Revealing my inner nerd

[nashvillwill]

I thought you guys may get a kick out of this;

In my younger years, I loved the videogame SimCity. I haven't played it in years. However, I have an hour train ride to/from work everyday and to kill some time I recently starting playing a game on my iphone called Megapolis. It's basically a dumbed-down version of SimCity. Anyways;

So, in this game you build different building with different purposes, many of which are unique. They typically have generic names like "office tower" or "pub". So when I built a building called "orchestra hall", I was quite surprised with the result....





I think they got the function of the building wrong, but I was still happy to see it.

Back to my nerd cave.

[bigeasy]

That is a good looking building

 

I still am a nerd when it comes to city building games. I have Sim City 4, the new Sim City, and my favorite is Cities XL 2012. I need to post some pictures from the later because that game is awesome for nerds like us. Many people have made actual buildings and/or maps of actual cities for the game. Needless to say it is pretty cool building cities that have Shanghai World Financial Center next to One World Trade Center and then "Sears" Tower. Then having all of those building in Paris.

[volsfanwill]

I have been a constant player of Simcity since simcity2000.  my favorite is still 4.  I would be willing to bet that many people who post on here are fans.   

 

Ill have to check out cities xl, ive noticed it before but didnt want to cheat on simcity.

[bigeasy]

It is a great game, but it is pretty demanding on the computer. So unless you have a powerful one you may not be able to smoothly run it when your population gets large. Here are a few screenshots from some of my cities.

 

This was my first city to build and it became a disaster with traffic and overall layout. I did not expect the cities to get so large so I had no planning.

 

My newest city that I have not had much time in, but I was hoping to go for two different skylines. All of the tall buildings in the game are offices, so I am kinda over inflating the market with offices since each city is saturated with them for the looks.

 

City on the beach that has been fun to build on.

 

Cities also look really good at night

 

You can click on cars and just follow them as they drive around the city. I enjoy doing this

 

[volsfanwill]

thanks....

for wasting my next free weekend. looks like simcity 4 with some things fixed, and some missing.  I just looked it up and it is available on Steam so I am going to get it and give it a try as soon as I get back from Florida.

[bigeasy]

Well most of the real buildings you see I downloaded. There is a website called xlnation.com that has tons of mods you can download for extra buildings, etc. I think I have added 1 or 2 gameplay mods, and then about 20+ buildings

[arkitekte]

(Sits up straight at computer desk, adjusts glasses, and types) The first one of you nerdlings that says one damn thing about my city's financial state and/or the satisfaction of my citizens is getting reported to a mod. 

 

Building blueprints puts your economy in a bind. 

Here you go:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bigeasy]

Great looking city!! I have not gotten close to a city of that population yet. But my first city is probably the only one I have tried. I usually just cheat with money and build up a city and never play it haha.  I have never been able to get blueprints to work properly, they always seem to either freeze the game or prevent me from being able to save.

[arkitekte]

Great looking city!! I have not gotten close to a city of that population yet. But my first city is probably the only one I have tried. I usually just cheat with money and build up a city and never play it haha.  I have never been able to get blueprints to work properly, they always seem to either freeze the game or prevent me from being able to save.

 

Thanks!

 

This is my 6th or so city, but I've been messing with this one for about 7 months or so. I'll usually spend 2 or so hours every week or two playing around on there. This city however is the only one I've put this much time into. I think my closest one in population was maybe around 1,000,000 and after attempting my first blue print it all went downhill from there. It wasn't planned very well either. 

 

This city I immediately unlocked all of the buildings and put in in expert mode, which isn't any harder...it's actually a little easier since you can focus on high density right away (I'm guessing you did too). Blue prints actually can boost your population and economy and reduce the need to import (having a self run feeder city helps, but that's too much work). The stadiums require crazy amount of almost everything (oil, recycling, unskilled through elites, electricity, etc.), so if you ever hit a major slump start to build up your heavy industry and manufacturing (which will require recycling and energy to be boosted) that way you already have the hard tokens taken care of. My problem now is that I need another airport and another port for exports and I can't afford either. 

 

Blue prints were giving me a little trouble, so I lowered all of the game play settings to low quality (that's why my screen shots look really pixelated). 

 

Does the site where you got 1WTC and some of the other newer towers work for Cities XL 2011?

[bigeasy]

Yeah maybe I should try and give a blueprint a shot. I tried to do the Empire State in my first city, and I am really glad I saved before it because it just seemed to throw the city into a spiral. But I had NO clue what I was doing haha.

 

Do you use public transportation a lot? I still have been trying to figure out exactly how the game operates them. It seems to be very hit or miss whether or not a line will be popular (Very poor design on my part). My bus routes seem to do pretty good usually, but I have not have much luck with the metro lines or whatever they are called in the game.

 

I am not sure on the specifics of which buildings will work with 2011 or not. That being said, there is a filter that you can apply on the website so you can only have the mods that work with 2011. The website is xlnation.net, and for the add on you click xl exchange at the top. There are TONS of add ons to make the game even more realistic, but I use it just for the buildings. I wish I knew how to build them, because I would love to have the Batman building in one of my cities. Or better yet design a map to look like Nashville.

[arkitekte]

Yeah maybe I should try and give a blueprint a shot. I tried to do the Empire State in my first city, and I am really glad I saved before it because it just seemed to throw the city into a spiral. But I had NO clue what I was doing haha.

 

Do you use public transportation a lot? I still have been trying to figure out exactly how the game operates them. It seems to be very hit or miss whether or not a line will be popular (Very poor design on my part). My bus routes seem to do pretty good usually, but I have not have much luck with the metro lines or whatever they are called in the game.

 

I am not sure on the specifics of which buildings will work with 2011 or not. That being said, there is a filter that you can apply on the website so you can only have the mods that work with 2011. The website is xlnation.net, and for the add on you click xl exchange at the top. There are TONS of add ons to make the game even more realistic, but I use it just for the buildings. I wish I knew how to build them, because I would love to have the Batman building in one of my cities. Or better yet design a map to look like Nashville.

 

 

I had one city where I experimented with public transportation...it didn't work too well, but I've read that metro works well in super highly dense areas. I'm about to try a metro line or two in my new city to see how it works. I'm thinking two lines that run the length of my city and then 3 or so that run the width of it. All of them centralizing near the center of my skyline and then branching out to the airport, neighborhoods, stadiums, etc. 

 

Thanks for the info on xlnation. I'm gonna start downloading some and putting them into my map.