Cities Unlimited

[Sap59 3]

in my opinion i could do without the culture thing, if i wanted that i just go out and buy SC:S or CL, but if it is included in CU it should be minimized and shouldn't overrun the aspect of the game.

perhaps even make it as an option.

[MayorCain 2]

Im going to be honest here. I quite like City Life, but as a Sim City 4 player, it let me down.

I wont buy Sim City societies as it completely obliterates the way sim city games should be.

City Life had alot going for it, but I went into it as a Sim City 4 player, with expectations that were not met. Firstly, I wanted to be able to build a realistic city.

In City Life, you kind of cant... you are stuck with seggregating certain people into their own ghettos or zones. I preffered the economic rather than social aspect of Sim city 4. Poor people as in real life tend to be stuck in their own areas, and mid to high class people are also in their own areas too. But with city life, it was just social.

So the mid class were the Radical Chic and Suits communities etc etc. Which was fine but they had to be kept seperate from each other.

I hated this aspect as you couldnt mix buildings together to get a disersified looking city. Every area had its own distinct flavour yes... but it just didnt feel 'real'.

With sim city 4, the whole city looked diverse and mixed, only because it relied on wealth classes rather than social prefference, but sim city 4 cities were the most realistic of all.

If Cities Unlimited does away with the social conflicts system i WILL buy it. You couldnt really do downtown areas in city life, as all the classes had to be kept seperate so you would get tall buildings all over the place rather that in a downtown core. Every city has a 'core'. I didnt like the premise as well that you had to spoon feed your people what they wanted. When you build a neighbourhood, they want basic things. As the city grows, they want more unique things. Thats true. But, when you have to plop down 5 hospitals in the same area because the city has grown so large this small neighbourhood thinks it needs 5 hospitals and 5 police stations and 5 different-but-the-same shopping centres, it just didnt do it for me. Sim city 4 worked well. Capacity. You needed only to boost the amount of hospitals around the city to increase their capacity. With city life, once the city started to grow larger, EVERY single resident in the city demands more healthcare, even though they may have plenty of access to it within the hospitals radius. So basically each house wanted to be within the radii of 5 different hospitals.

Sim City Societies blatantly looked at City Life and thought... they did social classes. Now we can too. But... in a really silly way. By recruiting Tilted Mill, renowned for its very fun city building games of past societies such as Caesar VI and Children of the Nile. So they have trashed the traditional city building system we all know and love (thanks maxis ), and threw in a new formula.

I dont think it works. I dont like plopping cities. I like to tell my city, OK. Theres an area your allowed to build some houses. Go build. And depending on the myriad of factors at work, something will build there. But it could be anything. It could be a poor shanty area. Or, it could be a massive mansion fit for a king.

I will probably buy Cities unlimited just because it looks nice. But I want rid of the social class system. It was too annoying even though it made perfect realistic sense on paper, within the game it wasnt realistic at all.

[Androv 6]

I've got to admit it was annoying having to supply the new suburb with a clinic, hospital (which had a radius of like 10 houses anyway) and so on

I liked the cultures as I've said, it was possible to have the skyscrapers sorta merge in the middle so you could have a suit side and a chic side, but it was easier just to make 'suit skyscraper central' and have the chics elsewhere.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Most intriguing.  There is no question that they have stepped up to the plate.  The release will either be a hit or a foul ball.

[The_Dalai_Llama 15]

I think the Simtropolis fans have spoken... Cities Unlimited will be the definitive city-building simulation in the near future. I'm much more interested in this than SCS.

[Micah 16]

Speaking of release dates, are there any guesses for when the game might come out? Sure, there won't be an exact date, but will at least be from August to October of next year or what?

[thatmonkeysim 8]

As far as anyone knows... its next year but we'll find out when the site comes up next month

[aeronov91 0]

These are my requests

Culture that develops on how the city grows (aka, a new culture based on how the city develops, not what you put into the city)

Tons of trasportation options, roads, rails, Busways, pedestrain only zones, underground highways, in road light rail, subways, boat taxis, and anything else that can be though of

Realistic zoning techniques (aka, winding cul-de-sac roads in certain disticnt suburbs and gridlike uniformity in others)

a 3D environment please, 360 degree angle all the way around and buildings that look real

the transit qwery button, so helpful in building new transit systems.

a near limitless array of buildings and a building creator (easy to use preferably)

realistic traffic -please

easy moddibility

AND BIGGEST OF ALL, PLEASE CREATE A VERSION FOR A MAC

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE

thank you

peter

[mightygoose 92]

well someones gone for the multimilliondollar shopping list... do you want it to do 0-60 in 3.2s as well??? no i think that about covers it nicely..

[waway625 72]

personally, itd add to the realism if buildings took longer to construct/demolish

ive always been frustrated (in SC4) when i see a high rise building suddenly dissapear to be replaced by a bigger building..

[Kevin 101]

Originally posted by: waway625 personally, itd add to the realism if buildings took longer to construct/demolishquote>

How long are we talking about here? If I wanted to replace one building with another and it took a long time to demolish the old one and construct the new one, I'd get very frustrated.

[doodlea21 31]

This new game sounds very promising - 3d graphics, a decent haul of transportation options and a fairly large set of buildings. I am instantly confirmed this will be better than Simcity Societies.

[waway625 72]

Originally posted by: Cheese89

Originally posted by: waway625 personally, itd add to the realism if buildings took longer to construct/demolishquote>

How long are we talking about here? If I wanted to replace one building with another and it took a long time to demolish the old one and construct the new one, I'd get very frustrated.quote>

maybe the half the time it took it to build?

but make the build time longer, say a year for large buildings

[panthersimcity4 162]

Sweet mother of God

Did you see that globe? A GLOBE!!!

[rctshack 182]

Originally posted by: waway625

Originally posted by: Cheese89

Originally posted by: waway625 personally, itd add to the realism if buildings took longer to construct/demolishquote>

How long are we talking about here? If I wanted to replace one building with another and it took a long time to demolish the old one and construct the new one, I'd get very frustrated.quote>

maybe the half the time it took it to build?

but make the build time longer, say a year for large buildingsquote>

I agree. Plus very rarely should a skyscraper be demolished. It's headline news when a city demolishes a skyscraper. And most are imploded... so maybe a report that pops up in whatever system they use to feed information to us, that tells us that this building has been bought and going to be imploded. After that happens, maybe a few month for clean up then another 9 months to a year to constuct the new skyscraper in its place. That's a the real way that it happens. Houses take at least a month to build, offices take more time, and downtown stuff takes forever. I live a block away from a 70 story skyscraper they are building in downtown here, and I have lived here for a year and they have built it all the way to the top, but the cranes are still putting the finishing touches on it. Subways and stuff should take the same amount of time as the real world too.

Personally SC4 was fun, but we missed a lot of real world issue because of lack of realism. Traffic wasn't real, building and constuction times were not real, scale was off, population ratios were off, really almost everything didn't connect to each other.

[rctshack 182]

On the same subject, maybe a way to plan out in advance what to construct. Lets say you have an option that would say "Planning Mode" and you could cunstuct a highway and it would instantly show up but be 50% transparent, and it would show the price and any structures that would be demolished... maybe a place for residents comments and the transportation advisor tells you what you need to do for a more efficient system. Then when you exit, it is added to a list where it is labled "Highway Master Plan #1" and then you can choose to build it when you have funding, or maybe a 50 year pay off plan or something. Same with subways and airports and so on. This way it could be easier to afford it because you have loaned money that will be payed off later over a matter of many years. It could also stop a lot of mistakes from occuring where I accidently plop a highway on the wrong tile and a building is demolished and so on. It is pre-planning.

[Kevin 101]

If the game were to be more realistic as far as construction times go, I would have to insist upon a sandbox mode where I am free to create without having to wait

[warrior 169]

Rctshack: That sounds a load more realistic, it would be awesome if it was added to CU.

[tomahack 0]

Phillippe: As mentionned on your blog

Here's a few idea for CU "More detailled here"

You have choice for :

1) Solo Campaign / SC4 Oriented where you choose your terrain, etc..

2) Online Campaign / MonteCristo Oriented

I will debate the second option,

Imagine, you open the game,

OPTION 1

1. You click on the button "Online Campaign"
2. The game ask you to register online and entering your cd-key :-)
3. You see the big EARTH we seen in the screenshots
4. When you click on the earth, it'll zoom in until you reach your destination terrain!
5. YOU pick a CITY to Go IN, and see how much vacant Neighborhood are available

6. YOU, as a player, can select to build a NEIGHBORHOOD inside a city of your choice (EXAMPLE) - I log in, and this month, i want to build the SOHO neighborhood of NEW YORK.
7. So, Each month, as an example, YOU(Monte Cristo) can upload to a website the entire EARTH people had created and then submit a VOTE to see which one as do the better job in his neighborhood.

8. The month after, everything is reset, but you keep your scores.
9. Maybe, CU can have some landmarks building for each neighborhood specificly.

OPTION 2

• You(Monte cristo) Have multiple servers

1. Server 1 = Rank ( 0 - 50,000 citizens)
2. Server 2 = Rank (50,001 - 200,000)
3. server 3 = Rank (200,001 - 500,000)
4. Server 4 = Rank ) 500,001 - 1,000,000)
5. Server 5 = Rank (1,000,001 - 5,000,000)
6. Server 6 = Rank (5,000,000 +)

1. You connect to the Main game server everytime by clicking "Online Campaign"
2. Regions are expandable, server1 = little region, server2 bigger..etc..
3. You can upgrade your region by contacting an agent or Bidding online to get a new region.

OPTION 3 ( very difficult mode )

• Abilities to create your own unique construction company inside the game itself.

1. When playing the OPTION2, you just grow your city. grow grow and grow. So...
2. When youre zoning a new "Zone square" like in sc4, for commercial, industrial, residential. Maybe it should be fun to get Bids for how much they charge you to build the entire "ZONES" you want to build.

EXAMPLE:

You're playing the game, and you want to expand. You draw a square of 50x50 of residential zones. After clicking, a menu appears, showing you the players online having a company, and how much they charge you.

This can replace the cost you normally paid for the zones. And the CASH goes to SOMEBODY ELSE online. So your economy, make the others economy grows too. Not bad eh ?

Thanks for reading!

PS. I forgot to mention something important and interesting...

In every modes ONLINE, it SHOULD...well, IT MUST have an option to get electricity, water, garbage contract with other real city(mayor(players))

Tom

Reason for editing: Forgot to mention virtual contracts.

[yoshikoroyimara 5]

and again talking about regions...or cities...

it should be like real life...cities aren't mostly square...so it would be great in CU to let the player expand the city in any shape or form (mostly likely straight edges, though)...if you look at San Jose...it's not square...or like Houston...or Tokyo...or Berlin...so maybe the player should be allowed to purchase land for expansion or the city can incorporate the land when it wants...that way it would be much more interesting to create neighboring cities that aren't square...

good example is this map of Alameda county in the Bay Area...where I'm from:

the cities aren't square...and there are empty spaces (county lands) between some of them...also, some seem to wrap around others and some cities are squished between two more...

it would also help where we can build roads and freeways without actually having to make a city...that was an unfortunate thing about SC4...in order to place a freeway route between two separated cities, a third city must be named for that freeway to be placed...so maybe in CU, they should allow players to build freeways and other transportations wherever they wish, but when they zone, that new community should then have a name...

[masochist 111]

Originally posted by: rctshack On the same subject, maybe a way to plan out in advance what to construct. Lets say you have an option that would say "Planning Mode" and you could cunstuct a highway and it would instantly show up but be 50% transparent, and it would show the price and any structures that would be demolished... maybe a place for residents comments and the transportation advisor tells you what you need to do for a more efficient system. Then when you exit, it is added to a list where it is labled "Highway Master Plan #1" and then you can choose to build it when you have funding, or maybe a 50 year pay off plan or something. Same with subways and airports and so on. This way it could be easier to afford it because you have loaned money that will be payed off later over a matter of many years. It could also stop a lot of mistakes from occuring where I accidently plop a highway on the wrong tile and a building is demolished and so on. It is pre-planning.quote>

I agree with warrior...this sounds like a good idea, rct!  A really good idea.  I know in SC4, the balance is so delicate that accidentally plopping a single street tile on top of a huge residential tower could take many Simmonths to correct.  If this idea could be implemented into CU, not only would it add a new and very real aspect of urban design, but it would also save loads of money and time for those with unsteady hands.

[dasilva 3]

Hmmm... Lot of interesting ideas since my last reply...

I'll have to compile them and submit them to the game design team... I'll keep you posted.

[Ace_F15 16]

Wow.. I have to say, I am just about as gleeful as a kid in a candy store right now. What an amazing looking game.

[Jman47 0]

Truly, truly impressive. I love what i see so far, and even if CU doesnt meet all my expectations, it already blows societies out of the water without a fighting chance. Phillipe, i wish you and the rest of ur team best of luck, and i must commend you on your commitment to keeping the community informed. In the dark days of the post societies announcement, this is a ray of hope.

As for City Life, i personally liked it but to improve you definitly need more transit options and region play in some form is important too. those are my suggestions for CU....... for now. i will probably come up with and post more later, but one things for sure, i cant wait to do a CU cj!

Oh and just call me josh.

[AngKH1982 1]

Originally posted by: Ace_F15 Wow.. I have to say, I am just about as gleeful as a kid in a candy store right now. What an amazing looking game.quote>

 

Haha..That makes two of us...hmmm...candy

[waway625 72]

any time frame as to when we could expect to have this game on our harddrives?

[warrior 169]

Originally posted by: Ace_F15 Wow.. I have to say, I am just about as gleeful as a kid in a candy store right now. What an amazing looking game.quote>

 

Couldn't have put it better, 

Good luck to the evreybody involved making CU.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

Please make subway to ground level like we have in Brooklyn NY. It's like a sunken highway but with subway tracks. Then it goes up to elevated rail over road.

[Alkaola 18]

Man this looks interesting, if there is a possibility to terraform your own region this game can be better than sc4 ( if modding and batting is possible for the city build part of course)

[rctshack 182]

maybe time for another little "accidental" leak maybe?