Future of SimCity Official Discussion Thread

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Bill, it is called the Country Club and is in the rewards when you get busy and big enough.  Frankly, it is a real nice space waster.  Nice eye candy.

[HawaiiBill 0]

N_O_Body, and that brings up another point. I hope the next SC will have an extensive online help and 'facility index' to make the game complete. There is so much wealth of game capability buried from easy view. I've browsed the other forums here and that is helpful but out of context. The most disturbing tendency is the set of unreadable acronyms for this or that plug-in. Might be less frustrating if I had some idea of where to find and download those additions!

My guess is I'm missing something, still and again, that the tips and help and all that are up front and visible. Hope so.

My friend and I ordered two sc4 boxes so we could work independently and compare notes. We had the apparently mistaken notion that SC4s could be run on the internet but, if so, haven't figured that out, either.

My pal has been so daunted by the complexities that nothing has been  built on his computer though I demonstrated the meager process I've made, and he's a graduate of Harvard Business School. YES, the tutorials were used but found to be so elementary that they don't help in the juicy complexities that immediately develop.

Don't get the idea that I'm grumpy about SimCity. Not the case! It's a great toy and we are all gathered in this forum to help make the next iteration even better. I would love to be a BETA tester on the new code if such an opportunity came my way,

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Well, Bill, there is a book.  It is published by Prima and is titled Official Strategy Guide to Simcity 4.  In addition to that, there is the Omnibus here, and many, many discussion threads.

No, the game cannot be linked over the Internet.  I am not surprised your HBS grad friend is having problems.  The game is a complex simulation and this is probably a little out of his ball park.

This program has a rather long learning curve.  It is also like the three laws of thermodynamics once you have become addicted:

1. You can't win (it has no winning end point)
2. You can't break even (even if the game is making money, there is more effort to put in)
3. You can't get out of the game (unless you lose.  Dead is dead.)

The first thing to learn is not to rush.  Running in Rhino gives you time to think things out while enjoying the animation (which is just eye-candy, mostly).  The main principle of this game is to start small and slow, then grow.  Here is a good beginner's scenario that will put you in the black:

1. Start with a small tile in the lower left hand corner
2. Put the game in Rhino mode
3. Plop an Wind Generator right on the corner
4. Press the Z key and create a default sized farm around the generator
5. Press the R key and run a road along one edge of the farm off the border of the tile.  This gives you a goods export sink
6. Press Alt+R and put a street along the other edge of the farm.
7. Press Q and place some 1 x 2 residential lots on the farm land, say four to six.  Be careful not to overlay the farm buildings.
8. Create about five more default farms this way except use only streets
9. Pick a cross-road and add a couple of 1 x 2 low commercial lots (A-key)

This should grow and be in the black pretty quickly.

Things to notice:

•  No municipal water.  Farms and this type of housing and commercial operate on wells and septic tanks.  If you supply water, later, the qualifty of the buildings will upgrade.
• No schools
• No cop shops
• No hospitals

When this is nice an profitable, the next thing to add is a fire station, but only if you can afford it budgetwise.  The game will create automatic fires if you don't.

Ignore the advisors.  They have private agendas that probably isn't yours.  Only pay attention to them if the writing is in red.  If you want to make them more entertaining, press CTL+XdollyllamaCTL+M.  This will change them all into llamas.  It is a toggle.

At this point, follow your demand meter (RCI), but use a grain of salt.  Build out rather than up.  Save up for when out is full.  As long as you stay on farms and low R and C you don't need a water system. 

Add an elementary school when your population by age graph shows one would be a benefit.  You need about 30 kids to make that worthwhile.  High-schools probably only after you have added some real industry (X, C-keys).

You can add industry a reasonable hike from your farms, and run a rail line over to them.  If you do this, run the rail off the tile to provide export, as well.  For the industry, you need a freight station and you need passenger stations at the village end and the industrial end for any workers from the village.  You'll need buses in the industrial sector to get from the station to the plants.

And so it goes.  As things get more civilized, remember what good development land farms make.

[HawaiiBill 0]

N_O_Body, Thank you again for your clear and incisive description of how to do what. You would be amazed at the lack of proper bookstores -- we have a small Borders in Hilo -- and attenuated selection of material on games. I'll look up your recommended volume on Amazon and your suggestion is appreciated.

My position at this early stage is to enjoy the building of 'as logical as you can make them' small towns even though, as you point out, they are doomed for SimFailure. I can usually get them into towns I'd like to inhabit before they start hankering for urgent attention to the amenities you warn against. That's why SimGod made "Obliterate City," I'm sure. Because I'm in Hawai`i I tried earthquakes and volcanoes -- even landed a meteor in our lava lake! -- but total obliteration lets me start over again and resume the fun of building.

Given the state of the nation as viewed from the middle of the Pacific Ocean, I'm not at all sure SimCity's policy of 'hell-bent-for-failure' is less than prescient. I keep searching for good news about success somewhere over there but maybe the positives get left on the city editor desks these day.

Hawai`i is okay -- but only that -- because for the most part we are ignored except for beaches, palm trees and hula dancers.

....and our famous aloha

[IGGYMAN 101 1]

In sim city 5, I like to see:

1. ...of more than 5000 different styles building which is 95% all of them are plopable.

2. ...seperated terrain which is green, desert, and snow covered.

3. ...you can startup with

a. easy - 100,000,000 simoleons

b. medium - 50,000,000 simoleons

c. hard - 10,000,000 simoleons

4. ... all networks of railways and highways in such classified into ground, elevated, sunk, and underground.

5. ... all rewards must be unlocked

6. ... all landmarks must be fuctionalized as commercial service or commercial office.

[Mogwai1313 2]

In the unlikely event the SC5 sees the light of day I really only have a few requests.

1) Tighten up the coding of the game so it is not such a resource hog. I understand that the amount of math processes required to make the advanced simulations such a NAM and whatnot work is no small task, but the game is rather bloated and has been from day one.

2) Add the option for standing water so that players can build lakes, rivers, etc. on their own without going to a mod ot help them.

3) Implement seasons into the game. I think it would be cool to see the city change over the course of the year.

4) Add in a folder setup that allows for easier sorting of customized content such as BATS. One or two BATs are no prob but when you have several hundred, it can get annoying to sort through.

That is pretty much it for me. I figure the Simtropolis community can do the rest. We have for the past couple of years anywho.

[HawaiiBill 0]

Don't have the energy right now to go back and count them but Mogwai1313 must  be at least 20 folks who speak of SC5 as "unlikely."

While I really hope that isn't the way it works out, if there is any hard indication that might be the case, it would be good to know. Meanwhile these websites continue plugging along and I know those don't run without some maintenance and a little money for beans every now and then.

Question No. 2 for this post would be  to learn if anyone knows what language or app was used to write SC4. I'm guessing C++ but that may be cause I'm ignorant. That has something to do with the level of chores we request for the "unlikely" SC5.

[skyscraper_man 1]

I would really like to see easier water and waterfront tools.. my waterfront always looks sub par compared to others because i cant figure out the tools

[830point35 8]

Here's an idea that one or all of you geniuses who have made all those MODs could probably accomplish before SC5: open space zones. Enable the mayor to paint zones where nothing could get built, yet it counts as park/recreation. It still needs fire and police coverage, of course. It would have to be pretty expensive to paint the zones (you take land out of the hands of private owners) and would cost some to maintain (probably less than that of a street). It seems unnecessary, but I am always forgetting that the lush forest I'm putting stuff on was set aside for open space. And the park points would be a bonus, too.

[HawaiiBill 0]

It might be too complex to include in SimCity but it appears, for example, that a lot of revenue producing projects COST the mayor rather than add money to the city coffers. I'm a newbie to SC so may not have this figured out.

Electricity and water are two examples of essential services that create revenue rather than increase liabilities. At worst, they are revenue neutral yet are big SC costs to install.

Forest land is watershed -- the denser the better -- and while it's okay to be owned by the city it is also fine to leave it in private hands zoned as conservation. The reason is that forests do have maintenance costs and it is rare or impossible to find a government at any level that can tell the forests for the trees, so to speak. The point being that bureaucrats kill the woods so it's better to leave them in private ownership, tax free to reward maintenance. For most areas, no watershed means no water, by the way. Put another way, no trees can mean no rain.

You are correct to be wondering about this and seeking some new arrangement in SM5 should one emerge. Good thinking.

[soldyne 111]

you bring up a lot of good points hawaiibill, and your talk of revenue neutral buildings has been brought up before (in a disscussion I had with frndofyeweh). the biggest thing to remember about SC4 or any simulation is that it is just that, a simulation, and to make it truely realistic would be a nightmare, although it can be fun to disscus the differences between reality and the game sometimes.

I have already said before that I am not ready for SC4. I have a large CJ in the works right now and I have a lot of work left to do on it. If SC5 came out right now or in the near future then the SC4 community would die out and eveyone would want SC5 CJs and pay no attention to SC4. also, there are so many new mods and bats comming out all the time SC4 is practically SC4.5! any more mods and we would have made our own SC5 already.

but to keep in the spirit of wishful thinking I will say that I would like to see multipurpose RCI buildings. not all buildings in a city are segregated into Com and Res. there are many buildings which act as apartments up top and businesses (usually CS) down below.

I also like the idea of different terrain styles like dessert, snow, swamp, plains, rocky, etc. and the abiltiy to paint different terrains all within the same city. this includes ploppable water at any elevation as well as flowing streams and rivers.

I would also like to have irregular city boundaries so I can make a more realistic region view.

thats it for me.

[tommiej 0]

More styles, europian, asian. Better transportation, sunken highways, elevated. Better intersections, cloverleafs are boring. With the NAM you get better ones, but it can be better

[HawaiiBill 0]

We seem in strong accord, soldyne, and I hope my several references to 'good enough' indicate the possible dangers of too much reality. My thoughts tend to focus on places that SC seems incorrect or at odds with the function and goals of planning and the effects of growth. Everything is related, especially in an SC 'region.'

Urban planning may be at a weak point in its history. SimCity was first called to my attention some twenty years ago by a brilliant academician and functional planning organizer. I only got around to getting my copy recently and he has left our world so is beyond more discussion.

But I know he was seeing the program as a scaled down 'pilot' for a tool that might need a mainframe for serious planning studies. There, we could have as many real-world consequences of doing this or doing that as folks could dream up to code in. Even then, clearly, we would have to cut corners to avoid deadly computer turbulence.

And it would be great fun.

[croxis 150]

Being very bored at work I read this whole thing (yes, yes I did). So here is my ramble that is probably riddled with spelling mistakes and grammatically not so correct.  Mind you this isn't a wishlist but looking a bit at design philosphy (and no I am NOT a developer )

1) Choices

I forget which game god wrote it, but what makes a great game is the ability of the game to give players interesting choices, especially in the strategy or simulation genres. In the SNES version of SimCity, rails cost a little more but provided transportation to any zone it was in contact to and had no pollution or traffic. The only real choice is cost, and even then it isn't an interesting choice. What makes a choice interesting is when there are two or more comparable options. Sc2k - SC4 generally went in the right direction with this. Should I make a highway or use several roads? More can be done in this department however. To continue with my transportation example -- there is little to no choice in upgrading streets to roads or roads to avenues when traffic becomes too much. Also gameplay choices are not the same as, say transportation type choices, which leads me to...

2) More is not always better.

Having more of something is not always better. SimCity had roads and rails. SimCity 2000 added subways and highways. The list expanded over time. There comes a point when there are simply too many options and will limit the scope and utility of that option. In SimCity roads and rails were used for everything. While not offering a great deal of choice or realism they had fantastic utility and could be used in many situations. As the number of options increase one of two things will happen. Either gameplay function of each type will be similar to another (restricting choice) or that the utility for each transportation type will be come so restrictive that you will need to use 2 track monorails in one situation and 10 lane one way rail in another (again, limiting the choices). There is a hard balancing act to allow functional creative freedom and choice while providing different options.

3) Bringing in new blood.

For any game to be a success, especially those with a niche market like SimCity, there needs to be a way to bring in fresh blood. Too many options can hinder this. If a player new to simcity came in and had transportation puzzle pieces for every single possible combination she would freak out and probably quit. Like it or not the hard core community of detailed simulation and creative city journals are a minority in sales (not that there is ANYTHING wrong with hard core simulators or creative artsy types!), but SC5 can not just cater to us. There are some interesting things that can take care of both which I will now address.

4) Scenarios

I admit I miss scenarios. There are times when I just want (or only have time) to play a short, 5-20 minutes and I don't want to work on developing my masterpiece. I want the game tell me what goal I need to reach and then I do it. Interesting enough SC3k UE had a fairly robust scenario creator that was under utilized by the community this could add structure to a game that might turn away because it is....

5)  The problems with open ended

We love  open ended games.  Duh.  But there are limitations to it.   A conversation with my friend resulted in this: Him: "Ok so what do I do?"

Me: " Well you need to build powr, some places for people to live  and work, and you go from there"

Him:  "Yah I know, but what do  I  do?"

And so on.   We can not expect a player to sit down and just start goint at it.   I myself first encountered this in Eve-online.  After the tuorial I was baffled at what to do.  I knew I needed to join  a corperation and I knew how, but my mind failed to articulate it better than trying to figure out what to do.  I managed to get on my feet  and felt accomplished but my boyfriend was but off by Eve and went back to World of Warcraft.

Will is using a very interesting solution to this problem with SPORE and I can very much see him doing the same in SimCity 5.  In spore the game starts with a very structured and goal oriented gameplay and slowly opens up over time to a much more open ended gameplay.  There are two different ways I can think of to start with (both of which can include full sandbox gameplay mode so us vets can jump right in).

*Campain*

Yes, you read  that right, a campain.  First objective is to build a basic city with a population of 1000.  Unlike other campain games which moves the player to a brand new city, an AI can be constructed  to continue to build the city for a while.  Such an AI will need to be quite robust and probably outside the development timeline (however SPORE does look at the playing style of the player so this may be more possible than I thought).  The AI will then be programmed with some kind of limiting factor  so when the player returns as mayor he needs to both reach the next  benchmark AND deal with the problem(s) of the previous AI. 

The campain will have a limited set of features at first.  The basics.  Over time more and more of the options will become avalable to the player (while all will be avalable right away in sandbox mode except for rewards).  Eventually the AI will no longer play giving the player full control of the city.

*Increasing Options/Difficulty*

Traditionally difficulty resulted in harshness of conditions or handycap to the player.  Another way to bring difficulty into the game is by changing the features avalable.  Unlike the previous example where choices were blatently cut out,  the most major change will be the level of control a player has over the city.  For example, on a more easy difficulty a player can only adjust the total education fund for a city.  Higher difficulty results in more fine controles, such as the funding for each school.  Lower difficulty should not limit a player from reaching their meta-goals and should be capable of reaching comparable levels of LE, EQ, population, etc.  What would make things more interesting is if the game could reconize the abilaties of the player and add more control as the player became more skilled. 

This would be much more sophisticated than the technology additions from 2k and 3k.

So these are my thoughts for now.  I know I forgot something so I will post it when I remember!  Discuss away!

> >

[Flumes 3]

I have a long wish list for SC5. I will only post a few.

1. Need to be able to choose how many lanes. I hate how Avenues always have 4 and highways 6 ext... I hope that in SC5 you can choose to put on more lanes. Roads could be more then 2+ lanes and really the only difference from Aves. would be the tree's in the middle.

2. I always hate limiting the building styles to 1 type b/c then I get a ton of duplications. For SC5 I want more buildings (BAT could do that tho...), but more importantly...

First the ability to zone different area's of the city with different style's of buildings. I would love to build a midwest square with brick buildings on it and then farther out have new-style building as it develps. You can kinda do that now by zoning certain area's in certain years, but it can always be redevelped. (I hate putting everything as historic landmarks)

3. Independent Sims, I want sims to go on vacation, go to the store, ext. I hate how you can't really have a tourism based city. You can really expand on that idea, I am really hopefull this will happen!

This last one will mostly likely not happen...

Kinda goes along with 3

Anyways, I live in the Cleveland Area, I am always reading in the newspaper how we lost such and such jobs to oversea's ext...

In SC5, I want mayors to recruit buisness's to the area based on tax breaks and other benefits, redevlpment projects are also always in the paper, Instead of the advisors doing whatever they do now, I want them making suggestions on how to make the city better. For example, the Eviormental Advisor reccomends you to build a park in the such and such district to draw people to the stores their. That allows the advisors to keep their own agenda's but also convince you to follow through. So in the end, SC5 would almost allow the mayor to take over as a worker in the commerce bureua by drawing in buisnesses or losing them elsewhere.

Going along with 3, you would also be able to draw events to your city that brings in Tourism $. For example, you build a huge 20 feild soccer complex, then you could host a youth soccer tournament bringing in dollars to the region.

That is my BIG WISH. That would be awesome. A few other things I would like...

1. Faster load times.

2. Playable region mode, (god mode from region, combine 2 city's, more city to city interaction). That would go along with...

3. Adding realism, each city is more of a district. Realism could also be added by building placement, for example GAS STATIONS ON THE CORNER, ext...

[freedo50 1]

i think one of the most useful additions to the game at the moment for those of us who play for CJs etc (even if we're not very successful ) would be a "Make Historical" brush, so tjhat you could make a whole area historical, and maybe the addition of two levels of historicalness (is that a word?) so that there is one that the game wont build over, but you can and one so that even you cant accidentally build over it without un-historicalising (what a word! ) it

would that be possible as a mod maybe? who knows, we're always being surprised by what our modderrs can do

[Pixelrage 34]

The problem is that the majority (aka, people who own SC4 but don't visit simtropolis) don't care about intricacies like this. I doubt the average person wonders about more road types, location specific purposes (mining areas, textile areas, true agriculture, etc), water tools and RCI issues - but just sits back and builds a big cube of buildings, and a cube next to that cube, and so on. Unfortunately, the community on Simtropolis is a minority...which is why I either don't expect a SC5 at all, or if we do get one, a SC5 with all of these features that we want.

[owenluby 1]

i have a few suggestions:

TRANSPORT:

Roads need to curve and be smoother. Im sick and tired of building square buildings on diagonal roads and the effect is an annoying space between the road and the building that is a triangle! (GRRRRRR!!!!)

Also, most roads should have 2 lanes in each direction. Pretty much every road we ever go on has 4 lanes. Its really annoying having 2 lane roads. Not much realism. And more options:

Streets should be ashphalt as well, there should be smaller median strips as well.

Trains; there needs to be a single track option. Itd be great to have a 3 track line insted of 2. And the tracks should be interchangeable on the same line.

Trams: They should be intergrated onto roads. I catch a tram every day and none of them are on seperate lines. And a small sized  stop should be available.

Underground roads;

You should be able to construct roads, rail etc, in a different view. Just like the pipe and subway view. You could have a whole network of transportation under your metropolis! That would be soooo coool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GRID:

SCRAP IT!!!!!

Pretty much everyone despises the grid (correct me if im wrong!)

There would be so much more possiblites without it, just image them... drool!

MY IDEA:

This is probably the most out there suggestion yet (but then again, i haven't read them all) There should be a mode where you can just build to your hearts content; no money and budget issues, no growth problems, no more traffic hassles, no time, no disasters, power problems...

This could mean building a whole city in a much easier and much more (well i think) enjoyable fashion. You could then turn on the simulation mode and deal with all those problems..

It would be tons easier to recreate real cities.

These are all but a few of my ideas. I hope these are plausible because if they were incoporated into sc5 ( lets hope there will be one) i would be a very happy human being.

[quickymart 0]

I'd like to be able to setup cellphone towers and possibly AM/FM radio and TV transmitters. You would have to provide coverage to everyone, and that could be a real challenge for some hilly/mountainous cities. You could also check the coverage on the maps (like you can with the police, etc at the moment) and install new sites as necessary.

[quickymart 0]

Also. Being able to provide a cul-de-sac at the end of a dead end road (not a street) would be nice too

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Originally posted by: quickymart Also. Being able to provide a cul-de-sac at the end of a dead end road (not a street) would be nice too quote>

If you have Rush Hour/Deluxe download the NAM and there you are...

[quickymart 0]

Hmmm. I can't see it in my cities

I downloaded the plugin and that works fine for streets, but it doesn't seem to work for roads.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

You actually have to make the cul for a road.  Just do a 2 x 2 square at the end of the road.

[Gridlock 9]

If sim city 5 does come out then id like to be able to build cities like this .

Not to bothered about 3 d graphics ,but i would also like to see arcologies re-introduced,better pathfinding ,and all the bugs that plague larger cities resolved.

Also some direct indication of un-employment figures would be nice.

Not bothered either about the u drive it missions or my sim ,i think the resources could be put to better use ,in differant aspects of the game .

[pedronc 0]

well people (sorry my Bad english..)

i was reading some posts.. and i ' ve got a question..

there is planned to come out some sim city 5 , or expansion to sim city 4 that had been already confirmed by EA?

if yes, when they came to the market?

btw Sim city rulezz

[beebs 129]

Originally posted by: pedronc well people (sorry my Bad english..)

i was reading some posts.. and i ' ve got a question..

there is planned to come out some sim city 5 , or expansion to sim city 4 that had been already confirmed by EA?

if yes, when they came to the market?

btw Sim city rulezz quote>

There's nothing new planned yet, unfortunately, as it seems Maxis is set onto Spore right now. There is an expansion for SimCity 4 that came out in fall of 2003 called Rush Hour... it's also included in the Deluxe edition of the game.

[pedronc 0]

hum thanks

There is an expansion for SimCity 4 that came out in fall of 2003 called Rush Hour... it's also included in the Deluxe edition of the game.

yes i know that

but i want MOREEEEE lol

thanks 4 the help

[beebs 129]

Well, Simtropolis is good enough for me for now. With all the mods and BATs the fellas are creating, there's a never ending supply of new things to toy around with. STEX>any new Maxis expansion.

[pedronc 0]

well.. i think im gona reinstal sim city to this hollidays

yesterday, ive install ''city live'' its also funny, but SC it just very much better

btw, even with Bats and Mods, a new game like ''sim city 5'' its ever a new game.. that means many new options , a 3d view, etc etc ..

well stay cool im gonna sleep

btw, this site is english or american? lol

[beebs 129]

Originally posted by: pedronc well.. i think im gona reinstal sim city to this hollidays

yesterday, ive install ''city live'' its also funny, but SC it just very much better

btw, even with Bats and Mods, a new game like ''sim city 5'' its ever a new game.. that means many new options , a 3d view, etc etc ..

well stay cool im gonna sleep

btw, this site is english or american? lolquote>

Can't disagree there.. I'd love a new SimCity, with all new options to explore. Generally, I avoid this thread to keep my hopes from going up/the imagination from over-imagining.

Neither actually... it's Canadian.