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SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

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Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

#241

Post by jonnytran »

duckmysick wrote: post #79
xixixao wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Age of Empires 2, Sim City 3000, Diablo2 and Red Alert 2. Released in the span of 3 years. What an incredible era. Can’t shake off the feeling that 3D took away as much as it gave gaming. Also can’t believe it’s just my age-based selection bias.

You're definitely onto something and it's not just an age bias. I can think of a few 2D games released in the previous decade that continued this trend: Terraria, Stardew Valley, Factorio, Rimworld, Celeste, Hades.

Hollow Knight

Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

#242

Post by meerita »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #240
meerita wrote: post #87

I love SimCity 2000. I remember back then the most legendary build: MAGNASANTI (6 million residents, 2.523.010 commerce and 644.173 industry. 9172 million total population) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTJQTc-TqpU

Pretty sure that Magnasanti is 3000, not 2000.

My bad, I thought it was 2000. I saw the video long time ago.

Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

#243

Post by Sakos »

billfruit wrote: post #156
chongli wrote: post #5

I prefer SimCity 2000. I feel like it hit a pretty good sweet spot between simulation and fun (which is to say, not even a vague gesturing at anything remotely realistic). Realistic simulation in games is almost universally less fun than simple, predictable game logic. Probably the most extreme example of this is chess: way more enjoyable than real warfare. Back on topic though. My beef with SimCity 4 is that it adde…

The problem with city building games is that they are far too gamified. In reality construction takes years, even decades for many infrastructure projects. Because of that, the challenge of solving the problems of 25 years in the future is not well represented in many such games.

They also make a lot of assumptions about how cities are designed. The first thing I noticed when I started up Simcity 4 again this week for the first time in 20 years is that it's all single-use zoning. The rest of the world outside the US says hello.

Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

#244

Post by pragmatic »

harha wrote: post #47
crashingintoyou wrote: post #20

I was a little surprised that they actually released an Apple Silicon version for it just a few months ago ( https://support.aspyr.com/hc/en-us/articles/12168615035405-H... ) in spite of its age.

Would be nice if they’d do the same for civ 6 - it’s burning hot on my MacBook (not sure it would solve the issue but worth a try)

The iPad version worked surprisingly well until they released the leader pass and it broke. Hopefully they fixed it by now.

Only downside is no mods and the mods give serious quality of life improvements.

Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

#245

Post by pragmatic »

CSMastermind wrote: post #226
bleep_bloop wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It works almost flawlessly on the iPad. Paired with a stylus it’s the ultimate mobile game.

Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

#246

Post by BearOso »

qball wrote: post #89
JonathonW wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here— SimCity 3000’s the one that really hit the right spot gameplay-wise for me. Prettier and deeper and more polished than 2000 without departing too far from 2000’s core mechanics or simulation approach.

>without departing too far from 2000’s core mechanics or simulation approach SC3K is similar enough in structure to SC2K that it can actually load SC2K city save files directly; SC3K being a relatively strict superset of SC2K in terms of available elements and their sizes certainly doesn't hinder that backwards-compatibility at all. The only things that would actively break when you did this were related to maximum t…

I wasn't aware of a 250 building limit. Is there anywhere I can read more about this? Searching turns up empty.

Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

#247

Post by usefulcat »

intelVISA wrote: post #119
xixixao wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Age of Empires 2, Sim City 3000, Diablo2 and Red Alert 2. Released in the span of 3 years. What an incredible era. Can’t shake off the feeling that 3D took away as much as it gave gaming. Also can’t believe it’s just my age-based selection bias.

A game couldn't be pretty back then it had to sell itself on other merits. I think we'll come full circle with generative ML tooling as games will have to compete in wider areas than just marketing & graphics.

No, I think looks have always mattered; the only thing that’s changed are where the goalposts are located.

Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

#248

Post by usefulcat »

jvanderbot wrote: post #174
xixixao wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Age of Empires 2, Sim City 3000, Diablo2 and Red Alert 2. Released in the span of 3 years. What an incredible era. Can’t shake off the feeling that 3D took away as much as it gave gaming. Also can’t believe it’s just my age-based selection bias.

Homeworld, quake 2, Half-life, counterstrike, starcraft, diablo, 97 to '00. I cannot think of a more revolutionary span of games over 3 years.

To this day my favorite game is still Total Annihilation (1997).

Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

#249

Post by NBJack »

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.

I played many of them up to that point (even the SNES version), and 4 left a discernable source taste in my mouth. I could see the potential, and it was at times fun. But, for me personally, it just never hit the right notes to harmonize all of the good mechanic additions. I think part of it also was the more realistic progression you would follow (i.e. start with farms, work up to towns, etc.), but maybe I just never gave it a chance. I just expected a better version of 3.

But yeah, the successors to 4 were undoubtedly a dumpster fire.

Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago

#250

Post by iggldiggl »

pqb wrote: post #139
trackflak wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have OpenTTD and OpenRCT. Maybe someone somewhere is creating an C++ remake of our favourite isometric city simulator, with multiplayer support!

How the multiplayer mode would look like? Do you think about competing against the other real player? Or maybe collaborating with some friend? I am asking, because I think I haven't seen the multiplayer support in any railroad/transport-tycoon game. I remember in Railroad Tycoon 2 and then in Sid Meier's Railroads [0] we could play against NPC. Same as us, NPC is establishing a company and we may buy all his stocks t…

Railroad Tycoon 2 definitively had multiplayer support.
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