Don't get me wrong, I love this game and am playing every day, but why is one of the game designs that you need to ruin your city with crime levels, low education etc to access unique buildings? Am I'm missing something?
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'Wreck your city to unlock this building'
- Thread starter RedRalphWiggum
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I agree it is not my favorite design choice, but it is one technique to help teach about how some elements of a game function.
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Just build a new city to unlock the Courthouse. See https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/unlocking-the-courthouse.843931/
I read people saying unlocking these buildings will destroy cities in the process. Well Mr Mayor, try it and then try and make your city work again afterwards. It isn't as much of a disaster it it initially sounds. And you learn more about how to make cities work, and some of the brutal things you occasionally need to do to make them work. The high crime one is easiest achieved when the pop is between 2000 and 3000 - just don't put in police and health etc. Once you've achieved the requirement, make the Cims happy and get on growing the city. For 1000 abandoned buildings, try it later in the game (say 60,000 pop). At that point, you'll be upset at the idle area of your city, but things will keep running and you'll survive. Low tax I've approached by having high tax beforehand to build up a substantial cash buffer and then just run the city in the red for a while.
Do give each of them a try - they aren't as bad as you might initially fear, you only have to do them once, and you'll probably learn along the way.
Do give each of them a try - they aren't as bad as you might initially fear, you only have to do them once, and you'll probably learn along the way.
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I actually had a good time unlocking the courthouse. It took a while get my city setup right and have the reserves in the bank to survive. I went about 30k in the hole and had to take 2 loans, but I turned around and am still playing the same city. It was actually pretty fun and I look forward to trying to get some of the other harder ones.
Whats the big deal?
1) If you dont want the unlockables, dont pursue them, they are far from mandatory
2) If you do want the unlockables, and dont want to ruin your current city, just make another city that meets the unlockables demands.
Once the unlockables are unlocked, they stay that way persistently, so you can just go back to your original city and they will be all unlocked for you. Its a one time unlock deal.
No biggie. Move on.
1) If you dont want the unlockables, dont pursue them, they are far from mandatory
2) If you do want the unlockables, and dont want to ruin your current city, just make another city that meets the unlockables demands.
Once the unlockables are unlocked, they stay that way persistently, so you can just go back to your original city and they will be all unlocked for you. Its a one time unlock deal.
No biggie. Move on.
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Strongly agree. I will never unlock those buildings because I have no desire to bite off my nose to spite my face.
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One option is to make a back-up save of your city then use it to do the unlocks and when you're finished messing around if you want go back to its former glorious save. I think it'd be easy enough to get the building abandonment one done, just plunk down a water tower in a heavily polluted area and connect it to your pipes then watch as everyone dies and the whole city collapses on itself. Sometimes there's quite a thrill to go along with utter destruction and misery and trying to pull yourself back out of it. 
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I don't understand this statement. What game functions? What am I learning by going backwards that I would not have learned going forward?
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One would think a more sensible criteria would be things that are good for the city.
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no need to wreck your current city. just start a new city, ruin that one to get all the unlockables and then go back to your good city. Unlockables are unlocked forever and across all cities, not per city.
There is no issue here, move along.
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My comment was intended more generally as a design approach.
Maybe the idea in this case is to vary achievement some by getting the negative consequences perspective about what the police actually achieve in the game in terms of keeping crime in line, as well as the other facets that affect crime generation - such as the presence of education - which limit the ability to reach the specific achievement milestone.
As an extra thought after what I posted above here goes:
Perhaps the devs were thinking these things would most likely happen in players' cities at some point anyway and forgot to take into account that many of us have been playing at mayor for nearly twenty years now.
It can be a pain in the rear to have to play through something badly on purpose to get these things to unlock. There should be an option for them to be unlocked if a person prefers not to play these scenarios. So far, despite having learned ways to unlock them, I've yet to actually play through any of them because I much prefer sandbox play over scenarios in this kind of game. It's like many of us have discussed elsewhere about other formerly open, sandbox style games where goals and achievements were added in later iterations. If we wanted goals and achievements we'd play any one of the hundreds of games that are based on those designs. Granted, I love taking a horribly mismanaged city and turning it around but only as long as I'm not the one who mismanaged it to begin with. I realize some people do enjoy set goals but again playing badly shouldn't be mandatory for unlocking buildings in a city builder.
Perhaps the devs were thinking these things would most likely happen in players' cities at some point anyway and forgot to take into account that many of us have been playing at mayor for nearly twenty years now.
It can be a pain in the rear to have to play through something badly on purpose to get these things to unlock. There should be an option for them to be unlocked if a person prefers not to play these scenarios. So far, despite having learned ways to unlock them, I've yet to actually play through any of them because I much prefer sandbox play over scenarios in this kind of game. It's like many of us have discussed elsewhere about other formerly open, sandbox style games where goals and achievements were added in later iterations. If we wanted goals and achievements we'd play any one of the hundreds of games that are based on those designs. Granted, I love taking a horribly mismanaged city and turning it around but only as long as I'm not the one who mismanaged it to begin with. I realize some people do enjoy set goals but again playing badly shouldn't be mandatory for unlocking buildings in a city builder.
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You don't think it's an issue that the optimal strategy to access some of the content is to start a dummy city to destroy before going back to the real game? imagine if UE4 said you couldn't play as a Republic until you'd taken a Muslim country and ruined it.
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I think it's an interesting idea if it wasn't so extreme. For example if you unlocked the courthouse whenever you were having trouble with crime and that building actually helped with crime. If on the other hand, your cities never struggle with crime you don't need the courthouse anyway (again assuming a scenario where the building affected the crime rate). I can agree though that the current way it is set up doesn't really make sense....a rediculous crime rate that is almost impossible to get through normal play for bascially a tourist attraction. Still, I don't see any reason to get upset about it. As has already been mentioned, unlock the building once and you'll always have it, no big deal. That's one of the first things I did with the game, built up a test city to learn my way around the UI and to unlock the buildings. Once that was done, it was done. Easy peasy.
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No I don't think its an issue at all. You dont want to do it dont do it. Its totally optional. But to present that you have to ruin your good city to get these optional unlockables as fact is untrue. No one is forcing you to get the unlockables, and no one is forcing you to destroy your good city to get them either.
You want everything handed to you with no work involved and the unlockables feature is not designed for that. Its for people who enjoy the little challenges associated with unlock them. I have had a lot of fun accomplishing the challenges. Its even fun to try to get them on a "good" city, and then recover from the brink of doom.
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Actually I like that some of the rarer unlockables are extreme in nature to get. Gives me a feeling of satsifaction when I accomplish them.
Trying to be as diplomatic as possible & as polite as possible............................. Um no
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As valid a point as the OP made it is in the end moot.
Can't someone make a mod or a map we all can use just to get this (clears throat) *achivement*?
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LOL - Hilarious to me that people have a problem with this. There was a recent development in the gaming industry that will help you deal with this issue. It's called a "save-game". See, with this nifty innovation, you can keep a good version of your city tucked away, nice and safe. Then, if you go for the courthouse (or whatever building it is), and you can't get your city back up to spec, this so-called "save-game" will allow you to "load" the original city, still all prim and proper, ready for you to keep playing like nothing happened.
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