GRAPHIC: The 'Burbs: Urban Sprawl

[Rickk]

Okay, okay, I finally sat down and did it. After almost six months of complaining about not having suburbs in my Civ III game, I hopped into my comfy chair, opened my new PhotoShop 7, and began work on what I think turned out pretty cool.

So, to keep from making this a long speil about how I made suburbs in Civ II and felt it was much harder to impliment them in this game because there are few unspecific rule mods and only one form of irrigation (no irrigation and then farms), I'll just post a screen shot of one of my games using the mod (it looks alot better, really - this pic is terrible) and attach the file.



This is my second graphics mod for Civ III (my first were those "shields" for citizen happiness) and you can expect a couple of updates in the future (as well as a possible version of sprawl in midevil times using roads). Whatever.

Happy sprawling.

[kring]

It looks interesting, I will download it later to try it out.

[kring]

I went ahead and downloaded it, but it's late so I will try it out after work tomorrow.

[Ganja]

You've done a good job, maybe just a little too much sprawl though. I like to envision my armies marching over long distances of terrain occasionally crossing small villages, not visiting a village every turn.
Could you increase the size of buildings and such for the sprawl next to the cities and the sprawl diminishes the further away from the city? I once remember a mod for Call To Power2 which successfully showed urban sprawl as it should be.
A good job though.

[Rickk]

In truth, that's actually how it is.
Unfortunately, my screenie is a terrible one where I have too many railroads and all the suburbs blend together. I should have taken a screenshot on a better game, but didn't have the opportunity (my better games are on my laptop).

In essence, it is basically a railroad mod where a few little houses may pop up here and there. As you further industrialize your nation, you'll see communities around some cities. Once your nation is completely industrialized (like in my screenie), sprawl extends for miles from your urban areas, running into each other and creating dense patches of rows upon rows of houses (take for example the Houston sprawl in real life).

You won't see what you see in the screen shot until you have lots of railroads funnelling through your nations.

Could someone who tested this graphic take a screen shot of one of their games? I'd like to see how it looks with other mods and different playing styles (it would probably look best with those peoples' games who only build railroads around their cities and not interconnecting at every square they possibly can). Thanks.

[Acid]

Pretty cool, I liked it

[Level]

Looks good, what would be really cool is having huts on road, these on railroad, farms on irrigation, and snoopys citys.

[Jon Shafer]

Ahhh, this reminds me of another urban sprawl mod I saw somewhere else. I like them, they're much more realistic looking than the horrible rail tiles...

[tishco]

i have 3 little buildings mods all at once, the farm houses mod, the mines being buildings mod, and this one, which i have added a few more single houses, crudly.
i have got steam power in my game, i just need the workers to do their stuff.
where did the original tree graphic come from? it is in snoopys city mod.

[Rickk]

Possible Update?

I'm thinking about perhaps creating an update to this graphic where the railroads would actually become streets and more populated areas would include more high-rise or commercial images. Of course, this would mean expanding more houses into more of the grid and create a more "dense" look (which I had originally done, but tossed it because it was too thick with houses).

Any thoughts?

And where are those screenies of other people's games?

[tishco]

i would like skyscapers but not like the other urban railway mod, that was too messy

[Rickk]

I agree. I meant for just a few on the most "populated" tiles (the ones that have all connections and are used in rotating order).

[Der PH]

This is really good!

BlueO's city sprawl was too dense with too many scyscrapers. This one looks really suburban. Great work! I like it!
Even the AI's territory, which usually is completely covered with rails, looks acceptable.

[XMon]

Re: Possible Update?

Originally posted by Rickk
I'm thinking about perhaps creating an update to this graphic where the railroads would actually become streets and more populated areas would include more high-rise or commercial images. Of course, this would mean expanding more houses into more of the grid and create a more "dense" look (which I had originally done, but tossed it because it was too thick with houses).

Those changes would be great. Let them be railroads in the Industrial Era and then become highways in the Modern Era.

Now if we could just get rid of the ridiculous "infinite movement" of units on railroads...

[Rickk]

Re: Re: Possible Update?

Originally posted by XMon
Those changes would be great. Let them be railroads in the Industrial Era and then become highways in the Modern Era.

I wish! The only way I can see this happening is if you simply use the standard railroads while you're in the industrial age and then simple install my "highway/suburb" mod once you cross over into the modern age.

Of course, I always am about nine-hundred steps ahead of the computer technologically and if I did that, they would suddenly - in the midst of their industrial revolution - sprout suburbs! Quite a hillarious sight, I believe.


I'm almost done with V2.0 of these mods. Here's what's happening:

Road tiles now have small houses that will pop up slowly once a lot of roads in the region have been built (usually around cities, so this just looks like population distribution). The houses are ancient-esque Roman style (it looked best with all culture forms).

Railroads are in the process of being changed into highways or streets (grey solid things). The houses are basically what you see in V1.0 of this mod, with a few more changes to improve realism. So far I think it's working out. There will be a few more skyscrapers mixed in with the densest parts of the suburbs. I believe you can use your imagination to pretend that these are your metropoltin areas; your Ft. Worth to your Dallas, your Jersey City to your New York, your Aneheim to your Los Angeles - I think you get the picture. The little unnamed cities that you knew had to exsist can now actually be seen. It's pretty cool. I'll try to upload V2.0 today if I finish it.