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reading the article, actually made me think of SimCity 4 & the game seems to be still following whatever the article / guide says... So I'm guessing the simulat

reading the article, actually made me think of SimCity 4 & the game seems to be still following whatever the article / guide says... So I'm guessing the simulation just got better from time to time (except for that SimCity 2013) to reflect the real world, in which some gamers complain SimCity 4 is a bit too hard

Tiktaalik 11y ago
SimCity and Cities: Skylines are still half stuck in 1950s era car oriented urban planning so they're not totally representative of the real world and modern urban planning. In these games public transportation options are limited, walkable public spaces such as pedestrian only streets and squares are not possible, and bike lanes do not exist. Additionally zoning is either residential, commercial or industrial, so there's no concept of mixed-use zoning (ie. commercial on the bottom of a building, residential on top) which you see everywhere. I'd love to see a smaller scale game that really focuses on these details. SimCity 4 and other games went in the other direction, building systems around how a metropolitan region of multiple cities would interact.
- douche 11y ago
  SimTower sort of did this, within the context of a single skyscraper. I'm not sure if it is on GOG or anywhere else legitimate these days - odds are it might not be a simple matter to run on modern Windows, unless you want to spin up an XP VM. I spent way too many hours playing SimTower as a kid. It was pretty fun, especially if you took advantage of the infinite money cheat involving building a specific type of room in one certain place on the bottom of the level... Not bad for a game that was built around an elevator simulator http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130563/the_designers_notebook_the_.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130563/the_designers_n...
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - mosheroperandi 11y ago
    It's actually available on iPad under it's Japanese release name: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yoot-tower/id379197311?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yoot-tower/id379197311?mt=8
    - amyjess 11y ago
      Yoot Tower was actually the sequel to SimTower, not the Japanese name for it.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
  - jcranmer 11y ago
    I've very much enjoyed playing SimTower, and I still have a legitimate exe of it sitting around. But the game is a Win16 game, and my latest experience running it in WINE was crap (it became very easy to completely lock up X). Possibly it might make more sense running in Windows 3.1 in dosbox. Incidentally, this is a motivation for why I'm playing a bit with statically recompiling x86-16 code to run on x86-32.
- grrowl 11y ago
  Cities: Skylines has pedestrian paths which affect whether they drive or walk to their destination, and the public transport options (Bus, Metro-train, Rail-train) will get used if they're more efficient than driving (although it compares against optimistic road travel times, without regard for traffic)
- maxsilver 11y ago
  I don't mean to sound rude, but have you actually played Cities: Skylines? Cities: Skylines, more than any other city simulator I've ever seen, drastically encourages public transit use. The game is made by developers that got their start designing european-style mass transit simulators - http://www.citiesinmotion2.com/ http://www.citiesinmotion2.com/ And with the exception of mixed-use zoning, everything your asking for they already have done / just finished, and heavily encourage, in the game. >In these games public transportation options are limited There's lots of public transit in the game (Busses, Trains, Subway). Each with custom tracks, bridges, tunnels, etc. And you can completely customize the exact lines and routes of busses and subways (literally down to how often each stop is hit, and in what order). There's also "unmanaged" / "privatized" mass transit (Ferries / Harbours and Airports). The simulation is exceptionally forgiving about public transit too. People will always choose to take transit, if it's even remotely competitive with driving. People will wait for buses even if they are overwhelmingly overcrowded, etc. > walkable public spaces such as pedestrian only streets and squares are not possible This has existed since day one. Click "Parks/Greenery" -> "Paths". You can place paved pedestrian-only streets, or gravel pedestrian-only paths. You can elevate them over/under roads or build pedestrian-only bridges, for instance. You could recreate nearly the entire Minneapolis walking/bicycle trail network with these tools. And the game rewards you for doing this. (Pedestrian-only walkways generate less noise than full roads do) > Bike lanes do not exist They're adding them this month (September, 2015) along with dedicated bus-only lanes - https://www.paradoxplaza.com/cities-skylines-after-dark https://www.paradoxplaza.com/cities-skylines-after-dark
  - Tiktaalik 11y ago
    I put in about 5-8 hours into Cities: Skylines before I got distracted by something else and put it aside. Enough time to put in a pretty great small town bus system. Cities: Skylines has great transportation options, much better than Sim City, but it still has a few things it needs to add if one wanted to build modern cities using modern urbanist thinking (eg. Copenhagen). I noticed when I was playing that you could build pedestrian paths, but it seemed like they were in the context of a park path, not a pedestrian only commercial district. From some Googling it seems that this is the case, that you can't really build for example a downtown commercial core that would be pedestrian only. The bus system in Skylines is great, and I didn't play long enough to experiment with subways, but I noticed that there didn't seem to be streetcars. I've been to a lot of cities that mix pedestrian streets and street cars and it works very well. That's something I'd really like to see in the game. I'm glad to see they are adding bike lanes. They're an essential part of the transportation system. Even though I'm complaining about it, I do want to underline that Cities: Skylines is a great game and a big step forward for SimCity type games. I'm really glad Paradox is continuing to improve the game.
- ionised 11y ago
  There is a HUGE emphasis on public transport in Cities: Skylines. Neglecting it in any way is a sure way to cause traffic nightmares that are difficult toi rectify.
  - Tiktaalik 11y ago
    Yes Cities is really good, but it can do better. It's more SimCity 4 & 2013 that was really stuck in the past. I'm hoping for a lot more improvements to transit in Skylines with the inevitable sequel.

Tiktaalik 11y ago

SimCity and Cities: Skylines are still half stuck in 1950s era car oriented urban planning so they're not totally representative of the real world and modern urban planning. In these games public transportation options are limited, walkable public spaces such as pedestrian only streets and squares are not possible, and bike lanes do not exist. Additionally zoning is either residential, commercial or industrial, so there's no concept of mixed-use zoning (ie. commercial on the bottom of a building, residential on top) which you see everywhere. I'd love to see a smaller scale game that really focuses on these details. SimCity 4 and other games went in the other direction, building systems around how a metropolitan region of multiple cities would interact.

douche 11y ago
SimTower sort of did this, within the context of a single skyscraper. I'm not sure if it is on GOG or anywhere else legitimate these days - odds are it might not be a simple matter to run on modern Windows, unless you want to spin up an XP VM. I spent way too many hours playing SimTower as a kid. It was pretty fun, especially if you took advantage of the infinite money cheat involving building a specific type of room in one certain place on the bottom of the level... Not bad for a game that was built around an elevator simulator http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130563/the_designers_notebook_the_.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130563/the_designers_n...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- mosheroperandi 11y ago
  It's actually available on iPad under it's Japanese release name: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yoot-tower/id379197311?mt=8 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yoot-tower/id379197311?mt=8
  - amyjess 11y ago
    Yoot Tower was actually the sequel to SimTower, not the Japanese name for it.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- jcranmer 11y ago
  I've very much enjoyed playing SimTower, and I still have a legitimate exe of it sitting around. But the game is a Win16 game, and my latest experience running it in WINE was crap (it became very easy to completely lock up X). Possibly it might make more sense running in Windows 3.1 in dosbox. Incidentally, this is a motivation for why I'm playing a bit with statically recompiling x86-16 code to run on x86-32.
grrowl 11y ago
Cities: Skylines has pedestrian paths which affect whether they drive or walk to their destination, and the public transport options (Bus, Metro-train, Rail-train) will get used if they're more efficient than driving (although it compares against optimistic road travel times, without regard for traffic)
maxsilver 11y ago
I don't mean to sound rude, but have you actually played Cities: Skylines? Cities: Skylines, more than any other city simulator I've ever seen, drastically encourages public transit use. The game is made by developers that got their start designing european-style mass transit simulators - http://www.citiesinmotion2.com/ http://www.citiesinmotion2.com/ And with the exception of mixed-use zoning, everything your asking for they already have done / just finished, and heavily encourage, in the game. >In these games public transportation options are limited There's lots of public transit in the game (Busses, Trains, Subway). Each with custom tracks, bridges, tunnels, etc. And you can completely customize the exact lines and routes of busses and subways (literally down to how often each stop is hit, and in what order). There's also "unmanaged" / "privatized" mass transit (Ferries / Harbours and Airports). The simulation is exceptionally forgiving about public transit too. People will always choose to take transit, if it's even remotely competitive with driving. People will wait for buses even if they are overwhelmingly overcrowded, etc. > walkable public spaces such as pedestrian only streets and squares are not possible This has existed since day one. Click "Parks/Greenery" -> "Paths". You can place paved pedestrian-only streets, or gravel pedestrian-only paths. You can elevate them over/under roads or build pedestrian-only bridges, for instance. You could recreate nearly the entire Minneapolis walking/bicycle trail network with these tools. And the game rewards you for doing this. (Pedestrian-only walkways generate less noise than full roads do) > Bike lanes do not exist They're adding them this month (September, 2015) along with dedicated bus-only lanes - https://www.paradoxplaza.com/cities-skylines-after-dark https://www.paradoxplaza.com/cities-skylines-after-dark
- Tiktaalik 11y ago
  I put in about 5-8 hours into Cities: Skylines before I got distracted by something else and put it aside. Enough time to put in a pretty great small town bus system. Cities: Skylines has great transportation options, much better than Sim City, but it still has a few things it needs to add if one wanted to build modern cities using modern urbanist thinking (eg. Copenhagen). I noticed when I was playing that you could build pedestrian paths, but it seemed like they were in the context of a park path, not a pedestrian only commercial district. From some Googling it seems that this is the case, that you can't really build for example a downtown commercial core that would be pedestrian only. The bus system in Skylines is great, and I didn't play long enough to experiment with subways, but I noticed that there didn't seem to be streetcars. I've been to a lot of cities that mix pedestrian streets and street cars and it works very well. That's something I'd really like to see in the game. I'm glad to see they are adding bike lanes. They're an essential part of the transportation system. Even though I'm complaining about it, I do want to underline that Cities: Skylines is a great game and a big step forward for SimCity type games. I'm really glad Paradox is continuing to improve the game.
ionised 11y ago
There is a HUGE emphasis on public transport in Cities: Skylines. Neglecting it in any way is a sure way to cause traffic nightmares that are difficult toi rectify.
- Tiktaalik 11y ago
  Yes Cities is really good, but it can do better. It's more SimCity 4 & 2013 that was really stuck in the past. I'm hoping for a lot more improvements to transit in Skylines with the inevitable sequel.