Cities in Motion: A Beta-Preview AAR

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A short Introduction: Living Cities

Paradox has always been my favorite game-publisher simply because they make the games I like best: historical wargames. There is however one other type of game I can seriously enjoy, perhaps not exactly for the purpose these games are made but enjoying them I do nevertheless. Transport-management and city-building games are just superb when you are a map-o-phile like I am and just love to see a map of a region or a city come to life. A long time ago I tried to make maps of cities come alive with paper and pencil, I must have made hundreds of those, big or small. Finding me enthralled by games like Sim City 2000 (1993) and Transport-Tycoon (1994), when they first came out, is therefore no surprise. Equally unsurprising is my joy when Paradox asked me to do a Beta-AAR about this most recent sibling in a long tradition of Transport-management games.

Cities in Motion is not exactly like the games mentioned above. Sim City is of course a city builder and thus almost unrelated. Transport-Tycoon (Deluxe) is still a wonderful game. In that game you build a regional (on larger maps it feels like a national) company which transport goods and passengers by lorry, train, boat and plain. You build rail-lines from factory to factory or town to town and try to be ahead of competition. As similar as this may sound the differences with Cities in Motion (CiM) are many: in CiM there is no obvious competition which blocks your route with its tracks and the game only focuses on public transport within the city-limits. Don't be misled though, transporting passengers only is not shallow-business as in CiM there are seven different social groups who all live, work and entertain themselves in different places. It might thus be said CiM has a lot more depth in this aspect than Transport-Tycoon.
There are a lot more parallels with Traffic-Giant (2001) which was a game I played for some time but didn't like all that much as it lacked depth and the cities were far from life-like. Ten years down the genre is still hugely interesting and with the current state of technology this might very well become very interesting.

What this new title by Colossal Order; Cities in Motion all about:

• Explore four different cities: Vienna, Helsinki, Berlin, and Amsterdam (will they really come alive)
• Scenarios, Sandbox and Campaign
• Play through 100 years of transportation history throughout four eras, spanning from 1920 to 2020 (cool, old buses and trams! And how will the cities develop over time?)
• Choose between more than 30 different vehicles based on real-life models of buses, trams, water buses, helicopters, and subways, complete with an underground view
• Meet residents’ travel needs as 7 different social groups exhibit different passenger behaviors (interesting)
• Experience a real-time city and traffic simulator as each location's bustling population commutes between their homes, jobs, and leisure sites (Can't wait!)

[video=youtube;FemH4GhEqEs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FemH4GhEqEs&feature=player_embedded[/video]​

What's a Beta Preview AAR?

For those who haven't read any of my previous Preview AARs (VickyII and HOI3)
this is the best moment to explain this concept a little. First of all, AAR stands for After Action Report. I will thus take a beta version of the game (this AAR was written with the second beta) and write about my experiences. Thus please keep in mind this is not the final version. For example this version only has the Vienna map and some parts of the game are still being polished as we speak.

The detailed buildings in CiM are superb

Trains and plains are just there for the flavour, but they look nice​

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The Tutorial: Build me a bus-line

Cities in Motion is not a difficult game to get into at all, the game's interfaces are quite intuitive. Still I always like to play through the tutorial before I jump into a new game.
In CiM's tutorial you are guided through the various processes of setting up a complete public-transport network in Tutorial City; a small and quiet little city. Your guide, or teacher, is a veteran transport-tycoon. Experienced as he might be he won't have been all that successful. During the course of the tutorial he asks you to build a bus-line to his house and well....it isn't all that large.

Tutorial City's city-hall and marketplace

Destinations and departure-points
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Anyhow, the chap explains the mechanics to you, guides you through the process of setting up a bus-line; what to pay attention to when doing so, how to create the loop and which vehicles to choose. Next on the list is a tram-line and having done that, and collected quite some money for a while, the first subway. Not sure why such a small city needs a subway but it looks nice anyway.

My first bus-line

My first tram-line......needs some improvements

Having completed these three projects and learned about ticket prices, raising salaries, advertisement campaigns and loans it is time to leave the nest and venture out on your own. Our destination: Vienna.​

 

[tedescooo]

Looks really nice.

Looking forward to buy this game.

 

[unmerged(233017)]

Great!
Looking forward to learn more about how the game works.
And your introduction exactly meets that what I thought about the game when I heart of it the first time.

 

[unmerged(235471)]

I like what I see so far and I will buy it when it is released on 2/25/2011

 

[rsdworker]

looks great - i haven't seen photos of first subway line on AAR so its possible to add photo of underground mode to preview and also could you make a link to enlarged pictures cause i can't see the small details

 

[unmerged(18239)]

looks great - i haven't seen photos of first subway line on AAR so its possible to add photo of underground mode to preview and also could you make a link to enlarged pictures cause i can't see the small details

I am currently building up my transport-empire. Going slowly and starting at the bottom. Once I have some stretches of underground I'll post a few screenies. I can already say that the stations with people waiting on the platforms etc. look really neat (seen it while playing the tutorial).

 

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Vienna, the 30's, the 60's, or perhaps the 90's?

Even though the only city present in this Beta version is Vienna there is already a lot to choose from. You have the full campaign and several scenarios for each city.
The scenarios which can be selected for Vienna are interesting:

• Financial Crisis (30's)
• Bring Vienna up to date (60's)
• Part with Petrol (70's)
• Vienna goes Green (2004-2009)

Each of these scenarios has its own timeframe of three to six years, a starting budget and of course a different goal, the titles are self-explanotary. As they are all set in a different period Vienna itself will be different. In the 70's the city is considerably larger then it was in the 30's. The vehicles in the 30's you can choose from will also be different. Slower trams and buses, antiquated metros and of course the helicopter isn't invented yet. As the pace of the game is rahter slow (intentionally) it will take considerable time before you see any of the changes take place.
There is no AI competition in CiM so you can take it slow and don't have to rush building one line after another. This is, for me, the major pro of no AI competition, apart then from it not doing any silly stuff. Of course it has its drawbacks as well as you have less of a goal and it might prove to be boring, we'll see won't we?

I, for now, choose to start in the 1930's as I like the style of the buses and trams back then and would like to see the city grow and the buildings change over time. Before we start however let's take a look at the expansion of Vienna on the minimap in the scenario selection screen. I have made a compilation of eight screenshots showing Vienna at different periods. Pretty cool if you ask me.
Compare this with an old and modern map of Vienna and you can see the shapes of the old center, the isle in the danube, the highway to the south of the center etc. I don't know Vienna at all but look forward to the map of Amsterdam. It is of course all very schematic but realistic enough to get the right feel for the game.

The last three screenshots are taken once the scenario was loaded. Respectively 1930, 1940 and 2000. As you can see the city develops quite naturally. New parts of the city are added when the city expands and other parts replaced.

Last thing which has to be mentioned before we start building is the loading screens, they are very nice and add to the atmosphere of the game.

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[vanadio]

Very very good

It looks great...

Just one question: It will be possible to do interfaces of transport types? For example, people get out on a bus station and catch up the tram that stops in that same station...

 

[Romtos]

This AAR is actually starting to make me exited.
This might prove very interesting. I love the long time frame and the relaxing pace.
I always play transport tycoon without competition. Just making my lines.

 

[rsdworker]

i hope i will see a more screenshots

 

[Emperor_krk]

Great stuff. I'm really excited about this game, and very happy to see a beta AAR, especially this early!

 

[unmerged(18239)]

Just one question: It will be possible to do interfaces of transport types? For example, people get out on a bus station and catch up the tram that stops in that same station...

With the current beta-build that's not possible, alas. It will be three months before the game comes out though.

Thanks a lot for the nice comments btw. I will post some more first thing tomorrow, and many more screenies.

 

[unmerged(235471)]

hello singleton mosby:

could please post some screen shots of the different buses and trams {in my courty they called LRV }, and also pictures of the subway trains I like all the stuff you have put so far, I need ask one major thing is there passenger trains in the game?

aleksander

 

[rsdworker]

With the current beta-build that's not possible, alas. It will be three months before the game comes out though.

Thanks a lot for the nice comments btw. I will post some more first thing tomorrow, and many more screenies.

what means? - they can't take bus then change to metro - traffic giant had people was abile to change lines but i am not sure about this means people have to take bus directly to places?

 

[Boris ze Spider]

Looks awesome, will definitely buy when it comes out.

 

[unmerged(230725)]

Very awesome preview, but question.

With the second last image in the second post, why is the car about to run over some people on the foot path..

 

[SA_Avenger]

what means? - they can't take bus then change to metro - traffic giant had people was abile to change lines but i am not sure about this means people have to take bus directly to places?

I think Singleton is saying that using same stop is not possible, not that users can take several transportations to reach their goal

 

[unmerged(18239)]

With the second last image in the second post, why is the car about to run over some people on the foot path..

I have no idea what he is doing actually. Perhaps there has been an accident, which occasionally occures, if not he might be playing Carmageddon all by himself.

I think Singleton is saying that using same stop is not possible, not that users can take several transportations to reach their goal

What I meant is: You can't have a stop which is at the same time a bus and tram or tram and metro (etc) stop. It is possible to follow someone so once I have established some different lines of transport we'll just follow a few passengers and see how they get to their destination.

 

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The initial plan: 1930

The 1930's were an eventful and tumultuous period for Vienna. Political battles between left and right were fought in the streets and the fascists were on the rise to take over the country in 1938. Luckily none of this will bother us in Cities in Motion, apart from the occasional demonstration and military parade we will experience nothing but peace to set up and develop the city's public-transport system. At least, I hope so...

My plan is to take my time and during the first year of gametime develop two bus-lines and a tram-line. The first bus-line will take the tourists from the train-station to the two main hotels and some churches and stores. The second one will either take students to university or workers to their factory. Undoubtedly that will leave me with enough money to build a tram-line through the central parts of Vienna, perhaps bringing people to and from the station as well.

First things first: the Tourist-line. When setting up a new line you have to make sure people actually need it. There are some very nice map-modes to help you out. First thing which has to be found are the hotels. Apparently there are three of them, two big ones close to one another in the central part of the city and one much further to the north. On the same bus-line I want to have some other tourist destinations such as churches, parks, department-stores and a few smaller stores. Both of these categories can be found under Leisure and Shopping when “Tourists” is selected.

Having determined the route of the line you'll have to set it up by placing stops and connecting them.Once the line is a complete loop vehicles can be added. I choose the biggest of the two buses, the Livingston Ocelot. It consumes more fuel but carries more passengers and breaks down less often. On top of that it is more attractive which is a good thing for the tourists.
With that the line can be opened and before long the first passengers pay for their fare. After only a month the line needs another bus to cope with the amount of passengers. Just to make a little bit more profit before we'll move on to the next line I raise the ticket's price from 3.80 to 4.00.

You just have to love these classic cars, don't you?
Also; note the streetnames, nice little touch.
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