24-05-2002 11:45									#1
	The 'Burbs: Urban Sprawl Full PM-box? Change here!

Okay, okay, I finally sat down and did it. After almost six months of complaining about not having suburbs in my Civ III game, I hopped into my comfy chair, opened my new PhotoShop 7, and began work on what I think turned out pretty cool.

So, to keep from making this a long speil about how I made suburbs in Civ II and felt it was much harder to impliment them in this game because there are few unspecific rule mods and only one form of irrigation (no irrigation and then farms), I'll just post a screen shot of one of my games using the mod (it looks alot better, really - this pic is terrible) and attach the file.

This is my second graphics mod for Civ III (my first were those "shields" for citizen happiness) and you can expect a couple of updates in the future (as well as a possible version of sprawl in midevil times using roads). Whatever.

Happy sprawling.

Attachment: suburbs.zip
This has been downloaded 1936 time(s).

	24-05-2002 13:05									#2
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It looks interesting, I will download it later to try it out.

	24-05-2002 13:06									#3
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I went ahead and downloaded it, but it's late so I will try it out after work tomorrow.

	25-05-2002 02:00									#4
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You've done a good job, maybe just a little too much sprawl though. I like to envision my armies marching over long distances of terrain occasionally crossing small villages, not visiting a village every turn.
Could you increase the size of buildings and such for the sprawl next to the cities and the sprawl diminishes the further away from the city? I once remember a mod for Call To Power2 which successfully showed urban sprawl as it should be.
A good job though.

	25-05-2002 03:28									#5
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In truth, that's actually how it is.
Unfortunately, my screenie is a terrible one where I have too many railroads and all the suburbs blend together. I should have taken a screenshot on a better game, but didn't have the opportunity (my better games are on my laptop).

In essence, it is basically a railroad mod where a few little houses may pop up here and there. As you further industrialize your nation, you'll see communities around some cities. Once your nation is completely industrialized (like in my screenie), sprawl extends for miles from your urban areas, running into each other and creating dense patches of rows upon rows of houses (take for example the Houston sprawl in real life).

You won't see what you see in the screen shot until you have lots of railroads funnelling through your nations.

Could someone who tested this graphic take a screen shot of one of their games? I'd like to see how it looks with other mods and different playing styles (it would probably look best with those peoples' games who only build railroads around their cities and not interconnecting at every square they possibly can). Thanks.

	25-05-2002 08:29									#6
	Full PM-box? Change here!

Pretty cool, I liked it

	25-05-2002 09:59									#7
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Looks good, what would be really cool is having huts on road, these on railroad, farms on irrigation, and snoopys citys.

	25-05-2002 11:33									#8
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Ahhh, this reminds me of another urban sprawl mod I saw somewhere else. I like them, they're much more realistic looking than the horrible rail tiles...

	25-05-2002 19:22									#9
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i have 3 little buildings mods all at once, the farm houses mod, the mines being buildings mod, and this one, which i have added a few more single houses, crudly.
i have got steam power in my game, i just need the workers to do their stuff.
where did the original tree graphic come from? it is in snoopys city mod.

	25-05-2002 23:54									#10
	Possible Update? Lose 30 kilos (of popups)

I'm thinking about perhaps creating an update to this graphic where the railroads would actually become streets and more populated areas would include more high-rise or commercial images. Of course, this would mean expanding more houses into more of the grid and create a more "dense" look (which I had originally done, but tossed it because it was too thick with houses).

Any thoughts?

And where are those screenies of other people's games?

	26-05-2002 00:31									#11
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i would like skyscapers but not like the other urban railway mod, that was too messy

	26-05-2002 01:01									#12
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I agree. I meant for just a few on the most "populated" tiles (the ones that have all connections and are used in rotating order).

	27-05-2002 12:25									#13
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This is really good!

BlueO's city sprawl was too dense with too many scyscrapers. This one looks really suburban. Great work! I like it!
Even the AI's territory, which usually is completely covered with rails, looks acceptable.

	27-05-2002 19:14									#14
	Re: Possible Update? Full PM-box? Change here!

quote: Originally posted by Rickk I'm thinking about perhaps creating an update to this graphic where the railroads would actually become streets and more populated areas would include more high-rise or commercial images. Of course, this would mean expanding more houses into more of the grid and create a more "dense" look (which I had originally done, but tossed it because it was too thick with houses).

Those changes would be great. Let them be railroads in the Industrial Era and then become highways in the Modern Era.

Now if we could just get rid of the ridiculous "infinite movement" of units on railroads...

	27-05-2002 23:38									#15
	Re: Re: Possible Update? Support Apolyton or Terrorists Win

quote: Originally posted by XMon Those changes would be great. Let them be railroads in the Industrial Era and then become highways in the Modern Era.

I wish! The only way I can see this happening is if you simply use the standard railroads while you're in the industrial age and then simple install my "highway/suburb" mod once you cross over into the modern age.

Of course, I always am about nine-hundred steps ahead of the computer technologically and if I did that, they would suddenly - in the midst of their industrial revolution - sprout suburbs! Quite a hillarious sight, I believe.


I'm almost done with V2.0 of these mods. Here's what's happening:

Road tiles now have small houses that will pop up slowly once a lot of roads in the region have been built (usually around cities, so this just looks like population distribution). The houses are ancient-esque Roman style (it looked best with all culture forms).

Railroads are in the process of being changed into highways or streets (grey solid things). The houses are basically what you see in V1.0 of this mod, with a few more changes to improve realism. So far I think it's working out. There will be a few more skyscrapers mixed in with the densest parts of the suburbs. I believe you can use your imagination to pretend that these are your metropoltin areas; your Ft. Worth to your Dallas, your Jersey City to your New York, your Aneheim to your Los Angeles - I think you get the picture. The little unnamed cities that you knew had to exsist can now actually be seen. It's pretty cool. I'll try to upload V2.0 today if I finish it.

	04-06-2002 16:05									#16
	Put an end to popups!

Hi Rickk

You asked for a screenshot from players using your mod. Here is mine.
I added a few rail tiles from BlueO's mod to get more factories and a few higher houses.

Attachment: sprawl2.gif
This has been downloaded 1845 time(s).

	11-06-2002 22:22									#17
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quote: Originally posted by Level Looks good, what would be really cool is having huts on road, these on railroad, farms on irrigation, and snoopys citys.

You should check out Zeb_Fishers irrigation graphics. He has little barns and stables on some of them. He did a very nice job.

	11-06-2002 23:32									#18
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NUTS!! i want it but can't download it...keep getting an error message saying the page can't be found!!!

	12-06-2002 00:29									#19
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Try over at Civ Fanatics, it's there as well.

	12-06-2002 06:03									#20
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It looks a little weird... I'm still torn whether I like it or not.

	12-06-2002 21:01									#21
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got it!!...just had to change the IP address in the URL section up top to apolyton.net and it picked it right up. damn annoying if you ask me!

	13-06-2002 02:59									#22
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looks pretty nce. good job.

	14-06-2002 06:16									#23
	Lateral Thinking Support Apolyton buy from Amazon

Would it be possible to program suburb tiles to show up only when you build railroads in the productive space around each city... That would make it look interesting, and also help demarcate - I`m tired of counting all the possible variations to find unused space.

	15-06-2002 08:57									#24
	Re: Lateral Thinking Browse Apolyton AD-FREE

quote: Originally posted by Changmai Beagle Would it be possible to program suburb tiles to show up only when you build railroads in the productive space around each city... That would make it look interesting, and also help demarcate - I`m tired of counting all the possible variations to find unused space.

Each railroad tile is stored in a list within a .pcx file, and they're only designed to connect correctly to other tiles. There's no specification between tiles that are adjacent to cities and ones that aren't. So therefore, there really isn't any way to produce the effect you want.

	16-06-2002 12:04									#25
	Put an end to popups!

Great JOB!!!!!

	04-12-2002 08:51									#26
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Rikk, that is some serious work. Good job.

	04-12-2002 18:18									#27
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I'm still using and LOVING this mod.

	05-12-2002 16:39									#28
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IMO it looks a bit too busy and crowded. But a nice addition to the gfx...

	12-12-2002 15:13									#29
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I'd love the "sprawl" to show only around metropolis.. but I'm downloading it anyway

	09-08-2003 05:09									#30
	Put an end to popups!

Just came back to check out for some mods and saw this thread was near the top. Just wanted to say thanks for the kind words.

I was working on the second one (which would have been SO much cooler - it was almost done), but my computer died and I lost all the work. If I get inspired and have some free time, I might redo it.

Version 2 had lawns and trees and not so many of the same houses (more types). It was pretty cool.