SimCity 2013 yesterday's news?

[xordevoreaux 73]

I noticed today, 3/26/2015, that there wasn't a single reference to anything SimCity 2013 on Simtropolis' home page, not the featured item, not the slider with the different pictures moving past, nothing.  It was all Cities Skylines.  Is Cities Skylines all that?  Has it just swept everyone away and SimCity 2013 is now dust, or is this just a honeymoon period where everyone's enrapt with Skylines right now?  I've enough games loaded on my PC, I don't need any more, but I was just curious, nothing more.

 

 

 

 

[Talla 2XLC 36]

Well, SC 2013 was never that good anyway, so i don't miss it.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

Cities: Skylines has some features that SimCity 2013 does not that have been largely requested. It also has an easy-to-use but robust and powerful (and regularly updated to fix bugs and add functionality) modding API. That means that within 2 years (which is how long SC2013 has been around), Cities: Skylines should be able to surpass all the competition in every way many people deem important.

 

--Ocram

[bjl707 4]

I think Skylines has effectively "killed" SimCity 2013.

 

The developers were genius with this game.  They sat back and watched and listened to all the complaints that people had about SC 2013, then they went ahead and developed a game that addressed almost every single one of them. 

 

 

[duke54 5]

Skylines is a clone that operates like SC 2013 offline with mods such as larger cities and one-ways streets. But until Skylines has online play, I'm really not interested. I love the connected cities idea of SC 2013, that allows me to work with other players. That's what it's all about.

[Danny50205 71]

yes

now that Emeryville has closed i think YES Simcity is dead however the legacy still lives on 

But skylines did nothing short of what simcity did. the only thing it did that is different is texturing bigger maps and one-ways. however this was added by UDoN's. everything else is the same UI. traffic. etc

 

However if you look DEEEP DEEEP DEEEP in the forums you can find out that we got help from the devs to make UDoN's. and most of our mods

And yes bigger maps mod was glitched but it was only the games collision script that went into the 2K box same with Resources.

and it lags on even high-end computers ( witch in all respects makes me think is Skylines really simulating all the agents it says it is??? hmmm fishy)

also no one has ever compared the game on it's own haha WITHOUT simcity hmmmmmm

That makes me think if the game got a bit more attention it needed instead of making a big deal out of it's issues maybe we would have had a map editor today and even more.

 

from what i have been reading is the traffic issues are swept under the carpet when spoken about. oh well :/

[Xenocity 343]

Not really.

 

Gamers typically move really fast to the new releases, regardless of genre.

Also about half of this forums traffic was by regular users, who indeed have jobs and other responsibilities, which are more important than posting on this forum. 

The other half of this board's traffic and posting was from those who hated the game and constantly made it known. 

 

Give Cities Skylines board a  few more months and it will see traffic grind to a halt as well. 

 

Most of the traffic on Simtropolis are the Simcity 4 boards and the current news section. 

This is very little traffic on the other boards. 

[macscfan 117]

I think Skylines has effectively "killed" SimCity 2013.

 

 

I think at the end of the day, EA "killed" SimCity 2013.  

 

SC2013 was going to succeed or die in 2013 and 2014 based on what EA did, not what somebody might do in 2015.

 

That's not to take away from the C:S developers (especially given their size), but EA had from the launch of SimCity 4 up through this year to build something long-lasting with a SC4 sequel, and they didn't.  That is squarely on EA.

 

In fact, if EA hadn't made so many mistakes with SC2013 from the start, Cities: Skylines would probably never have been developed, since Paradox didn't want to go head-to-head with a successful SimCity revival.

[Rufus Honker IV 100]

Yeah, making the online game pay-to-play and released that aspect later, after people had played single-player to work out the bugs for EA (and see if people liked playing it by itself in the first place) would have been more sensible.

 

Of course, EA felt the game couldn't work single-player.

[bjl707 4]

EA did make a huge amount of mistakes with SC2013. 

 

The competition took advantage of their missteps and seem to have hit a home run. 

 

Time will tell, but it seems like all of the issues and major complaints with SC2013 have been addressed in CS

[mutton noir 170]

It's fashionable to gush about Skylines and to diss SC2013. Fact is any sensible commentator would point out that each has its flaws and good elements. Skylines doesn't have day/night mod and the UI is fiddly and badly designed. The various models in SC are far superior more detailed and polished. The ability to mod with ease and the massive playable maps are really the clinchers for CS.

If you were  to combine the best of both and then throw in the best of SC4 you would arrive at the almost perfect city builder.

Meanwhile it is ok to like all 3!

[Sandis_van_Great 346]

SC2013 was never even a thing. It was doomed before even it was released,tho many didn't see that. Since Simtropolis sold themself to EA advertisement, SC2013 was all over the main page.

 

I don't think Skylines is ever gonna be as popular as SC4 board here, only cause everything is happening trough steam. Workshop and discussion board there is more than active.

[TekindusT 3,809]

I guess you guys do not remember how Maxis had its own discussion forum and lot exchange for all things SC4 related. ST "competed" with this board in the mid-2000s. Eventually, Maxis moved on to other projects (namely The Sims), and the forums and the virus-ridden, low-quality-5-minute-made-lots-exchange were taken down. 

 

Sooner or later, due to lack of players' interest or market requirements, the Steam discussion board will lose popularity. And the C:S hardcore players will very slowly turn their eyes to ST again. As it happened with SC4.

 

Everything is a matter of time. I feel that since I started playing that early version of C:S, years have passed. New CJ kings/queens have risen with ultra-high quality works in no time. All kinds of mods flood the Workshop. More assets have been released this first month that in years of SC4 history. But remember, it's been only a month. Give also the simtropolites some time to assimilate that our very little world has been (happily) turned upside down by C:S.

[Linoa06 1,374]

CSL has modding, is easy to pick up, allows for a lot more creativity, gameplay includes things SC5 simply doesn't have, has a quite powerful simulation...Basically, one could almost consider it the modern Simcity 4 revolution. As far as I'm concerned, I can put great details in my cities, which is something I could only find in SC4.(It's silly but park designing for instance is a very big part of my experience, or just designing plazas or other areas. Can't really do that in SC13....)

It's a shame Maxis was forced to screw up with Simcity 5/2013, but it's what allowed CSL to take the lead. But to be fair, SC13 destroyed its franchise on its own (and CXL couldn't deliver) soit's only natural it's becoming more forgotten.

Think about it, though, there are more Cities:Skylines mods than Skyrim mods (and that's the Workshop alone, but you could draw the same results by comparing the TES Nexus and Simtropolis). The fact CSL supports modding from the onset and won't rely on paid DLCs as much to deliver critically important features extands the game's lifespan by a very, very large margin.

SCL is the Simcity 5 we were really waiting for, in the end, so I'm not amazed.

[Agente Silva 28]

@Linoa06

 

"... has a quite powerful simulation" - LOL. Let me know if you can deliver uneducated workers, by train, to a relative distant industrial cluster.

 

"...  park designing for instance is a very big part of my experience (...) Can't really do that in SC13...." - LOL. You´re not familiar with sidewalks for pedestrian/service cars with anchor points for ploppables (parks, landmarks, casinos or whatever is ploppable). You can basically design a whole centralpark of your own buddy, and even plop residential/comercial building there, if you have Avalon installed.

 

"SCL is the Simcity 5 we were really waiting for..." NO IT IS NOT.

 

The biggest fault from Maxis was "dreaming" too high. Maybe one day people will realize what they tried to deliver...

[CorpusDei 69]

The biggest fault from Maxis was "dreaming" too high. Maybe one day people will realize what they tried to deliver...

 

The problem was they were trying to deliver something that nobody actually wanted... a casual city builder for the King.com generation.

 

Yes SC2013 had some nice features, modular power stations, transport hubs, resources and so on and it built upon SC4's idea of regions with shared projects (thus resurrecting the Arcology) and borrowed some of the better ideas (transport system mainly) from Cities XL... however as a city simulator? Nope, it bore little more resemblance to a good sim than Candy Crush Sage does to chess.

 

The recent resurgence in turn-based strategy and old-skool RPGs shows that there's definitely a market for games with "beards", games that smoke a pipe and node sagely in the corner of the room before having an afternoon nap; Maxis took what would have been historically the grandfather of all bearded games and stuck it in a tracksuit and threw some bling on it and expected "da yoof" to lap it up whilst alienating many old-skool gamers (who now have jobs and disposable income to spend on gaming PCs) who wanted a "proper" sequel to SC4.

 

Cities Skylines isn't perfect, there are still things that feel missing from SC4 and some bits that need polish... but SC4 has 1 major expansion (Rush Hour) and 11 years worth of mods behind it; I'm sort of interested to see where Skylines goes, it's certainly getting some interesting mods appearing already.

[Agente Silva 28]

@CorpusDei

 

You´re just saying that because tiles were too small. If it had the size of Skylines combined with several regional neighboors it would be the BEST. I played SC4 for many many years and I say for fact: I don´t want another SC4 with better graphics (today called Skylines). I want a bigger Simcity5.

 

Don´t be surprised if the Skylines dies half way.

[SteveManx 24]

...

 

... If it had the size of Skylines combined with several regional neighboors it would be the BEST...

 

I'm sorry but there is much more wrong with the simulation than city size, even though that's still a deal breaker even if everything else worked.

 

I need every level school in SC2013 because only needing one level of education in a city would be stupid, right? Since the cities are so small I can just build one that's all residential and send them all to work in the next city that's all industry, right? Or have multiple train stations in my city? If I put two sewage outflow pipes right next to each other, they each pump half of the sewage, right? How's that MOD support that they said was part of the game? Or,,,

 

There are more broken promises and game mechanics, but I'll stop there. These are the things that ruined this game for me and the reason why it's a failure. Yet when I play Skylines (which I already have more playtime then the SC5 I bought at launch) I still have those moments of discovery and wonder at the amazingly solid foundation that has been laid.

 

This game WILL set the standard for the genre. I find it amusing that when people try to put down the game they almost always fall back on visual elements and not the mechanics, because comparing the mechanics would be embarrassing. Just look at some of the latest city journals and tell me about the graphics. But nonetheless, I'll take a good book with a plain cover over a pretty cover on a terrible book any day.

 

By the way, you said you wanted Skylines size with regional neighbors? The Skylines size IS the region. I mean, I think you can connect 5 tiles in SC5 max, each the size of ONE Skylines tile. OK, purchase five tiles in Skylines and boom, you alread have what SC5 offered. You could build each one as a seperate interconnected sub-city... well except you can open 21 more tiles after that and they all run at once. But who would want that?

[Toby Ferrian 873]

well except you can open 21 more tiles after that and they all run at once.

Make that 76 more tiles.

[Agente Silva 28]

1 - "I need every level school in SC2013 because only needing one level of education in a city would be stupid, right?" It depends if you want to grow your Industry to Midtech or High tech levels you must plop College and/or University. If you intend to stick to Low tech factories the answer to your question is "Wrong" - you´ll only need a High School (wich does the same as a primary school), considering you don´t need to employ highly educated workers.

 

2 - "Since the cities are so small I can just build one that's all residential and send them all to work in the next city that's all industry, right?" RIGHT - I have one residential Low/Mid wealth ONLY city (taxes @ 2%) providing the lack of workers neighboors have. So yea, that works - low taxes, no commercial, no industry a great train station interface and yea, that works. Don´t tell me it didn´t for you... maybe you done it wrong!

 

3 - "Or have multiple train stations in my city? If I put two sewage outflow pipes right next to each other, they each pump half of the sewage, right?" - RIGHT: if you plop two outflow pipes for the same amount of sewage they will split their outflow, so yea, I guess that is ok. Multiple train stations... what? They didn´t work for you? Let me guess, you started to see one train station taking all incoming trains and all others not being used? And then you started to turn them off, forcing trains to move along the line? LoL, trains do that because they are returning sims to their original pickup point, just like school buses... later they start to pick up and deliver all along.

 

4 -  "How's that MOD support that they said was part of the game? Or,,," - If you search a bit more you will find BoC (build outside city) that allows you to plop EVERY service/attraction, or whatever´s ploppable outside city´s border. Maybe you wouldn´t be complaining about lack of space! There are other lot of mods worth using, adding great value to the game.

 

How many hours did you play Simcity?

[SteveManx 24]

 ...

 

1. I think you missed my point. The fact that you can eliminate elementary and high schools once you have a college, without any detrimental effects, is odd. It's even recommended, to save on the extremely limited space. That's just sad.

 

2. I mean ALL workers provided. Just 2 cities, one ALL Res and one ALL Com/Ind. Can't be done.

 

3. Many people have had multiple train stations stop working. And no, the sewage will all go to the first outflow until it overloads and only a little if any will make it to the second one in many situations.

 

4. The BOC Mod doesn't really work as a seamless extension to the game, it actually barely works at all. This is not the modders fault. They did as good a job as possible with the locked code handed to them.

 

I think I'm over 130 hours in SC5. It just doesn't give me that childlike giddiness I get from CSL. Believe me, I tried real hard to find a way to get excited about it. I even made a fairly popular mod for it here.

[Agente Silva 28]

You cannot eliminate high school or else: "We miss going to school"

 

About cities having one type of zoning only: I haven´t tried recently with Industry but I suspect: 1 - if you´re not playing with Nikola´s mod it will be impossible to supply enough workers; 2 - if you´re playing with Nikola´s mod you won´t have enough places to ship freight.

 

I started one exclusive comercial city and it was doing ok(ish): the rate of development is much slower, with taxes at 8%. Maybe lowering it to 2% will do the trick - anyway, this must be a transitory transformation and not from the beggining.

 

BOC works FLAWLESSLY, please don´t tell lies (I can show dozens of screens with recycling centers, powerplants, city hall, sewage plants, airports, you name it). Building entrances are always turned north and you have to guarantee a road placed that way, but I´m sure you´re aware of that.

 

I think I´m over 1000 hours of Simcity (that´s a thousand yes). Wich mod was that you mentioned for simcity5? I might be using it

[CorpusDei 69]

@CorpusDei

 

You´re just saying that because tiles were too small. If it had the size of Skylines combined with several regional neighboors it would be the BEST. I played SC4 for many many years and I say for fact: I don´t want another SC4 with better graphics (today called Skylines). I want a bigger Simcity5.

 

Don´t be surprised if the Skylines dies half way.

 

The size was only one part of it, the whole underlying simulation is flawed from the routing (which they took ages to improve) through to the fact that sims change job and home basically daily - it's flawed in SC4 as well but it's masked slightly better. What many people wanted from SC2013 (not everyone, granted) was not SimCity-lite - but SimCity, a functional city simulator built on the legacy of SimCity games... what we got was a casual, social-media inspired, FacebookCity game with some bells and whistles which, initially, couldn't even be modded.

 

If someone was to make a city builder with the moddability, scale, water flow and transport systems of Skylines, the slightly grungy graphical style, building/utility diversity and "free placement" (don't need to attach everything to a road) of SC4, the regions (commuting/trade), day/night cycle and modular buildings of SC2013, the farms from Cities XL with proper highways (filter lanes etc) like the NAM - then I'd snap it up in a heartbeat.

 

I've owned every SimCity game since the original on the Amiga, Cities XL and now Skylines - none of them are perfect but the closest has been SC4 just because of the huge amount of community backing behind it (my plugins folder is over 3.5GB now); what Skylines has done right is to embrace the community from the offset - that might give it the longevity of SC4, it might not of course but it's certainly in a good place at the moment.

[SteveManx 24]

...

 

You call me a liar, say BOC works flawlessly and in the next sentence admit everything ONLY faces North and you HAVE to place the roads accordingly (not to even mention ground clipping and road trees). That by definition is not flawless and what I would call "barely working" . Flawless would be (1) Drag road wherever I want (2) Build anything I want, where I want. Just like the rest of the game, without clipping or trees in the road too. C'mon man, not nice to call names, especially when you're wrong.

 

Listen, I really don't want to get into all the stuff that's been debated ad infinitum. If you still like SC5, that's cool, I'm happy for you. Some people like chocolate, some like vanilla and there's plenty of room for both. My opinion is that CSL will replace SC5 since it already has for a majority of players, so I have some empirical evidence to support my supposition. I may be wrong but I guess time will tell.

 

I made the "Natural Parks" mod way back at the beginning when modding was just semi-opening. Unfortunately it never opened enough to be worth it. Another major mistake.

[MagicChicken19 43]

One thing I sure did appreciate from SC5, is that it got relative scale correct. The amount of agents per building was spot on (save for the a few buildings, like the high wealth res). Moreover, the size of the buildings compared to the sims, the cars, the bridges and the landscape was also pretty well on. The graphical scaling of the buildings in C:S is livable, sorta ... but the population scale is bothersome. They claimed they did that preserve your processor, and keep the 9 tile : 1 million agents challenge viable ... but at the same time, it also kinda takes pressure off of their broken transit system.

Conceptually, the agent system is cool if you really like "The Sims", and the stories of people and such, but the thing I like most about it actually is the traffic challenges. Unfortunately, C:S doesn't have the scaling or the coding to handle a decent traffic simulation. SC5 wasn't much different, but the challenge was increased by its limited road options, and higher population density.

What I sorta wish would happen in the next city-builder, would be a way to combine some of these aspects, maybe along with SC4 mechanics. SC4 used a statistical model to simulate population movements from place to place ... but since they didn't track individual sims, it didn't drain a system to run this simulation. I kinda wish the next city-sim would take the statistical model, and spawn agents based off that only in the zone you're looking at in the moment. That way, the simulation can show you city life on realistic proportion (including traffic density), but can also de spawn those agents when you move away, to preserve your machine. We might not get a million sims with names, but we can still simulate their home, their work, and their shopping with ease.

[Agente Silva 28]

Steve, BoC WORKS flawlessly - what you mention is aesthetic.

I kinda wish the next city-sim would take the statistical model, and spawn agents based off that only in the zone you're looking at in the moment. That way, the simulation can show you city life on realistic proportion (including traffic density), but can also de spawn those agents when you move away, to preserve your machine. We might not get a million sims with names, but we can still simulate their home, their work, and their shopping with ease.

Sometimes I think of an eventual Simcity6 and how it could be developed to have a Skylines scale with SC5 agent system and graphics. When you mention: "spawn agents based off that only in the zone you're looking at (...) but can also de spawn those agents when you move away, to preserve your machine." - this is exactly what I considered Even graphically it could have a scalable rendering according to your building proximity.

[Panos 29]

One thing I sure did appreciate from SC5, is that it got relative scale correct. The amount of agents per building was spot on (save for the a few buildings, like the high wealth res). Moreover, the size of the buildings compared to the sims, the cars, the bridges and the landscape was also pretty well on. The graphical scaling of the buildings in C:S is livable, sorta ... but the population scale is bothersome. They claimed they did that preserve your processor, and keep the 9 tile : 1 million agents challenge viable ... but at the same time, it also kinda takes pressure off of their broken transit system.

Conceptually, the agent system is cool if you really like "The Sims", and the stories of people and such, but the thing I like most about it actually is the traffic challenges. Unfortunately, C:S doesn't have the scaling or the coding to handle a decent traffic simulation. SC5 wasn't much different, but the challenge was increased by its limited road options, and higher population density.

What I sorta wish would happen in the next city-builder, would be a way to combine some of these aspects, maybe along with SC4 mechanics. SC4 used a statistical model to simulate population movements from place to place ... but since they didn't track individual sims, it didn't drain a system to run this simulation. I kinda wish the next city-sim would take the statistical model, and spawn agents based off that only in the zone you're looking at in the moment. That way, the simulation can show you city life on realistic proportion (including traffic density), but can also de spawn those agents when you move away, to preserve your machine. We might not get a million sims with names, but we can still simulate their home, their work, and their shopping with ease.

 

I agree with you. 

 

Unfortunately Skylines suffers from the same problems of Cities XL, and the previous SC. Is a "draw and forget" game. Is a bit more simulated city builder true but thats how far it goes. Is a city builder. 

 

SC2013 needs constant attention, you actually play with the city, like a puzzle, you do not draw another area and lets move on to the next one. 

And indeed, what SC2013 needed was bigger maps. (Orion isn't solution to that problem imho). 

[Agente Silva 28]

Exactly what I think.

 

Is a "draw and forget" game

 

SC2013 needs constant attention, you actually play with the city, like a puzzle, you do not draw another area and lets move on to the next one.

And indeed, what SC2013 needed was bigger maps. (Orion isn't solution to that problem imho).

 

It feels it doesn´t have an engine of his own, once you stop pedaling it stalls.

[MushyMushy 3,617]

Frankly, I never really wanted to delve into this discussion, but it's just to tempting.

 

I guess I should get a bit of background going here so my point of view is clear. I played SC3K as a kid and at some point also messed around with SC2K since my dad gave his copy to me. I got SC4 when it came out and played around with the vanilla game (+Rush Hour) for a few years. Back in maybe 2011 I discovered the great world of SC4 mods, and got back into it. I've been playing it pretty consistently since then as a way to lay out a cityscape the way I wanted to. I got SC2013 back in December of 2013 and played around with it for a bit. While it does have it's good points, I wasn't overly impressed and switched back to SC4. Since then I've tried to make myself try SC2013 a few times to no avail. I haven't actually played CSL yet; I own a copy of it, but my specs aren't really up to par. Plus I'm a stickler for graphics so playing it at low graphics and still lagging would be unbearable. I'm generally pretty excited about its release and hope to give it a whirl at some point in the next few years.

 

On to the topic at hand...

 

     Saying that SC2013's simulation/engine works super well is honestly pretty humorous to me. Considering the miniscule city sizes, one would think it would be great at handling stuff (traffic, people, etc) - a false assumption. While I tend to turn away from both SC2013 and CSL due to their graphics seeming a tad cartoonish and bright to me, CSL has a lot more appeal in this case (to me) since its coloration can apparently be altered quite easily to suit your preferences. I will say that SC2013 does have some decent night time shots, which CSL lacks, but that's just more of SC2013 trying to hide behind its graphics. To be frank I found its engine pretty downright bad; it was a good idea but was executed badly. I personally prefer SC4's statistical simulation, since it, despite some quirks, seems to run reasonably well (and is pretty slick once you add the NAM in). The agent simulation is just overkill. I don't care where BillyBobJoe lives, where he works, what his car looks like, or anything. Having the simulation keep up with all of that seriously bogs down the system running the game, from my experience at least. In addition to this, the way utilities are pumped in little bits and forced to travel on roads is painstakingly annoying. I get backed up sewage all the time, even though my actual buildings are running just fine, due to bottlenecks and such. I have similar issues with water, where it can't seem to prioritize stuff. It'll water single family homes before trying to water my nuclear reactor, and my sims can't figure out why there's no power then. In SC4, the statistical simulation bypasses this resource intensive mess by letting the user place pipes separate from the road. As the water supply becomes overburdened, the radius of water spread by the pipe decreases, but the water still travels instantly. It sacrifices overkill realism in favor of convenience (a good thing from time to time). In addition to this, if I really want to prioritize a structure in SC4 on my water grid, I can simply lay pipes to cover the whole footprint of the building. This means that the building will have water as long there's a source, even if it's being overburdened.

     SC2013's traffic seems to struggle constantly. School buses are a serious pain since you have to lay those stops everywhere. Trams are stupid because their AI can't handle an intersection properly. The prefab highways are useless in SC2013 - I've had mine backed up for 3 or 4 miles with tourist traffic and freight trucks related to a Great Works project. Oh. Don't get me started on that... If I start building one of those in my city and then switch to another one, the game likes to make it disappear. If it doesn't do that, it fails to keep track of the building's construction properly. Or if not that, it doesn't keep up with materials. The list goes on. CSL seems to have pretty decent traffic management, with elevated rail seeming very useful from what I've seen. The versatility of the way roads can be built is also very aesthetically pleasing and functional. The only time it seems to really fall short is turning lanes and such at intersections.... I'm sure modders will fix that. Of course, there's the blatantly obvious difference in size of the cities, but I'll skip over that since it's been said a million times already.

     Something I've been itching to point out is that CSL, in most ways (not all), seems to try to appeal to the old-timer SC4-type player. This makes it hard to compare to SC2013, since SC2013 (to me) seems to appeal to the newer generation of gamers and people who weren't already really into city builders. SC2013 crosses me as much more of a "game" with little staying power or appeal to serious gamers who want to build life-like cities. SC4 is more of the latter. CSL, to me, appears to be the latter, but only time will tell. This doesn't really hurt or support them - it's just a matter of what kind of a game a person wants to play. CSL and SC2013 are very different in their target audience, I think.

 

This is all just my opinion, though.

~Mush

[Agente Silva 28]

1. CSL has a lot more appeal in this case (to me) since its coloration can apparently be altered quite easily to suit your preferences: you can also change the color filter in SimCity2013 wich much valid and appealing changes (much better than CSL)

 

2. The agent simulation is just overkill. I don't care where BillyBobJoe lives, where he works, what his car looks like, or anything: agreed - despite thinking that the agent system is really what makes this new Simcity special, there should a limit for tracked information (thus "saving" some resources to simulate real game elements like agent requests and statistical registry)

 

3.  the way utilities are pumped in little bits and forced to travel on roads is painstakingly annoying: agreed - it is absolutely stupid the way power, sewage and water "travel" along the road. You got to keep a regular eye on those suppliers, specially when city´s growing.

 

4.  I get backed up sewage all the time, even though my actual buildings are running just fine: huuumm, that must have happened back in the days of bug fest despite I never witnessed that bug (and I had a few like the trashtrucks conga lines). Anyway, things like that are not happening a long time.

 

5. School buses are a serious pain since you have to lay those stops everywhere: 0_o except for comercial and industrial zones. Good thing in CSL you don´t have to do those right? All kids are driven by their parents or just walk miles - no need for schollbuses (sigh)

 

6. Trams are stupid because their AI can't handle an intersection properly: I don´t even know what you are talking about - streetcars work with no problems. Maybe that was your personal experience (once again, a long time ago).

 

7. The prefab highways are useless in SC2013 - I've had mine backed up for 3 or 4 miles with tourist traffic and freight trucks related to a Great Works project: that happened to me recently while constructing Space Center. I think it didn´t happen on Solar Farm´s contruction.

 

8.  If I start building one of those in my city and then switch to another one, the game likes to make it disappear: known issue; fixed issue.(almos a year ago). If it doesn't do that, it fails to keep track of the building's construction properly. Or if not that, it doesn't keep up with materials. - sorry to say but YOU didn´t keep up with materials - delivery trucks have a peculiar behaviour because they are shared amongst every building who have those. example - if you have a trade depot supplying resources to a Greatworks, and a coal mine supplying coal to a powerplant, some "coal trucks" could be called to deliver resources to greatworks. The travel time of that truck will surely be higher and he might not return in time to supply coal (you must be sure you have enough trucks). Traffic clogs can also mess with your supply chain.

 

9. CSL seems to have pretty decent traffic management - yea, when things start to get rough and cloggy vehicles simply disappear. That is great "managment". I wonder what would people say if things like that would happen in Simcity.

 

10. with elevated rail seeming very useful from what I've seen. The versatility of the way roads can be built is also very aesthetically pleasing and functional - Traffic infrastructures in CSL are much better and offer a wider range of flexibility, that is correct. Still there were a lot of improvements in Simcity on that matter from the modding comunity (unidirectional roads, ramps, transitions, water roads, tunnels and bridges). Modders also made subways (out of CoT´s monorail system), elevated trains and elevated roads.

 

11. Of course, there's the blatantly obvious difference in size of the cities (...) seems to try to appeal to the old-timer SC4-type player. This makes it hard to compare to SC2013, since SC2013 (to me) seems to appeal to the newer generation of gamers. Of course to me the most disappointing aspect of Simcity5 is the city size. CSL beats that for miles.

 

I think I can consider myself an "SC4 old timer" but after Simcity5 I really can´t play that kind of "statistical" based city builder anymore. After 10 years of that I think it is time to move on, let go that generic model. Maxis tried to deliver a really groundbreaking city builder. It turned out to be a monster hungry for processor and GPU. Too bad they won´t have the chance to make a lighter engine to fit in today´s "chassis". Simcity5 DRM was bull, bug fest from early days made many gamers bailout, bug support and patch fixing demanded a great deal of human resource from Maxis and that is exactly what killed them. Today Simcity5 is a fine game. I have more than a thousand hours and even yesterday learned another trick with a mod that can make it even better.

 

I read your post attentively and it kinda feels you didn´t give many "second chances" to Simcity5 (more like third chances or forth or fith xD). Playing it recently would probably eliminate a few elements you listed in your post above.  In my opinion CSL has only one strong factor: city size. On every other aspect it just refurbishes Simcity4 to the 21st century. As I said before, there are not many moving parts under CSL´s bonnet for it to go wrong.

 

In the end of the day:  it's just a matter of what kind of a game a person wants to play