ehh... this giant cities look really bad

[Panda]

please don't use endless legend city sprawling pattern... it looks horrible

------ upd

the better mechanics, imho, is to develop provinces but not cities, look at Total War series.

province development should have few branches:
- farming
- industry
- science
etc

some branches may be limited, some not.

when you upgrade a branch, province may be changed on a global map, like adding a farm or an urbanized tile

[Alien]

I just hope it doesn't mean that we have to spam districts.
A more organic, logical way to make bigger cities would be as a result of natural growth and agricultural revolutions.
IRL we didn't build districts to get more population. We got more population so we had bigger settlements.

[Elhoim]

These giants cities look great! I agree they should avoid the silly snaking thing EL had.

[Elliott]

endless legends problem was that the 2 district thick 'stick' formation was the best way to build cities so youd end up with these long cities that wernt visually appealing. Humankinds cities look much more sprawling and natural but we'll see if that holds up.

[Panda]

Originally posted by AlienSpectator:

I just hope it doesn't mean that we have to spam districts.
A more organic, logical way to make bigger cities would be as a result of natural growth and agricultural revolutions.
IRL we didn't build districts to get more population. We got more population so we had bigger settlements.

it looks like it shares the same mechanics of spammed districts... i wish it was reconsidered :(

[EldritchPigeon]

Big part is also the map size, i.e. how much territory each tile (and hence city sprawl) represents. In Civ 6 huge maps are around 106x66 and in Endless Legend, huge maps are around 120x80. For that, the sprawling cities would be silly (even Civ6's districts are pushing it).

If they managed to (somehow) make larger maps perform well and we get something like 250x160 maps, then it would feel more natural and appropriate.

[Boris Gudenuf]

I think the images released so far are trying to show Late Game Megacities. Look at any orbital photo of the northern hemisphere IRL, and parts of it (eastern USA, western Europe) ARE an almost solid mass of city lights. On the other hand, you can walk the line of the edge of the classical city of Athens in a few hours - "Suburban Sprawl" is a very recent phenomena, and I hope they show that, and both the positive and negative results as problems/opportunities for the Gamer.

[gungadin22000]

On the contrary, Endless Legend's district mechanic was great and made it the most entertaining civ--like in the city development department.

I would very much enjoy seeing an expansion of this system, perhaps with more district types added in for more city specialisation.

[Arctuhris]

Big cities look good.

But ... I would prefer to not be penalized for building "sub-optimal" (i.e. non 2x2 line or triangle) cities, as in Endless Legend.

[TheCollector]

IMHO :

I fear they make the same mistake with districts as Civ 6 did. Districts are a reason why I like Civ 6 less than the previous parts of the series. The map just looks unrealistic and it destroys immersion.

Our Planet Earth has a surface of 510.000.000 km² (square kilometer) (ca. 70% water). A turn based strategy game like Civ usually features maps with only 10.000 - 20.000 tiles, so a tile in the game usually represents 26.000 - 51.000 km² in real world.
This means that :
- Most land tiles (except desert and tundra) will have at least some kind of settlement (outpost, village, town, city or metropolis), infrastructure and if possible some kind of farming to feed population and/or some resource mining.
- Fertile tiles will likely have more than one small settlement.
- A modern metropolis like New York City (NY Metropolitan Area) will fit completely into 1 tile.

So spreading districts of a city or even a metropolis over several tiles of the world map is just nonsense and leads to unrealistic development of the world map.

I know that it might be difficult to incorporate this in the rule set of a strategy game. There is always a trade-off between realism and game design.

If one really wants to have city district placement, districts should be placed inside the city's tile. This could be realized by giving each tile a substructure of ca. 100-1000 tiles (depending on level of detail) with terrain features, resources, etc. where the city can slowly grow and additional buildings/districts can be placed (as in a City Builder sub game). This detailed city map could also be used for tactical combat.

[Panda]

the better mechanics, imho, is to develop provinces but not cities, look at Total War series.

province development should have few branches:
- farming
- industry
- science
etc

some branches may be limited, some not.

when you upgrade a branch, province may be changed on a global map, like adding a farm or an urbanized tile

[TheCollector]

Probably most people know NASA's Black Marble :

https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/90000/90008/earth_vir_2016.jpg

(or in large :
https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/90000/90008/earth_vir_2016_lrg.jpg )

There you can see that human population (or at least the humans with electricity) today (and in past) are not spread equally over the map but are concentrated in centers of trade and production, usually along coast lines, rivers and trade routes or near resources while large parts of the map are mostly empty (deserts, jungle, mountains, oceans, etc.). Modern Cities and Metropolitan Areas with skyscrapers are three-dimensional structures which allow a high density of population, housing millions in rather small areas.
(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density )

While the shown landscapes on screenshots look beautiful and manifold, they loose their appeal when all covered with city districts.

A modern well developed european country like France (or Germany) has roughly the following land usage :
ca. 50 - 56 % agricultural
ca. 27 - 30 % forests
ca. 8 - 13 % infrastructure and settlements
ca. 8 - 10 % unused and natural preserve

see also https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/CORINE_Land_Cover_2006_France.png

It would be nice if the usage of land tiles in the game would roughly honor this ratio, e.g. so that in average for each (high pop density) city tile there are 5-6 agricultural tiles, 3 or more forest tiles, but also unused tiles, etc. Since modern cities are supplied by trade, the agricultural tiles do not have to be in range of the city but can be somewhere on the map, connected by trade routes.
(On a continent like australia, the number of unused (e.g. desert) tiles would be larger than in europe.)

[The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales]

I confess that the cities we've been showing in the trailers are the result of focusing on creating a very large city for the sake of showing off the different Quarters (Emblematic or otherwise) and Cultures. In a lot of these cases, the Region that the city is in is actually far larger than the area of city shown.

[TheCollector]

Thanks for your response. I think it will really depend on how big maps will be and if the game rules will favor horizontal or vertical cities and empires or both. Horizontal empires may spread over the whole map like weed and usually do not look pleasant due to lack of variety (in graphical appearance.) Vertical empires will have few super cities, e.g. like Singapore.

In history after reaching industrialization and significant progress in agriculture, most societies experienced a strong urbanization, which first lead to horizontal and later vertical growth of cties. Since in modern world most jobs are located in cities, population is concentrated there. In a european developed nation, usually only a small minority of people is still working in agriculture. (Agriculture < 5%, Industry ca 20-25%, Services ca. 70-75%), while in ancient and medieval socities 80-95% of population were forced to work in agriculture (often in subsistence economie).

[Panda]

Originally posted by TheCollector:

Probably most people know NASA's Black Marble :

https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/90000/90008/earth_vir_2016.jpg

(or in large :
https://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/90000/90008/earth_vir_2016_lrg.jpg )

There you can see that human population (or at least the humans with electricity) today (and in past) are not spread equally over the map but are concentrated in centers of trade and production, usually along coast lines, rivers and trade routes or near resources while large parts of the map are mostly empty (deserts, jungle, mountains, oceans, etc.). Modern Cities and Metropolitan Areas with skyscrapers are three-dimensional structures which allow a high density of population, housing millions in rather small areas.
(see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density )

While the shown landscapes on screenshots look beautiful and manifold, they loose their appeal when all covered with city districts.

A modern well developed european country like France (or Germany) has roughly the following land usage :
ca. 50 - 56 % agricultural
ca. 27 - 30 % forests
ca. 8 - 13 % infrastructure and settlements
ca. 8 - 10 % unused and natural preserve

see also https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/CORINE_Land_Cover_2006_France.png

It would be nice if the usage of land tiles in the game would roughly honor this ratio, e.g. so that in average for each (high pop density) city tile there are 5-6 agricultural tiles, 3 or more forest tiles, but also unused tiles, etc. Since modern cities are supplied by trade, the agricultural tiles do not have to be in range of the city but can be somewhere on the map, connected by trade routes.
(On a continent like australia, the number of unused (e.g. desert) tiles would be larger than in europe.)

Very nice notes <3

Originally posted by The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales:

I confess that the cities we've been showing in the trailers are the result of focusing on creating a very large city for the sake of showing off the different Quarters (Emblematic or otherwise) and Cultures. In a lot of these cases, the Region that the city is in is actually far larger than the area of city shown.

With all respect, if you use the Endless Legend approach, you will get the same output, which it definitely not realistic or aesthetically appealing :(

[Dayvit78]

I'm optimistic that land usage will be better than Civ series. The devs just need to keep in mind this thread which has alot of valuable points.

I really hated in Civ that there were almost no unused tiles by late game (for example, how hard is it to find a place for a national park? There wasn't any empty land by that time!)

But what makes me optimistic here is that there is only 1 city per region, so no spam cities to cover the map. The next step is only to make sure that each city can only take so many tiles within a region, and voila, you have your undeveloped land.