SimCity: Regions

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

Obviously connect the cities up for starters but apparently Maxis developers were iffy about this due to neighbouring cities appearing 'dead'. Simple solution to this, use that haze effect so the little details don't become shown or won't even matter, and near city connections just use simple animations for sims and traffic, or have an option to turn them off to ease up on the graphics requirements. Or instead have the neighbouring city literally frozen in a time warp (the image of which will be the one in which you last saw it when playing with the city), so you have all the details but they're frozen...

The next idea is for a means to see your entire region from the city view without the simulation running, and to make it come alive all you need to do is just animate the traffic, people and weather (perhaps even day and night). So then you could view your entire region whilst the simulation is in complete temporal limbo. This will be an observation mode. In this way you can stop, take a break and look at the bigger picture before switching to the normal mode where the simulation runs and you're playing on only one tile. This means having the cities connected becomes a much more attractive idea and also you get to see one big city...

As for the region edge, well at any rate you're still going to have that boundary although more aesthetic players may choose to have a more organic city shape to give the illusion that the urban sprawl of the region isn't confined to one area.

Another brain wave of mine is whilst in this observation mode, there should be an overlay (which can be toggled on and off) to highlight the city tiles edges. So then when you want to go back into the simulation mode you just click inside of one of the tiles, and you go to that particular city tile. This could come in handy when observing your entire urban development and say you notice low-density residential on the edge of one city tile and say industry on the other city tile edge (adjacent to the first). In this observation mode it wouldn't look pretty, so you could pick one of the city tiles and adjust the zones according so the two cities merge more smoothly...

Of course this idea is only possible if the cities are adjacent to each other in the first place (without those dreaded grassy strips bordering them).

[Indiana Joe 1,750]

I think we've all thought along those lines. There's a bunch of workarounds. Maxis is about to release the game, though, and this kind of thing won't change (not until SimCity 2, if there ever is one).

[Cob92 360]

I think Maxis is set on not having contiguous cities. The most we could possible hope for is that they would fill in the empty space with dummy graphics to give the illusion of suburbs, and even that is doubtful this close to release.

[Odainsaker 2,134]

I had once initially assumed when the void space was first revealed that they would use dummy graphics of farms or suburbs, but, of course, if we can have a game simulator thrash out dummy border cities, the obvious step would be to simply allow players to make their own dummy cities their way. That in the end just brings us back to simply making contiguous cities.

A previous thread suggested Maxis experimented with the look of contiguous cities, but found the appearance of an undynamic contiguous border unsatisfying. Of course, mini cities trapped in bubbles on a green field similarly looks unsatisfying, so I am not sure of the deciding criteria when it comes to simple visualization.

Another issue is that a contiguous map would have us clamoring for a seemless simulation across those maps, and that admittedly does introduce a significant simulation and server burder. Separated bubble cities along pre-defined transportation routes does allow for far easier and simplified intercity simulation. While we could conceivably have both contiguous city maps with reduced intercity simulation, we would quickly find ourselves questioning the whole rational basis of the multiplayer functionality, as it would make little sense to plan a game around long-distance intercity interactions while at the same time having inferior intercity interactions between immediately contiguous tiles. Afterall, the point was a focus on multiplayer, and carrying over SimCity 4's non-functional region setup, despite its potential seemless visual appeal, does not fit the new paradigm.

We must also consider that regions were quite some time ago limited to 16 cities, most probably heavily tied to server capabilities. Given the current city size, it would take 4 such contiguous cities to make one playable area equivalent to a large SC4 tile. Another way to look at this is that we could in one arrangement reduce our regions to only 4 players each playing 1 large simcity tile. Region play doesn't sound as exciting with only 4 players each with 1 large bubble tile. If they were all completely contiguous, that same setup would be the equivalent of a SimCity 4 map composed of only 4 large tiles. Contiguous cities really doesn't get us all that much more area compared to what many are used to from SimCity 4, and as quite a few of us would then be tempted in such a scenario to play our own single-player region so as to jealously keep that already strikingly limited area solely to ourselves for our own singular grand designs, we start again calling into question the point of a regional multiplayer. Even if we were more inclined to share, we would then have a collective "Neighborhoods of SimCity" multiplayer, which could be fun in its own right, but that is not what is being pitched nor what Maxis originally set out to create--they've been very clear that they want simulate the interactions of multiple cities in a region, not the interactions of buroughs within a single city. Hence, small and abstracted cities siting as our placeholder avatar in the multiplayer gamespace and inside of which we can augment with internal upgrades and motor tweaks in order to push our racecars further ahead.

While we are at it, we will reportedly be getting 10 region save slots holding a not-yet-determined combination of cities, so if we expand upon our contiguous regions exercise a bit and assume a max of 16 cities for each of the 10 slots, we potentially could have at most 10 regions each holding an area equivalent to a 2x2 contiguous grid of four large SimCity 4 tiles. And that would be the entire permissible account quota, after which we start buying more accounts or deleting previous cities and regions. We can only compare to our own individual experiences with SimCity 4 regions to determine for ourselves whether this is restrictive or generous.

A multiplayer where numerous players manage their own "cities" in an interactive simulated region requires expansive space, both for players within their cities as well as between players' cities. I guess the economics and infrastructure of current online game server strategies can not yet meet the challenge of providing such a space, and so we find ourselves seemingly getting boxed in by the available practical mechanics.

The optimist in me looks at the screenshots and squeals with joy that we can at last potentially design vistas and sightlines with borrowed landscapes. The latest screenshots focused within sample cities simply look amazing. Looking at the goofy regions, however, the pessimist in me worries that the narrow window on the available canvas is simply going to be too hemmed in to enjoy, and the fundamental issues involved do not readily allow for the kind of expansion pack fix some of us are hoping for.

[Zukunftstraume 220]

My idea for having a continuous megalopolis that I've been planning out for the last several months has been completely ruined by Maxis and this brilliant idea of their's...

/sigh

[Irganox 10]

I think, as someone mentioned before, that the green space could be used for farms. They don't really have to do anything, but it would be realistic to at least see some farms, fields and maybe orchards in between the cities.

[Firebird 40]

^ Good to see I'm not the only one who thought this. I'd love a mod that could turn the wasted green space between cities into farmland. Even if it were only visual.

[WarhawkJAH 11]

I'd like to see a mod where you could actually use the dead space either by annexing it or building separate cities. Filling it with fake cities or farms might as well be the grass fields that are already there. I'm not a fan of modding, but I would easily justify to fix something that I would consider to be a critcal flaw in the game. Most of the changes are at worst a minor annoyance but this is the one that could really be a problem.

[Zukunftstraume 220]

Hopefully they do address this before the game is launched...

But, if it can't be addressed, then seeing how it is indeed an online-game, releasing a big patch in the near future seems to be the best option... But, if worst comes to worst then it'll have to wait until an expansion pack, hopefully they'll throw in a Region-editor/God-mode expansion pack in there as well.

I picture that Maxis will get a tremendous amount of heat for this. So, I do have hope they will get their act together and realize their folly.

Edit: Reading through this entire thread just makes so damn angry at Maxis for the stunt they're pulling. These cities are going to amount to nothing more than SimCity Societies type of cities at the regional view, highly unrealistic and chilidish.

I only pray they'll get it through their heads soon enough, or I predict the original fans will quickly abandon the game via rage-quiting and switch back to SC4 for a second time in the last six years. The only people left will be those who enjoyed the childish cartoony games like Socieites, Spore, RCT 3, and etc... I feel like this equal to taking the Build-mode out of the Sims and making sure neighborhoods are not-changable at all :/ I feel so cheated right now. Creativity = GONE!

Don't they realize that one of the best moments in all of their games was to come out of your city in SC4 and sit there for 10-20 minutes enjoying that epic above-the-cloud music while just sitting, flabbergasted, and staring down into that megalopolis, that empire, that behemoth jewel of a region that we the players created? Who cares if only 4 out of 25 city tiles belong to you? Of course the edges of the cities will be prominent, but that happens all the time in real life as well! One city or county ends, and another one begins... Suddenly the infrastruture changes, the size of the streets and highways suddenly shift. Good neighboring cities will cooperate with their neighbors to make their cities fluid, and less rigid, but even if that doesn't happen... So what! It's completely natural in real life.

Another recommendation would be to have an original city tile be in 2x2 but allow that city to purchase small chunks of land (measuring 0.2 x 0.2 each) which are unclaimed around the city in order to expand, much like Airport Tycoon. Eventually the two cities will meet and a strange border shape will emerge, but that border itself won't be a rigid straight line, and it would look very realistic and much more fluid. Maybe even sell some of your land over to your neighbor. These are ways cities actually behave in real life. Maybe make some land "unclaimable", like high mountains, oceans, highways and rails (for the sake of making sure no one modifies the pre-set networks). Maybe also allow deep forests to be unclaimable if a region-wide bill is passed for conservation. Maybe try to declare a certain expanse of land as unclaimable because you want it to be the site of a future airport (and you'll get your neighbors to vote on having it as such).

These are just ideas, and there so many of them! Plus, adding the "fog of war" effect (like in RTS games) to neighboring cities would only make things better! C'mon guys, there a thousand ways to solve this! But don't bloody leave us like this!

[patpatty45 17]

i think they have the spaces also so that you can have works...i was thinking what if they put the sixteen tiles in the center of the region and then had space for the great works on the outside. Then they could keep there region continuing on the outside and have the works there but allow us to have our long continuous metropolis in the center.

[Zukunftstraume 220]

i think they have the spaces also so that you can have works...i was thinking what if they put the sixteen tiles in the center of the region and then had space for the great works on the outside. Then they could keep there region continuing on the outside and have the works there but allow us to have our long continuous metropolis in the center.

Or what if, we the players in the region, get to decide which tiles are reserved for works? Maybe either via a voting system or just claiming it as a work. Having the works mixed in with the metropolis would be nice

i.e. having an international airport. I'll reference Aiport Tycoon again... In the beginning of the game you could choose where in the world you want your airport (tropical, arid, temperate, semiarid, subpolar or etc area), which major city you wanted the airport within, and also most importantly: How far away from the city center you wanted the airport (which determined how much room for expansion there was. It's highly realistic since some airports are super close to their city centers (i.e. Los Angeles) and others are very far away from their city centers in the outskirts (i.e. Tokyo or London)

[el.lopan 54]

I think we've all thought along those lines. There's a bunch of workarounds. Maxis is about to release the game, though, and this kind of thing won't change (not until SimCity 2, if there ever is one).

I bet EA got it sorted out already and is planning a "do marvelous stuff with the blanks between your cities" dlc.

[Zukunftstraume 220]

I think we've all thought along those lines. There's a bunch of workarounds. Maxis is about to release the game, though, and this kind of thing won't change (not until SimCity 2, if there ever is one).

I bet EA got it sorted out already and is planning a "do marvelous stuff with the blanks between your cities" dlc.

I reaaaaaaally hope this is true

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

Okay here's why Maxis should bring in contiguous tiles (each tile has neighbours bordering it) in an expansion pack.

 

1. It would give the illusion of one massive city or urban area.

2. Even if the city sizes are small you can use a piecemeal approach to either recreating a real city or building a mega one of your own design.

3. It would probably satisfy the hard core fans complaining about small city sizes.

 

I know Maxis have said that contiguous tiles would be too much for the Glassbox engine (or too much for people's computers) but why not use the good old statistical simulator instead for neighbouring cities? The Glassbox simulator need only apply to the city tile (going to call it city A) you are using, and for residents who have jobs in neighbouring city tiles it could work out something like this for the correct allocation of jobs:

 

1. Neighbouring cities which have vacancies will be filled by residents in City A if they can't find work there.

2. If you go to one of those neighbouring cities, the vacancies that have been filled up by people from City A will mean increased demand for jobs by all the residents in this city who don't have jobs.

3. You won't have to simulate roads (in other cities) for commute times for residents of City A who work in other cities. Instead you just need a commuter quotient.

4. If commuter times are too long (say more than two hours) and residents can't reach the neighbouring cities with the job vacancies, they will give up their search after some time.

5. SC4's timewarp effect.

 

The commuter quotient works like this.

1. This commuter quotient determines the average travel time starting from the moment a citizen leaves City A to when he reaches his destination in a different city.

2. The average time to travel across an arbitrary city tile would be say 2 minutes plus an additional second for each hundred or so residents (to crudely model the travel times without determining the city's actual traffic or road infrastructure) who live in this city tile, plus an additional second for every hundred workers* in industry and commercial respectively.

3. Add one second for any ten vehicles travelling between City A and B.

 

*Most of these workers would be residents of this arbitrary city tile counted twice, but it shouldn't matter.

 

Some examples of this in action:

 

Cities A and B are separated by five empty city tiles but are connected via a road. City B has 20000 residents, 5000 workers in both commercial and industry, and a thousand vehicles travel between City A (be they cars, lorries or buses) and B. Thus if a citizen in City A has a job in City B his commute time will be;

 

commute time between leaving his home and exiting City A + 2 minutes + 10 minutes for the five empty city tiles + (200 + 50 + 50 seconds [modelling City B]) + 100 seconds for the thousand vehicles travelling between City A and B = 18.5 minutes

 

So 18.5 minutes plus the time taken for the sim to leave his home and exit City A. Now this is a very simple model for commuter times between neighbouring cities but that's how such a statistical simulator would work, and how you would only need to use the Glassbox simulator for City A.

 

This would mean neighbouring cities would take up a tiny fraction of CPU usage due to both the timewarp effect and the statistical simulator modelling the traffic leaving and coming into City A.

 

Next I think adjacent city tiles should be frozen with cars and sims and all, whilst traffic leaving City A would simply disappear off the edge. It's not perfect but from a distance you would barely notice it, and again it comes back to the timewarp; time only flows for the city tile you're playing with.

 

The point is it would give the illusion of one seamless city...

[macvirt 361]

I'm sure they are considering DLC for parts of such an approach, as long as it does not require a disproportional allocation of resources for the title after its release.

[Evillions 552]

I'm sure they are considering DLC for parts of such an approach, as long as it does not require a disproportional allocation of resources for the title after its release.

Not as a DLC, but for free in a future update.  If you charged this feature via DLC, it would be just unethical.

[JaceTwice 115]

The only worry I have with this is with the use of two different levels of simulation, there's the potential for varying simulation results depending of the state of of exterior cities. I can't be certain what Maxi's MO is but I'd imagine that simulation integrity is pretty high up there.

 

Just how would glassbox decide how many cars should be appearing in from the road connection to neighboring cities without the traffic calculations? If it just guessed based on a statistical simulation then what would the point of glassbox be in the first place if the agents in the world can't be guaranteed to be accurate?

 

I just can't think that sacrificing simulation integrity would be worth it just to have larger cities sooner than when Maxis gets them working with glassbox entirely.

 

I'm sure they are considering DLC for parts of such an approach, as long as it does not require a disproportional allocation of resources for the title after its release.

Not as a DLC, but for free in a future update.  If you charged this feature via DLC, it would be just unethical.

 

While I believe Maxis would love to give this out for free,it's actually EA we're dealing with. Unethical decisions aren't out of the realm of possibility here.

[Spatzimaus 77]

I hope they DON'T give contiguous tiles.  It'd be a nightmare for Glassbox's agent system, and it's just not necessary.  Most real cities aren't one gigantic ever-concentrating mass; they're more like large expanses of low-density residential/commercial areas surrounding and connecting a few concentrated areas.  As we've said before, what we really need is much simpler: SPRAWL.

 

That is, the areas between the "city" tiles should start off with a scattering of small towns along the highways, rivers, coasts, and such.  These towns would be completely self-contained, with their own fire/police/schools/etc., and wouldn't contribute anything to your regional play.  Instead of the Glassbox agents, all movement on the streets would be determined by generic algorithms, like SC4.  Given that the maps are designed by developers instead of being generated by an algorithm, it wouldn't be hard for them to pre-place a few dozen small towns and explicitly link each to a nearby city.

As your cities grow, the nearby towns should grow as well (although not as quickly).  Eventually, your city will reach the edges of its tile, at which point the nearby towns begin to be absorbed, and transition into generic suburbia (a predetermined mix of low-density residential and commercial buildings).  As more cities max out their own tiles, these suburbs begin connecting together, until in the end you have up to 16 central areas with skyscrapers and such, connected by huge expanses of suburbs.

 

The beauty of this is that it's purely cosmetic, meaning it can be turned off for computers that can't handle it; you could have multiple levels of detail, like being able to disable animation of cars moving around in the towns without removing the towns themselves.  Any movement between the suburbs and the nearby core city would be zero-impact; every car moving inward on a surface street could be balanced by one moving outward.  (True commuters, the ones moving between the cities, would use the highways.)  And Glassbox wouldn't care, because all interaction with those towns would lie outside the agent system.

[nhgriffith 179]

So... to be clear... when it comes to regions, the people who are complaining, they're complaining purely from a visual standpoint?

Like seriously, is there a gameplay complaint here, or are you just upset from a graphical standpoint? I'm not trying to belittle anyone's complaint if it's purely graphical. I just personally care a bit less about graphics than I do about gameplay. And from every gameplay standpoint I can possibly imagine, regions are head and shoulders above what they've ever been in any game ever. SimCity or not. But if there's a legitimate gameplay complaint, I'd like to know what that is so that I can reconsider.

If it's purely a visual complaint... well then I've got some comments for that as well... but yea... is there a legitimate gameplay complaint regarding regions?

[MaprunnerUK 7]

nhgriffith,

 

The problem I have with the unconnected tiles is that the transport options are completely removed. The region highway and rail network is built already, and although some may not a problem with this I would have liked to have been able to plan out my own motorways and railway lines. I can see why people would not mind about this, but it's something I don't like the look of.

[macvirt 361]

So... to be clear... when it comes to regions, the people who are complaining, they're complaining purely from a visual standpoint?

Like seriously, is there a gameplay complaint here, or are you just upset from a graphical standpoint? I'm not trying to belittle anyone's complaint if it's purely graphical. I just personally care a bit less about graphics than I do about gameplay. And from every gameplay standpoint I can possibly imagine, regions are head and shoulders above what they've ever been in any game ever. SimCity or not. But if there's a legitimate gameplay complaint, I'd like to know what that is so that I can reconsider.

If it's purely a visual complaint... well then I've got some comments for that as well... but yea... is there a legitimate gameplay complaint regarding regions?

 

It is the same thing. What constitutes a visual element to one is legitimate gameplay to the other, and vice versa, with the full range of differentations in between. It is the kind of conflict potential a game designer tends to avoid falling prey to because this is one of those things where you cannot cater to all user types you have to cater to for core elements of (researched, expected) behavioural patterns. 

 

In that sense, it is a lapse in game design, but not one likely to have come from that part of the project. Far more likely to be a consequence of decisions elsewhere, and game design having to fill in (pun intended) the consequential elements. This is not uncommon actually, it is very typical of publisher / studio project management in our industry. To keep it simple, such things occur out of compromises depending on the actual work taking place at a different level than the main decision processes. Not out of evil, bad planning or failures in confusing customer wishes. 

[Sunfighter 186]

So... to be clear... when it comes to regions, the people who are complaining, they're complaining purely from a visual standpoint?

Like seriously, is there a gameplay complaint here, or are you just upset from a graphical standpoint? I'm not trying to belittle anyone's complaint if it's purely graphical. I just personally care a bit less about graphics than I do about gameplay. And from every gameplay standpoint I can possibly imagine, regions are head and shoulders above what they've ever been in any game ever. SimCity or not. But if there's a legitimate gameplay complaint, I'd like to know what that is so that I can reconsider.

If it's purely a visual complaint... well then I've got some comments for that as well... but yea... is there a legitimate gameplay complaint regarding regions?

How do you even know if the gameplay elements that are claimed to be in the game even work? Nobody has gotten more than a couple hours worth if gameplay. Visual is ALL people have to go on...you included. Who knows what could be quirky about the interaction between cities because all weve seen is the interaction between 2 at most.... so yea, your comments are premature.

[Nunoty 23]

So a sc2013 tile is 2x2, max region is 16 tiles =64 sq kms

 

Cities xl has no regions...but has a tile of 10x10= 100sq kms

 

Nice....the future is bringing smaller and smaller game worlds even with technology improving every 6 months.

 

 

And why do people keep calling city to a 2x2 tile?

[London-b 90]

So... to be clear... when it comes to regions, the people who are complaining, they're complaining purely from a visual standpoint?

Like seriously, is there a gameplay complaint here, or are you just upset from a graphical standpoint? I'm not trying to belittle anyone's complaint if it's purely graphical. I just personally care a bit less about graphics than I do about gameplay. And from every gameplay standpoint I can possibly imagine, regions are head and shoulders above what they've ever been in any game ever. SimCity or not. But if there's a legitimate gameplay complaint, I'd like to know what that is so that I can reconsider.

If it's purely a visual complaint... well then I've got some comments for that as well... but yea... is there a legitimate gameplay complaint regarding regions?

 

It can be argued that visuals are not separate from gameplay. If better visuals improve someone's enjoyment of playing a game, then surely visuals themselves are a component of the gameplay. Just like having the game in 3D was a choice the developers made because it is a modern expectation of games. 

[macvirt 361]

The visual is never seperate from gameplay. Human beings are guided by their senses. We even prioritise those senses based on stimuli and environmental conditions. One of the cornerstones of game theory and game design theory alike.

[London-b 90]

I agree. I guess everyone is different. For me making a city that has some unique, beautiful, maybe even characterful inner city districts is more stimulating than trading coal with someone, but that's just me (I'm actually a fan of the multiplayer though). 

[nhgriffith 179]

If the designers changed nothing on region mechanics, but simply put city squares right next to each other with no dead space between, would you feel better? To be clear, this means that the only way one city can connect to another city is still only by the already existing methods--rail, regional highway, or I guess airports/seaports probably work. You still can't drag your avenue to the edge of the map and connect to the city next to you... but when you're looking at it from region view, there's no deadspace between the cities.

If the developers did this, would you feel better? If so, then your complaint is purely a visual complaint.

THIS is the only legitimate gameplay complaint I've seen. It's a legitimate gameplay complaint. I think it's kind of a minor gameplay issue, and if intercity transport still ends up working fine, then I think it's not that big of a deal. Personally, I found myself wishing that I could add an extra highway offramp for my city (one at each end of the edge, rather than the center of the edge), because no matter how you hook your city up, if they have only one access point to a highway and you can't connect a train or intercity busses, it quickly becomes quite congested.

As for having no control over the region rail network or the region highway, I can see not enjoying this... but from a realism standpoint, cities don't plan or build regional highways. Those are controlled and built at the state and federal level.

So, from a gameplay level compared to SimCity 4... which is almost more like SimRegion... yea, you don't get to control inter-regional transport quite as much... but from a realism point of view, it's a step forward actually.

nhgriffith,
 
The problem I have with the unconnected tiles is that the transport options are completely removed. The region highway and rail network is built already, and although some may not a problem with this I would have liked to have been able to plan out my own motorways and railway lines. I can see why people would not mind about this, but it's something I don't like the look of.

  Edited February 22, 2013 by CaptCity  

[Towel 76]

Considering the game has been built from the ground up to support multiplayer than the removal of transport options connecting regions makes sense. I mean in a multiplayer game how do player co-ordinate easily to decide on inter-city transport?

 

I know people will say in single player mode you should get the choice, but I am sure the internal argument about scope and bang for buck development time meant that the single player consideration took a back seat.

 

I am fine with this choice, honestly I see no reduction in satisfaction because of this choice.

[spa 968]

The problem is there are two different audiences here; gamers and, what I would call, hobbyists. The hobby folks (and I'm one of them) approach Sim City with the goal of creating a semi-realistic place. They're not playing a game, they're building a world and anything that interrupts that is an annoyance. Having small cities in a region with preset transportation connections, no terraforming and disconnected tiles wrecks the building a world immersion. The hobbyists can't get past the fact that, after being spoiled with SC4's creative breadth, they now can't control everything. They're further annoyed by the fact that the tiles are small and unconnected and they can't overlook that their dense Downtown skyscrapers are mere blocks away from the great empty grass prairie. For the hobbyists, this isn't just a matter of graphics versus game play, Sim City 2013's limitations shatters the whole experience. Now for the gamer, this world building stuff is secondary. The gamer just wants to play with the simulation and challenge himself. Success for the gamer is usually defined based on tangible goals like cramming as many sims as possible into a tile, collecting lots of cash or getting skyscrapers etc. For many gamers, having to build out a whole world is just tedious. The SC4 community was once made up of both camps, but it has slowly become filled with hobbyists because gamers, once they've stretched the simulation and done it all, move onto the next thing whereas for the hobbyists, there's always more worlds to create. The new Sim City appears to deliver for the gamer, but it has really let down the hobbyists.

 

The real tragedy is that the wants of both gamers and hobbyists, although different, aren't mutually exclusive. With a somewhat different approach, EA/Maxis could have catered to both. Instead, they have alienated a key portion of their audience. Time will tell if writing off the hobbyists in favour of the more numerous casual gamers was a good move or not. It's worth remembering that after 10 years, Sim City 4 is still generating revenue for EA because of hobbyists. Will the same be true of Sim City 2013 when it turns ten in 2023? Right now, I wouldn't bet on it.

[MaprunnerUK 7]

While I agree contiguous tiles would be great, I can see why EA/Maxis have gone down the route they have; multiplayer. The whole game is made for multiplayer and I can see troubles arising from two cities disagreeing over where to run the motorway, or the railway, or the roads. Having separate tiles with fixed motorways and rail removes these problems. It's just something we'll have to live with as it seems the multiplayer component was EA/Maxis' main priority when designing this game.