SimCity: Gameplay

[Vampirovibrio 43]

Hey guys, I wanted to let you know that I got into the SimCity (2013) Closed Dev. Beta.

I can't say more other than I'm in it at this point in time, but I'll keep you posted on any details that emerge!

If you have any concerns about the game that you want to address, let me know and I'll forward it to the developers.

Hi! I was in the closed beta over the weekend and I noted that parks and plobbables cannot be rotated. This can be rather inconvenient when one is trying to squeeze the park into a space as by default the park is orientated in a certain direction even though if it can be rotated, it could have fit in nicely into the space. I do understand that parks and plobbables need road access so unless they have built the parks in such a way that there is only one exit/entrance on on sie of the park I don't understand why rotation of parks and plobbables cannot be done. Can u help me ask the developers about this issue? Thanks.

[Haljackey 17,302]

Yeah it bugged me as well. Some things that definitely don't need to be connected to a road must be to be plopped. I'll make a note of it.

[baertooth 330]

Can't rotate parks? Actually, I'm not surprised because they way they seemed to program this version roads are all important and run the entire simulation and if something is not connected to the roads then it can't be simulated.

[Ma8thew 77]

If it's not connected to a road then how would sims get to it?

[Jim14409 448]

If it's not connected to a road then how would sims get to it?

They would get to it by WALKING. Weird huh? Actually it is not anything new, our ancesters did a good deal of walking and so do the Sims in SC4.

[Ma8thew 77]

If it's not connected to a road then how would sims get to it?

They would get to it by WALKING. Weird huh? Actually it is not anything new, our ancesters did a good deal of walking and so do the Sims in SC4.

Ah, but the sims in Simcity 4 don't get there by walking. They don't get anywhere, because they aren't simulated. Park effects are based on radius, not accessibility. So in SimCity, the new engine requires that sims be able to travel to things for it to have an effect. The only way for this to occur is if they are connected to the transport network.

[baertooth 330]

This is one area where Simcity Societies is superior to both SC4 and SC2013. The Sims were actually walkers and they didn't need roads to commute from their jobs and back. It's just the path finding was broken and no matter what I did they would get stuck on stuff so that's why I don't play. But it was awesome to make an island city with no cars. Or make walking neighborhoods with a minimum of roads, especially making downtown areas with walking plazas.

It's really too bad EA abandoned it before finishing it. It's broken an incomplete but when modded correctly it is a really fun city builder. The one caveat is it's a plopper instead of zoning but the level of control the plopping brought (props and other elements) more than made up for lose of zoning.

[Vampirovibrio 43]

Actually, when the issue still exist even if I put the park next to road. Fr example, some parks are say 3x1. For some reason despite the fact that I left a space big enough that the narrower side of the park can fit in, the game refuses to let me place it but defaults to the wider side. I dunno why. I try to rotate the park but could not find any key or mouse clicks that would allow me to rotate.

[Jim14409 448]

 

If it's not connected to a road then how would sims get to it?

They would get to it by WALKING. Weird huh? Actually it is not anything new, our ancesters did a good deal of walking and so do the Sims in SC4. https://community.simtropolis.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/2.gif

Ah, but the sims in Simcity 4 don't get there by walking. They don't get anywhere, because they aren't simulated. Park effects are based on radius, not accessibility. So in SimCity, the new engine requires that sims be able to travel to things for it to have an effect. The only way for this to occur is if they are connected to the transport network. 

My post begins here:

If Sims in SC4 don't get there by walking then the game info is lying to me. My Sims often walk to nearby jobs, subway and bus stations, or at least that is what the info tells me when I click their home, work, or transport stop with the query tool.

@ baertooth

I found nothing in Societies superior to SC4. I found it to be a shallow silly game that was restrictive, made planning and organizing difficult with their oversized "plop" buildings which it appears SC2013 is doing as well. To top it all off Societies had way too much "society" in it to be a true city building game. I regret I wasted that forty or fifty bucks and don't intend to do it again.

This is my opinion of Societies and yours may vary.

EDIT: This board is apparently having a bad day. Things are coming out all wonky when I quote a post.

[Ma8thew 77]

 

 

If it's not connected to a road then how would sims get to it?

They would get to it by WALKING. Weird huh? Actually it is not anything new, our ancesters did a good deal of walking and so do the Sims in SC4. https://community.simtropolis.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/2.gif

Ah, but the sims in Simcity 4 don't get there by walking. They don't get anywhere, because they aren't simulated. Park effects are based on radius, not accessibility. So in SimCity, the new engine requires that sims be able to travel to things for it to have an effect. The only way for this to occur is if they are connected to the transport network. 

My post begins here:

If Sims in SC4 don't get there by walking then the game info is lying to me. My Sims often walk to nearby jobs, subway and bus stations, or at least that is what the info tells me when I click their home, work, or transport stop with the query tool.

@ baertooth

I found nothing in Societies superior to SC4. I found it to be a shallow silly game that was restrictive, made planning and organizing difficult with their oversized "plop" buildings which it appears SC2013 is doing as well. To top it all off Societies had way too much "society" in it to be a true city building game. I regret I wasted that forty or fifty bucks and don't intend to do it again.

This is my opinion of Societies and yours may vary.

EDIT: This board is apparently having a bad day. Things are coming out all wonky when I quote a post.  

You're right. The game is lying to you. Simcity 4 is not truly simulating all those sims. SimCity is. Simcity 4 does calculate paths from homes to work in order to estimate traffic levels. But it does not calculate paths to anything else (as far as I know). A sim does not need to be able to travel to a park in order to get benefit from it. Being within an effect radius is enough. This is no longer the case in SimCity.

[Jim14409 448]

 

 

 

If it's not connected to a road then how would sims get to it?

They would get to it by WALKING. Weird huh? Actually it is not anything new, our ancesters did a good deal of walking and so do the Sims in SC4. https://community.simtropolis.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/2.gif

Ah, but the sims in Simcity 4 don't get there by walking. They don't get anywhere, because they aren't simulated. Park effects are based on radius, not accessibility. So in SimCity, the new engine requires that sims be able to travel to things for it to have an effect. The only way for this to occur is if they are connected to the transport network. 

My post begins here:

If Sims in SC4 don't get there by walking then the game info is lying to me. My Sims often walk to nearby jobs, subway and bus stations, or at least that is what the info tells me when I click their home, work, or transport stop with the query tool.

@ baertooth

I found nothing in Societies superior to SC4. I found it to be a shallow silly game that was restrictive, made planning and organizing difficult with their oversized "plop" buildings which it appears SC2013 is doing as well. To top it all off Societies had way too much "society" in it to be a true city building game. I regret I wasted that forty or fifty bucks and don't intend to do it again.

This is my opinion of Societies and yours may vary.

EDIT: This board is apparently having a bad day. Things are coming out all wonky when I quote a post. 

You're right. The game is lying to you. Simcity 4 is not truly simulating all those sims. SimCity is. Simcity 4 does calculate paths from homes to work in order to estimate traffic levels. But it does not calculate paths to anything else (as far as I know). A sim does not need to be able to travel to a park in order to get benefit from it. Being within an effect radius is enough. This is no longer the case in SimCity.  

I assume when you say "SimCity" you mean SimCity2013 because otherwise I could not understand your post (really never did). I think most of us understand that SC4 does not simulate the sims or vehicles in the game. If it did they would not simply vanish at odd moments. However it remains that the sims in SC4 DO walk and with the NAM installed they walk further than in the vanilla game. As to whether or not you were disagreeing I've not figured out yet so maybe I'll take a walk and study on it.

[Ma8thew 77]

 

 

 

 

If it's not connected to a road then how would sims get to it?

They would get to it by WALKING. Weird huh? Actually it is not anything new, our ancesters did a good deal of walking and so do the Sims in SC4. https://community.simtropolis.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/2.gif

Ah, but the sims in Simcity 4 don't get there by walking. They don't get anywhere, because they aren't simulated. Park effects are based on radius, not accessibility. So in SimCity, the new engine requires that sims be able to travel to things for it to have an effect. The only way for this to occur is if they are connected to the transport network. 

My post begins here:

If Sims in SC4 don't get there by walking then the game info is lying to me. My Sims often walk to nearby jobs, subway and bus stations, or at least that is what the info tells me when I click their home, work, or transport stop with the query tool.

@ baertooth

I found nothing in Societies superior to SC4. I found it to be a shallow silly game that was restrictive, made planning and organizing difficult with their oversized "plop" buildings which it appears SC2013 is doing as well. To top it all off Societies had way too much "society" in it to be a true city building game. I regret I wasted that forty or fifty bucks and don't intend to do it again.

This is my opinion of Societies and yours may vary.

EDIT: This board is apparently having a bad day. Things are coming out all wonky when I quote a post. 

You're right. The game is lying to you. Simcity 4 is not truly simulating all those sims. SimCity is. Simcity 4 does calculate paths from homes to work in order to estimate traffic levels. But it does not calculate paths to anything else (as far as I know). A sim does not need to be able to travel to a park in order to get benefit from it. Being within an effect radius is enough. This is no longer the case in SimCity. 

I assume when you say "SimCity" you mean SimCity2013 because otherwise I could not understand your post (really never did). I think most of us understand that SC4 does not simulate the sims or vehicles in the game. If it did they would not simply vanish at odd moments. However it remains that the sims in SC4 DO walk and with the NAM installed they walk further than in the vanilla game. As to whether or not you were disagreeing I've not figured out yet so maybe I'll take a walk and study on it.  

You're conflating two things. In Simcity 4, took many modes of transport to and from work were simulated. This included being able to walk to and from work. However, there was no simulation of sim movement to non-workplaces. To receive the benefit of a hospital, fire station, or park, there was no need for transport to that location from the sim's home. The simulation never considered that a sim walked or drove to any of these locations.

In SimCity (2013) a sim must be able to take some mode of transport to and from any location in order to receive benefit from it. Thus, a park must be connected to the transport network.

[burghermaster 8]

About roads

I'm not sure to fully understand how the roads can be upgraded.

According to the pictures from the beta, what are the options for 2-lane roads as dirt roads and streets ?

Apparently, there are 7 sorts of roads (right?), among which 2 groups of upgrading ? (24m and 48m broad)

(I haven't played the beta, sorry if this question seems trivial)

[nhgriffith 179]

There are roads and there are avenues.  Within these two categories, there are several density options.  The lowest density option for roads is dirt roads.  Only low-density grows on dirt roads.  But you can start your city by laying out dirt roads everywhere and zoning these.  Once you've grown a bit, you can build a road over these roads (similar to turning a SC4 STREET into a ROAD) to upgrade them.  And then higher densities will move in.

 

You can upgrade your road to any level by simply paving over the previous road.  However, to upgrade from a road to an Avenue, it will require destroying buildings near the road as avenues are twice as wide.

And I imagine that the reason why parks can't be rotated is similar to the reason why a commercial building or a residential house will always grow with the same orientation to the street.  These objects all have an entrance or a front-door, or a driveway, and it only makes sense if this side of the object is facing the road.

[RyanMorgan95 144]

Hi, missed the beta - couple newbie questions...

1. If a city is alone in a region and builds a tourist attraction, are tourists from outside the city still attracted?

2. Does a high wealth or tech building actually bring in more tax revenue than a low wealth / tech one of the same density?

 

1. I think so. In the Beta you started a city in a completely empty region, but tourists would still visit my gambling halls.

 

2. Yes. If you have an equal population of low-wealth and high-wealth Sims, and tax (%) them equally, a greater proportion of residential tax revenue will come from the high-wealth Sims.

 

Could someone correct me if I'm wrong.

[AnyNameWillDo 6]

Hi, missed the beta - couple newbie questions...

1. If a city is alone in a region and builds a tourist attraction, are tourists from outside the city still attracted?

2. Does a high wealth or tech building actually bring in more tax revenue than a low wealth / tech one of the same density?

 

1. I think so. In the Beta you started a city in a completely empty region, but tourists would still visit my gambling halls.

 

2. Yes. If you have an equal population of low-wealth and high-wealth Sims, and tax (%) them equally, a greater proportion of residential tax revenue will come from the high-wealth Sims.

 

Could someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Cool, thanks for the help!

[nhgriffith 179]

2. Yes. If you have an equal population of low-wealth and high-wealth Sims, and tax (%) them equally, a greater proportion of residential tax revenue will come from the high-wealth Sims.

 

Could someone correct me if I'm wrong.

This certainly seems to be the case for SimCity 4. I haven't actually done any math, but in a natural city, you can easily gain a larger portion of your residential tax from your high wealth residents even if they're the smallest of the three groups. I'd hope this trend continues in the new game, and I don't see any reason why it shouldn't.

The high wealth Sims are, after all, more expensive to keep around. They require all sorts of civics which all cost the city money.

And in terms of realism, cities get their tax revenue based on property taxes. A high wealth Sim's property is going to be worth significantly more than a low-wealth Sim. So, 9% of a property worth 1,000,000 simoleons is clearly more than 9% of ten properties worth 10,000 simoleons each.

[Hellken 1,658]

The main difference between SC4 and SC 2013 is that SC4 had good fundamentals and it's bugs were FIXABLE by patching and modding. SC4 is flawed but thankfully most of the stuff there were fixable.

The problem with SimCity (2013) is that many of its main fundamentals are already extremely flawed from the beginning. Its major advantages it has is the 3D camera and Glassbox simulation with "real people". Problems and bugs with SimCity (2013)'s curved roads are fixable with patching but the major fundamental stuff are not.

I highly doubt many of the major issues and disadvantages of SimCity (2013) can be simply patched or modded:

• Save cap limits. You are given a max number of cities/regions. Once you use all your save slots, the only way to continue is to delete your regions or cities to make room for more.
• Since save caps are limited the game will likely have a short life span
• Everything is online and permanent so you cannot load a previous save normally.
• No local saves. Cloud save only.
• Answer on Reddit to "What happens if my internet connection is disconnected while saving?" is not assuring.
• Always - online.
• EA cannot even assure people if the game will still be playable in any form once the servers get shut down for maintenance or permanently.
• Unable to save if servers are closed or if internet connection fails. EA cannot even assure people if the game will still be playable in any form once the servers get shut down for maintenance or permanently.
• Tiny city size.
• Extreme lack of freedom. SC4 allowed people to have 100% control and freedom with all of the space. SC (2013) lacks that same freedom.
• Unable to edit transportation connections. 
• A lot of transportation options have been cut.
• Wasted space in between cities that you cannot edit or fix.
• Flawed density zoning rules.
• No farms
• Regions are all pre - set.
• No Terraforming.
• Unable to build a normal looking city or metropolis because of that big wasted space in between cities.
• Region size is restricted.
• Number of cities in a region is just 16
• No urban sprawl.

I could probably go on and on but most of these major issues are a huge step backwards. Many of these will probably require the source code and reverse engineering it. That's illegal. Unlike SC4, modders don't really have much hope there.

 

Since this game is always - online there might be limitations to modding since that might be tantamount to "cheating" the online market. 

[Hoipus 292]

Mods that change how the game plays might be allowed to some degree under the sandbox mode, as it effectively ignores the economy.

[Sunfighter 186]

I still cant make up my mind on this game. Ive adopted a total wait and see. Seems like EA and Maxis want to take simcity in a direction that I dont agree with. But hey im just one customer.

 

I bought all the previous simcities for the creative sandbox type experience. Anything to deal with the sims living within my city was just a bonus, and any tools they added to make my ant farm better I welcomed, and any tools they removed, I got angry about their loss.

 

It seems with this reboot theyve decided to focus more so on the sims living within the city, than on the making of the city itself. The trade off of that system and focus seems to have been the loss of most of the tools to make your city and a far greater extent, the limiting of the size of your sandbox to ridiculous levels. To the point where creativity is severely limited, and the cities themselves take on cartoonish levels of density and a unrealistic design aspect should you wish to create something towards a realistic real world type feel. I believe the limit in size also contributed to the cuts in a lot of transportation features as there really is no point in mass transit when you are only talking about a handful of blocks.

 

It is my hope that this version of Simcity is more just a stepping stone to a more complete simcity in the future, but I have my doubts of course. Not only due to the lack of simcities over the past decade, but the fact that EA and maxis seem hell bent on focusing entirely on the sims themselves and not the city. They seem to be focusing more on making Simcity a game and less a sandbox simulator.

 

That said, I obviously will not be pre-ordering, but I will keep my eye on things. At the 20 dollar price point id maybe buy in. Or if they eventually do find a way to bring in features that will give me the freedom and sandbox feel then I will jump aboard. Im just one customer, and im sure Simcity will sell well regardless, but the direction its going, was never the direction I found fascinating about the older simcity games. The game was never about the ants living in the ant farm, but the ant farm itself. I never cared about the individuals scurrying about within my designed and placed buildings, roads and rails and whether they were happy or not. I cared about the city as a whole. Just as I dont care about the individual cells in my body, I care about the whole body itself. The complexity and its ability to function is what is the amazing thing. Not the individuals. The same applies to Simcity. The scale makes that feeling a near impossibility.

[Bazkur 34]

Save cap limits. You are given a max number of cities/regions. Once you use all your save slots, the only way to continue is to delete your regions or cities to make room for more.

 

I'm curious where you learned this?  I haven't heard it before.  CXL is limited as well but had so many slots I never saw a problem (plus modding allowed for more).  But I hadn't heard that this game has a cap.  A cap per region yes but I thought I saw something on Twitter that you could have as many regions as you wanted.

[Hoipus 292]

Save cap limits. You are given a max number of cities/regions. Once you use all your save slots, the only way to continue is to delete your regions or cities to make room for more.

 

I'm curious where you learned this?  I haven't heard it before.  CXL is limited as well but had so many slots I never saw a problem (plus modding allowed for more).  But I hadn't heard that this game has a cap.  A cap per region yes but I thought I saw something on Twitter that you could have as many regions as you wanted.

 

Maxis AMAA on reddit:

 

 Since is online, will be a limit in the number of regions/cities that I can play?

Yes, we had to put a cap here. We learned alot on Spore about this.

You'll have plenty of save slots, which will allow you to create and

manage many regions and cities. We haven't locked the number yet, but

what I can say is that they are bound to regions. So if you created a

16 city region, you could play all 16 cities and that would be one save

slot.

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/14umm1/we_are_the_simcity_dev_team_from_maxis_amaa/c7gki41

[Bazkur 34]

Interesting, I'll be curious to see how that works.  but I do wonder if it is taken a bit out of context.  For instance it mentions Spore but doesn't say what they learned from Spore in that respect.  Spore has unlimited saves.  One Galaxy but new planets are added every time you take one.  but then again it does say 16 cities in a region if you play all cities is only 1 save slot.  So you may very well be correct.  Either way, won't effect my decision to buy and play but could certainly effect replay value.  Thanks for the link!

[nhgriffith 179]

That could be taken in many, many different ways...

I mean, it's implied that I'm allowed to play an unlimited number of cities, but a limited number of regions. The number of cities is simply limited to how many cities per region I play. But if I have 10 region save slots (just for example), I could play 160 cities (16 in each region), or I could play 10 cities (1 per region) and still be using the same amount of save slots. I get that part.

So the question then kind of is... are the region save slots based on regions I create/host? So... if I play a city in a region created by someone else, does that cost me a save slot? I mean, if person A uses 1 save slot to play 1 out of 16 cities in a region, but he also uses 1 save slot to play 16 out of 16 cities in a region, it stands to reason that if I'm playing a city in his region, his save slot has room to save my city...

[dysonraf 37]

I would suggest the owner or creator of a region uses the save slot judging by what they say here. If im correct you need to ask/be asked to join someone elses region so potentially youd be limited to one city per region should the owner wish. Also as owner of a region there must br an option to kick a player which again would suggest its their save game otherwise they would effectively wipe your save. Imagine the trolls on that one!

[Hellken 1,658]

https://twitter.com/oceanquigley/status/289864358144659456

Brad ‏@callmebradeh

@oceanquigley Sorry for so many questions, but are you limited to one region?

Ocean Quigley

‏@oceanquigley

@callmebradeh You can have cities in up to 10 regions - they can all be your private regions - or you can be sharing them. But 10 in total.

There is already a thread about this here:

[pkderek 51]

Every gripe about this game ultimately comes down to the "competitive" social nature of the game. This direction doesn't seem to be convincing to the Maxis devs themselves, however EA sees the success of social media and social gaming and (dare I say it) CoD and wants a piece of it (thus why EVERY EA game comes with a multiplayer). It ultimately comes down to what the devs can get away with under their overlords.

 

The "official" game revolves around the leaderboards. How, then, can you give someone a 16x16km city to work to their hearts content while others can only run a 2x2? And terraforming... one would obviously just make everything flat lands or unrealistic edges for waterfronts (easy seaports). It ultimately comes down to an even playing field. And they limited the size to that equal playing field to give everyone a "fair" advantage to be on top.

 

What worries me is this detracts to the creative aspect that they want to think is there and limits you to a very specific build and layout to be "competitive". That also goes into the problem that this game is not or rather should not be competitive in the first place. How do you compare someone making a small town with someone who is trying to make a 1:1 scale city of New York? How can you say one is better?

 

While some issues such as density being tied to streets and sims always taking the "shortest" not "fastest" route definitely should be reworked, there is not much else to have issues over. You can see it all over the forums the amazing things this engine could be capable of - given the right opportunity.

[Bazkur 34]

Well what the 10 regions thing tells me is that one of the items you can buy in the Mini Store is additional region slots.  If priced correctly this could be an extremely smart business decision at least over the long haul if gamers adopt the game.  Most of us love our cities and tend not to completely destroy them so if we as players never take a mindset that "I've beat that city, I can get rid of it" then Maxis stands to make a decent income on extra save slots.

 

Course Ocean's comment, if taken word for word, would indicate that there is never more than 10 region saves so I could be wrong but it certainly seems like something EA would want to do.

[ZiZiL 7]

I am new to SimCity series and 2013 version will be the first one I will use. Obviously I cannot compare this version to previous versions but I can say that the reason EA decided to take a different approach to the game is to capture new markets. Let's face it, one of the reasons why I was not able to play the older versions is that if I wanted a lot of fun, I had to dedicate a lot of time. Let's face it, in today's day and age, people do not have that much spare time. Most people would want to get as much fun as possible in a short period of time without spending too much time on actually learning the game. I think this is the overall strategy which is making the game a bit simpler therefore capturing more customers. I admit that I am one of them. I cannot record bunch of stuff in a separate spreadsheet to keep the city running. With the new version, I do not have to worry about that. I login, play half hour and so, and enjoy that half hour fully. I think this was the idea that they had in mind when designing the game.

[BravoGreenONE 120]

Heres a complex answer. Multiple leaderboards. Or an eveb better answer.....get rid of the leaderboards entirely. I mean is there anyone over 10 years old who really cares about leaderboards.

  Edited February 10, 2013 by CaptCity  
Language.