SimCity: Gameplay

[City Planner 121]

SimCity 2013 - Now with less city management & more gaminess.

Yes, how dare they try to create a game which is 'entertaining' and 'engaging' and 'fun'.

Yes, how dare they take the city out of a City Building genre game!

 

We'll have to wait to see how entertaining, engaging or fun the game is which I think we might be able to measure by it's life span.  Demo made it impossible for me to tell how entertaining or engaging it was but I didn't find it fun, but I believe that's because of the forced tutorial event.

[nhgriffith 179]

London-b, there are 6 departments for your city hall, I believe. The last one is unlocked at 500,000 population. And if you wanted to get all of those wings built on a single city hall in one city, yes, you'd have to be building extraordinarily dense.

HOWEVER, once any city in your region builds and unlocks something, it's unlocked across the region. So, while you can get all the city hall unlockables by building one city up to 500,000 population, you could also get all the unlockables by building six cities up to 5,000 population (when you get the first upgrade) and have every city pick a different department.

The same goes for any other unlockable except the city specialization ones I believe.

You need research projects completed at the University for various unlockables, but once ANY university in your region has completed this, it's unlocked across the entire region.

[Ma8thew 77]

 

SimCity 2013 - Now with less city management & more gaminess.

Yes, how dare they try to create a game which is 'entertaining' and 'engaging' and 'fun'.

Yes, how dare they take the city out of a City Building genre game!

 

We'll have to wait to see how entertaining, engaging or fun the game is which I think we might be able to measure by it's life span.  Demo made it impossible for me to tell how entertaining or engaging it was but I didn't find it fun, but I believe that's because of the forced tutorial event.

I'm not seeing how SimCity involves any less city management than previous games.

[zubruu 10]

London-b, there are 6 departments for your city hall, I believe. The last one is unlocked at 500,000 population. And if you wanted to get all of those wings built on a single city hall in one city, yes, you'd have to be building extraordinarily dense.

HOWEVER, once any city in your region builds and unlocks something, it's unlocked across the region. So, while you can get all the city hall unlockables by building one city up to 500,000 population, you could also get all the unlockables by building six cities up to 5,000 population (when you get the first upgrade) and have every city pick a different department.

The same goes for any other unlockable except the city specialization ones I believe.

You need research projects completed at the University for various unlockables, but once ANY university in your region has completed this, it's unlocked across the entire region.

 

Hope it won't be like that with city hall departments.. for me it would take away a lot of strategic play. First upgrade in every city and we have nearly everything? Better sounds like one city takes department of utilities and provides garbage, water support for others, second take department for services, and provide police, crime, fire assistance for other cities.. that would made more seance for me.

 

-Edit-

Checked and it seems to be like you wrote.

[Frank Sobotka 0]

Is it possible to lock buildings in SimCity 2013 like it is in SC4?

[nhgriffith 179]

Is it possible to lock buildings in SimCity 2013 like it is in SC4?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean?

Hope it won't be like that with city hall departments.. for me it would take away a lot of strategic play. First upgrade in every city and we have nearly everything? Better sounds like one city takes department of utilities and provides garbage, water support for others, second take department for services, and provide police, crime, fire assistance for other cities.. that would made more seance for me.

 

-Edit-

Checked and it seems to be like you wrote.

Well, obviously if you're specializing your cities as such it naturally makes sense that each city take the department that applies more directly to them. And if you really wanted to, you could simply decide that any given city hall can't take an upgrade that no other city hall has unless it's advancing to a higher level then any other city hall you currently own. As a player, in a single player region, you could always make this choice if you wanted to.

[Ellusion 2]

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.

No. Buildings won't have to be destroyed when you upgrade roads. There is a upgrade road option that allows you to upgrade all the way up to StreetCar Avenue without destroying anything in the process.

[Haljackey 17,302]

No. Buildings won't have to be destroyed when you upgrade roads. There is a upgrade road option that allows you to upgrade all the way up to StreetCar Avenue without destroying anything in the process.

 

Streets can be upgraded, and so can avenues. However, you cannot upgrade a street to an avenue.

 

---

 

 

I was watching this live earlier and I want to say thank you for sharing this Haljackey, I really enjoyed watching you play. I am *this* close to pre-ordering now. And I finally got to see the giant lizard disaster!

 

 

That was definitely a fun watch there.  I didn't get to see the whole thing since I had other things to do but the 15 minutes I watched it were definitely good.  I already pre-ordered it back in January and your stream made me even more excited for Tuesday.  What I did notice is that it seems harder to keep a consistent positive cash flow now which is really good compared to the first Beta I played.

 

Thanks! I set up a playlist on Youtube so you can watch the gameplay from start to finish:

 

Or watch it here... The parts should automatically advance after each one is done:

 

SC13 releases in less than 24 hours... Hopefully this is enough to hold ya over until you grab/download a copy for yourself

[MrBomba 9]

Is it possible to lock buildings in SimCity 2013 like it is in SC4?

In a way, yes. The devs have said that if you delete the the zoning underneath the building, it will stay the shape it is until someone or something demolishes it.

[London-b 90]

London-b, there are 6 departments for your city hall, I believe. The last one is unlocked at 500,000 population. And if you wanted to get all of those wings built on a single city hall in one city, yes, you'd have to be building extraordinarily dense.

HOWEVER, once any city in your region builds and unlocks something, it's unlocked across the region. So, while you can get all the city hall unlockables by building one city up to 500,000 population, you could also get all the unlockables by building six cities up to 5,000 population (when you get the first upgrade) and have every city pick a different department.

The same goes for any other unlockable except the city specialization ones I believe.

You need research projects completed at the University for various unlockables, but once ANY university in your region has completed this, it's unlocked across the entire region.

 

Very informative, merci. 

[Nique 291]

Besides of all the other points; look at this slogan

 

"Let's all be mayors"

 

Ahummm.. 

• Do mayors build coal mines?
• Do mayors build processor factories?
• Do mayors build company (specialization) headquarters?
• ...
• ...

 

No no no no no. I thought Simcity was a CITY simulator. Today it is more like a Tycoon sim. A mix between Simcity and ANNO and Age of empires.... (great works), but.. very very limited. 

Why why why. Sorry i can't help it. It makes me really sad that this is it...

 

these decisions restricted the game in a 2km square because the 'engine' couldnt handle more as it needs more processor power from a dads pc..

I'm not watching from a SC4 point of view. Im just watching from a gamers perspective. They just removed the whole freedom of building and managing a city! It is no city.. it is a town. And to camouflage it, they added unrealistic residential numbers in the buildings. (100k per square km.. omg)  You are forced to build your town on predefined regions so even that part (scaping your own regions) is out of the question. Everything that made this Simcity series great is just gone for the sake of simpliefied dumb people wha can barely start up windows and move their mouse to the right icon. So sad.... so sad.

 

I find the gameplay horrible. Can't even move around when placing objects. Everything is forced within tight boundaries. 

And then the details.. visual details; Gone. Busstop signs are 2 stories tall... aaarlg i can just continue forever i think. 

 

This is not 'bashing' or 'hating'.. 

 

In all those years ive seen many titles come along. 99% of them where shooters. Games that stimulate destroy, kill and hate. 

Finaly, Maxis announced a new version of Simcity and what did they do? They dumbed it down so badly that even a monkey can play it.

 

For me it is just confirming the level of intelligence on our planet... 

[CoolColJ 42]

Nice writeup with some vids

 

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2013/03/simcity-won-and-broke-my-heart-in-just-three-days/

 

 

[Frank Sobotka 0]

In a way, yes. The devs have said that if you delete the the zoning underneath the building, it will stay the shape it is until someone or something demolishes it.

 

Ah, that's cool. Thanks!

[BravoGreenONE 120]

As the game has been released im curious to see when a show us your intersection thread will be started. Maxis touted the road pretty heavy so im interested to see what people come up with, especially if youve managed the bottlenecks from the region transport system

[mk11232 105]

This thread needs to be removed and a new sticky put in place.  It doesn't make sense to have a 2012 pre-release thread as the "gameplay" thread now.