The Cities Unlimited Archives: Index of Articles

With today's post we're wrapping up the last of the Cities Unlimited archives... a listing of all the Concept articles and what they're about (in brief). I hope everyone has found them of interest, they certainly stand as a testament to the ability of the fan community to understand what is needed from a next-generation city building game. Hopefully with Metropolis we'll be able to fulfill all the hopes people had for Cities XL.

Concepts Articles Archive

(special thanks to Zimpe for the idea of archiving the threads, categorised by forum, and for working on an earlier version of the archive)

Game Discussions:

• Concepts article: CITIES XL World (aka 'Planetary Idea')
• Concepts article: Multiplayer & Online Play
• Concepts article: Improving Regional Integration
• Concepts article: Denser Grid than SimCity 4
• Concepts article: Diagonals & More Angles
• Concepts article: Scale & Proportion
• Concepts article: Difficulty / Complexity Level (aka 'Standard and Advanced Options')
• Concepts article: Municipal, City & Neighbourhood Borders
• Concepts article: Climate & Weather
• Concepts article: Seasons
• Concepts article: Waterfront Infrastructure & Features

Mechanics:

• Concepts article: Plopping vs. Zoning - It's Your Decision!
• Concepts article: Buildings & Architecture Style Tilesets
• Concepts article: More Zoning Options & Control (aka 'Quasi-Zoning') / Local Government's 'Planning Department'
• Concepts article: Mixed-Purpose Zoning and Lots/Buildings
• Concepts article: Separate Zone & Lot Borders
• Concepts article: Street Markets
• Concepts article: Agriculture, Fishing & Food Supplies
• Concepts article: Trade Data/Information for Industry & Business

Civics:

• None so far

Transports:

• Concepts article: Roads & Highways
• Concepts article: Railways
• Concepts article: Pedestrian & Cyclist Networks/Infrastructure
• Concepts article: Overpasses, Underpasses and Elevated/Sunken Transport Networks
• Concepts article: "Auto-Levelling" Option/Tool for Transport Networks
• Concepts article: Interchange Builder/Editor for Roads & Highways

Terrains:

• Concepts article: Flowing Water & Bodies of Water
• Concepts article: Terraforming Tools (aka "God Mode")
• Concepts article: Lots & Structures on Slopes (aka 'Terrain Conforming/Reconciling')
• Concepts article: Landscaping / Grading Land

CITIES XL Conceptual articles - collaborative ideas from the city-building fansite communities

Letting Monte Cristo know what the fans want in CITIES XL!

Thanks to Philippe of Monte Cristo, for making this thread into a sticky to get extra publicity!

Many Thanks to Moneyman2010mn for writing up a lot of the content for the Railways article

Special Thanks, for all of their excellent ideas, to:

www.simcitycentral.net members

Audevourahn, blooftar, CinWilMan, cityplanner145, cogo, confusedguy, Daisycutter, danielches, denjca29, DHamp, djvandrake, Henry Midfields, Infinite, jack11, JasonJerbil, JBravo, Jimbo_JJ, KeanoManu, keefer4, krsn, Lord David, mad_genius, mahler12x, MajesticPL, MrGSCoTTc, negative352, NirvanaWi, nofunk, pakchi70, Patience, Pix, Poetic, rctshack, sbroadbent, simwario, SJMX, soltan gris, southcentral, Special Kei, Usman

www.citiesxl.com members

Asheroo/ aka. Ashley, bensonosis, biglower, canadave, chocolatemax, cumelbourne, eric, ewitwins, g314, G-Force, grappler53, jon, jp, krzysiek, mastrobrace, Matt, MayorTim, Pedro Rodrigues, sircarl, SleepyHollow, The Yeti, TheWhitestOfFangs, Titaniumnutz, Tropod, urbanlife, wisdom_bin, Ynhockey

www.simphoni.net members

davilla, DHamp, Rexer, the Monkeys Uncle

CITIES XL Conceptual articles are essentially a collection of documents which collaborate the ideas that have been floating around the existing SimCity fansite communities since the release of SimCity 4, for the next generations of city-building simulators. A way of extracting, bringing together, sorting and organising all the little hidden golden nuggets of information nestled away in the suggestions forums, while the original discussion threads at the forums become more chaotic.

These communities of once-loyal SimCity fans appear to have been abandoned by Electronic Arts, disillusioned by the change of direction that has been taken with SimCity: Societies, while Monte Cristo has made great attempts to engage intimately with the city-building simulator fans with the intention to incorporate what we really want into such a game.

Consider these articles to be similar to a fully-structured encyclopaedia of the ideas from various city-building simulator fansite communities for the next great city-building simulation game: CITIES XL! Ultimately, this is all about how Monte Cristo can improve upon what is currently the best city-building simulator, SimCity 4, by expanding upon the realism and the dynamics, giving a greater gaming experience to all players.

Within these forums, you will find a collection of articles created for the sole purpose of making sense and order out of what the SimCity fans abandoned by EA would actually want from CITIES XL, collectively.

A little background information...

A long time back, and way before SimCity: Societies was announced, I thought it would be a good idea for a leading SimCity fansite to have articles on their main website detailing suggestions for future game releases which are still in development. The articles would be based only on the most popular and plausible suggestions, perhaps decided by polls. There would be a selection of explanatory but concise well-written articles, covering the entire scope of any particular idea or suggestion that the fans would like to see included in the game. Links to the articles can then be added to the website's main pages, ranked in order of popularity.

The hope would be that some Maxoids would surely want to visit the site to gain the feedback and ideas from the communities of fans. Having detailed but straight-to-the-point articles about ideas for the upcoming new game releases, with popularity ranking, would be invaluable for a game developer's research into what the fans really want from their games. It would portray a much clearer picture, as opposed to the developers looking through hundreds upon hundreds of threads with countless posts in the suggestion forums at fansites of the game.

I later realised that it would be better to set up my own site for this, with regards to SimCity 5. I felt that maximum publicity was needed, which meant there had to be a close relationship with all SimCity fansites, while my site stood independently and non-integral to any one fansite.

The idea was that with any luck, high-traffic from SimCity fansites, and lots of participation in the voting, Maxis would not be able to ignore this site and would take note of what was happening. Ultimately, it would have benefited them just as much as we, the fans, would benefit if they managed to incorporate what the fans actually wanted into SimCity 5.

Since that time, SimCity: Societies was announced and destroyed my ambitions for the website.

The website was already under development, but has since been abandoned not only due to fact that EA appear to have abandoned what SimCity used to stand for, but also because of technical problems with the site's development.

I have now decided to focus the attention on Monte Cristo and CITIES XL as I feel they have already proven as a company that they are extremely interested in interacting with the fans, to find what we want, and incorporate those ideas into the game - whereas Electronic Arts appear more interested in dumbing-down SimCity and making the quick buck. EA have well and truly dropped the city-building simulator ball, and Monte Cristo have most certainly picked it back up!

ARTICLE LIST & LINKS:

The Bigger Picture

CITIES XL World (aka 'Planetary Idea') - Expanding the scope of city-building beyond SimCity 4's "regions". Connecting regions together into nations on an entire planet.

Multiplayer & Online Play - Developing entire regions of your own, alongside human or AI players developing their own. All put together making up the world at large.

Improving Regional Integration - Improving the way different cities and municipalities interact with eachother, and how they affect their surrounding areas or entire region.

Denser Grid than SimCity 4 - Removing the many restrictions of the low-density grid from SimCity 4, by implementing a co-ordinates system which the game uses to reference positioning of everything within our cities; and allowing the player to use a much tighter, adjustable, and rotatable grid for their own purposes of alignment at any time.

Diagonals & More Angles - Allowing alignment at many different angles when using any tools and placing any items or infrastructure. Also, rectifying the problems that this ability created in CityLife.

Scale & Proportion - Adjusting the sizes and proportions of Buildings and Lots, the distance of commutes, and the coverage of facilities; to bring the scale of a city-building game closer to reality.

Difficulty / Complexity Level (aka 'Standard and Advanced Options') - Introducing a 'complexity' setting, because city-building games are enjoyed on a number of different levels by different types of individual players. There should be a better option than just having difficulty settings, so that the game can be enjoyed at both a complex, and simplified level.

Municipal, City & Neighbourhood Borders - Removing the restriction to "square" municipalities akin to cities in SimCity 4, and instead allowing the player to draw them as any shape. Adding the additional abilities to mark out town/city borders, which can in turn be divided into neighbourhoods; and to mark out and name notable features in our cities.

Geology & Natural World

Flowing Water & Bodies of Water - Reintroducing flowing water to city-building games. It's not realistic for all rivers, streams and bodies of water to be at sea level. Includes streams, rivers, waterfalls, dams, wetlands, etc.

Terraforming Tools (aka "God Mode") - Changing the way our "regions" or "worlds" can be edited using terraforming tools, so that it is done at the regional/world level and across city/municipality borders (akin to the SC4Terraformer tool). Also implementing natural wetland terrains such as beaches, mudflats and marshes.

Climate & Weather - Having an optional setting to include visual climate and weather in the game, and the option to include their positive and negative effects on your cities.

Seasons - As an extension to bringing climate and weather into the game, the seasonal effects throughout the year should also be incorporated.

Buildings & Landscaping

Plopping vs. Zoning - It's Your Decision! - Including both plopping and zoning options for absolutely everything. Let the player decide how to build their cities. Also includes how this would tie-in with designing and laying out our own "projects".

Buildings & Architecture Style Tilesets - More buildings than before and more variety of building architecture styles available for all types of buildings.

More Zoning Options & Control (aka 'Quasi-Zoning') / Local Government's 'Planning Department' - Giving the player more control over what attributes buildings must have to be permitted development within a zone (instead of being restricted to the vague choices from SimCity: residential / commercial / industrial and low-density / med-density / high-density).

Mixed-Purpose Zoning and Lots/Buildings - Allowing our zones and buildings to have mixed-uses between different types of business; and also the mixed-use of residential and business within the same buildings.

Separate Zone & Lot Borders - Visually and distinctively separating the borders of Lots and Zones (either undeveloped, or when viewing "zones only" / "buildings hidden") by having a thicker border around Zones - in order to tell them apart when using different options for two or more adjoining Zones.

Lots & Structures on Slopes (aka 'Terrain Conforming/Reconciling') - Fixing the problems associated with building on hills in SimCity 4, by forcing the land to conform in a more practical and realistic manner.

Waterfront Infrastructure & Features - Improving upon SimCity's waterfront infrastructure which has always been less than satisfactory; including harbours, marinas, sea-walls, boardwalks/piers, and realistic ports for cruise ships, large ferries, or cargo ships.

Landscaping / Grading Land - Precision landscaping tools (levelling / smooth gradient sloping) for grading land to be suitable for developments such as transport networks, buildings, and public parks, etc.

Transportation Networks

Roads & Highways - Everything to do with your transportation network for road vehicles, including customisation.

Railways - Including new types of rail network and improving existing railway types, including customisation.

Pedestrian & Cyclist Networks/Infrastructure - Including functional, customisable transport networks and infrastructure dedicated to pedestrians and cyclists.

Overpasses, Underpasses and Elevated/Sunken Transport Networks - Allowing simple creation of above-grade and below-grade transport networks using a variety of construction methods; allowing a multitude of new possibilities such as stacked networks along the same route, and multiple overpassess/underpasses at different heights.

"Auto-Levelling" Option/Tool for Transport Networks - An extremely useful automated landscaping tool, which can be activated when laying transport networks; forcing ground networks to remain flat while surrounding land conforms, and forcing elevated networks to adjust the height of the supporting structure(s) while keeping the network flat.

Interchange Builder/Editor for Roads & Highways - Providing an in-game Interchange Editor where we can build and adjust our own interchanges using a collection of pieces which snap together in any way the player desires. The saved interchanges can then be plopped anywhere in our cities.

Industry & Trade

Street Markets - Allowing the zoning of areas for temporary or permanent public street market stalls to be set up on paved areas, sidewalks, parking lots, or roads.

Agriculture, Fishing & Food Supplies - Incorporating a background simulation for local food supplies affected by the amount of farming and fishing, which will in-turn dramatically affect residential demand and desirability.

User-Interface, Data Views & Tools

Trade Data/Information for Industry & Business - Resurrecting the Industry & Trade bar chart from SimCity 2000 allowing changes to tax rates on individual industries; and in addition showing showing the levels of trade & demand in different industry sectors and of different materials, the workforce sizes, and the levels of importing/exporting.