The New Official Next Generation Sim City Wish List

[geekzilla 0]

... and maybe even a Linux compatible version (I hate having to use WINE)

-- GEEKzILLA

[LB_Industries 4]

in view of "as real as possible" most of my wishes are said. so here just some wishes i belive won't said here :

traffic signs and rail signals

in real mode ( option of the game )

traffic ligths has to be placed (not only on x - ings ) and may be the player can 

adjust how the switch and when.

Signs beside or over roads ( and other ) like no parking, speed limit a.s.o.

if not standart traffic rules ( depend of country )

Rail signals to control (logical) rail traffic

Design & traffic

as i am an european i like to be able to build cities more european ( very small grid allows splined road and rails also regarding slopes no corners 

more possibilities for ped. traffic (EU inner cities [downtowns] often for ped only )

cars don't dissapear but need parking places. If there are none they take the roadside

( gets more realistic, parking is a hughe city problem a player should solve)

With this mass transit is a part of possible solution by offering park and ride f.e.

region

a region sholud be very big with adjustable climate zones over the region

and seasons

a city startb püoint can be selected free somewhere in the region . no spereate city system as now in SC4 .

The major of a citie has to buy land from the region if city need that to expand.

A city can buy other neigbour cities to make them a part of it.

adjustable :

different goods, recources, human recources comming from outside the region or can be shipped to the outside worl of region.

otherewise the region has to produce it .

for that rail or road connecting is needed to teh outside world.

Those region road and rails can be build on teh country instead it belongs not to a city

as said in the thread : cities the player is not playing run in the same time as the actual city

it can be adjust if the player runs the citie or  a kind of

ups !!!

to continue

...it can be adjust if the player runs the cities or a kind of AI runs the not human control cities.

Multiplayer should be possible. How this should work should be a extra thread

City areas are not squared. The frontiers of a city is a spline too expanding by buying land from region.

Bus, rails and other mass transit can be run in private mode ( then as it is now in SC4) or in major mode ( then the player has to buy f.e. buses, adjuste the bus lines from where to where and when) making contracts with other citys that f.e. buses can go in an other city to connect them by bus to his own city.

mmmmh i should stop here and give the summary :

AS REAL AS POSSIBLE

btw SC5 as i see is a game ( not a simulator as SC4 ) good for kids under 10 years old made for selling expansion packs

and it seems "as unreal as possible" so no way to buy it for me

[Lord Baylum 0]

1) EXPANDED transport menus , growable buidings , reward and other MENU toolbars plus misc. already programmed into the original default SC5.

2) THE same ISOMETRIC view. possible with greater camera dynamics like 360 camera revolutions.

3) SATELLITE imagery styled graphics easier than 3-D models plus will be extremly more realistic looking.(like flying in a airplane @ low altitudes

Sim City Societies is not stealing the Sim City 5 name. All franchises have there ridiculous offshoots.Case in point FFx_2 , 3-D Contra. Castlevania Curse of Darkness compared to the beautiful;l Lament Of innocence. Star Craft Ghost. Companies always test crap that people don't want .PLEASE DON"T BUT IT . (DIE SCS DIE!!!!!)

NO SIMCITY 5 will be a reality as long as you guys don't buy SCS up like hotcakes

[Cob92 360]

This is how land should work: A city is started by choosing any available plot of land in the region to build on. Land surrounding the city can be annexed for a cost, depending on the size of the plot. Any city can annex any plot of land provided that the land lies adjacent to it and that the city has enough cash.

The above mention land system would allow cities of more realistic (bigger than 16 square km) sizes, as well as irregular boundaries and enclaves.

[DeiBellum 0]

i would like to see:

1. Better traffic path finding and the ability to choose bus/train routes and their time tables

2. Linux Compatible version (Big plus)

3. Ability to say what kind of traffic can go down certain roads and HOV lanes

4. Agree with the Billboards

5. Get rid of the advisers or make them shut up every once in a while (unless for a tutorial or a city on easy)

6. Realistic Home accommodations (no more 75people living in a mid size home)

7. Weather and the ability for Natural Disasters

8. Better sounds for things like Sirens, helicopters, etc

9. Better graphics that don't look cartoony (*cough* SCS *cough*)

10. More zones and the ability to add-on to structures instead of having to add an entire new one.

11. Easy B.A.T tool that doesn't have dependencies (gmax for the current one)

12. Have regions be the size of a state or much larger than they are currently

13. Correct scale for everything

14. Seamless integration and trading between regions

15. Real Money budget (i.e. millions+Billions of dollars instead of thousands and single denominations)

--may edit later--

[super reaper 0]

1. Bigger cities

2. more roads design stuff

3. bigger buildings

4. Highways should be larger than a blvd

5. possibility of building roads and buildings in all directions

6. graphics dont need to be better, only gameplay

7. Be less caring of environment

8. Having regional gvts that could ask you to build army base, highways in your city

9. Online gaming:

a server will be a kind of region where players will be able to create their own life in the city and also be the mayor.

- possibility of buying lands from your neighboors or merging cities(admin wich will be region gvt can force small cities to merge with a bigger one and thoses cities will have a special title as district in wich they will be able to still control stuff like building houses, schools and they will receive a title for the city such as responsible for police/fire deprtment or energy.

- A normal player will be able to start his life in the city like he wan. He can go to school and then get hire in a job, kill peoples, start his own bussiness..., buy a house or rent an appartment in downtown

- you will be able to see neighboorhood cities, when building a road ot an other city, the other city will have to give its aprobation

- possibility of building a common road in between the two cities and also being able to build bridges between cities, possibility of buying electricity from regional gvt insted of building your own electrics facilities.

10. Dams and others electric facilities will also generate more power. Like a city of 200 000 people(like I use to build) will only need 1 electric facility insted of 10-15.

11. more weather conditions such as hot days and whinterstorms

[chris_silver 1]

CLIMATE!!! A major factor in all cities, it is been virtually ignored until now. I want to see snow, rain, sand, WHATEVER!! (It would be great if the regions you constructed actually had a weather system, ie. Sea + mountains=more rain and snow!)

DIFFERENT BUILDING STYLES!!! Not everyone lives in New York or Dallas, lets have Mediterranean, Oriental, Alpine etc. THAT WOULD BE GREAT!!!

ABOVE GROUND WATER!!! It's just more realistic . . .and most importantly

DIFFERENT ANGLES!!!!!!!! Wouldn't you get so much more attatched to your city if you could see what it was like walking on the pavement with the mountains towering up around you, or the endless sea ahead of you, or skyscrapers either side??!!

OTHERWISE KEEP IT UP IT'S A GREAT FRANCHISE WITH A LUCRATIVE FUTURE! (PLEASE COME BACK TO US MAXIS!!!!!)

[castironpigeon 1]

In case anyone's actually reading this that may someday make the next SimCity... all I want is a more robust and organized custom content system. As for other features pick any dozen or two of the ones already suggested as they're all great ideas.

[SIMplMn9 0]

For the real SC5.. I only ask for a few things:

First off : REALISTIC AND NATURAL!

Look at cities around the globe.  How many are strict, flat, grid cities?  I would like to be able to try and put a road up a monthain and have it become a switchback road up to the peak.  Be able to have a coastal road that will conform to the coastline.

When building residentials, they never stay gridlike.  How about a winding suburb?  That would help a bit more.

2nd: Capital District

A place for the central government of your city, so that you have a are laid out for city hall, courthouse, etc.

3rd: Military aspect.

I know most people would enjoy the seciryt of living next to a military faciity.  Also, many bases have a residential area next to them.  Beside, nothing says realism than having a miltary recriutment are.

4th: Weather as an aspect.

Hurricanes baring down on my city?  I want to be able to prepare for it, and watch my city attempt tp survive an hurricane.  Heat wave on teh city?  Crippling Blizzard?  These are all aspect of cities, and should be included.

5th: Natural Boundaries.

Most cities do not just grwo and said lets stop here and call it a boundary.  When planning most cities use their natural boundaries.  Ocean, mountains, rivers, anything that give a clear boundary.

6th: More coopertive play.

With such things as the SCJU popping up, its gets me wishing for an online feature where you work with other cities, or other nations, with transits, export, imports, and diplomtic stances.  It would be awesome to see how a city grows with a non-npc player playing for a different aspect.  Most cities do not shar the same mentaility.

Everything else pretty much is covered by others.

[Androv 6]

I'd actually like to see a bit >less< detail in the actual construction of suburbs (prepares to be shot down in flames).

The problem I had with SC4 was that it was very time consuming to build each individual area of the city, so much so that I never really had the time or energy to creating vast metropolises.  The biggest city I ever created was probably only 200,000 or so, and that was spread across a number of city tiles.

What I'd like to see is:

1)  Remove streets from the game (or at least small suburban roads).  Instead, let us focus on making the main roads only.  I'll chuck an example in here (credit to Google Earth).  We should also be able to lay rail lines, subways and other forms of transit, just not the small suburban streets.

2) Then, you could simply 'fill' an area with a specific zoning type - eg: 100% residential, >90% residential (for some corner stores etc), 50% residential/50% commercial, and so on (not to many options to avoid complexity).  The game could then create that area of the city for you, according to certain specifications (maybe grid/rounded/haphazard).

By simplifying the number of roads that need to be placed, you could easily draw up a major city in a much shorter period of time.  Traffic pathfinding would be easier because it could just ignore all of the minor roads (bloody Sims always liked to turn off my highway on to some tiny street because it was somehow 'faster').  A certain 'district' could be given a set number of sims or jobs and then find them from surrounding sectors without having to trace down each individual house.

This is much more like original SimCity and even SimCity 2000 where each 'zone' represented quite a large area (more than a single suburban block at least).

As for region play, it was nice to spread my city out over multiple kilometers, but hopefully with the above system you could easily fit a 16x16km city onto a single map.

3) The 'region' should be the surrounding countryside, including major farming and mining centres, tourist attractions and other villages/towns.  You could edit the region by creating roads to different resources and developing them (maybe kinda like Civ but on a much smaller scale).  Your region could then connect to other 'regions' for purposes of trade/energy/waste and so on.  As your city expands, it could be possible to place 'commuter' suburbs around your city boundaries (although have no direct control on how they are built), allowing you to focus more on the CBD and getting big buildings :-)

I suppose I'm thinking more along the lines of a Caesar 4 or other city building game, but I would like to see cities that are more dependent on their surrounds - for example a city based on the nearby coal mines would have coal power stations, a lot of lower-income workers and associated health problems.  A city with tourism as it's primary attribute would support a lot of hotel businesses and perhaps a higher quality of life (or not...)

I agree it would be nice to have some different building sets, such as Eastern/ Middle Eastern/ European/ American etc.  I just worry when people say that want massive improvements in the realism (bus timetabling??) which would make the game almost impossible to run on any computer or even get interested in playing.

[alaixander 0]

Regional Terraforming:

The next SimCity should allow us to terraform the entire region at once very quickly and without reconciling the borders. Speaking of borders, they should be transparent and flexible, so that city limits can change as the mayor sees fit. Also, exiting to the region should be eliminated; instead, zoom out from one city and glide across to another, and when working in one city, the next city should be visible so we can see how the two will match up together. Basically, we will have the power to build on the whole region at once, and we can fly across to see how the cities are coming together using the zoom and fly control.

[IKVNexis 0]

I haven't read everything here so i don't know if anyone has put this in yet.

The one thing I have found is that Police, Hospital  fire and school zoning is totaly wrong. No municipality plops down a big circle and says if your not in the circle your not protected. All zones are delineated by regions set out along roads, rails, or other ends chosen by the city. The zones should be set by the player. To be abel to streach a zone to breaking point or have tones of zones. 

And I have to say that I am in favore of removing all those artificial borders. Make the entire board open. I find it spoils a good urban sprall.

[Twister_Chaser 0]

Weather, rain, clouds, rain clouds, lightning, thunder storms, storms. Seasons and the option to toggle them on and off depending on what type of city you are building.

The ability to have transport even when commuters stop using it, the odd few people can still board it without demolishing referring to buses and trains, it happened so often in SimCity 4 and I love train, subway and bus facilities, it just wouldn't be a proper city without transport.

T_C

[UrbanLegend 63]

Here's all I need, and I've already seen most of it in some form in SimCity, City Life, or a Tycoon game:

1) Angled roads - I want City Life style of development at any angle. I can't stress this enough.

2) Lots of different transportation options - buses, trains, monorails, streets of all variety - dirt, cobblestone, street, road, surface avenues, one-ways, elevated highways, sunken highways, ferries, subways, HOV lanes, whatever I can think of.

3) Variety of structures and zones - everything from farms and trailer parks to mile high mega-towers. And customizable stuff too. I want to be able to bring in a 3D model from any common graphics program, apply Sim properties to it and plop it down.

4) More realistic mass transit - it should be node (IOW station) and route based.

5) Mix of zones and plopable buildings - face it. Half of you guys hand plop 90% of the buildings in your city. But sometimes you just want to see what pops up on its own.

6) Sims - I like to see how my decisions affect the Sims living in my city. The class system of City Life is just an extension of the $, $$, $$$ system of Sim City. It should be visually intuitive when a neighborhood is full of wealthy business people, college students, beatniks, crack heads or regular middle class folk.

[EnzoLamo321 0]

How about the Transbay Terminal in San Francisco?

[KingTitan 6]

This wish list is such a wonderful Idea.... I have read almost everybody's post here...

The one thing I have noticed is it seems ( un-scientifically , and probably more than likely MY opinion ) That roughly 75% are newer members, or one's that just lurk in this particular forum subject....nothing wrong with that at all.  Simtropolis.com definitely welcomes fresh ideas and enlightening insights.

But, an incredible amount of answers can be solved in the forums, establishing relationships, and taking time to REALLY do "Trial-By-Error" techniques. 

Of course SC5 should have more stunning graphics and detailed resolution. However, "THE SUITS" in the corporate world decided diffently when taking on the SIMCITY SOCIETIES approach...  Let us all remember that every single updated format of SimCity has been improved. The most recent addition to the SimCity genre has yet to be released. Many forums have discussed this HATE/LOVE issue.  A wish list definitely conjures up ideas, and I am sure many Ideas in the past have been incorporated into SIM Societies.  We get smarter with age and technology.  Let's be aware that some of the game designers may have been ( More than likely) fans of the SimCity franchise.  

Like it or not friends........   SimCity Societies "IS" the 5th installment.    

Campaign for SC6....number 5 is DONE, ready to ship.

[wik again 0]

Well id really like to see more landmarks again, i really hope they don't scrap them all together, even maybe in an expansion, also, i've always wanted bellow grade streets/ highways, and underwater tunnels along with bridges.

[wblake50 2]

I want to be able to create pedestrian residential communities. It drives me crazy that Rs won't grow without a road. And I'd like a full complement of pedestrian thoroughfares to go with it (A cross between the NAM pedestrian walkways and Simgoober's park trails for example.

I also want real water above sea level! Streams, rivers, and lakes -- real ones not just props.

Someone else also mentioned, and I agree, the circle zones for schools, fire, police, etc also drive me crazy. I want to be able to define neighborhoods by drawing borders, the way they are in real life. I want to draw neighborhoods for taxation purposes, and draw school districts, ambulance / fire coverage, etc. The access should follow the transportation network, as was also mentioned.

Finally, the grid... I understand why we have the grid, I understand how difficult it is to lose the grid, but I really, really hate the grid.

[BurroDiablo 222]

I don't care it it takes them till 2012 to make the next REAL Sim City, as long as its got a nice looking 3D engine and expands on everything SC4 had...

[Spartan968 0]

Detail detail detail!! Different street stiles, sidewalk decoration like food stands and planters, street lamps, electric signs over highways, etc. Everything should have different options for detail. Also, airports and seaports should be built by players. Make a few prebuilt for those that aren't able to or don't walk to take the time, but I want my eyes bleeding out of my skull because of looking at the list of things we can put in. Commercial signs and billboards are left. Preferably electric ones like the signs in Times Square. Landmarks should have uses as well. More decorative buildings. Also, a way where we can group city tiles together as one city in region view, with its own capital. Also for zoning, instead of changing the tiles that will be built, allow me to actually zone for certain building types so I can have different neighborhoods in a city tile without having to constantly regulate what is being built. More government buildings are a must. And I definately enjoyed the newspaper from older SimCity games. Give my neighborhoods culture, so I can have my Chinatown and Little Italy. Allow me to create events like parades and conventions. Finally, there should be different military buildings I can build so I can have my own custom military base. And having a military should be a good thing.

[Huxleyhobbes 1]

There are a few major things I'd like to see in SC5 (Some may argue it just came out. But Grand Theft Auto is only reaching IV, despite Vice City and San Andreas having followed on from III. I would expect, if we see a return to the pre-Societies style of SimCity, that they will use the name SimCity 5. Especially if SCS doesn't do well and they want to distance it from typical Sim City.)

At any rate, here's my wish list;

More variation in almost everything.

And that would be all, but let me elaborate on what exactly I mean.

I. An evolving society

I originally had this written out as time periods, but I had the problem of what happens when you reach the last time period (Say, for argument's sake, the 2020's). My overall idea is to have more flux and variation, to not have a game which will end up being static and stagnant once you reach a particular stage. Therefore, I came up with an idea which solves that problem, I believe.

Essentially, socities go through changes, yes? Well, your city would reflect that. Partly on account of what you do, and partly on account of the game world at large, the general feelings of society would change. After an economic crash there would be less trust in finance and high technology, for instance, and those sectors would have hard times. If you build a tourist resort it'll suffer hard times during a period of mistrust of foreigners. I don't want to get into too detailed a look at or, heaven forbid, a commentary on the real world. But I'm just trying to give examples of the kinds of things which would effect societies.

So, rather than simply starting in, say, 1920 and moving through decades with trends that correspond to real ones, you'd start in 1920 and might launch straight into a 1960's-esque feeling of liberalism and the like. Then around 1933 a war could start (Which wouldn't, probably, impact you directly - but the presence or absence of military bases in your city might.) and it would change people's desires, fears, and society's overall objectives. As I say, this is somthing the player would be able to influence in ways, and should not be entirely out of their hands. This means that even when you reach the late stage in terms of available buildings etc. and an ostensibly 'finished' high-tech ecologically sound paradise, you'll have factors which can change and make you need to stay busy.

II. More choices on how to develop

When it comes to Sim City, I tend to follow a fairly rigid structure on how to develop something. Build this in that order, fire stations right away, police when crime becomes a problem, schools and water when I want to start getting higher-tax locations, etc. etc. Well, I'd like to have more possibilities on what to do. There are unavoidable essentials, of course, but nevertheless there should be numerous ways to develop a community. Exploiting natural resources, building a financial center, a transportation hub, all these kinds of things.

III. More options on local laws etc.

I don't just want to be able to legalize gambling or the like. I want more control over more laws. I want to be able to outlaw alcohol, for instance. I want to be able to mandate community service. I want to be able to control the city's laws and see consequences from doing so. Not just the kinds of laws which are generally up for discussion, either, but to go beyond that into laws which we don't have, or being allowed to remove laws we do have. Changing this has obvious economic, corruption, and prison population effects, but it also ties in with the above into the next point.

IV. More Atmosphere

Here's the one thing SCS does well. If you build an authoritarian cyber dystopia, it will have an entirely different look and feel than an ecologically-minded farming community. I

[Normandy 0]

Request: Can some kind soul please take the main ideas of all the ideas and put them in a nice, easy to reference list? I'm afraid my ideas may overlap with others and cause fuss, and reading four pages of dense reading material in 8 minutes isn't exactly easy...

My ideas:

Better grid:

Instead of removing the grid, why not improve on it?

The only improvement to the grid since the invention of it was... The hexagon. And even so, that still wasn't an improvement on the grid. Removing the grid would only make the game extremely complicated and hard to use, for pros and beginners alike. I have been thinking about it for a while, but I just can't get a working model. I have 3 theories on grids:

(Sorry no pics)

1. The Hexagon/Diamond Grid.

This consists of hexagons that connect to eachother at the "straight" sides, forming diamonds in the corners. If you've ever played Transport Tycoon Deluxe, it's sort of like how the diagonals work. This would allow for better diagonal roads that can actually be made parallel with eachother.

The problem with this is that it's no longer possible to make rectangles...

2. The Isosceles Right Triangle Grid.

Composed of interlocking Isosceles Right Triangles (basically, a square cut in half at the diagonal). The triangles would be arranged to form diamonds, four to a diamond. If you wanted to draw a straight road, you would hit four of the triangles. Diagonals would also hit four triangles. It would work fine for straight roads and diagonal ones, but the problem with this is that it leaves no room for curves, and diamonds are smaller than squares.

3. The "Forming" Grid.

This is the most complicated of them all. I got this idea slightly from Spore and physics.

Think of a slightly taut sheet with a grid drawn out on it. Now, imagine if you placed a heavy string along it so that some of the cloth sinks. That is the basis of this sort of griding. The grid conforms to things, instead of things conforming to the grid (well they still conform to the grid). Topography and transport systems mainly. The transport systems will be non-conforming to the grid. However, once placed, they "bend" the grid along them. How would this method of placement work? How would the grid conform to said feature? I don't know, I don't know, respectively. Then basically everything would flow and be more fluid. Think of it like SC3 terrain versus SC4 terrain, the simplest analogy I can think of. Sure it's complicated, but if this could be achieved, the achieving game would be extremely successful.

[sunlord 1]

All these Ideas are nice but I'd rather have more intelligent or complex simulation then loads of eye candy since if it's going to drag the system down I'd rather it be something more useful then graphics overload. I'd also optimize the game for multiple cores so when this game would be released it can take full advantage of the dual and quad core systems even if it forsakes single core. It would also be cool if it could have some optional support of the upcoming advanced offload being offered by nvidia and ati/amd where you can use a second or third video card as a processor cause frankly all of these suggestions are going to drag the system down as a player builds more cities and the population in the region goes up.

Curved Transport Systems

I'd love to have curves for all the transportation systems it's a major factor impacting how realistic one can get. The player would lay a line of which ever system and click it like in a 3d program and pull it into an arc or a three tile connect the dots option

Seaports

A port terraforming tool to allow people to shape coasts to easily handle ports would be sweet or just the ability to plop/drag a port in the water kind a like backfilling and let the game make the entire section level.

Airports

A self expanding airport would be nice so that once it reaches a certain number it asks you to allow it to expand if it has room around it will expand it's size if not it should ask you to make space or build another airport. A Heliport would be sweet something like New York has.

Power Plants.

Loose all the power plant special requirements for solar they aren't overly complex these days. Also make nuclear and the other ones regional not just city based. I'd also give power plants a regional transport range so you'd not have to pay for the connection since most power systems cover vast areas of land.

[jabezscratch 159]

Just a quick thought and response for the moment: don't name it anything other than SimCity 5 (or 6 ... whatever). If EA starts adding to the title (like "SimCity Forever" or something) it will just conjure up too many bad memories of SimCity Societies.

[tjperry88 24]

Surprised, that what I have in thought was not even mentioned. I have two great ideas but may require a serious gaming machine but I feel the game should include an Option to have them enabled or disabled.

First... instead of the random box grid once your city limits are met why not show a faded peek into the neighboring community so you can work around each network, kinda how SC3000 had the Neighbor Map with each others population and such. But make it more detailed and show maybe a few buildings or so into the city.

Secondly, I feel along with losing the grid, have the ability to have random shaped cities of choice. I mean my home town is shoved in a city shaped like a "C". The missing part from the "C" to make an "O" is where I sit. Or be able to make a city sprawl north and south but have a section connecting the two areas. Below is a image of what I am talking about....

Hope that helped you understand my concept.

[tjperry88 24]

Basically look at any city. No city unless you live nowhere, has straight roads to the max. Westland, Michigan and Dearborn Heights, Michigan is where I built the idea for the city shapes.

[Callbat 8]

Something for the Europeans. Come on we have money too!

And not this "modernist" European crud, no no no I do not like that at all (well, except maybe a little in London) being European is not about the new modern crud that the Americans and Japanese companies are putting up (no offense) in Europe.

European buildings that can actually be DEFINED as European (i.e. Haussman, Tudor, Bavarian, Dutch, Victorian..well, you get it.).

That is all i ask

[Pheonix Rising 2]

Quick add on the grid. If you look at some of the pictures of how non-grid cities or rural areas are setup for a new SC5 or clone you could actually use a hex or octagon grid system to make lining things up much easier, though a hex grid would conform much better than an octal grid pattern. If any of you have played any wargames you know how many of the maps (if not all) use a hex grid for movement and placement of nearly everything.

Going freeform while nice may not be practical on even current high end systems. The graphics cards could handle it but it would require a huge amount of floating point calculations to actually zone and grow a city, at least in some ways. If on the other hand you have the roads and zoning done as more of a paint application where you would draw your roads on the terrain then you could use a fill object to fill zoning around the roads. This leads to the prolem of not having much control of what grows where and possibly being limited to having few plop options. I may find the grid in SC4 clunky and irritating, but I owuld much rather have that than a lot less control on plops. As for a linux port, hell yeah! It wouldn't take much to convert it anyway especially is you build it around OpenAL and Opengl. Tempting..

Ok, somebody petition EA for the source to SC4 already lol

[mayorbk 66]

I agree with almost everything other people said, here's my list (might add more later)

National Park Zone- only allowing 2-lane roads and streets in it, and park objects, but preventing from plopping and building other things, the zone would also have a + effect and reduce pollution like parks...

More transportation options, road rail tunnel options for underwater, should be able to choose bridge options vs. tunnel

less dependency on the grid

weather and climate options

more sport stadium rewards, soccer, baseball, Ice Arena, and football.

Commute times shouldn't cause as much problems, sims should be willing to drive into the city center, or out to industrial zones if the especially if transportation is there... (sometimes I put industrial zones away from financial and residential centers and have highways, trains etc... and the stupid sims still won't go. It should be easier to build suburbs in neighbroring cities, if I don't put a certain type of zone ex industry, sims should look to connected neighboring cities...

bring back airport and seaport zones

better and more highway interchanges, also sims need to use them more, sometimes when I connect areas far apart that sims are traveling between with highways, they'll not get on and still keep causing traffic issues on surface streets.

NAM stuff already in the game such as RHW, GLR, etc...

surface water-rivers, waterfalls, streams, ponds, etc...

Bring back dams as power plants, and if you don't put them on a waterfall and put them on flat river, the water level should rise behind it creating a lake....

Realistic looking and acting as possible-even though SC4 isn't 3d like SCS it still looks way better...

[Normandy 0]

Eh, Hex grids wouldn't work at all. I'd like to see you make a 90 degree angle on a hex grid.

Perhaps, if we had to go little step by little step, maybe the next logical thing is diagonal lotting. you know how in SC4 you get lots? So why not diagonal lots? It wouldn't be too hard/much of a large step anyways, but a step in the right direction.