SimCity 2013 Revisited Over 10 Years Later... Is it Worth Playing?

[@CityPlannerPlays]

I was wrong about the trees! You can find them in the Parks menu! Thanks for pointing that out, everyone!

[@soulfate2996]

Thank you soooo much for the video! This was so nostalgic for me. My childhood was coming home from school and watching @BDoubleO100 play this. This game helped me through tough times as a child and brought me so much enjoyment. Thank you so much for reminding me about this amazing gem!

[@chn_yuanbo3106]

AI translation I would like to ask, what should I do if I want to cancel all DLC content? I am unable to uninstall DLC

[@LENDRALL39]

You can also buy more land

[@rwwilson21]

why didn't you revisit the OG. that game is a classic. you know the game that walked so cities skylines could run.

[@smokeyeyes__]

God this game had me hooked when I was like 12 or 13. As a kid you couldn't tell me anything about this game's flaws, of course they're all painfully obvious with hindsight but back in the day I had such a blast with this game. I remember convincing my parents to get me the Cities of Tomorrow DLC and having so much fun with it, and just the fun, rich, campy lore that Maxis does best.

[@rjkora]

Maxis was limited by EA to make money sadly CS2 is the same publishers leave the studios alone good games will sell

[@sol_in.victus]

I've watched so many videos talking about how horrible Simcity 2013 was and while it obviously was, for me as an 11yo kid this game was so amazing it had me incredibly hooked, I remember making whole metro areas using all the lots on the map and have them work together. I also kinda love the idea of the online collaboration, though maybe not the execution. Maybe C:S3 will have the modularity and collaboration aspects of simcity 2013 with the size and customization of c:s2 and 2035 will be a great year for city builders lol

[@GenericPast]

Me and a friend spent months playing the hell out of this despite all the negative feedback. It wasn't a good SimCity game but it was fun to build up a region with someone else.

[@EverShy_]

Same. Played the hell out of it when I was a teen.

[@dfinlen]

@@sol_in.victus there will be no cs3

[@sillyness3456]

The music is timeless. I was a beta tester for this game and it was apparent, that it had major issues. The crammed maps however, were the true nail to the coffin. So much content, so much potential, basically no space to set it up.

[@ryanperrault8174]

Small maps is the only reason I don't still play it and ever stopped....How dumb are they?

[@PeterAbdis]

Reminds me of my favorite city I built in this game. It was a fairly large city and I decided that it would be nice to have a nuclear power plant. So, I built one smack in the middle of the city and, as these things happen, I ended up not having enough educated workers for it. Shortly after completion the reactor had a *small* containment leak, polluting the majority of the map. As my sims were dying of radiation poisoning, I raced to rebuild the majority of my city at the very edges of the map, outside of the pollution zone. Fun times. Eventually I managed to re-right the ship and had a beautiful city of high rises and skyscrapers all around the edge of the map, with a now fully functional nuclear power plant in the center, surrounded by a high-tech factory complex producing specialized computer chips. And a massive forest in between the two, trying desperately to reduce the pollution so people could live in the radiation zone again.

[@SuperFlashDriver]

@@PeterAbdis Yeeaaahhh this is why I avoided nuclear power plants because that happened to me, even with sandbox mode on (can't even turn off radiation mode and such, so buildings automatically are abandoned upon building it there).

[@SuperFlashDriver]

Yeah, but even then having small cities gave you a good idea of what to include in the city compared to the other ones. As well as figure out which ones you want to include versus the other cities that either have a brand new start to the town, or you pretty much started a new game and go from there. The limitations of the map helped me decide how I want to rebuild and re-design the city as needed and be able to demolish/start over if necessary. So having small maps for me, whereas Cities Skylines I had such a HUUUGGGEE City that I couldn't figure out how to solve certain problems in a certain area (noise pollution especially was the biggest nuisance for me when playing that game so).

[@YAH2121]

A city builder with only small maps has to be a sin

[@jaredwilliams8621]

Whats sad is that the developers said themselves that they limited the city size due to constraints on the server hardware needed to run the simulations. The always online mistake had quite a bit of collateral damage, including this.

[@jonredcorn862]

I still remember the cgi trailers early in development showing these massive beautiful cities. Literally my saddest flop of all time. I loved sim city 4 so much, I had the like 400 page manual you could buy and would read it religiously. I still have it somewhere.

[@nickierv13]

Oh the super advanced simulations that fell apart in less than 5 minutes when you stop and count? The brainless agents designed and implemented by a CS201 student. At 8 AM, if population < 5000, for each house, spawn 1 agent at a house. Move the agent along the path until they find the first job. Remove that agent and mark the job filled. At 8 AM, if population > 5000, for each house, spawn 10 agent at a house. Move the agent along the path until they find the first job. Remove that stack of 10 agents and mark the job filled. At 8 AM, if population == 5000, $ sudo rm -rf savefile.dat /facepalm Or the services AI: On event. For each building spawn 5 agents. For each agent, send to event... On event finish, for each agents. get new event, send to event... So you got every single service building in the entire city spewing out agents who all conga line to each event in order... before having to return to the building before getting dispatched to the next event...in order. And then someone tried to sniff the network packets. Emphasis on 'tried', they got everything but the sort of traffic you would expect from that sort of game running that sort of simulation. They did however find a keep alive packet every couple minutes. No points for guessing what that keep alive packet was for.

[@alanmichael5619]

I think this was one of those things that was proven to be a lie at the time. There wasn't actually anything from the game being run on the servers.

[@nickierv13]

@@alanmichael5619 I forget the exact details but your right. The "super complex simulation that can only be run on a server" turned out to be a basic flood fill that, graphics aside, would be about on par with a Uni level CS300 class assignment. If your lucky. If not, make it out of a 200 class assignment. Then someone loaded up a packet sniffer and got crickets. Hard to run a simulation on a server with no data traffic. Then the line about how 'hard'/outright impossible it was going to be to make a single player offline version. Someone changed one line in a file and got offline working, maybe except for saving. And that was all after everyone got to see the conga line of fail from the emergency services.

[@governmentlab6162]

No, that was 100% a lie. All the server did was check if there was a connection.

[@SRCrane]

It's crazy how long ago this came out, and how CS2 has used so many features of it, but CS2 is still so lacking. Thanks for revisiting it, though! It really puts a lot in perspective, both improvements and disappointments.

[@CityPlannerPlays]

Honestly, it doesn’t feel that long ago to me… but it really has been! I think that seeing the inspiration makes me hopeful that some of the features will be improved. Amazing to see some of this more fully fleshed out in SC, though.

[@ricker024]

IMO I believe what makes CS2 so lacking is how many features it lost from CS1 plus the combination of not a very challenging or intuitive simulation system which I wholly believe is hampered by choosing to remain without wealth classes and having absurd segregated zoning densities and separate zoning density demands! SC never veered from that fundamental aspect and they did it well. If the pace was slower… considerably slower while still challenging. The payoff and hence satisfaction would feel that much better.

[@TheBlueBunnyKen]

Is CS2 even worth buying at its current point?

[@DBT1007]

It was simcity 2013 that started the upgradable buildings first. Then cities skylines copy that too in their DLC such as the finance DLC. It's upgradable stock building there. Just like that big future tower in simcity 2013 or the upgradable wind power plant. And later cities skylines 2 still preserve that feature with more upgradable buildings.

[@LadyLucyna]

​@@TheBlueBunnyKen IMO it's not worth it right now. It's enjoyable for some time while you get used to the game and its systems, but once you reach a certain point, you start to realize that most of the systems just don't matter, which would be okay as it's intended to be more of a city painter type of game, but the incredibly low asset variety means that it's not even that. Also, even though it's better than on release, performance is still kinda poor in larger cities. Once the workshop releases, I'd recommend picking it up, but right now it has some glaring flaws that can't be fixed just through code mods.

[@SimCityEA1989]

Little funfact, the team had plans to release updates that would increase the city border size by twice, then three times, and then four times, and eventually it would be the ideal size for a proper city. Let alone they were going to add lots of new roads, buildings, and so much more to make it very favorable and enjoyable. However, by the time they fixed the server issue that took up most of their work time, and the bugs, EA decided to shut them down. They literally pulled the plug when it was recovery from the hospital. I could only imagine what it would have been like if EA was not greedy and just smart for once. Another funfact, because of Simcity, we got The Sims, and in lore, the Sims are from Simcity (You can see it in the first Sims trailer, they are exiting Simcity) and can be found in textbooks in Sims 2 and a bit in Sims 3, and very little in Sims 4. You can even transfer neighborhoods from SimCity 4 to The Sims 2. Funny enough, even the developer or some employee from Maxis made a post about "hanging up their hat and laying their keys under the carpet, that we had fun and were blessed to be part of a game that created a whole genre... oh, and also! Fuck EA-". It went something like that, I don't remember it word for word, but it was essentially that. It was funny AF LMFAO *Sighs* I used to be the King of City Building Genre...

[@lowlygrunt3083]

Yup, EA wrecked the SimCity franchise, which is a shame because they so owned it. Total greed, total incompetence. :(

[@TheWagonroast]

So basically: Maxis made a mistake, they injured themselves and got hospitalized. They slowly started to heal. After they finished healing, they got up, ready to fix their mistake. Their employer, ea came up and shot them with a gun.

[@SimCityEA1989]

@@TheWagonroast Kinda, EA made the mistake and injured Maxis. Maxis employees were telling EA that this wouldnt work but EA wanted online mode, so they had to do so since they were owned by them. But essentially EA literally didn't give them the chance ro recuperate lmfao.

[@solmartig]

there was anoter game mode where you could go into the city that you build and play like a helicopter officer or something like that. i vaigly remember it but it was like you could jump into simcity 2000 city and be like 1 of the citizens in it. i think it was called sim copter or something like that

[@rockee9869]

@@solmartig You remember correctly, that was Sim Copter, and then there was also Streets of Sim City where you could drive around cities imported from 2000 and it had car combat and radio stations

[@DrNowsSugarBaby]

I personally love that ‘stretching rubber band’ sound 😅 Scratches my brain just right!

[@munkysthrowpoop]

Isn’t it a printing calculator sound? I assumed it was a play on calculating cost of what you are about to build.

[@jk_ilyu]

righttt?

[@L1ght_7]

He said that so confidently that it made me think I was the odd one out for liking it! Glad I am not the only one who does lol

[@Drizno]

YES

[@jenniferm.2142]

Same. ❤

[@Latriise]

SimCity put so many nice touches in their games that I only appreciated fully in hindsight (seeing other games that can't get it right). Like the way they color the city at night means I can see things just as well as in the daytime. So I don't have to turn off a day/night cycle, or wait until day to keep building.

[@nabagaca]

I really do miss Simcity, and I loved SimCity 5. As you mention, there is a charm to Simcity that is missing from cities skylines, the music, the art style, and especially the story elements are all things I sorely missed. I loved that you could create a Blade Runner city, or deal with the consequences of someone throwing a block party, or work with criminals.

[@SuperDave1426]

There was never a "SimCity 5" - like it says in the title of this video, it's commonly referred to as "SimCity 2013" (referring to the year it was released - on the box, it simply said "SimCity".

[@RobbieG17]

@@SuperDave1426 0:08

[@SuperDave1426]

@@RobbieG17Yeah, that's nice, but it's still incorrect. SimCity 4 had a "4" on the box. People calling it SimCity 5 are just adding +1 to the numbering, but this game was intended as a reboot of the series. Thus, "SimCity". It's a somewhat common mistake that people will call it "5" for the reason I just mentioned. Even the developers themselves didn't consider it to be anything other than SimCity - no number following it. I was one of their beta testers before the game came out, and we had interactions with the devs via a forum. I can assure you, as someone who was *there*, not a single developer though of this game as "SimCity 5"; it was a reboot of the series. Every last one of us beta testers kept telling them that it wasn't ready to go public release yet, but EA was leaning on Maxis to get the thing out the door, and thus we got the disastrous release that happened. It was so bad that EA closed down the Maxis office that had been working on the developing the game (if not all of Maxis eventually). I have no love of this game; it was bad in so many ways that it pretty much killed the franchise. But I'm not going to call it by an incorrect name, and try to let people know when they add a "5" that was never there. If someone can't simply accept that, well, that's on them. 😉

[@smokeybandit9760]

@@SuperDave1426 It's not that deep man

[@Blakiedoo]

@@SuperDave1426people like you really make me wonder if humans above the age of 35 should be allowed to have internet access

[@TerryJGeo]

They owned the market and EA's greed killed them. And now they're doing the same with The Sims. Two potention Sims killers come out this year.

[@REAL-UNKNOWN-SHINOBI]

Unfortunately this time around, there is no alternative.

[@tuckertheyoutuber901]

Not to mention they killed their stranglehold on sports games due to the same culprit

[@jeltje50]

@@tuckertheyoutuber901 wait it did? I thought that the whole ea vs fifa thing hurt fifa way way way more?

[@Testeuros]

@@TerryJGeo What The Sims alike games? Asking out of curiosity as I wanna give them a try.

[@TerryJGeo]

@@Testeuros Since Life By You was cancelled and Paralives in still in development, there's only one on the horizon and that's InZoi. They've said it will be out in early access later this year... but we'll see.

[@FARBerserker]

I WANT A SERIES OF YOU PLAYING THIS! Take an intermediate region, build cities that specialize in different stuff and interact with each other.

[@petirimunyikwa445]

Would love this!!

[@marcrubin9359]

That's really how you do it. You try to pretend that its one city because they can share all the services. Also the way wealth and density works, its actually possible to create poor industrial town. In CS buildings always eventually level up and the city always looks like paradise. I like the realism that way. With so many fun assets I would definitly watch while CS2 is pretty much unplayable with zero assets.

[@SweetPieWizard]

I would enjoy seeing this.

[@droe2570]

That was always a bit buggy, in my experience.

[@Kaldosthesergal]

I couldn’t agree more.

[@sol_in.victus]

I dont think you mentioned this, unless I missed it, but the music in Simcity games is SO damn good, I always turn music off on C:S, not on Simcity. I guess it goes into the charm category, I play Sims as well and I can tell you Maxis/EA have A LOT of flaws with bug fixing, launching unfinished products, overall half-assing stuff, but there is just a special charm to maxis games that competitors fail to replicate IMO.

[@sol_in.victus]

Also THE BIG LIZARD IS LITERALLY A SPORE CREATURE, THEY JUST SMACKED A SPORE CREATURE ON THE GAME LIKE??

[@RryhhbfrHhgdHhgd356]

Poor Maxis. EA did them dirty. :(

[@flyingdragon6275]

also Sims 4 still has a unique charm. Though it isnt perfect

[@bacla100]

​@@RryhhbfrHhgdHhgd356 EA made some bad decisions and those who suffer are the people that blindly execute them. Capitalism as it's best.

[@nieildilsonsouza4747]

Chris Tilton composed the banger soundtracks for 2013 and cities of tomorrow.

[@Vespuchian]

That game was _ruined_ by EA. If what I've heard is accurate, the Glassbox engine could have handled bigger cities, but not the online multiplayer EA insisted on. Such a shame they never got the chance to develop it further, it had real potential.

[@absolutelyabsolute4671]

If there's one thing other city builders can't replicate is simcity's ART DIRECTION.

[@cormoran2303]

The one thing I like about Sim City 2013 is the Cities of Tomorrow DLC. Making a Cyberpunk city is exactly what I want.

[@RryhhbfrHhgdHhgd356]

Honestly yeah. One of the best DLC’s for a city builder period, and even in City Skylines I find myself wishing I could build those mega towers. 😂 Awesome soundtrack too. Imagine that. Including a soundtrack with a DLC, rather than selling a limited radio station as an additional DLC!

[@manboy4720]

a very under-utilised style in city builders. only exception is probably industries of titan, but i think that game is basically dead and isn't updated anymore (from what i know).

[@rickou1573]

@@RryhhbfrHhgdHhgd356 Use mo d s

[@Anarkitten]

The megabuildings were so cool and unique, I loved planning out each floor to them.

[@ItsDainsleifDuh]

the best DLC for a city building game ever made, where you can have a 500 MW super solar panel placed as a crown of your mega towers,

[@PlayingGilly]

I feel that, SimCity has heart, Skylines is better but in a way more soulless, no playfulness.

[@Gamofran]

It seems it is a consequence when you are more realistic you loses the fun part. Usually it is called arcade versus simulation games. I'd say SimCity is an arcade city builder, while Cities is more simulation. The fan base of CS1 did not like the Vanilla aspect of it, and CS2 is trying to be even more simulation centered. I think this partialy explains the soulless thing you said 😂

[@vnshngpnt]

Exactly this. I better play small specialized city with fun (arcade even) systems and love put in every building instead 1000 kilometers of same things in Skylines... I guess general player prefers just building big and that's it

[@WheeledHamster]

This, the music, the little see thru windows and nighttime.

[@AdonisOuranios]

I wouldn't say soulless, I think there's a lot of heart put into the game, but there is a lack of playfulness that Simcity had. It takes itself more seriously. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing, though. It's just different.

[@aaronc1407]

I’ve been playing SimCity 4 since its release in 2003. It really does stand up well today.

[@secretagentnewt]

I loved being able to drive cars and fly the helicopters and planes in that game.

[@Conduit23]

EA claims they're focusing on their own IP, time to do a proper SimCity 5 that goes beyond the scale of 4 and provides some (apparently needed) competition for Cities Skylines II. Surely EA will do the right thing.

[@flack3]

@@Conduit23"EA will do the right thing" Hahahaahahhahahahaha good one

[@Moerp100]

I always come back to SC4. The amount of mods and buildings is amazing. However its modding scene sadly is literally dying out.

[@evilotis01]

SC4 is great, and another demonstration of how important mods can be to a game. what the NAM team have been able to do is just mind-blowing

[@Samuel_Rioux]

Something that nobody mentions is how sountracks in this game are such a masterpiece. The soundtracks react to the beat of your city, and it is just overall a relaxing and satisfying addition to the game. I still listen to it when writing essays now because they are just so calming!

[@costa2k1]

Something I actually like in this game is zoning in curbed roads, in cities skylines it just doesn't look good when you zone many houses in a curb road.

[@WaffleExplainsItAll]

I earnestly believe SC2013 is one of the best city builders ever made, if not, and im being serious here, the best. The sheer amount of supply chain systems the game has, combined with the way they all ACTUALLY WORK TOGETHER, and the strategy involved in setting them up optimally and delegating certain things to certain cities? Phenomenal. Building them up to complement each other? Incredible. Having an education-focused city that then unlocks new projects when certain milestones are met? Amazing progression. The way everything snowballs into each other and you need to carefully get certain things before others or they won't work right or can be downright catastrophic (high tech industry before high tech firefighting? Your city is screwed!)? unbelievably engaging The traffic is stupid. The cities are small. The nearest-neighbor agent system is terrible. But the core gameplay structure and depth and complexity in this game? No other city builder even attempts to come close.

[@alexabramiuk]

Yup, its industries mechanics are so deep and really exciting. And it feels especially good compared to CS industries DLC which, for me, was very frustrating after playing SimCity 2013. And SimCity's cities though very small and looking almost toy-like, feel more live compared to CS cities. I really like CS with it's scale and road network but it's really just a city painter with not much to worry about when you're building your city.

[@shnikes8366]

But then it’s not a city builder. It an industry management game.

[@alexabramiuk]

@@shnikes8366 but you build a city, buddy. This game has much more detail to it than just industries management

[@AlexanderVonish]

“if i wanted to micromanage I would have left it to the hands of companies. Not my job to micromanage their dump of a corporation anyways, trade negotiations? I’ll let the free market decide that.” - Me trying to let the civilians figure it out.

[@shnikes8366]

@@alexabramiuk you do not build a city in this game. What city is that small? It’s far from a city builder. The size of the cities were smaller than a neighborhood of a town.

[@BrendanGeormer]

I remember thinking the giant towers that were like a mini city in themselves were the coolest thing back in the day. I think that was a paid DLC or expansion though. Also the fact that you could have people playing that were added as friends and their cities would impact each other like if you had an excess of low-wealth citizens they could go to the neighboring city where those jobs were.

[@shaquan9893]

The last fact you mentioned was why I loved the game. I remember playing with some friends and I'd switch over to my friend's city to see how he's doing only to see the city riddled with crime and fire. Good times 😂😂

[@mortingenstrasse.]

it is indeed a part of the dlc named cities of tomorrow. it's not in the vanilla game.

[@1ButtonDash]

I was literally playing this, this morning lol. The game is actually not bad, yes the city size is small but if you can get over that you can have a great time. The point of the game is to make a bunch of cities that have specilizations. I always loved the art style of this. Also something really cool is to watch where the sims go. A big thing about the game people aren't aware of is that it's a balancing act of your residents and jobs. As long as you watch how many jobs you have vs how many residents you have in the 3 different wealth categories, the traffic shouldn't build up. Also schools is basically a superpower in this game. If you sims are smart it literally helps EVERYTHING else in your cities. From using less water and electricity to starting less fires and doing crime not to mention it improves the tech level of your industry.

[@RryhhbfrHhgdHhgd356]

Yeah. What killed it was the always on multiplayer and the terrible, terrible DRM. Gameplay itself was really quite fun.

[@Thelivinglegend78]

Without City Size limitations, I really think this game would be a 9/10 city builder.

[@BrunodeSouzaLino]

Sim City 4 also had that but it was not forced on you if you didn't want to use it.

[@AlexanderVonish]

And also preventing your fancy nuclear power plant from melting down.

[@A.Martin]

the Simcity expansions for buildings is how I want it in CS2. Not the horrible way we have it in CS2, the ones that add on to the existing building are fine, but its those external modules, because of the way it forces you to connect them, they don't look right, also very inflexible.

[@WedrownyElite]

I miss SimCity so much mostly because of it's freedom. You can expand on buildings like the Town Hall, wind farms, etc. I WANT that in Cities Skylines because that is what I'm missing. I also love how if you get far enough in SimCity how everything gets all futuristic because of OmegaCorp, as long as you have the Cities of Tomorrow expansion. And I want that! If Cities Skylines had a futuristic expansion like SimCity, I wouldn't have to jump between the two.

[@Rapha_493]

37:05 You can if I remember correctly. You need to go to the nature section in the parks tab and scroll all the way right. There should be trees.

[@CityPlannerPlays]

Oh shoot, totally missed that!!

[@Rapha_493]

@@CityPlannerPlays yeah, and you can also place trees on road sides. That's why some of them have green spaces.

[@jasonklosterman6384]

This game has so much potential. I was part of that crowd that got turned off at launch only to come back to it later. Traffic and city size are really the two biggest issues and after 10 years and much more powerful computers I would imagine these could be addressed. Sadly, EA has totally given up on the franchise and will probably never revisit it. The less than stellar launch of Citys Skylines 2 is evidence of how hard it is to get a city builder right.

[@noventaeum]

I love how calming Phil's talking is. Love the throwback to Sim City

[@go-away-5555]

If you're not falling asleep to his livestream VODs you're missing out 😜

[@hullian1113]

I could bang on about my own nostalgia for this game, but I can’t help but notice you basically built California City.

[@natep6729]

Finally! We get to see the face behind that soothing therapeutic voice! You're a good looking man Phil. Also i love simcity 5 still today. I think the game has a charm that no other city builder has managed to mimic. Maybe it's nostalgia bias. I also like how the assets have desert plants when you're on a desert map. The night views are also stunning. I miss this game so much.

[@_ikako_]

he's done a few videos with a camera on the channel before, this isn't the first! i think his video about the bugs of CS2 was the first video with his face

[@drg-dg6cq]

there are some points that actually are very strong for this game despite its issues -firstly , the game was supposed to expand to eventually be 64 by 64 if SimCity would've stayed -Compared to Cities skylines 2, the UI design is much better in my opinion easy to understand and read. great art style (thank you Ocean Quigley) -Simcity had a huge dedication to make feedback as smooth as possible. every tab felt alive (literally with ui colors popping yellow and red and the sims in each tab make it feel alive) -this includes your sims sharing their opinion in bubbles , the more you zoom the more details you get which i prefer lots better then CS1 and 2 -DATA MAPS!: though simulation was problematic, this game does an amazing job trying to show the player what is actually going on, made me feel like i can see a whole secret world underneath each data map. some were made purely to show the player the simulation. i was honestly shocked how CS2 didn't do it, CS2 is much much more simulated but for me SimCity *felt* more simulated. That's why people complain that CS2 doesn't really seem simulated. even tho it is. CS2 needs somewhat better design in this area. -sound and movement effect: each time you build or zone you hear sound effect, makes the game feel very alive. the way when you plop something and the building moves and then the heavy plop effect gives me as a player the feeling of power, importance. -even though the biggest reason for simcity 5 to fail, regional play had one good point: you felt like there was a real outside world because you could see it despite it being a illusion. -some areas like pollution and ground water were better simulated and showcased then CS2 -music is amazing! good visuals I was really hoping to see some of these in CS2 specially because of how extremely detailed its simulation is yet we don't get to see it. Simcity Data maps were really well made.

[@Boots_293]

The UI is a big one for me. I’m not a big fan of paradox UIs.. even their life by you UI they’ve show is just ugly and doesn’t look as optimized/user friendly as it could be

[@drg-dg6cq]

@@Boots_293 I agree! Paradox is known for its harsh UI design. It's too clustered for me.

[@Misfit7021]

Wow, thanks for taking me back. I remember playing this with a friend online and I had made a casino city. I wanted to switch it up and head towards education (it was something our area needed) so I deleted my casino and started building towards higher education. About 5 minutes later my friend shouted "What did you do!?" I asked what he was talking about and he said "Look at the highway entering my city!' I opened the map, and there was an endless line of criminals entering his city lol. Apparently, my casinos spawned a bunch of criminals after they were deleted or they were always there (not sure). I remember laughing pretty hard about that. Everyone beefed up their police, and eventually it took care of itself, but it is a fond memory I have of the game and my friend. Thank you CPP 🙂.

[@Orchestorm]

I played this game for several years past its release. I had many complaints, but overall I had more fun with it than not. Thanks for playing it this week! Brought back many memories!

[@emergcon]

The DRM was cracked fastet than EA needed to fix their Server. 😂

[@holttho]

Originally, EA was saying that it also had to be always online because the agent system of demands was so computationally intensive that it was so they could offload the calculations to "the cloud" (100% lie, nothing left your computer) so that even lower-end users could enjoy the game. They also said that the always online portion wasn't removable because it was so deeply and intricately interwoven in the code, so you all had better just not worry about removing it so stop asking. The Day 1 crack people said that it was literally like 4 lines of code that just checked if it could communicate to the EA server, and they just simply set that variable to always be TRUE.

[@emergcon]

@@holtthoThe crack had you reroute something in an ini file to an apache server you hosted your self.

[@nickierv13]

@@holttho I think your off by 3 lines of code. 😅

[@Lordgeorge16]

The thing that keeps bringing me back to SC5 is the way your city **grows**. You can edit your buildings and add important things to them. Hospital running out of space? Add a new patient wing. Power plant needs to supply more power to the city? Add a new module. Additionally, it changes over time without your direct input. Density increases. Random events can occur that make your city feel alive and sometimes change the way you play. I've tried Cities Skylines a few times and I always get bored in a matter of hours. You place your buildings, zone your streets, and... that's it. Nothing else really happens. You sit there and watch it simulate. Occasionally you have to intervene, but so much of the game requires direct player action if you want something interesting to happen. Cities Skylines is a city painting simulator. Sim City is a city BUILDING simulator. Also, the multiplayer is actually fun if you can get a few of your friends to join your region. You can send each other money, assist each other by diverting some of your services to your friends' cities, and Sims will naturally commute from one city to another and come back if they need something that they can't get in yours. For all its flaws, at least it's more innovative and engaging than C:S.

[@FARBerserker]

Funny thing about the water deposits: they run out. but if you have the services part of town hall, then you can use the outflow pipes and use filtered water intake pumps and actually recycle for infinite water.

[@flyingdragon6275]

well. U never run out of ground water if u placed ur Water pumping station at the shore of a water body

[@jamalgibson8139]

Yeah, this was the main reason I stopped playing. It just wasn't fun having to go find water whenever your city grew. I'm not sure why they made that a feature, but it really soured the experience for me.

[@AlexanderVonish]

@@jamalgibson8139 My only guess is increased realism, since aquifers weren’t an infinite resource and will eventually run out just like in real life, hence the additional mechanics added to try restoring aquifer levels.

[@GeorgeMonet]

@@AlexanderVonish But real life aquifers don't run out that fast unless you have a major water hog like water inefficient farms.

[@AlexanderVonish]

@@GeorgeMonet supposedly, yes, in fact, water itself isn’t the only one that shouldn’t run down so fast when I took another knock at this, I’ve played the game myself, and my Coal Reserves were rapidly being depleted along with oil after letting the mine and wells do their thing respectively, despite the city being only months old. Definitely would have been nice had there been some moddability in the game and someone went and tampered with the resource values to make it truly realistic, rather than give us what is essentially “Post apocalyptic resource availability in an otherwise nature filled and ripe for taking plot.” Kind of the reason why one of my cities established is mostly dedicated to pumping water from the coastline to sustain the others, and that when other resources run out I had to go and try to laden said with Casinos in the hopes of turning them into a tourist attraction than a dying populous, this doesn’t always work out for I, unfortunately.

[@user-kw1dd]

I've invested roughly 1000 hours into SimCity 5, and what initially seemed like a significant drawback-the small map size-eventually emerged as its greatest asset. This limitation compelled me to meticulously plan every aspect of my city. Inadequate space forced me to carefully consider zoning, infrastructure, and development, leading to a more strategic and satisfying gameplay experience. In contrast, in Cities: Skylines, the expansive maps allow for a more relaxed approach, where haphazard placement often yields success without much foresight or precision

[@claytonthegnome]

I got this game at launch and actually enjoyed it, even then...BUT it wasn't until last year, when I got two coworker friends into it for private region multiplayer, that the game became a blast. Taking multiple cities per person in a region and working together to build Great Works made for many enjoyable 5 hour sessions.

[@Boots_293]

I loved working towards a great works with my friends! I stopped playing when the rocket great work got bugged.. not too sure if it ever got fixed

[@kingsrook9866]

I seem to recall reading somewhere that SimCity 2013 isn't actually an agent based game, it just pretends to be. That is to say, when a sim wakes up in the morning they don't head to the same job everyday, they find the closest open job slot and go to that, even if it is different from yesterday's job. And when they finish work, they head to the closest open house slot, even if it is different from last night's house or if there are different people already living there

[@YellowBriefs]

That is true, but they are still agents, they are persistent through the map and carry information/resources, they simply don't have "memory" which is not as bad as what Cities Skylines does: if an agent is stuck in traffic too long they just teleport it to its destination. That's cheating. SimCity doesn't do this and that's why traffic can get really bad if you don't manage it properly. This game has an array of mods, such as one way roads, that improve the gameplay a lot.

[@Yonkage-ik5qb]

The agent system was a mistake anyway. It's one of the biggest flaws holding back Skyline's potential, and adds literally nothing to the game experience.

[@GeorgeMonet]

Yes and that is why traffic grinds to a halt and makes your city fall apart when there is just 5 real world minutes of traffic. Also the Cities Skylines solution IS A GOOD SOLUTION. Making the agents travel at the speed of normal real time but making the day advance at super duper hyperspeed does not work. 5 real world minutes of traffic should be no big deal. But in Simcity 2013 5 real world minutes of traffic means your citizens don't go to work or school because the entire work/school day is only 5 real world minutes. And there is no way to manage traffic properly in Simcity 2013 because 5 minutes of traffic is not a problem but the game falls apart when it exists. Having to turn your entire city into a road with a few buildings means the game does not work.

[@VaingloriousGaming]

I enjoyed SC13 when it came out, at least for what it was. I was disappointed by the incredibly small cities, but once there were single player saves, I enjoyed being able to create small, interconnected regions. I definitely jumped ship once Cities Skylines landed, though. One of the things people seem to have forgotten, but in their marketing up to launch, EA (Maxis still at the time?) frequently mentioned how many of their players played on laptops. It seemed they were targeting having the game be able to run on low end hardware, sacrificing larger cities for the sake of capturing a few extra sales. I remember that even during their livestreams of the game preceding its launch, they kept hammering their point of how the game had been designed with laptop players in mind. "These smaller cities mean people with laptops can enjoy the full experience without compromise."

[@mpbMKE]

The reality of it was, because they required so much of the simulation to happen on the cloud (and lying about the reason why), they needed to have it be as stripped-down as possible to handle the server load. And then they still couldn't handle it! It was pretty much all EA cocking things up in the background and forcing Maxis (and especially Ocean and Pierre Guillame) to take the brunt of the backlash.

[@coleciervo5454]

Reminds me of how CS2 keeps trying to court console players. Stupid

[@VaingloriousGaming]

@@mpbMKE another tale of when c-suite tries to make a game. :(

[@AF-yn4cv]

I remember I got a new Dell XPS laptop to play this game, it absolutely fried it, the graphics chip melted, even after been reattached to the motherboard it was never the same afterwards. Not sure what it was but the game was just too graphically intensive, even with small city sizes

[@AlexanderVonish]

@@mpbMKEand even with all that, another comment mentioned that the the people who cracked the game realized the only thing connecting to the servers was just a conditional, which they set to just TRUE and the game ran perfectly fine, others had a crack where they simply rerouted the game’s server to ping to just some apache server that they self hosted for themselves.

[@ChuckHickl]

You playing this game tells me all I need to know about City Skylines II.

[@TooLateForIeago]

I remember looking at this title and being struck by how much of a step backward it was from its predecessor. Sim City Societies had fewer features than 4 as well, but at least it experimented with new ideas that hadn't been tried in a Sim City game before. I loved SC4 and I love Cities: Skylines. I've experimented with City State II, appreciating its variety of ordinances and sociopolitical themes. In every game I find things I like, but I have yet to find the one that dumps every amazing feature I loved from previous City Games into one sandbox.

[@GalmorGames]

That would be another game I would love to see CPP do is Sim City Societies it would fit well with is Micromanagement Style

[@TooLateForIeago]

@@GalmorGames I agree. Maybe something closer to how Societies pitched itself. IIRC, to have a functioning city in Societies, you needed to balance the 6 societal values. Being able to get away with leaning into one or two values and seeing what could happen would be cool.

[@GeorgeMonet]

I didn't like SC4 or Cities: Skylines 1/2. But I do love Simcity 2013.

[@lorri1129]

For me the ability to edit/add to the building was and still IS the best feature in any city-builder ever. I have a little bit over 700 hours in Simcity 5, i still come back to it once in a while, it has it's charm, yes the city size does suck but i don't mind it as much, but because of it after a few hours i practically have infinite money, export advanced items (plastic, computers etc.) or make a tourist city and the city is "done" But It is fun, it doesn't require much brain power so you can relax, listen to the *beatiful* music and build a lil' city. There might be some bias due to nostalgia as this was my first city-builder and non-free to play game i played but man is it good, even after 10 years ❤

[@Avyez]

Sure, there were issues with the mandatory servers within the first few months after Simcity 2013 was released, but the game has always been undervalued from my perspective. Especially with the deeply sad state and future prospect of Cities Skylines 2, it should be noted that Simcity 2013 was fairly good and delivered what it set out to do. It may not have been everyone's cup of tea, mainly as most were looking out for a game like Simcity 4, but it shouldn't have been criticized so harshly. For me it still scores a solid 7.5/10, mostly due to the good graphical quality and outstanding UI and music, which still hold up in 2024.

[@xergiok2322]

Well it didn't really deliver what it set out to do at all, seeing as they wanted the whole region to be buildable, allowing for much larger cities. You may be fine with that shortcoming, but saying that it lived up to its goals I think is incorrect.

[@alligatorboy2000]

I'm glad you're making all these connections with CS2 here. Literally my first thought when I watched the trailers and your early footage of CS2 was "Oh my god, they've just made SimCity again" xD

[@CatPerson-LoFi]

The Lorax said it best, "Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not."

[@readthescroll]

The system ain't gon' change Unless we make it change -Dead Prez

[@jaketsnake43]

I still think the cities of tomorrow expansion is the coolest thing a city builder has ever done, I desperately wish that they did another simcity and brought that content with or brought some of it to Sims 4!

[@ivenmatrix9658]

Nostalgia Phil! This is my 1st city builder game that i also played the mobile version of it before i played CS1. I remember the mechanic of the roads dictate the building type (low to high residential) that i done when i shifted to CS1.😂 The music is my memorable for me until now. Thanks for playing this. ❤

[@Deerfoxx]

One of the great legacies I consider SimCity to have left is its fantastic soundtrack. I belong to the generation that first experienced SimCity 3000, and the moment Sim Broadway welcomed me as I turned on the game is a memorable masterpiece that I can never forget. Even the soundtrack of the disappointing SimCity 2013 had noteworthy tunes that linger in my memory.

[@HolyAdolfJesus]

Man, I really hope CS2 takes some notes from this game. *Especially the asset modularity*

[@archimetropolis]

And actual challenge and strategy

[@advisko]

I loved this game as a kid, It was the first City Builder game I ever played. I remember I would play this game after I got home from school, I absolutely got my money out of this game. I honestly miss this game so much and I'm thinking of playing it again after seeing this video. Thanks for re-igniting the excitement in me to play this gem again. PLEASE do another video!!!

[@tonymcloughlin4069]

I am a uk resident and I bought this game in 2013 been playing sim city from the early 90s I too could not play the game not even access my key code so I give up two years ago I found the game on ea and bought it again most enjoyable game I’ve played and still have a dabble now and again and I’ve still got my original cd and case well done for bringing this brilliant game to viewers…..

[@tvättbjörn-q5o]

Oh gosh, when i was in middle school i would sacrifice my sleep and spend my free time on weekend to play this game. I was having so much fun building my first city, having it getting modded and stuff there's just too many memorable things about simcity 5 for me personally. And now that CS2 comes out, and they showcased some of it's features and i'm like, wait a minute! It's SC5's features. I'm happy about it tho like i really hope that CS2 can pick the best things out of SC5 and implement it. I'm glad that you're making a video about SC5, i felt nostalgic😅

[@lefloic-games]

I have fond memories of Sim City 3000, probably the one I played the most. It has an amazing soundtrack that I still listen to! I'd love to watch you play it, not sure how it holds up now. I used to "call cousin Vinny" to get some nice cash

[@dfshjb44]

Really enjoyed this video. It's so refreshing hearing from someone who actually played this on release and is aware of the faults and controversies of the time. So many videos on youtube these days are people who have no clue what they're talking about just reading info off of wikipedia

[@Grumpyk1d]

The most disappointing thing about SimCity is actually the lack of region interplay. I was never really bothered by the small city size because I would focus on one thing in the city. The dream was always to have multiple cities each focusing on their own specialization and then the region as a whole would work great, but the intercity workings are not great. You can share police/fire and some other things, but the people/goods don't share particularly well. Otherwise, its a great game and I still enjoy a weekend visit every once in a while.

[@ltdowney]

Man, I forgot about Ocean Quigley, I f-ckin’ loved that guy. You could tell he was passionate about the game, and now listening to him talk about it retrospectively, I feel so bad for him. He still has the same bubbly personality, but the way he kinda chuckles off the disappointments… it’s like you can tell he and his team were this close 🤏 to creating a masterpiece and it was snatched away from them. It’s gotta hurt to think about the “what if” or “if only” had things gone differently. 😔

[@douglassun8456]

Especially since it sounds like he wanted to take it in a direction that would have addressed what I most disliked about it - the city size limitations.

[@lpjdrummer12295]

Hey Phil. Love seeing this blast from the past. Would love to see your take on Rollercoaster Tycoon and its offshoots of other management games. Even the first one has so much charm and a remarkable amount of detailing. Love your videos!

[@effiegandy3637]

Hey! Not sure if this has been said yet- unlock (city hall) the waste management and save money to install both a sewage treatment plant and water pumping station. Place them across the road from each other and make sure the sewage out-performs the pumping - this creates a regenerative water supply. You can also add filtration pumps to the water station but this isn´t necessary. In reality, it is a bit gross, but in the game it has no effect on their health or ick 😅 A few extra info bits- you CAN add trees! In the parks section, click nature, then at the end there is a tree brush. The trees that appear are entirely biome based, but you can also add trees to roads manually this way. The best early game money comes from the block party mission, which awards $25000 for picking up trash. You may need to add one garage to the dump to get it done faster, but this is optional. Another is the fireworks one, that is $50k for ensuring there are no fires. This can be easily solved by removing all zoning around the firehouse for the duration of the mission. The city hall will also pay you for population milestones, you just need to click on those speech bubbles to see that. The people, their houses and their jobs are all randomised. You wont find the same Sim twice and when you watch them leaving school for instance, you´ll see thousands of people pouring into each house along the way which can be entertaining to think about. They claimed that this was because no engine would be able to hold that much information, then when CS came out, they were suddenly quite silent 🤔 Any 4-way intersection is a recipe for disaster long-term, and most Simcity players will avoid these at all costs. In Simcity, traffic management is purely based on mechanics rather than reality as opposed to CS with their reality based intersections and management. Simcity almost enforces rectangular grid cities. This game is not the greatest for design, but it is great for nostalgia, simplicity and dopamine. There is a formula in which to build at the beginning, and once this is understood the game becomes quite easy. The Sims will tell you, if you listen. There are also cheats in case you want to do a sandbox-style but with unlocks- shift W and ctrl shift W which add $100k and $5k p/hour respectively.

[@Zaaroc]

What a coincidence, I just booted up Simcity 4 Rush Hour today (even 10 years older) to satisfy the itch

[@Nick-fs3td]

I loved your intro to this game, you perfectly described the downfalls at launch for sim city 2013, it was painstakingly frustrating, which I think a lot of us experienced, I definitely did myself, especially with it being the next release after sim city 4…… I did have high expectations, in my opinion simcity4 is still to this day a very strong contender in the best city building game. The issues at release for sim city 2013 I think did set the precedent for this game, along with the small maps, However I do love how you expand on the updates and patches, the offline mode / single player mode, and then the VERY interesting expansion pack. Which I actually loved the concept of. After a while I remember re-visiting this game, and I actually really enjoyed it, for some reason it is a lot more ‘simplistic’ to me than cities skylines. 🙂

[@MrGrimm73]

I like the dives into older games! Love it! Do more please :)

[@FestArc]

Honestly, I love this game and still play it to this day. It's something I constantly return to. I know people complain about city sizes, but that's the hook that keeps me coming back. They're like tiny diorama cities; you can assign each one its own unique specialization. I'll work on a town for a bit, maybe focusing on casinos, and then when I get bored a bit with that, I start a new city in the region and focus on a new specialization. I also love the Cities of Tomorrow DLC. When you run out of space, plop down the Mega Towers, and then you start building Blade Runner-looking cities. It really is great, and I think if more people would give it a go, we could see a resurgence. The main thing that held it back when it launched was the online-only crap, but they got rid of that long ago, so you can play offline, and it's no longer a problem.

[@josephiroth89]

I 100% believe that the disappointment surrounding this game is what prompted Cities Skylines to be made in the first place.

[@HelicopterDown]

This game was AMAZING. I never listened to the flaws, I was 10-11 and played this for hundreds of hours. I always felt it had a charm that Cities: Skylines never had, and we haven't had since. THE MUSIC, the advisors reacting to your actions, the art style, it's timeless. I really wish they would revive the SimCity series. I personally loved the zoning sound, it made it feel super tactile and reactive. Being able to collaboratively build cities in "regions" with other players, and chatting/sending resources to each other was also fun!

[@uzaydaisemekisteyenadam4543]

The only good thing about cities skylines was its mod support. If you remove mod support from cities skylines, cities skylines will turn into an empty game. How strange that this Simcity, made in 2013, looks better than Cities Skylines. The only drawback of Simcity was the small maps. And since there were so many problems during its release at that time, cities skylines took this cake. Now I want simcity to do the same thing. Simcity should definitely continue on its way. Simcity was a series with a soul and a quality. I think we only played Cities Skylines in the absence of Simcity.

[@ShazamMan2120]

Just stumbled onto your channel, and i enjoyed the video. One thing about this game and the city size is that it pushes you to build multiple cities, each with different specializations to form a more functional region as a whole. It gets to be a lot when attempting to manage the several small fires you build for yourself. I would ve interested in your take from that point of view, or even a series where you take on the challenge. Great video!

[@tototoleelee1993]

NO WAY this series should have stopped developing

[@udoderunformige1250]

I never played this SimCity, but when it released, I loved (and I still love) that modular approach of buildings. Yes, you could argue that Cities Skylines introduced somethin similar with the Parks, University, Airport and so on DLCs, but I think it's not quite the same, since here you can basically just up the capacity of one building by plopping down another garage/room/whatever. Especially on something like power plants that makes sense.

[@lemonynora]

all cities skylines has over simcity is the map size and modding community. if EA made a new simscity with those two things in mind it would kill cities skylines

[@ninino86]

I liked the dive and the thoughts around it. Also made me think of Totalbiscuit

[@Voeluspa45]

The one with the tiny maps? It's been 10 years? I am still disappointed.

[@JohnathanWhitehorn]

yeah it’s a bit annoying but i find that dedicating different cities in the region to specific purposes helps. basically a bigger city with a highway in between. the only issue becomes the traffic between the two lol

[@imperfectgio]

The open mindedness of this retrospective view of simcity is great. CPP always killing it with the videos. ❤

[@ZarviroffSerge]

SimCity 4 was ok before Cities Skylines came along. Hearing that SimCity 4 is the best city building game out there today is wild.

[@Shepelepsy]

First time seeing you “in person” 😊 SimCity had such an impression on me. I miss the SimCity connections they did with The Sims.

[@jr4android]

Okay, what??? Youre black!?!? That’s so cool!! I’ve adored you and your channel for so long and I had no idea there was a fellow black person behind it all along. Now i’m extra happy to support! Go CPP!

[@enterprize-zi8dd]

Why does the color of someone’s skin matter?

[@jr4android]

@@enterprize-zi8dd it doesn’t. it’s just cool to see other black people in the community :) when you’re in the minority, it’s exciting to see others like you who share interests

[@enterprize-zi8dd]

@@jr4android I’m black too so that’s why I asked

[@retnuhh5875]

You just unlocked so many memories for me, I used to play this game as a hand-me-down from my sister and I played for hours all the time. Back then I didn't really have criticism for anything so this used to be a favourite lmao Definitely need to revisit now!!

[@Voyager25-k7r]

10 years ago this game had better graphics than cities skylines 2.

[@dercfts1]

technically, graphics are worse, but sc 2013 had much more creative direction and style. it didn't try to be super realistic. the lighting, the other effects were so great that it made you not notice low res and low poly objects and textures. for me, this game is still one of the best examples of good balance between cartoon ish and realistic in graphics.

[@gael53zombieqc13]

littelary no but ok

[@corkimus]

Love your videos. Have been watching for awhile. Sim city for windows 95 was what originally piqued my interest with city builders! Been trying to scratch that itch for what seems like forever now. Would be super keen on watching you play that, if not for nostalgia but to hear your commentary for the evolutionary aspect of the genre. Additionally, would totally be interested in seeing you do something of a tier list for the games! What speaks to you the most and why kinda thing

[@keira8466]

Your voice makes me feel so calm I love it ❤ Id love to see you do a Sim city series like this one or Sim city 4

[@stephenriggs8177]

Both SimCity 2013 and Cities Skylines 2 performed well, for me, on launch. The challenge for SimCity 2013 was that it focused on delivering an amazing experience that couldn't scale. Kids were going to school or coming home all day long, even in smaller cities. But I loved the supply chains and the graphics!

[@voidox]

honestly, putting aside the stupidly small city limits and being tied to specific city tiles in a region, this game is actually quite good. Not perfect for sure, but it isn't bad by any means. And ya, 100% the aesthetics, charm, atmosphere and style of the game is unmatched and holds up just fine today (the art style and visuals are such that the game doesn't look dated at all), especially the future cites where you can go all cyberpunk + mega-towers. Plus there are some great mods out there that help shore up the game's weaknesses (and can help with visuals such as with HD models and so on) such that overall it's a straight up great city builder now.

[@SquidCena]

Simcity 2013 is the best city builder game, ever. I loved the graphics, the soundtrack, the sound effects, the people cheering, the architecture of buildings and etc. it felt awesome. If the game had the size of CS 25 tiles or more, with highways and all of the things CS1/CS2 has.... the game would've been the best game known to any city builder.

[@mephistophelicpierogi]

Appreciate you showing this off. Was a big Simcity 300 and 4 player back in the day. Never looked at this game due to the online-only component. And by the time Skylines came about, I just was done with the genre. I tried Skylines, had fun drawing roads, but it didn't have the whimsy or mechanics data of Maxis games, so I never got into it. And of course Paradox's business model. Nice to see what could have been. But those city sizes are just tiny. I can't mentally plan city expansion, new neighborhoods, etc, unless there is some part of the map that is still green and wild for me to let loose my imagination. Normally I would sub at this point, but Maxis being dead just makes me sad, and I feel like your content would just remind me of that. Congrats on what looks like a healthy channel, and have a marvelous day. :) Oh wait I did have one question. It sounded like several times you referenced this game as having "agent based mechanics" or something to that effect. What does that term mean?

[@KatimaGaming]

Every time I wanna jump back into Sim City, it makes me miss City Skylines...

[@mrmacc1312]

I love the music in this game! I am 56 and remember playing Simcity 1 for days and days!! Great memory review thank you! SkyeStorme did an amazing series and did crazy builds in the futures expansion pack…

[@StreetComp]

Fun look back at the last SimCity game that I was excited for - one thing you didn’t mention was that in MP each person got one of those building squares and since they were connected by highways we all tried to be successful with our builds to help each other out, at least in some small way, and at least when the servers worked and it wasn’t just a buggy mess. So it was a neat way of implementing a bit of MP.

[@Bystander333]

Agree with many of your comments. I enjoyed SimCity 2013 at the time - coming into it expecting a SimCity game. The design aspirations were good despite the blatant limitations. I also remember moving onto Cities in Motion 2 (the predecessor to Skylines but with the focus on transport) - would be interesting to see you do a retro on that!

[@Darththorn]

There is something about the art style and the design of this game that I love. I also loved being able to upgrade your buildings after you place them rather than having to build new ones.

[@Grietiem]

Feels strange that this is a 10 year old game now. I remember how excited I was when this was announced. Probably one of the first "live-service game" to come out, with all the flaws along with it. Playing the multiplayer with friends when it first released was an interesting experience in the beginning. Being limited by the size of the city meant collaborating in a region to meet all the needs of the population. It quickly lost it's shine when friends dropped off and you had to abandon a region you spent a lot of time on. Definitely felt like the focus on agent simulation severely limited what was achievable as far as city size and complexity went. Only so much processing power, even 10 years ago. One of the reasons it was meant to be online only, or excuses given, was the server-side processing that was required for most people's set-ups. It becomes apparent when the cities get denser that the population numbers are fudged. Tracking 250 000 agents is just too many processes at once, hell, Dwarf Fortress is arguably a more complex agent-based simulation with barely any graphical load and it starts to conk most machines out at less than 1000 agents. SimCity 2013 was ambitious to say the least, and had big shoes to fill compared to SimCity 4. Trying to bring a then next-gen city-builder to a modern gaming audience was always going to be difficult. The publisher interference was pretty apparent. But, I definitely have a soft spot for it in my heart, despite it's flaws.

[@rockyfalldownstairs]

Sim City 2013 walked so Cities Skylines could run. I dearly miss the modular buildings and the megatowers from this game, really wish cities skylines had something like them.

[@sleambean]

What a fantastically produced video Phil! Love love love the effort, it has really paid off!

[@derrio6871]

I remember putting A LOT of hours into that game, it was my first experience at a city builder and even though there were obvious flaws, man did I love this game ! Especially with the city of tomorrow DLC ! It was great making these Cyberpunk-ish cities ! There's a lot of wasted potential for this game, and I wish they could've resolved these issues with patches. Anyway when I discovered Cities Skylines maps, it obviously felt massive and overwhelming ! So I thank this game for making me fall in love with the city builder games !

[@abaddon1371]

The small size of the actual city map, is both a blessing and a curse imo. I liked the small size, because it forced me to be more creative with my solutions to get everything to fit in and it very much supports the idea that each city on each tile, had to be very specialized. The curse of course being, that it greatly limits what you can do inside each tile. Very common that your linked cities had a role in a bigger picture. So for instance, you would have a city that specialized in something, and could then contribute its specialty to other cities who lacked it. In idea I could see where they were coming from. In reality, it didn't work well because of the engine behind it. An often overlooked thing with SimCity 5, is the "quest-givers" The sims that pops up in speech bubbles, and want you to do something. It somehow, got you more involved with the whole project if that makes sense (english not my main language, so not sure what words to use here) The rewards were often very well worth it as well, which consisted mostly of money (or simoleans I think they were named) and was welcome boosts to the economy in the early game. I wish they would polish it up and make a sort of remake, because the general game itself, is solid. Edit; Had to put a ps here! Not surveying your resources before starting building could give headaches later on :D

[@tim3172]

I don't know who needs to hear this, but holding... control (?) or shift (?) will allow you to plop a zoning rule to the inside of an entire polygon, street, etc. So, just click residential, and hold ctrl to fill an entire square or make an entire side of a road residential (/commercial/industrial/delete the zoning for that entire type.)

[@HazelPlace89]

I've got a physical copy of this game, too! Before this, SC4 was my first foray into the city building/management genre, but I was a kid when I got into it and ZERO idea what I was doing 😅 I've re-installed the game just to plink around. Great stuff, Phil!!

[@baronburgamot243]

I had never seen your face before this video and I've been watching your stuff on and off for probably 2 years. hahah Nice to put a face to the voice!

[@sprtcus1798]

This game has so much potential fr. I remember playing this waayy back. It's the second city building game I've ever played (simcity 4 is the 1st) and started to play cs 1 3 years later. Must admit, There is something in Simcity 5 that CS1 lacks. Idk what exactly but This game could've been great if not because of the limitations and other problems

[@ltdowney]

8:47 - I think that intersection constraint might not be a limitation of the layout engine, but actually due to the agent-based model underlying the simulation. It was an ambitious engineering choice for the time and I was always impressed by the low-level game engine programmers at Maxis. (Sad to remember that they used to be one of the most prestigious studios.) Since the Sims had real residences and workplaces, they essentially had to solve Dijkstra’s Shortest Path algorithm any time an agent had to go anywhere. And with the path-space changing whenever the player builds or demolishes any transportation infrastructure, one journey might have to be recomputed multiple times en-route. They had to impose some constraints, like the number of branches at a given intersection, to limit the combinatorial explosion of possible paths. They also made some simplifying optimizations to agents’ behavior, like they’d queue up to merge and never recompute due to traffic, leading to massive backups e.g. at highway on-ramps in turn blocking intersections and causing cascading gridlock. The best way to clear it out fast was to bulldoze one segment of road in the path of that traffic; the agents would all take a second to recompute their paths and then scatter like ants. 😂

[@TehSmokeyMan]

Ah, SC'13... I remember it because despite it being tragically disappointing (because of the wasted potential) it had such a beautiful and inspiring soundtrack (mastefully done by Chris Tilton). Something I remember being painfully absent in Cities: Skylines... So for me it was "The game with the soundtrack that should've been in that other game" 😅 I do still play it sometimes, because of.... Well, because of all the points you made here😄 (although I do also sometimes play that Sim City title we don't talk about😏)

[@origulator]

God, I remember the Megatowers being such a cool feature, and also bankrupting my city trying to build several complete ones like in the trailers. I miss Maxis so bad.