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Yeah, the game's launch is widely regarded as an epic fail. I've run across a few snags myself, but nothing as bad as most of the dissatisfied have proclaimed.
That being said, overall I've been having a blast playing it and find myself rather addicted.
Welcome back Bonz, but I do not find it strange that your presence being requested in the Orgy thread and then you showing up, like it was the quacking Bonzai Bat Signal.
Yes, there is a new one. I think it's been out two weeks now. I got it a week ago myself, with fond memories of many hours spent with SNES SimCity & SC2K to a lesser extent.
Caveat about the new one: it's got always-on DRM stuff requiring players be online on their servers while playing. This was at the heart of the aforementioned rocky launch. Servers got too busy & they had to put some features on hold while they sorted it out. There was quite the user backlash initially, but they had ~72 hours to manage that crisis by the time I tried to play. I had my very first city that first night disappear, and only had a couple instances of not being able to login to my particular server. (Can't play a city on a server other than where you start it.) I haven't faced any problems with it since last weekend, though, and EA is giving a free game download (choices TBD) to its early registered users to compensate starting Monday.
Enough about the launch issues and onto the game itself...
I find it just as addictive as past versions I've played. Missed a couple of the latter editions post-SC2K, so maybe I'm somewhat out of my element comparing & contrasting.
Same old zoning & building & cleaning up the occasional Godzilla aftermath we all know and love. Some parts seem a bit more streamlined, such as not having to set up sewers & power lines (treated as included with pricier roads.) There's more economic specialization than I recall from past versions. You can focus more on various mines & oil drilling, more clean energy options than days of old. Lots of options for expanding a lot of your buildings. That kinda stuff. It seems, after the success of The Sims and perhaps better computing nowadays, that they tried to integrate some of that into this one. You can mouse over speech/thought balloons around town for resident feedback or certain missions with rewards attached to them. You can track a particular Sim or vehicle through town during their day, get their info on name/age/activity and such.
My primary complaints are: 1. City maps are a bit small. This might be intentional for online play. You can play multiplayer as a single city in a region & cooperate with other mayors, or you can claim every city in your own region and do it yourself. I can't speak to multiplayer mode. I've got 15-16 hours of play in, getting my own three-city region up & running. 2. Your SimCitizens' AI is a bit dumb. Just seems a bit underdeveloped. Kind of a herd mentality. They don't seem to be associated with various homes & jobs, just seem to go to the nearest empty one and fill it. Maybe it would've been better knowing this before I initially planned my city layouts. Still could use some work, hoping it's something they can patch down the line.
I have three cities in my region, Forward.
Badger (pop. ~35K) is a filthy industrial hellhole. It not only has region's only mines & oil wells, but since it's already that polluted I went all-in and made it the region's garbage & sewage HQ as well. Residential space is basically a series of high-density tenements. Commercial space is limited to two strip malls. Police & fire are nearer to the region's industry, there's no school, 1/3 of water below town is unusable & the air's not that great. Intentionally created this one with more jobs than citizens to ease the demand in the other two & give their citizens somewhere to commute for work.
Packer (~65K) is 95% full and still doesn't know what it wants to be when it grows up. On its way to specializing in education, healthcare, tourism or commerce... but I ran short on space and have some decisions to make. Nice place to raise a family, though. Solar powered, clean, police & fire stations and clinics in pairs, elementary & high schools, libraries & parks. Presently debating whether I want a university, hospital or regional police and/or fire HQ. Only have room for one, maybe two, without an ill-advised bulldozing spree.
Brewer (~20K) is meh. It's the city described above, with less ambition or aim. 3:1 or 4:1 residential over commercial, one each fire/police/clinic/school. I really only play this city to keep it on pace timewise with the other two, because I'll need it later. Just letting it grow slowly but surely while avoiding bond issues for the time being.
That's what I'm doing with it, at least. Would love to hear others' experiences, for better or for worse.