SimCity: Confirmed Features

[Hamish 1,369]

Maxis announced that it was working on a new Simcity in March this year, (2012). Since then a lot of information has come out about it, some true, some not so true. At the moment the confirmed features are starting to get mixed in with the unconfirmed and the speculation, which would be perfectly fine if every body had been here from the start. With an increasing amount of new members signing up on this site daily, the collective knowledge is starting to thin, and its becoming increasingly harder to learn what has been confirmed for SimCity, and what has not.

This thread will be a collection of every thing we know so far.

How to contribute to this thread?

One person can't acquire the information alone, thats why we need help from the community. We need you to post below the features that you know have been confirmed so far. So that we keep this an accurate thread however, we need references. While we may know that feature has been confirmed somewhere on the internet, we need to know exactly where so that we can make this thread as useful as possible.

How to submit a confirmed feature?

Write a reply to this topic which contains the following; a brief but accurate depiction of the confirmed feature, and a credible link to where this information was found. If there is no link in your post, the feature will not be added. The link must also be as direct as possible, for instance, link to an article on the SimCity site rather than the main page.

Please save any discussion of these features for either their respective pinned topics, or others in the SimCity (2013) General Discussion Forum.

Current Release Date

:

USA: 5th March 2013

Europe: 8th March 2013

Confirmed Features:

Transportation

- Trams

- Shuttle Busses

- Inter-City Busses

- Heavy Rail

- Regional Airport

- Local Airport

Power

- Wind Farm

- Coal Plant

Trading

- Sim City World

- Trade Depot

- Trade Port

SimCity is still a work in progress, while these features may have been confirmed by a credible source they are subject to change as the game develops leading up to its release date.

[north country dude 202]

I'm with Poobah on this one.

http://www.gameinfor...spx?PageIndex=2

Even with a broadband connection, I'm still not interested in MMO style games. I'm not a "Social Network" addict. Games and Simulations that allow me to tweak and modify to my personal style of play will get my dollar,...not FB or monthly subscriptions to a MMO account. And guess what? there are more of that style[single player] than there are the "monthly subscription" or "social network" style games.

Vote with your wallet!

[Urban Cartographer 601]

Here are confirmed features to start things out:

No 100% offline single player mode

No large-scale terraforming

Forced cloud save, therefore no reloading previous saves

[Don Bananos 28]

Just a quick one, since i'm at work:

Trams [x]

Busses, 2 kinds [x]

heavy rail [x]

I create a mass transit system featuring shuttle buses, large inter-city buses, light rail and heavy rail.

Found at SimCitys website.

-Mike

  Edited September 27, 2012 by Don Bananos  

[Hamish 1,369]

Thanks Don Bananos, I've added those into the list.

I'll also post a few that I've got lined up in a bit, I'll just need to find the links and make sure I have them right.

Remember, I really want to see links with the features too, or else we don't know if these are actually planned for SimCity, or just rumours.

And it would be great to keep this thread bias and opinion free. We have other topics to post our thoughts into, lets keep them there and this as a collection of what we know so far.

[jacksunny 741]

http://www.simcity.com/en_US/insider/blog/article/how-it-works-%28great%29-international-airport%20%20

Great Works: A feature in the game that allows players to work together to create large structures or other creations that would be difficult for one player to do by themselves. The article above confirms that the International Airport is one of the Great Works in the game.

[fatbuster 44]

Here's what I could dig up:

Transportation:

Regional airport

Local Airport

Quote about local airport, if can't see it (I barely noticed it at first):

In this case, you’ll see the local airport. You can have local airports in your cities, but there’s an international airport that exists outside your city. It exists in the region, and everyone connected to it can benefit from it. There’s a whole game there of just building.

Power:

Wind Farm

Coal Plant

Trading:

SimCity World (Global market service for SimCity)

Trade Depot (Structure uses road)

Trade Port (Structure uses ?)

Resources: (wasn't sure about adding this since Maxis hasn't yet explicitly stated what the resources are.)

Ore

Coal

Metal

Alloy

Oil

Electronics

Read off the image on this page.

Simulation Features:

Technical Information

General Information

Simulates a wind map that affects pollution and changes over time

Sim simulation now includes activities outside of work (travel to parks, stadiums, restaurants & shopping centers) (PCGamer May 2012 P.44)

Quote from article:

They start each day at the top of a flowchart, asking a series of simple questions such as: "Am I sick? Do I have shopping money? Do I need to find a job? if there aren't any jobs, is there a park to sit in?"

That what I got for now at least.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

The video shows the Big Businesses (at this point in the game) are Gambling, Mining, Metals, Petroleum, and Trade. It also shows that there is only one occupant/wealth level of zoned industry and it produces "souvenirs" for retail. The video showed two types of sewage treatment, one being an outflow pipe and one most likely a sewage treatment plant. Noise pollution seems not to be implemented. The wine power plant is currently inconsistent using both km/hr and mph. When sims consume water, it is immediately converted into sewage.

Source: Gameplay Video released earlier this week.

--Ocram

[peaco344 5]

Bus Park and Rides

On street bus stops

Bus depot (with modular bus garages)

Bus terminus (function unknown)

Source:

http://www.origin.com/maxis-live

Buses demonstrated around 1:00 onwards

Park and ride and terminus options shown around 1:01:20 (blink and you miss it!)

[Screwballl 196]

It appears many of the functional service buildings like power, water, busses, hospitals, police, fire, etc can have additonal Modules. Example: You place the base Wind Power plant which starts with 90 Wh, then you can add additional modules on the property which in this case is wind turbines. A small turbine adds 90Wh each, and it appears there is large turbines available for more power. So no more destroying a low capacity plant to replace it with a high capacity plant... of course no more single standing wind turbines of SimCities past....

I am going off the multiple videos for most of these:

Main buttons across the bottom from left to right:

• Bulldoze,
  
• rail,
  
• road,
  
• power,
  
• water,
  
• sewage,
  
• trash,
  
• city (like city hall, etc),
  
• fire,
  
• medical,
  
• police,
  
• education,
  
• bus,
  
• parks and
  
• "Special" buildings.
  

Special buildings

• Metals
  
• Petroleum
  
• Trade
  
• Gambling (6 casinos seen in the video)
  
• Electronics
  

Transportation

Buses:

• bus park (park car, switch to bus),
  
• small local stops,
  
• depot (with garage modules for additional buses),
  
• Terminus (likely for city to city bus traffic)
  

Streetcars (like San Francisco):

• hub station,
  
• small local stop,
  
• avenue with streetcar rail in middle,
  
• standalone streetcar rails (light single tracks)
  

- Trains:

• Passenger station,
  
• standalone rail (heavy dual tracks)
  

- Boats

- Planes:

• Regional Airport,
  
• Local Airport
  

Power

- Wind Farm (with additional modules: ?transformer?, service road to be placed on the property, small and large turbines)

- Coal Plant (with additional modules)

- Natural Gas Plant (possibly with modules)

- Hydro electric?

- Nuclear (very likely to include modules)

Water

- Water tower

- Water pump (for pumping water longer distances from towers over aquifers)

Sewage

- Sewage Output pipe

- Water treatment plant

Waste

- Garbage dump

- Recycling (haven't been able to see the available buildings yet)

Trading

- Sim City World (online trade)

- Trade Depot (regional trade)

- Trade Port (to allow current city to trade elsewhere)

Zoning:

- All 3 Residential (R1 is Free)

- All 3 Commercial (C1 is free)

- 1 Industrial (Free)

- No Farms (yet)

Roadways:

2 lane

4 lane

4 lane (avenue)

4 lane avenue with streetcar rail in the middle

Each roadway has the option to be placed in straight line, curved, and larger roadways like avenue can be placed in city block grid format with small neighborhood roads placed inbetween.

Services

- Police: small and large (both with additional modules)

- Hospital: small and large (both with additional modules)

- Fire: small and large (both with additional modules)

Online options known to date

- Play with anyone (they take on another city in your region or you in theirs) via matchmaker

- Play with someone specific

- Also see Trading options above

  Edited October 10, 2012 by Screwballl  

[Architechnid 186]

Disasters:

- Tornado

- Earthquake

- UFO (which is really an identified alien craft, imo)

- Meteor (turns meteoroid)

The disasters video just released:

[Ocram's Razr 963]

The avenue is actually 6 lanes, 3 in each direction.

--Ocram

  Edited October 15, 2012 by OcramSeattle  

[VeritaScientia 150]

The avenue is actually 6 lanes each direction.

--Ocram

6 in each direction? I thought there were only 3-4 per direction? If it's 6 per direction, I've gotta say to Maxis that that's yet again begging for a bottleneck, not to mention almost unfathomably unrealistic.

[likmd 5]

so there won't really be any subway commute??

[Ocram's Razr 963]

Sorry, I meant to say 6 lanes, 2 directions. Which means 3 lanes in each direction or 6 lanes total. The highway seemed to be 4 lanes each direction.

--Ocram

[VeritaScientia 150]

so there won't really be any subway commute??

No subway as it stands now, though they may release it in an expansion pack.

[nathanthemayor 1,261]

Don't know if this has been posted yet:

High-Tension Powerlines(Shown at 1:01 in this video)

[jacksunny 741]

^It says immediately after that that the images aren't actual gameplay.

And also considering we haven't heard anything else about them, it's hardly a confirmed feature.

[MegaCitySim 68]

I love building rails and subways in the simcities. Very disappointed... Thanks for the info.

[MaxisGuillaume 289]

I love building rails and subways in the simcities. Very disappointed... Thanks for the info.

You can build light and heavy rail lines in your city.

[NCGAIO 562]

I love building rails and subways in the simcities. Very disappointed... Thanks for the info.

You can build light and heavy rail lines in your city.

Good .... This is already possible today with more reality!

What will not be possible without subway and establish a new mass transit option without having to demolish huge paths of the game that was clearly the original intent!

  Edited October 22, 2012 by NCGAIO  

[MaxisGuillaume 289]

I love building rails and subways in the simcities. Very disappointed... Thanks for the info.

You can build light and heavy rail lines in your city.

Good .... This is already possible today with more reality!

What will not be possible without subway and establish a new mass transit option without having to demolish huge paths of the game that was clearly the original intent!

You can upgrade your avenues to avenues with light rail track though. We're looking into keeping the 3 lanes of car traffic on each side in that case.

[NCGAIO 562]

You can upgrade your avenues to avenues with light rail track though. We're looking into keeping the 3 lanes of car traffic on each side in that case.

Ok! Good to know .... But the lack of subway option that both disappoint as if said in previous posts refers much to what I said before ( a new transport option without having to redesign the network. )

Obviously with the density of the zone is determined by the type of path, we will have always avenues for places of great concentration but it is still a limiting.

Another doubt? ...

Why the simulation brings population growth in multiples of six?

  Edited October 22, 2012 by NCGAIO  

[MaxisGuillaume 289]

Why the simulation brings population growth in multiples of six?

That depends on the wealth of the building. W2 goes in multiples of 4, W3 in multiples of 2.

[NCGAIO 562]

Thankful for answers ... unfortunately duty calls.

A pity that simcity did not provide income to me like for y'all.

See you around !

[MegaCitySim 68]

I love building rails and subways in the simcities. Very disappointed... Thanks for the info.

You can build light and heavy rail lines in your city.

That's cool. I can't find any info on this anywhere : is it possible to lay rail lines both light and heavy on the region level, or just within the 2x2 map? Thank you.

[grugor 60]

I love building rails and subways in the simcities. Very disappointed... Thanks for the info.

You can build light and heavy rail lines in your city.

That's cool. I can't find any info on this anywhere : is it possible to lay rail lines both light and heavy on the region level, or just within the 2x2 map? Thank you.

Just within your city

[MaxisGuillaume 289]

I love building rails and subways in the simcities. Very disappointed... Thanks for the info.

You can build light and heavy rail lines in your city.

That's cool. I can't find any info on this anywhere : is it possible to lay rail lines both light and heavy on the region level, or just within the 2x2 map? Thank you.

Just within your city

Grugor's right -- although heavy rail lines go from city to city in the region, those are Maxis-placed. Laying your own rail and roads is only done within the boundaries of your city.

[JoeOh 20]

Guillaume, you're telling me that if I wanted to have a road that I made to "connect" to a city next to my 2x2 map, I can't do that?

[JaceTwice 115]

Guillaume, you're telling me that if I wanted to have a road that I made to "connect" to a city next to my 2x2 map, I can't do that?

You have to connect your road to one the pre-made region connections on the city tile you're playing. Where those are, how many, and what type they are determined by what tile in the region you select.

  Edited October 28, 2012 by JaceTwice