Two Million and Growing

[Omnius1Prime]

Bet that title caught your attention. Of course I'm not playing Skylines when I've got a city of two million and growing. I found Cities XXL to be vastly superior to Skylines, I can make big populous cities and things work the way they're supposed to. No annoying Chirper, the most worthless and annoying game feature of all time.

This is why I gave up on Skylines, we can't make big populous cities. I made a 13-tile city in Skylines with 575,000 population and had it running nicely. Unfortunately tourism and the Space Elevator were broken after about 330,000 population. Sad that with AD the developers refused to fix this glaring problem.

Skylines is very frustrating, we are given huge maps then told we can only build on a small portion of them, the dreaded 9 tile limit. While I did get the mod that allowed me to buy more tiles I soon found that at 13 tiles I was reaching the practical maximum for building count as well as timing for transportation to get things to businesses before they close due to a lack of something.

When the developers of Skylines decide to fix legacy issues like tourism and the Space Elevator at higher levels of population then perhaps Skylines will be worth returning to. When the developers decide to fix core problems like death care or pathetic traffic programming then Skylines won't be so frustrating to play. I hope they also ditch the lame building requirements that force players to do stupid things in their games and save them in order to unlock buildings. Logical ones that make us wait for a city to reach a certain level or buildings that have other buildings as requirements are good.

Until the developers of Skylines decide to really improve the problems the game has themselves instead of relying on modders then Skylines just isn't worth playing. I love how Cities XXL isn't so frustrating or annoying as Skylines or SimCity. I love being able to use the whole map to build a very populous city. Plus things look far more realistic like the farms and big buildings. I also like that traffic isn't so frustrating with multi-lane roads and highways not having most of the traffic using only one lane. Best of all, in Cities XXL, I can build more cities and then set up trade between them, like in SimCity but something Skylines won't let us do.

 

[Erocco]

I too quit playing this road simulator game. When I played it I spent 80% of my time building roads, demolishing roads and rebuilding them again to cope with the awful traffic AI. 80% of the time on something that is actually broken is not worth my time. Thank God for modders and mods like Network Extensions and Traffic++ but they make the game awfully slow. I like a city builder game that challenges me with multiple fronts properly like in real life. Logical traffic, crime, education, beautification etc. Something like SC 4 which is the king of city builder games. CS has the potential but I think it will never be as good as SC4 due to too many restrictions. In SC 4 I created dozens of cities with the same excitement every time. CS I got bored the third time I tried to start a city.

 

[killswitch]

I must admit I expected a lot more from this game. It is lacking, but I'd never give my money to the Cities XXL crowd. I could flush the cash and feel more satisfaction.

 

[Greygor69]

Well I was planning a nicely balanced reply, but in the end there's little point when the OP appears so willfully blind to the faults of the game he holds up as an example.

And this is from someone who plays Cities XXL (despite it's obvious faults).

 

[mntoes]

Don't you know that he works for Focus Home interactive?

 

[Admiral666]

Well I was planning a nicely balanced reply, but in the end there's little point when the OP appears so willfully blind to the faults of the game he holds up as an example.

And this is from someone who plays Cities XXL (despite it's obvious faults).

Exactly the conclusion I reached.

 

[Turjan]

This game certainly has its warts (which one doesn't), but Cities XXL is definitely not the solution for me. I've played in particular Simcity 4 and now Cities: Skylines for such long times I'd rather not mention them , but the Cities series never managed to grasp my attention for long. That game didn't click with me.

 

[armarayo]

There's some really nice stuff for a city builder and simulator in XL which all city planners love and I was amazed so little inspiration the devs got from it.
My biggest problem with XL was always that id doesn't have rail, sure there is fantastic tram mod and brilliant monorail mod, but no actual rail with passenger and freight, so Skylines is more modern and realistic for me - albeit I loved some features of XL.

 

[KR153]

I was amazed so little inspiration the devs got from it.

This. Why not looking at all the builders of the past 10 years and forge the best of it into one? Instead we get a dumbed down but slightly expanded SC...
My guess is that they simply are not able to make it look that good. In direct comparison CSL looks like it was 5- 6 years older than CXXL. You can cry all you want, you simply can´t deny it. All the additional game features that CSL has are pretty much worthless with the limitations that come with them. Even worse: It will not change in the future since no real citisizm is executed here.
But I must wonder about the OP´s intention... This is a known fanboy forum, with all the blind denial that comes with it.
Now, let the "Disagrees" rain... as if it would mean a damn thing.

 

[Husarz92]

Cities XXL is horrible, full stop.

I enjoy playing Cities:SL, the main problem of this game is that the cities after a while get nice and dead. I badly want to solve other problems aside from traffic, crime can be improved, I would badly like to have a city which, if mismanaged, get chaotic, slum appears, neighbourhood get dirty and unsafe and so on...

 

[Admiral666]

This is a known fanboy forum, with all the blind denial that comes with it.

Sigh.

 

[caracol]

I think the short answer is: Cities XXL is a city builder, Cities: Skylines is a city simulation. Each to its own, but there is a big diferrence between a good looking spreadsheet game and a game that tries to simulate all variables, not just represent them in some way that has nothing to do with what is actually going on.

 

[FieldMedic]

Cities XXL on Steam.

"User reviews: Mostly Negative(1,364 reviews)"

Ok, moving right along then.

 

[Zed68]

Even worse: It will not change in the future since no real citisizm is executed here.

Wow you must have missed a lot of posts and threads.

 

[MarkJohnson]

This. Why not looking at all the builders of the past 10 years and forge the best of it into one? Instead we get a dumbed down but slightly expanded SC...

Ironically that is exactly what CO did. They merged the old spreadsheet city simulators with the new agent based city simulators and came up with Cities: Skyline.

My guess is that they simply are not able to make it look that good.

They could make it look fantastic if they were to make a mapmaker. instead then chose to make it a simulator with actual cims living in it. Those agents take up a huge amount of the CPU power leaving very little left over for full DX12 bling graphics so they chose low-resolution graphics to save power for the simulation.

In direct comparison CSL looks like it was 5- 6 years older than CXXL.

That depends what you are comparing. CXXL may look prettier, but CSL has more of a simulation and more consequences for not building properly.

Myself, I prefer the gaming challenges, apparently you just want a mapmaker that looks pretty. I'm still surprised there isn't a single mapmaker type game. I mean all city simulators could easily disable zll of the agents and or demands and let users make city in a sandbox type mode with no bad consequences. I've been teling Maxis this for years. Just make an easy mode. Seems simple enough.

You can cry all you want, you simply can´t deny it. All the additional game features that CSL has are pretty much worthless with the limitations that come with them.

Sorry, but you're the only one crying. And a lot of us are always complaining. This is how the few limits were raised. Becaused we spoke up and they listened. Try complaining to CSL to make a easy mode with no game mechanics so you can build however you want. It seems simple to do. You just have to push for it like the rest of us. Just be more constructive in your posts or no one will take you seriously.

Even worse: It will not change in the future since no real citisizm is executed here.
But I must wonder about the OP´s intention... This is a known fanboy forum, with all the blind denial that comes with it.
Now, let the "Disagrees" rain... as if it would mean a damn thing.

It means a lot and works if you post constructively. If your post read negatively then you won't be taken seriously and just get ignored.

I wish you luck on your mission if you so choose to accept it.
-=Mark=-[/quote][/quote]

 

[Paranoyd]

I consider SC4 to be the basis to measure most city builder games. C:SL is a step above it, in my opinion. I like seeing the immediate impact a change has on my city. SC$, you just see a general idea and have to check a graph to really see the impact. C:SL let's you see exactly what happens when and where: If you need to track a traffic problem, you go to the source and chase it down, fix it and you can visibly see what happens. In SC4 all you see are graphs, charts and different colors to represent these things.

 

[Turjan]

Try complaining to CSL to make a easy mode with no game mechanics so you can build however you want. It seems simple to do.

That one actually existed since release day. "Unlock all", "Unlimited Money"...
If what you built isn't completely unviable, you can even switch that off later on.

 

[Greygor69]

Cities XXL on Steam.

"User reviews: Mostly Negative(1,364 reviews)"

Ok, moving right along then.

To be fair, and I hate being fair with such an idiotic thread, the reason for the mostly negative is a backlash from Steam Idiots because they didn't think XXL was different enough from XL.

You generally cannot prove a point by using Steam User Reviews, it's a system that is broken and open to abuse.

However, their are fundamental problems with Cities XXL, it is an excellent City Builder, but it's a very poor City Simulator that Focus Interactive do not seem interested in fixing. Holding it up as an example of what should be done in a modern City Simulator seems really strange.

After saying that I would be really happy if C:SL devs looked at two things it does quite well; Agriculture and the decoration filler.

 

[Turjan]

To be fair, and I hate being fair with such an idiotic thread, the reason for the mostly negative is a backlash from Steam Idiots because they didn't think XXL was different enough from XL.

You are right with the point that the marginal changes from this game over the predecessor are the reason for the bad rating. It's not idiotic though. The new version changed a few cosmetic aspects without touching the obvious issues the game had, so I think that buyers have a right to be upset. CIties XL Platinum has "mixed" ratings, which is a fair assessment I would say.

After saying that I would be really happy if C:SL devs looked at two things it does quite well; Agriculture and the decoration filler.

I agree that these things were done quite well. The zoning block design of CSL may stand against that. However, I think that at least agriculture needs some better solution than at the moment, with either huge attached fields, or with switching the nature of agriculture to greenhouses and vegetable plots, not wheat fields.

 

[Co Starring]

Basic mechanics, like one way traffic, fixed yet?
No...didn't think so...

To be fair, and I hate being fair with such an idiotic thread, the reason for the mostly negative is a backlash from Steam Idiots because they didn't think XXL was different enough from XL.

You generally cannot prove a point by using Steam User Reviews, it's a system that is broken and open to abuse.

However, their are fundamental problems with Cities XXL, it is an excellent City Builder, but it's a very poor City Simulator that Focus Interactive do not seem interested in fixing. Holding it up as an example of what should be done in a modern City Simulator seems really strange.

After saying that I would be really happy if C:SL devs looked at two things it does quite well; Agriculture and the decoration filler.

Oh yeah. hi Greygor...
FWIW, CXL series does the same as the A-Train series.
They make big, huge promises. And don't deliver.
Yet they create a next version with the fairytale about "serious improvements which are worth 20 euro's" (stuff which should have been in the game. Missing trains in A-Train is very much alike to FIFA with missing players/teams. I don't recall the specifics for CXL anymore (some bugs have been in the game since the closed beta (of which I was part as well))
1-way traffic for one
I know they kept info close to their chests about content in the earlier re-hashes.... screwed a lot of people.
So, fair is fair. Screw people over and you get angy mobs...

It's not Steam backlash, it's payback for the lies and subversions....
I'm surprised the people at A-Train on Steam are not wielding pitchforks and brandishing torches etc...