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Using SimCity to diagnose my home town's traffic problem

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11–20 of 115 posts

Re: Using SimCity to diagnose my home town's traffic problem

#11
Sim City should be a recommended game for those taking Geography, especially in HS.

When I first started playing, I was reacting to situations - fires, disasters, as they happened, which was already too late.

Or I'd build all the fire stations in a nice row, or police stations all in a ordered block of land, then get frustrated when they all jammed each other trying to get out and answer calls. My tactics from Red Alert isn't going to work here.

Can't wait for the latest SC!

Re: Using SimCity to diagnose my home town's traffic problem

#12
post #4

FTA: "...including the fact that once I'd built East Didsbury, the strip of shops in Northenden stopped making as much money as they once were, and some were even beginning to close down as my time ran out. Walk along Northenden high street, and you'll know that feeling." This is interesting. Urban planners out there, do these types of simulations occur before an area is zoned?

The problem with a lot of small to medium sized towns is that the people in charge of making zoning decisions are just local good ol' boys (or girls) who got voted in office because people knew who they were. They are in no way qualified to make these kinds of decisions. And so you get what you get.

s/voted/appointed/ in most cities.

Re: Using SimCity to diagnose my home town's traffic problem

#14

Anyone have info about the beta program? Simcity 2000 was my favorite game on my 486. 3000 and classic were flops... this looks really really good. As for the article, really interesting. Sounds like proof of the power of SimCity's engine. Would be more interesting to see him fix his issue.

I got into the final wave of the beta over the weekend.

Absolutely buying this on release day - gorgeous game and IMO a large improvement over previous installments. The only things that bother me is the limited size of the map (unsure if it's a beta thing or not) - if I can't build a megacity I'm going to be sorely disappointed.

Traffic model, economic model, new zoning model, and new utilities model are all IMO simplifications that make the game more fun, but does not remove depth. For those who haven't followed the game: power, sewage, and water no longer require power lines/pipes/etc, and travel along roads. They propagate along roads outwards from their generation source (water towers, power plants, sewage plants, etc) until their capacity is reached. There's a great animated overlay view that lets you monitor the state of each of these pretty easily.

The biggest pleasant surprise was how well it ran. I pushed all settings up to max and it didn't even flinch. SimCity 4 in contrast got insanely slow when your city became even slightly large - even on today's hardware.

The ability to monitor cashflow is also a welcome change. Instead of having to dive into your balance sheet to figure out your fiscal position it now shows a very clear flow rate (negative or positive) next to your balance.

Re: Using SimCity to diagnose my home town's traffic problem

#17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with a lot of small to medium sized towns is that the people in charge of making zoning decisions are just local good ol' boys (or girls) who got voted in office because people knew who they were. They are in no way qualified to make these kinds of decisions. And so you get what you get.

s/voted/appointed/ in most cities.

My uneducated opinion is that appointed/career people tend to do better. You do not want to get politics involved, that tends to screw things up.

Re: Using SimCity to diagnose my home town's traffic problem

#18

Sim City should be a recommended game for those taking Geography, especially in HS. When I first started playing, I was reacting to situations - fires, disasters, as they happened, which was already too late. Or I'd build all the fire stations in a nice row, or police stations all in a ordered block of land, then get frustrated when they all jammed each other trying to get out and answer calls. My tactics from Red Al…

Just so you're aware about the new SimCity, it requires a constant internet connection to play, and there's no way to save/load previous versions of a city. You can't mess around and experiment without doing irreversible damage, which was a big part of the fun.

Re: Using SimCity to diagnose my home town's traffic problem

#19

Anyone have info about the beta program? Simcity 2000 was my favorite game on my 486. 3000 and classic were flops... this looks really really good. As for the article, really interesting. Sounds like proof of the power of SimCity's engine. Would be more interesting to see him fix his issue.

I got into the final wave of the beta over the weekend. Absolutely buying this on release day - gorgeous game and IMO a large improvement over previous installments. The only things that bother me is the limited size of the map (unsure if it's a beta thing or not) - if I can't build a megacity I'm going to be sorely disappointed. Traffic model, economic model, new zoning model, and new utilities model are all IMO sim…

The map size as seen in the beta is about the same size as what will be seen in the retail version. The argument for this is that the new SimCity runs a much deeper simulation compared to previous titles, and that bigger maps would drastically reduce game performance.

Re: Using SimCity to diagnose my home town's traffic problem

#20

Anyone have info about the beta program? Simcity 2000 was my favorite game on my 486. 3000 and classic were flops... this looks really really good. As for the article, really interesting. Sounds like proof of the power of SimCity's engine. Would be more interesting to see him fix his issue.

I got into the final wave of the beta over the weekend. Absolutely buying this on release day - gorgeous game and IMO a large improvement over previous installments. The only things that bother me is the limited size of the map (unsure if it's a beta thing or not) - if I can't build a megacity I'm going to be sorely disappointed. Traffic model, economic model, new zoning model, and new utilities model are all IMO sim…

What video card are you using? Mine was apparently too old, so I'm looking for a new one.
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