A Review from a BIG SC4 fan (LONG)

[calvinhsv 0]

Ok, hello everyone.  I have never posted on these forums before but have been an avid reader of this site since SC4's release however long forever-ago it was.  I am not the type to make posts on forums that are public, but the large amount of negativity here needs some devil's advocating.

First off, the game is not one that can really be understood and reviewed after only a few hours of play.  On the normal setting with no real understanding of the mechanics or specific directions to want to guide your city, you will cruise on through filling the whole map, having tons of money, and ending up with a strange inconsistent city.

That is hardly the goal of any veteran of SC4 however.

We, the people of simtropolis who have been modding, adding and manipulating SC4 for the past decade or so desire to create a VERY specific look to our city.  We do this by putting our OWN restraints on our gameplay and our city building, not just doing what the game was designed to allow.  If this is what you crave, then you will be partially disappointed, but also you will find some very ingenious and creative game aspects that will make you truely enjoy the game.  In fact, in creating a specific look and feel to your city, this game will suceed in a way that SC4 COULD also, but would take a huge amount of effort.  That being said, you might be disappointed with societies, but chances are you haven't given it a fair shake.

Now, all of that was disclaimers, now to the meat and potatoes.

There are multiple aspects to the game.  Unfortunately transit is not one of them.  Theres no variety of roads to speak of, and the "bus station" and "subway" are basically placeholders to lower traffic in a very unspecific and immesurable way, and lower pollution in a very specific and unmeasureable way.  I was a HUGE fan of the transit options in SC4, so this was the pinnacle of disappointment for me.  I only hope its addressed in future expansions.

That being said, its the only thing I don't like about the game.

The next aspect I will discuss are the buildings.  I am not going to go over the general aspects of the game mechanics that are in the other threads.  I assume that the community is well versed in them.  The buildings are remarkable.  There are litterally tons of them, and given the smaller "field of play" for a city, you can really make the repetition of these completely unnoticable or in fact, NOT REPEATED AT ALL.  For me, this is HUGE.  With extensive modding and addons here at simtropolis you can achieve that same thing in SC4, but even then it takes away from the organic "feel" of SC4 since plopping litterally has no downside or you have to dl a serious grocery shopping list of addons from the exchange for growable buildings and hope repetition doesn't make your city look copy/pasted.  If you want variety in societies, you have to work for it creating balance (or intentionally imbalance) of the 6 values and building a building you want IS going to cost you something.

Now sure, you can plop the cheap decorations en masse all over your city as some reviews have pointed out.  This will let you do whatever you want assuming you have enough cash because theres no maintenece in the game to speak of.  Of course that will significantly cheapen your city and take alot of the challenge out of the game.  I suppose you can create the city of your dreams, and leave the huge sprawl of your 30 identical huge statues in the corner of the map out of your screenshot.  You could also use cheats for unlimited money in SC4.  Its basically the same thing.

Additionally many of the buildings have special abilities.  Its a VERY creative way to keep the game interesting.  (When I refer to buildings I mean ANY construction from venues, to decorations.) <

[SlightlyMadman 0]

Thanks for the impartial review. The failings of this game seem to severe for me to drop my money on it right now, but it sounds like a decent expansion pack could really make this into something interesting. I'll stick with SC4 for now, but keep an eye on it for the future (and let's be honest, there will almost definitely be numerous expansion packs, seeing as that's EA's new modus operandi).

[Motina 77]

Nice review, best one I have read so far. It makes it clear that this game is NOT SimCity. I just don't know why they just didn't call it SimSocieties. I actually don't mind the game. I guess it could help if was done more like simcity, and then you plop down all those venues and decorations, while still having all the residential, industry and commerical build by itself, yet reflect the effects of those special buildings and special people.

[+Guest]

Also having both Simcity 4 RH and Sim City Societies myself, i agree this is the best one i've read of it. The "special people", as well as "special features" of the buildings, which are not only available on activate basis, but for some building a inherent feature, like, for example, altering the odds a "special people" appear. For example, a spiritual housing building, not only providing spirituality in the town, give 5% odds to make a normal person becoming a monk, if a person becomes a monk, there are about 97% odds that it will be a warrior monk, and 3% a master. Adding a "stone garden", also giving spirituality, alter the odds, increasing the one a monk becoming a master, like, with one 5% of master for 95 warrior one, and so on. One thing calvinhsv didn't precise is also some public purpose buildings can be "made" different ways, with slightly different effects, with below a exemple for fore buildings.

The fire brigade, that can be operated with 3 spiritual energy, providing work for 3 people but working only 3 days a week, making emergencies tricky if a fire occurs the wrong day, and not generating income ...

The fire station, that can be operated with 3 production energy, providing work for 8 people, working ALL days a week, making emergencies way easier to manage (and prevent !), and generating a nice 7000 simoleons a week, with 20% chances making a public worker a visit, whick can be 75% a public worker or 25% a fireman.

My personal opinion comes for any city the second one, even in a "spriritual" city, because some spiritual buildings can have increased odds of fire, and for safety any days of the week. It's all possible even in a small focused city on something, to have some buildings of another energy to be chosen without much trouble. This of course needs to browse a lot between the different building options, but makes the gameplay this way deeper than we could think at first glance, and this is a great strengh in the game, why i like it a lot. Of course it's missing management and transportation issues of SC4, but anyway SCS had neved meant to replace it, it's really a "think different" game.

[Techleo 18]

  Im trying my hardest to figure how to unlock the highways and one way roads in SCS.

The codes in the game. So far only minor luck. Looks to me like TM polished up the game and gave us a game with some inert features to be added later Ill figure it out eventually. Hehe if they dont add it first.

[Robstersfive 0]

does it have twisters pls tells me it does ??