Top products from r/SimCity

I totally love the Christopher Alexander books. Definitely check out his The Timeless Way of Building which is a great companion piece to A Pattern Language. You should know that his works, while great in my opinion, are sort of considered idiosyncratic and not really in the mainstream of architecture/urban design.

Here's a short reading list you should look at:

The Smart Growth Manual and Suburban Nation by Andres Duany & Jeff Speck. Another set of sort-of-companion works, the Manual has a concrete set of recommendations inspired by the critique of modern town planning in Suburban Nation and might be more useful for your purposes.

The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs is probably the most famous and influential book on city planning ever and contains a lot of really original and thoughtful insights on cities. Despite being over half-a-century old it feels very contemporary and relevant.

The Geography of Nowhere by James Howard Kunstler is similarly mostly a critique of modernist planning principles but is both short and very well written so I'd definitely recommend checking it out.

Makeshift Metropolis by Witold Rybczynski: I can't recommend this entire book, but it does contain (in my opinion) the best summary of the history of American urban planning. Really useful for a historical perspective on different schools of thought in city design over the years.

The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup is the book on parking policy. It's huge (700+ pages) and very thorough and academic, so it might be harder to get through than the other, more popular-audience-oriented titles on the list, but if you want to include parking as a gameplay element, I really can't recommend it highly enough. It's a problem that's thorny enough most city games just ignore it entirely: Simcity2013's developers say they abandoned it after realizing it would mean most of their players' cities would be covered in parking lots, ignoring that most actual American cities are indeed covered in parking lots.

Finally there's a bunch of great blogs/websites out there you should check out: Streetsblog is definitely a giant in transportation/design blogging and has a really capable team of journalists and a staggering amount of content. Chuck Marohn's Strong Towns blog and Podcast are a great source for thinking about these issues more in terms of smaller towns and municipalities (in contrast to Streetsblog's focus on major metropolitan areas). The Sightline Daily's blog does amazing planning/transpo coverage of the Pacific Northwest. Finally [The Atlantic Cities] (http://www.theatlanticcities.com/) blog has incredible coverage on city-issues around the world.

I hope this was helpful and not overwhelming. It's a pretty big (and in my opinion, interesting) topic, so there's a lot of ground to cover even in an introductory sense.

Appreciate the reply. I saw it for sale on the EA website: https://www.ea.com/games/simcity/simcity

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I found the limited edition here (I figured it was worse than the complete edition, but I very well could be wrong):

https://www.amazon.com/SimCity-Limited-windows/dp/B007FTE2VW?th=1

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Perhaps a better follow up question is should I be buying him SimCity 2013 or should I get him a different Sim game. This will be the first he plays of this genre, and I think he will love any version of the game as he likes legos, robotics, blocks and is fascinated with construction of any type.

> so the offline mode is similar or exactly like simcity 4?

I have not played simcity 4 in probably 10 years, but I think you are right.

> i have been looking for simcity 2013 on amazon. I am so confused with the copies they have. City of tomorrow?? French?? limited edition??

You want to buy the standard edition...

http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Arts-71481-SimCity-Standard/dp/B007VTVRFA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1397447577&sr=8-1&keywords=simcity+2013

"Cities of tomorrow" is an expansion to the original game and adds some futuristic stuff. It changes your gameplay strategy a lot. You don't need it for at least a month or two, until you get the hang of the original game. After you have built 5-10 full cities of your own and rolling in millions of dollars in your cities and getting a bit bored, then you should get the expansion.

The French, British and German things are also expansions - they are just minor updates changing the look and feel of buildings in the game. They do not add significantly to the gameplay strategy, but add nicely to the aesthetics. Get it if you are bored at looking at the same buildings in the original game and want something different.


> I am sorry if i sound noobish. I'll check out your video.

There is nothing wrong with sounding noobish - we are all noobs - only some noobs have been around longer. Also, they are not my videos... they are from a British sounding guy who calls himself Skye. He, his voice and his videos are awesome.

I feel the absolute best idea is to play through all of them. They all have a lot to offer, I've gone back and played through some of my old copies and forgot how much fun even the older, simpler ones are. Unfortunately, some of the older copies are harder to come by. Although, you can still find SimCity Classic and SimCity 3000 on Amazon. SimCity 2000 can be found on GoG for pretty cheap and SimCity 4 can be found on Steam.

plugs The Great Inversion as well

It's smart about not just despairing, and instead focuses on America's urban success stories, and how we can apply things we learn from them to core-less cities and suburbs.

When SimCity was released, I think it was either ranked at the #1 or #2 highest selling game. Less than a few months out, it's already slipping into the triple digits -

• Currently ranked as the 106th best selling game for download
  
• Currently ranked as the 278th best selling game for physical disc
  
  Do major franchise games usually jump down in sales so quickly? (All the fans pre-purchase or purchase on release) or is this abnormal? (In contrast, Hitman released three-four months before SimCity, is still at #1)
  
  (Interesting to see that so far, 6,501 people have taken the time to write review on Amazon)
  
  edit: formatting

who do you think you speaking for?

Sim city was obviously poorly received. the reviews unanimously say the game is bad. Thinking a patch will change enough to reverse the failures is quite optimistic.

[The game is 1.5 stars out of 5 on amazon.] (http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Arts-71481-SimCity-Standard/product-reviews/B007VTVRFA/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1)

2.1 out of 10 on metacritic

most avid simcity fans like myself dont enjoy the game. stick with a older tried and true version of simcity and save a buck.

a least wait a month after the release and see if anything significant changes in the new reviews.

Hopefully its not too late! Simcity itself is currently $20 on Amazon, but you can actually get the Simcity + Cities of Tomorrow pack for $30.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GHTP4ZY/ref=s9_simh_gw_p367_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=06ZJQHXZSFC3J7PEVY7G&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1688200382&pf_rd_i=507846

Hopefully you didn't buy anything yet.

There are some very specific thresholds...I think a population of 60,000 is one of them, and 90,000 or 100,000 is another.

If you're interested in all the ins and outs of SimCity 2000, you can buy this strategy guide dirt cheap ($4 incl. shipping) on Amazon. This one is good too. There are many more specifics and detail in those books about the kinds of things I've been mentioning here.

Very cool. I've been meaning to make cities using the layouts shown in the Sprawl Repair Manual (http://www.sprawlrepair.com/ and http://www.amazon.com/Sprawl-Repair-Manual-Galina-Tachieva/dp/1597267325) -- you should check it out when you get a chance.

Just FYI you can get it on Amazon for $18: http://www.amazon.com/SimCity-Limited-Edition-Pc/dp/B007FTE2VW

I'm fairly certain that the way zoning builds up did change, now that you mentioned it.

You can get Simcity 4 for mac at [amazon] (http://www.amazon.com/Sim-City-4-Deluxe-Mac/dp/B000AHS0BY). Unfortunately, it's pretty pricey at $70.

Yes. here is the normal link http://www.amazon.com/SimCity-Limited-Edition-Pc/dp/B007FTE2VW

$1 for the road pack? Why not $15?

Oh, you think I'm joking: http://www.amazon.com/SimCity-Double-City-Pack-Online/dp/B00BLS4GI2/ref=sr_1_1403?s=videogames-download&ie=UTF8&qid=1367720652&sr=1-1403

If you don't have Simcity ($20) and you want the DLC as well ($15) then you can buy them both at once for $30, at least for now.

http://www.amazon.com/SimCity-Cities-Tomorrow-Plus-Online/dp/B00GHTP4ZY/

Yeah, because obviously no one else noticed that it sucks ass other than reddit. I see people fawning over how good it is everywhere else, right?

Wrong.

If you want a physical copy, check out Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0000C0YW2/ref=olp_f_collectible?ie=UTF8&f_collectible=true&f_new=true&f_used=true&f_usedAcceptable=true&f_usedGood=true&f_usedLikeNew=true&f_usedVeryGood=true

Here it is on Amazon for $4.50 after shipping.

above link has a referral string in it

here is one without
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00457VJ3G/

The download version is on sale right now on Amazon for $15.

Here's a link to the Mac public beta:

http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Arts-41018ted-Edition2-SimCity/dp/B007VTVRFA/ref=sr_1_1?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1368550668&sr=1-1&keywords=simcity

http://www.amazon.com/SimCity-3000-PC/dp/B00000G16I

Nope, it's basically $20 most places for the digital download. As of this moment, that's the price on Steam, GOG.com, Origin, and Amazon.

It occasionally goes on sale (sometimes for as little as $4.99), and Amazon's selling disc copies for $14.99, but $20's the going rate.

I still have this book on my shelf at home. I'd take a picture but I'm at work.

Amazon has it for $35 for PC, $40 for Mac. There's also some people selling it for as low as $20 on Amazon.

How hard did you try looking, OP?

http://www.amazon.com/SimCity-3000-Unlimited-Pc/dp/B00004T1M7

$38.88 new but why buy new? $5 and something used.

Outrageous considering you can get it on Amazon for $14.99: http://www.amazon.com/SimCity-Double-City-Pack-Online/dp/B00BLS4GI2/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1367630889&sr=8-3&keywords=simcity

I thought sc4 was available on the old directtodrive website for digital download/purchase... gamefly bought them out and I cannot find sc4 there at this time :(

edit: EA has sc4 on Origin, still nothing for the older version found :(

edit2: amazon sc3000 but doesn't look like download... bastards :(