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How Cities: Skylines Beat SimCity At Its Own Game

Posted by Soulskill on from the treat-your-modders-well-and-they-will-treat-you-well dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Maxis, the studio behind SimCity, was shuttered earlier this year. Fortunately, another studio has taken up its mantle. The small team at Colossal Order has already won acclaim for city-builder game Cities: Skylines (and sold millions), earning a great reputation with the modding community by avoiding all the mistakes the last SimCity release made, such as enforced online/multiplayer. A new behind the scenes feature looks at how the game came about — it was not a response to SimCity, surprisingly — as well as what's next from the studio.

"We are planning to start another game project sometime soon," says Colossal CEO Mariina Hallikainen. "We definitely want to focus on old-school simulator games and definitely PC. PC, Mac and Linux, those are our 'thing.' But I think we're maybe going to do something a little bit different."

86 comments

  1. Heh by Greyfox · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They could just work their way through the EA game archive making each one not suck in exactly the way that EA made each one of them suck. Five years later, one of the two companies would still be alive...

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    1. Re:Heh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      They could just work their way through the EA game archive making each one not suck in exactly the way that EA made each one of them suck. Five years later, one of the two companies would still be alive...

      Sadly, that would be EA still alive. I don't understand it either, but that's how it would unfold.

    2. Re:Heh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      That's Satan for ya.

    3. Re:Heh by Greyfox · · Score: 3, Funny

      They usually just buy the up-and-coming company and turn it into shit with their Midas poo-touch.

      --

      I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

    4. Re:Heh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Bullfrog games are going through that atm. We had a Dungeon Keeper successor released recently (but it was EA bad), a Theme Park successor in the works and I've been working on a Theme Hospital spiritual successor for 6 months now. No word on a Magic Carpet game yet.

    5. Re:Heh by Darinbob · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think a major flaw with Maxis is that they thought they had a must-buy title. As in Too Big To Fail. If a company thinks they can do anything, then they'll do things to screw with customers without them leaving. Ie, start to "monetize" things more. Horse armor, no one can bitch about that can they?

      Thing is, it sort of works for awhile. There is a class of game buyers who just don't care. If the game is new they will buy it. Three months later they're on to something else and don't care about how they got screwed, and the price doesn't matter since they probably snuck the card of of mom's purse. Or they're the idiot on the forums who says "dude, lighten up, it's only the cost of 4 family size pizzas".

    6. Re:Heh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They're like the anti-king midas. Everything they touch turns to shit.

    7. Re:Heh by weilawei · · Score: 1

      At least EA is sure to be eating their own dog food then. ;)

    8. Re:Heh by Zaiff+Urgulbunger · · Score: 1

      their Midas poo-touch

      If I had the points, I would sooo mod you up for that! I'm still giggling - thanks! :D

  2. EA by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Sounds like EA has a new buyout target.

    In fact 'EA' is the only thing that really needs to be said here, that's why Sim City failed.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:EA by master_kaos · · Score: 2

      There was an AMA (ask my anything) on reddit a couple days ago from the devs of city skylines, and someone asked this very question

        "What would you do if EA tried to buy you?"
      They responded with "Something like this".

    2. Re:EA by jez9999 · · Score: 1

      Is there actually a way for US businesses to prevent themselves from hostile takeover? Like, can they be "private limited companies" and just refuse to merge? If so, I think these guys should tell EA to fuck off, on principle.

      --
      == Jez ==
      Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
    3. Re:EA by TWX · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Heh. I guess it's been a long time since I played SimCity titles regularly. I kind of gave up when The Sims came out and went in a completely different direction than the city-building games had gone. Thought about playing Streets of SimCity, but between the original overhead-view Grand Theft Auto and the first-person Carmageddon II and Monster Truck Madness on the PC plus Twisted Metal on the Playstation I didn't really feel a need to get into even more games. I didn't even know that EA bought-out Maxis.

      Was there really any improvement in the SimCity titles after SimCity 2000? That was probably the last one I played regularly. It seemed, at the time, to be perfect. One could control the terrain, within reason, the under-terrain infrastructure, the water table, and obviously the roads and zoning. What else did a city simulator need?

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    4. Re:EA by phantomfive · · Score: 4, Informative

      Is there actually a way for US businesses to prevent themselves from hostile takeover?

      Yes, the only reason hostile takeovers work is when the management doesn't own the company because they've sold the company through public stock. Then someone can buy all the stock (or, a controlling share) and they own the company.

      In the case of Paradox Entertainment, the stock is not publicly traded, and the CEO owns a controlling share (of the private stock).

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    5. Re:EA by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      I know I've seen that scene before, but I can't remember which movie it was.

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    6. Re:EA by master_kaos · · Score: 1

      face/off

    7. Re:EA by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      Thank you.

      --
      Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
    8. Re:EA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think SC4 was a very nice evolution of SC2K. The mods were amazing - you could customize your streets, create a custom region, it allowed some amazing creativity and construction that just wasn't there in 2K. Then SC5 was a gigantic slap in the face to those of us who loved SC4 and were eagerly awaiting the next iteration. Personally I never got into the popular games like GTA and the like ... Colossal Order is definitely my hero for delivering such an amazing modernized but city builder that everyone *actually* wanted.

    9. Re:EA by NicBenjamin · · Score: 1

      I liked SC4 more then 2K. I never really could master 2K because I never figured out how to get subway tracks laid underground right. I mostly mastered getting pipes underground, but one subway track would never align with the next, and god help the poor Sim who thought the station was actually connected to either line. IIRC there was also a weird shortcut they took with water pressure. Your water pressure wouldn't be calculated from where you actually built your water towers, it would be calculated from the center of the map. Which worked fine most of the time, but if you had a big city in the middle of the map, and a satellite city down by the waterfront, you'd need to really overbuild your water department or the water would never get from the center of the map to your satellite city.

      In 4 I really liked that you could build up a an entire region into a megacity. You build up a city, have it produce lots of extra power, then your next city doesn't have to build a power plant with it's initial budget because it can buy from the original city.

    10. Re:EA by Mashiki · · Score: 3, Informative

      Paradox Entertainment is the publisher for the game. Colossal Order is the owner of the title, and the one who developed it. Colossal Order is also a private company, but the rest of your point stands.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    11. Re:EA by phantomfive · · Score: 1

      thx

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    12. Re:EA by schnell · · Score: 2

      Is there actually a way for US businesses to prevent themselves from hostile takeover? Like, can they be "private limited companies" and just refuse to merge?

      Oh yes indeed - it all depends on what type of company it is. I am oversimplifying here, but there are (at least in the US four (and a half) types of companies based on ownership structure:

      • Sole proprietorship : There is a dude named Bob Smith (BS) who owns Bob Smith Plumbing (BSP). BS and BSP are separate entities for tax purposes, but BS can do whatever the f**k he wants to with BSP - sell it, keep it, use its finances to expense hookers. The downside to Bob is that if BSP goes bankrupt, there is no barrier for creditors not to go after Bob personally.
      • Partnership or Limited Liability Partnership: There is a group of people who own Bob Smith Plumbing, which may include Bob Smith, a rich uncle who gave him the money to finance his startup costs, whatever. The partners who own shares in it control 100% of what the company does, and nobody can force them to do anything they don't want to. But if things go tits-up the partners who aren't involved in day-to-day operation of the business (e.g. Bob's uncle) may be shielded from some bankruptcy or lawsuit claims while those who ran the business daily (e.g. Bob) are not.
      • Corporation (private) : Here it gets interesting. Bob Smith Plumbing, Inc. is now legally separate from Bob or any of the owners - i.e., if BSP Inc. goes bankrupt, creditors can't come after Bob or the other owners. (In return for this legal separate personhood of the company, BSP Inc. must have independent board members, file quarterly reports and go through other legal oversight to prove that Bob isn't treating the corporation like a personal asset; if the books show that, creditors can "pierce the corporate veil" and hold Bob or the other shareholders personally liable.) Still, the owners are the owners and nobody can make them sell, not sell, or do anything else they don't want to. However, a large private corporation usually has a LOT of owners - founders, Venture Capitalists, etc. - and they all get to make big decisions based on the % of shares they own. If you get a buyout offer from $MEGACORP and the founders and employees (who own 49% of the shares) don't want to but the VCs (who own 51% of the shares) do, then you get bought out.
      • Corporation (public): Same as above, but you are no longer owned just by founders, employees, VCs, etc.; you have started selling your shares to anyone who wants to buy (ranging from jackasses like you or me with E*Trade accounts to hedge funds and institutional investors). Going public is a goal for most companies because it converts your shares of the company into actual, you know, money (think turning potential energy into kinetic energy). But going public means that (as above) not only does your company have to follow the will of the Board (as elected by shareholders based on their % of shares held) but you also are subject to lawsuits from those shareholders (or criminal prosecution by the FTC) if you run the company in a way (e.g. turn down a lucrative buyout offer) that is deliberately against the monetary interest of shareholders. On a side note, public corporations can create ways to avoid hostile takeovers like Poison Pill plans, too... but if more than 50% of shareholders don't like your way of running the company, you are out.

      I say "four and a half" (despite there being other business entity forms) because the last "half" is a company that's in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Long story short, once you file, the previous owners of the company don't own s**t. The US go

      --
      "95% of all Slashdot .sig quotes are incorrect or completely fabricated." -Benjamin Franklin
    13. Re:EA by afidel · · Score: 2

      Public companies can also have a mechanism to halt a hostile takeover, it's called a poison pill. Generally it involves some kind of massive payoff to the current staff, but it can also be the automatic issuance of new stock which dilutes the holdings of the company attempting to do the acquisition. The first known use of the latter technique that I'm aware of was the Westinghouse corporation which issued massive amounts of stock when JP Morgan tried to take them over, ultimately providing them with enough money to complete the Niagara power station project.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    14. Re:EA by sound+vision · · Score: 1

      SimCity 3000 and especially SimCity 4 were great evolutions of the preceding games. (Not failed revolutions like online-Sim-City from a few years ago.) 3000 came out in 1999 I believe, and SC4 was in 2003. From there, it was a 10 year gap until the next game, which is online-Sim-City.

    15. Re:EA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Is there actually a way for US businesses to prevent themselves from hostile takeover?

      Minor nitpick here is that the publisher is Swedish and the developers are Finnish so what is true for US businesses isn't necessarily relevant in this case.

    16. Re: EA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually one of the first times this move was attempted was when the Erie Railroad went into their basement and just started printing shares non stop to keep the New York Central Railroad from taking control. The CEO Cornelius Vanderbilt lost about 7 million dollars in 1867. All because he wanted to create an empire and dominate everything

    17. Re:EA by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Simcity 4 is dramatically nicer to use than any earlier version of simcity. Also, it's meant to be extensible and there's loads of expansion content available from the community, which is cool. It also ties cities together more meaningfully than earlier versions. Otherwise, yeah, not much difference. Now the down sides, it's unreliable as hell and you have to dick around with command line options just to get it not to crash.

      Even without the shitfest that was Simcity V, it was time for someone else to shake up the genre.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  3. modern gameplay renaissance? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    We had the Great Gaming Dark Ages from the early 2000's until recently, during which games mostly turned to shit, delivering little more than reskinned dumbed down pulp for the masses.

    But now, it seems like there's a renaissance of good games trying to bring back actual gameplay. Will this succeed in the face of the studio execs who want to dumb everything down for the masses? I don't know, but it sure is nice to see some smaller studios trying. I'm sick of the handholdy pulp that's been coming out of the AAA studios.

    1. Re:modern gameplay renaissance? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

      Whooooa! Better watch out, guys. We got a badass here!

    2. Re:modern gameplay renaissance? by Travis+Mansbridge · · Score: 2

      It's not necessarily a dark age, you just have to look below the surface for the really interesting games. What we experienced in the PS2+ era were giant game studios failing to learn the lesson that adding more money and more people to a project doesn't make it better (unless you know how to scale a game properly like Rockstar or Bethesda), a lesson EA still hasn't figured out.

    3. Re:modern gameplay renaissance? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Was about to say, this person's obviously a point and click adventure type given the "dark age" gap indicated

      otherwise forget all that innovation and radical development we had in the last decade and a half

    4. Re:modern gameplay renaissance? by Adriax · · Score: 1

      But adding more people and more money does let them churn out sequels like kleenex. All they had to do was get the bare essentials down to hook the newly opened "Bro" market and they can sell yearly rehashes with record profits.

      EA is the mcdonalds of the gaming industry. Poor quality and no one with any self respect would admit to liking them. But every once in awhile you end up going there to satisfy a craving.

      So yeah, not really a Dark age but more of a Fast Food age.

      --
      I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
    5. Re:modern gameplay renaissance? by TWX · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You know, as much as I liked titles that came out in the later video-acceleration era with advanced music and sound effects, there's still nothing quite like that first level of DOS-based DOOM with the overdriven guitar coming out of an FM-synth midi chip on a Soundblaster 16, with the monsters roaring and the lights flickering.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    6. Re:modern gameplay renaissance? by TWX · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't have minded sequels with the same game engines and basic gameplay or even recompilations for newer technology and OSes depending on the cost of those titles. Some games just worked really, really well. I really liked the original Quake, much more than Quake ][ or Quake ]|[ with their revised gameplay and different engines. I really like Warcraft II and was disappointed when an overhead-style Warcraft III wasn't released while I was still into gaming, or that Warcraft II wasn't released in a Windows format that could take advantage of high resolution screens to show more of the battlefield at a time.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    7. Re:modern gameplay renaissance? by lgw · · Score: 1

      I wonder what Bliz is smoking when it comes to WC and WC2 - I'd certainly pay $10 for a Windows copy, and it's not like they'd need to port it themselves, just license to GOG - free money!

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    8. Re:modern gameplay renaissance? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I liked the door opening sound

    9. Re: modern gameplay renaissance? by lazybeam · · Score: 1

      I have E1M1 as my ring tone. Some people get it, most don't.

      --
      --
      no sig for you. come back one year.
    10. Re:modern gameplay renaissance? by Khyber · · Score: 1

      Download Zandronum. Install. Load up Doomseeker. Point it to the Zandronum executable in the config menu. Point it to your Doom and Doom 2 WAD files in another option to the left of that menu. Set your server filter to cooperative and invasion and Deathmatch servers. Enjoy some of the newest and most awesome mods for doom to come out. Brutal Doom, Shotgun Frenzy, Master of Puppets, Complex Doom, Bosses From Hell, Samsara, Survivalism, Stronghold, RGA, it's a fucking dream.

      Don't forget to use the OpenGL rendering so you can mouselook straight up and down. You can set that inside the game, but requires a restart.

      --
      Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    11. Re:modern gameplay renaissance? by antdude · · Score: 1

      Ew, FM MIDI. After getting a WaveBlaster (yeah, not a great MIDI card) daughter card my SB16 ISA, it was better! I forget which soundcard had the best MIDI for DOOM. Was it Roland, GUS, or something?

      --
      Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
    12. Re:modern gameplay renaissance? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'd buy.

    13. Re:modern gameplay renaissance? by ArylAkamov · · Score: 1

      Hell yes, I've still got an older desktop running windows 95 just to play the older games. Doom has always been my favorite, the music was the best there was at the time (Even though it was all just synth ripoffs of sound garden, slayer, stone temple pilots, Alice in chains, ac/dc, panetra, etc.

  4. To be honest, by SpannerX · · Score: 1

    Shit on a plate would have been better than the latest Sim City, so it really wasn't all that hard to beat it.

    1. Re:To be honest, by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      Damn if that wasn't true. I'm glad I got the entire thing on sale, but it was a pathetically small game with very limited development area compared to skylines, which is well pretty damned awesome.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
  5. Linux Support Was Why I Bought Skylines by Maltheus · · Score: 4, Informative

    If they keep up the linux support, I'll definitely check out their new games. Skylines could have used a bit more content, but it was worth it for the price.

    1. Re:Linux Support Was Why I Bought Skylines by LazyBoot · · Score: 1

      Didn't they update it just this week?

    2. Re:Linux Support Was Why I Bought Skylines by NicBenjamin · · Score: 1

      The publisher (Paradox Interactive) has quite a few LINUX Games in their library. Their first hit was Europa Universalis in 2000, so they've been around awhile. The developer is a much smaller, newer company called Colossal Order. Paradox is Swedish, Colossal Order are Finns.

      So check out their LINUX games. Mostly they're Paradox's classic grand strategy game, but Colossal Order also has a couple transit system sims, and some fantasy stuff too.

  6. cue lawyers in... five.. four.. by Lead+Butthead · · Score: 1

    EA is such a behemoth that despite lack of merit, they can have the case tied up in court for years and bankrupt the little guy...

    --
    ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
  7. SimCity Cities: Skylines by Maeric · · Score: 1

    I actually enjoyed SimCity more than Cities: Skylines. SimCity had much more polish than Cities: Skylines. I admit that if Cities: Skylines had as much development as SimCity it might have been a more refined product with higher production values and more polish. The lack of tutorial and polish meant for me that SimCity was much more enjoyable. My 12 year old son thought the same. Saying that he couldn't figure out many of the Cities: Skylines "rules" which was all very straightforward in SimCity.

  8. How to prevent hostile takeover... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yes, there is a system called Poison Pill, also known as "Shareholder Rights Plan".

  9. Re:Let's not forget Cities XXL. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Different Company. That was Monte Cristo, not Colossal Order.

  10. EA never understood the SimCity Market... by NicBenjamin · · Score: 2

    I loved SimCity. I have never played a multiplayer game in my life unless forced to do so by the game's design.

    What I want in a City sim (or almost any other game) is a detailed simulated single-player game. Note "game." I do not want a campaign, objectives (my least favorite thing about Railroad Tycoon II and 3 was that it took me a good 20-30 minutes to figure out how to just play the damn game without any fucking objectives), or even scoring. This is my simulated world Mr. game-runner, I want to pick a somewhat ridiculous objective and achieve it without the pressure of being told I suck because you idiots didn't figure out a way to score my ridiculous ambition.

    I do not want a real challenge, because if it was a real fucking challenge I'd be too busy fighting to survive to achieve my ridiculous objective. I do not want to need to be online, because the time I will most want to play your game is when my internet goes out. Since half the point of having my own fucking world is that I don't have to deal with everyone else, I really truly hate the idea of mandatory multiplayer in principle.

    Thus the games I have actually enjoyed in the past decade are so are all either a) Paradox games because Paradox still does this kind of thing (note: Paradox is the publisher of Cities), b) sequels to very old series which still keep to the model (ie: I loved Tropico, Civ, Railroad Tycoon, and Simcity 4), or c) extremely unusual Indy games. The last game I really got into was Dwarf Fortress.

    1. Re:EA never understood the SimCity Market... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If I may point out Rimworld, it's pretty much DF, but with nicer graphics

    2. Re:EA never understood the SimCity Market... by NicBenjamin · · Score: 3, Informative

      If I may point out Rimworld, it's pretty much DF, but with nicer graphics

      Seems less detailed.

      One of the charms of Dwarf Fortress is that it's clearly written by someone who is clearly an Aspie, and is thus ridiculously detailed. For example, your dwarfs have to wear socks. Each sock is tracked by the game. Each sock wears out. They replace them as needed with the most expensive sock available, and there are multiple ways to make a sock more valuable (ie: more expensive cloth, dying, decorations, better weaving, etc.). So if you get besieged by goblins who like red socks, you'd better make sure all the doors are locked before you start letting the militia shoot the siege, because if Urist McSuicidal realizes there's a red sock on the map whose owner is dead he'll sprint into the middle of the siege in an attempt to claim it first.

      Another of it's charms is actually the ASCII graphics.

    3. Re:EA never understood the SimCity Market... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tons of SimCity fans wanted multiplayer. You realiy don't speak for the entire fanbase.

    4. Re:EA never understood the SimCity Market... by sound+vision · · Score: 1

      "Past decade"... SimCity 4 was 12 years ago bruh!

    5. Re:EA never understood the SimCity Market... by NicBenjamin · · Score: 1

      So you spend $50 on a game and stop playing it after two years?

      What, precisely, is wrong with you?

    6. Re:EA never understood the SimCity Market... by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      I do not want a real challenge, because if it was a real fucking challenge I'd be too busy fighting to survive to achieve my ridiculous objective.

      I love this sentence so much, I want to slap every hardcore gamer across the face with it from now until eternity. Perhaps I could print it upon a trout.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    7. Re:EA never understood the SimCity Market... by NicBenjamin · · Score: 1

      It sounds ridiculous but it's so true.

      In Dwarf Fortress You could not build a 20-level tower of pure glass, big enough to have rooms for the King, his entire Court, and a dozen or three or so favored dwarves, while exiling the peasantry to an impoverished existence deep in the caverns, if the game was actually hard. As long as you've got a water source, a couple farms, and walls high enough that zombies/goblins have trouble climbing them you can build whatever you want as long as you want. If the game tried to stop you by throwing things at you to increase the difficulty level it would be a much different game, and I would fucking hate it.

      If SimCity was as difficult as real life is for my hometown (Detroit) it would be absolutely no fun and nobody would ever play it.

  11. It's simple by kuzb · · Score: 4, Informative

    Skylines did so well because it focused specifically on player experience and fun rather than methods to maximize how much they can siphon out of your wallet. If you don't own it yet, but like city builders, you're missing out.

    --
    BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
  12. Re:SimCity Cities: Skylines by kuzb · · Score: 1

    It all goes by the wayside if your first experience with a game is crashing servers. Skylines didn't have that problem - even if some of it was a bit cryptic it got straight to the fun.

    --
    BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
  13. Played for a few hours and got bored by chad_r · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I played Cities: Skylines for a while. Some parts are cool, like setting transit routes, setting different policies for neighborhoods, or controlling downstream pollution. But it wasn't fun in the long-term, because:

    1. 1) It's not challenging. Once you make it past about 10,000 people you rake in more money than you know what to do with
    2. 2) City development isn't realistic. Real cities of 20,000 people don't have a network of subways and high-rise neighborhoods. Unlike real cities, sprawling cul-de-sacs are low-value because they tend to be farther from police and fire service.
    3. 3) Grade schools and high schools aren't optional in real life. In Skylines, Putting in a grade school and high school raises the education level of citizens, which means they are too overqualified for industrial work. So industry basically only desires employees who didn't graduate from grade school??
    4. 4) People are dumb with respect to jobs. A group of university graduates will travel to the next town to do uneducated farm labor, and it makes the farm sad but apparently the employees are fine with it

    I'm glad there is competition and innovation in the simulation realm, but I didn't have the free time to play Skylines a lot.

    1. Re:Played for a few hours and got bored by BenJeremy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well, you can always grab some of the 40,000 mods they have for the game to make it more difficult or more fun.

      It's a sandbox game with tons of mods. At this point, you can make the game pretty much any experience you want, by either using other people's mods (as simple as clicking a button in Steam) or creating your own.

      That's kind of the point of the article.

    2. Re:Played for a few hours and got bored by NicBenjamin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      1) You might be surprised. IRL if you're a growing region it's very hard for a city to go bankrupt. IRL Detroit has been in a bad region, dominated by a shrinking industry, and overseen by a state which would rather it went away, since roughly 1970. And we managed to not go bankrupt until very recently.

      2) IRL it's very complex to value sprawling cul de sacs of suburban development. When first built they're great because the people who live there are the kind of people who almost never need the government, and have a fairly good income. If they weren't both they wouldn't be able to afford to buy into a suburb. This means a miniscule tax rate is enough to run the city. Then life happens, and 50 years later you've got houses designed to standards nobody wants, owned by people who were too poor to move out, which means that a) they need lots of government services, and b) they can't pay for those services with the miniscule tax rate, leading to c) the City Manager scrambling around to save the city while the long-time residents are convinced that it's still an upper-income enclave. Quite a few very smart people have pointed out that it's much easier to build new suburbs then build a new Brooklyn because of the way the Feds give out grants..

      But in a world where you don't have the Feds actively subsidizing suburban growth, and region is growing (aka: a world where the game is fun), then having a core of apartment buildings surrounded by no development makes sense because it cost as lot less per unit to build/maintain a small apartment building then a suburban neighborhood.

      3) This is a game. IRL in the US most cities have no control over their schools whatsoever because those are run by an independent school board. That would be no fun. So is forcing the player to plan an expensive education system from the beginning. Which is why no version of SimCity would require you get the entire City within the radius of a High School zone before you could build industrial zones.

      4) Again, this is a game. It's no fun if you can't get started building pretty quickly, which means that educated migrants are necessary.

      Now if you want a more realistic (ie: much harder) game you can mod it. But unless you mod in some pretty nasty ethnic dynamics you;re never going to make it as hard as real life is for cities like Detroit.

    3. Re:Played for a few hours and got bored by Dan+East · · Score: 0

      Say "IRL" just one more time. I dare you.

      --
      Better known as 318230.
    4. Re:Played for a few hours and got bored by gaspyy · · Score: 1

      I agree on the challenging part, but I think there's an "increased difficulty" official mod. I haven't tried it.

      As for city development, the cities are relatively small because they effectively simulate every single citizen. No cheating. This is why even a high-rise building will have just 10 inhabitants. I think it's a more honest approach than artificially multiplying everything by 100 as Sim City was doing.

      I agree with overqualifications, that area needs tweaking. I always had problems even with industrial zones as there weren't enough people willing to work there.

    5. Re:Played for a few hours and got bored by CptJeanLuc · · Score: 1

      Whether the game is challenging depends on what you consider a challenge. Even though money becomes less of a problem, I found that designing effective road and public transportation infrastructure is indeed quite challenging. Not just making it work, but making it work well.

      I wouldn't get too caught up in how the game deals with certain numbers of citizens, rather think of it as a micro-simulation which is scaled down compared to the real thing. E.g. 10,000 Cities-people equals 100,000 RL-people or some other multiplier.

      I had great fun with the game for several hours, what made me stop playing was after a while it started to feel more like work than playing a game. But glad I bought the game and tried it out,

    6. Re:Played for a few hours and got bored by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It is indeed true that it is fairly easy to rake in money in Cities: Skylines. What you may not realize is that the main challenges are not so much in making money, but rather in dealing with the problems caused by a large population.

      By far the biggest problem is traffic. It is quite difficult to design your city layout and road system in an efficient way that minimizes traffic jams and gridlock. In that sense the game is secretly more a game about transport network optimization than about anything else, and reminds me more of Open Transport Tycoon than of the latest Simcity.

      I consider this a good thing.

    7. Re:Played for a few hours and got bored by NicBenjamin · · Score: 2

      No.

    8. Re:Played for a few hours and got bored by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People are dumb with respect to jobs. A group of university graduates will travel to the next town to do uneducated farm labor, and it makes the farm sad but apparently the employees are fine with it

      SimEnglish-majors have to find some way to find their virtual selves too.

    9. Re:Played for a few hours and got bored by mrchaotica · · Score: 1

      2) IRL it's very complex to value sprawling cul de sacs of suburban development. When first built they're great because the people who live there are the kind of people who almost never need the government, and have a fairly good income. If they weren't both they wouldn't be able to afford to buy into a suburb. This means a miniscule tax rate is enough to run the city. Then life happens, and 50 years later you've got houses designed to standards nobody wants, owned by people who were too poor to move out, which means that a) they need lots of government services, and b) they can't pay for those services with the miniscule tax rate, leading to c) the City Manager scrambling around to save the city while the long-time residents are convinced that it's still an upper-income enclave. Quite a few very smart people have pointed out that it's much easier to build new suburbs then build a new Brooklyn because of the way the Feds give out grants.

      You missed out on (arguably) the most important factor, which is that suburban sprawl is a gigantic pyramid scheme.

      When a developer builds a new subdivision, he not only pays to construct the infrastructure for it, but also spends a bunch of money on building permits and (theoretically) impact fees, which go into the city's coffers. (I say "theoretically" because some particularly short-sighted, pro-development cities might undercharge on the impact fees.)

      Those fees are supposed to go towards maintaining and upgrading the rest of the city's infrastructure to pay for the development's impact, but they don't. Instead they get used to balance the budget this year. In a couple of decades when that subdivision's infrastructure needs to be repaired or replaced, where does the money come from? If the city is lucky, it comes from the impact fees of whatever new neighborhood is being built then. If not, then the city is screwed.

      The growth of the suburbs really exploded around WWII, so we're just now really starting to see the consequences of Ponzi development. If you think older, inner-ring suburbs are in a bad state now (except for the ones that managed to gentrify, and have all those mid-century ranches torn out and replaced with McMansions), just wait. It'll get worse before it gets better.

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    10. Re:Played for a few hours and got bored by RavenLrD20k · · Score: 1

      IRL! IRL! IRL!

      irl: "It's Showtime!"

  14. Re:SimCity Cities: Skylines by MacTO · · Score: 1

    I enjoyed SimCity 4 more than Skylines, but I'll take Skylines for what it is because SimCity 4 did not age well. It's difficult to get running on modern hardware, and it is full of quirks if you do get it running.

    As for the latest iteration of SimCity, no thank-you. It may be a good game, but it wasn't designed with people like me in mind.

  15. Re:Is this 2 guys in their moms basement? by BenJeremy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm guessing AC has never even glanced at this game, or is basing it on his experiences with Cities XL, an entirely different franchise by an entirely different company that has absolutely no connection with Skylines?

    Cities:Skylines is a successor to Cities In Motion, though the developers seem to have listened to users and greatly improved everything they could. Right now, it's rated at 96% thumbs up, with over 10,000 positive reviews.

    I don't think anybody in their right mind could say Cities:Skylines "sucks"

    Cities XXL, on the other hand, the latest chapter of Cities XL that just came out in February, doesn't seem to be getting a very receptive review (though it still might be better than EA/Maxis' Sim City)

  16. Don't forget the myth, the legend, the Magnasanti! by Cito · · Score: 1

    Magnasanti 6 million residents, life span is only 50 years. A harsh existence:

    Quote:
    "The ironic thing about it is the sims in Magnasanti tolerate it. They don't rebel, or cause revolutions and social chaos. No one considers challenging the system by physical means since a hyper-efficient police state keeps them in line. They have all been successfully dumbed down, sickened with poor health, enslaved and mind-controlled just enough to keep this system going for thousands of years. 50,000 years to be exact. They are all imprisoned in space and time."

    Interview with the creator of the perfect simcity Magnasanti.

    http://www.vice.com/read/the-t...

    Video of Magnasanti:

    https://youtu.be/NTJQTc-TqpU

  17. Educated cities use offices, not industry! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Educated workers work in office buildings instead of industrial jobs. If you want to boost land values by having schools, you have to replace your industrial zones with office zones, or everyone will be overqualified for their jobs.

    As a bonus, this reduces truck traffic and pollution.

    And there is no reason to educate your citizens anyway. If you don't they just won't upgrade their buildings beyond a certain level, meaning more sprawl.

    It's actually not very unrealistic at all.

  18. Re:SimCity Cities: Skylines by sound+vision · · Score: 1

    I'm wondering, what sort of problems have you had with SimCity 4? I'm able to play it on Windows 7 64-bit on a GTX 275 without any tweaking. The only issue I've had with it is occasional crashing, but I remember that also happened on a period Pentium 4 box - at least with the Network Addon mod.

  19. Now a standalone, please. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I don't want Steam and don't need Steam, so though I'd quite like to try this game (a type I've never really played before because each time a Sim City came out, I had something else to do and the chance passed me by), but not if it ties me to steam and internet.

  20. Forced online and piracy by FoamToaster · · Score: 1

    Forced online is such a bizarre concept to me, especially when it often means those that pirate a cracked version of the game have a better experience than those who buy a legitimate version...it's like they want people to pirate... Cities Skyline is a great game and did everything (well...nearly everything) right in my eyes.

    --
    My landscape photography website: http://www.tomfosterphotos.com
  21. Re:Fags are gay by MBraynard · · Score: 1

    But he also, uhm, got you to respond with invictive. And that's the trolls goal, so he won.

  22. No mention of Citybound? by the_arrow · · Score: 1

    It's still under development, but it looks like it could be fun once finished:

    http://cityboundsim.com/

    --
    / The Arrow
    "How lovely you are. So lovely in my straightjacket..." - Nny