CXL v. SC4 for the casual player

[LTParis 1]

I had been so busy with work lately that the release of CXL didn't catch my eye. I had been eagerly waiting for it's release, and after reading some new reviews I have some questions, specifically if I should stick with SC4 for now or make the jump to CXL.

a) I am a casual city builder. I love to build the infrastructure, love to plan a city out, but frankly I have never gotten into the hyper-micro-management of SC4. I love to build out the zones, love to build out city limits and country roads. Will I get a better experience with CXL?

b) I loved to grab custom lots in SC4. Does CXL lack this lot exchange or is there a similar builder and exchange to tweak the city to your desires.

c) I have read a lot of bad on the solo part of CXL and while I would love to participate in a MMO like I did in WoW, I just don't think I will have the time for that aspect of the game. Is the general comments about solo play unfounded?

[GlobexCo 33]

Originally posted by: LTParis

I had been so busy with work lately that the release of CXL didn't catch my eye. I had been eagerly waiting for it's release, and after reading some new reviews I have some questions, specifically if I should stick with SC4 for now or make the jump to CXL.

a) I am a casual city builder. I love to build the infrastructure, love to plan a city out, but frankly I have never gotten into the hyper-micro-management of SC4. I love to build out the zones, love to build out city limits and country roads. Will I get a better experience with CXL?

b) I loved to grab custom lots in SC4. Does CXL lack this lot exchange or is there a similar builder and exchange to tweak the city to your desires.

c) I have read a lot of bad on the solo part of CXL and while I would love to participate in a MMO like I did in WoW, I just don't think I will have the time for that aspect of the game. Is the general comments about solo play unfounded?quote>

a) There's not so much "micro management" and you can plan your city with zones and country roads.

b) It's too soon to have a custom content program, but MC promised it.

c) If you want to subscribe to the planet offer you can cities with more stuff than in solo (medieval house pack and bus system for example); remember that you can't play offline your online cities. Comments aren't unfounded, there's a lot of truth in them, but sometimes they're too much )

So, if you want to subscribe to Planet Offer, if you can stand what MC does for the game... the CXL is the game for you . And for any problems, remember that here there's a big community that will help you.

If you want to see in-game screenshots, see the CXL City Journals section.

[soltangris 42]

Yeah, it's pretty much what Globex said. CXL won't throw you into minute details, it'll let you plan your city on a broad scale. There are plenty of country roads available, grid-free at that Farms also

The custom content is not allowed for now, although there are mods cropping up all over the place. They're not officially supported yet, though. Chances are, sooner or later custom content will indeed be available, at least to a degree.

The solo part of the game is not so different from the online part right now - the only major thing missing is busses. There aren't so many different maps available, also. For the rest, it's there, and the bad comments are mostly venting on part of SC fanatics that expected SC5 and got something different with monthly subscription. Besides, the game is still developing, and MC are tweaking their whole business model right now, so you might be in for a nice surprise.

I think you should try out the game, I hear it's pretty cheap on Steam right now.

[LTParis 1]

Well since it's $24 at Steam I might as well give it a shot.

[pete1061 0]

The thing about the PO that doesn't lend itself to casual play is the 5-day contract duration. You will find yourself constantly re-doing all your trade contracts. Which, if you have 5 reasonable size cities (500k-1m) that will take 30-45 min every time you want to play, most of that time waiting for the client to get data from the server.

It seems these days that so few games are designed for casual play. developers seem to think that everyone will become absolutely obsessed with their product and want to play 12 hours a day.

[omnivoreceo 54]

SimCity 4 is way better for casual play. Not only does it lend itself to immersive play for hours at a time or playing for a little while over a long period of time, but it doesn't force you to do all sorts of extraneous things you don't want to deal with.

I always liked that it had cheat codes, not because I cared about showing off my cities, but simply because I liked to just build new cities all of the time, to innovate and that's it. I don't have a lot of time for all sorts of esoteric things I need to do to get through them. I'd just rather get to the point.

CitiesXL has been very difficult to get into and in some ways, seems to take huge steps backwards compared to SC4. Sure, different companies and such alike, but...it's really frustrating and lacks any remote sense of immersion that I'd grown accustomed to with SC4.

[LTParis 1]

So far my brief play is disappointing. The refinement is seemingly non-existent, mouse zoom over touchy, text nearly impossible to read, and while you can do non-straight roads the other lacking transportation elements is a real bummer. I hope further patches can improve on it.