My SimCity Journey

[redlegOIF 1]

Over 10 years ago Maxis released Sim City 4, and having played Sim City from the early days of the original I was thoroughly impressed and fell in love with the game. Over the last 10 years I've played it off and on, enjoying my immersion in the dual role of Mayor and Tyrant. Rewarding my trusty citizens with parks and mass transit and then punishing them with earthquakes and tornados. However, technology has advanced over the last decade and the game has desperately needed an upgrade and like a breaking news headline a friend told me they came out with a new SimCity just this last year! I was thrilled, I was so excited. I rushed to the nearest commercial zone, like a firefighter rushing to douse the flames in one of my utopian cities. It took only a few seconds before I spotted it. The price seemed fair, I checked my simoleons and made sure I could budget it, and after consulting with my city planner, I pulled the trigger and purchased the game. The ride home and the time it took to install it were the longest 20 minutes I've experienced in a long time. I was like a sailor, rushing to the marina to view my newly purchased yacht! I was fantasizing about the sprawling metropolis I would soon build, the millions of citizens I would soon reward and punish. Immediately something was wrong. I looked the yacht up and down, it was beautiful, the detail was rich, and it was streamlined and the color was perfect, but something was wrong. I had purchased a yacht that could fit in my hand. It was a ship in a bottle. It was small, terribly small. I'd been duped! I expected a huge, beautiful boat, and was given a micro machine. Unable to accept this reality I rushed to the internet, surely something was wrong, surely there was a patch, and my cities could be bigger than this. But my dreams were crushed, reading the statements from the games creators, it seemed they were unable to increase the size of the cities for fear of those consumers who were still using Commodore 64's. Distraught and depressed, no longer able to build a sprawling metropolis, I uninstalled the game, and double clicked my Sim City 4 icon. 

 

 

[Noobi-Wan 22]

I have to say I am impressed that you managed to avoid any news about the small city size before buying the game.

[Gregorfp 15]

You know what finally happen to me? It ended up spoiling the joy of playing simcity 4 too!

I don't know exactly how to explain but since I bought Simcity 2013 I can't play the old one probably due to old graphics and I'm not playing sc2013 either...

I'm stuck in a limbo! 

[RP912 1]

The small regions can be annoying especially having to make space for important things like trade centers, but I'm in love with the immersion of simcity. The cities feel alive and captivating. In simcity 4 I really didn't feel anything because the cities felt colder and bland imo. 

[Griffon 19]

I have to say I am impressed that you managed to avoid any news about the small city size before buying the game.

I was kinda thinking the same thing.

 

You know what finally happen to me? It ended up spoiling the joy of playing simcity 4 too!

I don't know exactly how to explain but since I bought Simcity 2013 I can't play the old one probably due to old graphics and I'm not playing sc2013 either...

I'm stuck in a limbo! 

I can't play the old SC4 either.  Although I never really liked a lot of the mods people said made it great to begin with like the network expansion mod.  I found it too complex to understand.  It's like it gave me too many options.  I'm probably the only one that thinks that too.

 

In the end (with all it's flaws) I still like SC2013 better than SC4.  I know that once you're finished building the region in SC4 it's suppose to look like one giant city, but I never found it realistic how every city was right next to each other.  In real life most cities aren't right next to each other.  You usually have to drive (I'd say on average for my area) 30 mins to get to the next city/town.  Although if I could I'd rather play SC2000 or 3000, but I can't anymore.  Recently my old XP computer that could play all those old games stopped working suddenly.  (sorry for getting off topic a little.)

 

A few things I'd say would make SC2013 better is if the cities were at least twice as big and there were more cities in a region and they all connected to each other.  Right now most cities in a region is 16 (but in groups of 4) and the most cities connected at a time is 7.  I'm still positive some modders could fix these problems so don't throw away the game yet (although you don't really need the CD anyways).

[maramaka 0]

I am brand new to the forums, but have been lurking for a little while, as I've found myself regularly wondering about the mechanics of this new SimCity title.  I picked up the game about a month ago, and it sounds like I was fortunate to miss the early release hiccups.

 

I have been playing Sim titles since the beginning, although I admittedly never did play 3000 or SC4, as I went through more than a decade of sports titles, FPS, and finally settling into MMOs.  I found the challenge of min/maxing and strategy, specifically in PVP venues, to be very entertaining, and highly addictive.  The months of my life invested in gameplay...but I digress.  Regardless, this all changed six months ago with the birth of my daughter.  I realized quite quickly that I am incapable of committing time to my career and my family, while putting in the work to remain competitive in an MMO community.  I figured I can pause SimCity to change a diaper, so here I am!

 

Initially, I was captivated by the beauty and the broad concepts of this game, but I too became frustrated with the lingering issues and counter-intuitive nature of some of the game mechanics.  As mentioned above, I took to the forums in an attempt to gain a better understanding of how things work.  After fully delving into the statistical data available in-game, reading through many of the well written and detailed posts by many of you, and doing some research of my own, I have completely fallen in love with the complexity and detail of this new SimCity.  After some tinkering of my own, I've observed that much of the game is not so much broken as requiring a certain level of observation, which is served well by making minor adjustments to our cities to optimize their functionality.  Did I mention I can pause it to change a dirty diaper?

 

Anyways, I figured I'd throw in my two cents worth, and use this opportunity to introduce myself to the Simtropolis community.  I've kept myself reserved to closed regions as I work my way through the various elements and city specializations thus far, but that will change soon.

 

Mara