SimCity 4

[Craig P.]

Arcologies are a feature of SimCity 2000. I don't know that it's advertised, but it's certainly not hidden.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Jmaster
I don't believe I have ever heard arcologies advertised in SC. Were they some kind of half-hidden easter egg, meant for a suprise?

They were in SC2k, and they wasn't hidden...

Originally posted by Jmaster
I think arcos are a nifty add-on that looks nice. It's hard to implement a city within a city. They would have to be huge and expensive.

That was the problem, they used less space than a zoo... and they were pretty cheap...

[Grumbold]

Arcologies are a concept that we are starting to see in embryo form in the real world. They are one logical progression past modern architecture. High density self contained living, working, leisure and retail spaces. Already we have gated communities where people live and work.

I'd just like to see something that takes us past 2002 (or even 2010) architecture. If we get microwave and fusion plants there ought to be similar extrapolations of other modern city spaces. 11 Sep may have briefly blunted our desire to build taller, but its made security even more desirable.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Grumbold
I'd just like to see something that takes us past 2002 (or even 2010) architecture.

I agree, would be nice to have a near-future city (well...2010 is near-future...isn't it?), but if they include arco's, they really need to be taller, take up more land and cost much more...

[Grumbold]

..but then you couldn't fit 1024 Launch Arco's in your single region anymore

They did dwarf the biggest skyscrapers in SC2000. The whole point of an Arco is high-density living to make the most of stratospheric property costs. Admittedly 65,000 people in a building with a 5x5 footprint was stretching it a little, even with a pressure dome over the parkland on floor 1,000

[Comrade Tribune]

I think they should add a few more 'special' buildings.

Such as Churches for the pious.

And a Red Light District, for the not so pious.

[Adagio]

AFAIR you could build the Red Light District in SimsVille... the game Maxis cancelled...

[XarXo]

Arcologies need a highway connection, why? Think in the food needed for maintain all the people!!!

I can see a huge building with one or more highways with hundreds of truck. Also train connections, subway and other transports saturated trying to solve the demand problem. Think in all the load/unload actions of a small city of 65.000 to 300.000 inhabitants!!!

[Straybow]

[rant mode ]
The things I never liked too much in SC2k is the scale conflict. On the one hand, it is implied that each tile is one acre, roughly 208 feet (63.4 m) square. That being the case, the buildings are too large by at least a factor of 2 and roads too large by a factor of 4 or more.

As others have pointed out, being forced to build a 3x3 fire or police station is somewhat absurd. Most fire stations need a couple acres at most, allowing for space to turn the trucks and park the firemen's vehicles. Maybe in NYC or similar high-density environments larger stations (with a dozen or more emergency vehicles and living spaces for crews in shifts) are efficient. A police station for a small city might be 3x3 counting all the vehicle parking and servicing areas, but in most cases would be closer to 2x2.

To put it in perspective, the late World Trade Center Towers were built with each floor being a full acre. The average skyscraper in NY, Tokyo, etc have towers approximately half the width, 0.2-0.4 acre/floor. The footprint of the building at ground level would be larger, but zoning ordinances require that tower faces be set back from the property line—the higher one goes, the greater the required setback distance.

In SC2k a typical commercial or residential highrise is 2x2, without any appreciable setback from the property edges. The smallest commercial buildings take up a whole tile. In real cases they'd be ¼ to ½ an acre. Low density housing is shown at 2/tile, which might be true in the fancier suburban neighborhoods, but the total acreage available for low density housing in the neighood of any reak city far exceeds the playable map area at 1 acre/tile.

The roads are way too big, with city streets rarely being more than 80 feet wide (allowing for 4 lanes of traffic, angled parking on the sides, a median, and a wide sidewalk). A 4-lane interstate highway right-of-way is rarely a full 200' wide—only 12' per lane of traffic, 8-10' shoulders each side, 20-30' median and sidings.

When you come to truly large structures for heavy industry, warehouses, etc a 3x3 (9 acre) area hardly suffices. The mall in my home city is larger than that and this is a small city! Then consider to the size of the parking lot…

Seaport and airport designs are so far off-scale it is laughable. A small airport built before the advent of jets would have 2000-3000' runways. That would be 10-15 one-acre tiles. Runways for commercial jets must be at least 5000', or 25 one-acre tiles in length. The larger international airports have 10k' runways, 50 one-acre tiles in length.

At one level "it's just a game," and who cares? But the more features they try to shoehorn in (rights-of-way and stations and terminals for bus and subway and train service, parks, service infrastructure, etc), each with excessive space requirements, the less is left over for living and business.

[Adagio]

More screens at the official site

[XarXo]

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Mmmm, I can see myself running in a empty road, is night, I see the lights of a small city in the valley, no trees, and in a small corner, the cemetery of the city... AAAAAAAGH, a GHOST!!!! AGHHH...

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More Ghostly Stories on SimSpooky 4

Whoa, look thes screen at:

http://simcity.ea.com/images/screens/set1/screenshot_02_big.jpg

[ixnay]

Heh. Got to love the shot of the prison sitting in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

[vovan]

Originally posted by ixnay
Heh. Got to love the shot of the prison sitting in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

Oh yes? How about a nice view of a toxic waste dump from your window?

The first new screenshot That's got to be one of the best

[Adagio]

Originally posted by ixnay
Heh. Got to love the shot of the prison sitting in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

Reminds me of where I live... with a priso...ehmm... I mean school just next to, were I live (Just kidding... lucky me, the school is not THAT close to where I live )

[Comrade Tribune]

Originally posted by ixnay
Heh. Got to love the shot of the prison sitting in the middle of a residential neighborhood.

Homeland security coming to you.