The game that HAVE to finally beat SimCity4 ...

[Rangerzero]

I would this thread to be some food for thoughts, mostly for Cities Skylines devs. I trust them great, they delivered fantastic games with Cities In Motion series and I would love to see time become the kings of city builders too. Right now there's a huge opened door left by the Cities XL guys (that doesn't seem to continue the series) and especially a huge gap is left by Maxis and their disappointing SimCity game. I want to discuss what's great about SimCity4, juuuuust to make sure Cities Skylines remember those details and let this thread be some kind of a tool so we make sure this new game finally beats SimCity4...

SC4 is fantastic because there's alot of details and stuff to manage with the game staying simple to understand. The city evolves thanks to your smallest decisions and you can truly feel that evolution. Great management is definitely rewarded by great earnings, another aspect that is often overlooked in many games. The "effort vs rewards" in SC4 was like... perfect! The only city builder I was having the impression I was making alot of money BECAUSE I was managing good. This feeling is absolutely needed in Cities Skylines.






Let me now bullet points awesome features from that old game that I feel are needed to "beat" it:


- 3 levels of density for each types of zones. This is great because it lets you zone for cheap at first and have some city going on. Low density also didn't need a water system but just electricity. This contributes greatly to the evolution feeling of your city. You start small, have something going on very fast and then you clearly see it evolve because you buy those other intensity levels later and each density level needs more stuff to work fine. So as long as your city is evolving you build more services, plan a water system at some point, etc. It all feels great and in a "step by step" way. It also lets you gradually make money and you don't feel like playing with a money cheat or mods!

- Schools, hospitals and services funded independantly. That is another key point in SC4. You decide the budget of every single service building independantly. Not only this helps you keep yourself busy instead of putting the game on "fast forward" but its a great way to truly manage your spending which is extremely rewarding. Cities Skylines absolutely need this. The feel that it truly is my management and budget abilities that makes this city work fine. Cause after all, we are a mayor in there. Every building was giving the player the necessary details to manage them. There's 140 clients in average? Fund for 140. Or fund a little under, giving some pressure on the staff but making more money. Underfund too much and the building is on strike! Your budget managements, city politics and trading agreements between cities was a key part of what makes SC4 so great.

- Levels for roads too. The higher containing the more cars (duh).

- The map is huge. Just huge. And in Cities Skylines we DO want to make cities evolve into metropolis.

- Management of traffic that truly affect the city. In SC4 you really could, to the opposite of previous SimCity games truly get rid of bad traffic by great managing. How this was done? Putting bus stops on busy roads, making one ways, changning road density, etc. We absolutely need to have great traffic solutions in Cities Skylines. What we could have to truly beat SimCity4 would be: Manageable traffic lights and having sort of Cities In Motion included in the game. I mean, we do need to truly manage public transportation.






Also, what is that extra stuff we don't see in city builders but we might like to want and have in a new game that would become the king of this genre?
Here's some thoughs:

- Why not improving the mayor aspect of things? Voting laws, managing rules further than in SC4.

- Managing transportation system deterioration. Why not give contracts to certain business instead of others, have them work on roads and plan the schedule of those repairs so it affects the citizens and traffic the less possible? Id love to set detour routes too.

- Managing work standards and law for the different jobs in the cities. Giving special funds to certain people or business, exclude certain business from certain rules or give them a tax reduction.

- Improving the exchange between cities




discuss...

 

[vanadio]

It will beat Sim city 4 with Mods for sure.

 

[zorkman]

Just by not having to be online all the time defeats the last two contenders, though in fairness Cities XL was later available offline after the company had gone down. It was a disastrous short sighted decision by Monte Cristo & have some sympathy for them, unlike EA which was plain greed.

This game is looking better & better all the time, & by the time of release hope for a very good game, & true successor to Sim City 4.

 

[Person012345]

I don't feel that it will beat SimCity 4 and it doesn't have to. But it's looking like it will be a solid game in it's own right which is what it has to be. If it shapes up to be as it's supposed to be then it should be a worthy modern city builder, probably the best. It need not be mechanically better than the greatest city builder of all time to still be a good game with it's own value.

 

[cd concept]

zoning every institution like hospitals, clinics, grade schools, high schools, colleges, universities, fire stations etc by the zoning brush method like in cities in motion 2 uses for bus fare prices would be a brilliant idea. Let's say a grade schools building needs a certain amount of students to be viable. You can brush in the part of urban districts you need to fill the class room. From a heavy populated area or in the farm districts the simulator can cululate how many students need the services, and how many people will employ the building such as teachers and maintenance worker . Your in control not like in sim city 4 circle methods where only certain locations get served because they are located in the circle. For example if your in the farming districts most students will be bused in from the zoned area you've created. Not as much in a populated district simulating your annual budget for the
Not all institutions are as complex as the school industry. But should be zoned the same way with the zoning brush, so the simulator can calculate how many people are in need of jobs and services.

 

[Rangerzero]

zoning every institution like hospitals, clinics, grade schools, high schools, colleges, universities, fire stations etc by the zoning brush method like in cities in motion 2 uses for bus fare prices would be a brilliant idea. Let's say a grade schools building needs a certain amount of students to be viable. You can brush in the part of urban districts you need to fill the class room. From a heavy populated area or in the farm districts the simulator can cululate how many students need the services, and how many people will employ the building such as teachers and maintenance worker . Your in control not like in sim city 4 circle methods where only certain locations get served because they are located in the circle. For example if your in the farming districts most students will be bused in from the zoned area you've created. Not as much in a populated district simulating your annual budget for the
Not all institutions are as complex as the school industry. But should be zoned the same way with the zoning brush, so the simulator can calculate how many people are in need of jobs and services.

Amazing suggestion. Exactly the type of posts I long to see here.

 

[cshmech]

zoning every institution like hospitals, clinics, grade schools, high schools, colleges, universities, fire stations etc by the zoning brush method like in cities in motion 2 uses for bus fare prices would be a brilliant idea. Let's say a grade schools building needs a certain amount of students to be viable. You can brush in the part of urban districts you need to fill the class room. From a heavy populated area or in the farm districts the simulator can cululate how many students need the services, and how many people will employ the building such as teachers and maintenance worker . Your in control not like in sim city 4 circle methods where only certain locations get served because they are located in the circle. For example if your in the farming districts most students will be bused in from the zoned area you've created. Not as much in a populated district simulating your annual budget for the
Not all institutions are as complex as the school industry. But should be zoned the same way with the zoning brush, so the simulator can calculate how many people are in need of jobs and services.

aarrgghh.... kinda looks too much control and too tedious dont you think? i mean u have to brush each and every time you place a school, or clinic or fire station or....! Getting rid of the circle from SC4 is good enough. let the game do the rest.

Even now i feel, getting rid of the water and power connection method and having them run through road would be good. Otherwise every time you zone you have to establish a water and power line (if needed) which is a pain. they could make the game interesting by other features.. shouldn't adopt everything straight from SC4

 

[lemonsquid]

Even now i feel, getting rid of the water and power connection method and having them run through road would be good. Otherwise every time you zone you have to establish a water and power line (if needed) which is a pain. they could make the game interesting by other features.. shouldn't adopt everything straight from SC4

Yea I would prefer if you could build your water pipes/sewer pipes underneath the road. I thought this was the customary thing to do, perhaps only in the USA. The main power lines make sense still, but in my area the only place you see above ground power lines is on major roads, everything else is under ground. Hopefully we are given options to make changes

 

[Person012345]

Even now i feel, getting rid of the water and power connection method and having them run through road would be good. Otherwise every time you zone you have to establish a water and power line (if needed) which is a pain. they could make the game interesting by other features.. shouldn't adopt everything straight from SC4

Eww.

 

[cshmech]

Rangerzero, you absolutely nailed certain points man. I second all your suggestions.

There's 140 clients in average? Fund for 140. Or fund a little under, giving some pressure on the staff but making more money. Underfund too much and the building is on strike!

Exactly.. Having control of each and every service building works a lot. It gives a more localized control than an overall control in the budget panel. Maybe an overall control for utilities could be justified, but not service buildings.

The map is huge. Just huge. And in Cities Skylines we DO want to make cities evolve into metropolis.

I kinda differ. I mean if every city becomes metropolis, then whats the point? This game promises, district policies.. I'm hoping, we can kinda control, the wealth level of the neighborhoods. I'm not sure exactly what idea they have. Another solution would be to have city specializations. I can give my ideas for that here, but im guessing (hoping) colossal order has better ideas. :closedeyes:

Your budget managements, city politics and trading agreements between cities was a key part of what makes SC4 so great.

Bad news bro. More than anyone here, I was more interested in trade between cities. But as far as I can infer from their replies, it looks like there will be 'no trade' between cities, even though you can have adjacent cities with shared boundaries. All you have is an 'outside world' (like omnicorp in CXL) to which you can sell surplus from your city and buy stuff you need. I wonder why they din't think of this basic game-play even before?!

- Managing transportation system deterioration. Why not give contracts to certain business instead of others, have them work on roads and plan the schedule of those repairs so it affects the citizens and traffic the less possible? Id love to set detour routes too.

- Managing work standards and law for the different jobs in the cities. Giving special funds to certain people or business, exclude certain business from certain rules or give them a tax reduction.

Hmmm... when simcity2013 was in development, i was suggesting this in their forums. If you have the power to choose, what kinda buisineses to have in your city, you can specialize the city accordingly! Looks like a lot of work and a bit tedious.. dunno how it will be to actually play such a thing.. but the idea sounds fun

- Improving the exchange between cities

As I said before no option for trading between cities!

 

[unmerged(715916)]

I have always been a Zonist rather than a Ploppist. I think zoning for civic services is better than plopping. But i also like modular extensions one if the few things i liked in the last sc. I agree with the threadstarter on the size of sc4 regions. Without that kinda size you cant make Tokyos and Sydneys and Los Angeleses etc.

I liked the style of 4, the level of realism was just about right between detail and not being too photoreal. Of course 3d complicates that i understand. I liked in 4 the variety of buildings people etc but understand that launching a game theyll not be able to max out that and most likely modders will finish the game and add tilesets etc.

Oh yeah one thing i loved on sc2000 that wasnt in 4 was tilesets. Also the paper. And waterfalls and floods. And african swallow. And the Braun Llama Dome.

Terraforming is a must. One thing 4 didnt have was trams in vanilla. Id like to think given the company thats producing this game railways and buses will be realistic. One thing trainfever is doing wrong is trainhouses. No. Railyards please. No real railway has houses one carriage long to fit entire fleets in. You also need signal boxes etc. I like how in 4 they had s bit of this likenewspaper machines and hydrants. City games seem so barren of such things. Every street looks the same.

 

[Person012345]

Why do people keep talking about zoning for wealth levels. That's absurd. The government can't say "you're not allowed to live here because you're too poor/too rich" or mandate that houses be sold for a certain value. Wealth level will depend on the land value I assume, which in turn will depend on how desirable the area is to live in.

 

[Rangerzero]

I kinda differ. I mean if every city becomes metropolis, then whats the point? This game promises, district policies.. I'm hoping, we can kinda control, the wealth level of the neighborhoods. I'm not sure exactly what idea they have. Another solution would be to have city specializations. I can give my ideas for that here, but im guessing (hoping) colossal order has better ideas. :closedeyes:

What I mean by that is that a "city builder" should let a town evolve up the highest "rank" if YOU allow it. Every town in history started as a village (ok except maybe Dubai lol) and the became towns, cities, metropolis, megalopolis, etc. That's how the any serious city builder should work. At least in a mode of play where you start from scratch and wanna make some village evolve. ('cause after all, scenario modes aren't a bad thing either)

So if you make a town and want to keep it a town, it should be a choice from the player, not the game. YOU would stop making it grow because you want it a town. And the second you would decide to make it bigger, the game would let you.

 

[slornie]

You decide the budget of every single service building independantly.

Definitely want to see this sort of granular control retained, as it gives so much flexibility for the player. Planning on having a big residential area here which will have loads of kids? Build a large elementary school and reduce the budget until you've grown the neighbourhood sufficiently instead of building a small school and have to replace it later on.

Even now i feel, getting rid of the water and power connection method and having them run through road would be good. Otherwise every time you zone you have to establish a water and power line (if needed) which is a pain. they could make the game interesting by other features.. shouldn't adopt everything straight from SC4

I agree about having (the option for) water pipes/sewers to be automatically built when you build roads. I say option because you might not need pipes under every road, e.g. in a tight grid pattern, or want them under your dirt track through fields, or under your highway to the edge of the map. So perhaps some sort of toggle when building roads might be a good compromise - turn on to build pipes automatically, turn off if you want to everything by hand.

I have always been a Zonist rather than a Ploppist. I think zoning for civic services is better than plopping. But i also like modular extensions one if the few things i liked in the last sc.

Yeah, the modular extensions in SC2013 were interesting. I felt it worked well for expanding things like schools and medical clinics, along with the different wings of the town hall, but felt the individual bus/fire engine/police car/garbage truck garages went too far - along with the alarm bell on the fire station!

 

[alvaro]

my ambitions are humble. I would take anything that is NOT simCountryside. suburban stuff is nice looking, with teenagers playing baseball in an impecable courtyard, 9to5'ers living their own customized sitcom and some occasional highschool teacher starting a meth lab,... but we all know that real people live in real streets. no-one wants to be a suburban major.

And if expansions are to be considered (hopefully! ) take the CK2 approach, go BacK not forward with unreal futuristic tower fantasies that only LeCorbusier on steroids would enjoy

 

[Thaqui]

I think people are missing the point in long lists of features, some of which are outright unreasonable. Remember that everything is a trade off, and a complicated niche feature would take development time and performance hits away from other, perhaps more useful features.

Frankly, what makes the SimCity series great has been compared to gardening. You don't build the city, you build the infrastructure and the city grows around it. Lacking this element is what made Cities XL so dull for me, and SimCity 2013's big failure was it didn't give you enough room to grow (and shallow mechanics meant there was another disconnect - in a good city builder, you wouldn't think about what is the best way to lay out a city for the game, you'd think about the best way to lay out a city).

So what I think the game needs to beat SimCity 4 is this:
Most important is "tending the garden" gameplay, which SimCity (even the new one, to some extent) did brilliantly. Tweak some funding here, upgrade a road there, and watch as your citizens react and build to the new structure.

Solid mechanics that are complex, but intuitive. Mechanics should be close enough to real life (i.e. people don't switch their jobs and homes every day) that you don't have to use any "game logic".

I think with those fundamentals solid enough, all the extras that people wish for won't be that big of a deal. Trams and other extra transport options, different building styles, all the extras that people ask for would be great in expansions or DLC. But I hope they spend their time making a solid base game that they can then use as a foundation for extra content and mods to carry it on for years into the future.

Enough variety in terms of mechanics, buildings, infrastructure so that you don't feel like you're repeating the same thing over and over, and that you have plenty of options to solve things the way you want.

 

[Stevo Wallis]

For me the worst thing about SimCity 4 was having to constantly check the funding of every hospital and school over and over again, every five minutes as the patient/student numbers went up and down like a yoyo. Every time I was in the middle of doing something a message would pop up with a school on strike. So annoying! In the end I just overfunded it all and ran the city at little profit. In fact that's the main reason I stopped playing SimCity 4 and moved onto Cities XL. After reading the above posts, I'm surprised to see that it's something some people like. Each to their own I guess, but please make it optional at least. Another thing Cities XL has over SimCity 4 is the coverage by road access/distance for Police, Hospital, Fire, Schools etc.

 

[Person012345]

For me the worst thing about SimCity 4 was having to constantly check the funding of every hospital and school over and over again, every five minutes as the patient/student numbers went up and down like a yoyo. Every time I was in the middle of doing something a message would pop up with a school on strike. So annoying! In the end I just overfunded it all and ran the city at little profit. In fact that's the main reason I stopped playing SimCity 4 and moved onto Cities XL. After reading the above posts, I'm surprised to see that it's something some people like. Each to their own I guess, but please make it optional at least. Another thing Cities XL has over SimCity 4 is the coverage by road access/distance for Police, Hospital, Fire, Schools etc.

You give it a little excess funding and it stays fine for a decent amount of growth. You should still be able to make a decent amount of money. And if you want to grow faster but don't have the money there are always loans.

 

[Rangerzero]

For me the worst thing about SimCity 4 was having to constantly check the funding of every hospital and school over and over again, every five minutes as the patient/student numbers went up and down like a yoyo. Every time I was in the middle of doing something a message would pop up with a school on strike. So annoying! In the end I just overfunded it all and ran the city at little profit. In fact that's the main reason I stopped playing SimCity 4 and moved onto Cities XL. After reading the above posts, I'm surprised to see that it's something some people like. Each to their own I guess, but please make it optional at least. Another thing Cities XL has over SimCity 4 is the coverage by road access/distance for Police, Hospital, Fire, Schools etc.

What could be a "best of both world" in my opinion is that there could be a budget option like "Fund hospitals and schools from a global budget" on/off. If its "on", they have a local budget I can set and if its "off", you can set a global budget to fund them all at once.

 

[slornie]

Yeah, something like the AI advisor the more recent Total War games have, where you can choose to delegate certain administrative functions (e.g. taxation rates, or in this case function funding) to the AI. That way people can mix and match, taking control of the areas that interest them (or are most critical in the city at that moment).