Suburbs

[ew0054]

In Civ3, I first like to space out metropolises so that none of the city radius tiles overlap, then toward the modern era, stuffing small (size 3 or so) towns in the areas around them. This creates the feel of suburbs, but don't steal too many resources from the larger cities.

but I often questioned why a city of size 30 (4,650,000 people) looks no different than a size 13 (910,000 people) city (I know they just use the same sprite). I think that the functionality need not change for huge cities, but the graphic should every 5 or so size steps (for added realism). I tried modding, but I can't figure out a way to do it (can only change the existing size specifications of town/city/metro, not add new ones).

So my suggestion for Civ4 would be that I hope something like suburbs and sprawl get implemented somehow. Perhaps as the city gets bigger, some houses can appear in the surrounding tiles. I think that'd be cool.

BTW, has anyone seen any screenshots of modern-era Civ4 cities? It'd be nice if there's a future era as well.

[ew0054]

Also, if anybody's interested, I made an excel sheet that calculates actual city populations based on size. This works in all versions of Civ and I extrapolated the formula while playing (I take intrest in these miniscule details).

http://www.erniewerbel.com/civ3pop.xls

I live on the demographics screen ! I hope they add many new cool facts to it in Civ4!

[GAZ082]

Bah, They do look different fella! Play some Civ!

[LDiCesare]

CtP2 could be modded so that cities sprawled on neighbouring tiles, so Civ IV should be able to do the same as it is supposed to be the most moddable ever (though I suspect Firaxis just mean more moddable than Civ 2 or 3 and may not compare to CtP).