The science behind SimCity

[RCBH928]

I always knew simcity but never knew how to play the game as it seems very complex (still is) I got Simcity 2000 as I heard its the best of the series. While reading tutorials on how to play , part of the tutorial said that sometimes it is just better to not do anything and let the city run itself.

Which made me wonder , can some one explain to me in simple words how does the programing behind Simcity works? I want would like to know how does the computer figure out how to run itself(city) and stuff like population will grow or fires will be taken out by fire trucks or the economy grows... seems like artificial intelligence to me, but I bet there is some kind of mathematical trick to all of this creating an illusion of a live city. Very interesting for a game from early 90's .

[Ziggy]

You miss understand, it wont "take care of itself" in the sense you're thinking of. Some times it is very wise to just sit back and let the game run for a while.

If your city is already a decent size, has no current problems that should be dealt with (traffic, pollution, crime, etc), is profitable, and is in growth, then you might wanna "let the city run itself" for a while for a number of reasons.

What I mean by profitable is that your budget is working in a way that you have more money at the end of each year. If you're losing money each year, then you don't wanna sit back and watch the city run itself cause you're losing money and will eventually have no money. But gaining money each year is one reason you might wanna let the game run for a while without touching it. It's very easy to start a city and get it to be profitable. It's hard to keep it that way, especially when you're spending a lot of money on building. So, it's wise to stock pile your money when you notice your making a decent amount each year (and the city has no other problems).

Another reason you might wanna let it run itself is for development. Under the right condition, you may wanna try and get everything you've already built to develop fully before building anymore. You don't wanna over build. Since space will eventually be an issue, you want zones to develop to their fullest. This is how you maximize population.


edit: What did you get Sim City 2000 for? I've played a couple of the console ports over the years, and they're just unplayable. So slow and annoying to use. The PC version is the only version to play. Also, I never see you mention anything about SNES so I don't know if you have one or like to game on one, but Sim City (not 2000) for SNES is awesome and better than the original PC version IMO (many other people think so as well).

[ZeoDefender]

You're way overthinking this. Go boot up Sim City, plop down some buildings, and watch stuff happen.

[Luke]

Your goal is to build a Metropolis. How you go about accomplishing that is the fun part.


It's fairly intuitive. You wouldn't place a zoo in an industrial district would you?

[BoringSupreez]

SimCity is best learned by trial and error. It took me many many failed attempts before I was able to build a profitable city. Do you have the Windows 95 special edition? It should have a city you can load called Starter, or Starter City. That's a great map for practicing on.

[Anapan]

Sim City tells you what you need to do via pop-up messages, reports and news. If you read them all and do what it says your city will do well. Once you get your small city making money rather than losing it you can leave it for awhile to get the funds to start overhauling it. Finding tricks is what makes it fun. I've had a lot of fun playing SC2K over the years, then one day I decided to google the best way to build a perfect city and I was blown away.
Check these out.

[MrPopo]

Which made me wonder , can some one explain to me in simple words how does the programing behind Simcity works? I want would like to know how does the computer figure out how to run itself(city) and stuff like population will grow or fires will be taken out by fire trucks or the economy grows... seems like artificial intelligence to me, but I bet there is some kind of mathematical trick to all of this creating an illusion of a live city. Very interesting for a game from early 90's .

So the heart of your question is that the way a player plays SimCity is they lay down zones, and then the computer decides how to specifically populate those zones. The way it does this is through a complex mathematical model, though the overall idea is actually quite simple.

Let's say a given city has 10,000 people. For those people to be considered "happy", they need two police stations, one hospital, 20 squares zoned residential, 15 squares zoned industrial, and 5 squares zoned commercial. If you decide to go on a bulldozing spree and destroy the police stations your citizens will be "unhappy". At this point the computer will have people start leaving, until you rebuild the police stations or until the total population lowers to the point where they are "happy" as long as you have 5 residential squares, 3 industrial squares, 1 commercial square, and they don't care about city services. Conversely, if you have additional area zoned and more public service buildings then more people will come to your city. The real trick is being able to properly increase the stuff you build to match up with what will make your city grow, without overbuilding. There's no sense in putting up 10 police stations first thing on an empty map because the majority will be wasted from a growth perspective.

Note that the above is a simplification of the factors for city growth/stagnation. There are a lot of good FAQs written about everything that goes in to the calculations.

[BoringSupreez]

Sim City tells you what you need to do via pop-up messages, reports and news. If you read them all and do what it says your city will do well. Once you get your small city making money rather than losing it you can leave it for awhile to get the funds to start overhauling it. Finding tricks is what makes it fun. I've had a lot of fun playing SC2K over the years, then one day I decided to google the best way to build a perfect city and I was blown away.
Check these out.

Thanks for that link. Some of those cities are really cool.

[RCBH928]

thanks for everyones input it will help me a lot with the game . I am using the trial and error method experimenting here and there. Some of the stuff is confusing for example:

With water systems , I thought I need to build a pipe from a lake to a water pump , then that water pump would "pump" water up the water tower which Stores water for the city. I then would build pipes from the tower to each house because that is how piping works.

it turns out that water pumps work as wells , I should connect it to a "square" next to a residential zone and within the zone the computer works itself building its own piping system.

yet it is still confusing as even though i connected 3 water pumps to residential zones, the pipes were still black(no water) , with other areas I would just build 1 water pump and instantaneous water would flow. Also the water towers even though connected to water pumps they never fill themselves (yes electricity is connect).

Any one would argue that there is a "more fun" entry in this series?

@Ziggy
I am playing the PC version, mouse games dont work well with consoles . I could be wrong but PC version usually is more capable given better hardware.


@MrPopo

thanks you are probably the only one who answered the thread's question :p . Given its all math then if some one figured the numbers then he could build the perfect city, but then it wouldnt be fun would it?

@Anapan
Thanks for the site I'll read it right away. I read the pop up messages , but its hard to build because I dont know how it works. For example when I choose " lower terrain " a whole mountain would explode and lakes will appear . At other times I will see high demand for residential zones , but a lot of residential zones exists with water, power, and roads. Also not sure what to do with abandoned buildings, do they get re-inhabited or I must destroy them

[Erik_Twice]

I would recommend you to try Simcity 4. Beyond it being a better game than 2000, I think it's easier to understand, with better advisors and interface. It's more intuitive and dare I say, more fun too.

I played 2000 recently and I found it very, very rough.