Simcity 2013 or simcity 4

[tnobles 38]

Tilted Mill is working on one called Medieval Mayor which already has a forum but probably won't come out until next year;

 

Medieval Mayor Site

 

Forum

 

[Msprintz 25]

Out of those as far as I know only Tropico and CIM did any good since Tropico got 4 iterations of the game. As most would know Cities XL could have done well if the dev of the first one didn't stuff it with what they did, the dev for XL 2011 tried to save that game but well who knows.. And well City Life as far as I know just faded into obscurity..

It took 6 years for Tropico to receive its third sequel, parly in response to the cult like fan base the series enjoyed. The series in general is politically oriented, politics and governing influence the game much more than city building. The backdrops for all but the second game is the cold war, where you're the newly minted dictator of a Caribbean island.

Cities XL, and City Life were the only real city builders outside of Sim City Societies to have been released post Sim City 4. Cities In Motion has managed to carve a prerty impressive niche in the realm of transportation management simulations, where there haven't been decent offerings in years up to that time.

I'd say the ultimate answer to this question of Sim City 4 versus Sim City 2013 is ultimately up to ones preference. Sim City 4 is definitely showing its age, and thanks to our community it's replayability has been extended by a good 10 years or more. Sim City 2013 is more of a reboot and as such removes some of the micromanagement that some members complained were cumbersome ( water pipes .....cough.....cough..... ). It's a fairly young title with a lot of room for improvement and a lot of replayability. On that alone I would give a slight edge to Sim City 2013.

[Pytharchimedes 13]

If you have not played Simcity 4 then try Simcity 2013 first. The game is pure fun...watching the city grow and how everything interacts and how certain things emerge is fun in itself when your not even touching the mouse. I saw all the hate 2013 had so I checked out Simcity 4, interface sucked and the graphics are horrendous...obviously because it is an old game.  I tried playing it after I played 2013 and it was like going from using a washing machine to a washing board.

 

Dont believe all the hate 2013 gets, it doesn't deserve it...just imagine your grandfather saying "well back in my day blah blah blah" and you sum up the negative response to 2013. 

 

Yeah I wish the maps were bigger and hopefully they get bigger...being able to build on the whole region would be a huge improvement to the game, but that doesn't make it a bad game.

 

Try it out for yourself, you wont be disappointed I would say.

[ghosty12 13]

I used to love Simcity 4 and would play it for hours. The only problem I ever really had with it were the large maps, you get a good size city going and it would chug along at times and this was on either a Pentium 3 or a Prescott Pentium 4 with the max amount of ram XP 32 would recognize but forget which as has been so long since I had it running..

 

Always did better on the small and medium maps, and this is probably why Eaxis went with small maps to start with hopefully they do bring bigger maps but not at the cost of dragging ones system down..

[The_City_Builder 299]

I love them both equally to be honest. I've put well over 200 hours into both of them. 

[reReticulated Spline 69]

Considering how little un-biased information there is on this game I'll add to this topic.

 

Why Simcity 4 is better

+ Huge maps and large adjecent city tiles. You can expand, expand, expand and never worry about borders. You can't plan out an entire region, hence your strategy evolves along the way. You get a great sense of freedom.

+ Modding. There are 10 years of hard work worth of buildings and transportation options to download. Nearly every famous building can be found. If you suddenly want to build a logging town instead, a few minutes of searching on the web will give you all you need. You'll constantly be amazed by what modders have made, and can spend hours outside the game scrolling through potential stuff for your city. The game has almost unlimited content.

+ Scale. Getting skyscrapers means you first need a lot of sims already living in your city. You'll have huge cities that feel like actual cities and getting a skyscraper commercial center feels really rewarding because it takes such a long time to get there and once there, you'll have a huge realistic sized city under your control.

+ More transport options (if you count the rush-hour expansion).

 

Why Simcity 2013 is better

+ In depth simulation. In SC4 sims commute to and back from work. Now, they'll also: go shopping, go to school, visit parks, go to the hospital etc. Your city feels much more alive as your sims are actually moving around the city visiting everything.

+ Road system. In SC4 your road can go 8 directions, your buildings 4. Now, you can build road any way you like, using tools like circles, squares or just free drawing from hand. If you want creative freedom with roads (not just efficient grids) SC2013 is what you want. Using some tricks and the overpass mod (which will be incorperated in the next official patch) you'll be able to create even more insane and creative transportation systems.

+ More meaningfull emergency services and utilities. In SC4 you can ignore most emergency services for a long time, then just place a couple in a grid and you're done. In SC2013 emergency services require a lot of though. Because they function through vehicles their placement is dependant on your road system and you are challenged to think more about solutions. Expand your existing buildings or build new ones on other locations? There are more causes for things such as fire/sickness and crime and you'll have different needs depending on the type of city you are building.

+ More gameplay elements. You can now create tourism cities. This is a great boon for your commercial and makes you a lot of money directly, but you'll need to plan around the large amount of travellers to prevent congestion. You can also mine resources and setup trading routes and make money out of that. Or you focus on providing freight for other cities, or you sell utilities to the region. There are many different ways to grow your city and all your cities will feel more unique. Different types of cities give different challenges.

 

Why you shouldn't get SC4

- Graphics are old (if you care about that sort of stuff).

- You need to spend time online looking for mods to get the most of the game.

 

Why you shouldn't get SC2013 (yet)

- Traffic AI is broken which makes the game harder then it should be

- There are no terraforming options which severly limit your creativity

- There are no official modding tools and few mods available

- City tiles are small. Really small. You can plan how your city will look, then build it and then you are done. You have no space to continue expanding from here.

- The game is still buggy.

 

Conclusion

Based on this list everyone can reach their own conclusion which game they would prefer. 10 years of modding has made SC4 much greater while SC2013 should still be viewed as almost-out-of-beta and is still being worked on by Maxis to get the basic things going. It's not hard to see why a lot of people prefer SC4. However, don't discard SC2013 yet. Even if it's smaller scale turns you off now, things will look different in the future. Terraforming, Modding tools, better AI and larger maps have all been unofficially announced by Maxis to be coming in the future. While the game doesn't have everything SC4 had yet, it can, and probably will in the future. A lot of people seem to have forgotten that modding tools for Simcity are traditionally released 1 year after the game hits the market. It should be noted that most of the reasons given for SC4 being better by myself and other fans are because of stuff released later. That's why I don't care much about it's state on release date. I care only about it's potential to grow like SC4 did.

 

SC2013 is still growing up. Buy it only when you think it has grown enough to be worth the cost. I'm having a lot of fun with it right now, but some people would be happier if they ignored it's existance for 1 or 2 years. 

[simcity1999 34]

Of course SimCity 4 Deluxe ! Don't even think of buying SC2013. If you hate old graphics, you can try Cities XL, but I'd recommend SC4, as it has thousands of downloadable content, and they are all free. And the game is also very cheap now.

[Pytharchimedes 13]

Of course SimCity 4 Deluxe ! Don't even think of buying SC2013. If you hate old graphics, you can try Cities XL, but I'd recommend SC4, as it has thousands of downloadable content, and they are all free. And the game is also very cheap now.

 

How long have you actually played Simcity 5? To admonish people to not even try it? Do not even think of buying it? Why? Because you already did the thinking for everyone?

 

Ridiculous advice.

 

Try both games and choose for yourself.

[ghosty12 13]

Of course SimCity 4 Deluxe ! Don't even think of buying SC2013. If you hate old graphics, you can try Cities XL, but I'd recommend SC4, as it has thousands of downloadable content, and they are all free. And the game is also very cheap now.

Um how about letting people decide for themselves whether they want to play SC2013 or SC4..  The main problem with a lot of the community made DLC is that quite a lot of it required you to go looking for other files to get a lot of the DLC working properly it was forever a hassle..

 

But in the end it is their decsion whether they buy SC2013 or SC4 and not yours..

[simcity1999 34]

SC5 is one of the worst SC games ever (many reviews online, and even if it's free, I still think twice before trying it).

[Pytharchimedes 13]

SC5 is one of the worst SC games ever (many reviews online, and even if it's free, I still think twice before trying it)

 

Like I said how many hours you logged? I got 75 hours in the past week, that is over 10 hours a day. 

 

Games awesome. Try it out. 

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

Let's remember, this is a personal choice. Both games are vastly different, and there's no right or wrong answer. Please respect this and other people's opinions.

Thanks.

[AkemiAzula 280]

The interface is hardly a proper reason for dissing a video game. Also disliking it purely because it is old school. The game itself is, I think, far more important for comparison. 

 

Simcity 4's interface to me always seemed fairly logical and straightforward. The new games interface is very weird and silly and modern like a lot of newer interfaces, and interfaces were definitely better back in the day. Like with music interfaces have gone downhill over time to the point where they make no sense.

 

However this hardly relates to the game itself. Not buying a game because of its interface would only make sense if it was an interface that couldn't be used properly or had significant failings. 4's interface is perfectly fine. If you want to build a road, click on transport, road tools, road. BAM. Nothing difficult in that.

 

But really this whole debate is silly because what a lot of people wanted was 4 but updated with better graphics and so forth. GlassBox, if implemented properly, would have been a nice concept for the game, but 2013 takes a completely different direction. This is like comparing apples to oranges. 

[reReticulated Spline 69]

Here's another way to look at it:

 

SC4 costs about a nickel and a smile. Even if you don't like it, you've lost nothing buying it. If you do like it at least somewhat, you can check youtube to see if you'll like SC2013 better or not. So I change my advice to: Buy SC4.

[Noobi-Wan 22]

I like the accessibility of 2013 but prefer the scale of 4.

Horses for courses really but reReticulated Spline hits it perfectly. Get 4 on the cheap and see if you like it then get 2013 if you feel so inclined!