Micromanagement... I can do without too much of it

[Fox_NS_CAN]

I have seen a few posts over the past few months that seem to want more micromanagement.
While everyone might want something a little different, I have to say I don't want any more.

Fiddling with the cemeteries, landfills, snow dumps and tweaking the power every time the temperature goes up and down is not my favorite part of the game. I find at times it gets quite tedious. I'd rather be building my city.

For example, I would not mind seeing things like Industry being enhanced. It could use a little fleshing out. However I would prefer if it were not made too in-depth and tiresome.

Politics is another thing that I hear about from time to time. I might enjoy a nice "Mayor's Mansion" being added to the game, possibly becoming available and then leveling up as you hit milestones. I'm not sure I care about anything beyond that.

I'd like to see improvements in control of transportation (hopefully in "Mass Transit"), like to be able to control the number of buses/trains/metro per line, but I don't feel it needs to go any deeper than that. I don't want schedules, I have more interesting things to do. That sort of thing sounds fine for something that is a "transportation game" (I presume like CiM/CiM2? Never played them, so not really sure.), but this is a "city builder". I want to build cities, not read spreadsheets.

 

[muttonnoir]

Agree, the obsessive compulsive brigade really do take things to extremes. One guy allocates zip codes to every building- REALLY! Laying water pipes and erecting power lines is also beneath my pay grade as mayor. They bleat on about "immersion" and "realism" but the tasks they suggest are delegated to various individuals/teams of city council employees. I just wanna wear the the mayors robe and chain, attend functions eat & drink for free at residents expense- free travel abroad on a few fact finding missions such as to look at sewage works in Dubai and maybe cut a few ribbons while opening a new road or a new school, hospital or shopping mall!

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

I just wanna wear the the mayors robe and chain,

I might not be a huge fan of this avatar, but I couldn't help do this up quick:

 

[dj97]

They bleat on about "immersion" and "realism" but the tasks they suggest are delegated to various individuals/teams of city council employees.

Well, who said that we aren't the city council?

 

[dj97]

I have seen a few posts over the past few months that seem to want more micromanagement.
While everyone might want something a little different, I have to say I don't want any more.

Fiddling with the cemeteries, landfills, snow dumps and tweaking the power every time the temperature goes up and down is not my favorite part of the game. I find at times it gets quite tedious. I'd rather be building my city.

For example, I would not mind seeing things like Industry being enhanced. It could use a little fleshing out. However I would prefer if it were not made too in-depth and tiresome.

Politics is another thing that I hear about from time to time. I might enjoy a nice "Mayor's Mansion" being added to the game, possibly becoming available and then leveling up as you hit milestones. I'm not sure I care about anything beyond that.

I'd like to see improvements in control of transportation (hopefully in "Mass Transit"), like to be able to control the number of buses/trains/metro per line, but I don't feel it needs to go any deeper than that. I don't want schedules, I have more interesting things to do. That sort of thing sounds fine for something that is a "transportation game" (I presume like CiM/CiM2? Never played them, so not really sure.), but this is a "city builder". I want to build cities, not read spreadsheets.

An honest question; how do you build your cities? Do you decorate them in any way?

 

[Promethian]

The thing is, everything you listed you can set up to not require any micro at all and without using mods at that.

Cemetaries and Landfills nobody in their right mind uses after the burning places are unlocked. The first thing I do when the unlocks come in is set up burners and set the storage to empty every time. They are always a small part of the early development of a city.

Snow Dumps are place and forget. Why did you bring them up in the context of micro? You need to occasionally make more as you grow but how is that different from any other service?

Why are you trying to ride the line on heating so that it dips into power? The solution to your "it gets cold and power drain goes up" problem is make more heating plants. They aren't that expensive.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

Snow Dumps are place and forget. Why did you bring them up in the context of micro?

Yeah, my bad. Haven't played a snow map in awhile, and forgot they auto empty, though you occasionally need to add more, but that's not really the problem I have.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

Cemetaries and Landfills nobody in their right mind uses after the burning places are unlocked.

I do phase out landfill once I get some incinerators going.

I find crematoriums are fairly expensive, and they do not seem to keep up. I use a lot of them, but seem like I need to keep running cemeteries every time there is a death spike, then when they are caught up, I set them to empty again.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

Why are you trying to ride the line on heating so that it dips into power? The solution to your "it gets cold and power drain goes up" problem is make more heating plants. They aren't that expensive.

Heat plants are probably cheaper than electrical heat, but waste money when the temperature comes up.
Seems foolish to generate too much power as well, maybe I am a bit neurotic turning it up and down. At least on a winter map it just stays cold; easier to deal with as it is steadier.
More money means faster infrastructure building.

I didn't want to go for monuments, but I ended up saying the heck with it, and bought a fusion plant, and turned it down as low as it would go and turned the rest off. Still generates an excess, but dropped the bill from around $19k to $4k.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

An honest question; how do you build your cities? Do you decorate them in any way?

Normally put trees and assets all over the place. A little light on that at the moment. Usually infinite money, painting a city ever since I originally unlocked all unique buildings.

My hard drive failed last year, and I replaced it recently, and started from scratch (unlocking unique buildings) with a fresh install, and trying out "Natural Disasters". No mods or assets loaded at the moment. No infinite money.

 

[dj97]

Normally put trees and assets all over the place. A little light on that at the moment. Usually infinite money, painting a city ever since I originally unlocked all unique buildings.

My hard drive failed last year, and I replaced it recently, and started from scratch (unlocking unique buildings) with a fresh install, and trying out "Natural Disasters". No mods or assets loaded at the moment. No infinite money.

I never really felt the need to do any of that since painting the city doesn't have any benefit other than making your city look prettier to look at. It would be nice if they did have some effects like, for example, trees increasing land value and decreasing noise pollution. But, for now, they're just filler.

I tend to push for more micromanagement of city services, since that has the potential to add more functionality and more reason for customization to your city. Meticulously placing down every tree, fence and other props, to me, sounds like micromanaging the visuals that ends up not doing anything (although, I will admit it does lead to some stunning screenshots). But I feel like a game such as this should produce such stunning screenshots just by building a city, not painting it.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

I never really felt the need to do any of that since painting the city doesn't have any benefit other than making your city look prettier to look at. It would be nice if they did have some effects like, for example, trees increasing land value and decreasing noise pollution. But, for now, they're just filler.

I never considered myself an artist, but I do like building and making everything look nice. I usually play infinite money (but I still usually manage to keep the income green), but it does allow me to spend more quickly and just be creative with it.

I do also like to get achievements, and four of the "Natural Disasters" ones do take a wee bit more time. (Win 10 scenarios? I have been playing the Tornado/sinkhole one for over a month. Have over $10million, but still need to reach 260,000 population, which takes me a bit of time. I think I am around 150k pop now. It is growing faster now. Two more tornadoes coming at 208k pop and 247k pop. So winning 10 scenarios could take awhile.

 

[metacritical]

So winning 10 scenarios could take awhile.

create 10 easy scenarios, win 10 easy scenarios. get achievement.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

create 10 easy scenarios, win 10 easy scenarios. get achievement.

Almost as easy as "lose 10 scenarios"? (I have not got that one either. Along with "What the...?" and "Create 10 scenarios".)

I actually have one scenario win, as I was tinkering with the scenario editor. Whenever I get to 260k pop on the current city that will be 2.

I suspect that the "What the...?" one will be the hardest. I suppose you have to be playing with random disasters (which I won't care much for when "city painting") turn on, and I think I read it was a 1:732 chance (or something like that) to get it. Reminds me of "Space Ponies" on "Sins of a Solar Empire" (an achievement I did get when I had it on "Impulse", but not since I have had it on "Steam".

Steam said "So close..."
I don't believe it.

 

[CCESportsNetwork]

I seem to find that there are two very different type of players who play the game. The ones who like the sandbox, creativity aspect of the game - where they can freely create without worrying to much about all of the finer details of running a city and players like me who love the micro management aspect of the game similar to what a real life mayor may face when managing a city. I can remember playing SC4 and studying charts and graphs for hours or obsessing when my Sims commute time was over 40 minutes and driving down happiness. There are those who find fiddling with a traffic light at an intersection ridiculous and there are those who love the control of managing traffic flow in a specific area of the city they have spent hours creating. I think CO has got the sandbox feel of the game down pat. They have a long way to go to get to the level of micro managing that existed in SC4 - but I can certainly understand the appeal for both styles of play. For me, the deeper the realism, the more engaging I find the whole game. For instance, the idea of playing with unlimited money for me is a non-starter because no city Mayor has an unlimited cash flow. I love the fact in the early game if you play too fast, build too much - then you go bankrupt fast. With careful planning, building out and up can earn you much cash. It is not hard at all but still requires a little thought.

As long as CO continues to give us both, I think they will make both style of players very happy.

 

[funhave]

When I play that game:

First, I create my own map style, then I start in the sandbox mode with unlimitied money and build the street layout

This is the most pleasure for me - building the street layout. After that I set the RCI layouts with growable buildinigs - when the traffic increase, I start with managing street micro management (sad, that I can only do that with mods, means I want that fix in the game without mods) - that the next wich I spend most hours of that game after that I am doing eye-candy painting the city - this part makes the city more realistic (like modular parks, etc..), but after set the functional things.

Sad, that I cannot set functionable streets "behind" the buildings, where are the parking arease from growable buildings, the buildings are despawn, if set a street "behind" the buiildings.

Most important thing: transport micromanagement, wich is integrated in the game, but lucky I can have that with mods, much better is include in the game - bec. after updates working all the transport and eye-candy mods

Would like to have these type of mods include in the game:
-) transport mods (like transport lines manager, or traffic manager (president edition), there are much more
-) eye - candy mods
-) graph mods (RCI extancions mods for buildings for example)

I dont like much to set the water pipes extra: Would be good when I can choose an extra point to set the water pipes automatic under the streets and the electrical power same

 

[Alex24]

In my opinion some of the micromanagment in this game is boring because it's no challange and has no real bad impact if you have done it semi optimal.
E.g.:

• ingame the canalization is just something you have to lay down any way you want, there is nothing you really have to consider when doing that. But in real life canalization is really expensive and consists of various buildings/elements - not just the water pumping station, pipes and sewage outlet. Also the height levels play a huge role in real life. > This would probably go too far, but atleast making it more expensive would make people go from "just place that anywhere so all buildings are connected" to "I should probably place the pumping station not too far away. Man, I really should find a way to include the highest amount of houses with the length I can afford."
• Those huge electricity tracks should reduce land value. There are huge discussions about these in real life, nobody really wants to live nearby to any of these. Maybe even consider limiting the amount how much electricity they can transport, so there would be several levels of them.
• Also placing passenger/cargo transport infrastructure could be way more expensive and more restrictive in terms of slopes, curve radius and other stuff > Making the terrain more of a challenge.
• Districts are rather unimportant currently. Yes, you can do some policies and see some more statistics, but there is no real requirement to create them. I really liked the town hall feature in the latest SC (probably the only point I liked about it). Something like that could be introduced to CSL. When you first start your town you have to place a small town hall. As your city grows you also need a bigger town hall. (probably a new bigger building placed somewhere else, since upgrades are not a thing in CSL). At a certain city size it gets mandatory to create districts. While the town hall remains important you now also need a smaller administrative office for each district. But the placement is also important, since a new kind of traffic is created. So you probably would place it in a central good connected position.