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pax level and lux level for city buildings

Started by Fabio, July 15, 2012, 10:29:23 PM

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Fabio

Presently city buildings have a level value which determines both the number of generated pax (and mail as well) and the economic value of the building (for purchase or demolition), and also let buildings with higher level replace those with lower one when the city grows.

I propose here to split level value in two: pax_level and lux_level.

Pax_level is used when generating pax and mail.
Lux_level is used when demolishing or buying the building.
The game will upgrade the building when the new one has both levels higher than the existing one.
Buildings with old level value will take its value for both pax and lux purpose.

Effects on city development:
Whereas many buildings can have both levels at the same value, this change would allow luxury mansions with few pax or public housing blocks with high pax but low level. player choices would be influenced because bulldozing a high lux neighbourhood could cost dearly, more than a poorer zone.
Realism in city upgrading would benefit the most (and it's the primary reason behind this request). Luxury mansions wouldn't be upgraded, if not with much more luxurious one, but also older buildings e.g. late XIX century could have top lux level, but lower pax level: they wouldn't be upgraded in later times. This was requested and denied on the grounds that this change with the culture. My new approach would make this pakset-customizable, as setting both levels to the same value would keep current behaviour, whereas using different levels might be used to protect older buildings or mansions also downtown, while keeping realistic pax level.
e.g. prior to 1950 top buildings could have max pax_level 40 but max lux_level 60, later both level max 60. A pax 40 lux 60 building would never be replaced. But also a pax 5 lux 60 mansion wouldn't be replaced.

kierongreen

As I've mentioned before I'm thinking of revamping city building code after I've finished on landscapes. I'd want to incorporate something like this so that urban decay and renewal could take place within the game. So while a luxury townhouse would not be replaced, over several decades it might deteriorate (in your model, lux would decrease, pax increase as it is subdivided), until it could reach a state such that it might be demolished, or be refurbished restoring it to it's former glory...

Fabio

Wow, awesome ideas! I'm looking forward to seeing them developed, as long as it might take... Thank for considering and developing the suggestion!

kierongreen

I'd intend for tiles to have a value (linked to distance from town hall, town size, neighbouring commercial activity, being covered by a station with good service, and if implememted as a separate type, nearby parks) and population (linked just to town size and being covered by a station with good service. This would translate into lux and pax levels as you put it buildings could have a maximum pax and lux value, which they would be built with, as well as minimum values for both. If the land value or population of a tile fell below the minimum value it would become derelict. It could then be replaced with a building more appropriate to the area. Upgrading of buildings would happen based on tile value exceeding building lux value by a certain amount (pax would not come into it). The idea would be for calculations for city upgrading to take place in another thread in the background (parallel to route calc for example). Ideas at an early stage at the moment obviously...

colonyan

This means there is a chance that player will be able to remove larger number of "less wealthy" population. Yes, they are virtual "simutransian". But this might end up in poorer section being exploited to open up new railroad lines. If it is already developped above certain level, going underground or monorail should be the way.

Alternative is to make it so that proportion of wealth and not is to be maintanied. For an example, 40 folks under 10 wealthy.
If not enough non wealthy residents exist, wealthy popoulation will have to leave map or they are turned into non wealthy.
There should be some sort of auto balancing.

kierongreen

Quite often in real life large numbers of poorer residents have been moved when transport links have been built.

colonyan

Quote from: kierongreen on July 16, 2012, 12:46:58 PM
Quite often in real life large numbers of poorer residents have been moved when transport links have been built.
Yes. But aren't moved people get some kind of remedy in most of developped countries?

But wouldn't it be exploitable? There's also level of acceptance how much people can be forced to move. Well if there will be any.

Fabio

I believe moved people (inhabitants of bulldozed buildings) will add to the number of homeless, which will cause new building appear or old buildings be upgraded...

kierongreen

The law usually allows for compulsory purchase of property for transport infrastructure. Quite often those with more money shout loudest about getting projects moved away from their houses also. Of course in developed countries at least compensation of at least the market value of the buildings and land is expected - but you already pay this to demolish buildings in simutrans.

colonyan

#9
I appologize for editing text constantly. I will be more careful.

Quote from: kierongreen on July 16, 2012, 01:22:04 PM
The law usually allows for compulsory purchase of property for transport infrastructure. Quite often those with more money shout loudest about getting projects moved away from their houses also. Of course in developed countries at least compensation of at least the market value of the buildings and land is expected - but you already pay this to demolish buildings in simutrans.
This is entirely correct.
I just wish game to reflect players action to demolish just non wealthy city building. Or enough non wealty city buildings to take some effect.

That is because if ever there are two types of wealth levels, this means there is some kind of economical function or balance behind it. Non wealthy people pays rents and morgages to banks with there salaries. If they are homeless and jobless, that means some source of income is lost for wealthy people who owns or runs real estate or companies. Obviously jobless people will spend less.

[Larger the cities gets, along side of industry spawn, user will wear out the care for less wealthy section. ADD: It is perfectly fine if money can move residents. I also wish game to have feed back to player action if ever game will have wealth distinction.  Infact, game should allow player demolish whichever citybuilding but I also think proper effect should reflect player's action on existing non player side of map residents. In real world yes. Dealing with real humans. But in Simutrans, we are dealing virtual entities. I'm afraid people would care as much as for virtual entities as they do for real people. This will eventually leading up in poor section to be compromised. Leads into non proportional balance between designed wealthy population and non wealthy population. I would like to see somekind of distiction of wealth level too. It will add tremendous level of realism into the game.]

Fabio

In my model, there are two values for each building: pax_level and lux_level, which in most paksets will both be from 1 to 60.

"Normal" buildings have  pax_level = lux_level
"Wealthy" (or "historical") buildings have lux_level < pax_level
"Poor" buildings have  pax_level > lux_level

Bulldozing a poor building already lowers the pax generation in the neighborhood, so the player would have less pax and hence less revenue.

There are two profiles of this change:

Urbanistic:
more realistic cities through more realistic growth and buildings upgrading (e.g. a historical building can be made "wealthy" and it will survive longer in time without upgrading)

Gameplay:
player's choice between bulldozing expensive buildings but with low pax level (immediate cost, but more prospective revenue) and bulldozing cheap buildings but with high pax level (lower cost, but prospectively less revenue, too).
Obviously there will still be many normal buildings (pax_level = lux_level): if both levels are low the building can be bulldozed without much thought; if both are high the building is better spared anyway.


colonyan

#11
Quote from: Fabio on July 16, 2012, 02:59:33 PM
Bulldozing a poor building already lowers the pax generation in the neighborhood, so the player would have less pax and hence less revenue.
I will still hold that there better be additional negative effect. Mentioned effect already exist.
We could explore the benefit of having as much as wealthy city building and population present othere than them being expensive to remove and cities to look more realistic.

Quote from: Fabio on July 16, 2012, 02:59:33 PM
Urbanistic:
more realistic cities through more realistic growth and buildings upgrading (e.g. a historical building can be made "wealthy" and it will survive longer in time without upgrading)

Gameplay:
player's choice between bulldozing expensive buildings but with low pax level (immediate cost, but more prospective revenue) and bulldozing cheap buildings but with high pax level (lower cost, but prospectively less revenue, too).
Obviously there will still be many normal buildings (pax_level = lux_level): if both levels are low the building can be bulldozed without much thought; if both are high the building is better spared anyway.

This is pretty good starting point. 

For gameplay perspective, this will require good amount of prices calibration so those cost becomes thinking worthwhile. Otherwise, from mid to later stage of game, often player has enough funds to do most of large works. I suspect instead of selecting which section of city to scrap, they will mostly demolish so his/her network becomes most desired shape regardless of wealth type of building.  If it is that well developped city section, player should go underground. (and there's also public player mode)

As I mentioned, it would be more interesting if proportion of wealthy population present on map had impact on game as whole.
Also non wealthy population will have its role.

Such as when wealthy population exist fully of its potential, economy flows well (employs, invests and spends well) so traffic demand (freight and passenger generation) is full potential. If lesser of them is on them compared to potential, player will get smaller demand.

Non wealthy population will support existence of wealthy population. If enough of them are removed from map, it will start disturbing the wealthy population, thus whole transportation demand.

colonyan

Quote from: kierongreen on July 16, 2012, 09:16:13 AM
I'd intend for tiles to have a value (linked to distance from town hall, town size, neighbouring commercial activity, being covered by a station with good service, and if implememted as a separate type, nearby parks) and population (linked just to town size and being covered by a station with good service. This would translate into lux and pax levels as you put it buildings could have a maximum pax and lux value, which they would be built with, as well as minimum values for both. If the land value or population of a tile fell below the minimum value it would become derelict. It could then be replaced with a building more appropriate to the area. Upgrading of buildings would happen based on tile value exceeding building lux value by a certain amount (pax would not come into it). The idea would be for calculations for city upgrading to take place in another thread in the background (parallel to route calc for example). Ideas at an early stage at the moment obviously...
I almost drooled reading this more carefully. Simutrans can be truly great... even more.

greenling

I find that idea a good Part for Simutrans Exp it.
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Ters

I remember that cities in Transport Tycoon become fed up with you if you went about destroying lots of things. You would then have to bribe them or provide good service for them for some time with what you already had before you could proceed. The downside was that I found it difficult to predict where the city's tolerance limit was, so I ended up one or two tiles away from realizing something great, and instead got nothing built.

colonyan

Continued from my reply #11.
In short.
If game is to have concept of wealthy and usual people, not only it serve to make cities more consistant looking and demolishon cost variation, it better influence game mechanism little further.

dom700

You do realize that you should also have buildings influence their neighborhood. I wouldn't want a city to look like this: Poor-Rich-Poor-Rich-Poor-Rich, but Poor-Poor-Poor-Rich-Rich-Rich (Normal buildings left out for the sake of clarity)

Fabio

Dom's concerns could be addressed with radius from Townhall. This radius could be widen by prevalence of commercial buildings and low number of unemployed. It would be shrank instead by high unemployment or prevalence of industrial buildings.

But all buildings would have a lux level, not only residential ones. I can envision industrial buildings be neutral (pax = lux), whereas commercial ones would be divided in poor (ramshackle pubs, diners and shops) and wealthy (banks, offices, luxury shops). But this would be up to pakset decisions, as well as the basic decision whether to exploit this new feature in its full potential or not.

dom700

In general your idea with the distance from townhall is perfectly fine, I am wondering which scheme would be applied: Either you have a healthy inner city with wealthy buildings there and poor suburbs, or the opposite. Both kinds of towns exist

kierongreen

In the same town often some suburbs are rich while others are poor. However land values still tend to decrease as you get further away from the centre of population. In some cases this will mean low density luxury housing, in others high density low cost housing.

While I am for improving city generation and evolution, we should keep in mind that this is a transport, not city simulation game. City building should be there to support the transport simulation. Improving the realism may support this, but it needs to still focus on the transport aspect. Hence the main control the player will have over urban areas will be in how they serve the area with transport links.

colonyan

So at some point, we will see a possibility of being able to add positive or negative effect for special city buildings, I assume. Their placement will influence the composition of city.

isidoro

Quote from: Ters on July 16, 2012, 05:35:24 PM
I remember that cities in Transport Tycoon become fed up with you if you went about destroying lots of things. You would then have to bribe them or provide good service for them for some time with what you already had before you could proceed. The downside was that I found it difficult to predict where the city's tolerance limit was, so I ended up one or two tiles away from realizing something great, and instead got nothing built.

I don't like that part of TT at all.  First, the concept itself and, second, what you point out about predictability.  I like simulation games with most of the factors shown and predictable.

jamespetts

Quote from: kierongreen on July 16, 2012, 09:16:13 AM
I'd intend for tiles to have a value (linked to distance from town hall, town size, neighbouring commercial activity, being covered by a station with good service, and if implememted as a separate type, nearby parks) and population (linked just to town size and being covered by a station with good service. This would translate into lux and pax levels as you put it buildings could have a maximum pax and lux value, which they would be built with, as well as minimum values for both. If the land value or population of a tile fell below the minimum value it would become derelict. It could then be replaced with a building more appropriate to the area. Upgrading of buildings would happen based on tile value exceeding building lux value by a certain amount (pax would not come into it). The idea would be for calculations for city upgrading to take place in another thread in the background (parallel to route calc for example). Ideas at an early stage at the moment obviously...

This is a very good idea. How would you measure quality of service from a station?
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kierongreen

Use same method as when it shows as green in station info? I wouldn't want to have a terribly complicated calculation for it.

jamespetts

Quote from: kierongreen on July 27, 2012, 11:02:45 PM
Use same method as when it shows as green in station info? I wouldn't want to have a terribly complicated calculation for it.

Hmm - in Experimental, one would have to take account of journey times, too: it would probably have to be done in terms of average journey times to the ultimate destinations of passengers actually using the station in the last month to avoid creating anomalies (although how to deal with a station that has not had passengers is not entirely straightforward).

However, using this system would be a rather splendid way of encouraging "Metroland" type development along the paths of good transport routes. Actually, even the model that you suggest for Standard would do that to a substantial extent, if, at least, the question of whether any development takes place on a tile at all, as well as the level of that development, depends on the land value, although taking into account journey times would be more effective at measuring the true quality of service.

Might I suggest that land value is partly influenced also by the land value of surrounding tiles? All other things being equal, people prefer to live/work next to other high value buildings/areas.
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kierongreen

QuoteMight I suggest that land value is partly influenced also by the land value of surrounding tiles? All other things being equal, people prefer to live/work next to other high value buildings/areas.
Sure, you can suggest anything at this point! It's certainly feasible, at the moment this is in the stage of trying to accumulate ideas, from all these will eventually come a sensible way forward for coding :)

QuoteHmm - in Experimental, one would have to take account of journey times, too
That is a matter for you (or one of the other experimental coders) to work out :)  Any patch I create will be aimed at standard (though obviously you're free to modify it for experimental).

jamespetts

Quote from: kierongreen on July 27, 2012, 11:38:27 PMThat is a matter for you (or one of the other experimental coders) to work out :)  Any patch I create will be aimed at standard (though obviously you're free to modify it for experimental).

Yes, indeed - just musing on how it might work in Experimental, really. I still have to merge everything from 111.2 to 111.3, though, so this is a while off yet! However, this land value idea is a most valuable addition in principle, especially if it allows town development to follow transport infrastructure quality.

In Experimental, there might be something to be said for having a mobility map, based on average passenger journey times to ultimate destinations originating on any given building tile. This would also take into account road networks.
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Roads

Well guys, what you are talking about doing is basically what I'm already doing in my games, just using Public Player and buying houses as a work around.

This is the thing I love about Simutrans.  There are ways of doing things. :)

Anyway it would be nice to keep Gelion's buildings and others that I love without having to buy them.  I doubt many people would want this but would you even consider a drop down list somewhere of all the buildings where we could specify pax or lux?  Of course you would have a default where the player would have to change nothing.

greenling

I Try to cam out without Change to Public Player.The often useing a Public Player it´s a Cheat.
I Like to view the growing of a Town or Village.
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Roads

@greenling

IMHO, cheating is when you deceive someone.  If I use the Public Player and then post a game never mentioning that fact or implying I had not, then it would be cheating.  Otherwise, it is merely using the tools the coders and developers have provided and playing a non-standard game.

Doubtless there would be a question as to whether the non-standard game was as challenging as the standard game and I would think it is not but it is the game I want to play.  If need to play for the sake of ego building, then I'll play on the net versus the "pro" players.  "How good I am" does not interest me.

Spartanis

Gelion's buildings

I TOO love those buildings, such beautiful graphic designs :)

Iluvalar

In my view, you will also need a desirability level to achieve a better city look. While it would have no real impact in the game, the city builder would try to group the buildings together. So you would end with high polluting, low grade housing on one side of the city, and another luxury part of the city where there is plenty of park and high value buildings.

Also, instead of making hard coded high lux_level building for historical purpose like fabio said, I'd humbly suggest there would be a new event for the buildings where they randomly gain one lux_level instead of upgrading. Those building that would be lucky enough to stack many of those upgrades would become very hard to replace, and slowly enter the historical part of the city. whatever it's a beautiful manor, a prosperous industry or a old shack...

prissi

There is already a clustering code, which keeps industrial away from residental. The fact that you new realized it, may indicate that another parameter might be even less noticeable ...

Dwachs

This clustering only applies to 'normal' city buildings. Factories do not have any influence their afaik. Let me quote a post of mine on this regard
Quote from: Dwachs on July 27, 2012, 06:13:19 AM
For a start, one could try to add information about residential/commercial/industrial type to special buildings:

Factories can be industrial (steel mill) or commercial (markets). Same for attractions. Some paksets include special skyscrapers, which could
be classified as commercial or residential.

This would help to cluster industrial buildings around factories. Afaict, this would require to change makeobj related files only.
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and maggikraut.

prissi

Most factories converting goods (i.e. produces) are usually industrial, so one could use this for backwar compatibility. But such an extension to makeobj sound very useful, even if the function is not there yet.