simcity-2013 game sourced
SimCity (2013)
A SimCity reboot built on the agent-based GlassBox engine, in which agents carry workers, power, water, and goods between buildings and small cities share a region over an always-online connection.
core loop
zone along roads -> GlassBox agents carry workers, goods, power, water, and sewage between buildings -> specialize the city in industries such as manufacturing, education, or tourism -> trade surpluses and share services with region neighbors -> pool resources into Great Works
design notes
GlassBox replaces statistical maps with units that hold resource bins and agents that move resources between them, so a house holds a count of people and food, water travels as units, and traffic jams are the visible sum of commuting agents. Agents take the first available job and the first empty home rather than keeping persistent lives, and vehicles take the shortest route instead of the least loaded one, which players read as pathfinding errors. Cities were smaller than earlier games by design, and region play links them asynchronously through shared services, trade, and Great Works.
relations
15 stored edgesAgent pathfinding
Sims go to the first job and first empty home they find; vehicles take the shortest route rather than the one with spare capacity.
Asynchronous shared regions
Cities in a region connect by highway, rail, and water, trade resources, share services, and pool wealth into Great Works such as an arcology.
Zoning
Residential, commercial, and industrial zones are painted along roads; buildings develop inside them.
Fluid pipe networks
Water and sewage move as units through pipes between pumps, treatment, and buildings.
Population strata
Residents and businesses come in wealth levels with different demands.
Supply-demand pricing
A simulated global market raises and lowers prices of key resources with supply and demand.