# Alternative City Builders
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-city-builders/652953
**Category:** The Game Room
**Created:** [March 14, 2013, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-city-builders/652953 "2013-03-14T21:26:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [March 19, 2013, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-city-builders/652953/21 "2013-03-19T20:09:54Z")
> [@choie](#):
>
> I just want a pretty city map. Is there _any_ game that will turn off these sim elements and just give me a sandbox to create a town?
I do this in SimCity 4 with the help of a little program called Cheat-O-Matic. Start a city and use the program to fill my coffers with a few trillion Simoleons then build, build, build.
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### Author:  [@runcible\_spoon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/runcible_spoon)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2013, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-city-builders/652953/22 "2013-03-23T19:28:41Z")
> [@Terminus\_Est](#):
>
> In all the Impressions games, you absolutely need resources like clay to produce pottery, which then need to be supplied to houses to get them to evolve to higher level. Sometimes the resource simply isn’t available on the map, so you’ll have to import it. You can also export resources or products.
Sorry, I should have said “to build buildings”. I.e., your pottery plant costs 20 wood and 8 tools, or some such. The Anno and Impressions games are pretty similar in terms of housing requirements, as I recall (more goods for higher level houses, and the top tier requires imports)
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### Author:  [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)
#### Post date: [March 24, 2013, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-city-builders/652953/23 "2013-03-24T14:04:04Z")
Which of these games has the nicest/most interesting features for building infrastructure, esp. public transport? I’ve played a number of railroad tycoon/bus driver tycoon kind of games, but I want more of the simcity kind of experience (rather than scheduling bus lines or something) except that I’m not too interested in people and their complaints (screw them!) or in zoning residential areas or something like that. I’ll do it if I have to but I’d like to have extended opportunities in designing infrastructure rather than for instance being able and required to provide an array of services like hospitals or schools.
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### Author:  [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)
#### Post date: [March 24, 2013, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-city-builders/652953/24 "2013-03-24T15:45:39Z")
> [@Svejk\_1](#):
>
> Which of these games has the nicest/most interesting features for building infrastructure, esp. public transport? I’ve played a number of railroad tycoon/bus driver tycoon kind of games, but I want more of the simcity kind of experience (rather than scheduling bus lines or something) except that I’m not too interested in people and their complaints (screw them!) or in zoning residential areas or something like that. I’ll do it if I have to but I’d like to have extended opportunities in designing infrastructure rather than for instance being able and required to provide an array of services like hospitals or schools.
Cities in Motion is probably the closest to what you’re describing. The cities come pre-built and you design your transport infrastructure around the already-existing roads and buildings. You have buses, trams, ferries, metros, and helicopters. There’s some historical progression; for example, you won’t be able to establish a helicopter line in the 1920’s. The city will also grow around you, like creating suburbs in the outskirts and you’ll have to make new line to accommodate that. You don’t have to build anything except for the transport lines themselves.
The sequel, Cities in Motion 2, is coming out in a few weeks. You might want to wait to get that or possibly pick up the original at a discount.
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### Author:  [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-city-builders/652953/25 "2013-04-03T18:54:45Z")
Cities in Motion 2 has just been released. You can get it on Steam for $20. The core of the game is still the same as its predecessor, building and managing transport lines. It’s still not a full-fledged city builder, but you can now build roads and the city will grow dynamically around the new road system.
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### Author:  [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2013, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-city-builders/652953/26 "2013-04-03T21:53:48Z")
That looks really interesting. Unfortunately there’s no way my computer could handle that ☹
Thanks for the tip, though!
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### Author:  [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2013, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-city-builders/652953/27 "2013-04-28T22:23:00Z")
Today’s daily deal on Steam is Simcity 4 Deluxe Edition, which includes the Rush Hour expansion. For the next 18 hours or so, you can pick it up for $5.
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### Author:  [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2013, 7:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-city-builders/652953/28 "2013-04-29T07:48:57Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#):
>
> This: The games did get pretty easy after Pharoh introduced gates and roadblocks, but was still pretty fun, with lots of varied objectives.
I wouldn’t say easy - there’s still an art to properly setting up your housing blocks and placing your amenities, programming the warehouses deliveries & industry supply chains and so forth. The art just got a lot less frustrating or prone to cascade failure because \*one \*damn walker zigged when he should have zagged. Besides, properly built Caesar III cities would wind up looking pretty silly with all the snaking paths coiling everywhere for perfect walker management - never, ever, ever build a crossroads in Caesar III if you know what’s good for you ! 🙂
I also recall Pharaoh at least still had the issue of individual houses jumping in size once you reached the upper social tiers, from 4x4 to 6x6. You needed to plan for that when drawing up the Idle Fat Cat quarter, and it played havoc in the Permanently Stuck In Middle Class quarter when a few houses burned down or got vandalized by invaders and the neighbours seized the opportunity to climb the social ladder before the rubble even stopped smoking :D.
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### Author:  [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2013, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-city-builders/652953/29 "2013-04-29T15:16:13Z")
> [@Kobal2](#):
>
> I wouldn’t say easy - there’s still an art to properly setting up your housing blocks and placing your amenities, programming the warehouses deliveries & industry supply chains and so forth.
I say “easy” because once you more or less worked out an optimal solution you never really had to change it - you just placed virtually identical blocks.
> [@](#):
>
> I also recall Pharaoh at least still had the issue of individual houses jumping in size once you reached the upper social tiers, from 4x4 to 6x6. You needed to plan for that when drawing up the Idle Fat Cat quarter, and it played havoc in the Permanently Stuck In Middle Class quarter when a few houses burned down or got vandalized by invaders and the neighbours seized the opportunity to climb the social ladder before the rubble even stopped smoking :D.
Ha, yeah that happened. I had to go look online (in the days of dial-up) to figure out how to deal with that mess, along with redesigning half the city.
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### Author:  [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2013, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-city-builders/652953/30 "2013-04-30T02:47:27Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#):
>
> I say “easy” because once you more or less worked out an optimal solution you never really had to change it - you just placed virtually identical blocks.
True enough, but that was already sort of true before the gates and roadblocks. There are “perfect housing block” designs for Caesar III out there as well. It’s just that they function with snaking, coiling paths instead of nice loops.
But your point is actually why I like the last iteration of the series (Emperor:Rise of the Middle Kingdom) so much. The Feng Shui mechanic often forces you to rethink your perfect prefab housing block to try and fit with the terrain features better. Or maybe the nice plot where you wanted to put up the Idle Fat Cat quarter is the only place on the map that also has good Feng Shui for jade workers, or there’s no good wood FS for that kind of temple anywhere near the good housing land and you’re forced to try and figure out how to build & provision a block on that island in the middle of nowhere if you don’t want the gods to be pissed for not being represented, that kind of thing.
I mean, you could also just say “screw perfect Feng Shui, it doesn’t affect _anything_ !”, but… the OCD is strong in this one 🙂
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### Author:  [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2013, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-city-builders/652953/31 "2013-04-30T02:59:27Z")
Ditto on Emperor and feng shui. Not a hint of yellow should stain the harmony of any city in the Middle Kingdom.
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2013, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/alternative-city-builders/652953/32 "2013-09-21T18:32:28Z")
> [@Terminus\_Est](#):
>
> Cities in Motion \*
>
> This isn’t a city builder but a transport management simulation. You take an existing city and design the lines for buses, trams, subways, ferries, and helicopters. Place stops, lay track, buy vehicles and try not to go broke.
> [@Terminus\_Est](#):
>
> Cities in Motion 2 has just been released. You can get it on Steam for $20. The core of the game is still the same as its predecessor, building and managing transport lines. It’s still not a full-fledged city builder, but you can now build roads and the city will grow dynamically around the new road system.
Anybody want a Steam 65% off coupon for the sequel?
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