EA announces SimCity will get an offline mode, FINALLY!!!

[Grumman]

Character deaths...

It was in the opening cutscene and the trailers, and negated immediately after. I did not put it in spoiler tags because I considered it on the same level of not-spoiler as "Marvel killed Batman and brought him back to life. Again."

[Tribble]

huh.... You're kidding me, right? The base game wasn't superior to Civ 4 sure after the expansions......... but it was more balanced than Civ 4 base.
At least, combat didn't devolve into big ass stacks of doom. Civ 3 also had the spearman of doom that Civ 5 ignored.

G&K introduction of religion and other mechanics wasn't that spectular, but Brave New World..... well honestly, its the first time I fell in love with Civ since Civ II.

Maybe its new game syndrome, since I only got BNW just recently but the game is now...... just amazing. Yes, I agree that diplomacy has its problems and Civ IV had some superior moments there. And happiness imposed a hard cap on city settlements, and war mongering made it worse.

But religion? Its no longer a game of chasing the tech tree and then spreading it for diplomatic gains. There's now a strategic element behind it, variety, choice and a need to balance what you want out of religion. Its impact on diplomacy is now much more varied and important for so many reasons, from diplomatic to cultural victory.

The culture element, especially cultural victory is now so much more satisfying. I'm seeking a cultural victory now as Morocco, my first attempt to do so and it has been...... frustrating as well as so enjoyable at the same time. It wasn't intended to be one until I realised I was facing off against Korea..... and then it became a cultural game chase, especially since I was facing off against France as well.

And cultural policies! No longer civics but policies to plan and tailor your game advantages. Freedom. Order. Autocracy. It just gave so much more variety and strategic depth, especially since wonders are locked. And its impact on diplomacy and other aspects of the game just make it feel much more fun as you try to balance game choices. Its not a question of balancing plus and minuses like the civics(although I loved the echos to Alpha Centauri) but so much more. Do you chase liberty or tradition? Do you play off Piety and the creation of holy sites to create a cultural victory? Or a diplomatic victory? Or just use it to gain war winning advantages? Its just so much more flexible.

And the last is of course Great Person. Now, Civ4 essentially had GP as a winning tactic. There was no trade off in seeking them. In Civ 5, it was harder to get GP and there's trade off involved. Do you use your Great Artist to get a Golden Age or get more culture/tourism? The tourism might not be critical, but culture protects you against so many problems and tourism gives you some key advantages.

I agree that Civ 5 has its merits. The real problem I have with the game is the A.I. It's completely broken, even with the BNW expansion. The diplomacy is completely random, and you cannot form any meaningful relationships with any civs - they WILL stab you in the back, even if you have been friends since turn 1. There is no real incentive to really try diplomacy at all, and the best strategy by far is to simply wipe them off the map the moment you encounter them. Hell, even in cultural, space race, and diplomatic victories you don't need to talk to the A.I. - just buy off all the city states!

But that pales in comparison with the A.I.'s utter inability to wage war, particularly when it comes to sieges. The A.I. simply cannot handle the complexities involved with 1UPT. Even when the A.I. attacks with overwhelming force, the attacks are so random and ill coordinated that it takes little effort to counter them, even on higher difficulty settings. For example, the A.I. will frequently have its ranged units on the front line and the melee units at the back, the exact opposite of what it should be doing. And where a human player would be able to take a city within 1-2 turns, you can expect the A.I. to take at least 5-10, if it manages the feat at all.

The frustrating bit is that most of the problems associated with Civ 5 could have been easily fixed: instead of 1UPT, they should have made it 3-5UPT. I think that would have the best of both worlds as it would avoid both the stack of doom and carpet of doom scenarios. There were mods at one point which allowed you to set the number of units allowed per tile, and when I used them the A.I. played a lot better. Unfortunately the mods have since been removed and I can't find them anywhere. Of course, it would have been nice if such a simple option had been included from the start.

[Flagg]

Character deaths...

It was in the opening cutscene and the trailers, and negated immediately after. I did not put it in spoiler tags because I considered it on the same level of not-spoiler as "Marvel killed Batman and brought him back to life. Again."

Spoiler

Thane, dumbass.

[Simon_Jester]

I liked the observation about Civ V and 'one unit per tile' made by one of the designers responsible, who sort of explained why it didn't pan out well.

[At least, I think that's where it came from]

Basically, one unit per tile is a restriction born in paper-board wargames with humans on both sides. When it was first adapted to computer wargames, typically the AI in such games dealt with the complexity by never attacking, or almost never attacking. The challenge in such games was simply in trying to launch offensives as quickly and efficiently as possible, so as to dismantle the AI's defense without getting mauled by their dug in troops. Panzer General and its descendant/clones is a good example of this.

It's relatively easy to program an AI to put up an adequate defense, because the units don't have to maneuver. Offense takes maneuver, and maneuver warfare is much more complicated, especially because it requires understanding of concepts like chokepoints and basic strategies like "we will have to go around this chokepoint somehow because there is no way in hell we're bashing through it."

So the Civ V AI runs into the problem of having to be able to attack. Which means that to work, it would have to be exponentially more complicated than any of the old hex-based wargame AIs. Since they only sank so many man-hours into the tactical unit management AI, it was kind of inevitable that they'd screw it up.

[TheFeniX]

ME2 was a boring corridor shooter (uh oh, I'm using "review buzzwords!") f

And ME1 wasn't? Not only was it a corridor shooter, it was the exact same corridor, over and over. At least ME2 had more than three level layouts for sidequests, not to mention planets that actually looked good. The story....eh. But I did like some of the new characters. In fact, almost all of them, except for the DLC ones.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

ME1 had a lot of faults with hilarity like "Enemies EVERYWHERE, I will destroy you!" and a lot of the sidequests felt fairly tacked on what with the "go to this stock bulding you've seen 300 times and kill X badguy for some monies." However, the combat was good enough to get the job done WRT the main storyline.

My problem going into ME2 was that it felt like so much emphasis was put on fixing the combat of ME1, that the storyline felt like a sidequest, both in it's scope and implementation. The story felt like it was supplementing the combat, rather than the other way around (which is how I feel RPGs should be). But I have to admit, I can't even be bothered to remember much about ME2 I was so underwhelmed.

Maybe it would have jumped up in quality if I had continued it past 4-5 hours, but that's not a valid excuse for me.

[fgalkin]

ME2 was a boring corridor shooter (uh oh, I'm using "review buzzwords!") f

And ME1 wasn't? Not only was it a corridor shooter, it was the exact same corridor, over and over. At least ME2 had more than three level layouts for sidequests, not to mention planets that actually looked good. The story....eh. But I did like some of the new characters. In fact, almost all of them, except for the DLC ones.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

ME1 had a lot of faults with hilarity like "Enemies EVERYWHERE, I will destroy you!" and a lot of the sidequests felt fairly tacked on what with the "go to this stock bulding you've seen 300 times and kill X badguy for some monies." However, the combat was good enough to get the job done WRT the main storyline.

My problem going into ME2 was that it felt like so much emphasis was put on fixing the combat of ME1, that the storyline felt like a sidequest, both in it's scope and implementation. The story felt like it was supplementing the combat, rather than the other way around (which is how I feel RPGs should be). But I have to admit, I can't even be bothered to remember much about ME2 I was so underwhelmed.

Maybe it would have jumped up in quality if I had continued it past 4-5 hours, but that's not a valid excuse for me.

Neither ME1 or ME2 are RPGs. True RPGs don't come with a dialogue wheel and one way to complete each quest. Both are talky shooters. ME1 had the better story, but the combat was atrocious, the levels were hideous and, most importantly, boring. It had precisely one interesting mission in the whole game: Virmire. The rest just felt like a generic shooter.

ME2, by contrast, has levels that are both beautifully rendered, interesting, and, most importantly, unique. There isn't a stock building to be seen anywhere in the game. It's also rich to accuse ME2 of being less of an RPG than ME1, considering some of those missions don't actually involve combat, which was never the case in ME1. Plus, character interactions are FAR more important in ME2 than 1, which is far more talky.

ME2's only weakness is the main plot. It blows ME1 out of the water in everything else.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[TheFeniX]

Neither ME1 or ME2 are RPGs. True RPGs don't come with a dialogue wheel and one way to complete each quest.

I don't agree. They are decidedly narrow in their choices and a lot of the actual dialog "decisions" end up just being a more interesting way to probe NPCs for information or make binary choices that may or may not effect a body count. But RPGs slide both directions from Final Fantasy where you ride a story-rollercoaster to Torment where just reading dialog choices is a book in of itself. It's no different than calling Skyrim a talky hack-n-slash.

[fgalkin]

Neither ME1 or ME2 are RPGs. True RPGs don't come with a dialogue wheel and one way to complete each quest.

I don't agree. They are decidedly narrow in their choices and a lot of the actual dialog "decisions" end up just being a more interesting way to probe NPCs for information or make binary choices that may or may not effect a body count. But RPGs slide both directions from Final Fantasy where you ride a story-rollercoaster to Torment where just reading dialog choices is a book in of itself. It's no different than calling Skyrim a talky hack-n-slash.

Which is why there is the second part of that sentence, which says "one way to complete each quest." In RPGs, there is usually multiple endings to a quest beyond pass/fail. Those are noticeably absent in ME1, other than the contrived decision point of who dies on Virmire (that dosen't actually affect anything). ME2 is much better in that regard, with there being a paragon/renegade ending to most quests, and sometimes a third "neutral" option as well.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[Metahive]

Umm, there's also the decision to kill or spare the Rachni queen, let Wrex run to his death or keep him alive and whether or not you save the Citadel council at the end, all of those do influence what happens in the sequels. You can also shorten the final boss fight if you make the right decisions. You're selling ME1 a bit short in that regard.

[Thanas]

Hey guys, please get back on topic.

[TheFeniX]

I think we're to the "to each his own" part of the argument anyways.

However, there's just not a lot of new Sim City 5 news. They are encouraging the mod scene, with the usually amount of EA buzzkill tacked on.

1. Don't mess with "the simulation for multiplayer games and multiplayer features" and don't "jeopardize the integrity of the gameplay." This is confusing—how does one mod the single-player simulation without potentially affecting multiplayer games? This rule prevents more than it lets on.

2. Keep it ESRB E10+ and PEGI 7, don't use copyrighted material, don't abuse anyone, don't do anything illegal, don't mess with the executable files.

3. The SimCity EULA and EA’s Terms of Service supersede these rules. This is a catch-all for loopholes they may have missed.

4. If Maxis doesn't like what you're up to, it can revoke these permissions and is free to "take disciplinary action against players who harm the experience of others." Presumably that's an account restriction or ban, not a time-out in the corner.

5. You can't sell mods, and EA doesn't owe you any money for making them. It also doesn't need your permission to distribute your mod or do anything else with it. This is lawsuit-avoidance stuff—you don't get to claim EA stole and profited off your derivative work because Maxis promoted or distributed it.

1. makes sense. You wouldn't want someone coming along and making a good Sim City game, now would you? At least Bethesda just doesn't give a shit when modders make their game look and play 100 times better than they could. Someone should mod in Mass Effect assets but keep the stylized look of the game. You could have random reaper attacks and tiny space marines shooting futility at it and little Asari Biotics throwing "mind-balls" as well. Bastardize in old ME dialog to replace the stock stuff, extra points for a majority of Garrus dialog.

Not going to lie: I would buy the shit out of that.

[Zaune]

1) seems to basically mean "no mods that give players an unfair advantage", which I suppose is fair enough because this game does technically have what you could describe as PvP if you squint.
2) kind of makes sense because the extent EA's legal liability for mods that violate someone's IP is at best uncertain, and in any case nobody wants massive penis sculptures in a game they bought for their kids.
3) and 4) are just boilerplate stuff that probably everyone who bothers with modding T&Cs throws in.
5) is... Well, I've seen it a couple of other places and you have to read it three or four times before the full enormity of it kicks in. Basically, if they think your mod is good then they can turn it into a paid DLC and they don't have to so much as give you the credit for it.

[Darth Tanner]

if they think your mod is good then they can turn it into a paid DLC and they don't have to so much as give you the credit for it.

I doubt that has ever happened, atleast officially. Its again just normal legal protection for EA, you wouldn't want some modder coming back to you say that as 60% of all players are running his mod he deserves a cut of the sales revenue. Hell consider the unofficial patches out there for games like Skyrim, I'm sure Bethesda have some form of legal protection against someone making a claim against them.

This thread made me install Sim City 4, sadly it runs like shit on Windows 8.1, or more likely my modern graphics card drivers. Oh well..... can't say I'm at all tempted by Sim City 5 regardless of it having an offline mode or not.

[TheFeniX]

Yea, #4 is standard stuff I know Beth has in their EULA and I'm pretty sure everyone else does. Beth only gets involved if people start pulling assets from other games, such as porting Morrowind or Oblivion assets to Skyrim. The mainstream mod sites police themselves for the most part.

I get the whole "don't interfere with people's online gaming" but I don't agree with it. We ran a modified Jedi-Outcast server to give us access to NPCs for huge server-destroying Jedi battles and some players who connected did not like that. This would usually be locked behind the sv_cheats cvar which was noted in the server browser. Yet, the mod allowed access to NPCs without enabling cheats. Our comment to complainers would be "tough." But really, I'm just ranting against the current match-making system that pervades PC these days when it used to be almost completely console exclusive.

[PainRack]

[quote="Tribble]
I agree that Civ 5 has its merits. The real problem I have with the game is the A.I. It's completely broken, even with the BNW expansion. The diplomacy is completely random, and you cannot form any meaningful relationships with any civs - they WILL stab you in the back, even if you have been friends since turn 1. There is no real incentive to really try diplomacy at all, and the best strategy by far is to simply wipe them off the map the moment you encounter them. Hell, even in cultural, space race, and diplomatic victories you don't need to talk to the A.I. - just buy off all the city states! [/quote]
Again, I agree that meaningful diplomacy is a problem, but the AI issues for every RTS, from Galactic Empires and Total War just show how difficult it is to create a relevant diplomacy without making it either boring, distorting game balance or absurd.

I say this though, Civ 5 diplomatic behavior does make a 'little' more fun than earlier titles, in the sense that the leader does have a set agenda and they do shit to stop you from winning. Gain too many allies and started gaining the lead? Let's fuck with you and become more hostile. The city states interestingly provides a unique game balance in BNW....... they allow for diplomatic victories while having a hostile game environment of war, and a simplistic, grind the numbers for diplomacy while having a crazy 'main' diplomatic scheme.

But that pales in comparison with the A.I.'s utter inability to wage war, particularly when it comes to sieges. The A.I. simply cannot handle the complexities involved with 1UPT. Even when the A.I. attacks with overwhelming force, the attacks are so random and ill coordinated that it takes little effort to counter them, even on higher difficulty settings. For example, the A.I. will frequently have its ranged units on the front line and the melee units at the back, the exact opposite of what it should be doing. And where a human player would be able to take a city within 1-2 turns, you can expect the A.I. to take at least 5-10, if it manages the feat at all.

Based on its own merits? Yes. But comparing it to other Civ titles? Not really. Again, stack of doom which required simplistic counters. Comparing it to 2 or 3, defending against the AI requires 'some' effort, at least, as opposed to Civ 3 where all I needed was 4 tanks and a battleship fleet. Or Civ 2 never-ending railroad of doom. 4 was the only game where you had to put in real effort to stop an AI rampage and that's purely because of its stack of doom which required you to grind out and concentrate an equivalent doom stack. Or a doom stack large enough to slow them down while you rampage their cities.

The frustrating bit is that most of the problems associated with Civ 5 could have been easily fixed: instead of 1UPT, they should have made it 3-5UPT. I think that would have the best of both worlds as it would avoid both the stack of doom and carpet of doom scenarios. There were mods at one point which allowed you to set the number of units allowed per tile, and when I used them the A.I. played a lot better. Unfortunately the mods have since been removed and I can't find them anywhere. Of course, it would have been nice if such a simple option had been included from the start.

That's actually an interesting idea........








Back to SimCity though..... I actually played the game after the traffic patch, no 7 IIRC. Again, it was more playable and allowed the 'fun' to shine through, however, it just can't sustain the enjoyment like earlier titles. The real problem is that they expected regional play to take on a much bigger role than the game allows it to. A simulated 'work' demand doesn't work, yes, I can get workers agents to fill my cities but it doesn't benefit my other city without a deliberate tactical change..... but said tactics required make the city VERY boring to play.

Simply put, low class workers can take the trains and go to other cities to work. Provided you put in 'enough' public transit for the agents to work properly, you get a scenario where you have a city that can supply enough agents to other cities to fulfill their work requirements, PROVIDED their transit makes the agents work properly. These agents return to your city with rental cash.

BUT.......... Its not fun to play.If you screw up, it can become crime ridden and plague the other cities on the region. Oh. And if you're playing low wealth res, you're not going to have enough cashflow to sustain the city service outflow(well..... you COULD just fuck it and let everyone die from pollution but clamp down on it with police...... and fuck fires.........).

Before patch 7, my friend created a high wealth res city and well........... it was 'beautiful'. It just didn't work as complexes will shut down and their residents disappear from the city and none of the other cities enjoyed said high wealth job workers because of traffic issues. And they still likely won't because the agent system requires very careful handling.


SimCity 5 essentially still has the fun of creating a new city, but the small size, the funding issues, the failure of regional play due to its agent system make it unfun to RUN the city. And it removes the 'design your own city' fun it promises.

[Zaune]

I think that's the biggest problem with really detailed agent-based gameplay at that sort of scale; it's really difficult to have a setup that's both efficient enough to be functional and pretty to look at, unless you really, really like living in Central Milton Keynes or something.

[Tribble]

Based on its own merits? Yes. But comparing it to other Civ titles? Not really. Again, stack of doom which required simplistic counters. Comparing it to 2 or 3, defending against the AI requires 'some' effort, at least, as opposed to Civ 3 where all I needed was 4 tanks and a battleship fleet. Or Civ 2 never-ending railroad of doom. 4 was the only game where you had to put in real effort to stop an AI rampage and that's purely because of its stack of doom which required you to grind out and concentrate an equivalent doom stack. Or a doom stack large enough to slow them down while you rampage their cities.

IMO civ 3 and civ 4 have had the best war A.I., although civ 3's A.I. was not very aggressive by default. I'd set the civs to the max level of aggression in the editor, and usually they'd play pretty good. A stack of doom may not require a lot of thinking (get artillery and bigger stack) but you do have to put in some effort when they send 200+ modern armour at your doorstep and have used their airfleet to bomb all your roads. In one memorable game where our stack of dooms stalemated, the A.I. eventually got fed up and just nuked all of my cities and the front line in one turn lol.

For fun, when playing Civ 3 I tend to set the guerilla unit and cruise missiles to hidden nationality in order to simulate guerilla warfare/terrorism, and the results are quite impressive. Normally the A.I. doesn't produce much of either unit, but with hidden nationality turned on their strategy changed substantially. They would constantly bombard my border cities with cruise missiles (like Palestine does to Israel) while at the same time send guerillas over by land, water or even helicopter to try and pillage my resources. And when I signed a right of passage agreement, they would send regular units with guerillas underneath, so that I would have to attack the regular unit and declare war if I wanted to get rid of the guerilla. I'll admit I was surprised by the A.I.'s deviousness in that regard, even I didn't think of that!

If Civ 5 had a good game editor and the after mentioned ability to set the UPT, you could probably get the A.I. to fight quite well. I just don't have the time to learn how to change all the stuff via script editor, and I'm afraid that I could accidentally change a line of code by mistake and mess the whole thing up.

[PainRack]

Just....... out of curiousity. Has anyone else here played the game after the traffic patch?

[AniThyng]

Based on its own merits? Yes. But comparing it to other Civ titles? Not really. Again, stack of doom which required simplistic counters. Comparing it to 2 or 3, defending against the AI requires 'some' effort, at least, as opposed to Civ 3 where all I needed was 4 tanks and a battleship fleet. Or Civ 2 never-ending railroad of doom. 4 was the only game where you had to put in real effort to stop an AI rampage and that's purely because of its stack of doom which required you to grind out and concentrate an equivalent doom stack. Or a doom stack large enough to slow them down while you rampage their cities.

IMO civ 3 and civ 4 have had the best war A.I., although civ 3's A.I. was not very aggressive by default. I'd set the civs to the max level of aggression in the editor, and usually they'd play pretty good. A stack of doom may not require a lot of thinking (get artillery and bigger stack) but you do have to put in some effort when they send 200+ modern armour at your doorstep and have used their airfleet to bomb all your roads. In one memorable game where our stack of dooms stalemated, the A.I. eventually got fed up and just nuked all of my cities and the front line in one turn lol.

I think in terms of the diplomatic model feeling right, Civ IV + all expansions ultimately had the best one.

I remember a game where me and the English were the dominant superpowers, with two lesser nations I had beat down in the ancient era and left with some token crap cities came begging me to protect them from the english at the dawn of the modern era. Naturally I accepted their fealty. When the english finally made their move against one of my vassals and drew me into war, it was an epic WW3 type war that ended after they tac nuked my frontline doom stack and I went all ICBM on their homeland in response.

I really want to like Civ V, but the endgame 1 UPT system leaves me bored as it's terribly troublesome to move armies. But it had its moments, and I loved amphibious assaults against an entrenched enemy.

Civ III leaves me with mixed feelings, it wasn't bad as such, and there were some nice mods for it. But Civ II + expansions had some of the best mods ever, including an epic east front mod that needed you to swap out the tiles to represent winter.

[Crossroads Inc.]

Civ IV Diplomacy and AI mixed with Civ V game engine, graphics and set up would have been really something...

I started a new Civ 5 game recently and within 30 turns every single computer player I met has DENOUNCED me so much I pretty much ignore it.
It basically goes. Meet new Civ, -> have them praise me for my kindness and power, -> trade and open Embassies -> Randomly start DENOUNCING me until they eventually declare war.

I swear I have NEVER played a Civ5 game in which I met an AI player, had good relations, got an alliance and NEVER had to go to war with them.

[Borgholio]

I swear I have NEVER played a Civ5 game in which I met an AI player, had good relations, got an alliance and NEVER had to go to war with them.

I enjoy Civ 5 but yeah I agree the diplomacy sucks balls. At the very least, in other Civ games, you could give other nations little gifts to keep them happy in the long term. In Civ 5, you can give them all sorts of stuff and they basically say "Hey this is great, thanks for the tech / gold / military units! You're still a stupid fuck though and I denounce you."

[Vendetta]

Diplo AI in 4x games is usually bad because it assesses the "strength" of a player based only on their current military not their industrial base or tech level, leading to them making wild threats based on your perceived weakness, irrespective of the fact that in two turns time you can build enough units to blanket every square of their territory twice over.

[Gaidin]

Diplo AI in 4x games is usually bad because it assesses the "strength" of a player based only on their current military not their industrial base or tech level, leading to them making wild threats based on your perceived weakness, irrespective of the fact that in two turns time you can build enough units to blanket every square of their territory twice over.

I think the thing you have to watch out for here is that that is literally what diplomatic AI can literally scout. It's literally harder to account for spying for AI and ask what tech does he have, what's his industrial base, and such. You can theoretically have a scout ship fly through the territory and run a fast count, but if they haven't or can't run a successful "spy run" however the game my do these things(assuming they do), you might not know what you think their highest tech is, or their most industrialized planet is and how industrialized it is. All you know is how many planets(cities) they own and how many ships(soldiers) they have flying(running) around. And you make your threat based off that.

Sorry, I'm speaking literally based off Galactic Civilizations II. GalCivII didn't really do spy runs last time I played, so I couldn't tell what planets were industrialized and which were entertainment centers or which were just balanced population centers, and such, much less what tech he had unless I flat out stole it from him(which was an option). The same thing has happened to me, and two turns later I'd have a fleet of 50 capital ships plowing down his empire bit by bit.

[Tribble]

One good thing about civ 4 + civ 5 was that if you didn't have an open borders agreement, the A.I. couldn't send in any units unless they declared war. In civ 3 Gandhi would do things like sending a single war elephant into my territory, then declaring war and attacking when I asked him to leave. His target? A 4 unit infantry army. Stationed in a metro. On a hill.

Another good thing that changed in civ 4 onwards was that if you declared war, your units moved back to ur territory. It might not be realistic, but it did stop my habit of completely surrounding every A.I. city on my continent due to right of passage, then declaring war and taking the lot in a single turn.

[PainRack]

So........... I finally decided to give Simcity another whirl.


I'm not sure whether its skill or what, but the game actually works now. I see what happens when my uni city starts ignoring the algorithrims for traffic but the huge traffic jam of the past? Well.......... its actually capable of being managed , even for my gambling cities. I had some problem with creating sufficient mass transit and location wise for my tourism city but not only are said cities playable as I already learnt post Update 7, I actually felt I had the power to impact traffic.


Income is still highly reliant on traffic flow, but again, the game isn't as wonky as in the past. My delivery trucks actually DO deliver stuff, although strategic design is still required to ensure freight or timely resource prevention.

The agents are still quite dumb but the game manages to work past them.


In terms of space........... it still feels extremely cramped at times. But EA trick of future content apparently works. I seen the cities built with the Cities of Tomorrow expansion. They generate tons of cash for Omegaco and with the use of maglev, the 'subways' of the past, you shift traffic off the roads and into the Megatowers. They also have some significant impact on regional play, even for players like me without the expansion.


So....... it kinda feels like you're playing Simcity again. Regional features also work more effectively than before, although I haven't roadtest just how much you can rely on it yet. The only drawback would be that the game rapidly runs out of things to do for a mature city, due to its small size of the map. In earlier iterations, you could always remodel and keep expanding for hours but apart from the first starter/seed city, and the chase for HQs status, the only part of the game that requires you to invest time is the Mayor residence.



So........ If you played Simcity during the launch, yes, you get the same fun. You feel like you got more control. If you don't zone explicitly for high density megacities, you even get creative design of the city as they promised. I don't think the expansion is worth 30 dollars but otherwise, the game is worth replaying. And with offline play, you might even get to have more fun with city disasters:D


As it is, the constant nature of the city(unless one pulls various workarounds to prevent saves) dictate that you need to keep enough of your city remainding to prevent you from being KO from a massive disaster. And apart from zombies and some bad luck for the giant lizard, the disasters just feel very subpar compared to earlier games:D Still......... mass dropping meoteors is still quite amazing:D Especially with Maxisman on the scene:D