Jeff Fiske

RTShack One of the goals I have stated on other posts is to breath new life into the Genre. It is a lofty one but as makers of over a dozen city building games and expansions, we get frustrated as fans as well- at the fact that this genre is not as big as it should be. What is wrong with a little creativity? What is wrong with playing in one city for 12 hours, not finishing a game in it? What is wrong with purchasing a game and not experiencing the exact same thing that my friend did when he played? How bout a little strategy where I can do 16 different things to fix the same problem?- You would think it would be more popular. So, maybe we will do some things right and bring city building & simulation and what is so great about it to a larger crowd of people. This is done by delivering a game ready to play out of the box. A game where you can sit down the first time and say- I want to build X city I saw on the box and do it. Now, I know some of you are saying- that sounds childish or too easy. Nonsense. Look more carefully and you will see all of the waste, crime, suffering that you may have chosen to ignore when playing the first time. Look more carefully and you may see your Sims being accosted by street preachers, (God forbid mimes) robbers, or zealots of one sort of another. Well, who knows, maybe you were making a sort of nasty Brazil (the movie) type of place, or just making a poor version of the city you live nearest. Maybe the second time you will skip over the fires, put down the subway at a more appropriate time, avoid the smog and carbon polution- and decide that legitimate law enforcement is better then vigilantes >> & corrupt police stations. Regards- the cities you create - will function the way you 'painted it on the canvas'. And what if somethings in this city you were trying to recreate was just a little wrong? Maybe the vigilantes are too frequent, too powerful, the corrupt police station does not make enough on crime, or there are not enough police on the street for the amount of Sims working in the station. That is when you can cross the line and customize it for your tastes. This is not a first person shooter, shipping with only multiplayer. BTW- Do people know the Dirt road is a 1 lane road? The common road seen in the city is a 2 lane road.

You are right about the Ellis Island reference. I am talking about a 'Radio Days' (movie) look and feel type of place, with maybe a Coney Island. So perhaps to most the game will strongly reflects certain archetypes we all associate with certain places on the globe today- and it will be how you choose to place those buildings- what you might decide to name them (click on any building /Sim in game to rename- or rename them permanently out of game) or terrain you choose to use- which will make the city or place you are trying to create come alive for you. While most people will be happy to make general sweeping 'statements' with their cities, many of you will want to make specific locations. Very specific locations. Obviously, the more specific, the more it will have to be customized. Hopefully we will continue to make this process easier as time goes along and it will be worthwhile because when you are done, we hope it has a greater chance of actually feeling like the place you wanted to create.

I am happy to answer questions, but we are not discussing map generation, customization 'how to's', and specifics on transportation- yet. (Asking me about moding transportation would be a double whammy- Yes I know this is something many people are interested in, but we try not to get people excited over aspects of the game we can't guarantee we can deliver on.) Seems like a quick review is in order- Facts only below- Rod Humble on record saying that this was a bold step and if it does not work out, they will revert to a more traditional urban simulator. You can choose multiple terrain sets & vegetation- and copy and paste pretty much any ambient in the game. You also can place decorative objects, trees, and landmarks. You are in complete control. We already have over 350 buildings, this should tell you something about the final release count. Here is what happens when your society moves to a certain profile. Lighting changes, clipping plain, road textures, road props, some vehicles, many buildings textures, many building props, many building text, music, sky, bridges. Clarity here- There has been confusion about 6 societal values. They do not equate to societies directly. A modern America uses mostly Prosperity and productivity. But each city within may be different. We have exposed several societies filtered for ease of use when beginning to learn- such as Cyberpunk, Capitalist, Romance (Mid 20th century Europe)..and more. We most recently showed an Industrial/Robber Barron city. This used primarily productivity with some authority & prosperity thrown in. Very little knowledge, as who cares about health care. The point is not to make some easy to digest cookie cutter template, or force you into a gameplay mechanic that is repetitive- but to blow the whole thing up and let you put it together the way you want. I could take the SimCity buildings and map them across the societal energies- police station authority, factory productivity...etc... The game will be extremely customizable, we believe by far the most customizable city building game, including rules, actions, attributes and pretty much everything above at ship. It is not the ultimate urban simulator, that SC4 was and still is- See the first fact bit. I am not EA. I have never implied that SimCity was way to complicated, or there is too much going on. Happy to answer questions and I do understand your frustrations, and I am not trying to 'win anyone over'- just explain what was done from TM's perspective, as well as share some of the cooler things that SCS does that no city building game has done before. I do agree with many points that people have, and as a gamer who cut his teeth on Avalon Hill board games- I understand the fun of simulated realism as well as the pleasure of detailed minutia (I have Harpoon- Paper & pencil as well)- but I also remember profoundly the first time I saw Doom and it was cool.

A Sim will be born in one location, can be made homeless, move to another location. In general, you can select a Sim and follow him 24/7 until he dies. (Some methods of transport may prevent this, but you can re-sync with the sim via his home.) If a pick pocket intercepts a Sim and robs him, this affects your city- That Sim loses whatever accessory was helping keep him happy, he has been delayed and may miss work or get home to late etc. (Depending on the criminal he may be injured as well.) Overall, the bustle and grind is meaningful and quite informative- though we give special city displays to help highlight information so you don't have to meander your city looking for it if you want to remain in a strategic mindset.

Caesar IV and CotN share very little in terms of systems- though on the surface they may appear to. That shopkeeper is a person who also has needs. Everyone but the Pharaoh has to be kept happy and have their needs met- like a real society. (This has NOTHING to do with SCS. NONE of this is relevant.) The larger the city, the more complex the needs become. The higher up the social ladder, the more complex the needs become. So a wealthy nobleman expects x number of lux goods. Well when you add the furniture maker nearby that home, is the furniture maker going to sell enough furniture to provide for his family and what they want? Does he have a kid who can get the wood for him, what if his wife dies and he wants to make an offering to Bast? None of this applies to SCS, and only the concept of services and goods applies to Caesar- the manner in which this is simulated is unique to CotN. Traffic is usually the least of the problems in CotN as people will go off roads if it is faster. Sometimes you do have to dig a little deeper as to why something is happening.

Indeed, we do not think about this game as a Sims games, and to us, at Tilted Mill, 'Societies' means as a plural of an individual city- that takes on a persona. But we totally see why so many would think of it as some Sims thing- which it is not. Very early on, before it was public, we realized that a generation of gamers was coming up in an era where far more people were familiar with the Sims then SimCity. But it was always about the city to us- the Sims are a just a communication vehicle to see how your city functions- and to show you directly- how your city is flowing if you will. If you want to park the camera on the streetcorner and watch the daily life, go for it- but the focal point is not to allow you to do this- but to make a real game model that makes this endevor more than just eye-candy- and making that experience worthwhile to begin with. <Edited out stuff about how we got started with EA, and why the changes as that has been covered.> Unlike most citybuilding games, we really wanted the cities to be able to work differently, at the same time be malleable. Sometimes when you play a CB game, once you have played it for a while it always seems like the cities you are building are the same, because you go through the same mental processes to get it going. Come to think of it, often when you play a 'new' city building game for the first time, it feels like you have played it before. We really wanted to help bring something truely different from any CB game before. One thing we wanted to do was to address the question- What if I want to make a place that feels like Paris, or Shangra-la? What about Ellis Island NY? What about LA? What about some place I saw in a movie or read in a book at some time? Do these places function differently? Do cops in Amsterdam behave the same way cops in LA behave? This goes beyond architecture, the rules are different in these places. Workdays, law enforcment, it all works differently- can we create a flexible city builder that allowed you to mix and match these principles of how societies create and deal with their problems? Couple of Quick example- some intense workplaces in a materialist society have a 7 day workweek, which makes it harder to keep those people happy when compared to to some contemplative buildings with a 3 day work week. But the people in the Materialistic or modern society get a lot of happiness from retail venues which give you happiness from objects they purchase and add to their person or home. Of course crime now has a bigger impact as burglars will actually steal these bonuses if you don't take care of the problem. Then again, in the contemplative, you are barely making any money, but there is no crime. So we admit. You can't build the ultimate Urban Metropolis better or equal to SC4- but every time you play, you can build something new. You can build a city that feels different, and that feels like a society. (We already have over 350 buildings and for the most part they are different.) And if you don't like the society you have created, you don't have to load up a scenario or quit, just start transforming your society with the buildings available to you. It is a creative, flexible, city building game where each city can feel like a society. Since you can build more than one, it becomes societies. At least that is how we see it, and we are working on trying to make this more clear. Sorry for the long post, but I hope this explains a few things. Jeff

COTN really is like no other game in many ways. The more you think like a Pharoah, and less like a person playing a computer game, the easier you slide into ruling the Nile. Why? Because while you are Pharoah, you can't control these people like you can in other games- in a sense they have free will. The maps actually come with people on them. If you build a society worthy of them, they will move in and work for you. If you provide a society that is equal to their hunter gatherer lifestyle, odds are they will return to it. Some funny things about the game. Money does grow on trees. (YOUR farmland you let the farmers work, and tax). Remember- People actually have to PAY for goods in your city. To pay for goods, people actually have to have relivant jobs. Temples and proper religion do not prevent bad events. But they prevent your people from doing bad things to you when they happen- if you have been properly appeasing the gods(in their eyes.) Stop worrying about the peasants protesting and tell that overseer to hurry up on your tomb!

This is an interesting thread and something that has been true of any CB games I have played, whenever more than a couple hundred citizens are trying to be portrayed in some reasonable manner. We have discussed this point for over ten years, even when working with the Caesar series of games for Impressions/Sierra/VUG. Without getting into the 'realism' discussion, in SCS any Sim that appears outside of a building is communicating something about how your city functions- not just a random sprite because you placed a road, or now have two buildings in a city. Getting back to the discussion, we do ask ourselves when doing these games what portion of the population actually works? What is the appropriate way for handling a sprawling city, or a tiny village? Up to this point the screenshots released have only been showing a subset of Sims in your city, so there was a very low number on the UI. Your overall population will increase based on the nature of the homes you build. IE an apartment complex will not only hold many more times of working Sims as will a Victorian home, but will also contribute a far greater amount to the general population as well. BTW- You are building a city. The buildings you place affect the Sims. You don't deal with individual sim motivations, but rather their behavior can be affected (like every other CB) by the nature of the cities you build- and if you are keeping them content or not. Also, the societal values do not affect behavior in the city. They enable you to place and use buildings that can interact or affect behavior as you wish. Because the cities look, feel and play different, they feel like different places- like different Societies. This is not a game about your Sims as individuals, (we remember where the term came from originally) but about creating a city you want to make without restrictions. If you do it poorly, your Sims will let you know.