The size of housing

[rojoy]

I hope you all bought the expansion pack. In it the was a new four family lux. housing for 4 families. I realy like the scale of the building in comparison with everything else. it seems realistic in size. unlike Tenements and apartments that are way out of proportion with everything else. Apartments for 6 people are as big as a cathedral, a hotel or even the palace wich should be one of the largest buildings on the island. I hope they look at this in the future.

[KiOwA]

Personally I don't use the condominum. Why? Because it is so big, even bigger than the apartment, and requires 15 Mw for 4 families. Luxury houses only need 2 Mw for each family, and they're already a pain to build. I wouldn't mind more choices for housing though, as long as they're viable

[rojoy]

I agree but what i'm saying is that apartment should be the size of condos. the size of apartments and tentements seems unrealistic in comparision with other buildings. An apartment is as big as the palace. Could you image a six family home being bigger the the white house, or a 12 tenement bigger than a catherdral. have you ever seen one there huge.

i would love to see these two multi family units reduced in size by 2.

[MadamPresident]

Yes  I agree. I hate apartments. They take up too much space. Down with apartments!!   Tenements are ok tho.

M'Prez

[el_malo]

You Tenementarians, are all alike... why do you hate the Apartmental Anarchist Movement?

[MadamPresident]

Apartments have huge footprints and take too much time to build. I want high rise apartment complexes. My islands are small.

DOWN WITH APARTMENTS!!  

M'Prez

[KiOwA]

After all, this is Tropico, not your usual urban Yanqui city with massive skyscrapers and all. The apartments look as big as Tropico's engineers can manage. Personally the apartments and the tenements look fine, in terms of size (although the tenement can be an eyesore at times). The condominium should be reduced in size, as should its electricity requirement so that I would consider it next to my apartments.

On another note, it is possible to house the majority of your population in apartments, but make sure you space them out, and plant trees and fountains to spruce up the area. Tenements just produce too much crime and pollution, unless you're playing a scenario and don't care what your people live in

[MadamPresident]

Its people like you that are stopping progress in the Third World countries.  "This isn't some yanqui city. We don't need no skyscrapers" etc.  

I still like tenements and there's no crime, just build a police station and some fountains and thats that.

M'Prez

[KiOwA]

I'm not stopping 3rd world country progress, I'm talking about facts. Which carribbean country, let alone any 3rd world country, has skyscrapers? One would look really out of place in Tropico, and if you thought the luxury hotel was too bright and spanking, a skyscraper would stick out like a sore thumb. Put them down all over the place, and Tropico would become Simcity. Simple as that

[Jythier]

I wonder how much the skyscraper would cost to build... maybe that's why it's not in there?

[rojoy]

Who said third world countries don't have sky scrapers?

Have any of you ever been to a third world country?

I have and can tell you that they do have cities. In Tipai for instance they had a vey moderen city with shacks just around the corner. The same is true of Manila.

In many third world counties is common to see very moderen buildings right next to buildings made of scrap wood and tin just like the shacks in the game. I know because my wife is from the Phillipines and grew up in one of those shacks.

to be honest you don't see to many of these tenement or apartment type facities.

In such countries there is such a diffrence between rich and poor it is mind boggling. Most people either live in a shack or a very nice house including servents. Apartments or tennements would only be found in cities not in rural areas. so shyscapers are not that ridulous.

Wether such buildings would be practicle in this game is something else. Although small american cities have rows of 3 story houses holding 3 families why not something like that

My original idea is not to eliminate apartments or tenements but to resize then to a scale that realisticly fits the island. If they were half the size in hieght and foot print they would seem better to scale. the housing units should not be the biggest buildings on the island.

[Olle_Petersson]

Personally I don't use the condominum. Why? Because it is so big, even bigger than the apartment, and requires 15 Mw for 4 families. Luxury houses only need 2 Mw for each family, ...

Incorrect. The Condominium only use 6MW.
It has exactly the same footprint as four luxury houses grouped together.

I haven't checked the construction costs, but sofar I think the condo is usually the better choice since they can be used for tourists as well.

(I'll also have to compare condominiums to beach villas and luxury hotels in the tourist aspect.)

Cheers
Olle

[Mr.P]

I agree Olle, I have found them to be pretty useful.

Granted the cost is quite high, but from a footprint point-of-view they are comparable to the luxury houses. And given I use Condo's as buffers between my town and my tourist area's being able to switch the occupancy is a real bonus.

Lets face it, when you have the power and money to build condo's (which is later in the game) practicality is needed more not the odd $$$.

[KiOwA]

My bad about the power consumption, though I must admit that that condominium looks slightly bigger than 4 luxury houses together with the grid overlay on. But then that's just me. I wouldn't mind the housing rescaled, but since Poptop already refuses to do more building rotations, I wouldn't bet very much on it, and the housing isn't really broken right now, so I guess we have to make do. Personally I stick the educated into houses, and everyone else gets apartments. Power-consuming housing quickly builds up the electricity bill.

My point about not having skyscrapers is not about realism in the real world. I know 3rd world countries have skyscrapers; I've seen them. What I'm saying that if that skyscrapers and other tall urban buildings do make it into the game, they would ruin the whole flavour of Tropico, set in the carribbean (did I spell that right?). Just imagine Tropico with them, and you'll see what I mean

[Mr.P]

Sticking with housing (of a sort!) I would like to have seen shacks congragate in one or two area's a.k.a. shanty towns.

This would have added an element of realism and prevented these God-awful shacks appearing in the middle of my productive coffee farms.

I know, I know; I should actually house my peons, but sometimes a second Cararet just takes priority.

[MadamPresident]

They do lump into shanty towns, Mr P. Most of them.

This is because they build them close to thier work and a bunch of people work in one place.

Later you end up with more scattered shacks because your workplaces are scattered further.



M'Prez

[Mr.P]

Aww man, I never get shanty towns in mine. Maybe a collection of 5-6, leaving the other 20-30 scattered all across my island in one's and two's.

If they are gonna build shacks they could at least do it in a style that El Presidente authorises.

[KiOwA]

How about a new edict that would 'outlaw' the construction of shacks? your construction workers would forcibly pull down any shacks they encounter, and your soldiers would enforce the rule. It would lower liberty, of course

[Junta_Joe]

I would love to see a multifamily dwelling that held as many as a tennement (or more) that had the same housing quality of the apartments. They could simply add a new setting to the tennement that gives a higher rating with a higher maintenance costs. That and a fresh coat of paint!  

Designated shack zones would be cool too. I hate the way they build them in the middle of my farms!  

[rojoy]

I agree with multiple quality settings for housing. That kind of option alone creates a huge variety of housing options.

Maybe there could be upgrade options so that all styles of houses from individual to multi family 6 and 12 family could be upgraded for quality. at least one level up.

foe example bunk houses which hold 2 families has a defalt quality of 25. this could be upgraded to ten. level of 35.

ten. which has level of 35 could upgrade to level of country house at quality 50 ect. Allowing for upgrade one level of quality only still creates at lot of variety in housing and yet would drasticly mutiply your options for housing. You could place buildings at default level and then upgrade for say 25% for original cost.

I would also like to see an upgrade option on farms and ranches that allows 2 families to live on site. who ever herd of farmers who live in the city? Most farmers tend to live on site.

Another specialized housing that would be nice would be a dorm for students who have no income that only students can live in. no low life freeloaders. Old folks homes the same concept. and parish centers for clergy. if not special houseing than the option to designate a housing facitity as special for these type only or general population.

[Junta_Joe]

Housing filters for job types has been a much discussed and desired feature here.

[Coconut Kid]

There's actually a kind of scale curve.  We keep the doorways big enough to allow people through, ... but the buildings themselves are actually smaller than they should be.  We kept them somewhat close to scale on the small buildings and warped scale more as the buildings get bigger.  So while the houses are realtively close to plausible, the airport is only a fraction of the size it would honestly need to be.  ...  And the island, being the biggest of the objects, gets shrunk the most.  ...

Here's the key to all the complaints about fitting buildings into grand scheme of city building. One of the main features of T3 was to use a uniform scale for the buildings. Now the players gripe about the huge size of some of them.

JJ's previous post speaks for a limited number of players. It's too much of a move toward a "god" game.