SC5 is a Tropico and Anno/Dawn of Discovery Series Frankenstein hybrid, appealing?

[Board_Marshal 104]

This SimCity, lets call it SC5, is supposedly novel but to me it looks like a Frankenstein merger of Tropico and Anno/Dawn of Discovery.  Here is why.

 

Tropico is smaller scale and more intimate than SimCity 4.  I believe SC5 parallels this because the Glassbox modeling of each Sim citizen.  The individual modeling is supposed to give the game legitimacy as a serious city "simulator" but EA/Maxis have also strongly emphasized the intimacy and personal attachment we're supposed to have with our Sims.  The novelty wears off quickly, yawn.  I'm supposed to "care" about my Sims but who are we kidding, it's just data.  In real life I don't believe the city council members or mayor of my city give a crap about the ordinary goings on of my life or most of the other citizens of my city.  And I don't believe that if they followed me around all day and night they'd care any more about me, and I'm a flesh and blood human.  Then again, I don't care about each of their lives either because mine is busy enough as it is, so perhaps I'm the self-centered blank-hole.

 

Anno/Dawn of Discovery starts with a map of multiple "islands" which I would consider comparable to the 16 city spaces within a region.  Islands which will never grow together.  In Anno/Dawn of Discovery you have a main island which has finite resources and finite space which requires the player to plan and place your houses/production/buildings carefully, a-la SC5, because you can't have everything on each island.  In addition to the quantity of resources, e.g., stone being finite, each island only has 2-3 non-mineral resources so you necessarily have to go to new islands to get new resources and ship them back and fourth which permits further growth (water, raw materials, workers, etc. in SC5).  Isn't this exactly what we are supposed to do between these "cities" in our SC5 region?  At least in Anno it's real time strategy and I don't have to hop back and fourth between cities.  The problem is that Anno gets tedious after a while, micro managing each ship and repetitively checking ports to adjust the supply lines.  I'll grant you that there is an adrenaline/endorphin rush for several games as the number of simultaneous needs increased and when you achieve a symphony like coordination of your transportation chains but then it just becomes boring.  Anno has great works just like SC5.  Again, fun to achieve once or twice but then the work to do it again is more than the satisfaction payoff of completion.

 

While I'm at it, Cities XL had maps that couldn't be modified and an online multiplayer component that went bust for several reasons.  My opinion is that the city builder genre has always been a personal gaming experience and nobody is going to convince me otherwise.  I can't draw, I can't paint, I can't build cool stuff out of wood but I can create awesome cities in SimCity 4, which is a way to create something unique and then sit back and say "hey, I did that and it's pretty cool no matter what anybody else thinks", isn't that art?.  Do artists and builders have more satisfaction when they create their unique works with other people, mostly not.  When somebody else adds their individualism it necessarily takes away from your own, it is zero sum.  Either it is how I want it to be or it is not truly something that is uniquely mine, that no other person could replicate.  I digress.  EA/Maxis thought they could preserve that by giving the player the option of a private region but it fails for the same reason an artist would feel restricted if they "ALWAYS" had to go to a studio to create their art (pick whatever medium you like).  Sometimes you just want to be home, alone, nothing to hinder you in doing what you brings you entertainment/happiness/satisfaction.

 

The problem EA and Maxis seem to have is that they want to benefit from the quality and acclaim that attaching a title like "SimCITY" has when it accompanies a city simulator but yet not meet the standard/expectation which is a minimum threshold of city size and sophistication, i.e., complexity.  Ya, ya, there are new "mechanics" in SC5 and players must adopt a new approach given how the game has been changed but new doesn't necessarily equal challenging, complex, or even fun.  Sure, it is a bit overwhelming and exciting to take on SC5 and time will tell if SC5 will have the strength and stamina to carry the mantle of SC4 or rather if it will be more akin to an "Anno" game which is quickly shelved because, well, it is repetitive and restrictive. (I like Dawn of Discovery and Anno 2070, but they're by no means SimCity).

 

On another note, since the "cities" are smaller scale and can never ever grow together into a single city, what should this be called instead of SimCity?  Since I'm not really the mayor of 1 city is this SimGovernor?, SimCentral Planner?, SimDictator?  I am coordinating a "region" and not a single city.  "WAIT" you say, SimCity 4 has a region with several individual cities.  But then I would say that if you think the region system in SC4 is comparable to SC5 then we've nothing left to talk about.

[Endureth 37]

The trade/frieght/etc is taken directly from Pharoah.  How many remember that game.  Your bricks and clay were transported, stored and used in pretty much the same way.  There was also Caesar and Zeus.  But these games made the deliveries easier because they had blockers.  Like to clock certain types of workers from going down certain roads.  You could control the traffic way better tan in SimCity.

[frdrcklim 139]

Funny. I thought that SimCity was basically a democratic Tropico 3/4. Democratic because Tropico 3/4, excluding the shanties, is basically a plopping game while SimCity is mostly on growable buildings (Also with the fact that you are a dictator in Tropico, but a mayor in SimCity).

 

Just like SimCity, Tropico had resource management and you could upgrade buildings. You can look at people intimately and apparently do more than simply stalking a citizen, such as arresting and assassinating them, as opposed to Simcity, judging from SimCity videos. Tropico had the advantage of being an island and having larger maps so the crampness of that island is subjectively negated as opposed to the very limiting sandbox of SimCity. You managed less people in Tropico, but Tropico was meant to be more of a microcosm of an actual nation, so it did not really matter and you never actually felt that you had less people as opposed to SimCity were you expected more. The buildings are redundant though and that is one of my main complaints of that game.

[Bobington 4]

Actually I felt the trade is more like Tropico 4 where you can import raw materials, process them in factories into finished goods then export the finished products.

[daneoid 78]

On another note, since the "cities" are smaller scale and can never ever grow together into a single city, what should this be called instead of SimCity?  Since I'm not really the mayor of 1 city is this SimGovernor?, SimCentral Planner?, SimDictator?  I am coordinating a "region" and not a single city.  "WAIT" you say, SimCity 4 has a region with several individual cities.  But then I would say that if you think the region system in SC4 is comparable to SC5 then we've nothing left to talk about.

Queue Simulator 2013? Simhamlet online edition?

That always bugged the hell out of me too, 'oh in the new simcity you can trade resources between cities!  You can even get other cities to handle your waste, or electricity!'....Yeah, I could do that in Simcity 4, it's how you get green cities...