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I think if SimCity wasn't such a complete disaster, City Skylines wouldn't have taken off how it did. The big misstep I think they made is hinging the gameplay

I think if SimCity wasn't such a complete disaster, City Skylines wouldn't have taken off how it did. The big misstep I think they made is hinging the gameplay around multiplayer. While SimCity thought that collaboration would be done through "neighborhoods" and "resource sharing", City Skylines took the opposite approach and introduced collaboration through Steam Workshop. The developers of SimCity should have realized that people don't play sim building games to play with others, it's a very much a solo game. City Skylines navigated this beutifully by letting players still play the game alone but also letting them collaborate through assets rather than through gameplay.

delusional 4y ago
I personally believe that the SImCity version of multiplayer could have been impressively successful had it not supplanted everything else in the game. I like the idea of building cities that somehow interact with the cities my friends build, or whatever everyone else is doing. I like the idea of a game that asynchronously "breaks the meta". It just has to be a good SimCity game first and then have that stuff layered on top. SimCity 2013 was never a good SimCity game to begin with.
- JKCalhoun 4y ago
  Definitely could be cool to have an intermodal aspect. Trains/trucks coming and going with excess resources from your and other's cities. Large warehouse zones on the city periphery... Any "open" SimCity-like game?
  - SteveNuts 4y ago
    OpenTTD fits the bill. But for me, Sim City/Cities Skylines isn’t about resource generation as much as it is about just… building and expanding a thriving city. I like the way CS approached this and made it a thing you can do to earn extra money, but it’s not strictly necessary (your industrial areas will auto-import everything they need).
    - JKCalhoun 4y ago
      An intermodal layer could also be a part of the expanding of a city and help to make it thriving as well. Just in keeping with the times, look at the landscape of warehouses that surround the periphery of our major cities. What is that stuff? Amazon Prime "last mile"warehousing? Some other leg of an intermodal network? (And I suppose server farms would be another element — perhaps a modern Sim has already added that feature to city expansion.) Perhaps SimPort needs to happen — simulate the international container-ship and port traffic (+ rail, + trucking) and make it all about resource management, canal bottlenecks, supply-chain fragility... (SimSupplyChain — now there's an exciting title.) If no one has written that game/sim, let me know. Maybe I'll play with the idea. Could be a learning experience for all of us.
Loughla 4y ago
Honestly, while they are the same in overall, 10,000 foot concept, they are wildly different games. SimCity was a resource manager and city planning game. City Skylines is a traffic manager. This is the hill I will die on.
- ascagnel_ 4y ago
  Skylines isn't even a very good traffic manager (the Cities in Motion games that came before it are much better in that regard) -- it's a good city _builder_, but not a good city _simulator_.
  - orwin 4y ago
    You have mods that greatly increase the difficulty, and make the simulation way better than simcity4. And traffic is working the way we European think traffic works in the US. Although to be fair the dlcs improved that quite a lot (not enough Pol Sim, but I understand why)
- JohnFen 4y ago
  This. City: Skylines doesn't fill the same niche as SimCity.
- Asooka 4y ago
  You won't die alone, I'm with you on this one. I've said before I wish I could play Cities Skylines with the agent simulator replaced by the purely statistical model from Sim City. Though thinking about it again, maybe it could be modded in...

delusional 4y ago

I personally believe that the SImCity version of multiplayer could have been impressively successful had it not supplanted everything else in the game. I like the idea of building cities that somehow interact with the cities my friends build, or whatever everyone else is doing. I like the idea of a game that asynchronously "breaks the meta". It just has to be a good SimCity game first and then have that stuff layered on top. SimCity 2013 was never a good SimCity game to begin with.

JKCalhoun 4y ago
Definitely could be cool to have an intermodal aspect. Trains/trucks coming and going with excess resources from your and other's cities. Large warehouse zones on the city periphery... Any "open" SimCity-like game?
- SteveNuts 4y ago
  OpenTTD fits the bill. But for me, Sim City/Cities Skylines isn’t about resource generation as much as it is about just… building and expanding a thriving city. I like the way CS approached this and made it a thing you can do to earn extra money, but it’s not strictly necessary (your industrial areas will auto-import everything they need).
  - JKCalhoun 4y ago
    An intermodal layer could also be a part of the expanding of a city and help to make it thriving as well. Just in keeping with the times, look at the landscape of warehouses that surround the periphery of our major cities. What is that stuff? Amazon Prime "last mile"warehousing? Some other leg of an intermodal network? (And I suppose server farms would be another element — perhaps a modern Sim has already added that feature to city expansion.) Perhaps SimPort needs to happen — simulate the international container-ship and port traffic (+ rail, + trucking) and make it all about resource management, canal bottlenecks, supply-chain fragility... (SimSupplyChain — now there's an exciting title.) If no one has written that game/sim, let me know. Maybe I'll play with the idea. Could be a learning experience for all of us.

Loughla 4y ago

Honestly, while they are the same in overall, 10,000 foot concept, they are wildly different games. SimCity was a resource manager and city planning game. City Skylines is a traffic manager. This is the hill I will die on.

ascagnel_ 4y ago
Skylines isn't even a very good traffic manager (the Cities in Motion games that came before it are much better in that regard) -- it's a good city _builder_, but not a good city _simulator_.
- orwin 4y ago
  You have mods that greatly increase the difficulty, and make the simulation way better than simcity4. And traffic is working the way we European think traffic works in the US. Although to be fair the dlcs improved that quite a lot (not enough Pol Sim, but I understand why)
JohnFen 4y ago
This. City: Skylines doesn't fill the same niche as SimCity.
Asooka 4y ago
You won't die alone, I'm with you on this one. I've said before I wish I could play Cities Skylines with the agent simulator replaced by the purely statistical model from Sim City. Though thinking about it again, maybe it could be modded in...