I know there's a really long thread about Sim City already ongoing but here's my opinion on the game so it's easier to keep track of the flames :P
I have about 40 hours of play time since release and I feel like I'm just emerging from the novice stage into really getting into the strategy layer. At first just learning the basic mechanics was fun and engaging and I found that most of the systems they've devised are intuitive with a few notable exceptions. Now that I have a handle on "how stuff works" I can see that the game has considerable strategic depth that offers significant replay value. I love diving in the aesthetics of my cities to make them look cool but if i were just to go for the pure "make the most efficient city possible and damn how it looks" I would say just that element will offer more than $60 worth of gameplay. Anyone who has played previous iterations of Sim City can rest easy I believe as the same spark captured with the older games I believe is still alive here, albeit differently.
Today the SVP of Marketing at maxis essentially said "Mission accomplished - the servers are stable as a table". I can't speak to how accurate that is but I will say that I sunk A LOT of time into the game over the weekend and at no point did I encounter connectivity issues. I can say that the game is stable and the always-online component does not hamper gameplay, anecdotally speaking of course. My objections are more of the philosophical nature but I'm not going to beat that dead horse here.
So lets keep things succinct since we're all busy here and frankly I'd rather hop back into SimCity:
The good:
- The game is different from the previous Sim Cities but it's the same in all the right ways. I still feel like I'm playing Sim City except a lot of the annoyances that dragged the experience down are removed, automated, or reworked. As I've said elsewhere this is not a carbon copy of Sim City 4 but it is still fun without losing the appeal that accompanies the Sim City brand.
- Maybe not a big plus to some people - but the game is gorgeous and when your city begins to become an impressive vertical spectacle zooming in to the street view and taking a stroll is pretty fantastic.
- New cooperation elements have a lot of potential especially things like Great Works which give huge regional bonuses to surrounding cities but take a massive amount of resources to create. It would be a tall order to build one of these Great Works by yourself hence reinforcing the cooperation. Basically a Great Work is a special spot on the regional map where players can begin construction on something ambitious like a Space Program, an International Airport, a massive Solar Power farm, etc. As you would expect, a large amount of money and resources are required to complete these projects but when they are built they furnish the region with massive bonuses.
- Speaking of resources there's a significant new gameplay element in natural resources and mining/manufacturing. Players can mine things like Ore, Coal, and Oil and convert these commodities in to more valuable refined resources (Alloy, Steel, Fuel) to sell at a higher profit. Additionally they can use these resources to make consumer products like CPUs, Computers, etc. which go at an even higher profit margin. Setting up trade depots via rail and sea are equally as important here so the need for a robust, well funded infrastructure is crucial.
The bad:
- Despite being hyped as a major new feature, the inter-city cooperation is still a mess. It's not documented well so many major questions on mechanics remain (and yes, I've been lurking in all the Sim City forums and the boards are alight with debates on how this stuff works). Inexplicably some resource/money gifts to other cities go missing and don't appear for a long time. Some gifts appear instantly... is this server lag or a gameplay element? Beats me. Additionally, sharing resources like Police and Fire aren't nearly as effective as I think they led people to believe. In order for you to have adequate police coverage from a nearby town that town will need to have a HUGE surplus of police manpower which rarely happens. This may be by design but it is rare that a player will have enough resources to spare in their own city such that a neighbor can truly "free ride" on their services. Utilities like water and power work a lot simpler and are much easier to share so I'd say that mechanic is a success.
- The game is a bit buggy. Not in the sense that it crashes but there are a lot of anomolies that were both reported in forums and witnessed by me that I can confirm. Once example: Something strange happened with the way I built a road so freight trucks were stuck in an infinite loop driving in a circle outside a trade dept never delivering their wares. I had to destroy the depot to fix this issue and then rebuild it. I'm sure these will get ironed out in due time so I'm not overly concerned.
- If you start a city on a server (Like North America - East 2) and then that server proves to be too busy the next time you log in you have many other cities to choose from but your city is saved to that particular server. Which means you'll have to choose another server and if only servers you've never played are available that means you're starting from scratch again. Basically your city saves to that server and that server only. This is also a pain because there are many servers and I have trouble remembering what I saved where.
There's a bunch more that could be said but I'd rather wait until I dive deeper into the game.
Nice writeup! Thanks!
I have been having lost of fun these last 48hrs too. Server issues have hampered my start significantly, but as of today there were no waiting times nor server connectivity issues for me anymore.
About sharing fire and police; one of the creative producers of the game said it doesnt really affect the sharing city in a negative way if they volunteer all their units to help other cities.
I took that as that you wont ever run out of your own forces despite sharing them. Do you think otherwise?
Willy is awesome. He could have been a famous game writer. Instead he's some anonymous techie working for The Man.
Steve Jobs?
Quote from: LongBlade on March 11, 2013, 03:54:59 PM
Willy is awesome. He could have been a famous game writer. Instead he's some anonymous techie working for The Man.
Which pays the bills better?
I've noticed that the city with the police/ambulance will only send the vehicle when an emergency happens. So if a building is on fire, a shared fire truck will eventually turn up on the scene. Police do not perform the hourly routes, but will eventually (usually after the fact like real life) show up at the scene.
I had a fun session playing with my brother. The game is fun, but here are a few issues they need to fix.
1. Larger city zone maps. The size now is completely unimpressive. Sure your town looks cool with the skyscraper graphics, but underwhelming in the ability to do something outside of maxing your zones.
2. 8 maps. No variety. No randomization. No customization. All with fixed roads leading into the zone.
3. Basic functions are broken. Inter-city trade, traffic ai pathing, jobs to sim ratio.
I've got more but I'm hungry and dinner is calling.
Hmmmm...this one was not really even on my radar. I'm starting to come to the conclusion that I need to buy it.
My big city is now having a major water crisis. I never had this happen in any Sim City game before. This is tense and exciting. I'm afraid to load my city until I stabilize a new town that can export water. I'm still unsure how to actually go about selling the excess water from that town.
Quote from: jomni on March 11, 2013, 07:25:53 PM
My big city is now having a major water crisis. I never had this happen in any Sim City game before. This is tense and exciting. I'm afraid to load my city until I stabilize a new town that can export water. I'm still unsure how to actually go about selling the excess water from that town.
In the city that's currently in crisis go to your water producing builds and you will see at the bottom right corner there's your water meter. There should be some icons/text noting that there's excess water available from other cities. Click that and then a pop up at the bottom of the screen will let you click "Buy" to purchase water.
With water/sewage/trash/power you purchase them in "bundles" periodically. Essentially every few days of game time a message scrolls by saying you bought one of these utilities. If you were to load up the exporting city and delete all your power plants (extreme but clear cut example) and then loaded your importing city - the next time the importing city went to evaluate whether the neighbor had power to spare it would balk and say that it failed to import power because the exporter had none extra to spare. Then the shortages start and the real fun begins....
Having a power shortage a city that exports has ripple affects. Not only is the base city short on power because of careless expansion but the cities dependent on them will also not get their share of the juice and now you have multiple crisises at once.
To speak to your points Bison I'm right there with you. I also allegedly learned that those awesome great works you can build in very large regions don't actually apply to every city in the region, only the pack of 3 cities that are eligible to work on them. The 9 city regions have 3 groups of 3 cities united by a highway and are somewhat insulated from the other two groups. That immediately pissed me off because if you don't have a road connection in Sim City you can't share power, trash, sewage, and water.
I think the most damning criticism for me, which i neglected to mention above, is the small map size. On some levels I think this was to make the game more difficult. Confined spaces mean you have to grow your city vertically which is considerably harder to accomplish and then responsibly manage then just having a big sprawling North Jersey mess of a city. That said, I'd still like to aspire to build a large skyscraper city complete with casinos and all the bells and whistles. The current city size doesn't give you the same sense of accomplishment when you fill it with high rises because it's normally not that big of a space (although I've still yet to truly pack a city with skyscrapers even after all this time).
Wait, my water producing city is not within the 3 city group of the one with the crisis. That means I'm screwed right? And within he water crisis area, no city has an abundance of water.
I'm pretty sure Willie is correct. The sub-regions are unable to share the common commodities like water, power, waste disposal because they don't share a road connection. Those commodities travel via interconnecting roads. I "think" the specialty commodities might be in the same category unless the train connects do something other than people moving in between sub-regions. Frankly I'm not sure why the hell they designed the game this way. They might as well put the cap at 4 cities map and called it a day. Otherwise I think you are mostly pulling tourism from the other sub-regions. I hope I'm incorrect in my assessment. Right now we are moving onto the next sub-region on our map. So in the next few days I should have an understanding of how inter-region trading works.
The problem with the map size (and I played Cities XL Platnium this morning to checkout the map size difference) is exactly Willie says. You have to build up. Annoying because sometimes big spawling cities are fun because you are not forced into maximizing every block. You cannot waste a section of the map to a windy rural road, or a chaotic urban sprawl, and still run a successful and fun city. The curved roads are merely to squeek out the one or two extra RCI plots.
Also if you play several cities solo on a map, only one city is ever active at a time. At least, that's what my brother and I discovered tonight. So while you play five or six city hours on building one city, the other cities time stands still. So I think this accounts for the delay that some people report in gifting money. Also if I'm running turtle, the other people can run cheetah speed and it has no effect on your city at all. Weird but there you have it.
Quote from: Bison on March 11, 2013, 09:13:17 PM
Also if you play several cities solo on a map, only one city is ever active at a time. At least, that's what my brother and I discovered tonight. So while you play five or six city hours on building one city, the other cities time stands still. So I think this accounts for the delay that some people report in gifting money. Also if I'm running turtle, the other people can run cheetah speed and it has no effect on your city at all. Weird but there you have it.
Holy crap I think that just gave me a revelation. I haven't confirmed this myself but I have heard that when you gift money to other cities an armored car physically leaves your city hall and drives to the recipient's city hall. Generally when I gift I go to the rich city, make the donation, and immediately load the poor city. BUT--- if what Bison says is correct the armored car will sit on the rich city's street, frozen in time, and the money will never arrive. I think I've seen this exact thing happen. I will gift money and load the poor city. Nothing arrives after 20 or so minutes. I got back into the rich city to tweak a few things and send another gift to see if that helps and generally it does but what must actually be happening is while I'm tweaking the armored car is exiting the rich city... hence BOTH gifts going through when I load my poor city because I finally gave the armored car(s) time to leave off the map... light bulb moment!
Will have to experiment later to confirm.
Separately there's some interesting data mining going on already. This thread over at Simtropolis is very illuminating (the bottom bit especially).
http://community.simtropolis.com/topic/54730-simcity-info-and-data-analysis/
QuoteKids do not count toward your population
Shoppers who go to parks return happiness back to the home, kids who go to parks do NOTHING AT ALL
Freight delivered to stores does not affect the store supplies at all, it only returns happiness to the source industry
Commerce stores vary in worker count (see above).
SOME commerce stores stay open at night (Gas, Hotdog stand) and others don't! There are a lot of shoppers wandering around at night, so it may be beneficial to blow up buildings until you get one open all night
ANY time you add upgrades to buildings (extra fire truck, police station, school buildings, dump trucks, extra wind turbines etc...), no workers are added, the worker count stays the same for the building
Medium/high income residents start off as educated, but can become uneducated if you have no schools
# of workers in a building seems to have no effect on that building (i.e power output from power plants etc...)
When Students return home they add education to the home, they do not increase happiness
So why build playgrounds?
I've seen the open/ closed stores. Just click on them and it reports open/closed.
Just a note: the delay is my theory. I maybe completely wrong. However it is the only thing I can think of causing long delays. Unless there is a bad ai pathing between cities when sending a gift.
The resources seem to be bugged too. I had an oil rig that had 100 months worth of supply. A couple of city hours later I was down to 9 months.
^^Was that oil rig being built or did it just burn up the supplies?
Quote from: Longdan on March 12, 2013, 02:54:31 PM
^^Was that oil rig being built or did it just burn up the supplies?
Yes. Resources are very limited in the game.
I think the supply is calculated based on how much you actually extract. Did you upgrade the rig?
The initial supply is calculated based on what is under your rig. You can extract more/faster with more well heads. However I think what I am seeing is a bug. It's just the basic oil rig with no upgrades. Or the basic coal mine with no upgrades.
I remember reading that the concept of a "month" in Sim City is distorted or bugged. Someone actually counted the number of days vis-a-vis resources remaining - it didn't add up. I'm right there with you Bison.
Just for laughs I loaded up some of my first cities. WOW what a mess. I pity the sims that have to live there. I am definitely enjoying how rapidly you can improve at this game with each city. And the beauty of it is you jump back to your first shitshows and see all your mistakes. Thinking ahead and planning out your city is definitely something you have to train yourself to think about. It's not all obvious and there's plenty to improve at.
I think it's broken. I'm actually just going to run the rig no upgrades to see how long it take for it to stop producing oil.
My highly upgraded coal and ore mines are stuck at 3 to 4 months supply. Not really stuck but the counter slowed down. It will deplete soon but it looks like longer than 3 months.
What is the actual city hour time scale in the game? Is an hour, a day, a month, an hour?
Quote from: Bison on March 12, 2013, 07:54:43 PM
What is the actual city hour time scale in the game? Is an hour, a day, a month, an hour?
Just watched to figure this out. One 24 hour time period on the clock at the lower left = one month of game time. Months change at midnight.
If you hold your mouse over the clock it will show you which month and year you are in.
Was in a Target store today and saw already reduced to $39.......was very tempted to pick this up, but in the end walked away:( To be honest, I am not entirely sure how the game plays out (meaning what do you do to have fun), but thought the screens were very nice looking. I am certainly aware of the launch issues, but I can only assume that will be figured out with time.
Now I am debating if I should run back up to the store and pick up:)
Well my simcity building is on hold until I can setup my desktop again.
Quote from: Bison on March 24, 2013, 10:42:25 AM
Well my simcity building is on hold until I can setup my desktop again.
Bison, if you get a minute, can you describe the fundamentals of the game? What is the goal? Build buildings and create an economy? I am just trying to figure out if I would have fun playing it. Is it tedious and require a lot of micro management? Thanks!
I don't think the game is tedious at all. There is some micro management, but it's over such a long span of game play that it really isn't an issue at all. And frankly you are really managing systems like power vs. demand, water vs. demand, road vs. usage, so there is a lot to manage but it's not overwhelming in the least. I'd say the focus is economic system management much more so than building buildings. While you do build buildings and zone your city the intent is to develop economic structures on your maps and the cities you build to make them sustainable. I enjoy it (despite the negativity surrounding the game) because its really a nice slow paced relaxing game.
Thanks Bison, appreciate you providing more details......might be driving back up to the store by the end of the day:)
I've seen both internet ads and a TV ad for the game, so EA is trying to pull in cash new players.
It's the beauty of capitalism. You can buy a product or not.
^ and I still choose not to - at the moment.
No constant connection, bigger cities and bugs fixed would be the requirements for me to buy
Quote from: JudgeDredd on March 24, 2013, 03:44:37 PM
^ and I still choose not to - at the moment.
No constant connection, bigger cities and bugs fixed would be the requirements for me to buy
Fair points all.
Looks like the price is falling at Amazon [$39.99] as well:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007VTVRFA/ref=twister_B007FTE2VW?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Resist! Resist I say...at least until it goes down to $9.99 or less. :P
Quote from: steve58 on March 24, 2013, 06:49:10 PM
Looks like the price is falling at Amazon [$39.99] as well:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007VTVRFA/ref=twister_B007FTE2VW?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Resist! Resist I say...at least until it goes down to $9.99 or less. :P
Oh crap, at least I had the trip to the store to slow me down in buying, but if now the same price for download....look out.
For what it is worth the amazon version is standard edition while target version is the limited edition.
In what special way does the Target version limit you, compared to the Amazon one?
The limited edition gives you british and french building styles and some other goodies.
Quote from: Staggerwing on March 24, 2013, 07:18:14 PM
In what special way does the Target version limit you, compared to the Amazon one?
Doesn't limit you, it is the limited edition...believe extra content...so the better deal.
I think it is the same as the LE version minus the Hero's and Villains DLC...which is most likely not worth $20...
http://simcity.wikia.com/wiki/SimCity_(2013)
The limited edition gives you the british and french building in addition to the hero/villians stuff that comes with standard.
Quote from: steve58 on March 24, 2013, 07:24:14 PM
I think it is the same as the LE version minus the Hero's and Villains DLC...which is most likely not worth $20...
http://simcity.wikia.com/wiki/SimCity_(2013)
But if target has the limited version for the same price of $39, then worth it:)
Quote from: Bison on March 24, 2013, 12:33:41 PM
It's the beauty of capitalism. You can buy a product or not.
I'll sit on the fence for a bit longer.
Quote from: Bison on March 24, 2013, 07:34:15 PM
The limited edition gives you the british and french building in addition to the hero/villians stuff that comes with standard.
According to the game ad, it says it comes with the following.
Limited Edition Bonus ContentNew Characters - Protector of SimCity MaxisMan vs. The Evil Dr. Vu and his henchman.
Crime Waves - The Evil Dr. Vu is loose and will create havoc in your city. Normal police have their hands full against this Super Villain. The Evil Dr. Vu will solicit Sims to become his henchmen and carry out his dastardly deeds.
Super Hero HQ - Place MaxisMan's headquarters in your city to combat crime and keep your Sims safe. Upgrade with the Turbo Machine garage and the Reticulator landing pad.
Evil Villain Lair - Place Dr. Vu's Lair in your city to unleash a crime wave. As The Evil Dr. Vu commits more crimes, upgrade his lair with a special laboratory and a garage for the Evil VuMobile.
Digital Deluxe Edition Heroes and Villains Set
French City Set
German City Set
British City Set
Right. I got the deluxe one but I was thinking it was the limited edition. So many names for a game and it's DLC.
Quote from: LongBlade on March 24, 2013, 07:38:20 PM
Quote from: Bison on March 24, 2013, 12:33:41 PM
It's the beauty of capitalism. You can buy a product or not.
I'll sit on the fence for a bit longer.
me too...
If I buy now, it will be for the potential, plus my impulse nature:). Not really concerned about the issues since I think they will be addressed, just don't know if I would like this type of game or not.
Quote from: Bison on March 24, 2013, 07:40:32 PM
Right. I got the deluxe one but I was thinking it was the limited edition. So many names for a game and it's DLC.
I got confused with the naming of the BF3 packs as well and wasted money because of ignorance.
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on March 24, 2013, 07:52:09 PM
If I buy now, it will be for the potential, plus my impulse nature:). Not really concerned about the issues since I think they will be addressed, just don't know if I would like this type of game or not.
lol - have you NEVER played a Sim City game before? I didn't know there were "Sim City" virgins out there!
Quote from: JudgeDredd on March 25, 2013, 02:28:46 AM
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on March 24, 2013, 07:52:09 PM
If I buy now, it will be for the potential, plus my impulse nature:). Not really concerned about the issues since I think they will be addressed, just don't know if I would like this type of game or not.
lol - have you NEVER played a Sim City game before? I didn't know there were "Sim City" virgins out there!
Sadly true:). Not sure how I ever escaped playing a version but I have. Same with the sims, but I did try sim medieval:). But that lasted all of a couple of hours.
Sims, Sim Medieval are not Simcity.
^ true - BUT - they are giving it a very, very similar look.
I noticed the "smileys" that popup when things are going wrong (bad road system) or when thigs go right (building a school) and they are the very same icons they use in The Sims game
So whilst they are not the same games, there's definitely a "crossover"
Sure but I doubt we ever see a nude mod for Simcity.
Quote from: Bison on March 25, 2013, 07:54:54 AM
Sims, Sim Medieval are not Simcity.
Yep, knew that....just saying anything sim related is not something I have played much:)
For all the people that are playing this - does the Fire Department ever put a fire out? Of all the videos I've seen, the Fire Department have been unable to rescue a fire situation!
Quote from: JudgeDredd on March 27, 2013, 09:57:10 AM
For all the people that are playing this - does the Fire Department ever put a fire out? Of all the videos I've seen, the Fire Department have been unable to rescue a fire situation!
Ummm.. yeah mine do all the time. It's rare that they get to one too late to save the building.
mmm. Maybe it's just the vids I've seen. I am watching one video where the guy is constantly saying he's ran out of space and has to keep building over things to create new buildings.
I have to say I like the look of the game.
Still not pulling the trigger though (yet).
It really depends on your traffic density. It sounds like your watching someone who has a traffic problem or not enough fire trucks.
It is a fun great looking game... but there are still some problems. Some of the info the alerts give directly contradicts the info in the tables you can look up... Traffic is a real bitch to handle. On the EA blog one of the designers talks about never using 4 way intersections to keep down traffic congestion.... never been to a city in real life with only 3 way intersections.... :P
I'm not sorry I bought it right away but if yer kinda on the fence, I'd wait 'til it's about the $20 range. By then most of the bugs should be worked out.
Yeah the videos I've seen have been having traffic issues.
Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation has done his review (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/7053-SimCity). ;D
Yahtzee "Are there any new features Sim City can offer me?"
EA "Well - there's a poo map"
Yahtzee "I beg your pardon?"
EA "We've got a special map that lets you see all the poo forming in big piles under peoples houses. Then you can build an outlet pipe and what all the poo speed away on a wee wee one way system"
Yahtzee "F***ing soooooold"
I don't put much weight on his reviews but they are fun.
Quote from: Barthheart on March 27, 2013, 11:29:40 AM
It really depends on your traffic density. It sounds like your watching someone who has a traffic problem or not enough fire trucks.
It is a fun great looking game... but there are still some problems. Some of the info the alerts give directly contradicts the info in the tables you can look up... Traffic is a real bitch to handle. On the EA blog one of the designers talks about never using 4 way intersections to keep down traffic congestion.... never been to a city in real life with only 3 way intersections.... :P
I'm not sorry I bought it right away but if yer kinda on the fence, I'd wait 'til it's about the $20 range. By then most of the bugs should be worked out.
I think three way intersection cause more traffic.
I just discovered that I had Sim City 4 Deluxe on Steam! WooHoo. Totally forgot I had that!
Only trouble seems to be resolution. I've set it at 1600x1200 but it eems to stay with black borders either side.
So toked I found I had this though :-)
Quote from: JudgeDredd on April 01, 2013, 04:46:26 AM
I just discovered that I had Sim City 4 Deluxe on Steam! WooHoo. Totally forgot I had that!
Only trouble seems to be resolution. I've set it at 1600x1200 but it eems to stay with black borders either side.
So toked I found I had this though :-)
It's also one of the free games that EA gave away to appease those who pre-ordered.
So did this ever get better and worth purchasing? Noticed at GMG that you can get the game plus all expansions for about $45......
All the expansions? Were there any?
I was under the impression that the patch frenzy added some new content for free, but I am unaware of any expansions for SC5.
But then again, it has been gathering dust on my HDD for quite a while now. ;)
Quote from: Yskonyn on May 26, 2013, 05:39:15 AM
All the expansions? Were there any?
I was under the impression that the patch frenzy added some new content for free, but I am unaware of any expansions for SC5.
But then again, it has been gathering dust on my HDD for quite a while now. ;)
Maybe expansion was wrong term, more of DLC for the additional cities german, british, French, etc.
Quote from: Grim.Reaper on May 26, 2013, 05:59:54 AM
Quote from: Yskonyn on May 26, 2013, 05:39:15 AM
All the expansions? Were there any?
I was under the impression that the patch frenzy added some new content for free, but I am unaware of any expansions for SC5.
But then again, it has been gathering dust on my HDD for quite a while now. ;)
Maybe expansion was wrong term, more of DLC for the additional cities german, british, French, etc.
Not cities so much as buildings like British and French police head quarters.
And landmarks.