alt Hacker NewsVery happy reading this because I was always thinking exactly the same about historical games. One of my turn offs for any historical city building is when they are grid based. I always found that to be highly unrealistic, but I yeah, was aware that it was just some unneeded complexity and just my nerdy nitpicks. The point you make would’ve actually been a strong argument in my article. Too bad I didn’t have the inspiration to include it. The way historical cities developed in an ordered yet intricate way without any central planning (same as ant colonies) is actually very fascinating and I might write about this at some point.
Regarding modern roadways and viaducts that pass around medieval city cores, it's fascinating how they can be seen and still not seen. I tried to do this in Cities Skylines II for awhile, building very narrow streets in "organic" city centers with low-to-mid density, and then transitioning to a new city grid around the old center. Finally, superimposing highways and tunnels without destroying the original historical core. There were some beautiful results, but the traffic jams were astounding, even with limits on the city center roads and highway exits. This is the way cities actually grew, so to me it's much more interesting to simulate than a "perfect" city built all at once. One thing that was fun in SimCity 3000 was that certain technologies didn't become available until you had a certain population. I would almost wish that a city-builder now would allow you to take that to the extreme: Spend 200 years with horse-drawn carts before you can pave a road, and then figure out what to do with the mess. But more than anything: Oddly shaped buildings that fit into oddly shaped lots, which are not limited to hotdog stands.