Making The Switch

[703Buckeye 1]

Hi everyone,

This is my first ever post on Simtropolis. Hopefully I'm doing everything correctly.

I'm a very casual gamer and recently returned to SC2013 after an extended period of time. I saw threads on here about the slow and impending death of the SC franchise at the hands of EA. With SC2013 clearly maxed out and not going anywhere, I've thought about getting C:S. I've been playing the SC games since I was a kid, for nearly 20 years, so I'm a little nervous to delve into a new franchise.

My general questions are these...

• What are the big differences between SC2013 and C:S?
• What is your overall impression of C:S?
• Would you recommend I buy C:S or stay with SC2013?

Thanks!

[XxSkitxX 3]

Well one of the big differences is graphics. No offence to CS, but SimC has way better graphics. The building in CS are very, square-like. While some building aren't, SC is still the winner. The Shadows are better in SC, and so is texturing. CS has a clean-cut look, but SimC is more realistic.

 

Another Thing, No nights. (But there are mods)

 

Mods, Buildings, and Other things are really easy to dlwnload because of the Steam Workshop in CS.

 

The Plots Are Way bigger in CS, and By achiving pop. Milestones, you get to buy another plot (9 in vanilla, 25 with mods)

 

The Traffic is different in CS. While both SimC and SC use agent systems, Everyone in SC go to the same job, eliminating alot of traffic there. (But there are still problems)

 

And buildings are more densly packed, giving it a real-city look, And there's Metros!

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In my opinion, Cities Skylines is amazing. I truly think Skylines Is Way better than SimC for many reasons, it May be more expensive, but it is still a amazing game.

 

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I suggest you get Cities Skylines, because I think it has way more potential than SimC.

 

-Skit (Androids Are Superior)

 

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Yep.

Yeah SC2013 looks better... for now.

Some mods already make C:SL look better than it was at release, and I think there will be even more improvement.

SC2013 is sweet looking... but its tiny little absurd maps kill it completely in my view. After only one hour of game in SC2013 you're not expanding your city anymore, you're struggling to find place to put something else.

 

Maps in CSL are vast. And mods are pushing them to be HUGELY vast.

 

Anyway, SC2013 is a dead game. EA won't release anything for it anymore. And modders have a hard time adding things to it because it was concieved as closed as possible by EA.

C:SL is only three months old and everybody and their moms are modding the hell out of it, making the experience even better.

There was already a free DLC released, there are plans for much more stuff, free or not. Judging by what's happening in the modding community and building community at this time, C:SL will be here for years, and is taking a good start to be THE city builder game that will replace the simcity franchise.

  Edited June 18, 2015 by Cool_Z  

[XxSkitxX 3]

Yep.

Yeah SC2013 looks better... for now.

Some mods already make C:SL look better than it was at release, and I think there will be even more improvement.

SC2013 is sweet looking... but its tiny little absurd maps kill it completely in my view. After only one hour of game in SC2013 you're not expanding your city anymore, you're struggling to find place to put something else.

 

Maps in CSL are vast. And mods are pushing them to be HUGELY vast.

 

Anyway, SC2013 is a dead game. EA won't release anything for it anymore. And modders have a hard time adding things to it because it was concieved as closed as possible by EA.

C:SL is only three months old and everybody and their moms are modding the hell out of it, making the experience even better.

There was already a free DLC released, there are plans for much more stuff, free or not. Judging by what's happening in the modding community and building community at this time, C:SL will be here for years, and is taking a good start to be THE city builder game that will replace the simcity franchise.

I Totally Agree. Really, I'd Be Suprised If Anything New Comes To SimC. Really, C:S Is The Best Choice.

[703Buckeye 1]

Thanks for the replies! I'm going to take the plunge and get C:S. I'll post my impressions and opinions as I play the game.

[Cool_Z 1,547]

You will enjoy it !!!!!!

[Cool_Z 1,547]

Just saw that the game was 25% off on steam for the next 3 days... no time to hesitate !!

[Mr. Bones 14]

It's a lot different to SimCity 2013 but a week into it you'll love it!

[703Buckeye 1]

It's a lot different to SimCity 2013 but a week into it you'll love it!

Very different. I played for about 2 hours and got pretty frustrated. I'll sleep it off and take another crack at it tomorrow.

[Azurespecter 506]

It's a lot different to SimCity 2013 but a week into it you'll love it!

Very different. I played for about 2 hours and got pretty frustrated. I'll sleep it off and take another crack at it tomorrow.

It definitely has differences that will take adjustment, but that's true for all games!

I'd love to hear your opinion once you've had time to really get into the game (and past the learning frustrations). FYI, I'm a community manager for Paradox, and my hobbies include passing on feedback to the developers, Colossal Order =)

Hope to make a fan out of you!

[703Buckeye 1]

It's a lot different to SimCity 2013 but a week into it you'll love it!

Very different. I played for about 2 hours and got pretty frustrated. I'll sleep it off and take another crack at it tomorrow.

It definitely has differences that will take adjustment, but that's true for all games!

I'd love to hear your opinion once you've had time to really get into the game (and past the learning frustrations). FYI, I'm a community manager for Paradox, and my hobbies include passing on feedback to the developers, Colossal Order =)

Hope to make a fan out of you!

My frustration wasn't one of anger or dislike, moreso one of adjustment. I am about to hop back on and give it another shot. I will definitely let you know what I think as I progress in the game!

[703Buckeye 1]

The game has been very difficult for me thus far. I have been unable to sustain growth of my cities without them losing money or raising taxes too high. My cities are always littered with abandoned buildings and burned down buildings despite having fire stations nearby. Maybe I'm not smart enough to figure it out but the game has been more exasperating than anything so far for myself.

[ghosty20 150]

The main thing is to pace yourself and to not go at it like a bull at a gate when you first start..

[rmjohnson144 39]

The game has been very difficult for me thus far. I have been unable to sustain growth of my cities without them losing money or raising taxes too high. My cities are always littered with abandoned buildings and burned down buildings despite having fire stations nearby. Maybe I'm not smart enough to figure it out but the game has been more exasperating than anything so far for myself.

This game play much differently than sc2013.  With lots of abandoned building, this is usually a sign of traffic, but this game nerfs traffic by despawning it when it gets too heavy and clogging roads.  But this has a side effect of you thinking roads are fine because roads aren't clogged up.

You'll need to make more highways in this game.  Cims need quick access to everything and using roads aren't fast enough in most cases.  I find at least two highways per 2km x 2km tile works best.

There is a no despawn mod to prevent despawning traffic.  It is best on a new city, as with an existing city, it will cripple it quickly.  If this is a relatively small city you can enable the mod, see where the major choke points are, then remove mod and modify the cities choke points, then go back and re-enable the mod and see how it's flowing.  Most likely it will keep shifting the choking points for a while until you have a free lowing city.

Overall, this game is still the same as sc2013 in that it is an agent based city simulator and you need to get your agents (cims) from point A to point B in a timely manner.  Since you're more used to SC2013 and used to the unforgiving traffic, the no depawn may be the mod for you.  I know it helped me tremendously.

EDIT:

Forgot about sustaining your city.  In this game, it loves parks.  You may think you will lose money by placing them, but this game uses them to level you your buildings (all of them including industry) and then your buildings make more money.  Same with police, health, fire services.  they cost a lot, but they pay for themselves from leveling up all of the buildings.  Taxes, too.  The higher the levels the higher you can raise taxes.  This is opposite of sc2013 as well.

  Edited June 27, 2015 by rmjohnson144  

[lew1984 231]

Expand Slow to begin with and watch your budget as its easy to go crazy and lose your money in the very early stages. Once you become established you start to make tones of money. Initial placement of sewage/power is a factor when you start as you have to connect every thing up to the electrical grid so placing things too far apart at the start is not recommended. This didn't matter on SC2013 as power/sewage simply ran along roads.

[wallacet 336]

The game has been very difficult for me thus far. I have been unable to sustain growth of my cities without them losing money or raising taxes too high. My cities are always littered with abandoned buildings and burned down buildings despite having fire stations nearby. Maybe I'm not smart enough to figure it out but the game has been more exasperating than anything so far for myself.

This game play much differently than sc2013.  With lots of abandoned building, this is usually a sign of traffic, but this game nerfs traffic by despawning it when it gets too heavy and clogging roads.  But this has a side effect of you thinking roads are fine because roads aren't clogged up.

You'll need to make more highways in this game.  Cims need quick access to everything and using roads aren't fast enough in most cases.  I find at least two highways per 2km x 2km tile works best.

There is a no despawn mod to prevent despawning traffic.  It is best on a new city, as with an existing city, it will cripple it quickly.  If this is a relatively small city you can enable the mod, see where the major choke points are, then remove mod and modify the cities choke points, then go back and re-enable the mod and see how it's flowing.  Most likely it will keep shifting the choking points for a while until you have a free lowing city.

Overall, this game is still the same as sc2013 in that it is an agent based city simulator and you need to get your agents (cims) from point A to point B in a timely manner.  Since you're more used to SC2013 and used to the unforgiving traffic, the no depawn may be the mod for you.  I know it helped me tremendously.

EDIT:

Forgot about sustaining your city.  In this game, it loves parks.  You may think you will lose money by placing them, but this game uses them to level you your buildings (all of them including industry) and then your buildings make more money.  Same with police, health, fire services.  they cost a lot, but they pay for themselves from leveling up all of the buildings.  Taxes, too.  The higher the levels the higher you can raise taxes.  This is opposite of sc2013 as well.

I thought there was an option in the Traffic++ mod that you could check to prevent traffic de-spawning?

 

Expand Slow to begin with and watch your budget as its easy to go crazy and lose your money in the very early stages. Once you become established you start to make tones of money. Initial placement of sewage/power is a factor when you start as you have to connect every thing up to the electrical grid so placing things too far apart at the start is not recommended. This didn't matter on SC2013 as power/sewage simply ran along roads.

You don't HAVE to place things together in the beginning. There are power stations (I use a single 1MW solar panel) that you can download off of Steam that allow for spacing things out instead of having to spend large amounts of money running power lines everywhere. The solar panel mentioned above costs $800 as opposed to the $6000 for the wind turbine you start with. You can plop a couple of these down where you want them and can have a bunch of smaller communities spaced out instead of beginning with a central town center.

[lew1984 231]

The game has been very difficult for me thus far. I have been unable to sustain growth of my cities without them losing money or raising taxes too high. My cities are always littered with abandoned buildings and burned down buildings despite having fire stations nearby. Maybe I'm not smart enough to figure it out but the game has been more exasperating than anything so far for myself.

This game play much differently than sc2013.  With lots of abandoned building, this is usually a sign of traffic, but this game nerfs traffic by despawning it when it gets too heavy and clogging roads.  But this has a side effect of you thinking roads are fine because roads aren't clogged up.

You'll need to make more highways in this game.  Cims need quick access to everything and using roads aren't fast enough in most cases.  I find at least two highways per 2km x 2km tile works best.

There is a no despawn mod to prevent despawning traffic.  It is best on a new city, as with an existing city, it will cripple it quickly.  If this is a relatively small city you can enable the mod, see where the major choke points are, then remove mod and modify the cities choke points, then go back and re-enable the mod and see how it's flowing.  Most likely it will keep shifting the choking points for a while until you have a free lowing city.

Overall, this game is still the same as sc2013 in that it is an agent based city simulator and you need to get your agents (cims) from point A to point B in a timely manner.  Since you're more used to SC2013 and used to the unforgiving traffic, the no depawn may be the mod for you.  I know it helped me tremendously.

EDIT:

Forgot about sustaining your city.  In this game, it loves parks.  You may think you will lose money by placing them, but this game uses them to level you your buildings (all of them including industry) and then your buildings make more money.  Same with police, health, fire services.  they cost a lot, but they pay for themselves from leveling up all of the buildings.  Taxes, too.  The higher the levels the higher you can raise taxes.  This is opposite of sc2013 as well.

I thought there was an option in the Traffic++ mod that you could check to prevent traffic de-spawning?

 

Expand Slow to begin with and watch your budget as its easy to go crazy and lose your money in the very early stages. Once you become established you start to make tones of money. Initial placement of sewage/power is a factor when you start as you have to connect every thing up to the electrical grid so placing things too far apart at the start is not recommended. This didn't matter on SC2013 as power/sewage simply ran along roads.

You don't HAVE to place things together in the beginning. There are power stations (I use a single 1MW solar panel) that you can download off of Steam that allow for spacing things out instead of having to spend large amounts of money running power lines everywhere. The solar panel mentioned above costs $800 as opposed to the $6000 for the wind turbine you start with. You can plop a couple of these down where you want them and can have a bunch of smaller communities spaced out instead of beginning with a central town center.

Not every one uses mods/assets or has the same workshop items... Vanilla you have to be careful youtubers said it themselves when the game first came out. I also meant be careful not clump everything in exact same spot, you have to consider your layout. People who have played the game a lot can start cities easy but if you are new its potentially easy to waste money. I use custom assets myself but little in the power stations (have Gulas coal plant only currently).  

[mutton noir 170]

If only Cities:Skylines had the design flair, polish and UI of SimCity2013 (day/night cycle is coming!) and the deeper policy tree of SimCity 4 Rush Hour then we would have the perfect game.