Help Me Enjoy This Game

[RonBurgundy]

I know a lot of you will be smashing that "Respectfully Disagree" button and please don't hate me but I just can't get into this game and I really really want to. I've loved city building games since the original SC but this game doesn't give me the satisfaction that SC did.

I feel like this game is little more than a city painter that doesn't let you fail. I love games that force me to think and I feel like with C:S, all I have to do is zone whatever the RCI indicator tells me to. I build a small city, realize I have a ton of money and then get bored because I feel that building roads and zoning is all I'm going to do for the next 5 hours with no challenge.

And I don't like scenarios because I don't feel invested in the city. I don't really care if it fails or not.

Can anyone recommend any mods? Am I the only one that feels this way? Any advice or guidance any of you could provide would be greatly appreciated.

 

[RonBurgundy]

Also, a follow-up question: What are your goals for creating a city? Like, when you start up a game and start laying out your roads, what are you hoping to accomplish and what obstacles are you hoping to overcome?

Sorry, I know these are a lot of questions but like I said, I'd love to be able to see why the C:S community loves this game so much

 

[Teldaril]

It is a city painter. The only game mechanic to handle is the traffic. And that is what my goal is when i start laying out my road. S:C is a very good game, but not for everyone. I remember headlines like "S:C is the SimCity we wanted". Not for me. It is not the SimCity i wanted, but it is another good game i like. The freedom is high but the game mechanics are low.

The only mods i remember to change numbers (but essentially nothing about the game mechanics) is proper hardness, but i believe it is deprecated.

Other mods which change numbers are:

Lifecycle Rebalance:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=654707599

Realistic Population and Consumption:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=426163185

And there are mods which disable the despawn of traffic which makes the only real mechanic to care about more difficult.

 

[Anttonilla]

I kind of feel the same way but the thing is, I love the freedom this game provides as a "city painter".
If I happen to feel creative, I usually fire up Cities: Skylines, but sometimes SimCity 4 with it's great service and finance mechanics just is the better choice for me.

 

[medopu]

I feel like this game is little more than a city painter that doesn't let you fail.

You've described all the simcity games, Cities XL, (SC2013 possibly?) and ofcourse Cities Skylines perfectly with this statement.
Perhaps you should try games like Banished, Tropico or Anno, they offer more variety when it comes to strategy, objectives and difficulty.

What are your goals for creating a city?

Having a city without traffic congestions, to unlock certain landmarks and so on. Depends on my mood. I haven't even touched the scenarios yet tbh.

 

[MotownCountry]

watch some youtubers and see how they don't just paint their city, but they add landscaping and extreme minor/major beautification details to city blocks...LOL

 

[medopu]

watch some youtubers and see how they don't just paint their city, but they add landscaping and extreme minor/major beautification details to city blocks...LOL

Sorry, but you're not helping

 

[Baltizar]

I suppose one way to make it more enjoyable is to either make your own scenarios or download user made scenarios. i find that this can make this game quite interesting

 

[RonBurgundy]

Thanks for the advice, everybody. I appreciate it. I started a new city and I'm going to try to see it as more of a puzzle game than a city simulator. I think I'll enjoy it more if I make an effort to scale back my expectations

Thanks again

 

[28rommel]

I know a lot of you will be smashing that "Respectfully Disagree" button .....

It seems you miscalculated .....
All you are getting are people who "agree" with you.

 

[RonBurgundy]

It seems you miscalculated .....
All you are getting are people who "agree" with you.

That surprised me as well. I used to be a huge Total War fan until about a year ago when I discovered Paradox games. The TW community is so toxic and intolerant to other beliefs that I'm just used to the abuse now. I honestly thought I'd post this and get a tsunami of hate from the forum-goers telling me to go play SC so I'm pleasantly surprised.

I started up a new city earlier today determined to give it an earnest try. After my first neighborhood was up, I quit because I was bored but then came back to it and I'm actually enjoying myself trying to figure out how to optimize traffic and studying how my cims go about their day to determine how best to allocate roads and transit systems. I lost because my garbage trucks couldn't get around efficiently enough and the piles of garbage drove my tax paying cims out so I'm going to try again.

Thank you for being civil with me, everyone

 

[Mahasona]

How big are your cities, have you expanded onto more tiles?

I'm no expert at this game, but I find it only starts getting interesting once the pop gets up towards 100,000.

 

[DMFan]

Dear OP, unfortunately I won't help you with your issue. The game is a total letdown/huge disappointment for me. I had craved it, preordered it and I even bought the first "expansion" (the quotes are a must here) before realizing the game had no chance to get better.

CS is, as you said, a simple city-painter. Colossal Order keeps posting stuff on twitter made by users with totally modded games and each time I see those posts I think about this.

Don't let me start on DLCs which are little less than graphical stuff (they even sold items made by modders...)

There is no gameplay behind it. At all.

I stopped posting on these forums because I respect people who like the "game" as it is and I find it annoying to bash something just because I don't like it, but in this case I'm making an exception because I feel you'll soon realize what I've already realized a long time ago, which is: this is not the game for you...

We need to keep waiting for a real city builder.

 

[muttonnoir]

The limit of the game is your own imagination. YOU decide the success criteria. CO provide players with a kit of parts. You set the brief- what is your goal/s? A for instance- you might want to take your own local neighbourhood/town/ city and try to recreate it in CS while attempting to improve on some the bad planning etc. You decide on the level/s of complexity. Applying real life situation to the game can be really fascinating

 

[RonBurgundy]

Muttonoir, I appreciate the sentiment but that's not fun to me. That's like playing Battlefield but taking away all of the enemies and just seeing how many times you can barrel-roll the airplane.

And DMFan, I agree. I don't think this is the spiritual successor to Sim City we were hoping for but I am having a bit of fun optimizing traffic. If you see it as a puzzle game instead of a city management game, I think it's more fun

 

[metacritical]

if you're going to use completely different games to prove your point i can counter that with my own example: GTA5. driving around the city causing chaos, slaughter and mayhem is just as much fun as doing the missions.

 

[El Sicko]

Sim City titles are not complex either.
They seem because they have a bit more conditions and don't explain them from the beginning.
(what might not even be possible)
But once you figured out what to do every Sim City game is smooth and easy as well.

You might be interested in games that are smalled but actually simulate complex needs of people.
That would be the Tropico series (3 is the hardest, 4 is great as well) or banished.
Another option is the Anno Series (1404 still recommended) because of long term motivation in over time growing supply chains.

My personal opinion.
While Sim City 4/5 are more challenging to beginners in early game they get boring once you know what to do.
Cities is more challenging in the mid game (traffic management) and late game (avoid the limits).
While the limits are annoying and the reason for many (also never explained) problems, they could also be seen as challange.

 

[RonBurgundy]

if you're going to use completely different games to prove your point i can counter that with my own example: GTA5. driving around the city causing chaos, slaughter and mayhem is just as much fun as doing the missions.

What I mean is that you're taking a game that doesn't have any real challenge and just making your own challenges. That's fine and all, I'm not hating on anyone, I'd just rather have to deal with the issues that arise from having a large, robust city than to try to make my hometown's market district perfect.

and ElSicko, I'd have to disagree. In SC, when your city got bigger, crime rates went up, regardless if there were police stations. Crime went up when education was low. Ghettos and low income neighborhoods would form which would spawn riots and fires. There were clear low, middle, and high residential/commercial/industrial neighborhoods and you had to work to bring those high density areas to your city. You had reports showing how your people thought of the job you were doing and if they didn't think you were doing a good job, they would move out and your income would disappear. Yeah, if you got good at the game it would be easier but in C:S, traffic management is the only thing you need to learn. Everything else takes care of itself. Once you put down a police station, everyone in the surrounding area becomes perfect, law abiding citizens.

I have every one of those games you listed and I enjoy all of them but still, I really love building large metropolitan cities and C:S is a gorgeous game. I love the graphics and design of the game, the sounds from the city are really immersive and seeing thousands of people go about their day is really satisfying. That's why I really want to like this game.

And of course, I'm not trying to rain on anybody's parade. That's why I'm not on this forum all the time complaining. Just every now and then, I want to see if modders have improved this issue and to also show CO that there's still people out there who likes to balance a budget.

 

[MotownCountry]

Sorry, but you're not helping

huh? how is that not helping? you requested help to enjoy the game. i gave a suggestion of "rather than just plopping/painting city blocks and moving on...maybe try getting into landscaping" and i further pointed out to "watch youtubers" to maybe get inspired.

some people find enjoyment in that. and who knows...maybe you might be one of those people. but you will never know now when you simply shut me down with an "that's not helping" attitude.

 

[medopu]

huh? how is that not helping? you requested help to enjoy the game. i gave a suggestion of "rather than just plopping/painting city blocks and moving on...maybe try getting into landscaping" and i further pointed out to "watch youtubers" to maybe get inspired.

some people find enjoyment in that. and who knows...maybe you might be one of those people. but you will never know now when you simply shut me down with an "that's not helping" attitude.

The players occupy two camps when it comes to city-building. The city designers and the city managers. The issue in this thread is, that there is not much to manage in the game which is why the "manager camp" becomes too uninterested and don't feel invested since they see no acomplishment in simply designing a beautiful looking city, that doesn't require much to manage economy/policy-wise.
This preference towards city design as opposed to city management has been a tradition in simcity games up to (and arguably including) simcity 2013. And Cities Skylines is simply following the simcity footsteps (as Collosal order developers noted on various occasions).

If one would like to focus more on the managerial style of city-building, they would be advised to stay away from Simcity 4 and Cities Skylines and perhaps look into Tropico and Anno series. Banished is a good one too (more like a village but hey). Settlers franchise is also fun, Urban empire showed promise, but ultimately turned out to be a shitshow. I think that's it.