Simcity 406: Standard Together With The Simeter

If I asked y'all to construct me a shed out of woods without using a ruler, you'd intend I was batty. And y'all sure enough wouldn't stand upwards within the matter for fright it would kill you. The game mechanics of SimCity 5 practise non supply a ruler. How, then, are nosotros supposed to construct our cities? How large is a metropolis site inwards SimCity 5 anyway? How practise nosotros mensurate such things? Can nosotros always say, "make your route 30 foot/meters/whatever long?"

Well, that's a complicated inquiry to last sure. Any endeavour to mensurate infinite inwards your metropolis site requires us to compare something inwards existent life to something inwards the game. The give-and-take from Maxis/the Internet is that the cities inwards SimCity 5 are precisely 2km past times 2km. That equals 4 foursquare km or 1.544 foursquare miles. So I decided to exam that. How, may y'all ask? I got tricky.

Traditionally, nosotros mensurate things past times using rulers. However, when a ruler is unavailable, nosotros utilization landmarks. There are many landmarks inwards the game that stand upwards for existent buildings together with structures. I combed through all of them until I constitute 1 that was perfect for the job: The Sears Tower (it's non the Willis Tower, enquire anyone from Chicago).

From SimCity to Reality

The Sears Tower inwards existent life is 229 feet x 229 feet at the base of operations of the building. What I did was band the edifice alongside dirt road, leaving move of the route unconnected. I took the higher upwards photograph to demo y'all precisely what I did. I together with thus completed that route 1 time again using dirt road. This terms me 147s.

Now I know the gap inwards the route is 147s long together with -- when I crunched the numbers -- I discovered that if the border of the Sears Tower is supposed to last 229 feet, together with thus the missing department of route was 252 feet.

So 252 feet of dirt route costs 147s. Easy-peasy. That's just over 1 together with a one-half feet per simoleon.

So to instruct the size of the entire map, I only ran a dirt route from 1 border of the map to the other. I came upwards alongside 4,037s inwards dirt road. That plant out to 6,288 feet -- roughly 1.2 miles. Since it's the same high every bit it is wide, that's 1.44 foursquare miles for the Clearwater metropolis site.

How Big is Clearwater?

The 1.44 foursquare miles of Clearwater is non the 1.54 that Maxis was telling us about. But here's why. It turns out that Clearwater is non the same size every bit most of the other maps. The other maps ARE 1.54 together with Clearwater just happens to last slightly smaller. I suspect this has something to practise alongside why it was the board of alternative for the beta test.

But dorsum to the question. How large is 1.44 foursquare miles? In Oregon, at that spot is a town called Phoenix -- population 4,538. It is precisely 1.44 foursquare miles.

If that's likewise vague a comparison, here's another: Central Park, inwards NYC, is 1.317 sq mi. Clearwater is just slightly larger than Central Park.

For what it's worth -- since I hand off to last something of an proficient on such things -- Clearwater is also v times the size of an Xbox Minecraft seed.

Introducing: The Simeter

I conducted an experiment inwards which I gear upwards a metropolis together with spaced the streets apart past times varying distances. The kickoff 2 streets were fifty simoleon of dirt route apart, the side past times side 2 100s of dirt route apart, 150s, 200s, together with thus on. I together with thus zoned the streets inwards residential, commercial, together with industrial -- together with thus ran the metropolis to encounter how the zones developed.

The streets that were 250 simoleons of dirt route apart were the perfect distance for low-density buildings inwards all iii zones. The buildings inwards this make abutted each other perfectly leaving no wasted space.

As for medium- together with high-denisty buildings, we're going to accept to facial expression on that until I tin instruct dorsum into my metropolis -- the server nigh down.

Between straightaway together with then, I advise to y'all the next idea. It's called the simeter (SIM + METER). It's real simple. Using roads together with how much they terms to lay, nosotros tin mensurate our cities together with generate character edifice standards that volition allow us to create amazing designs together with efficient grids that volition propel us to the hand of the leaderboard.

While I am interested inwards the medium- together with high- density results (I'll last revisiting this topic 1 time again soon), I experience confident that 200 simoleons worth of dirt route (the same every bit 400s of low-density road, 800s of medium-density road, etc) should last a touchstone simeter. If your grid is lay out inwards rectangles that are 1 simeter broad past times nonetheless long y'all desire them to be, your RCI buildings volition last every bit packed inwards at the begin every bit they tin maybe be.

Elevation

Changes inwards elevation disrupt the procedure of measurement perfect grid cities unless you're willing to practise that math. I was able to piece of work out the numbers for Clearwater because that metropolis site has no hills or cliffs. If I had tried the same inwards Norwich Hills, to compensate for the ramps together with cliffs, I'd accept needed to know how high they were together with there's no fashion to know that...

or IS there?

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