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tycho102
09-16-06, 09:33 PM
I played a tremendous amount of Simcity 1, and still have very fond memories of it. Played a bit of Simcity 2 -- didn't really get into it. Recently gave Simcity 3 a shot, and enjoyed it when it wasn't crashing on my machine. So I picked up Simcity 4, figuring that it would be at least as good as Simcity 3 without the Win95 crashing-all-the-bloody-time hassle.

I was half correct.

It doesn't crash. In fact, it is extra-ordinarily stable. I can alt-tab out of the game and do all kinds of stuff with my KVM, and that thing will just chug along for hours. However, zoning is the absolute worst god damn nightmare that I have experienced since Tribes 2. When Tribes 2 formatted your system drive after attempting to patch, it was doing you a favor in comparison to Simcity 4.

Zoning in Simcity 4 is terrible.

The developers attempted to "do you a favor" by having the zones include streets. However, in their game-balance wisdom, they modeled traffic flow from those zones. And the streets (in comparison to "one-way streets", "avenues", and "highways") are utterly worthless. You end up having to spend money bulldozing the streets, and laying avenues instead.

My entire kingdom (or at least a chainmail shirt of mithril [a.k.a "True Silver"]) for the ability to zone without streets, as you could do in Simcity 3.

Other than zoning, it's a pretty decent game. Water pipes lay across channels without any problems. Highways are still a complete bastardization, but they were in the last game, so just avoid them entirely (by using avenues and subway/rail) like you did in the last game. I miss the scenarios, not to even mention the pre-laid cities. The graphics are wonderful and you can see the "influence" that each police and fire station will cover as you place them in the city -- no more checking a seperate city layout and attempting to figure out about where you need a fire station.

There are also a couple of upgrades: Education "influence" from high schools and elementary school, as well as the ability to play "mini-games" inside a sim-car or sim-helicopter.

Overall, it's a step up and a step back. The zoning is terrible. If I had the ability to zone without streets, I would rate this game the absolute best of the series -- even without scenarios.

NeonSamurai
09-17-06, 07:16 AM
Umm i think there is a way of zoning with out the blasted streets by holding shift or ctrl or alt or somthing, i remember that use to drive me nuts too.


Yep just checked hold down shift if your patched up and it will stop auto building roads. however you still will need to pre build roads to align the slots properly.

Skybird
09-17-06, 07:23 AM
Check the web, there are alternate files available that control traffic AI with regard to trains, subs, busses etc in a different way and more reasonable (though putting the CPU under some additional stress). It also makes sims choose the best traffic option more wisely. i thunk there are even sevewral different traffic mods available. but last time I checked for that is 18-24 months ago.

I agree, Sim city is a woinderful game. One of those rare PC games aboiut which I would say that they have real charme.

tycho102
09-23-06, 05:52 PM
Thanks for the tips. I found the mod repository, and have been using quite a few of them.

It seems that I needed a radically different city layout. I have found that having "stripes" of residential/commercial/industrial sections is the key to getting the traffic to work properly. Even with all the different traffic mods. The real problem boils down to the traffic model. I ended up deciding to just take traffic out of the game, completely. It's still a tough game, but those wankers will work with me now.

RedMenace
09-25-06, 01:43 PM
I have fond memories of all the SimCity games... doesnt mean I was ever any good, though. :p You didnt have to be, actually, to have lots of fun. It was one of those games where screwing up was just as fun as doing everything right.