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[Shades]

Unfortunately, the glassbox engine seems to be kinda FUBAR.

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Miscellaneous-Issues/Traffic-quot-AI-quot-This-is-why-services-and-traffic-are-broken/m-p/737060?ClickID=dthrkonwtnynbyssrhs0rst20tncnhrrwyxk

To be honest I don't see why they are having so much trouble. From what I can tell a Sim either goes to work/school at a given time, and might travel to the shops at a random time, then goes home.
Even assuming you want it to be fairly sensible with things like going to your own home or work and not just the nearest open slot it's a trivial A* calculation for each travel. And they only need to do around 2 - 4, maybe more if they visit shops multiple times, of these calculations each day/night cycle (or a month of game time). Even on the fastest setting this isn't very often, and with populations going to a few 100 thousand your talking, be generous, a million or so route calculations each cycle. If a vaguely modern machine can't do that in a couple of seconds I'd be shocked.

I admit this would end up with a similar situation to what they have now, although Sims would actually live and work at the same place day to day, but considering it would take all of an hour to write it seems poor they haven't done a whole lot better.

[ank]

I got two simple solutions to the traffic problem(without having actually played the game).

The first one deals with the "horde" problem:
Agents need to reserve the target, so no other agents sets it as target (if it's full)
Simply go through the sims in random order, and let them pick a target each.

Second one deals with the stupid pathfinding through congestion:
Make the sims have a collective memory of congestion. Each day the game looks at congestion rates at all stretches of road. high congestion gets congestion points, and low gets them subtracted.
Congestion points modify the perceived length of the road for the pathfinding AI.
In this way, sims will remember certain stretches of road being congested and will consider alternate routes.(the alternate route being shorter in the mind of the sim).
In this way people do not become godlike beings that know the traffic situation all over town, but they will have some general knowledge of what traffic usually is like.

I think both of these suggestions would be fairly easy to implement.

[forsaken1111]

Unfortunately, the glassbox engine seems to be kinda FUBAR.

http://answers.ea.com/t5/Miscellaneous-Issues/Traffic-quot-AI-quot-This-is-why-services-and-traffic-are-broken/m-p/737060?ClickID=dthrkonwtnynbyssrhs0rst20tncnhrrwyxk

Seems like this could be fixed simply by flagging the job slot a sim is heading for as 'filled' prematurely so no other sims head for it. Its a bandaid but it would stop every sim on the map trying to fill the same job.

Its a bit like what toady does when 13 dwarves all want to go get a sock. The first dwarf to get the job flags the sock as in-use and no other dwarves can grab the job of retrieving the holy sock.

[Intrinsic]

Good bye, customer confidence.

That fact that anyone has any in EA at all after the last few years is mind blowing to me, people must be either ignorant, clueless or can't read ;p

[pilgrimboy]

My city is in the 70,000 with no traffic problems.

I did plop the sports arena (the 225,000). It had intersections. It caused traffic problems.

I plopped a train station. Again, it had intersections. It needed the creation of an intersection. It caused traffic problems.

The same with the ferry.

The spiral city can't use some of the items because they need intersections.

[pilgrimboy]

A few good reads at the EA forums.

Traffic "AI"... This is why services and traffic are broken! - http://answers.ea.com/t5/Miscellaneous-Issues/Traffic-quot-AI-quot-This-is-why-services-and-traffic-are-broken/m-p/737060#U737060

PROOF THAT THE GAME IS MISLEADING REGARDING POPULATION COUNT, AMONG OTHER THINGS - http://answers.ea.com/t5/Miscellaneous-Issues/PROOF-THAT-THE-GAME-IS-MISLEADING-REGARDING-POPULATION-COUNT/m-p/745038#U745038

[werty892]

So much bullshit....

[Skyrunner]

I feel like any decent programmer with half a mind to AI could write better code. :/ I mean... clearly electricity spreads across the city in a motion similar to Brownian random movement And sims don't own stuff. DF does a thousand times a better job. :/
Though the graphics are pretty.

[Sensei]

Damn. Here I was hoping for a good game. Of course a lot of the fun in, say, Sim City 4 comes after the very beginning when you learn how systems work, and how you can manipulate them. That's what gives the game longevity. Of course, people are now reaching that stage in Sim City 5 and are finding that stuff is broken and you can't apply it in a logical fashion. Ouch.

[pilgrimboy]

I feel like any decent programmer with half a mind to AI could write better code. :/ I mean... clearly electricity spreads across the city in a motion similar to Brownian random movement And sims don't own stuff. DF does a thousand times a better job. :/
Though the graphics are pretty.

One thing I discovered with my long single road without any intersections is that the power from the power plant on the one side of the road couldn't reach the other. So I either needed to build the power plant more in the middle. I opted for two, one each end. I really need to start a new city. So much wasted space in this one.

[Skyrunner]

"Why did the electricity cross the road?"

[The Darkling Wolf]

It didn't. Because EA.

[pilgrimboy]

Now, I have really enjoyed playing the game.

But I get the feeling that it is all a facade and that is extremely broken.

Here's a video supporting that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACdu1ho2Ic4&feature=youtu.be

[Neyvn]

Damn you all...
I want to play Simcity, but all this BS around it makes me not want to. So I don't want to now but still slightly do cause I love Simcity and it has been something I have always been thinking about getting but its not now so I might not. Damn you EA for doing this....

[PTTG??]

Install Sim City 4 and the Network Addon Mod and you've got everything you need.