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My biggest problem with both SimCity and City:Skylines (its spiritual successor) is that neither allows mixed-use zoning, forcing you to rely heavily on either

My biggest problem with both SimCity and City:Skylines (its spiritual successor) is that neither allows mixed-use zoning, forcing you to rely heavily on either cars or dense (expensive) transit networks. It's like they can't break the mold of the US suburban mindset.

nkrisc 8y ago
In the latter, while you can't build a building zoned for multiple uses, you can certainly very much blend zoning very thoroughly, alternating commercial and residential buildings as you go down the street. Of course, the simulation likely isn't sophisticated enough to make full use of that (people will travel across the entire map to go shopping). I can also understand from a gameplay perspective why this is the case.
- FascistDonut 8y ago
  Maybe the shops in that part of town have better stuff.
- InitialLastName 8y ago
  There's the issue you mention, but IIRC there are also some big stat hits (happiness, noise, land value) from that sort of pattern. The game really pushes towards districts of distinct zoning as an optimized solution.
- DonHopkins 8y ago
  It's very much because of gameplay issues. Theoretically the computer can simulate whatever model you can dream up, but the much harder problem is the user understanding, visualizing and editing that model with an easy interface that feels fun like playing a game, not tedious like doing your taxes in Excel or rigging skeletons in 3D Studio Max. Think of the number of extra user interface panels and gizmos and views and pop-ups and menus that users would have to wrangle in order to build, edit, query, visualize, and maintain 3D multiple story mixed use buildings in a city simulation, instead of having a simple 1:1 correspondence between space on the 2D map and zone type. The closest thing SimCity comes to mixed use zoning is multi-layered Arcologies, and the interface to those is pretty complicated and unwieldy. Imagine if every building and skyscraper in the city were that complex! Sim Tower supports mixed use zoning (with different discrete rooms in the same building), but just within one high rise tower, not a whole city. It's as much a game about pedestrian traffic, elevators, queuing and congestion, as an economic simulation. The Sims is whole a game unto itself at a different level of abstraction, that lets you build multi-story residential and commercial buildings with walls, doors, windows, furniture, etc. But it doesn't simulate "urban dynamics" between zones, just "personal dynamics" between the people and the architecture and contents of the buildings. The Sims 3 was scaled up so you could seamlessly walk around small towns, but The Sims 4 went back to focusing on houses or apartments in individual lots or flats, instead of expanding to simulating entire cities.
  - aisngionio 8y ago
    I'd be interested in a city simulation game that is focused on realism and depth with no concern for having a modern UI or being pretty. Think Aurora 4x, Dwarf Fortress, or Nethack. "Doing your taxes in Excel" is, surprisingly, a real game genre. It would be a very unpopular game, but there are people who would love it.
  - sverige 8y ago
    I've long had a dream of taking the source code for the original SimCity and changing it more to my liking. The newer version was nice for streets with curves, but inferior in almost every other way compared to the original. But I doubt I'll ever find the time to actually take a crack at it, so it will likely remain just a dream.
    - crooked-v 8y ago
      Take a look at Lincity, an open-source clone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincity
      - sverige 8y ago
        Thank you!
    - toast0 8y ago
      The original source is now available under the name Micropolis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimCity_(1989_video_game)#Micropolis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimCity_(1989_video_game)#Mi...
      - DonHopkins 8y ago
        Github repo: https://github.com/SimHacker/micropolis https://github.com/SimHacker/micropolis
  - woolvalley 8y ago
    Couldn't we solve this with a percentage type for zoning, or adding a "mixed commerical/residential" zone? UI wise that shouldn't be any more complicated. Or you can change the zoning into japanese zoning, where the UI can stay simple as you escalate the permission level of a zone. https://code.uberinternal.com/T2597239 https://code.uberinternal.com/T2597239
i_am_proteus 8y ago
This. If Jane Jacobs could play Skylines today, she'd probably be on the phone to the devs asking them "why can't I have ground floor retail under my residential?"
SilasX 8y ago
So, it faithfully represents urban planning in the US then?
- andys627 8y ago
  Exactly!

nkrisc 8y ago

In the latter, while you can't build a building zoned for multiple uses, you can certainly very much blend zoning very thoroughly, alternating commercial and residential buildings as you go down the street. Of course, the simulation likely isn't sophisticated enough to make full use of that (people will travel across the entire map to go shopping). I can also understand from a gameplay perspective why this is the case.

FascistDonut 8y ago
Maybe the shops in that part of town have better stuff.
InitialLastName 8y ago
There's the issue you mention, but IIRC there are also some big stat hits (happiness, noise, land value) from that sort of pattern. The game really pushes towards districts of distinct zoning as an optimized solution.
DonHopkins 8y ago
It's very much because of gameplay issues. Theoretically the computer can simulate whatever model you can dream up, but the much harder problem is the user understanding, visualizing and editing that model with an easy interface that feels fun like playing a game, not tedious like doing your taxes in Excel or rigging skeletons in 3D Studio Max. Think of the number of extra user interface panels and gizmos and views and pop-ups and menus that users would have to wrangle in order to build, edit, query, visualize, and maintain 3D multiple story mixed use buildings in a city simulation, instead of having a simple 1:1 correspondence between space on the 2D map and zone type. The closest thing SimCity comes to mixed use zoning is multi-layered Arcologies, and the interface to those is pretty complicated and unwieldy. Imagine if every building and skyscraper in the city were that complex! Sim Tower supports mixed use zoning (with different discrete rooms in the same building), but just within one high rise tower, not a whole city. It's as much a game about pedestrian traffic, elevators, queuing and congestion, as an economic simulation. The Sims is whole a game unto itself at a different level of abstraction, that lets you build multi-story residential and commercial buildings with walls, doors, windows, furniture, etc. But it doesn't simulate "urban dynamics" between zones, just "personal dynamics" between the people and the architecture and contents of the buildings. The Sims 3 was scaled up so you could seamlessly walk around small towns, but The Sims 4 went back to focusing on houses or apartments in individual lots or flats, instead of expanding to simulating entire cities.
- aisngionio 8y ago
  I'd be interested in a city simulation game that is focused on realism and depth with no concern for having a modern UI or being pretty. Think Aurora 4x, Dwarf Fortress, or Nethack. "Doing your taxes in Excel" is, surprisingly, a real game genre. It would be a very unpopular game, but there are people who would love it.
- sverige 8y ago
  I've long had a dream of taking the source code for the original SimCity and changing it more to my liking. The newer version was nice for streets with curves, but inferior in almost every other way compared to the original. But I doubt I'll ever find the time to actually take a crack at it, so it will likely remain just a dream.
  - crooked-v 8y ago
    Take a look at Lincity, an open-source clone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincity
    - sverige 8y ago
      Thank you!
  - toast0 8y ago
    The original source is now available under the name Micropolis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimCity_(1989_video_game)#Micropolis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimCity_(1989_video_game)#Mi...
    - DonHopkins 8y ago
      Github repo: https://github.com/SimHacker/micropolis https://github.com/SimHacker/micropolis
- woolvalley 8y ago
  Couldn't we solve this with a percentage type for zoning, or adding a "mixed commerical/residential" zone? UI wise that shouldn't be any more complicated. Or you can change the zoning into japanese zoning, where the UI can stay simple as you escalate the permission level of a zone. https://code.uberinternal.com/T2597239 https://code.uberinternal.com/T2597239

i_am_proteus 8y ago

This. If Jane Jacobs could play Skylines today, she'd probably be on the phone to the devs asking them "why can't I have ground floor retail under my residential?"

SilasX 8y ago

So, it faithfully represents urban planning in the US then?

andys627 8y ago
Exactly!