Kadve
Member
Just a thought that i wanted to share. City Builders might not bee that prominent of a genre anymore but i still enjoy them. Now while there are obviously many factors that differentiates them from one another, i've noticed something that seems to be universal and which seems to allow you too put them into four different categories.
Namely how they handle idling.
Type 1 - "Just enjoy the ride!":
City builders of this category wants you to take it slow. In fact taking it slow is the only option you have and waiting for something to happen is part of the game. The city evolves at its own pace and you are just here to guide it with an occasional input. Early Settlers games (before they got turned into RTS) as well as most "casual" city builders are examples of this type.
Type 2 - "Stop and listen for a second will you?":
Unlike type 1, type 2 city builders do provide you to tools to go whole hog on the game. But 80% of the time its not advisable and if you don't constantly stop and get an overview of your current situation you will quickly loose all your money or whatever other failure condition the game has. Forward planning is the name of the game here and sometimes waiting for stuff to happen is just something you have to do. Survival type city builders as well as the Sim City series (3000 in particular) go here.
Type 3 - "There is a problem, deal with it!":
Now were getting somewhere. Type 3 city builders actively encourages you to go fast with the tools it provides but unlike type 4 there will still be idling. The big difference here though compared to type 2 is that idling is something that shouldn't happen and if it does it's a sign your playing poorly/have a bottleneck somewhere. Also unlike type 2 this is usually something that can't be fixed by waiting and you should use the time in order to investigate the problem. The ANNO series (early ones in particular) and many other resource-juggling style city builders go here.
Type 4 - "Get off your ass you lazy idiot!":
As you can imagine there are no idling in type 4 city builders. Or at least it shouldn't be as that means you have either paused the game or are trying to loose on purpose. There is always some sort of problem you have to deal with and if you do find yourself with some "free time", said time should be spent improving your city before the next crisis inevitable hits. Small problems in your city can easily become cascade failures and unlike type 3, you often cant deal with them after they happened and hunting them down before they spiral out of control is a major part of the game. This category includes the Sierra series (Ceasar, Pharaoh, etc) as well as many city builders leaning more towards the RTS genre.
Thoughts? Obviously there are those games that overlap categories and it could just be me misinterpretationing things. Just a thought i wanted to share as mentioned.
Namely how they handle idling.
Type 1 - "Just enjoy the ride!":
City builders of this category wants you to take it slow. In fact taking it slow is the only option you have and waiting for something to happen is part of the game. The city evolves at its own pace and you are just here to guide it with an occasional input. Early Settlers games (before they got turned into RTS) as well as most "casual" city builders are examples of this type.
Type 2 - "Stop and listen for a second will you?":
Unlike type 1, type 2 city builders do provide you to tools to go whole hog on the game. But 80% of the time its not advisable and if you don't constantly stop and get an overview of your current situation you will quickly loose all your money or whatever other failure condition the game has. Forward planning is the name of the game here and sometimes waiting for stuff to happen is just something you have to do. Survival type city builders as well as the Sim City series (3000 in particular) go here.
Type 3 - "There is a problem, deal with it!":
Now were getting somewhere. Type 3 city builders actively encourages you to go fast with the tools it provides but unlike type 4 there will still be idling. The big difference here though compared to type 2 is that idling is something that shouldn't happen and if it does it's a sign your playing poorly/have a bottleneck somewhere. Also unlike type 2 this is usually something that can't be fixed by waiting and you should use the time in order to investigate the problem. The ANNO series (early ones in particular) and many other resource-juggling style city builders go here.
Type 4 - "Get off your ass you lazy idiot!":
As you can imagine there are no idling in type 4 city builders. Or at least it shouldn't be as that means you have either paused the game or are trying to loose on purpose. There is always some sort of problem you have to deal with and if you do find yourself with some "free time", said time should be spent improving your city before the next crisis inevitable hits. Small problems in your city can easily become cascade failures and unlike type 3, you often cant deal with them after they happened and hunting them down before they spiral out of control is a major part of the game. This category includes the Sierra series (Ceasar, Pharaoh, etc) as well as many city builders leaning more towards the RTS genre.
Thoughts? Obviously there are those games that overlap categories and it could just be me misinterpretationing things. Just a thought i wanted to share as mentioned.