El_Presidente

Originally posted by: morriswaltersSome simple rules of communications. Never promise anything unless it's ready to deliver. What you say is not as important as what the other guy hears.

It's this lack of communication that really puts me off the game. It's a nifty little game and all which shows great premise if everything is as good as the bus system, but complete lack of communication about anything by MC really puts me off. They don't tell us anything, they just there in their ivory tower, occasionally throwing us down a loaf of bread to keep us happy, but not actually telling us what the future holds. You can't launch a big MMO community based kind of game when you refuse to interact with the community in anyway whatsoever. Especially when you delete your own official forums and use the forums of a fansite for another game.

I'm a PO subscriber, but i haven't played in quite a while. Not only is the lack of content that should've shipped with the game in the first place putting me off, but also the fact that after a while, all cities look the same. The emphasis on trading drives most people to build ugly, hyper-efficient grid cities, plus alot of people quite frankly just seem to have no imagination. I can't even remember the amount of times i've loaded up a city and found the same dull design - bunch of grids on the very edge of the map. Only very occasionally do you find decent designs. And it's things like this that make me feel a tad apprehensive about releasing a building editor. Make it easy enough so that the unimaginative gridheads can use it, and subsequently enjoy watching their cities get ever uglier and more bizarre. But then, i suppose your idea of allowing people to only get other peoples designs if they actually buy them from each other would stop their spread... Anyway, MC needs to somehow get the emphasis to move from trade and onto aesthetics. Let's face it - most 'hardcore' city builders would rather play the game to be creating nice and beautiful cities. As the current model stands, nice and beautiful does not equal productive, and subsequently doesn't end up getting very far.

Originally posted by: kiwispanker Originally posted by: SimBurger Yeah, its a joy to have to restructure things without a pause button! Argh.quote> It is can be frustrating, but I think of it as adding realism. Once I had a couple of one way roads going through my "mountainside" to connect some jobs and the airport. Traffic greatly increased and I decided to place a highway in its place. Where the realism comes in is that you must re-route traffic. I built a temporary road nearby and demolished the two one ways. It's quite rare to see a real city pause itself and have a new block or highway just pop up overnight. At least this doesn't happen where I live. quote> Aye, as frustrating as it is to not be able to pause, i like the realism of having to come up with ways to handle traffic during major building projects, and trying to get it done on time and within your budget.

Just reached the 175,000 mark on my slowly developing city. Having seen the disaster that some of my city has ended up as, i've invested in better transportation networks in the newer outlying areas, and am thinking up plans to improve it in other places. Plans which will probably involve the demolition of entire neighbourhoods. Or maybe building a new raised expressway through my farmlands...hmmm...possibilities are endless.

Sainty, you do have to take in to account that MC are a French company, and thus Halloween isn't really at the top of their priorities, especially when they've just released a major new game. Try and expand your American-based vision of the world, and look at the fact that outside of the US, not many people really celebrate Halloween or see it as anything important.

Now, this post is going to be a bit of a big 'un. Mods, if you feel it to be too large, feel free to cut it down or edit my pics so they're just links. CRASTMUTH: The town that keeps trying to assure itself it's not a rip off of San Francisco The city featured in this post is my city of Crastmuth, on the planet Caliban. With ample farming and a burgeoning heavy industrial sector, backed up by top quality offices and a small but growing hi-tech industry, this small city of 85,000 is a perfect place for living. First off, the obligatory map views. As you can see, my industrial area is in immediate need of a revamp of the roads. Now onto the pretty stuff. Here is the view of the city across the bay, from the main road. The Riviera The beautiful Riviera, where the wealthiest and best citizens live an idyllic existence of pool parties, affairs with their secretaries and sunbathing. Arty farty lighting conditions Well, i think the title speaks for itself. With the right lighting conditions and viewing angles, a city can look stunning. A view from atop the tallest building in town during the evening... And some more fancy pictures THAT BRIDGE Now, you're probably asking the question, "El Presidente, what is that humongous land-bridge that you, in all your great wisdom, have built?" Well, that is the magnificent Garrard Expressway, designed to cut in half the journey times to the designated Industrial Zone. Poor people really don't mind the constant sound of traffic above them, i assure you. They in fact, love it. Epilogue The government of Crastmuth, and great leader El Presidente, thank you for your inquiries and interest in Crastmuth. Have a fantastic day.

I like to go with minimal planning ahead. Results in much more natural and organic looking cities. This is rather easy when dealing with small towns and cities, but obviously gets more and more difficult the higher your population becomes. I don't really know about cities beyond the 100,000 mark (i don't get much time to play, and am a fan of smaller cities). For example, my latest creation, Crastmuth. In the first screen, you can see the town from above. Already you can see the lack of a conventional grid layout. This was all developed with very little planning and purely for the needs of the time and near future, alot like real life. When i started the map, i built a small avenue through from one side to the other, which you can see going along the lake front and through the centre of town. As it got bigger, i built the ring road in anticipation of more people wanting to get to their jobs, which at the time was the farming industry, the largest source of jobs in town. As the city marched South, another avenue linking off from the ring road was created to cope with the traffic. Eventually traffic got too crippling from the Southern Suburbs, so the Bay Bridge was built, necessitating the demolition of some houses. As heavy industry developed further in the North-East, two avenues were built to link it up to the ring road, one going one way and one the opposite. As strain reached catastrophic proportions on the ring road, a cross town tunnel was built, requiring the destruction of more houses. This still wasn't enough, so the large bridge structure you can see was built, with one of the original avenues demolished and rebuilt so it could run in between them. However, alteration of traffic flow to allow for more efficiency has resulted in the cross town tunnel becoming useless, and i'm undecided as to whether it should be rebuilt or completely demolished. In the second screenshot, you can see where the heavy traffic flow is and get a clear picture of the city layout. In the third, a nice scenic picture of an organic city. Beyond 100,000 population though, i imagine things are going to have to start to change a bit. But that's all part of the fun!

Originally posted by: USA_Pride Originally posted by: fukuda Originally posted by: Evillions These are only for people who payed for the Plant Offer. Why should they get content packs and we don't?quote> Maybe because... they're paying? quote> How much was additional content in SC4? quote> For starters, Rush Hour cost you money to buy. And then all the 'additional content' that was fan made and therefore free. MC put time and effort into making the additional content for this game, and unlike fans of SC4, they own all of it and have a right to charge if they so please.

+Pros +Curved roads. Allows for nice variation in city and farmland design. +Non-growable buildings. I've always been a person who builds a city for the way i want it to look, so this is a big plus. I want nothing but houses and small business? Just plop down some low-density lots. I want a CBD of skyscrapers? Plop down some high-density lots. -Cons -Lack of specifics. A small power station creates 'some electricity' while a medium one creates 'electricity' and all the while i don't know the actual demand of my town and thus don't know which option to go with. -Inability to set trade contracts to renew. Means every 5 days you suddenly find yourself wondering why you're losing 500k. -No pause button. Sure, it's easy to get your city to a balanced state where it can run by itself, but if you're in the middle of a big expensive construction project when suddenly nature calls or you want a drink, your only option really is to exit to planet mode.

Things like this really make me wish they could have just been specific about how much of something is required and produced by buildings. Really annoys me not knowing exactly how many wind turbines to build because i never know what the exact demand is.

I'm considering maybe going for a month suscription once my free trial runs out, because the tiny bit of me that still believes in the good will of humanity thinks that this game could end up pretty awesome from its currently mediocre state. However, the vast majority of me so far isn't impressed. I haven't followed the game development at all, just thought i'd buy the game because it looked pretty good. Coming into a game that was only released just over 2 weeks ago and finding so little input from the developers so far leaves me very concerned. The lack of official Monte Cristo forums concerns me even more. I don't really feel comfortable subscribing to a game when the developers seem to care so little about the community or communicating with them. Doesn't really give an outsider any hope when it comes to a bright long-term future.

It shouldn't be a memory issue really, i have 1.5GB, and have played SC4 vanilla in the past without a problem. just recently reinstalled because i got Rush Hour. PC Specs (if it helps): AMD Athlon +3200 64-bit processor, running at 2.1Ghz ATI 256MB X800 Graphics Card 1.5GB RAM A friend of mine says it happens to him occassionally as well with his copy.

As the title says, i'll be happily playing along, when suddenly the game crashes to desktop (CTD). The CTD usually happens after about 2 or 3 hours of play, but sometimes happens after only half an hour, and sometimes doesn't happen at all. It's getting quite annoying because i keep losing progress with my cities. Anyone else had this problem, and if so, is there a fix?

I just downloaded smoncrie's hole digging lots, because i've seen the cool things people make. I went to use the 10m deep railway hole, and as soon as i clicked it, SC4 crashed to desktop. Any reason why? Did i install it wrong? I was playing Rush Hour by the way, if it helps.