don't take this out of the game. :-(
Sure will!
Sure will!
Because they are working hard in the fluid of cars!
Cities seem to be too small
Cities seem to be too small for Highways though, don't you think? Look at every piece of video you've seen... no city planner in their right mind would even consider building a highway in a 5x5 town.
You make a good point. The
You make a good point. The size of the cities is the only thing really concerning me about this sim city. I only hope in the final version the space between cities can either be altered or the size reduced. Perhaps, at the very least, we could be allowed to change the road type between the cities.
Thats great but... frankly,
Thats great but... frankly, everything we've seen seems to indicate this game should be called "SimTown" or "SimDesertTown" because all we've seen thus far are flat deserts of grass, flat roads, small towns of 5x5 blocks. Where's the huge cities? Elevated highways? Freeway system? Sorry, while the engine might be amazing - the game shaping up from within this engine saddens me greatly.
Have you seen the gambling
Have you seen the gambling city?
If you still think that's "SimDesertTown", then you can always choose to... leave.
Yeah, I guess Maxis creating
Yeah, I guess Maxis creating Societed 2.....but not Simcity 5 =((((
Yeah, I guess Maxis creating
Yeah, I guess Maxis creating Societed 2.....but not Simcity 5 =((((
This looks much better than
This looks much better than those silly guitar-shaped "cities". Keep out the good work, and stop Donohoe from posting anything in future.
Ignore this cruel kid,
Ignore this cruel kid, Michael. I'd rather see guitar-shaped road layouts than nothing.
The truth about new SimCity
The truth about new SimCity (2013)
SimCity (2013): The Deception Continues ...
http://sc2013thedeception.blogspot.com
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