Cities XL 2011

[Wraith]

I'm liking this game the more I play it.

I wrote a little about what I thought of the game in last weekend's WEEKEND thread. (Has some problems, but pretty good, overall.) Another thing I like about Cities, compared to SimCity 4, is that I don't feel like balancing the budget is my biggest concern. Instead, I'm balancing jobs/unemployment, and need for industry/offices, and meeting the demands of traffic. Essentially growth. When I've got the number of Available Jobs, and Unemployment across 4 different Residential levels, near enough to zero, I know things are mostly in balance, and I can focus on where and what to build next. Money isn't hard to come by, as long as you watch the monthly cost on the spendier buildings/services.

Having played this city for quite a while, I thought that while cities in this game are naturally a bit more organic looking than in SC4, the buildings were not terribly interesting (aside from a few "landmark"-like specialty buildings), with a fair amount of duplicates. But when you're building, you stay in a medium-far zoom, as it's best for placing roads, zones, buildings.

I spent some time "driving" around my city (moving around with the camera at/near street level), and it's kind of surprising how much it resembles a real city. And I found that at the nearest zoom, the camera will jump up to the top of buildings (which is nice for getting certain angles, as you don't have full Y-axis camera rotation, except at the nearest zoom).

There's also a day-night cycle, which I have disabled when I'm building, but I should have turned it on for some of these shots. But you can at least see the lighting/shadows.

Flickr Set. (For 1600x1200, Actions > View All Sizes > Original.

And my current traffic situation isn't too bad. (Though I've unlocked all the roads (from small dirt road up to 6 lane expressway), and buses and metro, I still don't have access to the highway system.)

[CappinCanuck]

Looks great! I wish I hadn't passed up on it during release because it has so many problems.

[MalReynolds]

i want this but im poor so no game for me

[Wraith]

Game released in October, and I got it for $20 during the Steam holiday deals in December. Hadn't really been following the game that closely, saw reviews were decent, not great. Figured for $20 (for the only real city building game on the market), I'd try it. It does have some problems (fewer than the previous Cities XL, according to reviews), but I think I've gotten more than my money's worth. I just would've been hesitant to buy at full price, not knowing what it played like.

I guess everybody plays city building games a little differently, so it may not be for everyone. But it plays to a lot of the things I liked about the SimCity series.

(A game like this really should have a demo...)

[MalReynolds]

Originally Posted by Wraith

Game released in October, and I got it for $20 during the Steam holiday deals in December. Hadn't really been following the game that closely, saw reviews were decent, not great. Figured for $20 (for the only real city building game on the market), I'd try it. It does have some problems (fewer than the previous Cities XL, according to reviews), but I think I've gotten more than my money's worth. I just would've been hesitant to buy at full price, not knowing what it played like.

I guess everybody plays city building games a little differently, so it may not be for everyone. But it plays to a lot of the things I liked about the SimCity series.

i guess ill keep looking at steam

[Acidpoptart]

As if on cue, it is on sale right now for $10 :-)

[biosc1]

Originally Posted by Acidpoptart

As if on cue, it is on sale right now for $10 :-)

Well, obviously Wraith works as PR for the game

It is tempting for $10.

[Tayaya]

I actually bought SimCity 4 back around Christmas, and didn't enjoy it at all, mainly because I could just never get my city to grow, no matter what I tried. I had commercial zones that were going un-used, industry zones also un-used, and no demand to built any more.... I can't imagine the people would just want to keep on living in my city with no jobs, and I was right - budget and population would dwindle. Made no sense to me - there's no demand for industry or commerce, but then no one wants to stay in my city because there's no jobs and they can't afford housing.

The old SimCity on SNES I was a master at, and I know the fundamentals of city planning from building many a great city in the old days.

Do you think I'd have more fun with Cities XL 2011? It's a pretty game, and $10 is a nice price for sure... but is it as finicky as SimCity 4 or can I just relax and build?

[Vandabo]

I picked it up, I'm not sure if I'll get around to it immediately, but for that price I could do with a city building game. I haven't played one since Simcity 4, which was alright.

[roboninja]

Originally Posted by Tayaya

I actually bought SimCity 4 back around Christmas, and didn't enjoy it at all, mainly because I could just never get my city to grow, no matter what I tried. I had commercial zones that were going un-used, industry zones also un-used, and no demand to built any more.... I can't imagine the people would just want to keep on living in my city with no jobs, and I was right - budget and population would dwindle. Made no sense to me - there's no demand for industry or commerce, but then no one wants to stay in my city because there's no jobs and they can't afford housing.

The old SimCity on SNES I was a master at, and I know the fundamentals of city planning from building many a great city in the old days.

Do you think I'd have more fun with Cities XL 2011? It's a pretty game, and $10 is a nice price for sure... but is it as finicky as SimCity 4 or can I just relax and build?

This was pretty much my experience as well. I really did not enjoy the horrible terrain engine; found it nearly impossible to make a seaport. This one for $10 is tempting...who am I kidding, bought.

[Handmade.Mercury]

Fuck you guys for making me buy this.

[Satertek]

Yea, very suspicious timing. I had to pick it up as SC4 wasn't doing it for me.

[MalReynolds]

agreed but i wont complain lol

[Wraith]

Originally Posted by Tayaya

I actually bought SimCity 4 back around Christmas, and didn't enjoy it at all, mainly because I could just never get my city to grow, no matter what I tried. I had commercial zones that were going un-used, industry zones also un-used, and no demand to built any more.... I can't imagine the people would just want to keep on living in my city with no jobs, and I was right - budget and population would dwindle. Made no sense to me - there's no demand for industry or commerce, but then no one wants to stay in my city because there's no jobs and they can't afford housing.

The old SimCity on SNES I was a master at, and I know the fundamentals of city planning from building many a great city in the old days.

Do you happen to remember what size your SC4 city was when you hit the wall?

I know there are certain "cap buster" buildings in the game (usually Gifts, like city hall, etc.) that allow certain populations to grow beyond a cap. I don't know all the details. See this FAQ for specifics, under "Demand Caps" and "Busters". I don't know that these caps are mentioned in the game itself.

Maybe you didn't have any neighbor connections? Those seem to be a cap buster for commercial zones.

In a more general sense, one thing anyone new to SC4 needs to know is that the first city in a region is always the hardest to get started. When you already have an existing city in a region, you have a source of workers (hopefully with some education) and jobs. Even if you ignore the neighbor deals (for power, water, and garbage, which can all be quite useful), neighbor connections are still a big deal. (And even if you have no actual neighbors, I think the connections still work as cap busters.)

Originally Posted by roboninja

This was pretty much my experience as well. I really did not enjoy the horrible terrain engine; found it nearly impossible to make a seaport. This one for $10 is tempting...who am I kidding, bought.

Seaports, beaches and other shore buildings in SC4 can be a pain to line up. Usually what I did was take the smoothing tool, CTRL for small radius, and make a small section of flat, straight shoreline. Usually lies slightly lower than the flat land next to it.

Coincidentally, I couldn't figure out why in Cities I couldn't place a small Harbor. But I guess it's because I'm on a freshwater map. I thought I just didn't have it lined up right. If I'd played an ocean map prior to this, I probably would've recognized that placing a harbor wasn't possible on my lake map.

Originally Posted by Tayaya

Do you think I'd have more fun with Cities XL 2011? It's a pretty game, and $10 is a nice price for sure... but is it as finicky as SimCity 4 or can I just relax and build?

It's not a pure sandbox. There are things to manage. For example, if you over-build Offices, you'll see a red status icon (with descriptive text) when you inspect offices. This means you'll have to build up other areas (industry, residential, etc.) before Offices are in demand again. But at least this is explained. You get lots of feedback as to why zones aren't growing, or why they aren't happy.

There is a trading system, but I haven't used it much yet. I think you can trade industry capacity from an industry-heavy city to an industry-poor city. But for now, my main city is a mix of everything.

For me now, though, it does seem easier than SC4, since I'm making gobs of money. I can afford to make mistakes. If I do something that puts my income in the red, I can just delete it and try again later when I can afford it. If it puts a dent in my bank, it's not a big deal. While I have to manage available jobs vs. available workers, it feels like more of a goal to work towards than a hindrance. If I'm building new office zones, I know I'll need to build more residences of the appropriate types to match, or else these zones (or other zones that use similar workers) will have a bunch of vacant jobs.

[MalReynolds]

now i would like Tropico 3 gold edition to be 9.99 or less please

[Wraith]

Originally Posted by MalReynolds

now i would like Tropico 3 gold edition to be 9.99 or less please

Hey, maybe the dealmasters at Steam read CoG and wandered into this thread. Or more likely, the recent SimCity Facebook news got people in a city building mood, and someone figured they could move some copies of this game at a lower price.

(Didn't they have that Tropico deal in the last few weeks?)

[MalReynolds]

i dont check steam enough i need to do it on a daily basis

[MagGnome]

I kind of regret buying SimCity 4 when I could have just picked this up for slightly more.

I spent an obsessive amount of time with SimCity Classic when I was a kid. I even had the expansion that let you build themed-cities such as a medieval city, a feudel Japanese city, and a future city on the moon. I printed out my cities (some took several sheets of paper) and assembled them up on the wall. My friends made cities in the game and we pretended like they were all connected together. I eventually got SimCity 2000 and played quite a bit of it, although never as much as I did Classic. The same goes for 3000, which I bought on clearance around 4-5 years ago and played for a few months before petering out on it. I've thought about installing it again, but the Tropico 3 sated that urge for quite a while. Now I'm tempted to pick up Cities XL...

[MagGnome]

Tropico 3 was super cheap a few weeks ago. I love that game.

Wraith - How does this compare to Tropico 3? I really like the more intimate/close-up experience that Tropico provides. Does Cities XL compare to that in any way? It would be nice to build on a larger scale for a while, but I greatly enjoy the more detailed experience of Tropico.

Edit - I'm about half-asleep, so I hope this post makes sense.

[MalReynolds]

Originally Posted by MagGnome

Tropico 3 was super cheap a few weeks ago. I love that game.

Wraith - How does this compare to Tropico 3? I really like the more intimate/close-up experience that Tropico provides. Does Cities XL compare to that in any way? It would be nice to build on a larger scale for a while, but I greatly enjoy the more detailed experience of Tropico.

Edit - I'm about half-asleep, so I hope this post makes sense.

someone needs to message me when it goes down i can buy it