How to have fun in this game?

[JimmiG]

I've had CiM2 for a long time but haven't really played it that much. Every time, I get bored after a couple of hours. I love playing games like SimCity, Cities XL etc. and also Banished, Anno 1404 etc. and watching my hamlets grow and evolve. There's a certain sense of achievement when your first high-wealth skyscrapers sprout, or when you have enough resources and villagers in Banished to build your second market and outpost.
However in CiM2 I'm just not getting that.

1. I place a bus depot and place and connect the stops
2. Buy a couple of buses
3. I'm rewarded with a few colorful icons and lines on the screen and I see a couple of buses slowly make their way through the city
4. If I leave the game running at full speed for long enough, I will eventually make back the money I spent on the buses and depot

It's just too abstract to feel rewarding. I don't feel like I'm impacting the city, just creating overlays and icons on a map. There aren't even any real traffic jams. The city would probably do fine without any public transport.

Am I just not playing the game long enough before giving up? Or should I just view buying this game as a donation towards the development of Skylines, which I'm really looking forward to?

 

[Jinzor]

I've had CiM2 for a long time but haven't really played it that much. Every time, I get bored after a couple of hours. I love playing games like SimCity, Cities XL etc. and also Banished, Anno 1404 etc. and watching my hamlets grow and evolve. There's a certain sense of achievement when your first high-wealth skyscrapers sprout, or when you have enough resources and villagers in Banished to build your second market and outpost.
However in CiM2 I'm just not getting that.

1. I place a bus depot and place and connect the stops
2. Buy a couple of buses
3. I'm rewarded with a few colorful icons and lines on the screen and I see a couple of buses slowly make their way through the city
4. If I leave the game running at full speed for long enough, I will eventually make back the money I spent on the buses and depot

It's just too abstract to feel rewarding. I don't feel like I'm impacting the city, just creating overlays and icons on a map. There aren't even any real traffic jams. The city would probably do fine without any public transport.

Am I just not playing the game long enough before giving up? Or should I just view buying this game as a donation towards the development of Skylines, which I'm really looking forward to?

Unlike some other members here, I am not going to delude you; that is exactly how the game is meant to be played, you are not doing anything wrong. In my opinion, the CiM games suffer from a major lack of stuff to do (especially CiM2), as it is all about building networks. If you get bored of that, you get bored of the game entirely.

If you haven't checked it out already, I'd recommend taking a look at Cities: Skylines instead; it includes the basic transport gameplay seen in the CiM series (same developers) but uses an upgraded engine and allows you to build/manage cities.

 

[slornie]

1. I place a bus depot and place and connect the stops
2. Buy a couple of buses
3. I'm rewarded with a few colorful icons and lines on the screen and I see a couple of buses slowly make their way through the city
4. If I leave the game running at full speed for long enough, I will eventually make back the money I spent on the buses and depot

It's just too abstract to feel rewarding. I don't feel like I'm impacting the city, just creating overlays and icons on a map. There aren't even any real traffic jams. The city would probably do fine without any public transport.

If you're just building one line to start you're not going to see a big impact on the city. The game relies on you building a network of routes to provide Cims with opportunities to go from home to work, to leisure and back again. Because each Cim is an individual rather than a statistic, with a defined home and workplace, you can't just build a line between a random bunch of houses and some commercial/industry and expect people to flock to your service.

For me the game starts to become rewarding once I have a network and can see the hundreds of passengers moving about. The strategy of how and where you build/expand, how you refine your lines to reduce overcrowding/queues at stops. That point when you can finally move from buses and trams and trolley-buses to building a full-scale metro.

With regards to traffic, it normally takes a little while to build up as Cims go about their business and as the population of the city starts to slowly grow. But it does build up and impact on your network and the city. Another challenge in the game (if you wish to go down that route) is optimising the traffic network aside from your public transport network. Huge jam of cars where a highway comes into the city? Build your way out of it, redesigning and upgrading junctions and the road configuration. Your buses getting stuck and running behind causing frustrated passengers and extra cost? Alter the route to cut a corner, or build a handy stretch of bus lane.

 

[JimmiG]

Unlike some other members here, I am not going to delude you; that is exactly how the game is meant to be played, you are not doing anything wrong. In my opinion, the CiM games suffer from a major lack of stuff to do (especially CiM2), as it is all about building networks. If you get bored of that, you get bored of the game entirely.

If you haven't checked it out already, I'd recommend taking a look at Cities: Skylines instead; it includes the basic transport gameplay seen in the CiM series (same developers) but uses an upgraded engine and allows you to build/manage cities.

Yes, I'm aware of Skylines. In fact I'm really looking forward to that game. I love building and designing a whole city from scratch in games like SimCity and CitiesXL - of course building public transport is part of that, but for me it's not the main attraction.

 

[unmerged(387252)]

Get used to it.

There is a big advantage on the fact that we have now a lot of indie games, or what CO is called: large indie.
BUT there is also a big disadvantage, the majority of games are just half of a complete game. Just tell me the last game your played that was released in a state that could be called complete.

Train Fever suffer the same problem. Boring. All you do is connect tracks and let the train run.

Where are games like RailRoad Tycoon 2 where you have the basic but also:

- a campaign based on real history of trains,
- stock market,
- AI,
- possibility to buy out competitors,
- a personal account to yourself with salary that allows you to start a new company mid-game,
- extensive financial report to let you analyse your performance.

CiM financial report is a joke. CiM campaign is a joke.

But CO is not bad, they are very good. CiM 2 is very good. Just compare it to other games. But there is no man power to think about details and add non-basic features. Exactly that! Train Fever is a game with basic features only. CiM as well. Can we do marketing? No. Traffic Giant had that. Can we give free tickets to students and teachers? No. Can we put advertisement on the buses? No. Lets summarize: can we do anything besides connect A to B: No.

The thing is that RRT2 was made by PopTop Software responsible by Tropico series and published by Take-Two Interactive with 7 game studios, responsible for GTA, Civilization, Mafia, do I have to continue?

Nothing against CO and Paradox, but with more money you can make better games. And of course with good management. EA and Activision have loads of money and use it to ruin the industry.

I don't think this scenery will change. Big publishers care about AAA titles. Tycoon style will never be AAA title. And when they care about it they put their corporate-formula on it that destroys it, aka SimCity.

 

[C40LFR]

Yes, I'm aware of Skylines. In fact I'm really looking forward to that game. I love building and designing a whole city from scratch in games like SimCity and CitiesXL - of course building public transport is part of that, but for me it's not the main attraction.

There's your problem with Cities in Motion right there. If you aren't a transportation buff then this game is going to be boring. The whole premise of CiM2 is transportation. You are expecting a City builder in a game purely about moving people.

Also, you need to play around the ruleset editor. The default ruleset is completely unrealistic. If you want to see traffic, you should see some of my cities.

As a transport nut myself, seeing thousands of people pile on to buses and trains, or watching full buses fly past automobile traffic jams on dedicated bus infrastructure I built and designed myself, or watching car use go down is rewarding in itself. Just as equally, I can cater to highway geek side, and use the road building engine in CiM to improve traffic and upgrade highways and interchanges.

For me, CiM2 is a dream come true because I had to spend of a lot of time just trying find decent realistic road mods for SimCity 4 and Cities XL just to be able to do what CiM2 already does out of the box. Public transport, forget it on those games.

 

[Steve B.]

I might suggest playing the few scenarios that have been created. This was my favorite. Smout, the creator, reproduces an actual transportation system in rural Britten. It is very amusing and fun to play.

There are others as well: the Reeve Delta scenario and the city planner scenarios which unfortunately was not completed because of bugs.

Give them a try.

You might like it.

[EDIT] Sorry it should be Britain. I'm into my cups

 

[Lobau]

I might suggest playing the few scenarios that have been created. This was my favorite. Smout, the creator, reproduces an actual transportation system in rural Britten. It is very amusing and fun to play.

Thanks for this recommendation! I have a friend who lives near Wakefield, and I've been there before. The map is an excellent recreation of the area, and it is fun to play a scenario set there.