My thoughts on the ultimate SimCity game

[Mytzenka 106]

In this post I would like to lay out my thoughts and wishes on the ultimate SimCity game. I am not a game designer, nor anything close to an expert on SimCity. But while I still love SimCity 4 and loved SimCity 2000 in the past, I always recognize shortcomings and am always thinking about what might make these great types of games even better.

I know the ultimate SimCity may never be made. I know we may not even get a proper sequel to SimCity 4. But a man can dream so here - just for fun and hopefully a nice discussion as well - I'd like to share these dreams with you.

I have many thoughts and ideas, too many to write down in one post. So this OP will be mostly an index to topics that I will share in replies to this post. I hope this forum allows me to do it this way and to make future edits to this OP.

Core concept

My core idea for the ultimate SimCity lies within the name of the franchise itself: "Sim" and "City"
My ultimate SimCity is purely about simulating a city. The word "simulating" implies realism, which must be also be part of the fundament for each game design decision.

So to summarize: my ultimate SimCity is a game about simulating a realistic city. Pretty much all my ideas stem from this fundamental concept, which I will describe in more detail below.

Detailed ideas

• RCI zones and AI-decisions on what buildings develop where
• .... t.b.c.

 

[Mytzenka 106]

RCI zones and AI-decisions on what buildings develop where

The RCI-zoning system has been a staple of the SimCity games since its inception, and for good reason. I think it’s a very good system which I would definitely keep in the ultimate SimCity. I see no reason to change much to the zoning types of SimCity 4. The light, medium and dense make sense, as does the agricultural zone type. The different growth stages and wealth levels make sense too, although the game shouldn’t try to gentrify everything as eagerly as it does now.

The one area that DOES need a lot of improvement is the game engine deciding which buildings to build where. By that I do not mean what growth stage or wealth level, I mean the specific building itself. Does an office building or a mall develop here? A beauty salon or a hotel?
This is important to satisfy the core concept or realism.

It isn’t realistic to see Gustav's Knicknacks & Gewgaws repeat several times over in a single street. It isn’t realistic to see copies of the exact same office building repeat over and over in your CBD (realistically there should be NO copies at all). It also isn’t very realistic to see nail salons pop up next to a busy airport but no hotel, which oddly decides to appear in a quiet neighbourhood instead. Not only is this stuff not realistic, it is also boring and leads people to resort to ploppables and gameplay tricks to get the buildings they want where they want.

I like how the zoning system prevents the mayor to specifically choose which buildings will build. It makes sense from a simulation standpoint as this doesn’t happen in real life either (except for communist states).

But the simulation should be a lot smarter in simulating an actual city, where each building’s location makes sense. While I realize this can never be perfect, I think it wouldn’t be all that complicated to have the game engine make smarter choices about which buildings to build where.

Some examples:

• If you zone commercial in a quiet neighbourhood, you will get buildings like a hair dresser, small grocery stores and (take away) restaurants.
• If your neighbourhood gets busier and apartments replace the family homes, a larger shopping mall may develop. And maybe one or two office buildings.
• If you zone commercial close to the airport you will get mostly car rentals and hotels. But hotels will obviously develop in a busy downtown area as well. And B&B’s will develop more in residential areas.
• Gas stations will develop throughout your city and often near busy roads.
• Residential zones are the only zones where you frequently see the same building repeat, mostly apartment blocks and row houses (albeit with little variations).
• Restaurants and bars tend to clump together, especially downtown where there's heavy traffic. Heavy pedestrian traffic counts too. The same applies to shops, but usually in a different street.
• Commercial and industry can develop side by side, but the types of industry will be mostly cleaner.
• Residential will not develop (much) if there is not at least one grocery story nearby.
• An area of (very) low wealth may develop places like seedy bars, pawn brokers and maybe even (if you legalized prostitution and the game isn’t PG) some red light stuff.
• It is rare for the exact same apartment buildings to appear in an entirely different neighbourhood.
• I could think of many more examples but I hope you get the idea. What buildings develop is based not only on wealth, density and traffic, but also many other variables, mainly what other buildings are built in proximity.

As you see in the examples above, I think such intelligent decision making is mostly needed in commercial areas, industry second. Just in the real world, those zones have the most variety in types of businesses and – at least in my mind – are the most interesting too. Repeat buildings is less of an issue in residential areas, although there a lot of visual variety between different neighbourhoods is necessary too.

Other thoughts

Another thought that I have is that in real life municipalities DO have some influence over what specifically develops where, so maybe this should be possible in SimCity too. The municipality could designate a specific area for only high tech industry, for example. Or assign certain streets for restaurants and shopping.

This is an idea I am not entirely sold on myself however. I don’t know enough about how municipalities work in reality and I also like the idea of sitting back and just let my city develop “naturally”.

In any case, having more direct control over which (type of) buildings develop where would be an optional feature that can work alongside the AI-driven building choices I described above.

I conclude by saying I realize avoiding repetition fully and avoiding strange building choices will be impossible even in the ultimate SimCity. It is still a game, not real life. AI will make mistakes and buildings will necessarily be limited. But I have ideas on how to improve on this as well.

Stay tuned.