Summer Solstice is Here, Mayors!
Welcome back to another City Corner. Today, we’re peeling back the curtain on our upcoming Summer Solstice patch. This update is packed with significant refinements to gameplay logic—specifically regarding citizen pathfinding—alongside a comprehensive visual overhaul of our terrain rendering systems.
Let’s dive into the details of what you can expect in the coming update.
Gameplay Refinements
We have spent considerable time tuning how your citizens interact with your city. A major focus has been pathfinding: residents will now make more logical decisions when choosing destinations for work, school, shopping, or leisure. By implementing trip-specific distance constraints rather than a generalized, near-unlimited range, we have effectively curbed those frustrating, city-wide treks. Should a citizen find no viable path, the system now handles the situation gracefully—workers may resign, shoppers will return home to idle, and those moving out will seamlessly teleport off-map.
Furthermore, we resolved a logic bug that caused shoppers to prioritize store inventory over physical distance, forcing them to travel across the map for simple goods. With this fixed, zoning placement now carries real weight. You may notice more “Not enough customers” alerts as businesses respond to poor locations—a balance we will continue to monitor, so please keep sharing your thoughts on the PDX Forums.
We’ve also optimized household simulation. We addressed a recurring bug where citizens would perpetually attempt to move homes without success. By reducing the frequency at which households scan for new residences, we’ve not only solved this loop but also achieved a notable boost in simulation performance for high-population cities.
Visual Overhaul
We believe your cities should look as vibrant as they feel. To that end, we’ve completely overhauled our terrain rendering system. By introducing triplanar mapping for cliffs, integrating dedicated smoothness maps for all textures, and refining normal calculations, the landscape now boasts significantly more depth and detail.
Triplanar mapping ensures textures remain crisp and distortion-free during terraforming. We have also upgraded our texture LODs (Level of Detail) and improved surface blending. You’ll notice an immediate difference across all game maps—specifically Archipelago Haven, Twin Mountain, Great Highlands, River Delta, and Mountain Village, which received manual touch-ups. Best of all, these aesthetic upgrades have been implemented with performance in mind; in many cases, we have actually improved rendering efficiency.
Check out the improved texture blending!
The update also introduces a long-awaited feature: in-game terrain painting! You can now manually apply new ground textures, such as sandy shorelines, directly to your maps. These tools are fully integrated into the Editor, offering map creators greater freedom to craft everything from rugged mountain ranges to coastal escapes.
To assist our creative community, we’ve cleaned up the UI by refining gizmo visibility and improving the clarity of map borders against the new terrain textures. Additionally, by fixing an issue where terrain normals were incorrectly flattened, the world now possesses a much more tactile, three-dimensional presence.
Archipelago Haven: Before the update.
Archipelago Haven: With the new terrain textures applied.
A closer look at the mountain textures in Mountain Village.
Terrain normals before the fix…
…and the improved depth after!
Looking Ahead
We are constantly iterating based on your experiences, so please continue to share your feedback via the PDX Forums. We look forward to seeing the cities you create with these new tools.
Thank you for your continued support—see you in the next City Corner!