simcitizens

Today, Simcity released a new video describing how the water simulator affects the economy. Like the previous videos, each step has a cause and effect, and you’ll see these things in real time.

In the water table map you can see which areas on the map have water. The bluer areas naturally have more water.

This makes the terrain green and lush, but the drier areas are brown and barren.

Place the water pump in an area with more water. As it pumps it subtracts water from the water table map.  Once the water is pumped, it is sent down the pipes as an agent to provide water to buildings. Periodically, the buildings will request more water, which will be replenished once the water agent reaches the buildings again.

But as the water agent reaches industrial zones, it will come in contact with ground pollution. In previous games, this ground pollution would reduce the amount of water dispersed. However in this game, ground pollution will now affect the water supply.

 

As the ground pollution spreads to the water tower, it will pump this dirty water to residential zones. When water is polluted it carries germs, and as Sims drink this water, they become sick.  Sick sims will leave work and head home, thus less income is generated. You can cure them by placing hospitals nearby.

As you can see, Simcity’s Glassbox Engine is a live simulator that is intricately integrated with different functions and services. One feature can detrimentally affect the other.

Today Maxis released another video of their Glassbox Engine which is the fundamental layer powering the Simcity simulation. Today’s video focuses on the economic loop of the game’s engine. The simulation sends out “agents”, these agents can do various tasks, like for example, they can send out “help wanted agents” that request workers to either drive to work or walk to work.  Agents can carry resources and travel to different zones. Some of these agents aren’t shown on the screen while you are playing but they will travel along the roads and paths  you created.

 

In the video, the factories in the industrial zone opens at 6AM. However, these factories currently have no workers.  They will send out invisible “help wanted” agents that travel down the road and search for residential zones. They will figuratively “knock on their doors” to inform that zone that there is a job opening. Residential zones will then send out cars that will search for the first available job.

As enough people show up to work, the factory turns on and starts manufacturing products. Air pollution is triggered as a result of the manufacturing. In addition, freight trucks will spawn and send goods from the industrial zones to the commercial zones.

This is just one example of how Residential, Industrial, and Commercial zones interact to one another.  The point being that each thing you see in Simcity is something actually happening.

As this screenshot is illustrating, as factories are manufacturing goods, they will write to the air pollution map. This in turn triggers the smoke animation and sound effects at the same time.

[via simcity]