Hey,

I've been thinking - is Simcity Cities of Tommorow worth buying? I've played around 80 h of the original game and I quite enjoyed it. Does anybody have the expansion? What's it like? Is it worth the money?

Here is my answer..

 

Edited November 23, 201312 yr by Darkangel

Both yes and no.

 

From what I have read about it, it does a great job fixing the small map problem as you can build up rather than out.

Since EA has said they will not be making maps bigger, this is our only way to larger cities. It also adds some cool new factories and businesses to your cities.

 

On the other end, it is rather expensive(You can get a game like Rust or Nether for less) as well as there are some bugs.

For example, some floors in the multi-zone towers will experience plumbing issues while the rest don't.

 

 

From reviews I read, the averages seemed to be around 5-7. Not sure if that's worth the 30 bucks. 

The DLC has gotten pretty good reviews, but I haven't tried it out myself.

"Cities of Tomorrow provides plenty to remind returning ones what SimCity is capable of, and it’s certainly something to behold. Some parts of the future are stuck in the past, but it’s strikingly well-balanced, providing solutions for existing problems and new toys to tinker with that counteract each other nicely."

I hate these types of games so I would not buy it. lol

I actually got the expansion after some consideration. But before that I tried Sim City again. Since release all the bug fixes make a difference, it seems. Since I was not as disappointed, I got the expansion too as it offers some nice variety and options to optimize cities. Or make them worse.

 

Actually playing it

 

That's slightly more tricky, but could just be a natural Sim City thing. You really have to keep design in mind, or better yet plan right away from the beginning. Here you actually have to keep in mind that such towers will increase population even further, which can result in more traffic as it is. Towers and the like also consume more power, but the added buildings can compensate for that nicely, depending on what you use and upgrade. Considering upgrades: If you use the 'Academy', you have to keep in mind what kind of people live in your city, or how many. You need a strong "Controlnet" to operate some of the new buildings ("Academy tier"). Upper class provides the most coverage. Say, you build it. You can have like 50 lower class jobs, 100 middle class and 200 upper class which provide most coverage per job slot or class.

 

Then there's the other more "dirty" (literal) way. Some big Corporation you can invest in. They produce "Omega" and / or drones which is distributed among industry and the likes. Means more profit if you can set it up properly in the long run. It may increase air and ground pollution though, and may increase the risk of fire in some buildings who use Omega. This downside can be rather easily compensated by using some of the new tech, however. Towers allow you to add air filters on the most top level if you research them, and you can pull out ground pollution and convert it into air pollution, too. The increased fire or more traffic in general? Use drones. There's also medical, police, firefighting and consumer drones who float above the streets, thus ignoring traffic. I basically eliminated the need for emergency service cars and each emergency is dealt with in a timely manner, depending on how you place stations (or towers with the facilities to produce said specialized drones) and streets, as they're bound to streets. You can basically clean up your own mess, literally.

 

And then you can of course combine the two specializations, or should in the long run.

 

If you have the right setup, you can get rich quite fast. I play a recent multiplayer map for like 1-3 days and now I make like +30k per hour at like 11% tax. I got about 30 million or so. And that would bring me to the next question I have to ask myself, seeing how people abandoned my region. What then?

 

Well, I guess it's trial and error. I could try to get more people into the city or start anew and try other things. I think I already played it enough hours to compensate the price. Basically I often look at how much it costs. Say, 30 dollars. So if I play it 30 hours in the end, I pay a dollar per hour. In short: The more you play it (while having fun more or less), the less of a bad call it was.

 

If you like Sim City (5) and still play it from time to time or plan to and if you have the spare bucks, then you may not have a bad call if you buy the expansion. If you can, I advise multiplayer. Some towers and tech can add bonuses to the region and you benefit more compared to a single player experience. Unless you like to have multiple cities at once in SP, that is.

 

Hope it helps. If you are still not sure, you could watch reviews or Let's plays of the game to get a better visual and gameplay feel of it, I guess.

So, I've bought it and... it did manage to spark my interest in SC once more. It looks great, and the new buildings are really helpful. Thanks guys!