Sim City Deluxe or Cities XL 2011?

[Easy Matthew 0]

I know this is a topic discussed before, but I am still on the fence. I just got a new computer (8 GB RAM; 1 GB RAM video). I installed Sim City 4 Deluxe I game I already own and love. I am the guy who uses money and demand cheats and just wants a blank canvas to do what I want. I love the exchange, I like browsing and downloading what is out there.

Should I just go with Sim City or would Cities XL be something I should definitely check out? My computer could handle it, so I am not worried about that. What I am worried about is things like ploppable buildings, do they have them? I love them, I like to be able to build my cities they way you would set up your train set. I like to create "feels" to neighborhoods. Does Citles XL have this type of freedom and variety?

I already own and have Sim City running (on Windows 7, which I heard could be a problem). But Cities XL looks like it would be a good on my new PC.

Any advice. Thanks!

[The Avatar 1,089]

Even though I have never actually played CXL, I have seen videos and pictures of the game, and personally, I am not that impressed. In my opinion, you should just stick with SC4. For one thing, SC4 has a wider fan-base with a lot of custom content and mods. CXL has a considerably less amount of custom content dedicated to it. Also, in CXL, I don't think you create "feels" for neighborhoods. This is because there is a lot less custom content, and I don't think you can plop in CXL. SC4 is like a blank canvas, where you can paint a picture however you want to, but CXL doesn't really have this. Another thing, the graphics of SC4 allow for much more detail in buildings than in CXL. Of course you could wait for CXL 2012, which is coming out soon.

Just throwing in my two cents. Cheers!

~ Charles

[City Planner 121]

If you use the advanced option in the settings menu of cxl 12, you should have the ability to plop buildings

[Michel V 0]

Should I just go with Sim City or would Cities XL be something I should definitely check out?

I have Cities Xl 2012 now installed for a week, as a long time Simcity 4 deluxe addict, and can only recommend Cities Xl if you like freedom. The game play is much more shallow, the number of bugs is extremely annoying (any idea why upgrading a road means replacing it with a dirt road?), and speed is terrible. But, for building a city there are more options. And why is there only busses and metro? Where are the trains, small airstrips, density issues in buildings, fires? It should be that the management of the city is not incorporated.

Simcity on Windows 7 64 bit is a nuisance: run it as full administrator, and no other programs (I have trouble with popups like emails). Then you should be ok.

Good luck with your choice!

[DazzaDazza 29]

why not have a look to see if you like it, if you sit on the fence your hole life you will never make a decision, and you will miss out on the good thing and the bad . it's not like buying a game is a big investment anyway, you really shouldn’t be thinking that hard on little thing like that it.

Impulse buying

  Edited October 26, 2011 by mrdazza_460  

[rewright 804]

At this point Cities XL is a nice diversion, but it is no where near replacing SC4, so it's not an either/or decision. Game play is very limited and the cities tend to look alike and very European, but it is fun to go there sometimes. Be advised that you will spend a lot of time balancing resources and meeting residents demands for everything.

[DazzaDazza 29]

thats why i cheat

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I have noticed that most of the new buildings in the DLC are American styled or retextures of the originals with a more generic/American look.

[rgtobler771 1]

Yeah I just bought this game from the old Steam or shall I say steamy pile. This has no reflection on the game. However, I'm now starting to wonder what the heck I even bought.

Dowloading it was a complicated bunch of BS. I knew the ins and out of Steamer's accounts as far as using just one computer at a time per account so needless to say I made another account so I could play Cities exclusively on my laptop.

DOESN'T FREAKING MATTER! because both accounts use the same name and debit you have to go throught Steamy's BS logout process to play on anything else anyway. I was soooooooooooooo ticked and until I had discovered what those retards policy was. I tried to password change about five million times so I wasn't cussing out some poor guy working for them in technical support via my mistake.

Basically buy this game anywhwere else you can except from "pile of STEAMy cowpie", you'll thank yourself when you do. all I can do is anticpate until the game finally finishes dowloading.

[wolfgarrr 0]

I don't post here much but i was actually looking to make a post about Cities XL and sense this thread is about what i wanted to make the post about

Frankly Cities XL "SUCKS" compared to sim city 4 + rush hour.

Reasons

1. Bulky user interface

2. Hardly any user mods at all for CXL CXL2011 CXL 2012 (yes i have tried them all)

3. Absolutely no trains in CXL/etc

4. Placing housing is a royal pain in the rear. (you can use the three different ways to do it but unless you plop every single house one at a time your going to have massive issues with roads) The normal streets will not be able to handle the traffic. You have to use expressways or avenues)

5. Traffic management is a pain. Don't bother with anything smaller then avenues, especially inside your main population hub.

6. resources suck.. you have very limited placement etc on most of them,

7. Roads/highways/bridges etc have a upkeep cost to them that is frankly way way too much.(can be modded or cheated though, Ie money hacks etc)

Pro's

1. The game looks pretty cool

2. buildings etc are some of the best i have seen in a city sim so far (but you can achieve almost the same with custom buildings in Simcity)

Overall i think im just going to let CXL sit until there are better mods out (small community though so it wont happen any time soon)

Stick with Simcity + rush hour .. There is a insane amount of great mods/buildings/maps etc that makes it 100X better then CXL is.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

To be honest, zoning is not that difficult, with linear zoning you can chose which type of road, with block zoning, you can decide block length and type of road, with free form zoning, you can choose both the type of the outer road (what constrains the zone) and the inner (if the zone is big enough, roads will be constructed inside the zone to fit in more houses.

The choice of roads for all of them ranges from 1 lane small road to 6 lane expressway.

The lack of intercity rail (passenger or freight city links) working (unlocked mod brought the functionality back but often resulted in crashes when one attempts to make a city link) but the metro system is far better than the subway/elevated rail system of SimCity 4 Rush Hour --- especially with mods.

  Edited November 13, 2011 by OcramSeattle  

[Keder 116]

Ehhhhhhhhhhh...... Here is how I see it.

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 50.1 Cities xl 2009-2012

[xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] 50.2 SimCity 4 Deluxe

Mostly because you can add custom content to SimCity 4.

[gc6164 36]

I have them both and I was absolutely amazed with cities xl 2011. Its graphics are out of this world and i just feel like im playing with simcity 5 .. Simcity 4 is also very good except it crashes alot and i understand its an old game but is very annoying.. Id rather a 2d game than a 3d game but i would rather cities xl 2011-12 than simcity 4..

I reckon cities Xl 2011-12 is 92 percent out of 100 and simcity 4 is 91.8 out of a 100

[Ocram's Razr 964]

They are pretty evenly matched with some features missing, buggy, or mod-only in Cities XL. Once the patch that fixes all the buildings in the 2012 DLC comes out (there are 60x80 and 80x80 offices that grow in high density 60x60 lots when they should be exceptional/plop only buildings and more egregious is that half of the new buildings have connection errors), Cities XL will be even better. Heck, the NEXL will bring everything in the NAM and more to Cities XL.

[wblake50 2]

I just bought CXL 2011 on Amazon for $20. I figured give it a try for less money than 2012 and see how it is and then I would consider upgrading to 2012 if I really liked it.

I have only gotten to play with it for one day so far but I have to say, for me, *WOW*. I absolutely love the freedom you get in terms of road placement and moving around. I think it's worth the $20 just for the fun of being off of the SC4 grid... which has been my dream for so long. I just hate the grid.

Also, while I love all the third party content for SC4 it got pretty cumbersome for me personally. I felt I was always screwing around trying to find some obscure dependency prop pack instead of just playing the game... that said, I am really hoping to see lots and lots of custom content developed for CXL, the potential is huge.

The jury's still out on other aspects of CXL however. I found it complains a lot (businesses need more workers! Workers need more jobs!) but I learned to ignore most of the "advice" in SC4 and live happily, so I need to see how much it can be ignored here as well. Also, I like to try to create pedestrian-only communities and other off-the-beaten-track type stuff... and it looks to me like CXL continues the SC4 tradition of making growth dependent upon roads.