For me LACK OF MICRO MANAGEMENT makes a city builder fun.
There was nothing fun in simcity 3000 when you had to spend 5 minutes of every half hour fixing broken water pipes and replacing power stations...
If I was designing this game I would simply have had a way to allocate maintenance budget to the pipes that stopped them from falling apart much like the roads budget in simcity 2000...
Dan, I almost quoted your second comment to say "listen to this guy, he knows what's up" before I realized you were the OP. :)
Olof's got a great point about the balance between freedom and constraint. It can't be so unconstrained that it's just a paint program with building-themed brushes, nor can it be so tightly constrained that everyone basically builds the same city with minor variations. A lot of the fun to me is that it's a creative enterprise, but various constraints make it difficult to pull off your creative vision. So at the end, you've made something that's your own despite adversity.
I made a city builder hybrid sort of game, and so thought a lot about the different kinds and what ingredients I wanted in mine. I'll try to dig up my thoughts about it.
I want a city builder that naturally leads to player-generated stories about cities. Each city has a history, and that history has led to the city having something of a personality; a city has character. And just as with people, that character evolves over time. Neighborhoods within the city likewise have character and histories. There are rich story-telling opportunities with cities, but most city builders I've played unfortunately produce rather shallow histories, most cities end up feeling sort of same-ish, and neighborhoods usually fail to really stand out in any distinct way.
I want a city builder that naturally leads to player-generated stories about cities. Each city has a history, and that history has led to the city having something of a personality; a city has character. And just as with people, that character evolves over time. Neighborhoods within the city likewise have character and histories.
That is a really interesting idea. I'd wonder how to get this kind of character out of a game.
There was a golden period after failure of Simcity 2013 , which Citybound and Cities XXL failed to take advantage imo, and now there is Unity based Cities Skylines from Colossal Order.
When I briefly looked at all three games (SC,XXL,CS) , I don't like this trend of games being less simulation and more DLC/microtransaction oriented.
For example, I didn't like agent based approach of Glassbox, because it doesn't let even basic tunings like using different piping and water sources for industrial, agricultural and residential zones (considering industrial and agricultural zones pollute water).
I would be curious to see a city builder where you get the city started, and intervene where you want, but if you leave it running the city expands itself based on your starting example and the policies you set...
It really depends on the player.
Some players focus primarily on visual appearance of the city, others just care about functionality, and yet others just go for whatever pops up in their mind and end up with some ugly design that doesnt even work - but at least it has that district where only dirt roads are allowed.
If you think about city builders, theres a bit of everything. Theyre sandboxes, the player can play just like they want to.
Create a complex simulation, but keep the rules lax enough that the player can decide what aspect they want to focus on. But make sure that it stays challenging IF that is what the player wants - for example let the player choose where to build their city (varying terrain, tourism, weather, trade opportunities, natural resources...)
You want a lot of variables like that. You dont want every city to be able to be everything at the same time. Thats boring. Theres little replay value in that. Give every city limited choices, and even more limited paths they can actually follow at once. Some more, some less (again, depends on player how much challenging restrictions they want).
Really, just throw in all the things and youve got a city builder.
I love the Pharaoh game way more than sim city. I like running a personal economy. By personal I mean seeing people actually harvest raw materials, bring them to a building to process, have them moved to market/storage yard and see people consume them. When I can see and control this entire chain and design paths and where to build things (I prefer more rigid building and paths vs looser) I get a lot of satisfaction.
One of my dream games is where this is 100% community driven in a massive online game. I'd also like players to vote on leaders (other players) who have a little more control over certain mechanics of the game (taxes, what/where to build public things, etc).
I just had a randomly spawned idea by reading this thread. Since I don't have time to make it, maybe sharing it will inspire someone.
I read the post about godzilla attacking the city. This would be an awesome concept to build a city-building game around.
The whole theme would be you are building a city in a world where giant monster attacks are a naturally occurring thing. It would be basic SimCity except you can build defensive structures and some basic military outposts or units. The military outposts/defensive points would be fairly expensive, so you'd have to have a smoothly running city to be able to afford enough to defend the city.
You could go off on a tangent with various monster-attack related structures. Shelters would prevent deaths when the monster is rampaging. Sirens to sound alerts of incoming attacks, which will let shelters fill faster. Refuge centers for when homes inevitably get smashed to pieces.
Your growing city would have a built-in conflict. Your recent expansions need to be defended. The larger your city, the larger the rampaging monsters or more frequent. You could even link pollution to the type or number of monsters - as it seems to be a common theme with giant monsters.
And following the similar SimCity theme - you wouldn't directly control anything. You just designate the build area. If you've got an fighter base, they just attack the closest monster. If you've got a tank base, they'll pathfind to the closest monster via the roads you built.
If someone made this game, I'd kickstart it. Even if (or maybe especially if) the graphics were original Sim-City quality.
