The new SimCity...*sigh*

Discussion in 'Gaming' started by Sheep, Mar 5, 2013.

  1. ALF

    ALF Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Maxis made a claim that that many Sims were included in the game and they are not? Interesting.

    There is an eerie connection to real-life politics here... I can sort of hear The Ghost of Mitt Romney as I read this... :lol:

    Actually I always wondered how that would work and it does seem unlikely that a computer would reasonably create fictional lives of that many Sims in flux. But it's a cool idea.
     
  2. DonIago

    DonIago Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I'd like to thank the posters to this thread for successfully convincing me to buy SimCity 4.
     
  3. Robert Maxwell

    Robert Maxwell memelord Premium Member

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    :techman: Still a modern classic!
     
  4. Sheep

    Sheep Vice Admiral Admiral

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    After hearing about the lousy AI and pathing issues that are completely unrelated to the server and DRM issues, I'm thinking I might do the same.
     
  5. Holdfast

    Holdfast Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I figure that now that the server issues are pretty much sorted, I'm going to give the new SimCity a whirl. Despite the many documented problems, I actually do like the look & feel of the new game a lot; I've watched a fair bit of it being played live and that gives a fair idea of its pros & cons. It still looks like quite a bit of fun (now you can actually get on and play) and I figure most of AI issues/bugs will eventually get patched out. And the standard edition is reasonably priced, so what the hell... :D

    I was never a very careful/intense/conscientious SimCity player, preferring to just use it to muck around, playing in a more casual way, so I figure the problems shouldn't be game-breaking for what I want from it.
     
  6. ATimson

    ATimson Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    For certain values of modern, what with it being over a decade old!
     
  7. TheGodBen

    TheGodBen Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    That's true in some simulations, but that doesn't appear to be what is happening here. 1 sim in the game does not represent 10 people, in every aspect of the simulation 1 sim represents 1 person, except in the UI call for the population. Here's the actual code:

    Code:
    simcity.GetFudgedPopulation = function (a) {
      a = "undefined" !== typeof a ? a : simcity.gGlobalUIHandler.mLastPopulation;
      if (500 >= a)
        return a;
      if (40845 < a)
        return Math.floor(8.25 * a);
      a = Math.pow(a - 500, 1.2) + 500;
      return Math.floor(a)
    };
    simcity.GetRoundedFudgedPopulation = function (a) {
      a = simcity.GetFudgedPopulation(a);
      return a = 25E3 < a ? 10 * Math.round(a / 10) : 5 * Math.round(a / 5)
    };
    
    That's not a joke, the actual function name is GetFudgedPopulation.

    All other statistics in the game use the real numbers. For example, in a city with a reported population of around 100,000 (really 15,000), only around 11,000 of those people will have jobs, leaving you to think that you have an 89% unemployment rate when it's actually 27% (including students, the elderly and whatnot). It is just a really lazy attempt to cover up how small the cities are by vastly inflating the population number that appears on the main screen.
     
  8. Robert Maxwell

    Robert Maxwell memelord Premium Member

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    OK, that is a monstrously stupid implementation. :lol:
     
  9. TheGodBen

    TheGodBen Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    It's so stupid that it's hard to imagine how they didn't spot the problems, my guess is that they shoved that in late in development because of all the criticisms they were getting about the small cities. It should be easy enough to "fix", they just need to scale up all the other population statistics in the UI to match the population figure, but that would officially make the marketing claims that you can track every person in your city dishonest as each sim would represent roughly 8 people. The alternative is for the population counter to show the actual population of the city, but I imagine they don't want most players to see that.

    In more positive news, a modder has found a way to deactivate the disconnect timer so that you can play the game offline, but you can't save or load your city doing that. But still, there's hope for a limited singleplayer hack coming soon.
     
  10. Haggis and tatties

    Haggis and tatties Vice Admiral Admiral

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    ^^Well that was quick.:lol:
     
  11. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    Heh. I'm STILL playing SC4.

    (For those getting it now, when you start the game and it starts the map-selection scene Alt-Tab to your desktop. Ctrl+Alt+Dlt and open Task Manager. Select Sim City 4, right click and select "Set Affinity" and de-select all of your computer's CPUs save for one (CPU 0.) Otherwise Sim City 4 runs pretty unstable as it was not meant to be run on computers with multiple cores. Along with SC4 I highly recommend NAM, a third-party software "upgrade" for SC4 that refines the traffic simulation, gives you a vast array of transportation puzzle pieces in the game (thought here can be some stability issues in placing these) and a tool to make other fine adjustments to the simulation, including the ability to place "toll roads" without having toll booths as well as many other features.
     
  12. DonIago

    DonIago Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I discovered the multi-core issue pretty quickly, in that the game wouldn't even load for me. I purchased through Steam and found a workaround after some research.

    Installed NAM but haven't had the time to really get into the game yet.
     
  13. Robert Maxwell

    Robert Maxwell memelord Premium Member

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    That's weird, I have the "deluxe" edition which is SC4 and Rush Hour, and I've got a quad-core system and have never had crashing problems with it.
     
  14. DonIago

    DonIago Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Haven't done any research yet, but is there some trick to getting Industrial-Agricultural zones to be populated? I put one down and awhile later it's still just sitting there.

    For that matter, is there a manual or recommended strategy guide?

    Sorry, ordinarily I'd go digging for this stuff on my own initiative.
     
  15. Trekker4747

    Trekker4747 Boldly going... Premium Member

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    If it's connected to roads and power it should develop unless you made it too small. The Agricultural zones need to be pretty big to develop. As for strategy guides, the one Prima made I guess is the only one I can recommend. Though I don't recall it being all that fantastic.
     
  16. Patrick O'Brien

    Patrick O'Brien Captain Captain

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    I got an emial from Origin that said, I could downlaod a free game from them on the 22nd. It is thank you for putting up with a failed release.
     
  17. PsychoPere

    PsychoPere Vice Admiral Premium Member

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    May 25, 2002
    EA has released the list of eligible titles:

    • Battlefield 3
    • Bejeweled
    • Dead Space 3
    • Mass Effect 3
    • Need for Speed Most Wanted
    • Plants vs Zombies
    • SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition
     
  18. Squiggy

    Squiggy FrozenToad Admiral

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    "Sorry you don't like the new SimCity. Perhaps we could interest you in a game you probably already own."
     
  19. Haggis and tatties

    Haggis and tatties Vice Admiral Admiral

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    SimCity 4 Delux Edition.

    Somebody at EA has a sense of humour. lol
     
  20. ThunderAeroI

    ThunderAeroI Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Can I just get $60.00 worth of gems for Simcity social...I dont want any of the games on that list.