SC4K, Airports

On Sat, 07 Aug 2004 01:12:20 GMT, Adam Weiss put finger to keyboard
and typed:

>What I was getting at is this. Newark International, is not in New York
>City but gets much of its traffic from travelers going to and from New
>York City. Houston Intercontinental Airport is on a spit of land
>incorporated into Houston but nearly surrounded by other cities. (The
>City of Houston, at 500 square miles and growing, would cover an area
>the size of one of Sim City's regions if it were a Sim City). Smaller
>airports act similarly. The Portland International Jetport in Portland
>Maine is more or less considered -the- airport in the state of Maine.
>
>That's why I thought it'd be more realistic if airports served entire
>regions in SC4. Didn't mean for it to be a flame fest....

I agree. The thing is that region play is new to SC4 - it didn't exist
in previous versions - and the idea of each city needing to be
self-contained is a hangover from older editions. I also suspect that
Maxis weren't really sure how popular region play would be with the
fans, so they didn't want to make changes which would force it on
people who just wanted to build stand-alone cities.

If and when SC5 gets on the development schedule, I'd like to see
improvements to the inter-region functionality made a priority. The
idea of transport hubs, inter-city rail/road networks, central
airports - that kind of thing. I'd also like to be able to have
multiple regions on the go at once and be able to switch between them
without needing to save the game, go back to the menu and then load a
new city - so, for example, you could build New York by working on
several regions simultaneously with some kind of fast switching
between them. Plus, it would make sense if any NIMBY/YIMBY effects and
service provision (such as school/police radius) extended over region
boundaries, so that kids in one region could go to school in the next,
for example, and a toxic waste site close to a boundary would affect
the region it's next to as well as its own.

In fact, come to think of it, I'd rather see the rudimentary regional
sysem in SC4 totally replaced by a kind of sectionalised view of what
the game considers to be a single large city or region. That way, if
you want to build a small city within a single section, you can, but
then if you want to expand you can do so naturally by building out
into neighbouring sections - just as a real life city would expand.

Mark
--
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SimCity airports serve a particular purpose, and that's to increase the
demand cap for commercial development. The only cities that need airports
are your skyscraper jungles. Even then, you can get just as much demand cap
relief from a good highway system.

The effect does reach surrounding cities. If you use the increased
commercial demand to grow more businesses in the airport city, then
neighboring cities will have an increased demand for residential growth in
response. Once you satisfy that demand, it'll generate more commercial
which you can zone in the neighboring cities or expand in your central
airport one.

Of course, this only happens if the airport actually unlocks any pent up
commercial demand in the city where its built. If you're not close to the
demand cap then your nice looking airport is only costing you money.

JB

"Mark Goodge" <usenet.TakeThisOut@listmail.good-stuff.co.uk> wrote in message
news:ihg9h0h1s5rkchh5j2jnvppt1c6b2qe889@news.markshouse.net...
> On Sat, 07 Aug 2004 01:12:20 GMT, Adam Weiss put finger to keyboard
> and typed:
>
> >What I was getting at is this. Newark International, is not in New York
> >City but gets much of its traffic from travelers going to and from New
> >York City. Houston Intercontinental Airport is on a spit of land
> >incorporated into Houston but nearly surrounded by other cities. (The
> >City of Houston, at 500 square miles and growing, would cover an area
> >the size of one of Sim City's regions if it were a Sim City). Smaller
> >airports act similarly. The Portland International Jetport in Portland
> >Maine is more or less considered -the- airport in the state of Maine.
> >
> >That's why I thought it'd be more realistic if airports served entire
> >regions in SC4. Didn't mean for it to be a flame fest....
>
> I agree. The thing is that region play is new to SC4 - it didn't exist
> in previous versions - and the idea of each city needing to be
> self-contained is a hangover from older editions. I also suspect that
> Maxis weren't really sure how popular region play would be with the
> fans, so they didn't want to make changes which would force it on
> people who just wanted to build stand-alone cities.
>
> If and when SC5 gets on the development schedule, I'd like to see
> improvements to the inter-region functionality made a priority. The
> idea of transport hubs, inter-city rail/road networks, central
> airports - that kind of thing. I'd also like to be able to have
> multiple regions on the go at once and be able to switch between them
> without needing to save the game, go back to the menu and then load a
> new city - so, for example, you could build New York by working on
> several regions simultaneously with some kind of fast switching
> between them. Plus, it would make sense if any NIMBY/YIMBY effects and
> service provision (such as school/police radius) extended over region
> boundaries, so that kids in one region could go to school in the next,
> for example, and a toxic waste site close to a boundary would affect
> the region it's next to as well as its own.
>
> In fact, come to think of it, I'd rather see the rudimentary regional
> sysem in SC4 totally replaced by a kind of sectionalised view of what
> the game considers to be a single large city or region. That way, if
> you want to build a small city within a single section, you can, but
> then if you want to expand you can do so naturally by building out
> into neighbouring sections - just as a real life city would expand.
>
> Mark
> --
> www.FridayFun.net - because every day should be at least partly Friday!
> Jokes, pictures, games, forum, ringtones and pranks
 >> Stay informed about: SC4K, Airports