How many levels will a house upgrade ?

[vibhu]

Hi,

First of , a very happy new year to you . I am posting this message from India , and there are 20 mins left for new year here... but the thougts are going back a few hundred years to the Roman Empier :-)

I played C3 a long time back and it was one of my favourite games. I picked up SimCity afterwards, but was never able to really apply my mind to that as it just did not have either a campaign or houses evolving.

so, what's the number of times that houses will evolve in C4 ? Any ideas ?

Also, how many other building will evolve ? I hope that we will have some surprise evolving also - i just love this element of the game.

[MarkDuffy]

10 - 15 steps?

Ye Gods, are you TOTALLY insane?

(Insane is kewl! )

I would kinda like everything else BUT "houses" to evolve. Houses = common residences holding more people. I would like population to be tough & require MORE houses instead of bigger houses.

Houses upgrading to be able to do more stuff like better jobs or needing more goods & services would be nice.

(Didn't vote ... yet)

[Azeem]

I found that aspect in the old CBs really strange. Houses devolve and a massive exodus ensues because they're missing pottery...?

I think what should make sense in terms of housing would be something like the owners or tenants of a building making the house appear better (thereby increasing their satisfaction), but not necessarily magically turn into palaces or revert into little tents. And when things are not so good, the house appears dilapidated, occupants become dissatisfied much easier, and the building becomes more hazardous (increased risk of fires or collapse or plague ).

[Jezza]

Originally Posted by Azeem

I found that aspect in the old CBs really strange. Houses devolve and a massive exodus ensues because they're missing pottery...?

That was something that REALLY annoyed me with C3. Maybe illness in the area would cause an exodus, but not a lack of pottery, furniture or a second type of wine..

I think housing should evolve, but perhaps mix it with something like Emperor, where you have to build elite housing specifically. The Poor will start with tents and make something better on the land they have, but the elite will never build on a tent site...

[CaitGrey]

Hiya, Vibhu, welcome and a very happy new year to you!

I agree with you, in the sense that I enjoyed the houses evolving when prosperity was right and devolving when the people weren't doing so well or needed stuff they didn't have.
The challenge of keeping erverything stable was fun. But I would also like more control of what level of housing is where, than was available in C3. Pharaoh came closer. COTN is boring in that respect - build it and it is there, nothing happens.

[Dog of the Sun]

Hmm, gives question sum thought- +-+-+ more than three but less than ten, I mean if they evolve that much, can you think how many upgrades you would need for the palace, woof

[MarkDuffy]

< 10 levels for a house

Originally Posted by CaitGrey

COTN is boring in that respect - build it and it is there, nothing happens.

Say what? The only thing those non-COTN residences did was move in & move out.

B-O-O-R-I-N-G

[vibhu]

Originally Posted by MarkDuffy

< 10 levels for a house
Say what? The only thing those non-COTN residences did was move in & move out.

B-O-O-R-I-N-G

LOL !

Originally Posted by Jezza

I think housing should evolve, but perhaps mix it with something like Emperor, where you have to build elite housing specifically. The Poor will start with tents and make something better on the land they have, but the elite will never build on a tent site...

That trend was started with the Zeus series. But I don't like it cause you need to have 2 house types, and each level of housing has lesser number of improvements.

Originally Posted by MarkDuffy

I would kinda like everything else BUT "houses" to evolve. Houses = common residences holding more people. I would like population to be tough & require MORE houses instead of bigger houses.

Not really. You don't suppose that people in Rome just had the same houses all throughout ? There were villas, condominiums etc ( err... don't remember all the types, but go through the Asterix series and you will find plenty of mention of those ).

Originally Posted by azeem

I found that aspect in the old CBs really strange. Houses devolve and a massive exodus ensues because they're missing pottery...?

Well, thats a way to really know how your city is improving. Otherwise it will just be too easy to play.

Originally Posted by MarkDuffy

10 - 15 steps?

Ye Gods, are you TOTALLY insane?

(Insane is kewl! )

Yup. People have labelled me that before ... but their ancestors had also said that people cannot travel through air

Let me see
Lev 1 : Tent
Lev 2 : Requires water
Lev 3 : Requires 1 type of food
Lev 4 : Requires access to religion
Lev 5 : Requires access to pottery
Lev 6 : Requires access to school
Lev 7 : Requires access to 2 types of food
Lev 8 : Requires access to perfumes
Lev 9 : Requires access to forum
Lev 10 : Requires access to 3 types of food
Lev 11 : Requires access to gems ( now we are gonna move into that villa dear )
Lev 12 : Requires access to chariots ( romans were very fond of chariot races ... ben hur ? So maybe this should be a requirement)
Lev 13 : Requires a promotion given ( I am ceasar. Brutus served well in the war in Egypt, give him a promotion and increase his house's prestige!) . Can only be given after a battle has been won.

Eazy progression to lev 13 . Maybe you can add your own to the list. Don't know if the graphic artists will do this much work or not !

I was also thinking of adding : Requires access to slaves ( Lev 8), but don't know if that would be politically correct - though it is a historically correct !

[CaitGrey]

Nice list!
I wonder if it will make it into the developers' notebooks though; the amount of power programming needed for the graphics alone is just staggering.

[vibhu]

Originally Posted by CaitGrey

Nice list!
I wonder if it will make it into the developers' notebooks though; the amount of power programming needed for the graphics alone is just staggering.

Not really.

Lets take the houses. They are usually rendered using modelling tools like 3D Max or Maya. What matters here is the polygon count. So, the designers/artists will need to make these wilth low polygon count. Further, if you use OpenGL programming ( I don't know about DirectX , as I never dabbled with that), you basically load one object for all the objects of that type. E.g., if I have a model for house Lev 10, and I have 10 houses, I don't load it 10 times, it is just once load - and then it can be displayed.

The video ram will go in the textures that will be painted onto the houses. So, the digital artists will need to make sure that that they have small size textures.

Have you played Black & White ? That used to run fine on my pIV 1.5Ghz 256 RAM, NVidia GeForce4 MMX comp. And it used to have hundreds of little people running around the map pulling the stuff the needed off various places. The technology is definitely there. It just needs to be worked on a bit. Its doable.

[Dog of the Sun]

Ive never played black and White, but your list seems good, just condense it a bit , level 8 + 9 should be 8 and scratch fourm for 9 because it would be part of 8. Get what Im saying.

[MarkDuffy]

Yes, two housing types DID begin with Zeus & I like it that way.

Having a pleb house evolve to elite in a peasant section is just weird.

Keep it, TM, like COTN.

(Using compassionate grading, this post counts as poking a C3 Cultist with sticks! My day is now complete. All NY Resolutions broken! )

[King Faticus]

All you needed to do in c3 to prevent a house from evolving to a patritian house was either limit it's religious access to only one god... or prohibit the use of wine (very difficult)

*grabs stick from md's hand and considers striking him w/ it....*

[Azeem]

I agree with Mark here. I don't want a return to that wierd housing evolution thing. I only found it boring, not challenging as it's actually really easy to get housing levels up and make tons of cash from them. Houses magically transforming into palaces just because they happened to have an additional good was really wierd. I much prefer the CotN system, but with added aspects to it that is somewhat like housing evolution. When houses are doing well, the occupants make the buildings look better, store more goods, and are in better health. But when things are going bad, the houses become dilapidated, run-down, and have a very high risk of catching fire, collapsing, or becoming infested with plague (which can spread to adjacent houses quickly ). The governor should not be at all completely involved in the personal welfare of each and every household as in the previous CBs, but his part in this should be to provide the necessary goods and services to mitigate (not completely magically prevent) crises. I think a CB game should involve larger-scale management where the challenge of the governor is how well he or she can deal with crises (which should include major plagues, slave revolts, and natural disasters), not how well he can pamper each and every little house in the city.

[MarkDuffy]

Originally Posted by King Faticus

All you needed to do in c3 to prevent a house from evolving to a patritian house was either limit it's religious access to only one god... or prohibit the use of wine (very difficult)

Same type of thing in Pharaoh. Jewelry, methinks. Turn this off in the Market.

Difficult/impossible to do in a C4 pull system.

*grabs stick from md's hand and considers striking him w/ it....*

Try knives or guns...

I always wondered why bullets would bounce off & knives bent, but when you threw the empty gun, pulling on Superman's Cape, he would duck!

[King Faticus]

I agree with azeem here It was kinda crazy, the whole tents magically become lux-palaces and because they run outta pottery they become so angry they sell large parts of their houses and boot out the extra people untill a only a casa is left never made much sense

I was only defending C3 from the evil lord duffy

Originally Posted by MarkDuffy

Try knives or guns...

Knives or guns.... silly, Guns don't kill people BULLETS do

Nah, guns are too small maybe a nuke... no, still to small.... *paces around thinking* Aha, I will use my evil powers to smash the moon into your house!!

[CaitGrey]

Originally Posted by vibhu

Have you played Black & White ?

Yes, for about ten minutes max. I hated it.

Originally Posted by vibhu

The technology is definitely there. It just needs to be worked on a bit. Its doable.

I suppose you are right. It will be interesting to see what TM come up with.

[Thucydides]

I think below ten levels is enough. More detail of this type does not make for more fun for most players. The benefit would be mainly greater visual complexity, which can be gained through other means.

And, as I have said before, I am not a fan of houses devolving.

[vibhu]

Looks like I am the only one in favour of houses evolving and evolving and evolving !!!

Well what about other structures evolving ? Wells used to become better and have more water carriers. Ditto with the firehouse, architects house etc ?

[MarkDuffy]

Originally Posted by vibhu

Looks like I am the only one in favour of houses evolving and evolving and evolving !!!

Don't feel that way! You are posting on a COTN forum. Have you even played the game?

Well what about other structures evolving ? Wells used to become better and have more water carriers. Ditto with the firehouse, architects house etc ?

C4 will have a pull system like COTN. The others were push games. No walkers!

Residences will have to go GET what they need in goods & services. That is a lot of walking. Evolution steps will have to be small in number, unless they only have to do something once to evolve, or perhaps a city-wide level affects all housing as one of the steps. Desirability could be one step that doesn't require walking. Perhaps there will be others like that.

Now perhaps we will have more than just peasant & elite housing. Each with maybe five steps. This would get you your 15 evolution steps.

Or, C4 could have housing steps, not just evolution steps. Let's say three types of lamps. The lowest housing needs simple lamps. The house evolves from peasant to lower level housing by five steps. Then you start over. The next step needs a different type of lamp & no longer needs the simple lamps.

(Trying to be helpful! )