MaprunnerUK

you buy the addon from the Origin store - and remember the landmark that gives you the building sets is only a short radius. I think you misunderstand- he has stated that he has the addon. I believe you use the 'culture' tab under the city specialisation menu

Still weird clipping errors on the slopes into the airstrip on the left, hope this is fixed as I saw some of it in the beta as well. I'm sure it will be, but just noting it's there

While I agree contiguous tiles would be great, I can see why EA/Maxis have gone down the route they have; multiplayer. The whole game is made for multiplayer and I can see troubles arising from two cities disagreeing over where to run the motorway, or the railway, or the roads. Having separate tiles with fixed motorways and rail removes these problems. It's just something we'll have to live with as it seems the multiplayer component was EA/Maxis' main priority when designing this game.

The thing that really gets me is how close they were to making a great game. I'm fine with the tilt-shift, model town aesthetic and the Glassbox simulation is a great step forward but some of the terrible decisions that have been implemented have put me right off buying. Some of my main problems: Tiny map size Badly done region design (highway and railway already done, no terraforming, city tiles miles apart) Always-online requirement Roads carrying power, water and dictating density (the water and power is only minor, but I would have liked to have seen power lines and pipes) No subways/metros Ridiculous pricing, set up for DLC and possibility of in-game store Stupid Sim pop-ups all over the city (why can't we just have advisors?) I do like the mechanic of adding to buildings and the specialisation is interesting, but not enough to see past the cons.

nhgriffith, The problem I have with the unconnected tiles is that the transport options are completely removed. The region highway and rail network is built already, and although some may not a problem with this I would have liked to have been able to plan out my own motorways and railway lines. I can see why people would not mind about this, but it's something I don't like the look of.