This game is too easy due to power costs being too low

[YoDaddy]

The old Sim City series (I never played the last one) was difficult because power costs were realistic. You struggled to pay for power and your only choice was dirty coal. In this game, you have very cheap wind power, then you can unlock very cheap solar power. Both power alone cannot power a grid unless you have large battery backup systems and that tech has not been built on a large scale.

The costs of wind and solar should be much higher and unaffordable until your city gets bigger and you also have alternate power such as coal, oil, or nuclear.

 

[MarshalN]

I don't know if the game is too easy. Honestly, all the old SimCity made you do was run the game for a number of years at the highest speed when you were in surplus so you have enough cushion to survive the red ink that you have to endure when you expand but the new regions aren't filled up yet. That's not difficult, it's just time consuming. And the constantly decaying power plants meant that you waste a lot of time and money rebuilding them, but again, it was just busywork without adding much of anything to the game. I hated how you had to keep replacing the water pumps - not because I'd run out of money but because when you had 30 of them it's hard figuring out which one needed to be replaced.

 

[YoDaddy]

I don't know if the game is too easy. Honestly, all the old SimCity made you do was run the game for a number of years at the highest speed when you were in surplus so you have enough cushion to survive the red ink that you have to endure when you expand but the new regions aren't filled up yet. That's not difficult, it's just time consuming. And the constantly decaying power plants meant that you waste a lot of time and money rebuilding them, but again, it was just busywork without adding much of anything to the game. I hated how you had to keep replacing the water pumps - not because I'd run out of money but because when you had 30 of them it's hard figuring out which one needed to be replaced.

Yeah but that is realistic, generating enough power for everyone is difficult and expensive. It is what separates a developed country from a developing country. Most of your money should be spent on generating power. I have hundreds of thousands of extra dollars to throw around even in a small city, that is too easy

 

[MarshalN]

Yeah but that is realistic, generating enough power for everyone is difficult and expensive. It is what separates a developed country from a developing country. Most of your money should be spent on generating power. I have hundreds of thousands of extra dollars to throw around even in a small city, that is too easy

Actually, lots of places have utilities that pay for itself - in fact, many utilities are private companies that make a profit generating power, so no, it's not that realistic for a city to shoulder all the cost of generating power.

It's also too easy for us to be never kicked out of office. A realistic game would end after at most a dozen years. Is that what's fun though? No.

 

[youngzack]

The only reason i find this game easy (beside traffic wich is awsome challenge) is everything got to low maintance cost. And as long as u dont have to decrease ure taxes cause ure cims dont care, then money will be rolling in, that was the best challenge in simcity 4, maintanance cost, and sims crying about high taxes, even though it was on 4%. once taxes matter in this game, and maintanance cost rise, the challenge will be great. I want to believe CO made the base game for both old simcity fans, and newbies. just to keep things balanced and able to run as smooth as possible, when it grows to the players desire from modding, pathing and dlc. This game will prolly suit all (most)the different type of players out there.

FYI there is a difficult mode out there with some of the things i mentioned.

 

[MarshalN]

The only reason i find this game easy (beside traffic wich is awsome challenge) is everything got to low maintance cost. And as long as u dont have to decrease ure taxes cause ure cims dont care, then money will be rolling in, that was the best challenge in simcity 4, maintanance cost, and sims crying about high taxes, even though it was on 4%. once taxes matter in this game, and maintanance cost rise, the challenge will be great. I want to believe CO made the base game for both old simcity fans, and newbies. just to keep things balanced and able to run as smooth as possible, when it grows to the players desire from modding, pathing and dlc. This game will prolly suit all (most)the different type of players out there.

FYI there is a difficult mode out there with some of the things i mentioned.

I agree that the game is a bit easy on the tax/income side, just disagree with OP that it's the power, and I have had a few cases where I ran into money problems early on by building too many services. Once you figure out what's needed you are ok - SimCity 4 was like this too, you never run out of money unless you were stupid and overbuild. Just takes a few cities to get used to the game's economics.

I think the best way to increase difficulty and increase simulation realism is to make it much more expensive to bulldoze, as well as making it costly to remove/replace abandoned buildings. This way you'll try very very hard to avoid having a whole area abandoned, or it will cost you - which makes sense, because an abandoned area needing re-development SHOULD cost a city a lot of money.

 

[jockedahl]

Dude, it's a citybuilder. Citybuilders aren't hard to play. They are hard to master and make a perfect city both beauty and function.

 

[Brabbit1987]

The only reason i find this game easy (beside traffic wich is awsome challenge) is everything got to low maintance cost. And as long as u dont have to decrease ure taxes cause ure cims dont care, then money will be rolling in, that was the best challenge in simcity 4, maintanance cost, and sims crying about high taxes, even though it was on 4%. once taxes matter in this game, and maintanance cost rise, the challenge will be great. I want to believe CO made the base game for both old simcity fans, and newbies. just to keep things balanced and able to run as smooth as possible, when it grows to the players desire from modding, pathing and dlc. This game will prolly suit all (most)the different type of players out there.

FYI there is a difficult mode out there with some of the things i mentioned.

Simcity 4 is incredibly unrealistic when it comes to taxes. Realistically speaking, even 11% tax rate is pretty low. 4% is absolutely unrealistic and ridiculous.

 

[youngzack]

I agree that the game is a bit easy on the tax/income side, just disagree with OP that it's the power, and I have had a few cases where I ran into money problems early on by building too many services. Once you figure out what's needed you are ok - SimCity 4 was like this too, you never run out of money unless you were stupid and overbuild. Just takes a few cities to get used to the game's economics.

I think the best way to increase difficulty and increase simulation realism is to make it much more expensive to bulldoze, as well as making it costly to remove/replace abandoned buildings. This way you'll try very very hard to avoid having a whole area abandoned, or it will cost you - which makes sense, because an abandoned area needing re-development SHOULD cost a city a lot of money.

I will say SC4 cud sometimes hit me by suprise even though things where balanced. gaining 20k to going down to -1k. Bad planning really was a disaster in the midd game. I want that here to, but i will say before that i rather have it easy and learn the mechanism before the implant more, thats why people are enjoying it atm. So imo ++ CO. I agree with u totally on bulldozing, u get refund...? wth, i broke it i need to pay for it! And yes, people leave money shud dropp hard, That used to be a slapp in the face in SC4 xD Overall the game is good to learn and master b4 the harder modes etc comes to life, wich will give this game a big boost for us that like to pause and fast speed every min

 

[medopu]

The only reason i find this game easy (beside traffic wich is awsome challenge) is everything got to low maintance cost. And as long as u dont have to decrease ure taxes cause ure cims dont care, then money will be rolling in, that was the best challenge in simcity 4, maintanance cost, and sims crying about high taxes, even though it was on 4%. once taxes matter in this game, and maintanance cost rise, the challenge will be great. I want to believe CO made the base game for both old simcity fans, and newbies. just to keep things balanced and able to run as smooth as possible, when it grows to the players desire from modding, pathing and dlc. This game will prolly suit all (most)the different type of players out there.

FYI there is a difficult mode out there with some of the things i mentioned.

Simcity 4 is a cakewalk. An absolute breeze of no difficulty at all, and yes, i'm talking about hard-mode on vanilla.

I'm not saying C:SL is hard, but for the love of god, stop saying SC4 is hard because it's not and you either know that, or don't know any basic game maneuvers.

 

[youngzack]

In my country i pay 36% taxes, so i know that already. But we are talking about the demand and the challenges that taxes brought to a game like Simcity 4, wich shud be in this game.

 

[youngzack]

Simcity 4 is a cakewalk. An absolute breeze of no difficulty at all, and yes, i'm talking about hard-mode on vanilla.

I'm not saying C:SL is hard, but for the love of god, stop saying SC4 is hard because it's not and you either know that, or don't know any basic game maneuvers.

No no im not saying it was hard, but im talking about the tax system it had, wich i would like here for the challenge. in this game u dont have to touch the tax system at all wich is sad. Taxes shud matter more thats what im saying.

 

[Brabbit1987]

In my country i pay 36% taxes, so i know that already. But we are talking about the demand and the challenges that taxes brought to a game like Simcity 4, wich shud be in this game.

According to who? You? Oh .. when did you become the voice of the community?

How about this ... I got a solution for you. ... that ... pretty much makes everyone happy.

Wait for someone to make a mod or make it yourself. Problem solved.

 

[youngzack]

According to who? You? Oh .. when did you become the voice of the community?

How about this ... I got a solution for you. ... that ... pretty much makes everyone happy.

Wait for someone to make a mod or make it yourself. Problem solved.

If u want to make a point u shud have read the discussion first before jumping to the last comment.

 

[Brabbit1987]

If u want to make a point u shud have read the discussion first before jumping to the last comment.

I did read it ... and?

Edit: You replied to my comment saying that it "shud" be in the game.

 

[youngzack]

I did read it ... and?

Well then any smart person wud understood i said im happy with base game to learn it, and the taxing is a wish list that i think wud further the challenge OP was reffering to.

 

[Brabbit1987]

Well then any smart person wud understood i said im happy with base game to learn it, and the taxing is a wish list that i think wud further the challenge OP was reffering to.

Oh .. haha ha .. someone who can't even spell should and would is making a remark about intelligence. No .. no I understood you perfectly fine. The issue I had is you said it SHOULD be in the game. I disagree. What "should" be in the game is what the developers want to be in the game. Anything else can be created into a mod. Giving suggestions and thoughts is fine, but saying something should be in the game .. to me is too much.

I like the way taxes are in the game because they are realistic, and to me it should remain that way because it makes the most sense and is great for a base for others to alter using mods.

If this is pretty much what you meant, then you probably caused a misunderstanding due to the way you used the word should, or should i say "shud."

 

[YoDaddy]

Actually, lots of places have utilities that pay for itself - in fact, many utilities are private companies that make a profit generating power, so no, it's not that realistic for a city to shoulder all the cost of generating power.

It's also too easy for us to be never kicked out of office. A realistic game would end after at most a dozen years. Is that what's fun though? No.

How many of them were started with huge millions or billions of dollars of government investment?Currently a nuclear power plant costs over 1 billion USD. Solar and wind farms are very expensive and produce little power. As I said every map allows you to build super cheap renewable energy, and that is not realistic. Solar farms only power a few thousand homes. The solar power city in Nevada produces little power. It should be impossible to power your growing city with only renewable energy. You should have to start off building coal then oil and progress from there. Like in real life. Renewable only works on sunny or windy days, and it is plugged into the grid powered by other sources.

 

[youngzack]

Oh .. haha ha .. someone who can't even spell should and would is making a remark about intelligence. No .. no I understood you perfectly fine. The issue I had is you said it SHOULD be in the game. I disagree. What "should" be in the game is what the developers want to be in the game. Anything else can be created into a mod. Giving suggestions and thoughts is fine, but saying something should be in the game .. to me is too much.

I like the way taxes are in the game because they are realistic, and to me it should remain that way because it makes the most sense and is great for a base for others to alter using mods.

If this is pretty much what you meant, then you probably caused a misunderstanding due to the way you used the word should, or should i say "shud."

I can type perfectly, i live in a country where english is not the main tounge, so i am used to shorten things up, an old habit to save some pages in sms etc. And yes the "shud"(should) was only a refference to what i was talking about earlier so it was a missunderstanding. Let us keep to the topic, yes the base game is great right now, but the only challenge is traffic atm, which i can live with just to learn understand the mechanics of the game. But in the future i would like to hear more complaints about taxes, as irl this is an issue. For example in my country we got high taxes and high prices, but very good living standards. And still there are people who are unsatisfied about this system so they tend to live to neighbouring countries and beyond. It is nothing mass, but this is what i mean about what SC4 had, high taxes (even though not so high) made people leave and some come. There is infact a mode already, but this kinda huge mods can teak somethings in game that should not be touched, thats why im hoping some tax challenges could come in future patches.

 

[Brabbit1987]

I can type perfectly, i live in a country where english is not the main tounge, so i am used to shorten things up, an old habit to save some pages in sms etc. And yes the "shud"(should) was only a refference to what i was talking about earlier so it was a missunderstanding. Let us keep to the topic, yes the base game is great right now, but the only challenge is traffic atm, which i can live with just to learn understand the mechanics of the game. But in the future i would like to hear more complaints about taxes, as irl this is an issue. For example in my country we got high taxes and high prices, but very good living standards. And still there are people who are unsatisfied about this system so they tend to live to neighbouring countries and beyond. It is nothing mass, but this is what i mean about what SC4 had, high taxes (even though not so high) made people leave and some come. There is infact a mode already, but this kinda huge mods can teak somethings in game that should not be touched, thats why im hoping some tax challenges could come in future patches.

I am so confused because that is already in the game. People complain if you set taxes too high and move out. You seem to be acting as if this isn't already in the game when it is. It's just set at a more realistic level. People are not going to complain if the taxes are low. It literally would make no sense for someone to complain with 9 - 11% taxes.

If you set them higher than that, you most certainly will get some citizens complaining. In fact if you set it too high, people will up and leave your city extremely quick.

Of course there isn't any challenge when it comes to taxes, because low is good, high is bad. It's common sense. The only way you would struggle is if you set them high. Which you can do.