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Egregoria: 3D City Builder without a grid

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Re: Egregoria: 3D City Builder without a grid

#41

Post by Uriopass »

tamimio wrote: post #37
Uriopass wrote: post #34

Hi, I'm the main developer of Egregoria. I did not expect to end up on hackernews that early. While I've been working on this project on and off for 3 years it is still in its infancy. I have so many things I want to rewrite, so many features missing even for the most basic game loop. So many 3D models I have to make. And so little time! Working on this as a side project with a full time job has been hard at times. I…

What’s your motivation to make it?

I spend a lot of time in public transportation looking out the window, thinking about the mechanics of society. I have always liked simulations so I thought: Why not try to simulate what I see? Watching the simulation from above of people going to supermarkets, going to work, trains delivering goods and such. Creating your own city and watching patterns emerge would certainly feels great.

A lot like watching little ants going around doing their business. This idea is also explored in one of the books of the Ants trilogy from Bernard Werber (I think?) where a society simulation is used to try out advertising campaigns.

Re: Egregoria: 3D City Builder without a grid

#42

Post by bombcar »

Pannoniae wrote: post #21
LargeTomato wrote: post #2

This is awesome. I like cities skylines but I prefer the simulation aspect to the gamified aspect.

Yeah. Cities: Skylines just feels so soulless to me. It's like me looking at a model railway - it might look cute but it's just dead. The game is effectively a traffic simulator, with citizens not really having agency (beyond the Chirper which most people are annoyed by), and next to zero economic management. No mixed zoning or organic growth, you effectively run a completely planned economy. There's not much externa…

The train simulators that have city building as an afterthought often feel much more like a game than the city builders; probably because you have external forces acting on you and driving your decisions

Re: Egregoria: 3D City Builder without a grid

#44

Post by Uriopass »

gaudystead wrote: post #40
Uriopass wrote: post #34

Hi, I'm the main developer of Egregoria. I did not expect to end up on hackernews that early. While I've been working on this project on and off for 3 years it is still in its infancy. I have so many things I want to rewrite, so many features missing even for the most basic game loop. So many 3D models I have to make. And so little time! Working on this as a side project with a full time job has been hard at times. I…

Hey there! I'm just here to say... Keep up the great work! I love city building games and am quite excited to see yours once you've had more time to put into it. Don't let it be the death of you though! I'm patient and appreciative for you putting some coolness out into the world. :)

Thank you for the kind words, very much appreciated.

Re: Egregoria: 3D City Builder without a grid

#45

Post by retrac »

LargeTomato wrote: post #2

This is awesome. I like cities skylines but I prefer the simulation aspect to the gamified aspect.

You may like Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic. [1] Fair warning: it has a rather brutal learning curve. It's somewhere between Factorio, Simcity and OpenTTD.

To build an apartment building, you need prefab panels. To get panels, you need to build a panel factory, which needs gravel. To get gravel, you need a quarry. And then you need vehicles to haul the gravel to the panel factory. And then the panels to the construction site. And buses to bring workers from another housing block to the construction site. And you need to import or produce fuel, and electricity, to run all of it. (Or you can just spend some currency you've earned from exports to build it or import it instantly. Necessary at the start to get your nucleus of industry going.)

It's almost ready for official 1.0 release later this year, and has excellent mod support for custom buildings/industries.

[1] https://store.steampowered.com/app/784150/Workers__Resources...

Re: Egregoria: 3D City Builder without a grid

#46

Post by billfruit »

retrac wrote: post #45
LargeTomato wrote: post #2

This is awesome. I like cities skylines but I prefer the simulation aspect to the gamified aspect.

You may like Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic. [1] Fair warning: it has a rather brutal learning curve. It's somewhere between Factorio, Simcity and OpenTTD. To build an apartment building, you need prefab panels. To get panels, you need to build a panel factory, which needs gravel. To get gravel, you need a quarry. And then you need vehicles to haul the gravel to the panel factory. And then the panels to the con…

What about construction times? Is it something resembling real world time lines?

Re: Egregoria: 3D City Builder without a grid

#47

Post by aylmao »

kaffeeringe wrote: post #24

I wish, it was possible to build a city that is not car-centric.

The simulation is probably not as accurate as modern city-builders, but this is one of the reasons SimCity 4000 Rush Hour is still my favourite game in the genre.

Roads and cars still form a core part of the game, it doesn't support pedestrian-only streets or bikes, but density is so much easier to achieve. That + the grid means cities don't end up looking "suburban" and "car-centric".

Re: Egregoria: 3D City Builder without a grid

#48

Post by retrac »

billfruit wrote: post #46
retrac wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may like Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic. [1] Fair warning: it has a rather brutal learning curve. It's somewhere between Factorio, Simcity and OpenTTD. To build an apartment building, you need prefab panels. To get panels, you need to build a panel factory, which needs gravel. To get gravel, you need a quarry. And then you need vehicles to haul the gravel to the panel factory. And then the panels to the con…

What about construction times? Is it something resembling real world time lines?

Construction cost is materials + labour hours. If you put a building in a built-up populated area, stocked with construction vehicles and materials, it'll go up in a matter of days or weeks, simulated time. If you place it way out in the boondocks with one mud road there, it might take years of simulated time. In that regard it feels very "realistic".

Re: Egregoria: 3D City Builder without a grid

#50

Post by whartung »

Has anyone used any of these sims to try model what a city may be like with autonomous vehicles.

Or, specifically, for lack of a better term, a city(s) where all transportation is done through a ride sharing system, including autonomous vehicles and mass transit.

I’m guessing it’s a combination traffic and economic sim (to deal with issues like surge pricing).

But maybe it could examine questions like:

  * do autonomous vehicles reduce the overall number of vehicles. 
  * lower necessary street capacity. 
  * can parking be moved outside the city center (for example overnight parking when demand is lowest and cars are idle/charging). 
  * how do pedestrian patterns change.
Etc.
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