Cities Skylines (1&2), SimCity 4, city simulators - sperg about simulations that include or don't include niggers

[Xarpho's Return]

There's a pixel art city simulator called Metropolis 1998 on Steam (link) but already I can tell it's going to be a problem.

Metropolis 1998 is a fresh take on simulation games from the 90s and 00s while applying modern-day features to the city builder genre. As the player, you will be able to see inside of your citizens homes, featuring two different camera modes: classic isometric and top down. Demand is no longer zone based, but driven by your citizens specific needs. As the mayor, you'll be able to set aside land and designate where specific businesses can open up their doors.

A closer look at some of the "features" allow things like furniture placement inside of buildings...and once that happens, you've pretty much just confirmed that this is SimTown, not a city sim.

Guess I'll have to keep waiting.

 

[877-CASH-now]

Christ, what are devs thinking? Nobody is clamoring for the graphics of early SimCities - we want that gameplay with updated graphics and to not have to buy 470 DLCs to get it.

 

[reptile baht spaniard rid]

Christ, what are devs thinking? Nobody is clamoring for the graphics of early SimCities - we want that gameplay with updated graphics and to not have to buy 470 DLCs to get it.

Fuck it at this point I’ll take Factorio meets SimCity and give me a damn 2D city painter that ain’t shit.

CS1 slathered in mods is actually pretty damn fun in a “how will I fuck this up fixing it” sort of never ending impromptu improvement way.

Maybe I’ll need to slide back to SC4.

 

[The Ghost of Kviv]

Fuck it at this point I’ll take Factorio meets SimCity and give me a damn 2D city painter that ain’t shit.

CS1 slathered in mods is actually pretty damn fun in a “how will I fuck this up fixing it” sort of never ending impromptu improvement way.

Maybe I’ll need to slide back to SC4.

There's Highrise City, which is somewhere between SimCity and TTD. And Urbrek, which is somewhere between Anno and Dorfromantik.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Christ, what are devs thinking? Nobody is clamoring for the graphics of early SimCities - we want that gameplay with updated graphics and to not have to buy 470 DLCs to get it.

To me this is part of a cancer affecting video games for at least since the late 2000s when "indie" games started to take off--pixel art has an inherently positive connotation because people associated with good games, not because it's pixel art.

SimCity 2000 was a good game because it took a winning formula, improved every single element while leaving the core gameplay mechanic intact, and wrapped it up in some cutting edge graphics and a good soundtrack.

 

[Classical Lord Dessler]

Christ, what are devs thinking? Nobody is clamoring for the graphics of early SimCities - we want that gameplay with updated graphics and to not have to buy 470 DLCs to get it.

To me this is part of a cancer affecting video games for at least since the late 2000s when "indie" games started to take off--pixel art has an inherently positive connotation because people associated with good games, not because it's pixel art.

SimCity 2000 was a good game because it took a winning formula, improved every single element while leaving the core gameplay mechanic intact, and wrapped it up in some cutting edge graphics and a good soundtrack.

It's a sin how visually stunted this genre is given the insane technology and software we have now. I mean look at UE 5, there are pictures and even some short clips that fooled me out of context. I get CS2 was being developed before UE 5 was out but it was something like 2019 when they started? Games that came out that year look leagues better.

I know it will improve and probably look amazing once modders get their hands on it in force but... when modders get their hands on it also seems to be too big of an ask from the developer whose legacy is propped up by modders.

 

[877-CASH-now]

To me this is part of a cancer affecting video games for at least since the late 2000s when "indie" games started to take off--pixel art has an inherently positive connotation because people associated with good games, not because it's pixel art.

SimCity 2000 was a good game because it took a winning formula, improved every single element while leaving the core gameplay mechanic intact, and wrapped it up in some cutting edge graphics and a good soundtrack.

Honestly the only indie game of the past decade with pixel graphics that has been any good is Stardew Valley - but that's because ConcernedApe understood what makes that genre of game good. I wish everyone would quit ripping it off and figure out how to make something completely different - hell, redo Number Crunchers for all I care as long as you "get" why that worked as a young kids educational game.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

I know it will improve and probably look amazing once modders get their hands on it in force but... when modders get their hands on it also seems to be too big of an ask from the developer whose legacy is propped up by modders.

I rated you "Optimistic" because at this rate "official" mods won't be available for months and the heavy-handed approach will kill the "community" that exists. I suspect that the way CS2 mods work now will be patched out by the end of the year.

CS1 slathered in mods is actually pretty damn fun in a “how will I fuck this up fixing it” sort of never ending impromptu improvement way.

I don't know, with SimCity 4 there was a nice "gardening pride" effect, where you could watch as everything grows, especially with IRL mods. That was my memory of it, anyway.

My current Factorio run I finally "beat" after 60 hours of fucking around and my train lines are currently borked.

 

[reptile baht spaniard rid]

I don't know, with SimCity 4 there was a nice "gardening pride" effect, where you could watch as everything grows, especially with IRL mods. That was my memory of it, anyway.

SC4 definitely ended (it's not over, the modding community is still alive and the devs released a version for the M-series apple processor) as a city painter, with many of the mods dedicated to making it look wonderful but not really enhancing the simulation much.

CS1 was more of an actual game - though you could city paint - and the mods were more heavy on modifying the simulation.

With SC4 I'd spend hours redesigning a single "screen" to make the freeways and trains look right, with SC1 I'm more like "oh I need more houses, lets' build a whole new suburb".

 

[Xarpho's Return]

SC4 definitely ended (it's not over, the modding community is still alive and the devs released a version for the M-series apple processor) as a city painter, with many of the mods dedicated to making it look wonderful but not really enhancing the simulation much.

CS1 was more of an actual game - though you could city paint - and the mods were more heavy on modifying the simulation.

With SC4 I'd spend hours redesigning a single "screen" to make the freeways and trains look right, with SC1 I'm more like "oh I need more houses, lets' build a whole new suburb".

I think that's why I got bored with SimCity 4 (one reason at least--probably a bit more complicated). There were a lot of mods that reflected the real world--I think I had kevdan25's complete fast food collection at the time, but there was only so much I could do.

 

[Just Some Other Guy]

SC4 definitely ended (it's not over, the modding community is still alive and the devs released a version for the M-series apple processor) as a city painter, with many of the mods dedicated to making it look wonderful but not really enhancing the simulation much.

CS1 was more of an actual game - though you could city paint - and the mods were more heavy on modifying the simulation.

With SC4 I'd spend hours redesigning a single "screen" to make the freeways and trains look right, with SC1 I'm more like "oh I need more houses, lets' build a whole new suburb".

I seem to remember CS1 as more of a city painter "watch it grow" game than SC4. You really can't fail at playing it.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

I seem to remember CS1 as more of a city painter "watch it grow" game than SC4. You really can't fail at playing it.

CS1 is definitely more of the city painter. I think I might've cheated in SimCity 4...but even so, it was more of a garden than a painter. You can plant stuff in a garden and admire it but you could fail if you screw up.

As for other city simulations went, I definitely liked Prison Architect (pre-Paradox) that let you build stuff and manage problems instead of two hours fucking around with railroads.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

There's a pixel art city simulator called Metropolis 1998 on Steam (link) but already I can tell it's going to be a problem.


A closer look at some of the "features" allow things like furniture placement inside of buildings...and once that happens, you've pretty much just confirmed that this is SimTown, not a city sim.

Guess I'll have to keep waiting.

I feel like an obvious niche would be for someone to make a small town simulator that's halfway between the Sims and Sim City in detail and market it towards the farming sim faggots that just want to play dolls with the townsfolk.\


Since people are talking about it, I hate pixel art and I hate that gaymers have even started to infect other media with it.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

I feel like an obvious niche would be for someone to make a small town simulator that's halfway between the Sims and Sim City in detail and market it towards the farming sim faggots that just want to play dolls with the townsfolk.\

Since people are talking about it, I hate pixel art and I hate that gaymers have even started to infect other media with it.

I remember that's what SimsVille was kind of supposed to be like, but the town reflected your choices and everything in the game, so if everything went to shit the theater would go porno. I feel like that sort of thing was explored with the now-forgotten SimCity Societies but too poorly implemented (and being released at the time when everyone expected a SimCity 5).

...though if the population mechanics are actually balanced properly instead of "skyscraper city at 100k" like C:S2 I might take a sniff at it.

 

[Snekposter]

I just hate that nobody ever, ever got transportation un-fucked in CS1.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

I just hate that nobody ever, ever got transportation un-fucked in CS1.

That's what pisses me off when people talk about how CS1 is a "just a traffic simulator" because it simulates traffic so unbelievably poorly it's unreal.

This simple JavaScript-based traffic simulator is better than CS1's unironically including where traffic jams actually happen on freeways.

CS2 isn't representative of a developer gone wrong, the whole of CS1 was composed of both arrogance and incompetence.

 

[Snekposter]

That's what pisses me off when people talk about how CS1 is a "just a traffic simulator" because it simulates traffic so unbelievably poorly it's unreal.

I think the absolute worst part of CS1 is how it handles people getting off that big freeway. Don't bother building a separate off-ramp. Almost nobody will use it instead of idiotically driving into the big traffic jam that is your downtown area. The game has absolutely zero ability to evaluate how people change their driving habits in the presence of traffic.

 

[jje100010001]

It's a sin how visually stunted this genre is given the insane technology and software we have now. I mean look at UE 5, there are pictures and even some short clips that fooled me out of context. I get CS2 was being developed before UE 5 was out but it was something like 2019 when they started? Games that came out that year look leagues better.

I know it will improve and probably look amazing once modders get their hands on it in force but... when modders get their hands on it also seems to be too big of an ask from the developer whose legacy is propped up by modders.

The issue I see with games like these are scaling and simulation, so you impose limits (restrict buildable area), go low-poly, have an aggressive LOD system, and demand higher system requirements.

I think a city-builder is always better slightly stylized, and buildings work better slightly scaled down so that you get more bang-for-buck for your tiles (your cities look 'bigger' even if scaled down), and gameplay should not require excessive micromanagement of subsystems.

I mentioned before, the Anno series have always had excellent art direction and will hardly look dated in the years to come. You can perhaps compare something like Anno 2205 (2015) to CS2. Arguably Cities XL (2009) is not that far below CS2 in terms of visuals.

Personally speaking, I think that the actual tech side of city-builders have not been pushed hard enough. Why are individual building models still a thing for generic buildings? Why do building lots still have to be othogonal? Why is it not possible to start using procedurally-generated buildings assembled out of tilesets that can conform to non-orthogonal lots and have some variations in shape and height?

These are not things that have never existed (and have become popular in game dev), but have simply never really been explored all that much in mainstream city-building games- the most prominent instance I remember is Monopoly Tycoon from 2001 (!)

Cities XL (2009)

Cities Skylines 2 (2023)

 

[Xarpho's Return]

The issue I see with games like these are scaling and simulation, so you impose limits (restrict buildable area), go low-poly, have an aggressive LOD system, and demand higher system requirements.

I think a city-builder is always better slightly stylized, and buildings work better slightly scaled down so that you get more bang-for-buck for your tiles (your cities look 'bigger' even if scaled down), and gameplay should not require excessive micromanagement of subsystems.

I think there are gameplay elements that need to be there and stuff that doesn't. If you have water management you don't need a separate sewage mechanic. You don't need to model thousands of individual agents as they go from travel from point A to point B.

The thing about low-poly is that Cities Skylines 2 isn't low-poly. As awful as the Cities Skylines 2 people models are, face of a downie, head the shape of a baked ham, with blonde dreads and wearing a sheer mesh shirt, those are tens of thousands of polygons themselves. The program they used modeled individual teeth. Buildings are also highly over-polygoned for what they have. If buildings had fewer polygons and make did with clever texturing, we could have MASSIVE cities.

Personally speaking, I think that the actual tech side of city-builders have not been pushed hard enough. Why are individual building models still a thing for generic buildings? Why do building lots still have to be othogonal? Why is it not possible to start using procedurally-generated buildings assembled out of tilesets that can conform to non-orthogonal lots and have some variations in shape and height?

The thing that comes to mind is NewCity which had a few (very simplistic, almost LEGO-like) textures for building multiple floors. But the last thing you want is a much of procedurally-generated mutant buildings. I mean, we've already the procedurally-generated people...

Better to just to have just normal tilesets and let people fill that in with mods. As for non-orthogonal lots, that does need to be a thing but even so, looking at any city built after 1800 a vast majority of the city has rectangular, orthogonal lots. Obviously there are exceptions (particularly in subdivisions, or any place where the road has to curve). The solution would be to make smaller tile sizes instead of the 16m*16m tiles SimCity 4 has, which would have less wasted space.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Sorry for the bump, but Cities Skylines 2 is continuing to be a major problem. They seems to be falling into the traps Maxis did back in 2013 but with even more disrespect and incompetence.

Player counts for C:S1 are now higher than C:S2.