Zourin

SimCity the combination of being a big-budget production, a famous and well loved title and developer, and tons and tons of hype piled sky high make this the biggest failure of the twenty-first century to date. Maxis was just handed its AARP card and told to stop pretending they're still relevant. They're now playing church bingo with ID Software complaining about how they can't find a Blockbuster to rent games anymore. The same would be said of a lot of EA titles, although EA itself seems to have a fairly large reserve of Viagra. Stop reading for the faint of heart, but EA's still pounding out old games for a young crowd like Hugh Heffner. Hate to say it, but it's not a new game if its an old game with a bigger number on it =/

The algorithm needs some tweaking, to be sure. The manner in which 'hordes' (high density square tiles) are generated is highly unrealistic. The SAI needs to enforce density caps and distribute escalating populations rather than 'aggregate and chunk' hordes into existance. The SAI needs to be a little tweaked so that it players experience a pattern of escalation in the area surrounding the players active playspace. The best way to explain it is by assessing the 'threat level' and enforcing a fairly even distribution of zeds to 'break up' highly condensed populations. It also needs to be restricted in the generation of hordes, and favor more dispersed populations. Stage 0: No/minimal zombie population (0-1 zombies/tile), no hordes can be generated/low tile cap. This is for remote areas like the farms, logging camp, etc. Player activity generates small steps towards escalating the area ('attracting attention'). Stage 1: Dispersed zombie population (0-3 zombies/tile + small hordes), low chance of 'hordes' being generated. This is your fringe suburb area level of population distribution. Again, player activity generates steps towards escalating the area. Stage 2: High zombie activity, increased chance of 'horde' generation (1-5 zombies/tile + normal hordes). This is your urban/downtown density levels, hard to move around. Stage 3: Zombie Overrun (1-10 zombies/tile + multitile superhordes). A player has not vacated an area and has more or less become a focus of attention. High chances of horde generation and high zombie threshholds. Hordes should be slightly dispersed into adjacent cells. about 60% of the horde should exist at the point of the 'virtual zombie' for high-density population, and 5% sent into each adjacent tile. You get less 'blatantly square' hordes that way. Currently, it appears that 'virtual zombies' pull a Katamari Damasi as they go around. Cell aggregates add up populations as meta events condense populations into hordes, then into superhordes. There appears to be no algorithm for dispersing high densities of virtual zombies across the map between events.

I wondered about that... Have you tried it to see if you can use it to empty other overcrowded areas? For example, if the safehouse is overrun, and you use this trick, will it really move them all? Yes, it will, although it may take a few days for enough meta-events to fire. As for the OP: 1. If you use a loud weapon like a pistol or a shotgun, more zombies will appear in your area as they are drawn towards the sound. This creates a faux-respawn effect. Furthermore, I have a sneaking suspicion that standard single-player may be affected by the same bugs as custom games, where loading a saved game will reinstate the full zombie population, thus nullifying zed kills. Also, it is much, much harder to kill large numbers of zombies with firearms. Zombies have an almost 3-in-4 chance of turning into a crawler, and 'brain splatter' will not confirm a kill. You typically have to triple-tap zombies to make sure they are, in fact, dead as you may get 2-3 brain splatter hits to get there. 2. No. Meta-events continually draw the zombie hordes to you, even if you head to outlying areas. 3. As explained, settings aren't saved, so the map will be fully repopulated when you log in. I believe reloading save files not only redistributes the zombie population, but also respawns dead zombies (it treats a loaded save as a 'new game' for zombie distribution)

A side effect of the newer changes to bags lets you preserve food. Put a plastic bag in your offhand, and fill it with perishables. Then unequip it. The bag, being inaccessible, halts the spoil timers on its contents. You can also put that plastic bag into another bag. You lose the 'weight compression' of the plastic bag, but get to preserve the perishables. I think of it as the 'zombie apocalypse ziplock bag technique'

Pretty much nail on the head there, although there seems to be a window during the 'cooked' phase where it may skip straight to burnt, although I haven't tested enough samples to get that result more than once (accounting for insta-failures for time acceleration)

Because people do make a living by robbing other people? It's not pleasant, but when you think about it, it would be a very handy skillset given you spend most of your time trying to break into places in PZ.

I'll see your Top Hat and raise you a Monocle! Also... Weapon: Taser (nonlethal zombie zapper.. battery powered) Profession: Military (Combat training: increased chance of critical damage) Profession: Student (Back to School: Start with a schoolbag) Profession: Criminal (Breaking and Entering: Force windows faster)

I tend to be a bit of a purist in all but the most dire of situations, so I prefer to play as the developers intended (Or die, as the case may be) rather than mod things up. That and I usually wind up with delusions of grandeur I never quite finish and wind up with a few MB's of half-baked files. Berry preserve would be awesome (a reason to grow strawberries!)

I'll keep it short tonight. I've got to start another test game 'cause zombies infiltrated my no-zombie test save. In short, cooking is really short-changed by the (un)availability of fresh produce, water, and power. - Add Cabbages, Tomatoes, and Potatoes to the list of items that can be made into a soup. They're feeling left out. - Similar to the Soups, who doesn't want a salad? Similar to the 'mix and match of soups, allow players to use some of the other ingredients like apples, strawberries, berries, radishes, cabbage, tomatos, and carrots. (boring salad, etc) Just needs some bowls and a kitchen knife. - Split Sundae! Bannana + Ice Cream + Bowl = Win - Hot Chocolate - Mug of Water + Chocolate Bar, then cook - Trail Mix - Berries/strawberries + Chocolate Bar + Cereal + Popcorn - Bread! Flour + Sugar + Bowl of Water, then cook - Watermelon seeds! (Not an original idea, but I'm going to shamelessly plug my love of shamelessly plugging watermelons!) - Make screwdrivers (and hammers, in an unrelated but equally important note) more common, for crepes sake. It's only found in just about every household ever.. and once the power goes, good luck getting a campfire going without one! Using can openers isn't cooking.

Now if there was just a QUIET way to kill a zombie. I can bash a zombie with a baseball bat six times, and none of the others notice. Heaven forbid I should actually *kill* it, then I'd just as well have used a gun. The whole neighborhood bears down on me.

I've spent the night watching Ecky's playthrough on a few builds. He did well, considering he spent a lot of time running around with 8 sheets, burning food, and poisoning himself. There are a lot of buildings with only 2-3 windows and a primary door.. these are the most easily secured buildings since most of its surface isn't destructible. It's very easy to identify an overnight safehouse by the boarded windows, and there's no expectation of establishing farms or storing items. It's just a place to dry off and crash for the night. Furthermore, you're not wasting outbound carrying capacity. Building rain barrels outside makes them just as useful after the water cuts off, and easier to identify. Once the power cuts out, cooking gets ugly because of the haphazard campfire recipes on top of zombie attraction. Busting out a second-story wall, and expanding an uncovered section (but walled) of 2nd floor for a campfire and 1-2 rainbarrels beats putting those resources at ground-level. You can easily shore up small safehouses all over the town wherever there's a niche with a bed and a reduced chance for the tides to bump into a door or window. Locking down a place like Cortman Medical means lots of boards, lots of zeds, and lots of places for a zombie to bump into a door or window. Building a door frame and relocating a door on the second floor to block off the stairs means you can more or less disregard boarding windows downstairs. Last food for thought: Bring a firearm with you when you make a run to the central areas. A few pistol shots or a shotgun blast should draw regional attention, hopefully to thwart the Troll Algorithm that has dragged the hordes overtop your main homestead. I suggest doing this around Pile-o-Crepes. If you believe what you're told, you can pat yourself on the back for depleting the population.

Just to throw in, since I've had a lot of time to watch youtubes while i'm away from my computer.. so I think it's a good time to compile some of my notes: 1. Don't Fight, Don't Run, Don't Risk it Something people on the video scene seem to be doing right. They spend most of their time doing very well to not pop off zombies of opportunity. In fact, the more they avoid gaggles, the better their survivability. Running while in the commercial strip or outskirts is usually a pretty poor idea as well, as it attracts significant attention. Something I often fail at, resulting in very, very short lifespans where I think "I've got a spoon, I can take 1 or 2 on in a trailer bathroom..." <You survived for 4 hours> 2. Linens'n'Things Okay, what is the preoccupation with hoarding sheets? They're useful, yes, but I don't see the point in carrying more than 4. If you've got to cover more than 4 windows, you're likely in a REALLY bad place to camp. Same with bandages. Tearing one apart for bandages yields 8 bandages. I have to tell you something.. if you need 8 bandages you are infected; unless you jumped out a window overlooking a cliff. You can probably easily keep half of them in a stash to save carrying space. 3. I Cut, I Saw, I Hammered There's a pretty solid laundry list of 'must haves' to endure a long run, but I really can't say that there's much alternative to long-term play than accessing carpentry tools early. Living as a burgle-happy vagrant living off raw ramen and chips is a sure way to die, so pursuing tools is best done earlier rather than later. 4. Open a Window If you've cleared out a house, it might be a good idea to open all the doors and windows so that migrating zombies don't break stuff, especially if you want to come back later and secure it. 5. We reBuilt This City On Boards and Nails Having one home-base seems to be a bad idea, as the 'GM' seems to silently migrate hordes on top of your location after a couple nights. You'll want a periphery home to set up as 'home base' for farming/cooking/being sick, but also establish safe-houses and water barrels throughout town so you can hole up safely for a night while you look for ammunition, nails, and general mayhem. This also forces the GM to migrate hordes away from your strawberries. 6. Learn to Cook Eating out is a losing battle. Eating fruits straight-off is usually a great idea, since they aren't used in recipes and will just go bad. Soups should be your ideal mainstay in the long run, as this can generally double the hunger-allieviating effectiveness of the ingredients. You're going to want regular access to a stove or microwave early, and make plans for building and shielding a campfire after the power goes off. I wonder if those fires can be set indoors... 7. Water Works I've seen a lot of 'Lets Players' running around grabbing every mug, bottle, bowl, and pot and filling them up with water and stashing them. This, to be honest, is a pretty severe waste of carrying capacity in general. You should probably only need 1 mug, 4 bowls, 1 pot (although I'd get all I can find for storing soup), and a single can opener. Why, you ask? Those wonderful rain barrels. It doesn't take much (four nails, four boards), since you did remember to hunt down a hammer and nails, to build a couple rain barrels outside, and more throughout the city to refill your water bottles. 8. The Early Must Grabs Survival: 1x Best melee weapon you can find. Leave ammo and guns for later. 1-2x Backpack, Duffel bag, or hiking bag 1x Lighter 4x Sheets 4x Bandages (shred some clothes and drop half) 1x Flashlight (for when you're dead tired and can't find your bed) Food: 1x Can Opener 1x Kitchen Knife (For slicing watermelon, until they all go bad) Any perishable food, preferably fruits 2x Orange Soda or water bottles (One on hand, one in a bag) Leave non-perishables. They'll be there when you come back 4x Bowls (empty) 1x Cooking Pot (empty) 1x Frying Pan 1x Mug (empty) Safehousing: 1x Hammer 10x Nails 4x Planks (for boarding safehouses or building a random rain collector) Health: 1x Pen (to craft a journal) 1x Notepad (to craft a journal) 1x Sweater 1x Sleeping Pills (Pain pills are too rare) 9. Warehouse Stock If you get a clean break-in to a warehouse, take the time to organize all the contents into a few, easily located crates for later. This can save you a ton of time looking for things you left behind like sledgehammers, nails, weapons, and ammo.

I think you still get wet, but it doesn't bother you. I'm not sure if you can get sick from it (not sure if anything other than zombie and food poisoning sickness is in yet)

Using gasoline is one of the dumbest ideas around to get a fire going. If you wouldn't do it in your BBQ, why on earth would you do it on a campfire? (You've seen the videos of people dumping entire cans of lighter fluid into a BBQ and lighting it, right?) The whole 'make or break' condition in getting a fire started is producing enough heat to begin combustion. For that, all you need is a dry match or a lighter. You do not need to dump an entire gallon of gasoline on a pile of wood when all you need is a microscopic fraction of that amount in a zippo to 'make fire', and that lighter is reusable for weeks and available by the hundreds at any gas station. civilization is a wonderful thing. All you need to do is bust into a gas station and you've got fire for a lifetime. Whether or not you can keep your fire materials dry is another matter entirely, but you should have no problem getting things started. Food stores and some gas stations are also likely to have a ton of charcoal as well, which also often have ignition-assist chemicals soaked into them. Don't get me started about propane or the absurdity of a carless town in the US (much less a carless town with gas stations and parking lots)

There is a flashlight (and candles), and you'll likely find replacement batteries as well. It's helpful, but also turns you into a magnet for mosquitos and zombies. I don't think you shouldn't think of the inventory limit as 'weight tolerance', so much as encumberance. Ever have to carry so many things at once that you ran out of hands to open a door? Moving slower because a box is clumsy-large? It's not a weight issue, but you're at a carry limit for sure. Having things in bags makes them easier to carry. Think about that the next time you stop by a fast-food drive through. It's not like they're giving your stuff to you in a bag because it's heavy! Most of the rest aren't bad things to look at. Fatigue really does seem to be on a short fuse, particularly since it's invisible and used for both running and melee and jimmying windows. Food status should make itself a bit more straightforward than the highlighting system (too hard to rename it 'moldy bread' when it zombifies?)