What are /r/SimCity's favorite Products & Services?

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

To be honest, Simcity did get a bunch of paid great reviews that threw a lot of people off.

Like Eurogamer Sweden gave Simcity the highest rating they can possibly give, Vandal Online gave it 86/100, etc etc.

There also the emblems on the Simcity website where it was touting itself as the second coming of jesus (http://www.simcity.com/en_US/news has nearly 8 pages of review sites giving them accolades)

I recently traveled NYC and was inspired by its cityscape. If you are curious about my trip, I made a short video of my trip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U_8Acch9FQ Or you can check out the Vimeo link here: https://vimeo.com/95526974

I would like to thank XoXide and Oppie for your wonderful accomplishments in changing SimCity with your ambitions, talent, skill, and vision. If you guys lived close, I would take you guys out to a buffet right now (and everyone who was involved in making many things possible)! :P

Mods featured: Xoxide's UDoN (UniDirectional Networks) Oppie's Elevated Train Tracks Oppie's Central Train Station Oppie's Streetcar Cityrunner Tram

105 N Ave 52, Los Angeles.

https://www.mapquest.com/us/california/gas-stations-los-angeles/grigorians-inc-358811425

Liberty 285 would be L-285, Which is One-Man Unit 285.

Code 6 is out of car on investigation.

I quote:

> We’ve put months of investigation into making larger city sizes, reworking the terrain maps, changing the routing algorithms of our agent-based system and altering the way that GlassBox processes the data in a larger space. > > After months of testing, I confirm that we will not be providing bigger city sizes. The system performance challenges we encountered would mean that the vast majority of our players wouldn’t be able to load, much less play with bigger cities. We’ve tried a number of different approaches to bring performance into an acceptable range, but we just couldn’t achieve it within the confines of the engine.

http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/state-of-simcity

Does that amount of effort sound like a couple of guys were doing it during their lunch hour or was that a sizeable effort to try it?

After 9 months I literally have no faith in this project. If they accomplish a proper offline mode fantastic but I am not holding my breath.

There are a number of issues to overcome and one of the biggest elephants in the room is DLC (make it only work online and make it pointless to buy for offline players, possibly causing issues for those who have already bought it, or make it work offline and then have it trivial to pirate like TS3 store content).

This doesn't even begin to go into the regional aspects and either showing up the original declarations as... weak... or disabling regional play offline exacerbating the small city size issues.

Well we'll see at some point and maybe I'll finally be surprised and impressed for once...

I just noticed that there is actually a free trial now.

It's fine. But that sort of review is a wild departure from previous SimCity titles. I'd recommend checking out that trial. But I'd strongly recommend you play the vastly superior SimCity 4; it's aged very well.

Just a reminder that you should never preorder any game that isn't a physical copy, even if there is a 'preorder bonus'.

It makes sense if you're getting a physical copy and want to play it as soon as it comes out. Doing that for a virtual copy is pointless.

Read more

http://kotaku.com/5909105/stop-preordering-video-games-please

http://www.cnet.com/news/you-should-never-ever-preorder-a-video-game/

A recent (1 week old) IP ruling shows that one cannot patent mathematical algorithms. Hence, you are free to create your own multi-agent systems. In addition, there are lots of "previous art" in existence, a simple search in scholar will do. Good luck!

Google: "judge rules math not patentable" for more info if you are interested.

edit: case I was referring to.

And here is a short blog to help as well

FAQ / EA Forum post

Yup! That was mentioned here:

"Some of the experiments we conducted to improve performance on bigger cities will be rolled into future updates to improve overall game performance." -PB

Source

nah, they always have issues. i don't know who their host is, but they need a new one...

here's a nifty little website for when a site you want to visit isn't responding and you're not sure if it's just your browser or if it's actually down: www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com.

They become successful company when they were good. And good with logic. 10 years ago EA was quite different company. As for successful today, do you follow their business? Are you aware about their low profits? Do you know their stock price behaviour during 10-15 years? You can look for all this data here. They do not look like successful company anymore.

This covers nigh every aspect of the game you can think of. There's also several video playlists on YouTube that demonstrate gameplay concepts, though it's been awhile so I don't remember what they are off hand, but a simple search should suffice.

From iographica.com:

> …dots and circles around them represent the amount of time the mouse was not moving. The longer the mouse is not touched, the more the dots and circles diameter.

It looks like they had a spelling error in the original URL (which worked at the time). It's been corrected but the old URL doesn't work and they didn't update the links on the blog.

The original URL had "SimiCity" whereas it's now "SimCity"

This link should work

if you watch the inside look for the trailer, they state that the high tech city is one player and the industrial city is another. The water pollution from the industrial city takes out the power plant, which causes sims to protest in both cities and converge on the bridge. The players then from BOTH cities come together to build the nuclear powerplant in the middle. Looks like the multiplayer is going to be DOPE

inside look: http://www.simcity.com/en_US/media/video/SimCity_Trailer_Insiders_Look

Confirmed to work in the California US. Did the exact same thing.

• Ordered from GMG and they made the key available on the web page right after the purchase went through.
• Used the free access to FlyVPN and connected to Singapore server
• Logged in to origin and redeemed key
• Started download on origin and close FlyVPN, wait for it to complete
• Open FlyVPN then open Simcity and start update
• Close FlyVPN and close Simcity updater. Reopen Simcity and update should start.

Currently at 12% =D

Note: I closed and reopened FlyVPN due to it affecting download speeds

Limited Edition is the base game + Heroes and Villains Set DLC. I don't know if you can upgrade from one "Edition" to another, I wouldn't assume you can unless you find out otherwise. You may want to just gift some DLC instead; there are several (scroll down): https://www.origin.com/en-us/store/buy/simcity-2013-/mac-pc-download/base-game/standard-edition

check out my awesome essential mods and plugins and scroll to the bottom of the page. there you will find a direct link to simgoober's content along with some other modders pages. definitely look at mattb325's stuff.

here is the link you're trying to create for cerulean. never noticed his stuff before, although he doesn't have a lot of content, it looks absolutely amazing.

Also, mod support. According to their Modding Policy:

> Mods may not modify any .com, .exe, .dll, .so or other executable files.

So, what can do a modder with this restriction?

I would be happy only by having bigger cities.

Been waiting for these scans since the announcement since I can't get PC Gamer US in Holland... obviously. Thanks for pointing us towards them.

The article mentions "interior mapping". There's a post on the Ogre forums about how it works, for those interested.

It also mentions Chris Tilton as composer. Check out The Coma-Naut for an example of what he did.

This post, "Awesome Essential Simcity 4 Mods", on the sidebar, may be of interest to you. The Mod in question here is the top link, NAM (Network Addon Mod). Honestly, this fixes up traffic problems amazingly well, along with a whole host of other commute related issues. It has a relatively simple .exe installer, and I'd fully recommend looking into it. Your sims will actually start using mass transit, as well as actually walking and taking sensible routes.

>...except Maxis sold the game as a one-to-one simulation.

I never got that impression, and this blog post from December, 2012 makes it pretty clear that not every citizen is tracked:

>GlassBox is the engine that drives the entire game -- the buildings, the economics, trading, and also the overall simulation that can track data for up to 100,000 individual Sims inside each city.

"There is a massive amount of computing that goes into all of this, and GlassBox works by attributing portions of the computing to EA servers (the cloud) and some on the player's local computer."

"We think this is the best SimCity ever and it wouldn’t be possible without the ~~technology~~ [live service] that powers our game."

It seems to me that they were trying to suggest that the game would only be possible with online only mode or the game would lose out on a significant amount of the regional simulation.

Source: http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/The-Benefits-of-Live-Service

To those who are interested in downloading the region:

Original (as far as I can tell) post by the creator.

Download link provided in the page above.

Seriously, The Mythical Man-Month should be required reading for all developers. It was written by a guy born before my parents were born and the most recent revision is still older than I am, yet the mistakes we all make in software daily are all pretty well covered. I got my copy for $0.01 + shipping on Amazon (it's not Prime because it's out of print), but you're more than welcome to borrow it if you live around me (Hilltop Mall).

EA/Maxis has shifted all their manpower to the "mobile" simcity they are quickly throwing together.

In typical EA style, this probably means that they will only pay attention to Simcity 2013 if they feel it is worth a shot at selling more crap to those who already have the game. Since it is not looking good in that respect, I would say you are looking at Simcity effectively being dead. I doubt they will even look at fixing any more bugs/online problems, as it would not be cost effective towards any future projects.

Unfortunately, Simcity isn't very good at rendering craggy rocks.

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=58.907483,-160.80574&hl=en&num=1&t=p&z=10

That peak on the middle section of land is a little more than 1400 feet tall. I guess the problem is the map is too compressed on the X and Y, so the mountains retain most of their height but get much steeper. That peak should take up most of a tile.

http://imgur.com/a/Z4ftd#0 ~~https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wqzx8v6mgdm33we/27KVIHHmWg~~

My screenshots from several 1 hour cities. I focussed mostly on high wealth residents (for high tax income!). Also, I had an UFO visit, which abducted grandma and cut one of my factories to pieces :( Please comment if you have question ;)

Very interesting! Thanks for the link. For those curious, here's the google map of this intersection.

I see the potential for this design to be completely signal-free with only two overpasses at the diamonds, but ofcourse, it would be significantly larger for 'just' two overpasses ;)

Anyway, thanks!

Traffic was fixed in update 7 with regards to weighted roads and counteracts exactly what you're proposing. The prior model was widely viewed as a failure of traffic simulation... in theory, the old method we had was that the sims would always take whatever the shortest route was without regards to traffic. Since the update, they have started to take in to account the weights of the road based on congestion...

Now, I know what you're trying to do with what you've described, but I personally believe a mod like that would potentially affect more than you're bargaining for.

Also the speeds of the roads are already tuned as well, but for more info check out:

http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/simcity-traffic-tuning

When I said this:

>So they'd have to make serious changes to the engine.

I meant that they'd pretty much have to remake the engine from the ground up. Because it's fundamentally flawed. Although they didn't say this directly, it can be inferred from this blog post:

>We’ve put months of investigation into making larger city sizes, reworking the terrain maps, changing the routing algorithms of our agent-based system and altering the way that GlassBox processes the data in a larger space.

>After months of testing, I confirm that we will not be providing bigger city sizes. The system performance challenges we encountered would mean that the vast majority of our players wouldn’t be able to load, much less play with bigger cities

And the kicker:

>We’ve tried a number of different approaches to bring performance into an acceptable range, but we just couldn’t achieve it within the confines of the engine.

It would seem that the underlying issue is that engine can't scale. So, I think it's safe to assume a redesign would be needed.

This is my reply to the part that you edited in to your post > "It is 100% absoutely impossible for SC13 to be played offline, we would have to reprogram the entire game from scratch to allow this" - Maxis

That is partially true. Lucy once said that Offline wouldn’t be possible “without a significant amount of engineering work”

...which is being done right now.

More info on this here: http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/engineering-offline-play-for-simcity

This screenshot is old as the hills. Likely the number of building and prop variants has increased, as has the size of the demo cities. Probably even some significant game mechanics have been changed/added since this was first posted.

EDIT: Also, unbunch your panties and take a look at this one.

I installed SC4 and SC3000u on my Mac yesterday, actually. Your best bet is to download this app called Wineskin. You need a PC copy of the game, though.

You can download it here: http://wineskin.urgesoftware.com/tiki-index.php?page=Downloads

Wine is an application that runs Windows programs natively on Mac and Linux. You can actually get most games to run, more or less, with it. Wineskin makes the process easier by offering a gui for most features.

I highly recommend reading the FAQ as it explain the different engines and how to go about installing games. Feel free to ask me any questions though!

Simtropolis can be very slow at times, and sometimes even unreachable. The best thing to do is wait for a while and come back later. And yes, the site looks down from here.

downforeveryoneorjustme Also says it's down.

CyberGhost does not have a Singapore server.

They have a $2 two day account. I used them to unlock Skyrim 24 hours early, Battlefield 3 16 hours early, and I'll be using them in 90 minutes to unlock SimCity early.

Having done this to play XCOM on Steam, I confirm this works (on Steam at least). I have used Hotspot Shield and Spotflux, which are both free VPN softwares. I'd recomend Spotflux, Hotspot Shield messes up with some drivers. (both of them are US VPNs)

If anyone is confused about why the Play Store is suddenly Polish, this link should use your local settings. The one you gave, OP, has a specifier at the end for Polish (I'm guessing, because of the 'pl')

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=info.flowersoft.theotown.theotown

Besides that, looks like an interesting game. I'll be sure to check it out after work

These are all so cool looking, especially when you consider that they were all made in SimCity...

I don't know if you have done/considered doing this, but perhaps also try the Mixmaster in Dallas (Intersection of I35E and I30). I think it's a pretty neat intersection.

Actually, any of the intersections in the general area could be just as fun.

What are you even talking about?

Quality products: http://www.metacritic.com/feature/game-publisher-rankings-for-2012-releases

Fact: The highest rated publisher in 2012. Where is this shitty quality you're talking about?

EA didn't start the 'nickel and diming'. Zynga began the trend, and nearly every company has picked it up since then (Hello, Valve and TF2 hats?!) Don't blame EA for someone else's sins. Does it make it ok everyone is doing it? Shit no, but EA is no different than Valve or Zynga or Bethesda or Activision in that sense.

IF you want EA to fall, you want thousands of developers to lose their jobs who are out there making Mirror's Edge 2, Dragon Age 3, the next Mass Effect, Battlefield, etc. Is that an ok outcome?

Look, I know it's cool to hate on EA, the the industry just doesn't agree. Why else would Epic pick them to publish Bulletstorm? Why would Valve have picked them to publish Portal 2 on consoles if they are the root of all evil?

Just take a step back from internet rage and you'll see they are no different than anyone else. Want to know who launched with Day 1 DLC, and which game requires an always-on connection to play? Borderlands 2. Are they a shitty company?

http://www.metacritic.com/company/maxis Ehh are you aware of what Maxis has released the past 9 or 10 years?

I'm sure SimCity is a successful game to EA, as lots have seemed to have bought it, so Maxis is safe. but I really wouldn't mind seeing the company close. I loved Maxis a decade ago, but they've been dead to me for a while. SC5 was their last chance to make a good game, I think, and they failed.

From the sidebar... Awesome Essential SimCity 4 mods
In most cases you just run an install program, some you drag the .dat file to the Plugins folder.
I just spent a good three hours last night installing SC4 with all the usual stuff on a new computer, so its all fresh on my mind haha

I always felt that in the back of my mind. I've started to stop using the sewage sanitizer and went back to the trusty method of putting the water pumps beside of the sewage treatment plant.

Something like this: http://www.ign.com/wikis/simcity/Unlimited_Water

Origin is EA's Steam, idk if you know what steam is it's basically an online store for games.

1.Just go to https://www.origin.com/en-au/download

2.Install

3.Open and create an account

4.redeem your key inside origin, this will vary depending whether or not you have a physical copy of the game or digital.

http://www.costco.com/Lenovo-Z70-Laptop-%7c-Intel-Core-i5-%7c-1080p-%7c-2GB-Graphics.product.100171836.html

Also at $699 , lenovo **Z 70 . Much slower i5 U intel processor with Geforce GT 840M...

NOTHING to sneeze at, for the price !!! Except its 6.6 lbs. Hope your kids don't have balsawood for arms XD

I had the same thought a couple of weeks ago, but the other way around. I thought the band Swedish House Mafia samples SC4

now that I think of it, I feel like you're explanation makes a lot more sense.

btw this is the SHM song I was talking about: https://clyp.it/hku2vvx1 around the 2:30 mark (dat flute solo)

Try using software rendering.

The game has a hardcoded list of all graphics cards it supports, and if your card is newer than 2006 or so, it's not going to be on there. There's a really complex way of supposedly fixing that by editing the binary and adding your GPU to the list, but I've never gotten it to work.

~~There are a ton of fixes listed on PC Gaming Wiki, have you tried going through them?~~ I noticed another comment already mentioned that.

Personally, my recommendation would be to get a digital copy. The game was made DRM-free years ago and frequently drops to single-dollar prices on GOG ($4 right now), Origin or Steam. The digital version is sure to contain all the latest patches as well.

Edit: In case you're interested in why: SecuROM is blocked by windows because it's basically a virus. It nestles itself into the OS boot routines so that it can't be removed, lowers the computer's performance permanently, and sometimes blocks legitimate disks from running.

EA heard you!

https://www.origin.com/en-us/store/buy/simcity-cities-of-tomorrow-ep1-/mac-pc-download/base-game/plus-edition-ANW.html?utm_source=affiliate&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=origin-aff-us-ls-aff&sourceid=Origin_AFF_LS315&c=lw9MynSe...

IMO, the engine is the reason cities are so small, but it's not because the engine is so advanced, it's because it's so broken and flawed.

Look at the traffic problems and other issues we have even with the 2x2km size - it would be far worse with larger maps. Maxis said ( http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/state-of-simcity ): >We’ve put months of investigation into making larger city sizes, reworking the terrain maps, changing the routing algorithms of our agent-based system and altering the way that GlassBox processes the data in a larger space

>After months of testing, I confirm that we will not be providing bigger city sizes. The system performance challenges we encountered would mean that the vast majority of our players wouldn’t be able to load, much less play with bigger cities.

If the issue was simply "system performance", why did they spend months working on the agent routing-systems? I think the "system" in this case refers to GlassBox rather than individual players' PC's.

Even though GlassBox is clearly unsuitable for simulating large cities, I'm having a lot of fun tinkering with the game. Right now I'm trying to figure out why I have a shop complaining they can't find workers, a house complaining they can't find work, and another house complaining they can't find shops, all in the same city block...

Skyways connect Megatower to Megatower. Your sims can travel between buildings without hitting the roads.

Maglevs can be built anywhere so long as you've researched the MagLev ability in the Academy.

The hourly costs for maglev and skyways are minimal - but do require some Controlnet which is produced by the Academy.

Agriculture is nonexistent in this version of SimCity and I haven't seen any plans that would indicate otherwise. There are interesting "perks" that the Megatowers can utilize

Maglev's are in.

Skyways are in.

Some shots can be found here. I'm certain Google can provide search results you're looking for.

That is indeed the case! Just because a building is futurized does not mean its OmegaCo owned :) I actually wrote up an article about how buildings futurize:

http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/simcity-cities-of-tomorrow-future-transformation

Hope so too! By the way, I noticed today that on the Origin shop site of the digital deluxe edition, they talk about high-Speed rail there:

> More Ploppables—Move your Sims in style with new transportation. Double Decker buses from London, High-Speed Rail from Germany, and police and fire services from Paris.

source

there's also a new blog article on simcity.com by ocean quigley that kinda goes along with this video, talking about the new engine.

I guess I'll just mail an admin then. Also, for accounts I intend to be temporary, I use mailinator. Very practical :)

Edit: I can't reach any support pages - would one of you mind giving me the email-address of an admin? Also, SC4D now automatically redirects me to Disney after a minute or so. Diabolical!

I'd recomend Hotspot shield or Spotflux (warning, if you like to use Tunngle, hotspot shield fucks it up after install).

Never used a VPN for Origin, but I did the same thing on Steam for XCOM, it was a matter of openening the VPN, opening steam, and opening the game. Not sure if it will be the same for Origin, but it should.

Do you think this trick will work if I bought my SimCity in euros or from European IP?

btw TunnelBear is a good choice of free VPN it has good performance but has only 500MB traffic limit for free users, but I think this will just do it unless I need to download the whole game from American IP.

Copied from my post in a similar thread:

Confirmed to work in the California US. Did the exact same thing.

• Ordered from GMG and they made the key available on the web page right after the purchase went through.
• Used the free access to FlyVPN and connected to Singapore server
• Logged in to origin and redeemed key
• Started download on origin and close FlyVPN, wait for it to complete
• Open FlyVPN then open Simcity and start update
• Close FlyVPN and close Simcity updater. Reopen Simcity and update should start.

Currently at 12% =D Note: I closed and reopened FlyVPN due to it affecting download speed

Now at 20%

CyberGhost VPN has a Polish proxy I was able to use, but you need the premium service to be able to choose servers (I scored a year of free premium about seven months ago

scratchcity link: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/527318002/

this project ive been working on and off on for the last couple months. ive spent a lot of time playing simcity, looking at real buildings, and referencing real things to try and make this as unique, fun, and interesting as possible.

there are over 100 different buildings, many different in each zoning. from project public housing to luxurious skyrises, the city is yours to create.

many buildings are unlockable. you need to fulfill certain criteria to unlock them.

there are advisors, trade deals, free driving, 5 song soundtrack, nuclear power, disasters, prisons, airports, theme parks, military bases, fighter jets, subways, train stations, forests, parks, universities, museums, just so much stuff.

id be very happy if you gave it a play. might take a while to load.

I don't remember having any problems with placing roads or plots in the previous versions, certainly not to the extent shown in that video.

Maybe it's because I never zone very large areas or build very long stretches of road at a time. If you draw in huge plots you will have traffic problems later because of the sub-optimal layout.

Anyway if it's just the road placement, and performance with large cities has actually improved, it's not so bad. I was thinking about trying to import my 500,000+ city from Platinum, but I think I'll just start fresh. So it will take a while to grow a big city, but it will be interesting to see how the supposedly "new" engine handles it.

BTW there was never any mention of multicore or multithreaded support on the store page: https://web.archive.org/web/20150117160635/http://store.steampowered.com/app/313010/ However it was mentioned on their Facebook page, and it has been confirmed that it at least uses additional cores to some extent.

I can't speak for the specs, but Sim City 4 is on Steam for Mac. https://store.steampowered.com/app/24780/SimCity_4_Deluxe_Edition/
If you want the 2013 Sim City its on the Origin Client for Mac (and is currently on sale, 50% off the complete edition).
https://www.origin.com/aus/en-us/store/simcity/simcity
(also, if you game on mac check out /r/macgaming for news and advice etc)

That's actually what that weird piece of land sticking out of NJ is.

Yes, the newspaper stories were essentially mad-libs that loosely corresponded to your city status. Here's Michael Bremer, Maxis document writer at the time of SimCity 2000, talking about the newspapers:

> That was a monumental part of the whole project. I had very little do to with it. Fred [Haslam, developer] set up the system. He listed what the necessary stories would be a set up lists of interchangeable variable. Debra Larson, another writer here, wrote most of the stories and came up with the lists of variables. A lot of the stories are really funny - I'm jealous that I didn't have time to work on them. But it was a lot of work. It took weeks of writing and editing and getting contributions from others around the company, and testing each story in the newspaper to make sure it made sense with all the changing variables.

> To keep the papers from getting too tiring too quickly, the stories were written with replaceable variables - words and phrases - in them. As the stories are chosen and generated, different people, places, things, and such are inserted in a way that usually makes sense. When appropriate, stories also take information from the simulation, such as the prime rate or approval statistics for the mayor.

> All in all, the amount of text for all the stories with all the variables fills a 200k text file. There are 300 different stories in more than 60 different story categories. [...] There are nearly 1,400 different words and short phrases that can be inserted into the stories.

This is from the Prima strategy guide for the game, <em>Power, Politics, and Planning</em>. There's actually a short chapter dedicated to explaining the newspapers.

Check out this tool. It's like netstat in Unix but works in Windows and spits out way cleaner data to look at.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897437.aspx

Connect to a SimCity server and keep an eye on the connections. Definitely hitting Amazon all over and Rackspace in Dallas. I imagine Rackspace is doing some heavy lifting too. They might just be using EC2 for more of the social side of the game or something. Hard to tell.

Actually this was the re-release for Windows. Here's the actual original cover. More here as well.

Other retailers:

Amazon

BestBuy

Best Buy's return policy states that opened software can only be exchanged for the same product.

There are some other threads on /r/SimCity with the customer support phone number for EA and suggestions about how to get a refund from them; try looking for those.

You could also try selling your copy on eBay.

I bought 5 for $50 not long after launch and despite the issues I still got my money's worth. It certainly is better if you can play a region with friends when you first start learning the game (ie the fun part).

You could grab it on sale somewhere: http://isthereanydeal.com/#/page:game/info?plain=simcity (there are different versions/editions of the game so you might want to do a different search). If you can grab it for $10 it'll definitely be worthwhile.

It did, but according to this the stock is beginning to climb again. In fact, if you follow the trend the stock continued to grow after the SimCity launch and did not really fall until the 21st of March.

You tricked me, you jerk

Who the hell cares about Polygon? They gave Mass Effect 3 and Diablo 3 &quot;100/100&quot;. Polygon sucks butt nuggets. RPS is the only review I'd ever care to give a shit about.

Hmm. Have you tried SC4 Terraformer? Although I haven't had this issue with SC4 Mapper.

Actually, mind giving the link to the region in question? I can try and install it on my computer and see what comes up. Also, here is a four city region that you can try putting in your region folder. It works great on my computer.

Well its on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simcity_5 and Gamespot http://www.gamespot.com/news/simcity-5-due-in-2013-report-6360586

Two sources I like to think of as credible.

And I understand that the pictures are all concept art because development is still too early to yield an image sufficiently depicting the final product. This will come soon because this is actually happening goddammit! All these years...

It ran ok on my MacBook and I only had a slightly faster GPU and CPU. I would just try it. If you buy it on Origin and it doesn't work, you can actually return it: https://www.origin.com/en-nl/great-game-guarantee

Costco near you???

http://www.costco.com/Dell-Inspiron-15-5000-Series-Touchscreen-Laptop-%7c-Intel-Core-i7-%7c-4GB-Graphics-%7c-1080p-%7c-Backlit-Keyboard.product.100153660.html

Dell Inspiron 15 " 5000 with a AMD Radeon R7 Class M270

I Guess Its OK But I have a Inspiron 7537 15 , with similar Intel Processor, U Class Core i7 , Its TOO Low Powered and it might bottleneck that GPU

BUT its MUCH Better than another laptop that has only a puny Graphics processing system!!

Here, try this link for the config.bmp file

and this link for the grayscale .bmp file.

Let me know if this is the correct scale you were looking for!

Why would you make an open source Sim Tower when you can just get the original?

http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/341/

I mean, yeah, no mods I suppose. But there it is, in all its Windows 95 glory.

I had this whole comment typed out but then saw it was the disc that doesn't spin up. I'm posting it anyway at the bottom if you get the disc to work.

• Can you access the disc from file explorer? Double click the drive to see if you can see the contents

• If you can access the disc: manually execute something that indicates setup or autorun.

• If it doesn't work, can you test if other discs work?

• If other discs do work, check if the SC4 disc isn't (heavily) scratched.

Anyway, here's my original post:

• Make sure the .exe has compatibility set for the earliest version of windows possible.

• Make a shortcut with these parameters:

> C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /C START "Simcity 4" /high /affinity 1 "D:\Games\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -intro:off -CustomResolution:enabled -r1440x900 -CPUCount:1 -CPUPriority:high

Of course, change the .exe location to where it's actually at and add -w -CustomResolution:enabled -r1440x900 if you want windowed and custom resolution.

I can't speak for if any of this works but PCgamingwiki has an article on running it on modern systems: https://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/SimCity_4#Essential_improvements

My dad bought us SimCity for the PC back in 89 or 90. My sister and I would turn off disasters and have contests to see who could make the city that produces the most money when we let the game run over night.

Side note: one of my favorite thing was an add on that added like a wild west or future europe themes.

The Origin Great Game Guarantee

You may return EA full game digital downloads (PC/Mac) purchased on Origin for a full refund within 24 hours after you first launch the game, within seven days from your date of purchase or within seven days from the game's release date if you pre-ordered, whichever comes first.

Source - https://www.origin.com/en-us/great-game-guarantee

The version of SC4 Deluxe on Steam is the newest version for SC4. If you want the newest SimCity (2013 edition) then you can get it from https://www.origin.com/en-us/store/buy/simcity-cities-of-tomorrow-ep1-. But wait for it to go on sell and note that it only includes the newest SimCity with the expansion pack CoT.

They are just different bundles. though I think CoT will give you more different gameplay than the city sets, and you can get a deluxe upgrade later if you want some new "cool" stuff later.

Yes, I imagine Anselm has plans in this direction. It's just difficult of course because he's taken on a hugely ambitious project, is doing it more or less alone, and isn't currently receiving enough in sponsorship to work on it full time.

You can read more about where it's going here btw: https://aeplay.org/citybound

Hey, why not use Windows 10? It's better than Windows 8.1 and do you think SimCity 4 is worth to play for a long time. Yes, I was a fan of SimCity 4, but I think it's boring now and I am going to play an sandbox game - Albion Online, which will be released in July 17, of course, I am playing Open Beta now!

It received an offline patch in 2014, but obviously the offline mode does limit some features.

I'm actually enjoying BuildIt more TBH.

Yeah that was pretty bad. However it was masked somewhat when they introduced the ability for sims to lock on to a destination before they left a building: http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/simcity-traffic-tuning

In the end the non-persistent nature of the sims didn't affect gameplay that much IMO. It's not like you spend all the time following individual citizens. The smaller city sizes and somewhat broken/chaotic simulation were bigger issues (people suddenly complaining about crime when there were 0 criminals in the city, or Sims that "miss going to school" when there's a school next door etc.).

Well, I think you'll want some modding. As you may realize, the vanilla game doesn't have one way roads. Take a look at Simtropolis, if you want to.

• Now, do realize, that except you're going to play with people you know and trust, leave the multiplayer alone. Cheats are disabled during multiplayer and people abandoning their city are extremely annoying. A better approach is to hop straight in singleplayer.
• When you start playing, pick a region (the cities are always clusters of max. 5 cities, you'll notice that in the motorway and railroad grids on your regional map) you like, pick a plot of land, and hop in.
• Extend the motorway entrance a bit with a road of your wish, make some junctions with other roads, and start zoning. Do not split residential, commercial and industrial over your regional cities. Splitting city services (such as police, healthcare etc.) is possible, but the game can't exacty work out that citizens can commute between cities, so provide a balanced amount of the entire RCI.
• When your city is up and running, making a profit, I recommend checking out the "specializations". Scan the ground for materials, build electronics, or have a small gambling town. Providing an extensive guide on all of them would be comment overkill, so I advice to just go in it yourself, or look through the manual.
• Disable auto saving if you don't want to. Some people do a disaster and try to reload their city, only to find out EA enabled auto saving by default.
• Check out the colour filters in the settings if you're looking to take a screenshot. Some of them spice the colours up so much you'll wonder why you didn't try this before. Especially if you're colourblind, check out the filters, SimCity 2013 offers 3 filters for the visually impaired.

For more information, check out the manual.

"Creating a connected experience has always been a goal for SimCity, and this design decision has driven our development process for the game. This is easily the most ambitious game in the franchise and we’ve taken great care to make sure that every line of code embodies the spirit of the series. To do this, we knew we had to make sure we put our heart and souls into the simulation and the team created the most powerful simulation engine in its history, the GlassBox Engine. GlassBox is the engine that drives the entire game -- the buildings, the economics, trading, and also the overall simulation that can track data for up to 100,000 individual Sims inside each city. There is a massive amount of computing that goes into all of this, and GlassBox works by attributing portions of the computing to EA servers (the cloud) and some on the player's local computer."

http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/The-Benefits-of-Live-Service

And that's just a lie.

The game literally "fudges" the population (there's a function called GetFudgedPopulation in the source code). However it has no impact on the gameplay, only on the number at the bottom of the screen. They did this because they couldn't get the cities large enough due to limitations in the GlassBox engine, but trying to market a "city builder" with a max population of about 20,000 would have been impossible. So they simply inflate the number. Just ignore that number and look at the total in the population panel instead.

I've also found that you will always have more available jobs than workers. Each building has a minimum amount of workers required to function (before you get the "Closed, needs workers" message), and then a huge number of "extra" job slots on top of that. I think they did it due to limitations in GlassBox. Since the pathing and traffic is so bad, having a perfectly balanced city would result in workers complaining about no jobs, and workplaces complaining about no workers, while the sims spend hours in traffic jams.

There's also the invisible "worker request agents", that travel along the roads looking for workers. If enough of those weren't spawned, they wouldn't reach every building. As with water and electricity, there needs to be a surplus because of the pathing issues in GlassBox. If there weren't more "worker request agents" than actual workers, those agents wouldn't reach all the workers before they time out. http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/the-workers-of-simcity

Well judging by this the specs are pretty low. A gtx 275 and 5850 are both pretty old cards. I'd suggest look at the recommended specs of other games you're wanting to play and go by that or simply get the best Graphics card that fits in your budget.

It recommends an i5 on that page but I'm positive any i3 from the last 3 years would have absolutely no trouble maxing it out.

Skye Storme had a major problem when making one of his cities: the commercial kept abandoning because of a lack of shoppers of the appropriate wealth.

I thought commercial buildings cared about: *profit, which they get from *selling goods to shoppers, which they obtain through *requesting industrial freight orders to them; otherwise, *they can use tourists as supplemental income, or else *no ways of generating happiness, which results in *abandonment.

EDIT: The Update 6 article

Noob question.

How do you guys get the ramps/feeder roads attached to raised highways/overpasses? If that's what I'm seeing? Again, NOOB!, but I've figured out how to make a raised road (n/m keys) and connect it to other FLAT roads, but I can't then cause another road to be connected to any of the raised part, ramp-style. Does this require a mod?

Take pity on me. I've also searched for tutorials, but for example, my results here. At first glance it looks like a lot of relevant hits, but in reality a lot of them have to do with other building aspects or do not refer to SimCity 2013. This is the closest and still doesn't show how to get a raised road with a RAISED connecting road/ramp:

http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/simcity-raise-and-lower-road-tool

Thanks in advance.

I know that you feel passionately about this issue, but understand that the full quote from Lucy was that offline mode was not possible “without a significant amount of engineering work”. We've just posted a new blog that explains what went on a little more. Check that out here!

Thanks for being excited, and you're right... this is a whole new era for the game!

This seems half done to me, all the 'i's are capitalised, and the disclaimer says limited edition only, when this pack is also in the digital deluxe. Still, seems a good indicator of the intended price for future DLC?

http://www.simcity.com/en_US/buy/simcity

As someone from the UK, I have no idea what they're intending outside the US. The UK version has the same promotion and image, but no reference to 'value'.

part two of the article about great works is up, this one discusses the international airport.

How It Works (Great): International Airport

I've been googling, but can't seem to find a working link. On the Sim City website they just have this, and the blogs I found about it contain dead links.

This is a shot in the dark, but you likely upgraded your OS when you upgraded your PC. Have you tried using the compatibility mode that matches your old OS? (right click icon>properties>compatibility tab).

Another option could be to run it in DOSBOX or a similar compatible emulator?

A third option is it looks like Origin and GOG.com sell a version that is designed to work on modern PCs. Though, in all honesty, they are probably selling an integrated Game+DOSBOX/emu package. Maybe try that if you don't feel like messing around?

If it doesn't work for you, it's because only some browsers support the Web Audio API. Most notably, no versions of IE support Web Audio.

Web Audio API Support

If you're using one of these browsers but it still doesn't work for you, please let me know, as it is certainly a bug.

Went to check it out. Looks like only the digital version is unavailable. However, this could be due to the fact that Amazon has simply run out of digital keys. The physical copy of the game is still for sale.

Usually, when Amazon "withdraws" a product from sale, they will say something along the lines of "We have received numerous complaints about this item and are currently investigating these claims." etc etc. I don't think this is the same type of situation.

[EDIT] Although, on further review I did notice the following statement by Amazon:

>"Important Note on "SimCity" >Many customers are having issues connecting to the "SimCity" servers. EA is actively working to resolve these issues, but at this time we do not know when the issue will be fixed. Please visit https://help.ea.com/en/simcity/simcity for more information. "

Good on them to inform the customer.