What Type Of SimCity 4 Player Are You?

[Haljackey 17,380]

We all have our own unique styles of playing this game, and that's what makes it so awesome! What kind of player do you see yourself as?

 

Examples I am thinking of include:

-Purist: Vanilla all the way and no cheats. (Although I'd still recommend bug fixes and basic NAM)

-Objective player: Someone who plays the game to get the biggest, densest cities; or a whole region covered with farms, etc

-Playing the game player: Someone who keeps doing their own thing just to see how it will turn out

-Sandbox player: Someone who doesn't care about how the game actually works, and just wants things to look neat

-Mad Modder: More time spent making stuff for the game than actually playing the game

-Media Mogul: More time spent on fan sites than actually playing the game

[nissan_s14 26]

Where is "A noob that can't make a good city"? 

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

Given those example categories I'd say I'm an Eclectic player as I fit into several of them. Some touches of Purist mostly because I like lightning fast load times and I'm still learning how the original game balance interactions work. On the other hand, I do use terrain, rock/cliff, beach, and water mods as well as the IH fix and a handful of mods I've made for my play style. Those include a cheat I made with the farms tax rate multiplier set to five. This lets me create full city tiles of mostly farms (which fits your Objective player category) while being able to afford full fire and health coverage. I also modded the plain grass park tile to cost negative one Simoleon per month so I can use as many of them as I want while reducing my overall expenses.

I could also be a Playing the game player as I do lots of various experiments to see how things work out. I've gone thru stages of learning how to make my farms more closely resemble the real world near where I live. This latter part would fall into the Sandbox player to some degree tho I still play within the cheats range I've set for myself. In other words I don't use the cheat to give myself billions of Simoleons but I work with the altered income I've created with my two money affecting mods.

I could be a Mad Modder at times too. Not in the traditional sense of creating beautiful custom content like other peeps do, but when I go off on all my map making explorations. (I'm using a base routine written in C which generates fractal style terrains created by a fellow named Torben and then I've coded in multiple routines to tweak those maps for direct rendering in the game.)

[Tarkus 6,933]

In recent years, I've been in the "Mad Modder" category.   When I'm actually playing the game, I'm most likely in the "Playing the Game Player" category, verging on "Objective Player" at times.

-Tarkus

[rsc204 21,857]

Under your system, "Mad Modder" here too, do you mean to say you can actually play SC4? I think somewhere along the line I forgot, being so busy making content and messing with things.

[RobertLM78 1,598]

Sandbox player here...

 

[rsc204 21,857]

2 hours ago, nissan_s14 said:

Where is "A noob that can't make a good city"? 

Or put another way, someone who's still got endless potential to improve how their cities look . We were all where you were once, if you stick with it, you'll only improve with time. Plenty of advice, help and inspiration can be found around these parts too. So don't be too shy to ask if you could do with some help, we don't bite, even if the Llamas occasionally do .

[Edvarz 1,985]

I'd also say eclectic, a mix of Mad Modder, Sandbox player and Playing the game player.

I think i'm actually a Mad modder, as in kind of obsessive, because not only do I like to create my own lots and add content to the game, I also tweak a lot of the things I install: Building with unbalanced stats? Too many lamp posts in a lot make it look hideous at night? Are there props or textures that don't suit my whims? Building doesn't have a growable version?... You get the idea. I acces PIM-X almost as much as I acces the game itself, both actually appear at the top of my Windows 7 Start menu.

Curiously enough, this allows me to just be a Playing the game player. After modding everything I can just fire up the game and develop my cities without having to worry about things like trash production suddenly skyrocketing, or a huge skyscraper developing in a low-density zone. This is also why I love the buildings and lots people like @mattb325  @T Wrecks or @kingofsimcity make, those get a direct pass to my Plugins folder, without any form of quality control.

And sometimes I get frustrated and just play Sandbox style, I create a new region, exit the game and make a copy of a city file, then I import it to the new region, change the city name, and voila! I can just do whatever I want without having to worry about demand or traffic. This also helps me plan ahead and get a picture of how I want the actual functioning city to look like.

Needless to say, I've put more hours into SC4 than any other videogame, even Skyrim.

 

[Silur 3,308]

I'm a Mad Modder: More time spent making stuff for the game than actually playing the game. Never saw CS$$ objects in my game from 2005...

[kingofsimcity 5,740]

I've been a sandbox player mixed with modder for the most part. Before I returned to ST in early 2015 I spent countless hours trying to build a massive and good looking region with CAM while also going crazy with CAMifying buildings with PIM-X. Spent so much time recomputing non-CAM building and analyzing each model for an optimal filling degree.

In the present I've probably fully embraced the "mad" part, only opening SC4 to test parking lots...

[huzman 445]

I'm half -Playing the game player and half -Sandbox player, hoping to add another half as -Mad Modder, once I learn all those neat tricks. Yeah, lots of halves.

[_Michael 2,681]

Currently a ‘Media Mogul’  but when I do get a chance, it’s definitely in a sandbox type mode. Money cheat? Check. Demand cheat? Check. Building plop? Check.  

[Mr Saturn64 742]

I am most certainly a sandbox player.  My cities, including my upcoming CJ, are made to be realistic, often based on American east coast/Midwest cities.  And I do think that most of my cities are fairly realistic, although there's a lot I need to work on.  

Although I do wish that I could be a mad modder...

[nissan_s14 26]

15 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Or put another way, someone who's still got endless potential to improve how their cities look . We were all where you were once, if you stick with it, you'll only improve with time. Plenty of advice, help and inspiration can be found around these parts too. So don't be too shy to ask if you could do with some help, we don't bite, even if the Llamas occasionally do .

You are so positive...

You know, i was playing yesterday after i did this post and trying to do a city keeps being a $hit so i just said, "$%&^! this" and went full sandbox.  

[Jeffrey500 567]

I think i am a playing the game player. Altough i have a map where all my information gets in, i try to make something of it. Simulating a world that will never exist.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

I like to build functional models and then tinker until they run well, so I guess you'd call that playing the game. If I have an objective, it is to coax my region to work as an integrated whole even while each city specializes in something different. So far I'm having great difficulty convincing most sims to go to jobs only one city away, so I have more to learn (and more tinkering to do).

[RobertLM78 1,598]

21 hours ago, Haljackey said:

What kind of player do you see yourself as?

Hehehe - you asked, but never answered.... so what type are you @Haljackey ? 

 

[The Thinker 479]

Hmm, I suppose it depends on my mood at the time.  Right now I'm working on a region in which I have somewhat grandiose plans for the cities within, with backstory and an idea of how I want each city to turn out (e.g. a bunch of farming cities at one corner, the regional capital in another, some tourist resorts and market towns, et cetera).  Other times however, I may just open up some random region I don't really care about and play/create some city with no pre-conceived direction in mind, just to chill out a bit.

[Haljackey 17,380]

2 hours ago, RobertLM78 said:

Hehehe - you asked, but never answered.... so what type are you @Haljackey ? 

 

Dammit, someone called my bluff!

I see myself as a 'Playing the game' player.

[Tyberius06 12,234]

Well, probably more likely "sandbox mode" is here as well. I mean, I use the "weaknesspays" cheat to support the mayor's overivestments and sometimes the plop building cheat too, but recently and the second half of the last year I spent countless hours to make lots and relots to enchance my cities. But otherwise I run the city as is, sometimes I use the UDI stuffs too.

 

- Tyberius

[rivit 3,402]

I'd be lying if I didn't call myself a "Mad Modder". My regions are littered with "Test" cities. When I do play its SC4 au naturel - I'm clothed.

[redfox85 659]

....  Extreme Sandbox player. And I mean extreme: I start all cities at 1,000,000,000 dollars. I use a ordinance mod that renders pollution nil, perfect policing, perfect fire coverage, perfect schooling, eliminates garbage etc. Any civic buildings I use I mod to cover a large tile. I mod the demand graph so it no longer has any use. I use parks for jobs to get suburbia (and these parks have max landmark and park effects). I tend to plop my industrial zones. Commercial I use a mix of plop and growable. Another mod allows me to zone a large tile in one shot (although I never needed to zone that much at once). And sometimes when I need something that does not exist - I see if I can mod existing content to fit a new purpose, otherwise I just leave enough room to do it when it eventually (I hope) comes out.

[EvansRE4 796]

I find myself to be a sandbox player usually going for aesthetics vs functional. I mean most of the cities I build function for the most part. But I've downloaded so many mods that now I go for aesthetics. 

[huzman 445]

Wouldn't this topic merit a poll? It would give people orientation about which way to turn, point to new angles, open new  horizons and such. That's my nickel's worth...

[Bdub01 201]

I guess mine would be the “playing the game player”. Cause I do play the game. I don’t use cheats like infinite money and stuff like that. I rarely put down ploppable high rises cause I want the game to build them. That being said I do tear down buildings that don’t like right or I don’t like. I also plop down the mall and the adjoining buildings that I think should be around the mall cause having 20 Olive Gardens growing side by side near a mall is too much. Otherwise I just let the game run it’s course. If it turns out to be an ‘ugly’ city so be it. I think I looks more realistic that way. Don’t get me wrong I love the city journal pics where cities are all plopped for ascetics but that’s not how I play.  

[airman15 4,113]

Where exactly I fall into is kind of a head scratcher. I know i'm a Mad Modder for all the added jets and cars. Also a Media Mogul with my narcissism compiled into a project thread! I haven't really been inclined to focus on building a city when projects take precedence and RL matters call me away.

I've picked up on just playing the game again but I've wanted to try a new approach to a region I started a few months ago. So far it's got a little bit of everything from above. I want it to look neat but retain functionality. I've downloaded a few added ordinances which helps for some of the finances but I find myself using it less and less. That's the only crutch as far as game play goes. Demand and ratings are left alone. I do use a few helper lots like the Peg garbage eliminators instead of landfills. To be fair, the Maxis landfills are not how Google Earth shows real ones.

By function, that means using the NAM and letting most of my buildings grow. I want the networks to be used and custom buildings to behave similar to vanilla but with refreshed looks and variety. No more monorails, instead they look like normal bullet trains. Even the Exchange has a few nice modified vanilla lots I like to use for airports. Same demand effects, same commuter patterns but they're seamlessly embedded into the modular airport plans. I like this kind of balance because I can still feel like i'm playing SC4 even though it's as far removed from SC4 as one can get graphic wise. I too had issues with starting and playing a city, lots of times it ends with obliterating it and starting over. But when I do get it going then it's like a powder keg.

Then it goes into certain cities serving a certain purpose. Each region I attempted had an airport district and a seaside or a government center. Each one has it's own set of goals to reach like the airport needs a certain number of gates, a certain number of runways, what types of facilities, etc.

In all, I suppose you could say my playing style is only Playing the game. I just lay out a few basic connections with maybe a central point and see what happens from there. Obliteration is always an option if it doesn't turn out how I want it.

[Haljackey 17,380]

10 hours ago, huzman said:

Wouldn't this topic merit a poll? It would give people orientation about which way to turn, point to new angles, open new  horizons and such. That's my nickel's worth...

I thought about it but since there can be so many unique play styles I decided against it. Besides, it looks like a lot of people have good story to tell regarding their play style. It's an interesting read!

[huzman 445]

6 hours ago, Haljackey said:

It's an interesting read!

It sure is.

[Super Creeper 37]

For me i think i'm both "playing the game" and "sandbox" player. I love aestethics while keeping an eye on the technicalities

[Jackspital 391]

I think i would say i'm a little bit of a 'Objective Player', however im definitely a 'sandbox' and 'Playing the Game' sorta player. I think that I like to have things looking neat and life-like; although i usually start a new region and a new city tile, with the mindset of just seeing how it goes, then realising what i thought was a good idea at one point; was actually a terrible idea.