**Unimportant Intro**
Just made an account to make this post.
I just love the mayor part of city builders. I like to pretend that my virtual society looks up to me to balance the budget, save them from crises, and make tough decisions for the greater good.
While building the city is a part of this game, I wish there was more support for keeping this game difficult.
I LOVE using hard mods that disable progress money, up maintenance costs, expenses, fighting crime, upping the cost of buying new tiles, keeping citizens happy etc.
Most important? Worrying about money! Making enough to sustain myself, then wonder if I should expand, save money for potential contingency plans, etc.
Problem is, even with these mods, there comes a point where you build high density zones and rake in tax profits. I had some ideas to make the late-game just as challenging, and consistent, simulating the idea of constantly managing the budget
There is one mod that makes it so that if your cim doesn't get to work, he/she loses money, and eventually (if this happens often), they abandon the house, resulting in lost tax income. Personally, I think this is a great concept that adds realism while making the simulation feel more significant. I'm hoping to inspire similar ideas.
**The Four Suggestions**
* 1) Adding an increased bonus fee for adding the same service
* 2) Facilities disintegrating or breaking down
* 3) Spreading of Fire to neighbouring buildings (especially in industrial or high density zones)
* 4) Altering values for overeducated and undereducated workers in mismatched jobs
1) Constantly adding a bonus fee for adding the same service
The first works basically like "n+1".
Example:
You place down one medical center for the vanilla game's price.
All additional centers attach an increasing fee:
Medical Center 1: $30K
Medical Center 2: $30K + $5K
Medical Center 3: $30K + $10K, etc.
Why? To enforce better/more strategic placement of services without feeling like you can spam them or buy them so freely. In late game playthroughs, the accumulated money you usually have is put to use.
* 2) Disintegration
Like in Sim City, facilities should disintegrate after "X" years. It's too easy to place something like a dam or power plant and have it permanently stay without ever worrying about it again.
After a certain number of in-game months, the water pump you started your city out with should reach a permanent stage of reduced efficiency. In a few more in-game weeks, it should disintegrate, requiring a new installation. This should have an extra feature related to point *(4)* below
3) Fires should spread in tightly condensed zones and industrial zones.
This encourages smoke detector policies/good fire coverage. This would also make high density zoning more risky in the late game, where there is usuallyno danger to accumulating wealth and expansion (since tax profits snowball into big profits). Wind should also affect the spread of fire, further increasing the strategy of planning out a city. Burned buildings should also have a rezoning cooldown to avoid instant rebuilding.
4) Cims who are overeducated in their jobs should have a permanent happiness penalty when working. Cims who are undereducated workers should speed up disintegration (if they work in ploppables), and reduce tax income for their residence/commercial place of work
-Overeducated cims who go to college or highschool shouldn't be satisfied working jobs that are below their qualification and should suffer from reaching the same happiness levels as educated sims working in office jobs.
-Similarly, Cims who are undereducated in their jobs should reduce tax income for the zone they are working, and for their residential home, under the idea that their lack of education results in inefficiency/incompetence, which results in less profits.
-Undereducated workers who work in ploppable buildings should also speed up the disintegration of the building they work at, under the idea that they are unqualified
(This may require more fine tuning since you can't totally control where your cims work, but it should generally be a consequence related to poorly zoned cities)
Personally, I think these mods keep players involved, makes late-game maintain a sense of challenge and budgeting, and involves a sense of extra strategic planning and building.
I am constantly hoping for difficult challenges that stretch beyond road management and beautifying my design of the city. I love city building, but also immensely enjoy a constant challenge that makes interacting with the cims feel more real and personal. I love the constant microscopic management that keeps me grounded from sprawling out so fast and effortlessly. I just like to see more challenging mods and am really hoping to see some modders try this.
I guess I'd like to know from you modders: are these changes possible, or is it difficult to implement? I imagine it requires adding certain rules as opposed to changing variables seen in existing difficulty mods (like increasing tile purchases, removing progress cash, etc).
Just made an account to make this post.
I just love the mayor part of city builders. I like to pretend that my virtual society looks up to me to balance the budget, save them from crises, and make tough decisions for the greater good.
While building the city is a part of this game, I wish there was more support for keeping this game difficult.
I LOVE using hard mods that disable progress money, up maintenance costs, expenses, fighting crime, upping the cost of buying new tiles, keeping citizens happy etc.
Most important? Worrying about money! Making enough to sustain myself, then wonder if I should expand, save money for potential contingency plans, etc.
Problem is, even with these mods, there comes a point where you build high density zones and rake in tax profits. I had some ideas to make the late-game just as challenging, and consistent, simulating the idea of constantly managing the budget
There is one mod that makes it so that if your cim doesn't get to work, he/she loses money, and eventually (if this happens often), they abandon the house, resulting in lost tax income. Personally, I think this is a great concept that adds realism while making the simulation feel more significant. I'm hoping to inspire similar ideas.
**The Four Suggestions**
* 1) Adding an increased bonus fee for adding the same service
* 2) Facilities disintegrating or breaking down
* 3) Spreading of Fire to neighbouring buildings (especially in industrial or high density zones)
* 4) Altering values for overeducated and undereducated workers in mismatched jobs
1) Constantly adding a bonus fee for adding the same service
The first works basically like "n+1".
Example:
You place down one medical center for the vanilla game's price.
All additional centers attach an increasing fee:
Medical Center 1: $30K
Medical Center 2: $30K + $5K
Medical Center 3: $30K + $10K, etc.
Why? To enforce better/more strategic placement of services without feeling like you can spam them or buy them so freely. In late game playthroughs, the accumulated money you usually have is put to use.
* 2) Disintegration
Like in Sim City, facilities should disintegrate after "X" years. It's too easy to place something like a dam or power plant and have it permanently stay without ever worrying about it again.
After a certain number of in-game months, the water pump you started your city out with should reach a permanent stage of reduced efficiency. In a few more in-game weeks, it should disintegrate, requiring a new installation. This should have an extra feature related to point *(4)* below
3) Fires should spread in tightly condensed zones and industrial zones.
This encourages smoke detector policies/good fire coverage. This would also make high density zoning more risky in the late game, where there is usuallyno danger to accumulating wealth and expansion (since tax profits snowball into big profits). Wind should also affect the spread of fire, further increasing the strategy of planning out a city. Burned buildings should also have a rezoning cooldown to avoid instant rebuilding.
4) Cims who are overeducated in their jobs should have a permanent happiness penalty when working. Cims who are undereducated workers should speed up disintegration (if they work in ploppables), and reduce tax income for their residence/commercial place of work
-Overeducated cims who go to college or highschool shouldn't be satisfied working jobs that are below their qualification and should suffer from reaching the same happiness levels as educated sims working in office jobs.
-Similarly, Cims who are undereducated in their jobs should reduce tax income for the zone they are working, and for their residential home, under the idea that their lack of education results in inefficiency/incompetence, which results in less profits.
-Undereducated workers who work in ploppable buildings should also speed up the disintegration of the building they work at, under the idea that they are unqualified
(This may require more fine tuning since you can't totally control where your cims work, but it should generally be a consequence related to poorly zoned cities)
Personally, I think these mods keep players involved, makes late-game maintain a sense of challenge and budgeting, and involves a sense of extra strategic planning and building.
I am constantly hoping for difficult challenges that stretch beyond road management and beautifying my design of the city. I love city building, but also immensely enjoy a constant challenge that makes interacting with the cims feel more real and personal. I love the constant microscopic management that keeps me grounded from sprawling out so fast and effortlessly. I just like to see more challenging mods and am really hoping to see some modders try this.
I guess I'd like to know from you modders: are these changes possible, or is it difficult to implement? I imagine it requires adding certain rules as opposed to changing variables seen in existing difficulty mods (like increasing tile purchases, removing progress cash, etc).