Articles http://www.simtropolis.com/omnibus/_/other-games/simcity-societies/ Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:42:18 +0000 43200 Articles about Simcity Societies SimCity Societies Preview http://www.simtropolis.com/omnibus/_/other-games/simcity-societies/simcity-societies-preview-r193
Hands On Impressions of SimCity Societies


This is not the SimCity you know. Let's get that out of the way first. To have any chance of appreciating this game on its own merits, you need to first divorce yourself from most of the concepts of the classic SimCity game model. EA knows that this will be a huge challenge for the devotees of the franchise, but they have assured us that there is plenty of depth to explore for those who are looking for it, and plenty of easily accessible fun and fulfillment for devotees and new-comers alike.


But let's start with what EA showed us, then we'll get to what we learned on our own and finally my own personal impressions after playing the game.


The preview may be a bit lengthy, so there are chapters for you to jump right to the points that interest you.



  • 1. Introduction: Welcome to SimCity Societies
  • 2. How does Societies Play
  • 3. Roads and Transportation Networks
  • 4. Buildings Buildings Buildings
  • 5. Custom Content and Moddability
  • 6. Closing Comments
  • 7. Personal Impressions of the Game



Introduction - Welcome to SimCity Societies [top]


We have been told that with each iteration of SimCity, the game had become increasingly complex. There was a diminishing return of the fan base with each release, and EA felt that it was not attracting enough new players. The game, as we have been told, had become dense and impenetrable to new comers. Unlike those who had the benefit of following the franchise over the years, i.e. from SimCity 2000 & 3000 to SimCity 4, new comers were finding the game too cryptic and difficult to get into, let alone enjoy.



Societies attempts to address these issues by completely changing the design of the SimCity model to make it more accessible to new players, while retaining a level of depth that devotees have come to expect.


Think of it this way: Classic SimCity was like a toy you could play with, kind of like a model train set, where you build things and kind of watch it work and move around. Societies, then, is almost like a chemistry set; you have a bunch of disparate ingredients and you mix them together to see what you get.


How does Societies Play [top]


So this is how the game now plays, as I understand it. (It's worth mentioning that the build we were using was in alpha state, and that EA's Rod Humble stressed that there was plenty of time to make changes and additions. We're definitely interested to see what can be done between now and the slated release for November.)


First, you choose your terrain to start your city. The options include Grasslands, Tundra, Tropics, Desert and others. We got the impression that these might change.


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Here, I've chosen grasslands. There is no terraforming in the game, though you can import your own greyscale height maps to generate your own terrain. Gone is the Region Play concept of SimCity 4; each city is now once again a microcosm and completely self-contained.



Once in the opening landscape, things look a little familiar, aside from the menu and user interface. Your first order of business will be to lay roads, and supply power. But the familiarity ends there, and there are new approaches to old concepts. There is no zoning for Residential, Commercial or Industry. Instead, you plop buildings as you see fit. There are no power lines to connect, instead a power station will supply power to the city until it is overloaded, in which case you add another one. As with classic SimCity, there are different types of Power Stations, ranging from coal, gas and wind to more advanced power generating technologies.


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There will be no "demand" for residential, commercial or industry, instead you will use the numbers in the Societal Values interface -- also known as Societal Energies. These are: Productivity, Wealth, Creativity, Spirituality, Obedience and Knowledge. You will use these Energies to decide what to build next, and thereby influencing the nature of your city's society. As you've no doubt heard before, build lots of Obedience structures, and your society becomes Authoritarian. Plop lots of Creativity generating buildings and your city starts to appear more fanciful.


The term "demand" is used loosely, because the term implies that you, the player, are obligated to satisfy these demands, but in Societies, you don't necessarily have to. In some cases it will be to your benefit to satisfy them, in other cases, you may want to ignore them altogether, again, it goes back to the kind of city you are trying to build.


Unlike in SimCity 4, where bigger, richer and smarter were always usually more desirable, Societies does not impose these judemental values on you, the player. We have been told that you are free to build a small city, or a metropolis, your Sims can be perfectly contributing members of society even if they aren't educated or even happy. There are tools for you to mold the Society that you want to create as well as devices to "cure" those moody Sims.


When selecting your buildings, there is a filter from which you can select a City Building Style: All Buildings, Contemplative, Romantic (European), Industrial, Fun City, Capitalist, Normal, Small Town, Cyberpunk and Authoritarian. These will filter out those buildings and focus on the ones that best match the style of city society you are trying to create.


The intention is to allow players to just play in one of these themes. For example, select Small Town, and only buildings appropriate to a small town will appear such as farm houses, trailer parks and general stores and you can focus solely on the Small Town set for your city. If you want a strictly Cyberpunk or Romantic feel, you can focus on those themes by using the building filter. Of course you can select Normal and normal looking buildings will be available to you and you can build what most might consider a normal looking city.


So let's get back to game play. Now that you have this swatch of land and you've laid down some major roads, plopped a power plant, you will want to encourage people to move in. Since Residential doesn't grow on its own, you will plop the type of housing you want, motivated by the type of city society you want to create. In my first lame attempt at a city, I set myself a personal goal to build a Small Backwater Town, where the Sims perhaps weren't very educated, but they sure liked their spirituality. I plopped down several trailer parks for them to live in, some row houses and a farm house along my quaint country roads.


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Within the "city-proper" itself, designated by real city roads, I decided to plop some places for my Sims to work. This included a community garden, and a Spooky Barn, as well, for their spiritual needs, I plopped an Altar and a Temple, eventually a Beer Factory. For some Venues where the Sims can go to relax, I plopped a Dive Bar. As I flipped through the buildings available to me, I started plopping down what might best fit my society. A General Store, a Pawn Shop, a Realtor, and Town Hall. I started drawing out roads, and plopped more housing, this time Brownhouses and Row Houses, and when more people moved in I plopped more places to work. I then plopped some Venues for my Sims so they have something to do, such as visit the Antique Shop, the Art Gallery, the Museum, the Cafe, a Car Dealership and a Bistro.



Later, I threw in an Elementary School, and Florist. For the first little while, I didn't seem to have many problems, so I was just happily drawing streets and plopping buildings. Some buildings were locked to me, so I had to look up their requirements to unlock them (more on that later).


Things were looking fairly idyllic, Sims drove to work in cars or jalopies, there was some traffic congestion, but I just drew more roads to resolve that. After playing some time, I manage to cross a population milestone, and was rewarded with a building or a bonus. There are also City Acheivements that will offer you a permenent bonus, but there wasn't enough time to play that far.


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So the essential concepts of Societies is this. Sims need somewhere to live, Sims need somewhere to work in order to be Productive, and Sims need Venues to relax in order to be happy. All of these things have risks and rewards, as you might imagine. Lowly working Sims might be content with a Dive Bar to hang out. Each building can be clicked to view its Building Card, which contains specific information for that building.


For example, the Dive Bar, described as "A dirty, unhealthy place where Sims meet up, have a drink, and shoot some pool." It generates 4 Productivity, and gives 5 Happiness. However, it also has some negative side-effects. Each time a Sim visits the establishment, there is a 3% chance that a criminal will spawn, and once spawned there is a 25% chance that it will be a burglar, a 5% chance that it will be a hooligan, a 2% chance that it will be a vigilante, a 1% chance that it will be an arsonist and a 67% chance that it will be a pick-pocket.


That means, each Sim that walks in and out of the establishment will have a 3% percentage chance of becoming one of the above "agents".


A pick-pocket will wander the streets and pilfer from your hard-working Sims.


Vigilantes will seek out criminals and fight them, but they themselves are criminals so they will fight each other. They don't always target criminals, especially if criminals can't be found; they will pick on healthy working Sims instead.



Burglars will go and burgle houses, not only that, they will target homes that actually have stuff that the owner might have picked up at a nearby retail Venue. Enhancements for homes and Accessories for Sims are prime targets for burglars.


Victimized Sims become non productive. You can address this problem, if you are able to recognize it, by placing a local police station for example. A police station will increase your Obedience Value.


So some buildings may spawn agents who will wander your city. Mimes and Preachers will stop people in the street, your Sims might be delighted or annoyed. Fighting monks will perform for your Sims' enjoyment, but the Master Monk fights crime just like a policeman.


The Men in Black will target all artists in your city and efficiently dispose of them. The Celebrity can increase the attractiveness and effectiveness of a Venue simply by visiting it.


Over time, there will be many other agents that will be at work within your city, and the player will be able to see them in action.


There will be a balancing act between the Society you want to create, versus the immediate needs of your city, and what you have to plop down to solve some problems.


Each building you plop down will have at least two values: what Societal Value it will cost, and what Societal Value it will generate. If you are playing freeform, you might not care too much about these values and you will just start to see a mish-mash city of differing Societal Values; this, I found, was the easier way to play. However, if you have a set goal in mind (make a highly spiritual uneducated Small Town) the choices become a bit more difficult, and occassionally limiting, at times.


Throughout your game, you will constantly be eyeing those Societal Values, which numbers are high, which numbers are in deficit. Challenges will emerge throughout the game. Not all buildings will be available to you when you start, you'll need to do some work to earn them.


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As you play, to unlock additional buildings you will need to meet specific requirements. For example, produce an amount of Creativity, Productivity, Spirituality, etc, and new buildings become available. You could also be required to meet population limits, or have a certain amount of Simoleons in your treasury. As well, the Happiness of your workers overall may be a requirement. Some buildings may require up to three of these requirements to be met before they are unlocked.


Buildings also contain Abilities and Actions. Many have one or the other, some have both. The Courthhouse for example gives a boost in Simoleon output to nearby buildings, but it also has an action that charges up based on workers showing up at the courthouse. There is a Root Out Corruption action that modifies the output of a targeted building permanently, which we've been told is a powerful ability.


Another example is in the Authoritarian or Cyberpunk buildings, called the Behavioral Resarch Lab. For §2500 (which is a lot) you can put a mood altering device on any home in your city. This device moves the Sims' mood a little toward neutral every day, so that they are neither happy or discontented.


The game boasts over 350 buildings when the game ships, and these buildings will be categorized and divided into six City Style filters.


This is essentially the game flow; you can set your mind on the type of building you wish your city to have, and manipulate your Societal Values so that you can get the desired buildings unlocked for your city. You will need to keep Sims happy by building Venues, keep them Productive by building places for them to Work, which in turn gives you money, and of course, you need to provide them with housing. All the while, keep an eye on your power consumption, crime, pollution, and make sure your city streets are sensibly laid out so that your Sims can get to work in time.


Too much pollution can cause climate change, which may result in sick Sims, and a sick Sim is not a productive Sim. Beautifying your city can generate Happiness and Creativity. There is indeed some depth here for those who want to explore each minutiae and experiment with all the relationships between the buildings.


And of course, as your city grows your Societal Energies will swing one way or the other, you will begin to see some of your buildings evolve to match one of these themes. You may see more fanciful buildings when you have a surplus in Creativity, and you'll see more ominous buildings if your Obedience level is high.


What happens when there's a fire? You dispatch your firefighters by selecting the action on the firehouse and clicking the building you want them to put out. Distance is a factor, but they will drive there, eventually. Fire stations do not operate on a service radius, so they will try to get to any part of the city that you send them to.


Similarly, hospitals and clinics no longer operate on a service radius. A sick or injured Sim will sit in traffic or take a subway to get to a hospital even if it's on the other side of the city.



Some items do have a radius of effect, these include decorations that effect the immediate area, an example building with an area of effect is the Courthouse, which, if placed near an office building or other workplace improves productivity.


Roads and Transportation Networks [top]


Roads and Networks: SimCity purists may wince. Roads, as far as our build was concerned, consisted of two types: dirt roads and city roads. As you can imagine, dirt roads haven't much capacity, are single lanes, and fairly ugly. City roads look a bit better, have higher capacity and overall more efficient, but that seems to be all your options for roads as it currently stands. There will be no Streets, Avenues, One Way Streets, Boulevards, Ground Level Highways, Raised Highways, T-Junctions or Cloverleafs.


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Transportation options: There will be trains and bus stops, but no elevated trains, or ferries. Certainly, we got the impression that transportation networks in Societies is largely de-emphasized. We did manage to see a bridge, but we're pretty sure there won't be 47 types of bridges like in Rush Hour, these bridges, as we experienced, evolve visually as your Society changes.


Power lines: There are no power lines to connect. When you're in a power shortage, simply plop another power station.



Water: There will be no water pipes to lay. This, for some, will be a good thing!


Traffic: There is what appears to be a rudimentary traffic model. This appears to address mainly path-finding and congestion. Put your Sims' homes in one area and their Work in another and connect the two areas with a dirt road and you will certainly see a traffic jam. This, as I found, was easily remedied by drawing more city road connections. There are no further complex transport systems to consider.


Grids: Some observations regarding roads. They can be placed straight or at right angles, so expect very grid-like cities to optimize your traffic flow. There are no diagonal roads, and certainly nothing that could be considered rounded in anyway. We did bring this up to EA producers, and they were sympathetic to our wishes, it will remain to be seen if - at the very least - diagonal roads will make it in to the game. It seems like a logical inclusion because each building can be rotated at 45 degree angles prior to placement. I didn't find much use for the non 90 degree rotations since all my roads were laid in 90 degree grids.


Buildings Buildings Buildings! [top]



Graphically, the game has come a long way from the initial screens that were released some months ago, we're talking about the candy cane lanes and Ferris wheel that have been burned into your memories. Looking at the screenshots, at some angles, the cities do look almost beautiful, if not entirely realistic.


There was plenty of building repetition, which has always been the bane of SimCity. Here's a random shot from SimCity 3000.


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SimCity 3000

In this build, Societies seems to suffer from the same building repetition syndrome. It feels like the game mechanics force you to plop multiple buildings just to be able to get the required Societal Energies in order to meet some challenge or other to unlock things. It seems that you sometimes don't have a choice but to building-spam to get the Societal Energy points you need to progress. EA has told us that multiple buildings of the same type will give diminishing returns on their values when plopped, but we weren't able to see any kind of feedback in the game to this effect.


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It seems, at least at this stage of the game, that building repetition will be unavoidable, even necessary for a successful city. There is hope that once the game is released and the community starts modding and creating their own buildings, that this won't be as much of an issue.


Custom Content and Moddability [top]



EA has confirmed that Societies' assets will be an open format. Building specs will be stored in XML and readily accessible and editable, so players can easily alter the fundamental properties of each building. A version of the Building Architect Tool is in consideration, but will not likely ship with the game. There are no details yet on what that tool will be or look like, if it will be something like GMax or a proprietary software that EA will release to players.


All in all, support for custom content out of the gate and the ability to change many aspects of the game assets sounds encouraging. We'll have to wait to learn more.


Closing Comments [top]


Much credit goes to EA for trying something new, especially for a company that has been accused (even by this community) to generate derivative titles year after year, it is refreshing to see a developer try a new take on an old franchise.


I hope that EA understand that we devotees hold SimCity very close to our hearts, and I speak on behalf of all of us when I say that we all want a great SimCity game. I'm encouraged that there is still time to add and change and revise, so I'm looking forward to trying something a bit more final, if not the final game itself once it hits store shelves.


There is most certainly a fun game here in SimCity Societies, though it may not be for all tastes. My personal impressions, follow.



Continue to My Personal Impressions of the Game

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]]> Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:43:54 +0000 9a3d458322d70046f63dfd8b0153ece4 More SimCity Societies Impressions http://www.simtropolis.com/omnibus/_/other-games/simcity-societies/more-simcity-societies-impressions-r195

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SCS is non-judgmental in that it will not tell you that what you are doing is wrong. The goal is to make each of the social energies as valid as the next so that the player doesn't feel forced or that they're wrong to build in any specific way. This leaves the player to make up their own mind about what kind of city they want to build. The danger of this is that the player will have no direction, guidance or goal to strive for and might start wondering what the point of it all is. Scenario modes may be in the works but nothing concrete was revealed.




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The game rarely if ever challenges the player to find a solution to a problem. For example, the lumber mill is a workplace that includes a risk of injury to the sims who work there. Now just because you plop a lumber mill doesn't mean you care if the people who work there get hurt but you'll lose production in your city if the cities sims are injured. The problem is, unless you see people wandering around in crutches you won't know why you lost that production when a multitude of other buildings can cause a lack of production for many other reasons. The game doesn't make the suggestion to build a hospital to heal your injured sims. This lack of feedback from the game leaves you simply placing buildings you find in the build menu that you like the look of or have a need of the social energy benefit they provide.



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Buildings seem not to gel well with buildings in different social themes. Oppressive overpowering structures look out of place next to the garish "fun" buildings. Tilted Mill has for the most part abandoned the realistic look that SimCity fans enjoyed in SimCity 4, instead opting for a more cartoon like artistic style for their buildings. Things tend to get mixed up between the styles and can cause the whole city to look like an underwhelming patch work.



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Thankfully the game is built with Modding in mind. XML drives the buildings stats and most of the rest of the game and according to EA the C# is well notated for the more adept coders among us. A BAT was also discussed and is planned for release maybe with the game but more likely shortly after release. The specifics of whether the BAT will continue to use GMax or be something entirely different were not revealed. Based on the simplicity of the building models in the game, Gmax isn't necessarily going to be the best tool.



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Transportation in SimCity Societies currently includes Roads, Dirt Roads, Subways and Bus Stations. More transportation options are not planned for the release of SimCity Societies though they seem to be an option for an expansion pack. Diagonal roads have not been implemented and may not be in the final release, but the buildings do rotate to 45°. More transportation options in SCS seem unimportant given that the goal isn't to build and manage traffic networks. Still it seems like quite an oversight to not include more network types even if they're functionality would have only been cosmetic.



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Buildings all have cards displaying the buildings properties. Click on a building and its card will pop up. The cards feature icons that you can mouse over to learn what unexpected attribute that building causes and the percentage chance that the event will take place. For example, certain buildings have a chance to injure a visiting sim or produce a drunk. The icons are nice but will take a player a long time to associate their affect with their graphic mainly because there are so many of them.



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This leads to the learning curve. Plop and play is very easy to figure out. You pick a building from the list and plop it in your city. Finding the building you're looking for can still be difficult because the building menu is cumbersome even though it can be sorted. After you get familiar with the simple control scheme and get over the building menu, you'll be plopping buildings with relative ease. Once you get in-depth and start trying to build for a specific goal, the games learning curve seems to sky rocket. Maybe that's because you have to come up with that goal yourself and attempt to reach it. While this style of play is rather open ended, it can also be a turn off if there isn't anything cool for the player to do.




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With all of that said, if Tilted Mill can come up with a goal or scenario mode that is compelling enough, SCS could be a very entertaining strategy game. It's not the SimCity we know, but there is the making of a potentially fun game of another sort altogether.


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]]> Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:43:37 +0000 0188e8b8b014829e2fa0f430f0a95961 SimCity Societies Impressions http://www.simtropolis.com/omnibus/_/other-games/simcity-societies/simcity-societies-impressions-r194
Personal Impressions of Societies


The following are my own personal feelings and impressions while playing the game. I will try to be as honest as possible, but I do realize the game is still in alpha and that many things may change before the game ships. These are my personal impressions, so, naturally, some of the comments are more personal.


I have to admit that there was some genuine excitement at first to dig into the game and see what I could come up with. Maybe if I focused on Creativity, I'd see some kind of Mime Pride Parade. Or perhaps my Small Town high in Spirituality might spawn a gaggle of Baptists. I don't know. But I wanted to find out!


It didn't happen though, of course, but other things did, some I noticed, but I might not have noticed them all. Ironically, the more I played with a specific goal in mind, the less I felt that I had any real control over my City's destiny. I suppose this can be accounted for since it was the first time I was able to sit down with the game.


Sometimes, I found situations in which I needed a particular building, but that building generated a Value that I didn't want to promote, and worse, I'd have to place it somewhere in my city that offended my personal aesthetic - something Rod Humble agrees with me. For example, I don't want to be forced to place something where I don't want it, even though I need the benefits of that building in that spot; it just didn't feel right. After a while, my city became a bit of a hodge podge of buildings. My roads were grid-like and for me, uninteresting, and I was starting to feel that I didn't know what I was doing and that maybe I was playing the game wrong.


Most of the time, I found myself looking down at the Societal Value icons and calculating the supply and demand figures to see what I needed and what I wanted to get rid of - it seemed to be the only source for direction. I had high Spirituality and low Creativity and high Productivity, which was sort of what I thought I wanted (I think). I filtered only those buildings that were appropriate for a Small Town, such as a General Store and Row Houses and Churches, but it wasn't long before I felt like I ran out of things to do.


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Now, in a classic SimCity game, at a point like this, I might stop and observe my city a little. I might look at some data overlays and analyze the situation. I might pick a Sim and watch her go about her business. Observe the traffic on the streets, and see where the Sims are commuting to and what transportation options they have decided to take. If they weren't using the most efficient methods, I might decide for myself that this is a problem that I am going to solve next. So I might spend the next few hours trying to solve this using the various transportation options available, and getting the right combination of options in place to get the Sims where they needed to go efficiently using the Route Query Tool. Certainly, for me, there was nothing more rewarding than to see an efficient transportation network: drive to the car park, take a ferry, hop on a bus and get to work all in good time. Beautiful!



In Societies, I found myself continually looking down at the numbers and wondering what they really meant in the greater scheme of things. More buildings to plop, sure, but why? What can I do with 300 Productivity points -- clearly I must have missed something? Was my Small Town proving to be unviable? How successful was I so far? Was my Small Town recognized by the game as a Small Town? Did the game know that I wanted Spiritual bumpkins and not Artsy-fartsy dilettantes? There didn't seem to be any kind of satisfying feedback, something from the game that said "Hey, your small town doesn't have the smartest Sims in the world, but they are sure Happy and Spiritual! Why don't we have a hoe-down!"


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There's a ticker at the bottom of the User Interface that scrolls messages that I think are supposed to be a kind of feedback, but they didn't feel right, and they seemed more random than appropriate. I can chalk it up to the quirkiness of an alpha build, but it still left me unsatisfied and directionless over all.


Is it possible to build a Small Town that connected to a Big City? I'm not sure, it seems that your Societal effects are global for that city space, and are not isolated to any specific region.


It's worth repeating that in order to have any chance to appreciate and enjoy Societies, you really really need to divorce yourself from pre-conceived notions of what a SimCity game should be.


As much as I tried to build a fun quirky Small Town, for me, like some of the members in this community, I like realistic cities. I enjoy the ant colony aspect of SimCity, and I enjoy the problems that SimCity poses to you, because often, those problems are analogous to a real life city: Ignore your traffic problems and your Sims' commute times become intolerable, as a result, they won't be able to go to work or shop and your Commerce will suffer. With suffering Commerce, demand for other things will be affected, and your city will begin to spiral: this is an emergent problem that seems spontaneous and realistic - you can see a real-life parallel - and the player only has to use a little bit of common sense and a little bit of real-world thinking to go about fixing it.


Presently, Societies feels more like building a fantasy world than a miniature of a real-world city. This in itself is certainly not a bad thing because it is the intended direction.



After a while I was realizing that I wasn't getting what I really wanted out of a city building game with Societies - but that's just me. I didn't feel like I had to apply any sort of real-world knowledge to solve real-world problems with real-world sensibilities.


For example, I want to solve traffic problems by combining myriad transportation options, but those transportation options just weren't there. Instead, I just drew more roads.


I wanted to solve crime by addressing socio-economic deficiencies either through city ordinances or promoting awareness, not just plopping down a police station.


I wanted to solve garbage and pollution problems with the understanding that there would be social and economic repurcussions. But a simple building once I advanced far enough, would take care of pollution for me.


I wanted to keep my Sims happy by providing the right amenities, but I didn't want to brain-wash them with devices.


I wanted my city to look like it could exist in the real world, I wanted buildings that resembled real world buildings.


But these are all my personal biases that by no-means make Societies a bad game. There is surely a good game here, for plenty of people.


All this is just to emphasize that even for me, who went in there as open-minded as possible, I still fell into the pitfalls of looking for something in the game that was not designed to be there. The fault is not the game, but my own.



To be sure, Societies is a simulation, but for me, it was simulating the things that I didn't care enough about. I was not able to satisfy that itch to build a working system, tinker with it, tweak it and experiment with the mechanics to see some kind of a result. To bring back my earlier analogy, Society feels less like a toy, and more like a chemistry set.


There is charm here for those who like to mix ingredients together and see what comes out, but there seems to be a finite set of results. Mimes and Preachers and Men in Black are certainly cute, and there is indeed an audience for this, but I yearned to see regular simulated people, trying to go about their regular simulated lives on realistic looking roads and highways in my city. I did not get this, and I think it's safe to say that fellow devotees should not expect this.


My ultimate question with Societies and the "build whatever type of city you want" philosophy is this: Can you really build what you want? If you build a Metropolis that is Creative and Spiritual what exactly will you get? Will a Wealthy Knowledgeable Society, generate some kind of Tycoon Philosophers? In the demos, we've seen Orwellian Societies where Sims do nothing but work and be re-educated if they become discontent.


This is cool, but I wonder if once you've built this type of city, would you build it again? Is it just more than a different coat of paint on the buildings? Can the game really give you the satisfaction that you've built something truly unique? Once you've built all six Stereotypes to their maximums, what would be the incentive to revisit? Societies is an attempt to re-imagine the city-building genre, and I am still interested to see the game in a more final form.


In the end, I do feel that Societies will primarily be a game for new-comers, and that devotees of the franchise may find it quite difficult to overcome the preconceived notions based on previous SimCity titles. I am sure there will be plenty of players who will adapt to this new city building paradigm and you can count on Simtropolis to continue to cover SimCity Societies. (And for those of you who can't quite make the leap to Societies, Simtropolis will continue to remain your source for all things SimCity 4.)




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]]> Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:41:41 +0000 a42a596fc71e17828440030074d15e74 SimCity Societies Preview Screenshots http://www.simtropolis.com/omnibus/_/other-games/simcity-societies/simcity-societies-preview-screenshots-r191
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]]> Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:41:08 +0000 b20bb95ab626d93fd976af958fbc61ba SimCity Societies System Requirements http://www.simtropolis.com/omnibus/_/other-games/simcity-societies/simcity-societies-system-requirements-r192 If you have any questions or comments about this article, please PM un1.





Minimum System Requirements


Windows XP SP2




  • 1.7 Ghz Intel CPU or AMD XP 2100+
  • 512 MB RAM
  • 2.1 GB hard drive space
  • 128 MB video card, NVIDIA Ge Force FX 5900, ATI Radeon 9600
  • 4x DVD drive
  • DirectX 9.0c

Windows Vista




  • 2.4 Ghz processor or equivalent
  • 1 GB RAM
  • 2.1 GB hard drive space
  • 128 MB video card, NVIDIA Ge Force 6800 or better, ATI Radeon x600
  • 4x DVD drive
  • DirectX 9.0c
]]> Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:40:42 +0000 52292e0c763fd027c6eba6b8f494d2eb Rod Humble Talks about SimCity New Direction http://www.simtropolis.com/omnibus/_/other-games/simcity-societies/rod-humble-talks-about-simcity-new-direction-r179 Rod Humble Talks SimCity Societies with Simtropolis

There has been a lot of excitement surrounding the announcement of the fifth installment of our favourite game.  News first broke at 1up.com and the first screenshot emerged to some mixed reactions, to say the least.  Since then, there has been a hub of activity between the SimCity community here at Simtropolis and abroad with the newly named developers of SimCity, Tilted Mill Entertainment.

Today, I got a chance to exchange some words with Rod Humble, VP at EA and head of The Sims Division who was very gracious to lend some time to answer some of my questions. 

Dirk: Can you first tell us about EA's relationship with Titled Mill?
 
Rod: I had met Tilted Mill at a few E3's just to chat bout their game design philosophy and keep in touch. Then one year the opportunity came up to work together. We had been working on the Societies concept and prototypes internally for about half a year but realized there was so much in there that ambitious it probably wasn't going to be able to fit into our line up Then I took a look at what TM had in terms of their technology and expertise and I figured I would see what they thought. Immediately I got back a wave of ideas and documents which took the design in and made it feel fuller and better. From that point on and given the passion here at EA and TM for the game it fell into place very easily.

Dirk: Based on the title, Societies, it implies the game will be going in a particular direction, what will it be?

Rod: We will be revealing more details in the following weeks. But at its highest level when we were thinking about where SimCity could go we started wondering why certain cities feel different from another. So for example what's the difference between Paris and Mecca? Or Oxford and Munich? Or San Francisco and Salt Lake City? Clearly the feel was the kind of culture and society. By focusing on the society and culture drivers within a society we found we could create many varied and wonderful places.

Dirk:  Is the intention of SimCity Societies to appeal to a wider audience as well as satisfy the devotees of the franchise?

Rod: Everyone working on the game is a SimCity fanatic so clearly we worked on a game we love to play and foremost. We found a great game design which allows you to make so many different kinds cities we certainly hope that SimCity players old and new will love it as much as we do!

Dirk: And finally, from the devotees, what steps are you taking to ensure the sequel that bears the SimCity moniker will live up to its name?

Rod: Do you remember the first time you booted up SimCity? Do you remember the sense of wonder you had imagining all the different places you could build? I certainly do. With SimCity Societies we want that magic, just imagine what kind of cities you will build with their own cultures and societies. I am really looking forward to everyone seeing the coverage the July issue of Games For Windows magazine for the first deep-dive into SimCity Societies. And, over the next few months we'll be sharing more about the wonderful things that await inside SimCity Societies!

Dirk: Thank you, Rod for taking the time to speak to the community! 

Although I had plenty more questions to ask, understandably, Rod was only able to answer only a few of them at this early time.  We will keep a look out for more information in the coming weeks, and hopefully, we will be able to speak with Rod again at a later date for some more details.  Exclusive screenshots follow.

- Dirk]]> Tue, 12 Apr 2011 00:44:16 +0000 dabd8d2ce74e782c65a973ef76fd540b