cities xl way too easy?

[logan86 1]

Hello everyone. firstly i'd just like to say that im new to simtropolis so hello all. i have been a long time player of simcity 4 and im still loving it. obviously, like many people, i was hugely excited when i learned of cities xl. at first like everyone else i thought this was the game i had been waiting for. 6 years on from sc4 something was finaly going to be just as in depth, just as strategic, just as amazing, but with awesome modern graphics.

However, clearly that was not to be. but i bought cities xl anyway because im not completely closed off to the idea of another type of city builder all together. and i have to say so far it doesnt seem like such a bad effort. but there are obviously a lot of crushing dissapointments (Mass transit, no city sounds, no management of anything of any kind whatsoever) which i dont need to aire in this thread because they have already been discussed.

But there is one thing was i have really been noticing. and that is that i cant figure out what the challenge of the game is meant to be. what are the objectives. what does one, do? with there being no region play, there is nothing really to work towards. i guess you could just keep on restarting identical cities over and over again but why. if i've made one city thats amazing, why make another. they cant interact in any way so who really cares about what they do. you can just leave them dying on your map if you cant be bothered and move on.

and here's the other thing, when you are doing your city. how does every body here go about starting? from what i can see after placing your city hall all you have to do is grind population to unlock new things. so somebody enlighten me, what does one do in this game, apart from grind population to unlock buildings that have no function whatsoever. why do i even care about unlocking a police station, when theres no crime?

[llgreyfoxll 0]

Well its an open ended sim game. The goal is what you make it, just like any of the sim citiy games. For me when I start a city (in citys XL or sim city) I have a plan either productive like "how high can I get my population" or challenge//fun such as "Create a working city with no industrial zones"

Sim city 4's "region mode" was a really great idea, and honestly set a genre wide standard (at least for me). There is no excuse that Cities XL did not implement something of the same nature. I think Monte Cristo attempted to counter region mode with their online mode. Which has potential, but it should really be offered for free if thats the case. Trading with other players just isn't worth me paying for it.

My main gripe with Cities XL is that it feel unfinished. Mass transit being main evidence of this. But also the fact that you cant change the budget of ... well anything. Also I would love to be able to bulldoze just 1 small section of my road or highway not the whole freaking thing!!

However, I wouldn't say Cities XL is a bad game, the problem is that Sim city 4 is just that good. Cities XL feels like an updated version of Sim city 3000, which is unfortunate because it should have been an improved version of SC4.

[JanYpe 17]

Easy like sunday morning.

[ElmoAssasin 0]

 About the goals of the game: Yeah, they are as you set them to be which is welcomed by people with lots of imagination.

About the difficulty level: It gets harder and harder to manage your city the bigger it gets. Yes, it is really really easy in the beginning, but once you hit a million population you need to care for a lot of things to keep everyone happy, to get all the resources you need and save your business from going bankrupt.

While in SC4 the game was quite easy throughout the process of creating of your city which makes it quite boring.

About SC4 - CXL comparison: I think that Cities XL beats SC4 in every aspect of the games, except regional play and public transport. If the CXL bugs are fixed soon and the public transport is included, the game will become 1000 times better than SC4. Even in the current CXL state, I can say that it is much better than SC4. I am tired of the square grid of SC4 and the lack of freedom in building...

[0wn3d 2]

How high has your population gotten? I've found that the game is extremely easy to start, but gets much much more difficult as you get higher population. Trying to satisfy the elites is nearly impossible... And more issues will arise when you have more people.

[logan86 1]

well so far i have only hit about 30,000 so i guess it is fair to assume it will get more challenging. but the only thing is it doesnt feel challenging when you cant really see any statistics. it makes it feel like all you have to do is just place another building. and everything is just red, yellow or green. but i have been playing more today and im quite enjoying it. it kind of grows on you. but i still feel like there is something about sc4 just calling me back to it. especially with lots of good mods and extra custom content to use. as for cxl, i think it will be a grower over time. maybe more things will be patched in to really achieve the kind of depth that i've become used to from sc4. that could well take a year or more really, but i think it will be worth it in the end.

[littlesquare.dot 0]

Originally posted by: logan86

why do i even care about unlocking a police station, when theres no crime?

quote>

Hold up..  there's not even a crime rate that needs to be controlled!?  

Wow..    just, wow.  Are fire stations unnecessary as well?  Are there no disasters?

Suddenly SCS doesn't look so bad.  What kind of garbage is MC throwing at us?

[littlesquare.dot 0]

Originally posted by: llgreyfoxll

Well its an open ended sim game.quote>

If it's an ultra-dumbed-down game in which you can't control the budget, there is no crime, and no natural disasters, it's hardly a sim.  It's a city builder, and a shoddy, half-finished one at that.

[Anarcho-X 0]

Regional play and custom content are the reason I still play SC4 after 6 years.

Both are missing on CXL.

And seriously how the hell is a city supposed to survive without mass transportation?

Monte Cristo simply consider games as a successful way to make money.

That's why i boycott Cities XL and wait for a real city-builder.

[dasilva 3]

Hi guys,

We wanted starting a city to be no brainer so that players concentrate first on the tools learning curve.

As you said, the more you grow, the more questions are arised and the more difficult it is to balance your city needs.

But the difficulty grows also depending on how you specialize your city. The more you specialize it, the more reward you get from your different achievements but the more difficult it turns

Anarcho-X, it's definitivelly your choice to like or dislike the game in the current situation and share it with others.

However, the current released version is for us just the start and we will move on the game based on our players base.

As for custom content, we already started talking to a bunch of guys around but we are for now concentrating on the release. Once we'll get some time, we'll again try to help as much as we can creative players that want to participate to the adventure

[sparky66 0]

Originally posted by: dasilva

Hi guys,

We wanted starting a city to be no brainer so that players concentrate first on the tools learning curve.

As you said, the more you grow, the more questions are arised and the more difficult it is to balance your city needs.

But the difficulty grows also depending on how you specialize your city. The more you specialize it, the more reward you get from your different achievements but the more difficult it turns

Anarcho-X, it's definitivelly your choice to like or dislike the game in the current situation and share it with others.

However, the current released version is for us just the start and we will move on the game based on our players base.

As for custom content, we already started talking to a bunch of guys around but we are for now concentrating on the release. Once we'll get some time, we'll again try to help as much as we can creative players that want to participate to the adventure quote>

yes, but you will only be improving the game for PO subscribers. solo players will be stuck with the original unfinished game. here is my idea:

i, and many others, would gladly pay a one off fee to be able to use PO content in single player. Perhaps if MC released PO content to solo players every six months, in a expansion pack that contained the last six months PO content (including mass transit). That would mean that PO subscibers still have the advantage of getting extra content first, but solo players would still be happy because they would get the content in the end. like i said, i wouldn't mind paying up to £20.00 for that, which is about six months PO subscription anyway, but i would get to use the content in solo mode and keep it indefiately.

it could also mean that alot of the people that aren't buying this game because they don't like the PO will buy it. i just don't like the fact that i can pay all that money and as soon as i stop paying i loose all my cities and my extra content.

what do you think Philippe? could you talk to MC about it?

[logan86 1]

but the question is, does specialising a city have any rewards in single player mode though. i should also mention that i dont have planet offer because i feel those types of features are offered by almost every other game for free. imagine trying to charge people to play call of duty online. no one would do it. especially if when you went online there was just a chat window. i really really do feel that the service of planet offer is not really worth paying for with anyones hard earned money. only people who get an allowance from their parents are likely to go for this. when you work for your money, you dont like to just give it away for something like intercity transport.

An expansion pack though, and one with some real real meat on it, i would pay for. if it included loads of mass transit and some form of region play or intercity trade in single player. but then there would be no point in planet offer, as these are the only real things that it offers. so i doubt that will happen. im so sorry though, because im really ranting on now. but back to the point, does specialising a city make any difference whatsoever when you cant trade excess resources with other cities to further your goals. if you specialise in fuel and food production, that fuel and food cant leave the city, so that city would just be stupid and have way way too much fuel and food.

im really quite liking the idea of cities xl so far but it clearly needs much much more work and another thing i've noticed today; it needs more buildings, there is a lot of repetition of the exact same buildings and if you make a little retail area this becomes increasingly noticible, everything is kind of pasted like a pattern. i think though that having completely fixed lot sizes and squared zones does compound this problem some what. and i would use the free zoning option, but it doesnt really work for reasons obvious to anyone who has played.

also, if you ever even dare to think about curved roads then you just get massive gaps every where and with the fixed lots it looks very unrealistic. as far as i can see the only way to efficiently make a city is using straight roads and squared zones of identical 3x2 size surrounded by the smallest most inappropriate roads for any city. and because there is no grid, it makes it impossible to just lay your own roads and count the squares to get around the problem. "end rant"

but still though i think this game has a lot of potential, and i've had a very long day so im sounding completely irrational. but as crazy as i am right now, its also worth noting that i am also quite correct.

[0wn3d 2]

Originally posted by: logan86

but the question is, does specialising a city have any rewards in single player mode though. i should also mention that i dont have planet offer because i feel those types of features are offered by almost every other game for free. imagine trying to charge people to play call of duty online. no one would do it. especially if when you went online there was just a chat window. i really really do feel that the service of planet offer is not really worth paying for with anyones hard earned money. only people who get an allowance from their parents are likely to go for this. when you work for your money, you dont like to just give it away for something like intercity transport. quote>

Do I really have to explain to you the difference between CoD online servers and PO.... PO is hosted by MC, and MC only.  They are paying for the servers running it.  In CoD each server is hosted at the will of the person hosting it.  They control the server, and it is not affiliated with Activision.  Activision isn't paying for the servers, they are only paying for the main server that displays current game servers, which costs nothing compared to the servers required to host an MMO.

[Androv 6]

I'm trying to build an island office resort town - it is quite difficult as I currently have an oversupply of office services which I need to trade for. And my people do complain about security and so forth, so they *do* need a police station or they'll all start leaving.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

Ok back to the topic. I posted this in another thread on a forum that's now deleted. Here's my thoughts on this subject:

One of the most complained about thing with this game is the fact that creativity is compromised because of the strict design of the game and the way it causes us to methodically build our cities. Some here said they like the restrictions because it will give the game more challenge and the game more value. Basically prolongs the gameplay so we do not finish a city too quickly then get bored.

Let me tell you, I started a region from scratch exactly 2 years ago (August 2007) and to this day I am still playing and developing that region. My budget was balanced a looong time ago. In the end it is not about some challenge to balance plates on our head when it comes to playing a city builder (in my case SC4).

When I first started the region, I made my first sunken highway system that stretches through 2 cities and that alone took me about a week of consistent playing. Just last month I finally figured out how to get more sims into the commercial city from the congested bedroom city they were trying to get out of at rush hour. I made a large capacity railroad system to help them out. I have yet to make my first beach resort area. I need to create jobs in one city without it steeling the thunder of the other. I learned how to click the make historic button on my low wealth stores with jobs to keep my low wealth sims working. I still have yet to make trolleys in avenues and get deep into those canals. The list of things to keep me busy goes on and on but none of it is based on some hard coded game design. For the most part, these are challenges I made for myself.

Not even budget balancing have to be the focal point of a city builder game. The budget is a factor yes, and it should play a significant role in using what should be available from the start. But the core design of the game itself do not have to create all the gameplay for us. And with all these restrictions for the sake of "keeping a player challenged" the purpose is defeated. After the budget is balanced, I should have the freedom to create the city of my dreams. Let us be challenged by our own imaginations with more possibilities given by the game's design. And let the design give way to creativity.

50 farms to get fertilizer is not making a city of our dreams. Useless police departments and fire stations add no depth and  says to me this is not a simulator.

As far as the online game, trade should not be the focal point either by itself. Like I said in another thread, a mayor could charge other mayors to visit their cities making it an incentive for us to build beautiful and interesting cities. And visitors can leave another city with something be it memories or purchasing souvenirs or even buildings that are custom made. Seeing traffic that is made up of actual other players in my city feels more like an online game interacting with others than just a trade and chat box because I need something. The game is trying to hold our hand too much.

I know it's probably too late for any of this, but just wanted to let it out.

[Brandon8181 0]

If there was indeed an expansion pack that allowed PO content such as mass transportation, etc for single player mode, that would be great.  I would be much more likely to pay for that than the Planet Offer, if I decide to buy this game.

Brandon

[tief 2]

back to SC4....

[logan86 1]

i totally agree with mr_maison. that is exactly what i meant about depth and region play, and depth, and useless police stations. also just because the people leave if they dont have a police station it doesnt mean that theres any crime. also i totally agree that its not all about the budget, its just so hard to sum it all up when you think about all the aspects that make really solid gameplay and region play so important. its totally about the creativity and projects and challenges. thats what i meant about the game feeling too easy, because it holds your hand.

the other thing is Androv i know you say you're making an office/ resort city and stuff but once again that is all only relevant to planet offer, there is no inter city trading or links in single player. so that just kind of proves the point, you cant have specialised cities in single player, because they cant interact making the specialities pointless and useless.

Also own3d, thankyou for telling me because i genuinly didnt actually know what the difference was. to be honest thats why i always didnt understand why mmo's were charged apart from the content dev side. but yes, now that im more informed, i think that mc are just crazy. who would want to pay to host massive serviers by themselves like that. they are totally relying on people to pay or they'll lose so much money, thats crazy. especially because of the state of the game that they're asking us to pay for.

why didnt they just let people do online multiplayer on servers that the players host. they could still be fully persistant cities. i mean, why not? and they could have just made a really good server browser and community tools and make it all only optional and then be done with it. i'd rather that than some planet offer propoganda every time i log on. also how mad does that sound, im talking about a single player game, and using the phrase 'log on,' instead of just 'launch.' i think that kind of sums up a lot of the negative feeling really.

[0wn3d 2]

Originally posted by: logan86the other thing is Androv i know you say you're making an office/ resort city and stuff but once again that is all only relevant to planet offer, there is no inter city trading or links in single player. so that just kind of proves the point, you cant have specialised cities in single player, because they cant interact making the specialities pointless and useless.quote>

In single player you can trade, but only with omnicorp, and the prices aren't very good (They buy at ok prices, but sell at insanely high prices).

[logan86 1]

Originally posted by: 0wn3d

In single player you can trade, but only with omnicorp, and the prices aren't very good (They buy at ok prices, but sell at insanely high prices).

quote>

but that isnt really intercity trading. that would just involve deliberatly over producing a resource to sell it. if i understand correctly this wouldnt actually benefit any of your other cities, because they cant buy it, only omnicorp can. so trading is just pointless apart from to raise money and to prevent needed resources completely stopping the player from moving on with a city. there is still no benefit between cities.

as far as i can see thats just a work around to the real game system, which once again, involves paying for planet offer. its like a trading bot so you can bypass the trading gameplay which is what the game relies on. this really points towards the games over reliance on planet offer. so it just makes for a stale single player workaround.

[8elhaj 0]

They really have to implement region play in Solo Mode, if not in infrastructure then atleast in trading, if not then there is not need of specializing and it gets boring...

It would also be good if they release PO stuff in an expansion pack or add-ons that they can charge for.

[morriswalters 16]

Anything that competes with there online assets will not happen.  No region play, no mass transit.  Perhaps once there is sufficient content online they may decide to trickle down some things.  There is an off chance, but I wouldn't hold my breath, that they will release some eyecandy trains with no connection to the traffic system.  It was requested during the beta.  I would also expect to see some cheat codes to pop up.  The devs must have had some to test content with.  As it is I would not see the solo play option producing vary large cities.  Demand will be very high once there are more than a couple of million.

[TheJackalope 0]

30k population is not an accurate measure of difficulty. 500k plus is harder than anything in SC4. It gets harder as you get bigger especially after you outstrip your natural resources. I was one of the first people to say what crap SCS was, but this game is entirely different. It's better than SC4 was at launch which had game breaking pathfinding bugs. And contrary to everyones *****ing about not having triangular lots; guess what? In real life there are few of them and those that are generally have a square building on them. The flatiron building is famous because it is unique. SC4 had a silly system of radius based services which defy logic in a modern government. I am mildly amazed that so many people haven't even played the game and are attacking it.

[bokoneko 0]

Originally posted by: 0wn3d

Originally posted by: logan86

but the question is, does specialising a city have any rewards in single player mode though. i should also mention that i dont have planet offer because i feel those types of features are offered by almost every other game for free. imagine trying to charge people to play call of duty online. no one would do it. especially if when you went online there was just a chat window. i really really do feel that the service of planet offer is not really worth paying for with anyones hard earned money. only people who get an allowance from their parents are likely to go for this. when you work for your money, you dont like to just give it away for something like intercity transport. quote>

Do I really have to explain to you the difference between CoD online servers and PO.... PO is hosted by MC, and MC only.  They are paying for the servers running it.  In CoD each server is hosted at the will of the person hosting it.  They control the server, and it is not affiliated with Activision.  Activision isn't paying for the servers, they are only paying for the main server that displays current game servers, which costs nothing compared to the servers required to host an MMO.

quote>

Blizzard's battle.net is free. Sacred 2 also has free multiplayer servers. And these are just few examples.

[0wn3d 2]

Originally posted by: bokoneko Blizzard's battle.net is free. Sacred 2 also has free multiplayer servers. And these are just few examples.quote>

First off, Blizzard and Battle.net are one of a kind things.  They do stuff no one else does, and their retail sales of games is more then enough to cover any servers.

Next, Battle.net is largely P2P, and only for actually melee games the Battle.net servers are hosting games.  All custom games (Which is like 90% of WC3s current use) are basically P2P, with at most very small amounts of data going through B.Net.

Then again, we're talking about a service that was originally supported by millions (Diablo, Starcraft and Warcraft series have all each sold over 10 million) of sales until WoW came out, at which point they have had enough money to do whatever they want.

[Rob86 34]

That doesn't absolve the crime of a PC game company of making a product with no alternative to a paid multiplayer. (Cities XL is not an MMO by any longshot, unless they make a GTA addon which can support 100k players in one city at the time, with interesting party-centric missions plus an extra grand story arc) Even games like Counterstike and Left For Dead,which is more along the lines of what scale(not style) the multiplayer is like for XL,  which requires  multiplayer to be actually engaging, has options which enables players to play in a LAN configuration or on a private server.

The only reason why Monte Cristo refuses to enable a limited privately hosted planet ( where no multiplayer aspects are actually dynamic and instantaneous. City visiting are limited, and doesn't it feel exactly like loading somebody's save file and looking around with options all locked out. And trading is no better than a excel program with a fancier interface. By 2009, we can expect a full spec video conferencing diplomacy and collaborative productivity suite. I know it can be done.) is because they are Grade AAA capitalists, albeit with a greater interest in short term profits.

It is easy to predict Monte Cristo's modus operandi. It's obvious they are going to slowly release content and core elements which they most probably had finished but had selectively withheld for profits.

As for the mention of bandwidth, if Monte Cristo enabled private servers, they can expect bandwidth costs to drop by 50% or more. Not to mention the bandwidth costs that would be saved if privately made custom content was allowed to be shared on fansites.

The more support Monte Cristo gets for their current method of doing business, the more likely that we are going to see more instances of profit-grabbing from them in their next product iteration.

(Btw, considering their expansion pack record, do you really think they will release an expansion pack which will radically enhance the way the game is played? Even EA had Nightlife and Vacations, and the next Adventures. Probably why they are so scared of custom content being freely distributed. Monte Crtisto seriously needs more talented programmers, not visual artists)

[autumnsolace 0]

if ya ask me, they need some better artists, too. the human models in-game are hideous.

anyway, back on the topic. i only played the demo, and the biggest challenge i found was revenue without trading resources. without oil i'm not sure how i would have made my city substantially profitable. but that's more a matter of balance and not difficulty.

[esa1234 0]

I would agree that the game becomes progressively difficult in direct proportion to population. After you hit one million, in my opinion, the difficulty hits a plateau. It remains a challenge to maintain resources for your city, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes 2nd nature. With that in mind, though, I do think the game is too easy to master.

Back to SC4, as others have mentioned, I'm still tinkering and learning after what seems like a decade of playing it. 1/2 the fun (and frustration) is filing through the hordes of user created bats/mods/models/nams/etc. Cities XL cannot compete with this because it's new, so hopefully that complaint gets treated with contempt. However, it would have been a serious nod to the community if MC had given more than passing thought to custom content.

Had that happened, and players were able to implement some type of their own models into the game, I bet we'd be hearing more about great looking new buildings and a little bit less about XL's shortcomings.

In the end, yeah, XL is way too easy when it works properly. I say that because XL's trade system isn't exactly sailing in calm waters. As it stands, it's really difficult to get anything done, but if it worked the way it should, it'd be easy.

[rhenry 1]

Originally posted by: littlesquare.dot

Originally posted by: logan86

why do i even care about unlocking a police station, when theres no crime?

quote>

Hold up..  there's not even a crime rate that needs to be controlled!?  

Wow..    just, wow.  Are fire stations unnecessary as well?  Are there no disasters?

Suddenly SCS doesn't look so bad.  What kind of garbage is MC throwing at us?quote>

No, this isn't true. Just like SC4 there is a certain amount of time you can manage without crime but by the time your execs and elites start to arrive you may notice that even though your city is crying, "more housing for elites!" or something, no matter how many zones you lay for them they still aren't moving in.

Then you click on the zone and it tells you why. They're afraid for their security, they're afraid of fires, can't find work or, the hardest to deal with, your city has a bad reputation among that particular social class.

AS for disasters, either there are none or they don't happen very often because I haven't had one yet. For me, that's okay. I get really tired of battling fires in SimCity. It wouldn't be so bad if game play would continue but it's really annoying when your about to lay a street, something catches fire and you end up demolishing a bunch of your buildings with an accidental road or new zone as you're jerked away from that area to tend to a fire.

[logan86 1]

hello. i wrote a massive reply before but the internet went down so i lost it. i cant handle re writing it again so in brief... there is still no crime. just because they are worried about crime. there never is any. its just to make them happy. there are no stats on what crimes or where or even a view of crime or anything because there is none. in many ways its even more woefully basic than sim city societies ever was. and the same with fire. just because they worry about fire who cares, no fire can actually ever happen. this is the same for everything you can think of. including education.

in fact there is simply nothing in the game. thats why i was saying, its far too easy. you do have to balance citizens happiness. you should note here i didnt say their needs. you balance their happiness. thats all there is. the only other element of balance is one that you have to pay to get and thats via trading. there is no intercity trading for single player making specialisation completely pointless. your resources can never leave the city. every city just has to be a clone if playing single player. the whole thing is just stupid. in fact you know what, im going to say, cxl is pratically a casual game. it requires almost no intelligence to play what so ever.