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This 'SimCity 4' Region With 107 Million People Took Eight Months of Planning

Posted by Soulskill on from the go-big-or-go-home dept.

Jason Koebler writes: Peter Richie spent eight months planning and building a megacity in vanilla SimCity 4, and the end result is mind-boggling: 107.7 million people living in one massive, sprawling region (video). "Traffic is a nightmare, both above ground and under," Richie said. "The massive amount of subway lines and subway stations are still congested during all times of the day in all neighborhoods of each and every mega-city in the region. The roadways are clogged at all times, but people still persist in trying to use them."

18 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. And, worst of alll.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    The rent's too damn high. He built the city, but some of us are forced to live in it.

    1. Re:And, worst of alll.. by mrbester · · Score: 2

      Complete with troopers. You don't want to fall in love with one of them...

      --
      "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
  2. Mega City One by Majestix · · Score: 5, Funny

    All we need now are Street Judges!

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    --- I was far from home, and the spell of the Eastern sea was upon me. -Lovecraft-
  3. I'm recreating Detroit in my SimCity by NotDrWho · · Score: 4, Funny

    Just need more corruption and less jobs.

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
    1. Re:I'm recreating Detroit in my SimCity by RabidTimmy · · Score: 2

      I thought SimCity was about building cities, not demolishing them.

    2. Re:I'm recreating Detroit in my SimCity by tompaulco · · Score: 2

      I never used disasters in my cities if I could turn it off. Fires and whatnot are disaster enough. I never had any urge to destroy what I had made. I especially hate the unrealistic disasters. Come on, giant monster? Alien attack?

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      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
  4. simcity 4 is best simcity by steak · · Score: 2

    too bad it is over 10 years old at this point.

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    lose != loose
    1. Re:simcity 4 is best simcity by newcastlejon · · Score: 2

      Virtual Rome wasn't built in a day, you now.

      --
      If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
    2. Re:simcity 4 is best simcity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      SC4 was the last "real" SimCity before EA started completely raping the franchise. (They only raped SC4 a little.)

      The region mechanic was a completely game-able loophole. It needed quite a bit of work, TBH.

      Go to small city area, fill with landfills and a road. Go to neighboring large city area, build a beautiful, trash-free city. Never re-load the original or even think about it again lest it update its region stats and go bankrupt while poisoning the entire universe. Repeat with anything that is undesirable in any way (read: generates pollution and doesn't grow).

      Is there a fire in your industrial district? Let it burn. Nothing of consequence will catch fire, since it's in a separate city from anything you actually care about. They'll rebuild anyway, and fire stations cost money. So does water. To hell with both. Keep that nice stuff for the residential and commercial areas.

      God, SC4 was so much fun. I wonder if I can get it working on my 64-bit Win7 box. Last I checked, it had some problems with that.

      I just keep waiting for someone to make a new SimCity that isn't fucked over by Origin. (No, CitiesXL is shit and doesn't count.) I'll be waiting a while.

    3. Re:simcity 4 is best simcity by maliqua · · Score: 2

      incorrect, best was simcity 2000

    4. Re:simcity 4 is best simcity by r_pattonII · · Score: 2

      SimCity2000 I would also agree was the best. Playing that game on My AST Adventure Advantage! 6066d (MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11) was so much fun. I put alot of time and effort in building those cities. Putting all those water pipes was a chore! It was a great game and it sure brings back alot of memories. Remember, if you will, we also had Microsoft Flight Simulator 5.1 on floppy disks that also came out! Great times and great games!

  5. Did it... by Arkh89 · · Score: 2

    Did it also crashed 107 million times while simulating this city?

  6. Re:Los Angeles by weav · · Score: 2

    So, it's Los Angeles?

    Kinda sounds more like Tokyo. You are in a maze of twisty little subway lines, all different.

  7. Article Thumbs Down by jbmartin6 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This article is all about speculations on our megacity future, I was more interested in how he got the city that big.

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    This posting is provided 'AS IS' without warranty of any kind, implied or otherwise.
    1. Re:Article Thumbs Down by gargalatas · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Obviously in a site like this that matters the most :)

  8. Grid city by LoRdTAW · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Building using a grid layout never changes. Back when I first played sim city on the Super Nintendo, the strategy to build megalopolis (population 500k+) was building on a grid. You build using 3x3 clusters of R, C or I but left the center of the 3x3 open. Instead you put special buildings and police/fire buildings in the center of the 3x3. To reduce pollution you built rail instead of roads. Fun game for its time and a friend and I came close to a megalopolis on stock maps without beating the scenarios, alien invasion and getting the water free map. I think we had 480-490k people.

    1. Re:Grid city by tompaulco · · Score: 3, Informative

      In SC5, the traffic algorithm is so broken that a grid layout will leave you awash in traffic jams. The most efficient layout in SC5 is a snake pattern with one end being the (single) connection to the region.

      --
      If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
  9. Re: Detroit: Don't think you can do in a day... by kwbauer · · Score: 2

    No, he was wondering why you are suggesting that people stick around to get slowly bled to death instead of taking their stuff to a more welcoming environment and doing more with it.