Civ = SimCity?

[MilesBeyond]

Okay. Check this out. With everything going on with SimCity V, I feel like the Civ series and the SimCity series are totally analogous for one another.

Civilization and SimCity were both pioneers in their respective genres.

Civilization 2 and SimCity 2000 both became kind of the "staple" game that defined the genre and guaranteed each franchises' place in gaming history.

Civilization 3 and SimCity 3000 were both "two steps forward one step back" sequels. There were a lot of things they did that were really cool, but some of the fanbase felt that the new additions didn't work too well.

Civilization 4 and SimCity 4 were both hailed as the most complex and involved games in the series. They both took the things from the prior instalment that didn't work and polished them until they did, while adding a great deal of depth to the series overall.

CivRev and SimCity Societies were both kind of the "black sheep" of the franchise, a game specifically marketed to attract newcomers. The only difference is that while they both lacked the complexity and depth that made their series more enjoyable, at least CivRev was still a fun game. Societies was dumbed-down AND just a crappy game overall.

And now it looks like SimCity 5 is going to drum up a new market while being panned by die-hards in almost the exact same way Civ 5 was. I even feel that being able to build diagonally is analogous to hexes; a positive, sorely-needed change that won't help to fix all the other problems with the game.

The only difference is that Civ 5's DRM is annoying while SimCity 5's DRM is downright appalling and is a complete disgrace. "Your content is online only! We close the servers, you lose your cities! Screw you, fanbase!"

Anyway, I just thought the way these two series correspond to one another is both cool and a little freaky.

 

[TheMulattoMaker]

I haven't played SimCity since the first game, but here's a question: was there an off-brand knock-off version between SimCity2 and SimCity3? Y'know, Call to Power style?

 

[Quintillus]

I think it's a little early to judge Sim City 5 content-wise. It hasn't even been released yet, so all you have are either beta impressions - based on one hour, so not exactly fair - or perhaps some reviewers' impressions, which aren't necessarily indicitive of what die-hard fans think. Civ V has by-and-large sterling reviews from review sites, but that doesn't mean die-hard fans like it. Similarly, even if Sim City 5's reviewers' reviews are mediocre, that doesn't mean die-hard fans won't like it. The main critique I've heard about SC5 is the DRM, which doesn't really relate to the in-game experience. Secondarily, I've heard complaints about the cities being too small, but that's mostly speculative at this point, and we'll see how it bears out once people are actually playing the game with the neighboring cities, regions, etc. But for the actual experience within a city, I haven't heard as much versus complaints about 1 UPT, global happiness, etc.

If Sim City V turns out to be mediocre, it's an interesting comparison. I've only played SC1 and SC3 a decent amount (primarily 3), but what you've listed is similar to the general impressions of I-IV (in both series) that I'm familiar with.

Either way, even though I think SC5 might work out quite well design-wise, I'll be skipping it b/c of the afore-mentioned appalling DRM.

 

[gps]

Might be total coincidence (due to it's faster development cycle) - but there are also some strange parallels to the Total War series with Shogun (I) successfully establishing the series, Rome (III) and Medieval 2 (IV) still beeing widely regarded as the best in the series - while Empire (V) was released rather unfinished and also was the first in the series that pi..ed off many of the fans by the innovative addition of DRM/Steam copy protection paranoia.
But all this is conspiracy theory - I'd say all this comes down to a generell trend of the video game scene changing from the geekish market niche of the mid 80ies into a mass market industry where big money can be made. This article says it all - at least the guy is honest enough to admit his main focus is our money, and all else is a minor matter:

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2...yb-calls-on-gamers-to-vote-with-their-wallets

 

[Antilogic]

Without talking about the fifth installment (Civ5/SimCity reboot), I have thought about the parallels between the two franchises myself.

I think the greater trends in the videogaming industry are more telling, though, and this is just a coincidence that the franchise numbering lined up just so.

 

[rightfuture]

Come play SimCiv right now.
C2C qualifies. It is exploring ideas from a dozen games at the moment.
http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=449

 

[Dasphios]

An interesting detail, but I think that's all it is.
It does make me note something positive, though: for all of Civ V's flaws, at least the numbering makes sense (as opposed to Maxis's 1, 2000, 3000, 4, 1; or Square's 1, 2, 3, 2, 6, 3, etc.; or Capcom's 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, oh I give up).

The Video Game Industry: we don't understand how numbers work.

 

[Antilogic]

Where do Revolutions and Societies fit into the numbering scale? Still has problems.

 

[Pangaea]

Or Firefox: We increase the top level number every time there is a slight update.

 

[Robert FIN]

I'm kinda interested to buy Sim City 5 when its released in our country. I've never played Sim City before but I've played Caesar III and like it- a lot. I watched the review from youtube and it was really providing. Yeah, dont judge it before you've tried it. Lets hope that its a nice game

 

[Antilogic]

Caesar III tracked individual citizens and the new SimCity operates with a similar core mechanic. I'd also recommend giving SimCity 4 a try--it's one of the best city builder games I've ever played, even if you need to patch away a few of its silly route-finding errors.

 

[rightfuture]

Really C2C -Caveman2Cosmos does cover a good bit of that SimCIV ground. They already are adding Living World elements like hundreds of useful animals, and are exploring climate modeling, and weather, and if adding the Final Frontier Mod to the mix and a whole new Galactic Era/ Multi-Maps doesn't inspire you, then the next step will. It's chock full of both existing and potential greatness.
If you want to push the limits, and see what is really possible, then come visit and join the conversation!

Caveman2Cosmos forums
http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=449
see for yourself. It can become what you want to see!

 

[ZeekLTK]

SimCity 5 sounds like it could end up being one of the worst games of all time. As bad as Civ 5 is (compared to Civ 4), it's nowhere near that bad... is it?

 

[PreLynMax]

Civ 5 wasn't bad, in fact it was even playable and competent to it's predecessors.
But SimCity 5 is... bad. Real bad. It's probably worse than how Civ 5 was at it's launch (Civ V has improved at par with the previous versions with G&K, IMO), and SimCity 5 will probably never, ever live up to it's predecessors, even with patches and EP upgrades.

I once recall this backlash with The Sims 3 vanilla, but even with the lack of interactions, the fact that you can play an entire neighborhood trumped The Sims 2 vanilla.

My prediction is SimCity 5 is it probably be sub-par to decent, with micro-transactions that EA is known to have, where you must spend more than twice the money you were supposed to pay for a complete game with SimCity 5 vanilla.

Yes I agree that SimCity 5 is far from gone, and it's the only SimCity game since 1990 that I don't even want to buy, and refuse to buy because of it's microscopic maps and DRM.

My point is SimCity 5 is NOT THAT BAD, some of the features are not as horrible, and they removed some of the bad features were removed (health, SoD); I would love to see more features in the future EP. The difference with EPs between the two games, is you will get a lot from Civ V's EP, and very very little SimCity 5. But that's my prediction.

Really C2C -Caveman2Cosmos does cover a good bit of that SimCIV ground. They already are adding Living World elements like hundreds of useful animals, and are exploring climate modeling, and weather, and if adding the Final Frontier Mod to the mix and a whole new Galactic Era/ Multi-Maps doesn't inspire you, then the next step will. It's chock full of both existing and potential greatness.
If you want to push the limits, and see what is really possible, then come visit and join the conversation!

Caveman2Cosmos forums
http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=449
see for yourself. It can become what you want to see!

Yes, but C2C has a lot of balance issues, and it's so unstable, it's unplayable.

 

[Windsor]

SimCity 5 sounds like it could end up being one of the worst games of all time. As bad as Civ 5 is (compared to Civ 4), it's nowhere near that bad... is it?

Far from it. Most criticism is just EA-hate, DRM, DLC, server issues and release-bugs.

Those things are either not directly game related or things that will get solved quickly. Sure, it is annoying when you try to gift your friend 150 000 simoleons and the money just disappear, but how long is that bug going to be there?

Same with the login-queue and game servers. Experience from other game releases tells us that those issues gets solved quickly.

Once you see past that and read opinions from people who have actually played the game a fair amount, you'll see a different picture.

Civ5 got bashed for completely different reasons.

 

[damerell]

If you want to push the limits, and see what is really possible, then come visit and join the conversation! Caveman2Cosmos forums

Then you too can push C2C every half-dozen posts. Ugh.

C2C has two minor downsides; it's hideously unstable and hideously unbalanced. It's impressive, but it's not actually really a game...

 

[Izuul]

Was Sim City 4 really that good? I picked it up back when it was released (2003?), and while certain aspects were cool, i thought it had a lot of problems. It ran really poorly when cities got large on my PC that was brand new and had pretty good specs at the time. I also recall having a lot of issues with the way utilities were handled. I seem to remember having adjoining cities like "Trashville" and "Pollution Town" that were nothing but landfills or loaded with power plants and polluting industries. You could also essentially cheat the game by selling power and stuff at a huge loss from that city by leaving it paused.

Anyway, i gave up on SC 4 pretty early on and probably never gave it enough of a chance.

 

[Quintillus]

If you want to push the limits, and see what is really possible, then come visit and join the conversation!

Caveman2Cosmos forums
http://forums.civfanatics.com/forumdisplay.php?f=449
see for yourself. It can become what you want to see!

C2C sounds great on paper, but PreLynMax and damerell are right - it's way too unstable. The C2C team should stop adding new features, and spend some time making sure what's already there is rock solid instead.

I can't speak to the balance issues, because I never really got far enough to properly judge that before crashing. Once it's stable, I'd certainly be curious to try it again... but until then I cannot recommend it.

Far from it. Most criticism is just EA-hate, DRM, DLC, server issues and release-bugs.

Those things are either not directly game related or things that will get solved quickly. Sure, it is annoying when you try to gift your friend 150 000 simoleons and the money just disappear, but how long is that bug going to be there?

Same with the login-queue and game servers. Experience from other game releases tells us that those issues gets solved quickly.

Once you see past that and read opinions from people who have actually played the game a fair amount, you'll see a different picture.

Civ5 got bashed for completely different reasons.

Yeah, it seems like most of the complaints are related to the DRM or the servers (which to an extent is the same thing in this case). I've read about some release bugs, too. And the city size limit I've heard a fair amount about.

But the first three aren't inherent design flaws in the game itself. The complaints about them are certainly valid, and it's EA's own fault that the ratings are being trashed because of it (they could've let it run offline, or polished it for another few weeks prior to release). But, assuming they are ironed out, they aren't indicitive of the gameplay itself.

The last, city size, is a design tradeoff, and it's too early to tell how big of a deal that is. Especially since 75% of what you see so far is "The server is busy, trying again in 47 minutes."

Was Sim City 4 really that good? I picked it up back when it was released (2003?), and while certain aspects were cool, i thought it had a lot of problems. It ran really poorly when cities got large on my PC that was brand new and had pretty good specs at the time. I also recall having a lot of issues with the way utilities were handled. I seem to remember having adjoining cities like "Trashville" and "Pollution Town" that were nothing but landfills or loaded with power plants and polluting industries. You could also essentially cheat the game by selling power and stuff at a huge loss from that city by leaving it paused.

Anyway, i gave up on SC 4 pretty early on and probably never gave it enough of a chance.

I'd noticed that SC4 seems a bit laggy on my current PC, which is relatively high-end 2011 - even with fairly small cities. In particular when I'm more zoomed out. Once I'm in the thick of a game I don't really notice it, but when first entering a city, it's certainly noticeable.

Then again, SC3K had similar issues with things loading slowly when scrolled, and especially when zooming out. I remember the considerable waits for things to re-draw after zooming on my Pentium II - and thus trying to minimize zooming and switching to underground views and back. So I can't say SC4 performs worse than SC3K - I'd have to have both on the same machine.

 

[Pangaea]

Far from it. Most criticism is just EA-hate, DRM, DLC, server issues and release-bugs.

Ah, so just minor inconsequential things then

...like being unable to play the game you bought.

 

[Windsor]

Ah, so just minor inconsequential things then

...like being unable to play the game you bought.

EA switched civics and we get a turn of anarchy... Painful in the short term, doesn't matter that much in the long run.

Seriously, I'm not saying server problems (like so many always online games suffer from on launch) isn't worth discussing. I believe its better to make a distinction between actual game critique and criticism of EAs anti-piracy policy.