Why SCS is so easy: Quantitative analysis

[SlightlyMadman 0]

First off, if you don't like SCS, you're entitled to your opinion, but I'm posting this for those of us who have actually been finding enjoyment in the game, but want more of a challenge balancing the city budget.  If you want to talk about how much the game sucks, please feel free to do so in one of the other topics devoted to the subject, thanks.

I'm guessing most of the people here who are playing SCS, use TM's maintenance mod.  It goes a long way towards adding some challenge to the game, and it can actually be quite rough to get a big city going on the "Challenging" difficulty level, but it still becomes a cakewalk once you get the city going.  At some point, the cash coming in overtakes the maintenance by leaps and bounds, and the game gets too easy (and therefore boring).

In an attempt to look at the image further, I loaded the xml building data into a spreadsheet to crunch some numbers, and came up with some interesting results:

http://atzok.com/games/simcity-societies/

Assuming 5% maintenance, normal difficulty, only content sims, and ignoring hours of operation, and average values across the board, a workplace will bring in almost twice as much net profit as it costs to house and entertain its workers.

If you look at the charts, you can also see a huge disparity in weekly net profit/cost between buildings.  For instance, the Mechanized Farm brings in $820.31 per worker per week, whereas the evangelical center only nets $150.  For the most part, workplaces open more will generate a greater net profit, making them a good value.  Interestingly enough, the police and fire workplaces are mostly at the top of the charts, making them more profitable even than Corporate Hives and Drone Nexuses.  This is a big clue as to why the game can start out so easy, as these are usually among the first workplaces many build.

Ultimately, the root of the problem is that the profits were not balanced with maintenance taken into consideration, and the reason buildings like police and fire are so profitable, is because they were made cheaper to build. 

My goal in working this out is to eventually re-balance the cash values, so that an average set-up on normal difficulty would result in housing and venue costs per sim coming very close to workplace income.  This means that, in order to grow a city significantly, venues and happiness would need close scrutiny such that your sims aren't given more than they can use.  A venue that's never being visited should drag down your economy until you demolish it.

Another major area of improvement is in paying close attention to buildings with effects that result in happiness or profit benefits.  These should ultimately result in a loss on their own, made up for by the fact that they're increasing profits elsewhere.  A town with nothing but police stations and luxury homes should never be profitable, as you're paying maintenance on an idle police force.  A town with tenements, a few steel mills, and several police stations, on the other hand, should work out well.

In summary, what I'm saying here is that this game can actually be made interesting and challenging, beyond the simple building toy that it is now.  It may never be as complex as SC4 (and ultimately, maybe it shouldn't be), but it can still represent many of the same challenges, albeit in a more abstract manner.

[calvinhsv 0]

In my opinion, you are looking at the difficulty issue from a SC4 perspective.  As anyone who has had to struggle to find a thread that is not a "I hate Societies" thread, this game is very different from SC4.

In my thread on the TM boards : http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14622 , I think I have tackled the difficulty from a societies perspective.  Instead of focusing on money, which without the maintenance mod is a complete non-issue, we move the focus to the hidden costs of the buildings which is the heart of societies such as the botanical gardens for venue or the pawn shop for workplace, or the sleeping tubes for a home.

It will assuredly be the case that the amount of money you make will only determine how quickly you can build your town, not indicate how sucessful a town builder you have become without extensive game redesign through modding.  Honestly I would encourage both methods, your's and mine, because a combination would probably make the most challenging game.

[SlightlyMadman 0]

That's a very good point. The more I play, the more I notice that the special sims can have a huge impact on your city. I think one of the biggest mistakes TM made with the game was not emphasizing them enough. It would be great to see a screen that listed stats on the special sims generated (beyond # of criminals, and total hippies and zombies generated), so we could really look at it and see things like: "Oh, I've got a lot of hippies. I need to add more venues, especially ones that spawn bouncers."

[MaxChee 0]

When the first time i ply SCS i think i was somekind Sim Town expansion pack ,after awhile i stated to love this game, thought ther is no tax or some financial stuff u usualy do in SC4 so i hope that maybe some one could make a mod for tax and etc