![]() They look different but they are mechanically very similar – “7% better than the other building”, that sort of thing. an upgraded school can take more students, an upgraded police station covers a wider area), so… not much strategy after all.įor some reason, there are lots of variations of these amenities: dozens of parks, power stations, water facilities, etc. Most buildings need to be within range of these amenities to reach their maximum level, so there is some strategy in achieving the widest coverage with the least money, but I always had more money than I knew what to do with, plus you can also pay to upgrade the “power” of existing amenities (e.g. It isn’t any more complicated than that.Īs your City Levels increases, you unlock blueprints for amenities and utilities like schools, fire stations, water pumps, waste incinerators, solar power stations, parks, and so on. This means adding residential buildings, which need more commercial buildings nearby and industrial buildings further away (because they’re polluting). ![]() Growing your population is the main requirement for raising your “City Level” that lets you progress in the game and unlock new campaign maps. There’s little challenge in keeping the plates spinning, however. water, jobs, police) that you’ve already built. Since this is an inherently unstable system, it makes sense that you need to keep doing things in the game, though occasionally the game doesn’t update quickly enough and ”buildings” will demand things (e.g. ![]() This means never a moment you can just sit back and do nothing unless you left the game alone for a very long time and accepted a certain amount of disrepair (easily reversed with a bit of money). even more shoppers or workers don’t arrive), you need to place more blueprints to provide those extra residents or schools, which themselves need more stuff, etc. A residential building now has more people inside it a commercial building (like a mall) has space for more shoppers an industrial building (like a factory) has more job openings.Īnd so, to avoid the building from falling into disrepair because its extra capacity is unused or becomes unsupported (e.g. for a residential building, “if X jobs and Y shops and Z school places have been available for the last 60 seconds”), it levels up: cranes appear and it becomes shinier and bigger. When conditions are satisfied for a building (e.g. It’s the process of levelling up that makes Cityscapes a dynamic system. I’m pretty sure SimCity’s buildings levelled up in a similar way, though the levels were not exposed to users directly. Buildings start at a “level 1” version, well below the blueprint’s maximum capacity a level 1 medium density residential building might only have 400 out of a maximum 800 residents, whereas its highest level form (e.g. Most blueprints must be next to roads and not on cliffs the terrain in Cityscapes isn’t truly 3D like SimCity 2000 there are no slopes, just flat plains with raised areas here and there.īuildings appear on blueprints instantly there’s no waiting around like in Simcity. Placing blueprints is laborious – drag the blueprint onto the map and press OK for every single building – though you’ll get fast at it. Blueprints vary in density and type, so a low density commercial building hosts up to 300 shoppers and costs 6000 coins to place, whereas medium density hosts 600 shoppers for 12,000 coins, and high density hosts 1800 shoppers for 36,000 coins. 20圆 tiles) and will house many individual buildings within them. This means blueprints are very different from zoning areas for development in SimCity, which can be any dimension (e.g. Blueprints exist for different kinds of residential, commercial, and industrial buildings, and they come in specific sizes like 2x2 or 3x3 tiles. In Cityscapes, you build by placing blueprints. But the game is really quite different in interesting and important ways. Cityscapes has the same toylike 3D appearance as later SimCity titles, with little houses and towering skyscrapers occupying a city grid made of square tiles. Indeed, the studio behind Cityscapes boasts of several former Maxis developers in their team who’ve worked on SimCity and The Sims. I try to avoid referencing other games in these intros but it’s pointless to ignore SimCity – there are few simulation games more popular or influential.
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