I never played SimCity 4, as it didn’t work on my PC at the time, and never bothered with any after that. But I don’t really remember this applying to the others. Are you talking about one of SimCity 4, SimCity Societies, SimCity (2013) here?
Actually, most of them. But especially the latest SimCity and SimCity: Societies. They could be far more challenging than Cities: Skylines, which never really offers any resistance that you can just power past by running the clock; they gave you plenty of reason to build multiples cities (SimCity basically mandated it, and the faction stuff in SimCity: Societies made replayability one of its strong points); they both had a pretty hearty metagame either in terms of unlockables or interaction among your various cities; and they certainly had better systems for crime, education, and so forth than Cities: Skylines, which is basically a fleshed out traffic simulation (a very good one, to be sure, but so much of it just comes down to traffic).
Don’t get me wrong, though. As I said, I would recommend Cities: Skylines over the last SimCity. But I was just answering your question about what was missing from Cities: Skylines.
-Tom
I agree. the late game in skylines is just way too easy. The only thing that catches me out (and led me to abandon one city) was a major death-illness-disaster when my traffic stopped hearses getting around ok.
I have high hopes that continued patches, and no doubt some DLC will expand upon the game even more. It is a bit easy, but the excellent performance of its engine combined with the variety of stuff to play with means its worth overlooking that.
I think a variety of specializations for each city and a regional system would do wonders for replayability. One area might be for entertainment and residential, another for manufacturing, and another for tourism, and still another could be your college / high tech town. Each city would not necessarily be a world unto itself and have to balance all sectors of the economy, while region as a whole would have to do that.
The regional aspect from SC4 is the thing I would most like to see. (The thing I would most like NOT to see is that God-awful garbage and corpse system continue.) Honestly, though, this is the most fun I’ve had with a builder since SC4.
I would love to see a SimCounty type game where I can create regional transportation systems. I want to create highways and freeways connecting and/or bypassing cities that grow and shrink kind of like cities would do in the original Railroad Tycoon. But I digress.
I bought it and so far I like it. I’m playing my first go through with Unlimited Money to get a feel for how the systems work.
Right now, my biggest challenge is figuring out how the damn bus routes work.
I found the mod that auto colors (in different colors per route) bus (and subway) routes a must have for that eventually. IIRC it or another also lets you hide route display on demand, which also became a QoL issue with my first hubs/transfer points. Just try grabbing the right little stop circle out of four stacked on top of each other!
Oh geez this is pretty good. Led to one of those literal QT3 moments. Good thing its thunderstorming today so doing anything was out of the question.
Though the road snapping system is somewhat finicky in some places, where its finicky at least makes sense. Unfortunate when you spend a bunch of time bulldozing stuff and still can’t get things to work.
Road upgrades are somewhat of a pain in the ass too.
Also…not feeling the love for roundabouts. The two times I replaced a high traffic intersection with them, they actually made traffic worse.
I’m a bit surprised at the lack of posts about this game, especially with the steams sale, etc. Did the love for this game evaporate, or has simply everything to be said about it been said?
It managed to get ~1000 posts before the sale. Perhaps everyone has simply played it already ;)
(Although I was joking, maybe both your and my post are something similar to the truth? I can’t see threads for AAA giants like GTA V or Skyrim etc popping back up just because there was a sale on, because a lot of people bought it at the time. I’ve yet to ever play either, and if I bought it on a sale I’d probably give the threads a quick read first and find nothing to say afterwards)
Led to one of those literal QT3 moments.
Ohhhhhhhhh…
In my opinion the game makes a good impression, but then you realize that it is pretty shallow (except for traffic). I’ve mentioned before that I think the game is good for people who like laying out cities as an expression of creativity, but as a strategy game it is pretty light.
^ Pretty much this. I’m not surprised traffic is the main focus, given the developer’s prior “Cities in Motion” titles, but I’m a bit surprised it seems to be the ONLY thing with any real depth to it. I was even more surprised that while dealing with roads and traffic and transit were the primary things I enjoyed in prior Sim City games, Skylines got boring rather quickly.
Actually, Skyrim was exactly what I was thinking of. It pops up all the time because of the mods available, and Skylines is hugely moddable too. But… I apparently had missed earlier posts from this page which were echoed by robc and Volsky. That pretty much answers it.
I thought they’d do a much job supporting it than they are. At this point it feels up to mods to make the game more about gameplay (heh).
I really liked the game, but I feel burned out. It’s definitely the best builder since SC4 (for me, anyway), but there seems something sterile about it. I really liked the interactions between your regional cities in SC4 and the way you could (at least in theory) mKe different cities focus on different things. (Like a regional garbage center.) It didn’t work perfectly, but it seemed more fun.
I also cannot stand the corpse and garbage systems in Skylines. For that matter, I don’t understand why industrial zones need hospital coverage to level up. I love, love, love laying out roads, but I would like something more dynamic to go with it.
I guess I feel I’ve gotten good value from the game, but it’s not a classic like SC4. (Actually that game–for me–didn’t reach that status until the Rush Hour expansion was released.)
The problem with Cities: Skylines is that there’s no gameplay incentive to play a second city. Once you’ve played one city, you’ve seen everything it has to offer. Frankly, that’s a terrible way to make a city builder.
-Tom
Patch 1.1b is live
30 new “growable” buildings and tunnels for pedestrian paths.
It is a great game for 30 hours and I’m happy with the purchase, but I agree there’s not great strategic depth. For one there’s just too much money (default should have been 50% if what it is).
It’s funny because I feel they are so close in a few areas that they could do add-ins or DLC to add strategy: power generation, crime, public services etc.
Then again maybe it’s a casual game and we are all complaining as simmers from the wrong perspective.
Also I opened the San Andreas map and it looked like it might have a few challenges but I never played it through.
Few Paradox games have as much potential for expanding gameplay through DLCs though. I’m actually a bit puzzled they haven’t even indicated any future expansion plans at all.
I really like it but it’s not a competitive game. It’s a model city simulator, and for that, it’s fantastic, almost perfect really.