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Ranking City Layouts

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DeletedUser116592

What?

The game could rank players based on how good their city layout is. Good in the sense of connecting to as many buildings as possible supported by the minimum amount of road. This city layout ranking table would sit alongside the existing tables of player and guild points and - on desktop - medal count.

Why?

  • For many players doing the jigsaw to make everything fit is a favourite part of the game. So this gives players a way to gauge how they're doing compared to everyone else.
  • Everyone can compete from day one. Unlike the points and medal tables which are won by the strongest long term players, newbie players in lower eras would have a chance to rank highly on this.

How?

It involves some maths which I won't impose on folks unless somebody asks. But, without getting into the number crunching, the gist of it is this:
  • There's no judgment about which buildings players have placed. So, if a player has a Colosseum then, though is not a well liked GB, it doesn't matter. The rank is for being good at making everything fit in the available space, not judging the quality of what has been built.
  • Roads running along the shorter edge of a rectangular building count in player's favour, as do buildings connected by touching just one road segment. Negative points accrue from having road that is unused, or with buildings only on one side of it.
  • There is no gaming the score by only building small buildings. A 2x2 Shrine of Knowledge supported by 2 road squares is no better or worse than a 4x4 Babel supported by 4 roads.
  • Buildings that don't require roads - like victory towers and ritual flames - are ignored. They don't count towards the rank.
 

DeletedUser96901

+1

would be nice indicator to see if my city needs to be improved
 

ntnete0

Brigadier-General
+1 why not ... it is a strategy game to get the moast out of your city layout ... more efficient layout a better city .....
 

DeletedUser113901

So the formula would be
Σ([connected building footprint]^(0,5))/([road amount]+4*[street amount])
I guess?
But you give a huge advantage to pre-non-Delphi-GB noobs, because they will be able to plan quite easily.
 

DeletedUser116592

@bradype my first stab at it was a formula very much like yours. Then I settled on the idea that the amount of road typically required by a building is the length of it's shortest edge. Plus for single track roads that can be divided in two seeing as the road is shared with the building opposite so:

( Σ [ length shortest edge for buildings requiring road ] / 2 + Σ [length shortest edge for buildings requiring 2 lane street] )
/ ( [road amount] + 4 * [street amount] )


- Results less than 1 means it's a city with room for improvement.
- Above 1 the player is doing great, the higher the better.
 

DeletedUser113901

( Σ [ length shortest edge for buildings requiring road ] / 2 + Σ [length shortest edge for buildings requiring 2 lane street] )
/ ( [road amount] + 4 * [street amount] )
Your formula has 3 weaknesses IMHO
  1. You can build both side of a street too, and the 4 *already takes the width into account
  2. Length shortest edge makes it penalising to have non-square buildings, but it is actually better layout
  3. Bad layout is often due to GBs and specials (with weird footprints) wich should have a small modifier
So the best formula IMO
(Σ([connected regular building footprint]^(0,5))+1,25*Σ([connected special or great building footprint]^(0,5)))/([road amount]+4*[street amount])
 
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DeletedUser113901

+1 with a small modifier for GBs and specials,
Neutral without.
 

DeletedUser116592

Well @bradype seeing as I'm convinced my formula is good and vice versa, I guess we will have to leave the finer points of the maths to Innogames (if the idea takes off) 8-) In fact the reason I didn't include the maths in the first place is I knew it might become a maths talk rather than a let's have a layout ranking talk! Anyway, thanks for the vote.

Also, rest assured, I did carry on building on both sides of the road once I got to Progressive Era 8-)
 

DeletedUser115071

This is not practical and important considering all the other feature needing improvement.
Also if you don't like the sentence above here is another reason: Different buildings, impossible layouts, and mostly people with fewer buildings will always be top 1, while players with multiple sets, GBs and so on will be not doing so good.
For example on one row I have 12 TFs which is the maximum you can put and it takes the road from start to finish, yes I can go around it and maybe use less road, maybe but the most efficient and best scenario is where I have linked my TF to 1 road, actually where I connect two TFs with 1 road but that is practically impossible.

-1
 

DeletedUser116592

I think the concern that those with novel shaped GBs and specials will be at a disadvantage is wrong. Doing a good layout with such buildings is harder so you really have to work at it. But, done well, you get more built area for less road, potentially scoring higher in the layout league. To illustrate here's one of my cities - 5 GBs attached directly to the townhall using only 2 road segments (in a city where all GBs and most TFs are reached by just one road square)

I take your point Ivan that this might not be priority number 1 though it's more substantive than many of the ideas here, which are often small tweaks about whether dialogs are needed and the like. Whilst adding a full league table to the game could be a big job, a compromise would be to just have two stats available to players - your layout is better than x% of players in your world and layout is better than y% of players in your era. Enough for players to have an idea how they're doing relative to everyone else without the need for a full competitive league table.

5GBs.JPG
 

DeletedUser

Sorry -1
I feel a good city layout is important but a punishment for not having it is an unfair and an odd game element I feel.
 

DeletedUser116592

Yeah, I struggle to see this as a punishment. Like I'm quite happy, on ranking points, being the 2641st player in Rugnir (or whatever it is today). Knowing my position and not being number 1 is not a constant source of pain and humiliation! :-)
 

DeletedUser

Let me just say that I think it is ultimately silly to rank city layouts.
I tried to put it nicely but I find it plain stupid and childish.
If one is devoted to use every inch in the most effective way there is just a site to plan this in perfection.
What’s the challenge?
 

DeletedUser96901

more silly than being in the Top 10 means you made the most fake GvG battles :rolleyes:
 
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