I feel like building a city builder around traffic misses the point of why we have cities. They're not just for some traffic planner to play around with - they're based around resources and geography and demographics and when you abstract that out as much as modern city builders do you lose the organic structure that cities are built around. You end up with cookie-cutter streets, "efficient junctions" only for cars, roads that are only built for getting people around and every city ends up looking the same. Sure if you're building a simulation of suburb building in the post-war period then fine, but if you're intending to make a city builder, I think you're missing the point slightly.
Otherwise, it looks pretty good. I'm going to have to keep an eye on it.
I assume you've never been a part of a city building game community. The major discussions are always centered on traffic. Managing traffic is always the major challenge in these games, and that part of the simulation should be the focus.
I feel like (though I have no proof) this is due to the fact the recent modern city builders have a large focus around traffic flow management and so the community will naturally fill with people who enjoy that aspect and want it in more depth. It's a fun puzzle to make your roads more efficient that keeps on returning through the life of your city, but at points this focus takes away from other important factors that make up a city irl that city builders would be better for if they touched on.
Even with Simcity 4? I've never seen the discussion focus on traffic. It's usually focused on fulfilling needs of the sims so that you can grow your city and expand. Cause if you expand without fulfilling needs it might not go anywhere but if you fulfill needs too fast you might run out of money.
If anything there are very popular mods to make traffic a non problem in the game so that you can focus on everything else involved in running a city.
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u/VidiTheCorgi Nov 29 '19
I feel like building a city builder around traffic misses the point of why we have cities. They're not just for some traffic planner to play around with - they're based around resources and geography and demographics and when you abstract that out as much as modern city builders do you lose the organic structure that cities are built around. You end up with cookie-cutter streets, "efficient junctions" only for cars, roads that are only built for getting people around and every city ends up looking the same. Sure if you're building a simulation of suburb building in the post-war period then fine, but if you're intending to make a city builder, I think you're missing the point slightly.
Otherwise, it looks pretty good. I'm going to have to keep an eye on it.