Just imagine what special effects Stardock has to lighten this city up like hover cars or fancy lighting or all those treats that would make every city beautiful.

Not trying to be negative cause I really like this idea. How would you go about selecting tiles that are hidden behind the sky scrappers? To demolish a structure and build a different one may be complex. I was thinking that the base tiles would highlight the border underneath the structure in the color of the type of building. Perhaps with a text box popping up to inform that structures name.

What do y'all think?

i think selecting tiles could be simply done by rotating the camera ( an upgraded version of the shipyard from GCII)

a problem i have with this (btw this looks like a really neat idea) is; what if i build 2 structures next to each other and one upgrades to the point where it needs 7 tiles instead of 1 or possibly even 19 tiles instead of 7 does it just re-org your city does it build around do you get some kind of pop up that says hey you need to move this building to allow this building to upgrade?

Uumm, aaahh, .... Did the Summary button on the planet view fail to provide you what you wanted? I do feel that only listing building names did make it a bit difficult to figure out totals of basic improvement characteristics, so maybe it could be improved by allowing a sort by "planet improvement totals"?

Oh and BTW, this is a computer game, correct? I am sure your city will have a panel that would show you the number of buildings you have, what areas are considered what... even a 2D screen where it tells you more of the specifics.

Q: How will you tell if your city is efficient?

Well, to understand this model, you must first take in consideration that there is a scale between 1-10 that are called tiers, and that it is required for all buildings to go through a evolution from stage 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9, 10 in that strict order. 

This system is very rewarding if you bunch all of the same type of buildings together, because you know any building of the same type will likely grow into a building that will take more then one tile. This instantly provides multiplication bonuses to the bigger building as a result of good city design.

for example the first thing you do is color code the ground of what type of buildings you want to grow in that spot, sort of like planting seeds except it is a matter that you are the government and you want people and businesses to grow and thrive in the land you provided them with.

some other factors that your city is doing well is:

A) You have good technology level that unlocks tiers higher then level 1 buildings

You color coded the ground so that there is opportunity for smaller buildings growing into super buildings

c) Time, these cities don't grow rapidly unless it has good social production (industries)

D) you have more profit then expenses (yikes, trust me only a idiot would ignore income generating buildings in at least some cities)

E) You have a starport in a city that specializes in social/military production

F) If you did none of the above, the F is for failure.

Well, its not really simcity because it is hexagons, not square or free form and it is truly fun to watch the changes when you are bored in multi player when they have a large empire to manage.

It also functions more towards the GC II buildings.

Deleting a building would work like this... if the building takes 7 tiles, then it will take out that single building and you would have to reseed the hexagons and grow up your city all over again, so please be sure you are happy with your development plans.

Also level 10 buildings cannot be upgraded again, so that is your limitation of how high the city can grow. This means that if you have a level 10 one tile building, then it cannot be merged with a level 9 or lower... Some wonders and entertainment buildings and research centers are even oddly structured to further preventing you from making perfect cities, it would only be luck if 2 cities turned out exactly alike.

I'm not sure about this:

On one hand, this would be a very interesting in that it could add several new dynamics to the relatively stale planet management, but on the other hand this looks like this would add huge amounts of complexity and micromanagement. And when you consider multiplayer, this may be a bit much.

It's a good idea, but not for Galactic Civilizations 3 in my opinion.

Impressive, I like that idea, but I think it influence would be better gained not by the amount of buildings, but based of the amount my simple algorithm would produce of height X Tile = Total Influence, this will fix the issues with this current model.

The only problem I see is that agriculture would have to be a entire disjoint system, considering you have to feed the population no matter what.

Also all the game cares about are totals, sure you can give the option of how much production each individual building gives you, but 1 total panel of everything would suffice since every body would be too busy fighting space battles and such.

Well, recognition of a nice system is great, I just can't seem to figure out why people would say this would take too long, it is 100% self constructing after you color coded the ground. After that the buildings will develop one step at a time each turn till they reach a maximum level of the planet class.

EX. I got a class one planet, well you only get a capital city with level 1 buildings

EX. 2 I got a class 2 planet, well that means my capital city gets level 2 buildings as long as I have the technology that allows level 2 construction

EX 3 I got a level 10 planet, I unlocked the maximum building level, which means as long as I am technologically advanced, I can build high

EX. 4 I got a level 1X-20 planet, I get 2 cities with the Xth level unlocked

EX. 5 I got a level 2X-30 planet, I got 3 cities with the Xth level unlocked

Basically the higher the planet level, the more potential it has especially once you get terraforming technology to bump up the level a little bit.

     Ok earlier I didn't reelise what u were trying to do. I noticed that u made two posts, and one reply doing the same thing. I'm sure u noticed that basically this game rely's mostly on building units, or on planets population. This new idea does change the mechanics of the game to my opinion. How much is this like Simcity? What I mean is that in Simcity U decide what kind of building u get, but u don't decide on the actual buildings u get. In Galactic civilizations U deide on specific buildings to build. In Galactic civilizations the planets r used for more than making money. The main reason Simcity does this is tp make money. In this game tech research is important. If u didn't have specific units u would have to change the rewards of techs. There r a few options to this that I can see. We could attempt to fix this in the civilization screen where u can increase the different kind of sliders that u can adjust. This would at least attempt a redefining of what the planet does. Another option is to rely on orbital construction instead of planetary construction. Another option is to improve the way that starbases function requiring u to build starbases. So does this mean that all the nonweapon techs receive  a flat rate bonus instead of allowing u to biold units. This does change the way the games mechanics work. How do u work residental zoning. R these just buildings that the game adds since these would stand for the size of the population not anything u do, or do we zone that too. Since for the most part this is about looks right. I'm guessing that this system is with auto improving and upgrading is mandatory and not an option. My question is; is the farms included as residential since they r required. I've already noticed that the zoning is different from Simcity meaning that u have added some new colors. The only way to control what type of buildings u have is to demolish the buildings if u don't like them. To simplify things, so as not to make this to complicated u could lay down the grid when u first colinise the planet. With a little bit of practice u would make this sucessful.  I would think that the variables wouldn't be calculated until u bring up the planet screen this way u wouldn't have to worry about boggling down memory. U could have an option of only going to the city on the planet screen with a button. This way it would be less memory intensive. Do we still have a social slider for social production. Going off your kind of colonies I think it would be nice to b able to focus on different kind of stradegies.

     About population with every ones population capped out at 8 billion does that mean if u have fewer cities on the planet that they r bigger, or does the population also depends on the number of cities. planet quality, and or type of planet.

     My second city idea is that u still build units with the new 3d circle screen, but the buildings can be upgraded as u research better technology. This going to be a combination of tech research for units and the kind of units is now also dependent on the class of planets. Or your units could be dependent only on classes of planets the second way would be like 1603. As opulation grows u would get new units to build. The better technology unlocks better buildings. INSTEAD of zoning u would plant the buildings instead this could still require u to auto upgrade buildings. Though I would like to see a computer smart enough that if I couldn't control the upgrades it would be good enough not to upgrade unless I could afford it.

     My third example is that maybe even though u don't control the types of buildings the colors still would cause specific buildings with different benefits. This would be auto upgraded on either the techs u research, the class of planet u colonise, or both. All while we are still talking about a 3d colony screen.

     My question is that according to the above does that mean the game only has ten classes of planets, or is this a range for all the available classes of planets on the game.    

      I noticed that u want to reward me with more cities. Is this two or three special cities on the game, or is this two or three cities per planet?

     Another question I have is what r the mechanics on how this new type of city will work?

     Another question I have is how r we going to decide to balance this, do we work on approval to raise population? U did talk about if u failed then your city doesn't grow.

     Did u mention that u might make a new game if this doesn't go into Galactic civilizations. This is what I have been thinking about. Hope U will like my reply. Hope this will help u out. I would like more clarity on your idea of a city. Can u clarify, so I can have an idea. What I think is your idea is in the first paragraph.