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Inzombiac posted:So is this game worth picking up in its current state? I've played it on and off on game pass and I have decided to leave buying it until either people itt say that mods have fixed all the major sim issues, or until CO have done that and released a DLC I'm interested in. I'd still be playing it if all it lacked were features but the simulation is a fairly unpleasant mixture of buggy and incredibly opaque, meaning that a lot of your decisions have no consequences or inexplicable consequences.
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# ? Jan 9, 2024 22:40 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 19:02 |
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Inzombiac posted:So is this game worth picking up in its current state? Probably yes in a few months. Right now I'd wait.
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# ? Jan 9, 2024 22:42 |
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Inzombiac posted:So is this game worth picking up in its current state? Its in a weird state. A lot of the simulation parts are nonsensical or broken (see the above public transpo situation), or lack the ingame tools to resolve. For example, you get a nice colormap of where heavy traffic is, but you can't actually see where the majority of traffic is going, destinationwise. So you can't take action to, say, add public transpo to the destination or along that route. As a city painter there's not enough variety in a lot of the buildings, and not a whole lot of beautification options. This can somewhat be resolved with the debug menu though. I'm currently in a state in my city where i have to keep flipping between -10% and +10% tax for my industry because otherwise i'm suddenly paying out millions in subsidies a month because Reasons I cannot figure out with ingame tools. I will say at least, the performance currently is heaps and bounds over what it was at launch. I have a pretty beastly cpu but I couldn't imagine running a 120k+ city around launch and finding it playable.
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# ? Jan 9, 2024 22:44 |
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Yeah I'd give this game a few more patches. Right now I can't build a suspension bridge because the deck/road of the bridge is 'in the way' of the towers. I ended up building a tunnel.
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# ? Jan 9, 2024 22:45 |
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Fishstick posted:I'm currently in a state in my city where i have to keep flipping between -10% and +10% tax for my industry because otherwise i'm suddenly paying out millions in subsidies a month because Reasons I cannot figure out with ingame tools. Very commonly encountered bug. The numbers a lot of the time seem sssuusssppppppicously similar to the max/min of a 32-bit integer, so I'm pretty sure they have some integer overflow bugs they haven't fixed. Saw another neat bug in the bug report forums. Someone in the paradox forums came up with a hypothesis that not having enough schools is causing large performance degradation, https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/findschoolsystem-dispatcher-spams-queries-blocking-simulation.1620763/ Basic idea is that the game calls a "FindSchoolSystem" function when it tries to find schools for kids, and starts calling it a lot when there's no schools with free space to give, so the performance gets bad as the game desperately tries to find an empty school. piratepilates fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Jan 9, 2024 |
# ? Jan 9, 2024 23:07 |
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Away all Goats posted:Yeah I'd give this game a few more patches. Right now I can't build a suspension bridge because the deck/road of the bridge is 'in the way' of the towers. I ended up building a tunnel. Maybe this isn't it, but this happens if you try to build a double bridge with the distance between the roads set to 1 (the default). You can set it higher to resolve this.
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# ? Jan 10, 2024 10:18 |
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piratepilates posted:Very commonly encountered bug. The numbers a lot of the time seem sssuusssppppppicously similar to the max/min of a 32-bit integer, so I'm pretty sure they have some integer overflow bugs they haven't fixed. I've noticed some times when going about on the map and seeing a huge mass of students standing on the grounds of the education building. Hundreds of them modeled for no real reason as they study.
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# ? Jan 10, 2024 10:40 |
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piratepilates posted:Very commonly encountered bug. The numbers a lot of the time seem sssuusssppppppicously similar to the max/min of a 32-bit integer, so I'm pretty sure they have some integer overflow bugs they haven't fixed. They really need to sort this stuff out. CS2 has had 25% less players than CS1 for over a week now. They need to fix the bugs and start launching more content to get people back and convince people holding off that the games actually worth buying. Theres a heap of case studys on how not to launch a product in this.
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 05:58 |
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When I first played, the demand kept wanting me to build single-family homes. Is that intentional, like some ratio they want you to have versus higher density housing?
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 06:39 |
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The demand in this game just means 'people will move in if this is available', not 'this city doesn't have enough of this'. Low density homes are pretty much always going to be popular.
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 06:52 |
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The problem imo comes down to 2 things: 1. "this city doesn't have enough of this" is also a state you can be in and the bars don't do enough to distinguish the two. 2. When a game copies a UI element that's been used in the genre for 30+ years but changes its meaning, it should go to extra lengths to explain that to the player.
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 06:58 |
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Martian posted:Maybe this isn't it, but this happens if you try to build a double bridge with the distance between the roads set to 1 (the default). You can set it higher to resolve this. lol thank you that was it. Incredible the game's default setting for building bridges doesn't actually let you build bridges. MikeJF posted:The demand in this game just means 'people will move in if this is available', not 'this city doesn't have enough of this'. Low density homes are pretty much always going to be popular. I managed to attain zero low-density residential demand in my current city and from what I can tell it's from having high education and high land value(parks, services and transit). Plots are even being abandoned and the vast majority of my citizens live in denser housing.
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 07:32 |
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It keeps bothering me how much they were hyping service modularity pre-launch and in reality it's just so... barebones. Why do all the sub-buildings HAVE to be connected, why can't they be moved independantly, why are obvious sub-modules not a Thing but dumb ones that just increase capacity are? Having to reserve some extra space to plop extra hearse garages or increase patient capacity, but then only having one one-size-fits-all trainstation, and two pre-made airports with barely any customisation is so boggling to me.
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 13:37 |
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Man I hate how common it is to have sequels just be shittier and pull less players than the original games. KSP2 is in the e same boat
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 13:47 |
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queeb posted:Man I hate how common it is to have sequels just be shittier and pull less players than the original games. KSP2 is in the e same boat That’s when the games are made with money mainly as mind, a cash grab to ride on the success of the title. As a rule of thumb, just don’t buy paradox games, at least during first year or two. See how they turn out.
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 17:33 |
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Ihmemies posted:That’s when the games are made with money mainly as mind, a cash grab to ride on the success of the title. I mean I really don't think that was the case here: it just clearly needed at least a year's more work. They were clearly trying to create something that significantly advanced on the first game.
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 17:41 |
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err posted:When I first played, the demand kept wanting me to build single-family homes. Is that intentional, like some ratio they want you to have versus higher density housing? Game is just better if you ignore the UI entirely imo
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 17:42 |
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If it was any publisher but Paradox I'd write off CS2 as a cynical cash grab that they'll now lose interest in; they have their cash. With Paradox though, that's not their business model. Their M.O. is that they expect CS2 to be a cash cow for the next decade. Unless they've just changed their philosophy and now want to be just like EA, that's the one thing that gives me some hope that they'll put in the effort to fix the game. On the gripping hand, I look at CK3 (the only other Paradox title I play regularly) and it's several years old now and the DLC so far has been very lazy and underwhelming. It could just be that after going public Paradox has slid into being just like every other big publisher, thinking only of maximizing this quarter's profits. Eric the Mauve fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Jan 11, 2024 |
# ? Jan 11, 2024 17:43 |
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They pushed out several third party developed games to their doom lately. They forced Star Trek Infinite out the door and now word is all development is abandoned because of insufficient sales: sales were mostly insufficient because of horrible word of mouth about being broken and incomplete.
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 17:55 |
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queeb posted:Man I hate how common it is to have sequels just be shittier and pull less players than the original games.
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 18:01 |
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I think the main thing keeping me from diving in and putting a bunch of time into trying to build a CS2 city right now is that I don’t have any confidence that the underlying game sim actually works and makes sense and conveys information to the player about what’s working and what isn’t and why. I’m afraid I’ll just have a city where demand is all weird and the cargo logistics will be hosed and traffic won’t work and I won’t be able to figure out what’s because I’m a bad planner and what’s because the game is broken, and that sounds like a recipe for a frustrating and unrewarding gameplay experience.
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 18:34 |
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I played CS1 for like a month when it came out then went back to SimCity 4 for the next few years. I think that's why I'm not that bothered about CS2, as long as it has the same path to goodness I'm fine.
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 18:51 |
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CS2 is too big a name for me to think Paradox is going to cut it loose anytime soon. This isn't the same as one of their testbed games like Sengoku was, or the first in an IP that can be easily written off if it's not bringing in the cash. Cities Skylines 1 was literally their biggest selling game, idk if that's still the case but it's a huge deal for them. If Skylines 2 is old-school Paradox like in the 00s and takes some time to get into a good state, I'm pretty confident that's a price they're going to pay.
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 19:32 |
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Simcity 4 still holds up gameplay wise but i do pine for better transit and bike / ped handling
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 21:47 |
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It's all there via the NAM but only if you're OK with painstakingly placing everything one tile at a time
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 22:09 |
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NAM fixes the pathing anyway, you don't have to get into the weeds with the new transit options if you don't want to. Though a lot of those per tile things are now draggable through the magic of weirdos and programming. Plus someone fixed the crash bug with them a couple years back.
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 22:17 |
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Eric the Mauve posted:It's all there via the NAM but only if you're OK with painstakingly placing everything one tile at a time yeahhh NAM is amazing for what it does especially considering the mod tools available but it can't overcome fundamental limitations with the game engine so I've found all the ploppable stuff to be really fragile and i could never understand how to use any of the fractional angle stuff it's been a while since i did a modding pass so maybe i need to update NAM corona familiar fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Jan 11, 2024 |
# ? Jan 11, 2024 22:18 |
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all I remember is that if you use the special MAM ploppable that lets you put a bus stop on top of a road, and then you do some other specific action like hover over it with a subway or something, it instantly crashes the game
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 22:32 |
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VostokProgram posted:all I remember is that if you use the special MAM ploppable that lets you put a bus stop on top of a road, and then you do some other specific action like hover over it with a subway or something, it instantly crashes the game Yeah, that's the crash bug that has been fixed.
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# ? Jan 11, 2024 22:45 |
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I still remember years ago being fully aware of that bug and forgetting to exercise due care and losing a bunch of painstaking work as a result. A lifetime of this lesson in numerous games has got "Save all the drat time" through my head but I am not perfect Honestly if SC4 had convenient modding options like Steam Workshop I might never have moved to CS, but being able to hit one button and getting anything I like - to say nothing of collections - is far too convenient a benefit. Said it before, but I would crawl over broken glass for a remaster.
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# ? Jan 12, 2024 00:37 |
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Ms Adequate posted:Said it before, but I would crawl over broken glass for a remaster. Wait until you hear about what happened in 2013 (lol)
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# ? Jan 12, 2024 00:46 |
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Grand Fromage posted:Yeah, that's the crash bug that has been fixed. whoa, was it a nam bug or a game bug?
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# ? Jan 12, 2024 01:01 |
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VostokProgram posted:whoa, was it a nam bug or a game bug? IIRC it was something in the game that shat itself because of the kludges NAM was doing to make the transit-enabled tiles. It just took like 15 years for someone to figure it out.
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# ? Jan 12, 2024 01:08 |
I got Sim City 4 for Christmas 2003
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# ? Jan 12, 2024 01:10 |
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Grand Fromage posted:IIRC it was something in the game that shat itself because of the kludges NAM was doing to make the transit-enabled tiles. It just took like 15 years for someone to figure it out. actually it was a game bug, you could cause the same thing to happen entirely within vanilla SC4+RH. "Puzzle piece" tiles like the vanilla interchanges hovered over a transit-enabled lot, like a ferry terminal = CTD https://github.com/nsgomez/sc4fix/releases fixed it and prop pox dragonshardz fucked around with this message at 02:39 on Jan 12, 2024 |
# ? Jan 12, 2024 02:36 |
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dragonshardz posted:actually it was a game bug, you could cause the same thing to happen entirely within vanilla SC4+RH. "Puzzle piece" tiles like the vanilla interchanges hovered over a transit-enabled lot, like a ferry terminal = CTD Wait did the same guy fix both? Or has someone just compiled the two fixes for convenience? Anime Store Adventure posted:Wait until you hear about what happened in 2013 (lol) We don't talk about what happened in 2013
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# ? Jan 12, 2024 02:52 |
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skooma512 posted:I got Sim City 4 for Christmas 2003 I remember having the usual nintendo games as a kid, not really knowing a lot about anything but the major hits like Mario Kart and that, then I was at friend's house and saw an older brother playing SimCity 2000 or 3000 (forget now) and hit a stunned, "What is thaaaaaaat" and now I put way too many hours into city builders. It's weird to be able to remember that exact moment of wonder hitting me, seeing that dude building a city. After that I demanded every single Maxis game I could possibly find.
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# ? Jan 12, 2024 03:01 |
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Anime Store Adventure posted:After that I demanded every single Maxis game I could possibly find. I remember being absolutely obsessed with SC2K and then getting a bunch of lesser Maxis titles like SimAnt and SimEarth for christmas one year and being kinda disappointed at how shallow and janky they were. At least SimTower ruled! And holy poo poo, what would I give for a modern version of SimCopter that let you fly around doing little procedurally generated missions in your Skylines city.
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# ? Jan 12, 2024 03:44 |
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I loved SimIsle even though I never really got it, it was just so pretty. I can't believe there's never been a proper modern simtower. Entropic posted:And holy poo poo, what would I give for a modern version of SimCopter that let you fly around doing little procedurally generated missions in your Skylines city. The fact that they have fairly detailed cims and things like modelled tunnel interiors makes me think that there were vague plans for Skylines 2 to he able to integrate street level stuff later, as DLC or maybe a standalone like SimCopter or Streets of SimCity. (Someone make a tool that lets you export a city to Flight Simulator 2024 and do helicopter missions in it plz)
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# ? Jan 12, 2024 04:00 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 19:02 |
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Entropic posted:I remember being absolutely obsessed with SC2K and then getting a bunch of lesser Maxis titles like SimAnt and SimEarth for christmas one year and being kinda disappointed at how shallow and janky they were. At least SimTower ruled! SimAnt was bad rear end at the time to my childbrain. SimEarth sucked but I tried to enjoy it anyway.
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# ? Jan 12, 2024 04:14 |