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On March 23 2015 23:11 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2015 22:48 Ota Solgryn wrote:The more I read about this game and the more I play I have come to the conclusion that this game is actually a traffic sim. The rest is just there to make it pretty. But still, it's kind of fun.  More like a traffic sim that doesn't work properly The traffic logic is so very bad and makes no sense.
There are some flaws with the AI for sure, but also you should remember that people who drive cars also make no sense. They do stupid shit, don't use all the lanes in the road and are generally idiots. There have been findings with new computer models that providing drivers with fewer lanes makes traffic move faster because people have fewer options to screw up the flow.
Really you just need to keep the cargo trucks out of your city. I saw a cool design where someone used a cargo train line through the center of his city and dropped it all off at a port. It was really impressive.
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playing city builders eventually made me fascinated with how engineers study things like traffic flow and stuff like that. I don't have many regrets, but I kind of wish I could go back in time to do something involved in that field now haha
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On March 23 2015 23:11 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2015 22:48 Ota Solgryn wrote:The more I read about this game and the more I play I have come to the conclusion that this game is actually a traffic sim. The rest is just there to make it pretty. But still, it's kind of fun. More like a traffic sim that doesn't work properly The traffic logic is so very bad and makes no sense.
Driving a lot IRL and commuting I can tell you this is a very good sim of how people drive in the traffic. :D
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On March 23 2015 22:48 Ota Solgryn wrote:The more I read about this game and the more I play I have come to the conclusion that this game is actually a traffic sim. The rest is just there to make it pretty. But still, it's kind of fun.
If think it's kind of true to some extent, the company that made skylines made a game called "cities in motion" before which was only focused on transportation. They built on that basis to make a full sim game so i guess that's why transportation is such a big part of the game.
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traffic flow and transportation is a major major part of how you design a city in real life too. having a good layout and several good points ingress/egress that make sense basically determines whether or not a neighborhood or shopping district thrives or collapses in real life.
I know locally where I grew up there was one shopping district that was always bigger in the 70s and through my childhood. then as a teenager they completely redid the major highway. (there was two that fed it: one that led from the richer communities, and one from the poorer ones). The richer one it used to spill out right into the heart of that community, and the poorer one on the back end. They redid the highway that fed the rich communities and took away that ramp, moving it much further down. it basically isolated that area and totally crippled it since it no longer got the additional highway traffic from $$ districts.
you can still obviously access via local roads, but the layout of the city is such that it's much more of a hassle. for traffic (and really most things in life) people will take the easier option
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Traffic is the only challenge right now. Every other aspect of the game is relatively easy to manage. Colossal Order will use its publisher's concept of expansions though where every expansion polishs and expand certain aspects of the game so we might see CO focus on say social discrepancy within a city so that players have to deal with other challenges than traffic.
For anyone who has difficulties managing traffic I recommend this excellent guide: http://imgur.com/a/z1rM1
On March 23 2015 23:15 QuanticHawk wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2015 23:12 GrandInquisitor wrote:On March 23 2015 23:04 QuanticHawk wrote:I finally broke and bought it... and it chugs on my damn comp  . I really only toyed with it for like 20 min and it crashed. But obviously Im gonna drop all the settings and try again. But in that limited time it looked friggin awesome. Are you using a laptop? A lot of people report problems where their computer defaults to using integrated graphics, and they go away when they force it to use the GPU instead. Yup. Lenovo ideapad G510 if specific model makes a difference. I will go poke around when I get home to trouble shoot. I think SimCity 4 had similar issues for laptop user iirc? also thanks!
It worked for me. I bought the game at launch and paniced when I started it and everything was laggy as fuck. Checked Reddit and saw how to fix it. The game works like a charm now.
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France7248 Posts
the thing I don't know how to do it to have lvl 3 industries
they always want more services but I don't really know what to give them...
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On March 24 2015 01:06 Yhamm wrote:
the thing I don't know how to do it to have lvl 3 industries
they always want more services but I don't really know what to give them...
Police/Firefighter/medical
It doesn't actually require a balanced spread I believe so you can put down a couple of fire stations in your industry district to help with both fire safety and level up your industries.
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Do all parks give the same amount of "happiness points?" Or do the more expensive ones give more than the cheap ones?
Do all service buildings give the same amount of "quality points?" e.g. If I build 5 elementary schools in the same area does it give the same land value as 5 universities?
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I've noticed that unique buildings seem terrible. At the start as soon as I unlocked one I'd place it somewhere. But then after a very long time of placing most of the unique buildings, I realized they took u a major portion of the budget, and tried disabling them (except cheap ones like unique parks).
When I did so, I got a huge influx of income, and nothing negative happened at all. Happiness didn't budge for any zone, and demand didn't go down. I think leisure maybe went down a tiny bit in some areas, but it was easily fixed by placing a park there..
Unique buildings are terribly underpowered. They should have far larger area of effect, attract tons more tourists, and/or have other effects (like a crappy version of a monument. ex: 5% faster traffic, or 10% more garbage capacity). They seem like a huge liability. When I disabled them I could run the city with taxes at like 6/1/5/10 or something, with various services above 100% or 150%, and still have an income.
On that note, anyone know how to get commercial happiness up? I can get other zones to 93-99% pretty easily, but commercial doesn't go above like 85% for me, and in the past I've had it lower than that too, like in the high 70s. I haven't played since the patch was released, I'm thinking that it could help if I have the commercial demand bug, but developers made it sound that the bug wasn't hugely pervasive.
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The Eden Project one which gets rid of pollution is pretty good
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Melbourne5338 Posts
On March 24 2015 02:39 batsnacks wrote:
Do all parks give the same amount of "happiness points?" Or do the more expensive ones give more than the cheap ones?
Do all service buildings give the same amount of "quality points?" e.g. If I build 5 elementary schools in the same area does it give the same land value as 5 universities?
Park Comparison chart from reddit: http://imgur.com/a/XByGU#0
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On March 24 2015 12:57 ticklishmusic wrote:
The Eden Project one which gets rid of pollution is pretty good
Nonono, I'm talking only the unique buildings, not the monuments. The monuments do have special effects. It's the unique buildings that don't seem to do much at all. I'm sure many of them act like commercial and/or parks, and they bring in a tiny number of tourists, but they're way way too expensive in maintenance costs for what they provide.
Man, I knew (highly suspected) those botanical gardens weren't worth it (still like 16 times better than a stadium though). How could developers fail so hard at simple balance? Look at "plaza with picnic tables"—it's worse in every single way than a freaking playground but costs an assload more to both build an upkeep. Seriously? Balance aside, how the hell does it cost so much to make an maintain a slab of concrete with some tables? This really bothers me! What's going on in the developer's heads?
Personally, I would just want the comparison to show estimated upkeep costs vs happiness multiplied by area, rather than including the construction cost at all (this isn't Starcraft). or having the area and entertainment in separate efficiency columns.
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On March 23 2015 23:16 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2015 23:11 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On March 23 2015 22:48 Ota Solgryn wrote:The more I read about this game and the more I play I have come to the conclusion that this game is actually a traffic sim. The rest is just there to make it pretty. But still, it's kind of fun. More like a traffic sim that doesn't work properly The traffic logic is so very bad and makes no sense. There are some flaws with the AI for sure, but also you should remember that people who drive cars also make no sense. They do stupid shit, don't use all the lanes in the road and are generally idiots. There have been findings with new computer models that providing drivers with fewer lanes makes traffic move faster because people have fewer options to screw up the flow. Really you just need to keep the cargo trucks out of your city. I saw a cool design where someone used a cargo train line through the center of his city and dropped it all off at a port. It was really impressive. That's rubbish and you know it. In real life people use all the lanes in the road if it makes sense to. In real life drivers are almost magnetically pulled to empty lanes; they certainly don't use 1 lane of a 2 lane one way road. In real life, transport planners don't have to make artificial bottlenecks, otherwise drivers will use 2 lanes out of 6 instead of 6 out of 6. In real life, drivers are capable of taking alternative routes when the road ahead is full of traffic, instead of insisting that the shortest route will be the fastest. Most of "traffic problems" in cityskylines consist of figuring out the arcane rules that lorries follow in city skylines, rather than actually folowing real life logic that occurs in reality.
Don't get me wrong, figuring out traffic snarls is part of any city sim, just don't defend it by insisting that real life behaviour follow the city skylines game logic, because it doesn't.
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Using 1 lane problem in game comes from off ramps, which is quiet right. However the there seems to be no concept of 2-3 lane turn intersections. Though the road shows it, ai is oblivious to it.
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On March 25 2015 05:28 Dangermousecatdog wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2015 23:16 Plansix wrote:On March 23 2015 23:11 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On March 23 2015 22:48 Ota Solgryn wrote:The more I read about this game and the more I play I have come to the conclusion that this game is actually a traffic sim. The rest is just there to make it pretty. But still, it's kind of fun. More like a traffic sim that doesn't work properly The traffic logic is so very bad and makes no sense. There are some flaws with the AI for sure, but also you should remember that people who drive cars also make no sense. They do stupid shit, don't use all the lanes in the road and are generally idiots. There have been findings with new computer models that providing drivers with fewer lanes makes traffic move faster because people have fewer options to screw up the flow. Really you just need to keep the cargo trucks out of your city. I saw a cool design where someone used a cargo train line through the center of his city and dropped it all off at a port. It was really impressive. That's rubbish and you know it. In real life people use all the lanes in the road if it makes sense to. In real life drivers are almost magnetically pulled to empty lanes; they certainly don't use 1 lane of a 2 lane one way road. In real life, transport planners don't have to make artificial bottlenecks, otherwise drivers will use 2 lanes out of 6 instead of 6 out of 6. In real life, drivers are capable of taking alternative routes when the road ahead is full of traffic, instead of insisting that the shortest route will be the fastest. Most of "traffic problems" in cityskylines consist of figuring out the arcane rules that lorries follow in city skylines, rather than actually folowing real life logic that occurs in reality. Don't get me wrong, figuring out traffic snarls is part of any city sim, just don't defend it by insisting that real life behaviour follow the city skylines game logic, because it doesn't.
Come to Denmark. Drive somewhere where you have to turn right on a two way lane. Watch as everybody pulls in loooooong before they have to. Watch them go insane if you actually follow the rules and drive in the emtpy lane and then going right when you have to, according to the traffic rules in force.
:D
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On March 25 2015 05:54 jinorazi wrote:
Using 1 lane problem in game comes from off ramps, which is quiet right. However the there seems to be no concept of 2-3 lane turn intersections. Though the road shows it, ai is oblivious to it.
not true actually.
If you have a >1 lane left turn and the following road has an early left & right turn (like an intersection) then both of the original turns should be used.
The traffic really isn't that bad to manage if you keep in mind that the ai will very aggressively sort lanes.
Use both left and right hand turns to make cars properly use all lanes. This extends to Highways, while in reality you will never have a off ramp on the left side of the highway it is something you want to use in this game because of the AI quirks.
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On March 25 2015 06:21 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2015 05:54 jinorazi wrote:
Using 1 lane problem in game comes from off ramps, which is quiet right. However the there seems to be no concept of 2-3 lane turn intersections. Though the road shows it, ai is oblivious to it. not true actually. If you have a >1 lane left turn and the following road has an early left & right turn (like an intersection) then both of the original turns should be used. The traffic really isn't that bad to manage if you keep in mind that the ai will very aggressively sort lanes. Use both left and right hand turns to make cars properly use all lanes. This extends to Highways, while in reality you will never have a off ramp on the left side of the highway it is something you want to use in this game because of the AI quirks.
From what I see, like 6 lane road right turn into a one way 6 lane, only one lane is used when all 6 should be used, Just Pointing out this isn't the case in the game. As such, everyone hugs one lane for a ramp and cause traffic with other merging lanes trying to get to the left Which is normal by irl standards.
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On March 25 2015 05:57 Ota Solgryn wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2015 05:28 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On March 23 2015 23:16 Plansix wrote:On March 23 2015 23:11 Dangermousecatdog wrote:On March 23 2015 22:48 Ota Solgryn wrote:The more I read about this game and the more I play I have come to the conclusion that this game is actually a traffic sim. The rest is just there to make it pretty. But still, it's kind of fun. More like a traffic sim that doesn't work properly The traffic logic is so very bad and makes no sense. There are some flaws with the AI for sure, but also you should remember that people who drive cars also make no sense. They do stupid shit, don't use all the lanes in the road and are generally idiots. There have been findings with new computer models that providing drivers with fewer lanes makes traffic move faster because people have fewer options to screw up the flow. Really you just need to keep the cargo trucks out of your city. I saw a cool design where someone used a cargo train line through the center of his city and dropped it all off at a port. It was really impressive. That's rubbish and you know it. In real life people use all the lanes in the road if it makes sense to. In real life drivers are almost magnetically pulled to empty lanes; they certainly don't use 1 lane of a 2 lane one way road. In real life, transport planners don't have to make artificial bottlenecks, otherwise drivers will use 2 lanes out of 6 instead of 6 out of 6. In real life, drivers are capable of taking alternative routes when the road ahead is full of traffic, instead of insisting that the shortest route will be the fastest. Most of "traffic problems" in cityskylines consist of figuring out the arcane rules that lorries follow in city skylines, rather than actually folowing real life logic that occurs in reality. Don't get me wrong, figuring out traffic snarls is part of any city sim, just don't defend it by insisting that real life behaviour follow the city skylines game logic, because it doesn't. Come to Denmark. Drive somewhere where you have to turn right on a two way lane. Watch as everybody pulls in loooooong before they have to. Watch them go insane if you actually follow the rules and drive in the emtpy lane and then going right when you have to, according to the traffic rules in force. :D
I live in London, where there are roads made for a layout 1000 years ago, where sheer density crowds out notions of understanding, arcane rights of way, where you have to give way to gaggle of ducks, where there are so many one way roads, where everything leads to a dead end, villages seem to be magically embedded if you take a wrong turn, and roads seem to follow non-euclidean geometry and eldritch twists and turns can force you to turn back the way you came from. Somehow, no one has much trouble actually getting from A to B and using every single lane, but then again it could just be because everyone is used to it.
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On March 25 2015 06:42 jinorazi wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2015 06:21 Gorsameth wrote:On March 25 2015 05:54 jinorazi wrote:
Using 1 lane problem in game comes from off ramps, which is quiet right. However the there seems to be no concept of 2-3 lane turn intersections. Though the road shows it, ai is oblivious to it. not true actually. If you have a >1 lane left turn and the following road has an early left & right turn (like an intersection) then both of the original turns should be used. The traffic really isn't that bad to manage if you keep in mind that the ai will very aggressively sort lanes. Use both left and right hand turns to make cars properly use all lanes. This extends to Highways, while in reality you will never have a off ramp on the left side of the highway it is something you want to use in this game because of the AI quirks. From what I see, like 6 lane road right turn into a one way 6 lane, only one lane is used when all 6 should be used, Just Pointing out this isn't the case in the game. As such, everyone hugs one lane for a ramp and cause traffic with other merging lanes trying to get to the left Which is normal by irl standards.
When most of the traffic wants to take that ramp then yes this will happen (the aggressive lane sorting). But if they would use more lanes then you get issues at the ramp itself where multiple lanes of cars try to merge into 1 to go up the ramp.
To be fair I think a lot of people overuse 6 lane 1-way roads. You need a very good reason to use it imo when a 2-way will probably work just as well. 1-way roads are imo best used as small 2 lane local roads feeding directly to industry buildings and as a 6 lane (tho I would prefer something like 3-4 if they existed) to collect the small local roads, since traffic lights on a 1-way road give more green light time to the lane.
If your just leading traffic to a ramp your just as well off with only a 2 lane 1-way as with a 6 lane.
ps. If its a very high traffic road you might want to replace the ramp with an actual highway leading up so you have 3 lanes instead of 1.
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EPT
