"American" buildings?

[swiftsure]

Is it just me or do the American set of buildings look the same as the European ones? The first tier, at least. Every time I start an American scenario in 1850 all the towns just look like European ones. Has anybody else noticed this? What happened to all the actual American buildings that were in Train Fever?

[taylorawillis]

I don't know why there doesn't seem to be an actual American set like in Train Fever, but I can confirm it's not just you.

[BuffHamster]

Ah, yes. Do you mean the old medieval stone and "New Amsterdam" style buildings? Confirmation seconded.

I wonder if one could move the old Train Fever USA building models into the USA Building folder for Transport Fever? Would it work?

[swiftsure]

Originally posted by BuffHamster:

I wonder if one could move the old Train Fever USA building models into the USA Building folder for Transport Fever? Would it work?

Probably not, since city growth was different in Train Fever and there was much less variety in the buildings themselves. I just don't get why there's an option for the American buildings in the scenario setup when it doesn't seem to do anything.

[A Guy Called Pi]

There are a few buildings that look somewhat American, but it's only a few.

[electricmonk2k]

I also miss the Old-West style buildings from Train Fever.

BTW, if the devs or modders need any inspiration for 1950's North Americain buildings, then they need look no further than this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googie_architecture

[BuffHamster]

Originally posted by electricmonk2k:

I also miss the Old-West style buildings from Train Fever.

BTW, if the devs or modders need any inspiration for 1950's North Americain buildings, then they need look no further than this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googie_architecture

Hmm, "Googie" kind of reminds me of the "Jetsons" for some reason.

How about the "Streamline Moderne" of the '30s? I always liked "Art Deco" stuff, no idea why.

[electricmonk2k]

What would be really great would be if the map was divided into regions, and certain types of buildings could only appear in certain regions.

For example, if the USA map was divided into regions, then in 1850, the East-coast would contain a mixture of Colonial and Greek-revival architecture (with the Old South having it's own distinct style that involves lots of balconies), while the Old-West has wooden Wild-West style buildings. Then in 1920s/1930s New York, there could be several Art-Deco buildings, and in the 1950s, there'd be an explosion of Googie buildings in the South-West.

Meanwhile in Europe, the Northern part could sprout Hanseatic-style buildings, the Alps could sprout Alpine buildings, and the Mediterranean could bring up Mediterranean buildings. From 1945-1989, 'Eastern Europe' would build a lot of concrete buildings. Most of them would be boring featureless blocks of flats, but there will be some more interesting ones such as these[uk.businessinsider.com] and these[englishrussia.com].

In the UK, some towns will have mostly sandsstone buildings, some will have granite buildings, and some red-brick. Industrial towns will be more likely to have a period of brutalist architecture in the 60's, and in the 90's, have a revival of the traditional architecture-style.

Another idea is for the regions to dictate how the towns expand. So for example, the big coastal cities in Eastern US could build lots of skyscrapers, and in the West, cities like Los Angeles, and Phoenix would create a lot of low-density sprawl and rapidly expand in area.

[BuffHamster]

@electricmonk2k: I think it could be done, but it would involve some LUA scripting, I would think. Any LUA programmers out there?

[EDIT] ooo, and some good model makers and texture art, too.

[electricmonk2k]

I'm actually a programmer myself, although I haven't yet made any mods, and I don't know which parts of the game could be modded. In order for this idea to work, the town would have to know which region it was in. For this to happen, it could either reference the region-map directly during the game (this would involve having the region-map in memory), or letting the map-generator read the region-map and assigning the town's region to the position in the region-map (the disadvantage here is that the town could then grow outside of it's region). Also, once the town knows which region it is in, it will have to be able to control which buildings it can and cannot build. I'm not sure if it's best for the town/region to have a list of allowed buildings, or if it's best to assign each building a list of allowed regions.

Anyway, my idea was part of a larger idea which I posted on the train-fever forums[www.train-fever.com] where I discuss many things you could do by dividing the map into regions.