i dream of dynamically constructed roads where you make templates in a streetmix-esque interface. i dream of dynamically generated buildings that adapt to automatically generated polygonal parcels that can be edited. i want realistic population densities and parking. custom transit stations. idk my dream city builder is just unlikely to exist when im sure paradox is pushing colossal order to release quickly, and they basically know that the game will sell even if it's basically just a graphics overhaul of cs1.
Districts should not be Blobs, they should be polygons called Regions.
Points and edges that define one region can also define part of another. The mid-line and intersections of roads and other features can be used as snapping guides to define these. Regions are split between three layers. To take NYC as an example, the top level region type would a borough: Manhattan, Staten Island, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens would fall in this category. Then the layer below that would be neighborhoods: SoHo, Tribeca, Greenwich Village, Upper East Side, Hell's Kitchen, Chelsea, East Village, Harlem, etc. The layer below that would be a district, and would function similarly to what we call districts in the game now. You'd use them to define and fine-tune particular housing developments, main streets, parks, airports, resorts, and school and industrial campuses.
Whole regions could be marked historic at once, instead of going building-by-building. Fine-tuned traffic restrictions could be defined for each region, propagating to layers below it unless over-written by them. All the data available in the game can be viewed by region. Maybe your over-all traffic flow is 80% but one neighborhood is completely Fucked and it's at 20%.
there is a part of me that genuinely thinks i could make the best modern city builder, from a design perspective. i don't believe this about any other genre of video game, i think i'd be painfully out of my depth trying to design most kinds of game. but a city builder? i would CRUSH that shit. i just don't have the necessary programming and art skills, or money. but i could write a baller design document.
