wtrtwnguy

Looking at the picture above, I noticed how badly it looks to have just one road connection to the "city". Has anyone seen a map where a pre-built highway passes through a city tile? Or are cities just going to be essentially big cul de sacs? I have never seen a regular city with just one road leading in where the terrain allows for more than just one access point.

I really like the idea. Worst case, I wish SC2013 would at least sprinkle around some dummy suburbs in the empty areas. They would not need to be functional - just for looks would be OK with me. The thing I dislike the most about Simcity 2013 is the fact that you end up with high rise buildings surrounded by empty space. No city looks like that. I could even deal with the small map size if the area around a city was not completely dead.

If your computer is as old as SimCity4, then there is probably no way to upgrade it short of replacing everything but the computer case. Supposedly, if you can run The Sims 3, you should be able to run SimCity 2013, so the system requirements won't be particularly high. I replaced my old single core Pentium 4 Prescott with a quad core Phenom 2 & SimCity 4 runs flawlessly. In fact, it runs better on my newer computer than on my old one, so no worries there.

Yeah that's the two-lane street (one lane on each side), or are you talking about something even smaller? Thanks for the response. Well in SimCity4 there were main streets called roads (two lanes, one on each side) and (side) streets, that were also two lanes, but had no markings and slower moving traffic. They were excellent for low density residential neighborhoods. As an added benefit, traffic on side streets would yield to traffic on main roads, allowing for more efficient traffic planning. It seems like in SimCity2013, there are only "roads" and two types of "avenues" and that's it as far as the road network goes.

I think it is safe to say there won't be any limited access highways (expressways). The 6-lane avenues seem to be their replacement, which, considering the small city size, is probably not that big of a deal. I wish the pre-built highways were real highways though, not roads with at-grade intersections that lack any design. I am still hoping one way roads and side streets make it into the game, but it looks like that won't be happening either. For small cities/towns, narrow alleys would be nice. On the upside, those things could be added in an expansion pack.

Same here! Although, that interchange would take up the entire map, so I am guessing it is a no

I would be surprised if there wasn't going to be a console version. I can't find it now, but weren't the developers even mentioning the possibility of a tablet version? The game controls remind me somewhat of the Sims 3 which has a console version. I believe the smaller cities and social system of SC 2013 would lend themselves well to a console port. Sure, consoles don't have the power of a high-end PC, but I doubt EA will create a game that will run solely on high end PC's. EA wants to reach the casual gamer and The Sims gamer, neither of whom may have a top notch system. I would imagine that's probably another reason why the maps are scaled down, why there is blank space around each city, and why things in the distance are blurred. I wouldn't be surprised if the game offered settings low enough to run even on notebooks with integrated graphics, i.e. machines with weaker graphics than current consoles.

Since taxis are mentioned alongside garbage trucks and school buses, they might work the same was as they did in SC4. Schools generate school buses while airports and such generate taxi cabs. With the glassbox engine, taxis might actually take sims somewhere this time, say passengers from the airport to a convention center or such. That's anyone's guess though. We shall see. What I am somewhat worried about is that the new SimCity will be even more finicky about commute time. The blog mentions that traffic jams will cause factories and houses to abandon. Considering the small size of SC2013 maps, commute time should not be much of a problem. Likewise, there should not be any need for subways or heavy rail (unless they include a rail network in the no man's land between cities). The announced streetcars will be perfect for small cities though.

Not enough low wealth sims in the city? I noticed simcity 4 has an inherent problem of replacing $ buildings with $$ and $$$ buildings. But $ sims are the backbone of your workforce. If there is not enough of them, demand will be high, but there simply won't be enough $ sims to sustain growth. (Hey, all those CEO $$$ sims need someone to scrub their floors, and those things). Also, since your population dropped suddenly: Simcity 4 bases the job supply on predicted development in neighboring cities. You may notice that thousands of sims communte to a neighboring city, even though that city does not even have that many jobs. They commute to future jobs. If you don't play neighboring cities, the game will eventually realize those jobs are not happening, and sims become unemployed.

Maybe sims just like to follow each other. The problem is really bad with neighbor connections. Sims will crowd a two lane road and shun a nearby avenue, let alone use the freeway. I need to take a screenshot. In one of my cities, 7000+ sims crowd a road to nowhere (goes to a neighboring city, but to an abandoned island), while hardly uses the highway nearby, which goes to the neighbor's downtown and industrial center. Neighbor connections have always been buggy though...

I am wondering if I did anything wring installing the latest NAM or if this is a common issue. For some reason, my sims now LOVE taking crazy detours. Imagine an avenue and a street running in parallel: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA S S S S ssssSSSSSSSSSSSSSsssss What my sims keep doing all the time is leaving avenues at random, going to the next street down the block, only to return back to the avenue, as if the avenue was closed between those two intersections. This leaves sections of my avenues with little to no traffic at all, while a nearby street will be congested to the max. I would understand if the street was the shorter route to reach their destination, but they are actually taking a detour. The avenue would be a straight shot. Any ideas why this is happening? I know pathfinding in SC4 has always been an issue, but I have never seen these weird zig-zag patterns...