City buider simulator or Traffic layout simulator?

[ilovebeerbeerbeer]

Before i begin, I do love this game. I have put alot of hours into it and will put 100s of hours into it... But, I find it more of a traffic layout simulator more than anything else... I find at least 90% of my game time is dedicated to road layouts!!! Yes that can be fun, and it is fun! I do enjoy the designing a well run road system...Also I know a well run city requires a well run, planned road layout system. And that can take up alot of time, But the traffic is so unrealistic that I and many others have to spend 90% and more of our game time to traffic layouts..

Before anyone says that my road designs are crap. They are not, My traffic is very good.. The point im making is the simulation of the game feels more like A Traffic simulator rather than a city builder...

My suggestion is to have a slide bar that we as a user can control the amount of cars on the road... Forcing the sims to use public transport... Or even in policies, have a car ban....

However I am not nocking this game, it is Fantastic, I eat, breath, sleep Cities Skylines...
I Love IT.!!!!!

[🕄dots]

I agree, mainly because it's impossible to ignore the traffic layout since so many services depend on it. I like the car ban policy idea... it would be a nice and realistic solution to that. Similar to some places where you're not allowed to drive your car one day a week. The slide bar doesn't sound that good though, seems like cheating to me.

[jgvandijk]

I can understand your issue with this. I played CiM2 and there you can layout all the roads on the map.

I would like to know if it is possible to create an option to incorporate the total (or partial) road lay-out in the map. Upon start of the game the costs of the roads in the map can be cashed by some way (e.g. credit payable in terms). Ofcourse against reduced rates (I'm Dutch ;-)

Furthermore, I do miss trams and trolleys...........

[Raremob]

don't go crazy with 4 and 6 ways, they produce traffic lights, i stick to highways and 2 lane roads and i have no traffic, people think cuz they are bigger lanes that they will fix the traffic... nope they cause it!

[jgvandijk]

@ 1ButtonDash: I do use 4 and 6 lane roads. The Toggle Traffic Lights mod works wonders !

[ilovebeerbeerbeer]

Originally posted by ... threE dots:

I agree, mainly because it's impossible to ignore the traffic layout since so many services depend on it. I like the car ban policy idea... it would be a nice and realistic solution to that. Similar to some places where you're not allowed to drive your car one day a week. The slide bar doesn't sound that good though, seems like cheating to me.

I dont want to cheat, but the slide bar was just an idea... In USA they have a thing called Carpool. I dont think we do in the UK... That could also work. One more option is a park and ride. Let them drive there then impose a car ban...

[Freedom]

Originally posted by ilovebeerbeerbeer:

Originally posted by ... threE dots:

I agree, mainly because it's impossible to ignore the traffic layout since so many services depend on it. I like the car ban policy idea... it would be a nice and realistic solution to that. Similar to some places where you're not allowed to drive your car one day a week. The slide bar doesn't sound that good though, seems like cheating to me.

I dont want to cheat, but the slide bar was just an idea... In USA they have a thing called Carpool. I dont think we do in the UK... That could also work. One more option is a park and ride. Let them drive there then impose a car ban...

They do, however, it cannot be forced on people. Nor should a mayor be able to do so. At least imho. You are a mayor, not a dictator.

[docstonge]

Traffic is a huge issue in real city management, probably THE issue planners and city staff face. Perhaps there's a mod or two to help you out? Maybe increase capacity for public transit?

[ilovebeerbeerbeer]

Originally posted by Randall Flagg:

Originally posted by ilovebeerbeerbeer:

I dont want to cheat, but the slide bar was just an idea... In USA they have a thing called Carpool. I dont think we do in the UK... That could also work. One more option is a park and ride. Let them drive there then impose a car ban...

They do, however, it cannot be forced on people. Nor should a mayor be able to do so. At least imho. You are a mayor, not a dictator.

Yes you are a mayor. But the last time i checked there is no town hall meetings to decide whether there should be an overpass built into the city. Now i think i will build a oil factory next to a school.But wait, no town hall meeting to debate the idea...My next step is to have a no smoking policy inforced in this neighbourhood, but wait, how can i do this without a town hall meeting ??? As i impose a no smoking ban I think i shall have a no pet policy in the same district...
So if i want to put a car ban then force the sims (who are not real ) to take public transport then I shall....
That sounds alot like a dictatorship!!! What do you think???

[Freedom]

Originally posted by ilovebeerbeerbeer:

Originally posted by Randall Flagg:

They do, however, it cannot be forced on people. Nor should a mayor be able to do so. At least imho. You are a mayor, not a dictator.

Yes you are a mayor. But the last time i checked there is no town hall meetings to decide whether there should be an overpass built into the city. Now i think i will build a oil factory next to a school.But wait, no town hall meeting to debate the idea...My next step is to have a no smoking policy inforced in this neighbourhood, but wait, how can i do this without a town hall meeting ??? As i impose a no smoking ban I think i shall have a no pet policy in the same district...
So if i want to put a car ban then force the sims (who are not real ) to take public transport then I shall....
That sounds alot like a dictatorship!!! What do you think???

I think many people have figured out ways to have a nice sized city while maintaining smooth flowing traffic. So, I disagree with your opinion they need to hand hold people who are having issues.

[lotw_1]

With my limited amount of play so far I would say it was a city sim till I reached a certain amount of people, then it switched to traffic sim and sort of ruined that city I was making.

[favrebulle]

Traffic is a huge issue in real life cities, and as in real life cities the solution is not to put 6 lanes roads everywhere. Real life cities make this mistake all the time. build more roads, larger roads, only to realize they've actually worsen the problem. Want less traffic? Get people off their cars. Think about the efficiency of your bus network (you see horrors in some screeshots around here...), or reduce commuting by having more mixed-use neighborhoods.

Also, this game forces you to go look in the details, because everything is simulated. Maybe a road shows up in red in the traffic map, but when you look at it it's actually pretty fluid and doesn't impede your services, it's just very busy.

However, I think we could have some nice tools, like dedicated bus lanes, adjustable transit level of service, that would help a lot.

[lotw_1]

Originally posted by favrebulle:

Traffic is a huge issue in real life cities, and as in real life cities the solution is not to put 6 lanes roads everywhere. Real life cities make this mistake all the time. build more roads, larger roads, only to realize they've actually worsen the problem. Want less traffic? Get people off their cars. Think about the efficiency of your bus network (you see horrors in some screeshots around here...), or reduce commuting by having more mixed-use neighborhoods.

Also, this game forces you to go look in the details, because everything is simulated. Maybe a road shows up in red in the traffic map, but when you look at it it's actually pretty fluid and doesn't impede your services, it's just very busy.

However, I think we could have some nice tools, like dedicated bus lanes, adjustable transit level of service, that would help a lot.

But their are traffic laws and rules in real life that help with traffic issues. Also people are smart enough to change lanes and most of the times move over if possible for police, fire, ambulances.

[Dexter]

Kind of hard to separate the two. Eben with spreadsheet simulation in SC4 the biggest fan mod was Network Add on Mod which fixed or improved traffic in that game. My best momories of SC4 is still of my redevlopment of my downtown core of my very first city, trying to fit in a light rail line while bkeeping the buildings I wanted. one of the reasons SC2013 failed was the glass box engine handling traffic poorly.

With actual agents driving around traffic is going to be integral. Acessing services and services rea hing citizens is essentially the core of the simulation. A city builder that's only about sprawl and building pretty things is not a city builder.

[favrebulle]

Originally posted by lotw_1:

But their are traffic laws and rules in real life that help with traffic issues. Also people are smart enough to change lanes and most of the times move over if possible for police, fire, ambulances.

Yeah but the game correctly implements the fact that merely adding capacity isn't going to solve you traffic problems. Somethin a lot of people actually believe IRL, including, tragically, people who make decision about it. You need to be smarter than that and go in details.

[Tsal Vlaxitov]

TBH if this game wasn't as traffic-centric as it is, I would enjoy it near as much as I do.

Its WAY more entertaining to have to plan out actual traffic solutions in real time than how it worked in older simcity games. Simcity 2013 tried to have traffic solutions work in real time but they apparently couldn't handle it so they basically made traffic a cosmetic feature.

An easy win slide bar might be OK for a mod but I'd respectfully suggest you L2P first.

Once you even semi master traffic it becomes addicting to clown around with.