Looks like the Crown has been passed....

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

 

Imagine a mod in CS where the player can build custom rollercoasters, some nut will probably do this messing around with the road options. Rollercoaster Tycoon and Simcity coming together. Game over man! Game over!

 

Aside from my daydreaming there are already mods for SAM, make historical option, slope mods, terrain texture replacements, two-lane highways, ability to create proper beaches with the all the chairs, umbrellas and various paraphernalia, changing road colour, cosmetic texture pack for all roads, new flora MMPs, a plethora of amazing unique buildings and of course lots of new RCI buildings.

 

All of this in less than one month after the game's release. Imagine where this game will be in one year, in two, in five? It took one year before modding got going properly in SC4, while CS is being altered at a crazy rate. The CS mods always keep the game fresh and new. It is like Christmas Day every day, I'm certain this game is going to spoil us city simulator players utterly rotten.

 

This is the one city simulator to rule them all.

[aable 63]

 

Really it just depends. While I do give CSL credit for having some breathtaking shots at various angles, I think that if you were to pit a CSL screenshot taken at the same angle as the SC4 camera against a screenshot from SC4, one could reasonably argue that SC4 was better looking. Besides, SC4 has night time mode (frankly, I thought that was ubiquitous, so CSL really surprised me there). It's not like I use it while playing or anything, it's just there for screenshots.

 

Comparing the games is difficult. No matter how much of a lasting titan SC4 is in the city building genre, it doesn't change the fact that we're comparing an isometric game from 2003 with a full 3D game (that would make my computer spontaneously combust if I tried to play it) from 2015. The way I look at it, the two games have their own specialties...

 

SimCity4

I look at SC4 as more of a hobby or diorama type thing. It's for building photo-realistic shots of planned out cities (perfect for CJs). That's pretty much my indirect way of saying that actually playing the game for the sake of playing the game sucks. I love SC4 but I'll be perfectly honest, the simulation stinks in countless ways. Thankfully we have mods to fix that to an extent (like the NAM for instance.... practically fixed a broken game). SC4 is for building appealing cities rife with variation of all kinds: roadways (NAM / SAM / RHW / NWM), buildings (I think it's blatantly obvious that SC4 has more variation in it's buildings), automata (The base game had some decent vehicle variation, and all of the subsequent car packs have really made it great), and foliage (the base game had a few kinds of trees, but modders have really taken advantage of MMPs). SC4 is for meticulously building a big pile of eye-candy (intended as a compliment!   ).

 

Basically, SC4 is for building realistic shots with superior texture and modeling quality (I learned about the modeling quality thing when Heblem took their old SC4 Home Depot model (which had polygons numbering in the hundreds of thousands if I remember correctly), and having to reduce the quality of it significantly so it would run in CSL. To those who keep dishing it out against SC4's isometric presentation, it has its pros. Since the game is really just showing you a picture of a model instead of a full-fledged 3D model, it can load far more buildings at a higher quality level with significantly less computer power.

 

As a closing argument, if CSL has so many mods, why can't it do this? You can't possibly tell me that none of these shots look at least mildly realistic.

(Click each for full size)

Whoa! Night time! Totally new concept!

 

 

Just the average mosaic shot. Since SC4 is isometric, mosaics are possible since everything is viewed from the same angle. That's the problem with full-3D.

 

Frankly I don't know what's so special about this image. It seemed to be liked a lot when I posted it originally so I thought I'd toss it into the mix.

 

Now, I can't defend SC4 on every point though...

 

Cities:Skylines

Don't get me wrong based on what I said above. I think CSL is a great game with a boatload of potential. It's certainly a full replacement of SC2013 (which if the trailer for CSL is anything to go by... that was their goal). I'm not entirely sold on its replacing SC4, but i think it could at some point in the future. The way I look at it... it's too soon to say it's "replaced SC4." CSL as been out for a month and SC4 has been out for 11-12 years now. It's more fair (to an extent) to pit it against SC2013 (although CSL totally beats that game in every way).

 

From my point of view, Cities:Skylines succeeds more than SC4 does at truly being a "game." I see people talking about the ups and downs of actually playing CSL's simulation. SC4's simulation pretty much stinks in comparison; I ceased caring about SC4's simulation many many years ago. I replaced that with meticulously building a moderately functional diorama-type city in SC4. CSL appears to be, sans some faults here and there, a very good game with a good simulation. It has some breathtaking low-angle shots (provided they are far enough away from buildings to hide the rather low texture quality) that SC4 can't compete with.

 

All in all I think that someday, when the painfully bright colors are done away with and when computers are powerful enough to handle better textures and such, the game could take the torch from SC4.

 

 

Those are all great points, and I think it's very true that different people play these games for vastly different reasons so of course this is a complicated debate. I have seen many people on other websites say that C:S isn't challenging enough, or that it's too hard, but I think I align with many here who just want to make visually interesting cities. Personally, after playing Skylines and looking at those screenshots now, the isometric view just kills any realism for me. That's not how perspective works in real life, at all. As much as I love all of the beautiful BATs, those shots just look like nicer versions of all the Sim video games I grew up with in the 90s.

 

Not try to argue anything here, I'm just really enjoying the full 3D. 

[g40st2000 4]

CSL is a winner for me - and I believe the crown has been passed.  Even here on cautious Simtropolis, the vast majority of new posts are related to Skylines.  And with the surge of  mods (granted, they are mostly crap right now ) and that we're just at the start of the game's development cycle, its hard to see how the momentum doesn't continue.

 

Regarding the viewing angles, if you replicate SC4's iso 2D view in CSL, and you're running SC4 heavily modded, and you've built mostly grids, then, yes SC4 has the potential to look better than CSL.  But for the other 98% of the time, CSL wins hands down.  And it will win more once the building quality and mods like night view improve over time. 

[Extrenix 132]

whats wrong with the 4x4 lot?

is it because that's the maximum growable size??

[chocolate_city 93]

It took 12 years for SC4 to get to where it is now, and for the longest, it hasn't had a rival.  I can't even look at it anymore, much less play it... (This is just my own personal perspective of course,, what you do is your own business). I was a hardlined CitiesXL convert... still am..  Cities Skylines has me interested again...  I, for one, am looking forward to a long ride...  Yay Paradox .....

[Mystrelia 57]

whats wrong with the 4x4 lot?

is it because that's the maximum growable size??

I know that's my complaint about it, because really tall buildings should be able to be much larger and the factories and farms are very small. Once you get some of the high-rises building some of them do look a bit thin for their height. There's no such limit on ploppable buildings, though, so if a person has some of those they can be worked in for a more realistic look.

[packersfan 666]

I think C:S has the potential to take the crown from SC4...or maybe a later version of C:S.  There is a lot to like and a bunch that still needs work.  At this point, SC4 is a hobby kind of thing, great for building realistically sized metropolises complete with surrounding farmland.  The simulation/game part is problematic and broken at this point.  C:S is a game, the simulation and stuff look great.

SC4 is limited by the isometric view and the grid (and the city tiles that can be overcome by creative use of the region).  C:S has funky graphics (still look a little cartoony), the map size is limited (and I don't like that highway automatically running outside the city.  Hopefully modding will clean up these issues and really increase the realistic look of the game.  C:S definitely has potential and the ceiling is likely far higher than SC4 at this point.  I mean SC4 is 11 years old.  It is amazing what has been uncovered and developed recently in SC4.  Now take a huge leap of advancement with a NEW game and then build on that with mods and tearing the game down and re-working things and the sky is the limit.

I haven't abandoned SC4...or bought C:S, yet, but it is likely the next game I will purchase out of curiosity.  As I said, the two games at this point offer very different experiences.  One is an artboard that highly skilled and patient players can develop amazing regions and pictures.  The other is a game that offers a living experience with some cool graphically options.  One is 11 years old with a dedicated modding base.  The other is brand new with modding already in high gear thanks to great foresight by Paradox (of course, they only had to look at city building communities like Simtropolis and SC4Devotion to realize that modding will make the game way better and last LONG after the initial year of sale...people are still buying copies of SC4 to my amazement!)

I think C:S has the potential to take the crown from SC4...or maybe a later version of C:S.  There is a lot to like and a bunch that still needs work.  At this point, SC4 is a hobby kind of thing, great for building realistically sized metropolises complete with surrounding farmland.  The simulation/game part is problematic and broken at this point.  C:S is a game, the simulation and stuff look great.

SC4 is limited by the isometric view and the grid (and the city tiles that can be overcome by creative use of the region).  C:S has funky graphics (still look a little cartoony), the map size is limited (and I don't like that highway automatically running outside the city.  Hopefully modding will clean up these issues and really increase the realistic look of the game.  C:S definitely has potential and the ceiling is likely far higher than SC4 at this point.  I mean SC4 is 11 years old.  It is amazing what has been uncovered and developed recently in SC4.  Now take a huge leap of advancement with a NEW game and then build on that with mods and tearing the game down and re-working things and the sky is the limit.

I haven't abandoned SC4...or bought C:S, yet, but it is likely the next game I will purchase out of curiosity.  As I said, the two games at this point offer very different experiences.  One is an artboard that highly skilled and patient players can develop amazing regions and pictures.  The other is a game that offers a living experience with some cool graphically options.  One is 11 years old with a dedicated modding base.  The other is brand new with modding already in high gear thanks to great foresight by Paradox (of course, they only had to look at city building communities like Simtropolis and SC4Devotion to realize that modding will make the game way better and last LONG after the initial year of sale...people are still buying copies of SC4 to my amazement!)

[ghosty20 150]

 

 

You'll need to better explain what stands to you as "realism" cause I don't have at all that perception.

 

Oh man...

I think you misunderstood. I'm not talking from a simulation standpoint: in that particular aspect this game is waay better than SC4, no question about that.

I'm talking about visuals. If you take a look at some of the SC4 CJs here on Simtropolis, you feel you're looking at paintings or even photos, in some cases, while here you can't shed that cartoonish look, at least in the close-ups. Sure, you have great area views, but when you get down to earth, you will see cartoon people, cartoon-pink hotdog vans (a lot of them) and washed-out textures on buildings. And over all too much saturation!

And don't get me wrong: I'm loving the game and I'm logging way too many hours on it and enjoying every single minute of it!

 

 

+1 

 

And add that the spatial layout of the city is completely unnatural due to the aforementioned lot size silliness.  So combined, you don't get cities or communities that look at all realistic.  On the other hand, despite no curved roads and all sorts of other restrictions, SC4 with the right high quality mods can look photo-realistic at first glance and have an entire regional density distribution that could be a real city.  Close-up, buildings more often than not take-up a proportional and appropriate amount of land.  These are what make a realistic looking city.

 

And yes, the sim elements "under the hood" of C:SL are better than SC4, but still have some unrealistic aspects due to rushing the product out the door and "over-reaching" on some design elements (trying to reduce complex issues and relationships to simple algorithms).

 

 

The one thing that I detested the most with SC4's mods was the inordinate hassle of having to track down every dependency required to get a certain lot to work..  In the end I just gave up on SC4 and have not played it properly in many a year..

 

 

I think C:S has the potential to take the crown from SC4...or maybe a later version of C:S.  There is a lot to like and a bunch that still needs work.  At this point, SC4 is a hobby kind of thing, great for building realistically sized metropolises complete with surrounding farmland.  The simulation/game part is problematic and broken at this point.  C:S is a game, the simulation and stuff look great.

SC4 is limited by the isometric view and the grid (and the city tiles that can be overcome by creative use of the region).  C:S has funky graphics (still look a little cartoony), the map size is limited (and I don't like that highway automatically running outside the city.  Hopefully modding will clean up these issues and really increase the realistic look of the game.  C:S definitely has potential and the ceiling is likely far higher than SC4 at this point.  I mean SC4 is 11 years old.  It is amazing what has been uncovered and developed recently in SC4.  Now take a huge leap of advancement with a NEW game and then build on that with mods and tearing the game down and re-working things and the sky is the limit.

I haven't abandoned SC4...or bought C:S, yet, but it is likely the next game I will purchase out of curiosity.  As I said, the two games at this point offer very different experiences.  One is an artboard that highly skilled and patient players can develop amazing regions and pictures.  The other is a game that offers a living experience with some cool graphically options.  One is 11 years old with a dedicated modding base.  The other is brand new with modding already in high gear thanks to great foresight by Paradox (of course, they only had to look at city building communities like Simtropolis and SC4Devotion to realize that modding will make the game way better and last LONG after the initial year of sale...people are still buying copies of SC4 to my amazement!)

I think C:S has the potential to take the crown from SC4...or maybe a later version of C:S.  There is a lot to like and a bunch that still needs work.  At this point, SC4 is a hobby kind of thing, great for building realistically sized metropolises complete with surrounding farmland.  The simulation/game part is problematic and broken at this point.  C:S is a game, the simulation and stuff look great.

SC4 is limited by the isometric view and the grid (and the city tiles that can be overcome by creative use of the region).  C:S has funky graphics (still look a little cartoony), the map size is limited (and I don't like that highway automatically running outside the city.  Hopefully modding will clean up these issues and really increase the realistic look of the game.  C:S definitely has potential and the ceiling is likely far higher than SC4 at this point.  I mean SC4 is 11 years old.  It is amazing what has been uncovered and developed recently in SC4.  Now take a huge leap of advancement with a NEW game and then build on that with mods and tearing the game down and re-working things and the sky is the limit.

I haven't abandoned SC4...or bought C:S, yet, but it is likely the next game I will purchase out of curiosity.  As I said, the two games at this point offer very different experiences.  One is an artboard that highly skilled and patient players can develop amazing regions and pictures.  The other is a game that offers a living experience with some cool graphically options.  One is 11 years old with a dedicated modding base.  The other is brand new with modding already in high gear thanks to great foresight by Paradox (of course, they only had to look at city building communities like Simtropolis and SC4Devotion to realize that modding will make the game way better and last LONG after the initial year of sale...people are still buying copies of SC4 to my amazement!)

 

You do know that unlike SC2013's unreachable highways, in C:SL you can actually buy the land that the highway / railway is on and you can change where it goes you can put roads and rails over it you can even have industry, commercial and residential right up against it (though you will get complaints of noise pollution from residential).. And that when you make a map you can decide where you want the highways and railways to go..

 

In C:SL you can make little towns off in the middle of nowhere that have there own power and water sources and so on separate from the main city as you would..  Map/tile size is quite large one tile does seem a lot larger than SC2013's (though unsure they seem a lot larger than SC2013's).. One map tile in C:SL is supposedly 2km x 2km by 9 total though with a mod you can have up to 25 tiles available so 2km x 2km by 25 is fairly sizable..

 

And the main thing that makes C:SL better is of course support for Mac but also support for Linux users, and this is important as there have not been that many developers if at all that have catered for Linux users..

[cromabianca 158]

And the main thing that makes C:SL better is of course support for Mac but also support for Linux users, and this is important as there have not been that many developers if at all that have catered for Linux users..

I love this!

[mutton noir 170]

 

I agree with many of the points made in previous posts.

Ability to mod and share assets/maps a major win

Nearly 28,000 mods/assets after 3 weeks as opposed to 18,000 for SC4 over 11 years although many are useless and we really need some quality assurance to weed them out. Piddly little pointless Parks, ridiculous roundabouts, insane interchanges and mad maps of peoples faces etc.

The sheer scale of the playable area is impressive and viewing from a distance is awesome. Close up the cities look rough, nowhere near the polish and detail of SC 2013.

No night/day cycle- a major fail by CO

Fiddly awkward UI, small info panels with poor use of colour coding and unreadable text - worst part of the game by a mile -perfect example of poor design

Overall a great game with immense potential to become an iconic classic

On CSL not having a day / night cycle cut CO some slack you are talking about a dev team of only 13 people or so.. Compared to Maxis who at the time of SC4 were a lot larger and under the EA banner at the time..  To me I would rather have a game that I can play than to wait longer just for a day / night cycle..  Also bear in mind that SC, SC2000 and SC3000 did not have a day / night cycle the day / night cycle first showed up in SC4..  So I would think that now they have go the game out, that they can now do all those things in future updates just give them time..

 

I appreciate the great work and commitment of the small dedicated CO team in producing a great game that in time will become a classic. I wasn't being critical, merely hi lighting elements that could be included /improved. I agree with CO's philosophy of ensuring the basic game is robust rather than focussing on aesthetics in the first instance. I for one am excited as to how it will develop over the months and years ahead. To take a city building analogy- Rome wasn't built in a day! 

[lance10ca 25]

Does anyone else find this thread a little strange?  SC4 has been out for a decade+ and here we are discussing whether the 1 month old v1.0.7 can take the throne. There are good points from both perspectives.

 

That alone tells me the C:S already has.

[Sabretooth78 808]

I think you're looking at it from the wrong perspective.  The same could have been said of SC13 one month in, and well...  I think it's more of an issue of people wanting (secretly even) it to be that replacement simply because of how long we've had to wait for it.

 

One must wait for the dust to settle after the honeymoon and see what kind of longevity the game actually turns out to have.  Doing otherwise is something like buying a new model car based on its long-term reliability rating - what meaning does that have?  I mean, many of us who jumped on the SC4 bandwagon crossed back to SC3k after a month of being fed up with a broken game.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

The same could have been said of SC13 one month in, and well... 

 

I'm sorry but no... SC2013 was dead from the start when we learned about the map size. It only went downhill from there.

[Sabretooth78 808]

 

I'm sorry but no... SC2013 was dead from the start when we learned about the map size. It only went downhill from there.

 

 

But for many players it did become the replacement, even if it was only by virtue of the SimCity moniker.

 

As I alluded, SC4 was a broken game upon release as well and was somewhat widely panned in reviews (though not nearly to the degree of SC13).  It is definitely a great example of something that only gets better with age.  I remember initially being excited about the simple things such as how every house now has road access (!) as I always disliked the 3-deep housing in 2k and 3k.  Soon after, though, the novelty wore off and the game was too difficult to be fun - but not in a challenge sort of way; rather a broken sort of way.  The saviors were Rush Hour and the brilliant minds in that modding community who commandeered the game.

 

CSL is free of those particular issues, thankfully (not to say it couldn't use some help), but to say it has taken the crown is a bit premature.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

I still think it has.

 

I don't even think about it as a modern SC4 but as a modern SC3K

[Marla_Singer 46]

I think you're looking at it from the wrong perspective. The same could have been said of SC13 one month in, and well... I think it's more of an issue of people wanting (secretly even) it to be that replacement simply because of how long we've had to wait for it.

One must wait for the dust to settle after the honeymoon and see what kind of longevity the game actually turns out to have. Doing otherwise is something like buying a new model car based on its long-term reliability rating - what meaning does that have? I mean, many of us who jumped on the SC4 bandwagon crossed back to SC3k after a month of being fed up with a broken game.

You're totally right. A good movie can only be judged as so if we still remember it 10 years after. The same is true with a video game.

However I disagree about your parallel drawn with SC13 because of their obvious and huge differences in reception. SC13 succeeded to draw very high expectations one year before its release thanks to a great promotional campaign: the team was huge and solidly financed, the new 3D engine was sold as a revolution, and the trailer were indeed very promising. So promising that it incited me to buy my new computer.

But it turned out that I didn't even buy the game. The release was such a disaster, the price of the game so expensive that I actually preferred to wait until it all calm down; and then, I realised that the maps will never get bigger than their vanilla version size and this has immediately killed my will to purchase the thing for such a high price.

Cities: Skylines is a very different beast. The SC4 core fans remained totally cold to its announcement. I personally knew the potential of a city builder developed by those who created CIM but when I was talking about it to SC4 fans, their answers were only skeptical, probably because of all the past deceptions. It's only very late that Simtropolis started to wake up, actually, just the week before release, when in-game videos started to spread over the web.

At this point, one month after release, we only know that the key principles of the game work great, but indeed we have no clue whether or not it will turn out repetitive and boring after a while. Of course the older city builder fans we are will probably stay the longer, but the younger dude, who never played any SimCity at all, will he stay or not? It's him who'll tell us if a renewed community can stick around Cities: Skylines or not. At this point, I'm feeling very optimistic, but you're right in saying we can never be sure.

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

At this point, one month after release, we only know that the key principles of the game work great, but indeed we have no clue whether or not it will turn out repetitive and boring after a while. Of course the older city builder fans we are will probably stay the longer, but the younger dude, who never played any SimCity at all, will he stay or not? It's him who'll tell us if a renewed community can stick around Cities: Skylines or not. At this point, I'm feeling very optimistic, but you're right in saying we can never be sure.

 

 

Well I was a very hardcore SC4 player and I've been playing Simcity games for more than fifteen years, about two thirds of my life, and it was the lets play that totally sold me to this game. Still I waited a couple of days and then I pounced. My interest in this game after almost a month has only increased because there are new features to explore, new buildings, new mods and I still have fun trying to max out my graphics settings to provide the prettiest possible pictures.

 

Feeling drained from a lot of city building in CS? Then take a tour around the city and get down into the streets, it so therapeutic. There still has not been any expansion packs yet, however the mods are already changing many aspects of the game. At this rate CS could have everything, nearly every single thing about the modded SC4, in a year's time. It is scary, this game never stays still.

 

p.s. Working with a camera mod today I got closer to my Cims then ever before!

 

[BlitzPackage 19]

 

The same could have been said of SC13 one month in, and well... 

 

I'm sorry but no... SC2013 was dead from the start when we learned about the map size. It only went downhill from there.

 

 

SC2013 was garbage from the start.  I played the demo and hated the small map sizes, what seemed like restricted play and - of course - the online requirement.  I did not buy it.  It did have some good things about it like the graphics.  But the small map sizes and online requirement killed it for me.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

I knew SC2013 was a train wreck months before it came out starting with the multi-player only always online decision. That did it for me. From there the news of all the utilities being agents built in the roads just put the nail in the coffin. The maps sizes was just an extra laugh for me. I agree that SC2013 was DOA and shouldn't even be considered a contender in this conversation.

 

To add to what really draws me to C:S, the first person mod should be officially adopted. It's like another side of the game that I can't play without like NAM in SC4. I actually use it to see how the traffic is flowing in a fun way. It's something I fantasized about for SC4 and never expected to actually experience it in a city builder this soon.

[xonedl 342]

Close up view is mostly terrible for now but wide area view is OK with proper visual tweaks.

Seriously need mods to improve those textures and crank up the polygons by 200%-400%... 

I hope I don't see those cartoonish stuff anymore by next year...

[thenext88 102]

Despite the poor textures it is really amazing to see your creation from any angle. I love looking at my city skyline from far away at ground level. It's just so cool to see the buildings pop up from kilometers away.

I have not played sc4 in ages so the crown has been passed for me. I find the CS simulation a lot more engaging too.

[BlakeMW 84]

The C:S simulation is certainly lightyears ahead of SC4. The other thing which simply rocks is the road network tools. The NAM folks did some amazing things with SC4, but the NAM network types could never escape being used through a horrible bolted on interface which any network simulator made in the past 15 years would be ashamed of (i.e. it was okay for Transport Tycoon).

 

The CS network types can be a bit quirky sometimes, but the tools for 'drawing' the networks onto the map are just amazing, you can make all sorts of cool junctions and elevated highways and just whatever you want, and it's not just eyecandy, how you make the networks really matters.

 

So far I find the game is getting more interesting the more I play it, always a good sign! And while in SC4 I quickly started doing stupid stuff to entertain myself (might be called 'Stupid Mayor Tricks'), in Skylines I am still engaged in learning how to build a good, functional, optimal city. There is so much possibility.

 

In terms of longevity there is a mercy to a game which you get bored with and can put down! I'm still playing Warcraft III after 13 years, and it's still no less entertaining, ugh. I hope that Skylines has a solid 100 or so hours of entertaining gameplay then I can get bored with it .

[Agente Silva 28]

Cities Skyline feels like a flop to me (after 10 days playing)... it´s a stretch and paint game. Blunt simulation where public transportations are just happiness perks. Once you stop zoning your city stops growing. It feels like a car with pedals, the instant you stop pedalling it just stops. No day-night cycle, no rush hours. Graphics are very weak, audio is annoying...

 

I rather play Simcity 5... at least it has an engine that just needs fueling.

[ghosty20 150]

Cities Skyline feels like a flop to me (after 10 days playing)... it´s a stretch and paint game. Blunt simulation where public transportations are just happiness perks. Once you stop zoning your city stops growing. It feels like a car with pedals, the instant you stop pedalling it just stops. No day-night cycle, no rush hours. Graphics are very weak, audio is annoying...

 

I rather play Simcity 5... at least it has an engine that just needs fueling.

You do know that pretty much all city building games are like that, in once you stop zoning your cities population stops growing once all the residential areas are full.. Wonder if you actually went looked hard at the public transport because it does actually do something.. You can see people get one follow the bus and see them get off same with trains and metro and so on..  It is only the base game give the developers a break unlike Maxis (who by the way are no more) CO have only about 13 people or so working on this game..

 

There is still a lot to come they are working on more content with one feature supposedly being tunnels and so what that there is no day / night cycle and rush hours (I prefer a game that works very at launch unlike SC2013..) it is probably coming we just have no idea what else CO have planned..  And well graphics are better than you give them credit for..

 

But since we now know you detest C:SL so much, we will let you go back to SC2013 and its tiny maps and many problems that still exist..

[aable 63]

I do have to admit I miss Region play. For all of the flaws (the endless commuter loops annoyed me to no end) I at least liked the sense of being able to spend years on one giant project. When I start a new city in Skylines it feels like I am abandoning the old one but in SC4 I was just always working on the next door neighbor. I have a feeling that this was probably the secret to the game's 10+ year lifespan for many. 

 

I wonder if it would be possible to mod a similar system into C:S - just a simple visual display of your savegames, and eventually some neighbor deals etc. 

[iviaarten 534]

Yeh, it would be nice to be able to just stick your previous cities on the horizon of a new 9x9 zone.

[Sabretooth78 808]

Region play is a big one that just doesn't seem structurally possible in CSL, at least at the moment.

 

It's funny how tastes differ, though.  I prefer SC4 loaded with custom content (you almost have to), but with CSL I don't have a desire for the same.  The building variety (or lack thereof) doesn't really bother me.  I have no need for day/night (in either game, really).  Ditto with SC4, I don't mind not having a 3D camera.  PCs probably have still have a long ways to go before they could handle that game reasonably in full 3D.

 

For me, they're different games for different moods - neither one will likely replace the other of their own doing.

 

It may seem ridiculous, but if I were forced to choose between the two, in order for me to choose CSL I would need a better surface transportation infrastructure (disclosure: I'm a transportation engineer by trade).  It's great that we can put roads nearly anywhere and in whatever configuration (with some odd restrictions), but the variety is very limited.  Some of the mods help control flows, which is great, but at the end of the day we need something wider than 3 lanes for highways, something between 2- and 6-lane one-ways, etc.  Cleaning up the "fake" intersections and awkward transitions would help as well.  Basically, give me NAM variety with CSL's freedom.  I would miss region play as already mentioned, but I think that's one thing I would just have to get over.

[ghosty20 150]

I used to love SC4 but that was when my computer liked it..  That and when it came to mods especially buildings was the amount of hassle it was to get any required dependancies.. Way back then there was very few combined dependancy packs and when they did come I had moved on to other games and so on..  Region play could be good will see if they can do it, the best implementation of RP was funnily enough SC2013 just ashame the map size and bugs and the no we can't do offline mode made what could have been a good game go the way it has so to speak..

 

The one major issue I had with SC2013 was the mass sudden mass homeless problem, everything would be ticking along nicely then bam homeless people everywhere..

 

The main thing I like about C:SL is what you can do with roads and that we have proper roundabouts, the ability to have multiroad intersections from looking at it you can have about six roads feed into one intersection makes traffic interesting.. But it is just the nuances that you see in the game that make it good..  And well in the end time will tell to see how well C:SL goes and what CO have planned for it..  And a rather cool mod even allows the sun to move across the sky rather than being static..

[Agente Silva 28]

@ghosty

 

I didn´t say I detest Cities:Skylines. During those 10 days of playing I had fun growing a city (80k citizens, not much I know), but that "been here, done this" feeling started to take over (I played Simcity4 for MANY years). The road configuration is no challenge to me because I learned from Simcity 5 some good lessons (and with all mod tools available, those from CSL are not new). You mentioned: "You do know that pretty much all city building games are like that, in once you stop zoning your cities population stops growing." That is not true, not even in Simcity4 - even if you zoned high density lots, if demand wasn´t enough you would problably get a small residence wich would grow in height and residents only if conditions are right (the same happens in Simcity5). In CSL if you zone high density it will instantly grow a building no matter what you have on your RCI bars. Oh, and those RCI bars? Imagine you have them low for R+C+I you just force zoning industry or comercial lots to push residential demand up - THAT IS UBBER FAKE.

 

When city starts growing and zones starts shifting (Industry to perimeter, next to a coastline, freight boats etc..) I found that despite having a direct train route from a residential district (high density) they just didn´t go there and Industry starts complaining about lack of workers - on simcity 5 I have a 160k (I know it´s a fake number) residential hub WITHOUT a single C or I providing almost 10k workers to another city. The lack of neighbooring plots in CSL region makes the game shallow - like aable said, "it feels you are abandoning your previous city". It would be great if you could build a neighboor city connected to the same regional freeway, sharing workers, shoppers, tourists and freight (and you can actually do that in SimCity5).

 

That residential district I mentioned, was supposed to be "uneducated" because forest industry use a lot of those. It was waaaay apart from the "main" city (where primary, high schools and University were placed) and they still had acess to education (strangely enough without any education "green line" reaching that district).

 

In my opinion it is easier to a game like Skylines be almost bug free from day 1 because there are not many moving parts under the bonnet. Simcity5 is a groundbreaking game model (maybe still a prototype) but so many people failed to realize that - sometimes great projects need to be sold half baked to allow further development (I want to believe we are going to ear more from Maxis in the future).

[Agente Silva 28]

Why do I only read "the roads are great; "the intersection are wonderfull" "the roads the roads the roads". Ghosty20 mentioned the homeless attack - I start suspecting that you didn´t quite tamed Simcity5! It seems you quit playing Simcity5 waaaay before all patches and mods.