Implemented City Planner Tool

[NormaJeane]

Proposal:
A (preferrably in-game) city planner tool where one can design new lay-outs for a city. This should include all buildings of any age as well as expansions.

Have you checked the Ideas section for the same idea posted by someone else?
Yes I have checked.
Is this idea similar to one that has been previously suggested?
No, not as far as I could see.

Reason:
The current in-game tool is NO planning tool, it is just a convenience tool for temporarily storing buildings, before putting them back. BUT: What would be the best lay-out? Currently there is no in-game tool to help one deciding on what would be the best lay-out for one’s city.

Details:
It would be a tool where one can try out new city lay-outs. This by e.g. having a list of all buildings in one column and next to that a large lay-out field for designing a city.

Visual Aids:
I could place mock-ups here, but I’m afraid those would be considered inappropriate, since these would derive from a 3rd party source.

Balance:
As far as I can see, there would be no impact on other game features.

Abuse Prevention:
To my knowledge my proposal does not open up possible exploits or make it possible for players to cheat.

Summary:
I would very much like to have a city planner tool (preferrably in-game) , because the current in-game tool for redesigning a city is just not sufficient in my opinion:
• The current in-game tool is NO planning tool, it is just a convenience tool for temporarily storing buildings, before putting them back.
- BUT: What would be the best lay-out?
- Currently there is no mechanism to save drafts for a new city lay-out, which would be a huge improvement imho.
• With a city planner tool one should be able to redesign (position of buildings etc.) one’s city which is a totally different intake compared to the current in-game tool.

 

[beelzebob666]

What exactly is it you are missing with the current tool?

I am quite satisfied with the reconstruction mode so far.

Things I am missing currently are:
- Place additional expansions in anticipation of redesigning of the city after aging up
- saving different drafts of the cities reconstruction and trying out different things before settling for the one layout that satisfies the most
- being able to define a collection of buildings as a unit and being able to move the whole unit around - especially interesting for sets or if you are satisfied with a specific part of the city that you just want to nudge around.

 

[NormaJeane]

I miss the ability to design a new lay-out for the city, which is as you say:
"saving different drafts of the cities reconstruction and trying out different things before settling for the one layout that satisfies the most"

 

[NormaJeane]

For staff members: I have rewritten my suggestion according to the guidelines.

 

[Pafton]

Moved back, thank you.

 

[NormaJeane]

When saying NO to this suggestion, please explain WHY so I may improve it!
Other comments are of course also welcome

 

[Artubar]

What exactly is it you are missing with the current tool?

I can only answer for myself, but I am desperately missing

• the ability to place streets and buildings which I don't have in my town yet, or even don't have in my building menu / inventory yet*
  (using a a surrogate building of the same size is rarely an option, especially if there is no room for building it yet)
• the ability to remove a building from the draft (and stock) without having to delete it in the live city

- Place additional expansions in anticipation of redesigning of the city after aging up
- saving different drafts of the cities reconstruction and trying out different things before settling for the one layout that satisfies the most
- being able to define a collection of buildings as a unit and being able to move the whole unit around - especially interesting for sets or if you are satisfied with a specific part of the city that you just want to nudge around.

I quite like those suggestions, along with NormaJeane's. But instead of having an additional ingame tool, I'd prefer an improved reconstruction mode. All in one place. The (*) draft buildings which you didn't have before would appear as empty spaces after applying a draft, except for streets, those could be built automatically as long as you've researched them and have enough resources to build.

 

[Outlaw Dread]

-1
There is already a very good and easy to use city planning tool available. You can google FOEMANAGER dot COM
It is easy enough to use ofr almost all city planning needs. Plus, it is being updated to a version 2.0 that responds to years of FOE players' inputs, and will include all event buildings (currently it stops at event buildings for mid-2019 while the new version is being finalized).
There are much more pressing needs for the Inno Devs to concentrate on; they do not need to expend effort to improve the already quite serviceable reconstruction mode.

 

[Artubar]

-1
There is already a very good and easy to use city planning tool available...

This tool is
a) external, and if you / we don't donate enough money he will shut it down. Or when he is pissed off by something, or if he doesn't manage to migrate the planner to HTML5 before Flash stops working.
b) depending on a bot which needs to be whitelisted on every server, and if something goes wrong like this week on german servers, the bot gets banned and you can't import your cities anymore - until an admin allows access again, or maybe refuses to do so.

That's why I'm for a fully integrated solution, maintained by Inno.

 

[Outlaw Dread]

This tool is
a) external, and if you / we don't donate enough money he will shut it down. Or when he is pissed off by something, or if he doesn't manage to migrate the planner to HTML5 before Flash stops working.
b) depending on a bot which needs to be whitelisted on every server, and if something goes wrong like this week on german servers, the bot gets banned and you can't import your cities anymore - until an admin allows access again, or maybe refuses to do so.

That's why I'm for a fully integrated solution, maintained by Inno.

You are presenting theoretical problems, none of which have actually occurred.

When, and IF, they do, then you could then legitimately ask Inno to consider if it is worth spending the very limited time game developers have, to create a more robust city planning tool.

Even then, I would argue that it is not worth their effort. A tool for city planning is a convenience. You can achieve the same result by creating an excel spreadsheet that maps all your buildings, if you are willing to make the effort to do so. That is I what I do. All my buildings are mapped into an excel spreadsheet, which I easily use to rapidly assess any changes I’d like to make to my cities. It takes about an hour’s time to create an Excel spreadsheet for each of your cites; hardly an unreasonable amount of effort considering the amount of time it saves in successfully re-configuring cities. This is a game that rewards those willing to spend time and effort to improve their progress.

So still -1

 

[xivarmy]

I agree that multiple drafts in the reconstruction tool would be a big positive. I'd love to switch between various modes with different non-premium buildings "X Age GvG layout, 1 hr supply quest layout, etc, etc". I am however probably a minority in this now as almost every well-developed city is 90%+ GBs and event buildings that aren't so easy to "just delete".

I agree that they could work on better support for not keeping everything in your current layout - though since the consequences of removing an item when you want to commit the layout can be rather drastic I have no idea of a good way to integrate it. For instance let's say you get used to not including a few unimportant items like roads and stuff and getting a confirmation window "you're going to sell X items if you commit this layout. are you sure?" and since you're used to it you hammer yes. Now let's say one of those times you forget to place your Arc in the new layout and hammer the confirmation. Ouch. Perhaps only non-GB, non-special buildings could be auto-removed. Perhaps you could have a trash bin you have to move the items to yourself before committing? Or maybe a couple trash bins: sell these, store building these.

However... personally I still use an external spreadsheet though for rearrangement and an improved planner/reconstruction tool probably wouldn't change that. Why? Because I can copy and paste chunks around *so much faster*. That's always been my problem with the city planner website as well. It's so much slower for me than what I'm used to when planning a new layout.

 

[Sl8yer]

When saying NO to this suggestion, please explain WHY so I may improve it!

You should not put in a poll if that is what you want.

I see no reason for this. All these ideas to make the game easier do not make it any more fun. They bring the game down.

 

[Darth Vader The Mighty]

What exactly is it you are missing with the current tool?

I am quite satisfied with the reconstruction mode so far.

Things I am missing currently are:
- Place additional expansions in anticipation of redesigning of the city after aging up
- saving different drafts of the cities reconstruction and trying out different things before settling for the one layout that satisfies the most
- being able to define a collection of buildings as a unit and being able to move the whole unit around - especially interesting for sets or if you are satisfied with a specific part of the city that you just want to nudge around.

I agree with all your points and on top of that I am missing:

- possibility to add roads during reconstruction (or delete them).
- possibility to add building from my inventory and delete those I will not need directly from reconstruction mode

Otherwise reconstruction mode is fine.

 

[EnchantedTest0]

So far it is 64.90% wanted I want this to change to 99.99% wanted (to be more sensible 85%). I strongly want this update .

Things I am missing currently are:

1. Saving different drafts of the cities reconstruction and trying out different things before settling for the one layout that satisfies the most .
2. Being able to move expansions .
3. The ability to place streets and buildings which I don't have in my town yet, or even don't have in my building menu / inventory yet but can afford
   (using a a surrogate building of the same size is rarely an option, especially if there is no room for building it yet)

 

[fimfim]

No.
I do not use reconstruction mode either.
I like the challenge to rebuild the city with minimum available space. It is the game is about.
I agree with:

I see no reason for this. All these ideas to make the game easier do not make it any more fun. They bring the game down.

 

[EnchantedTest0]

No.
I do not use reconstruction mode either.
I like the challenge to rebuild the city with minimum available space. It is the game is about.
I agree with:

I like the challenge but when I am feeling lazy I do not

 

[EnchantedTest0]

-1
There is already a very good and easy to use city planning tool available. You can google FOEMANAGER dot COM
It is easy enough to use for almost all city planning needs. Plus, it is being updated to a version 2.0 that responds to years of FOE players' inputs, and will include all event buildings (currently it stops at event buildings for mid-2019 while the new version is being finalized).
There are much more pressing needs for the Inno Devs to concentrate on; they do not need to expend effort to improve the already quite serviceable reconstruction mode.

I didn't realise this but I still think that FOE Should look into this .

 

[DeletedUser8496]

I am on a German server and I do miss the import function from the city planner. this used to be my favorite tool for planning and reconstructing my city

 

[DeletedUser9095]

I miss the city planner.
I have very developed cities on the national server and the problem is how to rebuild them to add new buildings from two events.
The available reconstruction mode is very good, provided I plan the city in the outer one already.
In addition, many friends from outside the guild and asked me for help in planning their cities. Such help also helps in establishing positive relationships between players, which in my opinion is also an important issue in this game.

 

[LordVaderIII]

-1
There is already a very good and easy to use city planning tool available. You can google FOEMANAGER dot COM
It is easy enough to use ofr almost all city planning needs. Plus, it is being updated to a version 2.0 that responds to years of FOE players' inputs, and will include all event buildings (currently it stops at event buildings for mid-2019 while the new version is being finalized).
There are much more pressing needs for the Inno Devs to concentrate on; they do not need to expend effort to improve the already quite serviceable reconstruction mode.

Three days before you posted this the city planner you mention was shut down and no longer works.