A critique for the established SimCity fan base

SimCity Societies is a fun and entertaining game, and can provide hours of computer-gaming enjoyment. Now, stop thinking of it as SimCity and that can continue to be the case. The fact is, Electronic Arts (EA) did not do this game any favors by lending the name of SimCity, one of the most successful electronic games of all time¹, to it. It is the same disservice that was done to the 914²; when Porsche attached its name and prestigious chrome insignias though everyone knew it was really just a very sporty Volkswagen. Like the 914, Societies runs and handles well, does exactly as it’s told, is fun to drive, and is found lacking only when compared to its famous namesake cousins.

In truth, Societies bears little resemblance to the SimCity of creator Will Wright and his Bay-Area Maxis Software³, now an EA subsidiary. The similarities are found mostly in names and symbols: Residents are called Sims, the Simolean (denoted §) is the monetary unit, and the tasks involve building a city. The two games soon part ways, however. Societies is a product of Boston-area-based Tilted Mill Entertainment, maker of other city-building games Children of the Nile and Caesar IV.

The entire approach of Societies is different from that of all previous SimCity games, starting from the foundation and going up from there. As a Societies player, you are not focused upon building a city, but rather building a community. Every building is “plopped” by the player, not zoned and built by the game engine. There are hundreds of buildings available, each with specific effects upon the city and its population far greater than merely providing jobs or population. Only the first few buildings are available initially, but a wide variety become unlocked very quickly, as the city generates values. Instead of residential and commercial buildings Societies has “workplaces”; instead of residential buildings, there are “homes”. The job market is simulated by a supply of “productivity” units, which homes supply and workplaces deplete.

Productivity is only one of six societal values that buildings can supply or consume, however. The others are Authority (as in city government), Creativity, Knowledge, Prosperity, and Spirituality. Selecting buildings to plop involves making decisions about what sort of city one wants to build, which resources one desires to create, and which resources are in abundance and available to cash in for societal values. Not only buildings participate in the “markets” for these values, however; “special sims” are created by the player, or by buildings. Special sims enhance or magnify a building’s effects, essentially functioning as walking buildings. Examples are entertainers, civil servants, criminals, and businesspeople of various types, to name only a few.

Just for fun, Societies has another type of building that SimCity has barely, and only inadequately, ever dealt with at all. These are called “venues”. Venues are where Sims go during their spare time to improve their happiness. They are non-workplace buildings, although venues also consume productivity (i.e., create jobs, in SimCity terms). Examples of venues are: Parks, libraries, shopping malls, art galleries, restaurants, gift shops, museums, and many, many others. Worker sim happiness is continually monitored and reported at each of seven levels of happiness. And so, this is not a dumbed-down city builder. The Managing resources, values, happiness, and Simoleans gives the game an appealing complexity.

If you are trying to force Societies into the SimCity mold, then you will be disappointed. This is simply not that game. Terrain, rivers & lakes, elevation, and flora are unimportant. Infrastructure is also unimportant, except that commute time is unavailable for visiting venues. The only utility is power, and once you have build it, you can forget it until need more. A power plant anywhere does the does the job; no need to connect it to buildings with wires. No sewer, no water, and no garbage to take out. There are no taxes; happy worker productivity automatically deposits simoleans the city treasury. The map is very small but has plenty of room for any city building you’ll do. You’re not creating sprawling metroplexes, suburbs, and country in this game. The locations of buildings relative to other buildings and terrain features are almost completely irrelevant. For example, authoritarian buildings serve the entire city at a whole with no radial effect. The only exceptions are commute time, as mentioned above, and that a very few buildings have a localized pollution NIMBY influence. So, if it helps aid your enjoyment of this game, use a piece of masking tape to hide the word “SimCity on the box cover.

However, this game includes several features SimCity never thought of, or never explored this well. I’m of the strong opinion that, if Maxis returns to developing any true SimCity games, all future editions should include the societal values, happiness, and venues in a similar way as Societies. A customizable workweek (ranging from 3 days to 7, with various workday/weekday mixes) is an important part of the implementation of venues, and is something many of us have been asking for in SimCity for several years. Weekend days give sims and workers free opportunities to visit venues for recreation, entertainment and shopping. Societies also has weather effects and a larger selection of disasters. The Prima Official Game Guide reports that the game and buildings are moddable⁴. Oh, and there is an Undo button!

The bad news is in the game graphics and the city editor window. There are several graphical display options, but even the best graphics quality is puny in comparison with most games in recent years. The camera is free, but not really. The maximum zoom-out level is still very close-in, denying any comprehensive city view. The buildings and terrain are cartoonish. When browsing the city view, the key strokes that are second-nature to any SimCity player are unavailable, or are assigned to other features, and bring up unintended dialog boxes.

Rating this game is not as easy as it may seem. If you are trying to make this your next SimCity game, this game cannot rank above a 3. But, if you can accept this game for what it is, and leave SimCity to the SimCity games, I give it a 7.

Societies will now leave me wanting Tilted Mill and Maxis to collaborate on the next “real” SimCity game, which in my opinion should still be entitled, “SimCity 5″. The core appeal of SimCity, for me anyway, lies in building an enormous, multifaceted, symbiotic region with metropolitan areas; sprawling countrysides; mountains and forests; transit systems and transportation infrastructure; city services; economic interactions among industrial jobs, commercial development, and public finance, promoting public health, safety, and education; proving sanitation, water, sewer, and power. But Tilted Mill brings the pursuit of happiness to the table. Societies’ treatment of the hourly, daily, and weekly schedule of sims and worker-sims, and their need to visit venues to pursue their happiness would fit nicely with the logistical puzzles inherent in building SimCity infrastructure. The societal-values concept of Societies is a natural marriage with the land-value concept of SimCity. Someone needs to introduce these two kids, now that both are members of the same corporate family. The SimCity franchise would benefit from a true symbiosis with this game, rather than merely lending its name to it.

——————————————————————————–

¹ SimCity. Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SimCity Retrieved November 17, 2007

² Porsche 914, Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porsche. Retrieved November 17, 2007

³ Maxis. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxis. Retrieved November 17, 2007

⁴ Kramer, Greg. SimCity Societies: PRIMA Official Game Guide. Prima Games divn Random House, 2007