how the heck does the buses work? I was all confused with routes and stops and then I had 22 buses going at once and my budget looked like it was through the roof. Eventually I right clicked a bunch to kill the routes and shut off the bus terminal to stop the bleeding. :)

I'm not sure what the strategy is with buses - all I did was create a bunch of routes trying to cover almost all the areas of the city. I don't know if I'm supposed to make one route covering residential and industry areas, but instead I just made one route for each few blocks of the city - haven't noticed any crazy budget issues but will check next time I'm playing.

I noticed that if I have buses with too many routes that cover too great an area, people traffic at the bus stops seems to increase a ton, and buses spend the entire route basically full. Not sure what impact it actually has game-wise, but I set up shorter routes that connect with each other and it seemed to help there.

Picked this up late last night, can't wait to explore it this weekend.

I re-did all my highways and my tourism skyrocketed. Should have done that earlier.

Still have more granular re-working on traffic patterns I have to do. Other than that, at this point it's scale, scale, scale and see how far I can push it. Up over 100k people now and over 50k/week income.

I'm making heavy use of both buses and subway as well as free public transportation. Not sure how efficient the layout is, but they are being used.

What upgrade did you make to all of your highways?

Just added a few new ones spanning the entire map, interchanged with existing ones, added exits near industrial and other heavy traffic areas. Also put some railroads on trestles that were causing traffic pileups at some intersections.

Goal was to give industrial trucks a quick path out instead of cutting through local zones(where they kill traffic)and to alleviate some congestion. Also wanted quick routes to boats and airport. But all those additional exits coupled with interchanges to out of city routes made a huge difference in tourism immediately. There is a giant before and after spike.

For some reason my citizens are getting unhappy

Trying so hard to avoid buying this yet, but you all are making me want to crack. Been needing a SimCity successor for a long while.

Yeah this might have to happen tonight. What's it like to play a non sports text simulation video game????

That is classic.

They clearly want the payoff of a loop-de-loop. That's why they are unhappy.

I had a dream similar to that once. My commute ended up going over this giant lake and the road was extremely windy and steep that my car could barely climb it, and then it was like a roller coaster on the way down and I couldn't keep it under control. If you went off the road it was straight into the lake for a guaranteed death.

Can you tell that I hate driving?

are you confused? this isnt Rollercoaster tycoon

Mota, you too, huh? To me, it's my lifelong fascination with high bridges over water. My bridge dreams exaggerates that.

Stupid question, I assume this game is available at Steam?

Yup/

Haha...you and me both. This snow is demanding it.

Green Man Gaming still has it for $21.89 in their VIP section which you can access by just creating an account. You get a Steam key for it.

Meh. We did this 40 years ago IRL

BBC News - Birmingham's Spaghetti Junction turns 40

How many of you are playing with mods, particularly the ones chinaski listed?

Right now, I'm playing default game but after this city eventually fizzles out, I will implement some of the mods recommended in this thread.

I am playing with several mods - including most of the ones he listed. Some really handy mods out there.

Decided to re-start my city tonight and use the mods listed here as well as a few listed in an article on Gamespot.

The mods are getting truly amazing. Check out the soccer field. This game is all consuming ha.

I have not had any experience with Steam Workshop, so took me a little bit to get that right but amazed at the number of mods so far.

Did start the tutorial but then I got stumped as I didn't know how much to plan and build (i.e., what was considered starting out small). Quill's Let's Play is helping a lot.

My hope for the future is to introduce a historical scenario where you build dirt roads, farms, market and colonial villages and then have it progress through the historical eras - where different types of buildings and technologies become available.

Is there any reason to buy the deluxe version?

Nah not really, just comes with a few extra special buildings, which you can easily make up for with custom assets.

I think you get the soundtrack too, right? I enjoy the sound, but I don't know if that's enough to purchase the deluxe version on its own.

Ok. It didn't look like much but if it was only $8 extra for something good I'd do it

I more often than not spring for the deluxe versions, but I didn't see the value on this one.

After watching Quill's six videos, it seems that it would be a good idea to have a master plan before building - is that feasible? I get that he was trying out different things of the game but the two towns seem awkward at best. Also, I realize that he has a penchant for SimCity-like grids but I would be more interested in seeing layouts that follow the contours of the land (like Pittsburgh).

I think a master plan is a good idea... just hard to stick to at times. I've re-started my first city 4 times. First time was because I had no plan. 2nd time because my plan didn't work. 3rd time I had a great master plan. I drew some sketches and everything but then I let my city deviate too far from what I wanted. Now, I've got a thriving little city that I can't stop playing :)

After building a city that has a limitless amount of people and a continually growing population as much as I expand, I almost feel done with the game after a little under 10 hours. Don't know why I'd start over.

My laptop can't handle this as it's an ultrabook. What I was wondering, though, is this the type of game that I would be able to maybe use a remote desktop app to play when Im not home? I'm away from home more than not so if I could just connect to my desktop that would be great. I have no idea how remote performs, though. I assume there will be delay issues but this isn't a FPS so unsure how that may affect it.

I've played SimCity back when I had a Surface that way before and I can tell you it's kind of hell. It's a lot easier to play text sims that way since there's no graphics. So yeah you can do it and I've done it, but...it's far from ideal.

Eventually I suspect Steam will allow you to user their streaming ability over your internet connection. Until this happens I suspect you are out of luck.

As much as I love this game I have to agree - seems like it's not too hard to get to a stable town situation where you make tons of money - once you have that there's really no situation you can't easily overcome. I'd like to see some random event options, scenarios where you have to overcome certain problems, etc. Maybe that will come in time.

Scenarios along with random and action-oriented events are critical for the on-going success of any strategy games.

Has anyone tried using the increased difficulty option?

After never being able to connect my metro I just demoed it in frustration.

I think it would be beneficial to have multiple line colors and perhaps numbers to figure out broken lines and the like.

Or a clear all routes button.

I played with it some, but EA's servers wouldn't let me on, so I deleted it.

I played quite a bit last night and so far, I've seen this pattern:

(assuming you laid out your streets in a logical fashion - commercial main street surrounded by residential blocks, separate street for industrial)
1. Add residential
2. Add turbine and water
3. Add commercial
4. Add industrial
5. Add turbine and water
6. Reach milestone, add new services
7. Add residential
8. Add turbine and water
9. Add commercial
10. Add industrial
11. Add turbine and water
12. Reach milestone, add new services
repeat...

I kept waiting for something different or at least a problem to happen.

Yeah the issue is there isn't really any problem that can't be fixed by adding a few new services. Once you get to the point where money is no object then the challenge goes way downhill. Other than major traffic snarls (which if nothing else can be fixed by just bulldozing a lot of stuff and re-doing the roads) I haven't seen anything which really challenged my inevitable rise to a mega-city.

Really hoping they will add some more challenges since the base game is so good.

You guys must be better at this stuff than me. My first city is going to go bankrupt and I don't think I can stop it. I've only managed to get to about 3200 people. I know the mistakes I've made and can likely avoid them on my next attempt but I'm sure I'll make others as that city grows to new levels.

I've got 5 hours in now and I can't see how another 5 would get me to a point where I'd already feel done with this game.

I had multiple restarts...the best was that I decided to use water pumps but placed them in the industrial district, then I was wondering why everyone was sicker than usual (HOBOY, restart).

I think one of the key things that would make the base game more challenging is a hard map - no large flat areas, no rivers perhaps?

I guess my main criticism of the game, besides the lack of gaming elements, would be the lack of information on micro-problems like happiness. But then again, if problems were easily identified, then there would be nothing to think about.

My town was having major traffic issues coming off the interstate. All the cars were backing up. Can someone screenshot me a city that won't have these issues. I suspect I need more roads heading into town?

Had the same problem. Didnt make it far enough in the game to get access to items that would fix it. IE bridges and overpasses and offramps