LOD techniques are commonplace. Cities: Skylines and the sequel both implement them. Telling us that a game developer can use LOD to fit more graphics into the same poly budget is not telling us anything we don’t already know.

And the problem still remains that all the graphics must fit within a certain poly budget, usually whatever can be rendered at 30fps on the minimum spec hardware. Adding features to every property in the city to represent weeds, fallen leaves, broken concrete, grime, wear, etc all adds to the rendering cost of the game. It all comes out of the same budget, even if those features are invisible at longer distances. Worse, that cost is multiplied by everything the user has created in their city. The more such features the developers add, the smaller a city the user can build before the game’s performance drops to unacceptable levels.

Anyway, CS and CS2 already go to great lengths to add soul to the game. Every asset has defined locations where props can be placed. One house can have a swing set while the identical house next door has a pool, or toys, or a car, or shrubbery, or any of thousands of other possibilities. The author is just complaining that these props do not make his cities look dilapidated enough.

His most valid complaint is that the games don’t do much to obscure the exact property lines, which are always perfect rectangles. Perhaps in the future one will, though it will still have a budget to fit within.