Regions in SC5 look pretty neat (from E3 video)

[RRtexasranger 45]

Based on what I've seen from that E3 video, the region concept looks pretty cool. In the video, they had a part of the region sectioned off solely to build an airport. So, does this suggests that you can build build neghborhoods that are part of a larger city in this region and are all connected organically?

For instance, build a Commercial Business District in one "city section" and move over to another one and build some suburbs?

The video made it look like you could view your entire region in 3D and not just have some abstract bird's eye view of it.

[Blurque 9]

It seems like it, now I'm really excited.

And I think I also saw a creek getting plopped, when this becomes modable and new more buildings become available this could just become the perfect City Simulator.

[RRtexasranger 45]

This is the part of the video I'm referring to (to those who missed it or don't remember what I am talking about.)

Note how you can see the city in the background. THAT is what I am most excited about. I hope this game is kinda of like The Sims 3 where you can move seamlessly (or near seamlessly) between different lots in your region and have them each work with each other as part of a larger group. You could have an industrial park as one lot, a suburb as another, a very large park/forest as one, ect. If the game operates close to this, then the fact that the lots are small and only be able to hold "tens of thousands" of people won't matter as much because using a combination of lots will give the illusion of a bigger city.

[SilverCyric 130]

While Im getting more and more excited about the new game as all the new screenshots and gameplay videos come out, I cant but help think that it still may be confined. In SC4 I can hardly stand to play on anything but a large tile. The medium tiles are just barely too small for my tastes. Like many people, I spend lots of time researching and perfecting realistic city building techniques, and I enjoy it thoroughly, but, realistically cities sit some 15-20 miles apart or more. Ive gotten ambitious and began a 96 km x 96 km region and its fantastic, having all the room to put proper hills and valleys, mountain ranges and having cities spreadout, instead of being literally every 2-3 miles (the distance of a large tile apart). And while my load times can sometimes be vexing, it's what is required to get a truly urban sprawl going with some nice country fringes. But I am intrigued by the concept of people building all sorts of districts around each other. Im totally going to buy the new game and support the franchise, but I hope it doesnt lose the true city building aspects that made SC4 a great platform to turn it into what the community has, a truly unifying and inspiring game of art, dilligence and intelligence.

[CWLGAMER01 39]

To me - it looks like the Sims 3 layout somewhat. I can imagine the circle and caption are placed by one of the players - proposing where the airport should be located.... thats my take from the video.

The other player will then approve or change the location. Once that is established it looks like each city will contribute to actually building the airport.

[nathanthemayor 1,261]

Wow the graphics are amazing. And the region idea of moving seamlessly between cities is unbelieveable to me.

[dance1211 1]

The only problem I see is the regions themselves look too plain. There's no features to really fill up space between cities like forest, hills, rivers ... etc. That takes character away from it and makes the it and makes it boring to look at.

[MINIggy03 227]

The only problem I see is the regions themselves look too plain. There's no features to really fill up space between cities like forest, hills, rivers ... etc. That takes character away from it and makes the it and makes it boring to look at.

It might just be this specific region that is boring.

[RRtexasranger 45]

The only problem I see is the regions themselves look too plain. There's no features to really fill up space between cities like forest, hills, rivers ... etc. That takes character away from it and makes the it and makes it boring to look at.

Considering every singe SimCity game has given us the option to customize the physical attributes of the regions, I doubt it will be much of a problem.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

Are cities shaped like hexagons?

[The Bluejay 40]

All the cities look so small

[dabadon5 295]

Interesting concept, kinda wish sc4 had that feature. Anyways it looks great, but I wonder if your city can greatly interfere with your neighbors. As in if you have real bad air pollution and it floats over to their city, causing his or her sims to suffer. Kinda cool.

[SilverCyric 130]

Well in my opinion, everyone who plays this game, together seems to get along, judging from all the help and clean forums present here. There could be one heck of a cooperative effort achieved... Of course there will have to be industry and other negative effects, but working together, like the trailer specifically refers to, can overcome these problems. I'm looking forward to seeing some of peoples creative co-op ideas...

[MINIggy03 227]

I'm starting to wonder if the cities will even connect to one another, and instead there will always be empty space between each city where all the specialty items go like airports, solar power, etc.

All the cities look so small

We know the cities are around the size of a medium map in SC4, so those cities in the region are no where near their limit in size, they're just small at the moment.

[kant01 5]

So far its looking good! Definitely excited to see more!

[jumbz55 7]

Have to agree! The regions and this style of gameplay do seem to be revolutionary in terms of city building. A much better concept compared to what Cities XL had. If you guys heard Lucy Bradshaw talk (and it's also on their website), she said that we will be able to make our own private regions, shared regions with friends and then something similar to a massive multiplayer online experience. I love the choice!

I reckon that in terms of regions/nations there will be already laid out rail/highways/city connectors (similar to what we had in the Sims 1) and then you need to plop your city on one of the lots and connect it to the highway. This will probably be for the multiplayer online. Hopefully the private region will be similar to SC4, I also would like to customise my intercity transport design.

Loving the idea of building airports and fusion reactors with other citybuilders. Go Maxis!

[RRtexasranger 45]

I'm starting to wonder if the cities will even connect to one another, and instead there will always be empty space between each city where all the specialty items go like airports, solar power, etc.

All the cities look so small

We know the cities are around the size of a medium map in SC4, so those cities in the region are no where near their limit in size, they're just small at the moment.

I'm still wondering that too, I'd be bummed if that was the case.

[DmainEvent 195]

The only problem I see is the regions themselves look too plain. There's no features to really fill up space between cities like forest, hills, rivers ... etc. That takes character away from it and makes the it and makes it boring to look at.

Did everybody watch the same video I did? I didn't see anything about regions in the video.

Have to agree! The regions and this style of gameplay do seem to be revolutionary in terms of city building. A much better concept compared to what Cities XL had. If you guys heard Lucy Bradshaw talk (and it's also on their website), she said that we will be able to make our own private regions, shared regions with friends and then something similar to a massive multiplayer online experience. I love the choice!

I reckon that in terms of regions/nations there will be already laid out rail/highways/city connectors (similar to what we had in the Sims 1) and then you need to plop your city on one of the lots and connect it to the highway. This will probably be for the multiplayer online. Hopefully the private region will be similar to SC4, I also would like to customise my intercity transport design.

Loving the idea of building airports and fusion reactors with other citybuilders. Go Maxis!

Where is that video. That is something I would want to see.

[Fluffyvito 40]

I would be interested to see how something similar to the GRV challenges would be implemented using the shared regions.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

Why is the Airport shaped like a hexagon?

[jumbz55 7]

Where is that video. That is something I would want to see.

It's the E3 Announcement, Maxis did a 5 minute presentation headed by Lucy Bradshaw (search for it on youtube, there's a heap of versions). The part about shared regions with friends I saw somewhere either a video/article but I forget where... it was legit though (or seemed it anyway).

[Moory 7]

Definitely excited for this game to be released. One minor detail that bothered me was the way cars merged into different lanes as shown on the

Watch how the city bus merges from the middle lane to the right lane, it almost appears the bus is sliding on ice.

[Frode789 70]

Definitely excited for this game to be released. One minor detail that bothered me was the way cars merged into different lanes as shown on the

Watch how the city bus merges from the middle lane to the right lane, it almost appears the bus is sliding on ice.

haha, I noticed the same thing. That did really NOT look good, but it's still early in development, so I guess it'll be fixed

[logintime 93]

So I have a question: the game's official stats on Origin say it is multiplayer for 1-16 players. Does that mean that regions can only have up to 16 tiles, or is it simply a user limit?

[Ocram's Razr 963]

I certainly hope that the 16 player limit does not mean that regions are smaller than Cities XL cities and typical SimCity 4 regions.

[LillySatou 117]

I think what would be cool but might not work depending on how they're structuring this is if your available area to build expanded as your city grew. But there just isn't enough information out there right now beyond speculation to say anything. I'm hoping they can release more details about the game soon.

[alex macnamara 139]

I loved the tower crane animations as the building grew up! And the headlights kicked arse!

[Supertask 29]

If it's really true that airports are region features rather than individual city tile features then that's really awesome. I've always thought this is how it should work on SC4, it has often been pointed out the Maxis airports in SC4 are much, much too small. It would have made more sense if, in the region screen, you designated a city tile an "airport tile" (perhaps with some sort of requirement, like having reached a certain region population). Maybe this is the way they're going with the new Simcity.

[ZackAttack 0]

I am wondering that too, but as I can see from the video it might also imply that cities are not connect street by street, so if I wanted to build a huge city it would be separated by an empty land, I wouldn't mind it to be cut into other cities like in SC4 though , it wouldn't hurt to have this option too