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SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

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Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

#221

Post by numtel »

titzer wrote: post #190
genocidicbunny wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought 3000 was the best showing, though perhaps that's looking at it back later when performance is not as much of a concern. It felt like an upgraded SimCity 2000, rather than a big change in game mechanics that 4 was.

Bought but almost never played 4. Simcity 2000 was pretty clunky and 3000 was the right amount of updated graphics and mechanics while maintaining the original fun. It seems impossible to get my original Simcity 3000 CD working on modern hardware...

GOG has sc3k that works on modern hardware. Also, wine runs the original afaik.

Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

#222

Post by CSMastermind »

capableweb wrote: post #134
CSMastermind wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a reason most people playing Cities: Skylines play with mods that do things like staggering the age of people moving to your city, allowing businesses to fire workers, patching the occupancy of buildings to be realistic, fixing truck drivers to work properly, etc. It's a little annoying that they chose to be super realistic with realism in some aspects then kind of fuzz the details on others. Hopefully the se…

Is there any mod packs that contain all the mods that "fixes" the game in the way you mention? I'm also struggling with the same issues once I hit a certain size, and I don't want to spend 90% of my time trying to fix traffic issues.

The Cities Skylines reddit has a pretty good guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/CitiesSkylines/wiki/modlist

There are four critical ones imo:

- Lifecycle Rebalance Revisited

- Realistic Population 2

- Rebalanced Industries Revisited

- You're Fired

Those alone will make the game considerably more enjoyable to play. If you do a lot of public transport there are additional mods needed to make it work well but I normally stick to roads so it's not a problem for me.

Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

#223

Post by sidewndr46 »

textide wrote: post #104
distances wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free-form city blocks is also high on my wishlist for C:S2. Without it you can't make convincing European style cities.

Soviet Republic: Workers and Resources has this. It is an incredibly deep city builder and sim with very well modeled systems. The realistic mode requires fuel for vehicles and workers for construction. You don’t simply plop buildings down or define zones that magically fill in.

It sounds like it is biased towards micromanagement, but still might be tons of fun. Thanks for the recommendation.

Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

#224

Post by rightbyte »

midasuni wrote: post #75
LarsDu88 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When these games came out, the PC game market was smaller with less competition. Programmers and game makers drew from what they grew up with which was table top board games. That's why the instruction manuals were thick (like a DnD manual), the rules were incredibly complex, and the learning curves were steep. These games were a product of their time and you definitely do have an age based selection bias!

I don’t remember a thick manual for red alert. Or much of a manual at all.

Later re-releases didn't have any. The red box one has a big manual.

Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

#225

Post by syngrog66 »

SimCity (the original) had a big influence on me as a young budding game designer/programmer. In a way my latest game [SB] is a kind of simulation of our collective future, and how we try to live in the absence of the modern US/Western-style city infrastructure and services we take for granted now. Of the kind which SimCity models and brings to life so well.

---

[SB: welcome to look in my bio here if curious]

Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

#226

Post by CSMastermind »

bleep_bloop wrote: post #117
izacus wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't.

The minimum requirements for Civ 6 are far below the capability of the M1 series macbooks so I don't know why you'd think so.

I'll chip in that Civ 6 is kind of notoriously buggy and crash prone. I have a top of the line Windows PC and the game spontaneously crashes for me in full screen mode so I can only do windowed mode.

It's still super fun (I have over 1,000 hours played) but it's not something I would call a reliable or stable piece of software.

Porting it to a different CPU architecture sounds like a recipe for introducing even more bugs to an already unstable program.

Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

#227

Post by Arrath »

mrguyorama wrote: post #210
fendy3002 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Playing witcher 3, I don't think it'll be enjoyable for me without the witcher senses. It really emphasis the interact-able things over the environment.

It's why "just make everything have a billion polygons" is actually terrible game development. Scenes are so goddamn noisy nowadays that it's really hard to parse them.

Sure does suck to find that camouflage is actually effective in shooters.

When a bush has the gall to shoot you.

Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

#228

Post by Arrath »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #167
midasuni wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t remember a thick manual for red alert. Or much of a manual at all.

http://nyerguds.arsaneus-design.com/manuals/Red%20Alert%201/... 99 pages long my friend. Checkout the manual for StarCraft, which gives you the entire backstory!

I read and reread the manuals for StarCraft, Starsiege, and Starsiege: Tribes oh so many times

Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

#229

Post by marisnom »

yreg wrote: post #124

I might be a bit younger than the average commenter here, because for me the favourite citybuilder was SimCity 3000, not 2000. Anyway, I miss the isometric grid. Yes, it's less realistic, but it's so pleasing. The thing I'm most annoyed by in modern sim games is placing roads and paths. They never look quite right. It's the same with Rollercoaster Tycoon -> Planet Tycoon. I'd like to see some new games which embrace…

I also enjoyed the activists and protestors that would try to convince you to adopt sometimes not very beneficial ordinances. It made the cities feel more alive while still being a goofy and fun mechanic.

Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

#230

Post by [deleted] »

Dalewyn wrote: post #21
NBJack wrote: post #17

This is a stretch. 4 was alright, but it also marked the death of the series. 3 was great, 2 was legendary. There's a great reason Cities: Skylines became the spiritual successor.

Simcity 4 was the high point, it was its putrid and inbred successor that killed off the franchise.

[deleted]
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