SimCity 4
Encyclopedia
SimCity 4 is a city-building
/urban planning
simulation computer game
developed by Maxis
, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts
. It was released on January 14, 2003. It is the fourth installment in the SimCity series
. SimCity 4 has a single expansion pack called Rush Hour
which adds features to the game. SimCity 4: Deluxe Edition contained the original game and Rush Hour combined as a single product
.
The game allows players to create a region of land by terraforming
, and then to design and build a settlement which can grow into a city
. Players can zone different areas of land as commercial
, industrial
, or residential
development, as well as build and maintain public services
, transport
and utilities
. For the success of a city players must manage its finance
s, environment
, and quality of life
for its residents. SimCity 4 introduces night and day cycles and other special effects for the first time in the SimCity series. External tools such as the Building Architect Tool (BAT) allow custom third party buildings and content to be added to the gameplay.
SimCity 4 was praised for being the second game in the SimCity series to primarily use a 3D
engine to render its graphics, the first being SimCity 64
for the ill-fated Nintendo 64DD
. It received widespread acclaim, won several awards, and was one of the top ten selling PC
games of 2003. It was however criticised for the difficulty of gameplay and computer performance
.
As with previous SimCity titles, SimCity 4 places players in the role of a mayor
(or several mayors), tasked with populating and developing tracts of lands into cities
, while fulfilling the needs of fellow Sims that live in the cities. Cities are now located in region
s that are divided into segment
s, each of which can be developed. The player has the option of starting the city in a segment of any of three area sizes, in real measurement the smallest has a length of 1 kilometers on a side, and the largest has a length of 4 kilometers on a side. The size of a region and its layout of segments can be changed in a bitmap
file provided for each region.
Neighbor cities play a larger role than in the previous versions of the game. For example, neighbor deals can be established, where a city can exchange resources such as water
, electricity
, garbage disposal
with other cities for money. Players may develop several inter-dependent cities at the same time, eventually populating the entire region.
The first is the God Mode, which allows players to design or terraform
a selected tract of land where the city will be built. God Mode also allows players to trigger disaster
s, including tornado
es and earthquake
s among several others. Players can select an area where a disaster will occur and even control the direction of certain disasters. Most terraforming tools are disabled after the city is named and founded. The player still has some terraforming tools made available in Mayor Mode, although they become very limited and expensive, and can still trigger disasters at will. However, a cheat (or mod) can be used to enable the terraforming tools lost after founding the city. In addition to these abilities, God Mode also gives the player tools to reconcile the borders of the cities, so as to fix any discrepancies created during the terraforming process, and a day/night cycle adjustment, so that one can make it always day, always night, or alternate between day or night in accordance with the in-universe game clock. Both the ability to reconcile the city edges and the ability to modify the day/night cycle are available even once the city has been established.
, which include road
s, street
s, avenues
, highway
s, railways, subway lines
, and bus station
s.
Areas of land in this mode can be zoned
as residential
, commercial
or industrial
areas where the city will begin to grow. Agriculture
is now a separate industrial
zone-type, unlike previous version of SimCity enabling for farms to grow regardless of high land value
, so long as there exists demand for agriculture and agricultural zones have been provided. Zones are now automatically aligned towards roads and most buildings must be adjacent to a road in order to function properly; streets are automatically created when zoning on large tracts of land. Buildings are now classified into several wealth
levels, zone types, and building size stages, which are affected by the region's population and the city's condition. The game simulates urban decay
and gentrification
with buildings deteriorating accordingly. Buildings originally constructed for occupation by higher wealth tenants can now support lower wealth tenants in the event surrounding factors forces the current tenants to vacate the building; this allows certain buildings to remain in use despite lacking its initial occupants. Buildings and lots can now be constructed on slope
s.
Other activities that players can do in Mayor Mode include building civic buildings that need constant funding to work properly, such as school
s, hospital
s, park
s, police station
s, jail
s, fire station
s. These buildings now come in two or more sizes compared to the single, universal types that were used in previous games. Settlements also need public utilities
such as electricity with more or less polluting and more or less expensive types of power stations, water pumps, water purification plants, and waste management
services. Facilities that had previously provided citywide coverage, such as educational facilities
and medical facilities
, have now been modified to provide a more limited coverage, as it has been with police stations and fire stations in previous SimCity titles. Funding can now be adjusted for individual buildings rather than having to change the funding to all buildings, allowing users to specify how much money should be spent to supply a service in accordance to the local population. Maintenance expenses for public utility facilities will increase as they age. The maximum output of facilities also decreases as they get older. The rate at which facilities age is dependent on the percentage of its capacity being used and the level of funding being given to it.
. Sims can be killed by certain disasters or catastrophic events, leave the city if conditions are unfavorable, or die of old age. After they die, their "child" sometimes takes over for them by taking their name, house, and job.
s, particularly Art Deco
and Romanesque Revival
, while houses can appear in a traditional American Craftsman
style. However, there is an additional, more modern, architectural style similar to Houston's architectural style, and a European style that is based on the skyline of Frankfurt
, Germany. The construction of new buildings on zoned areas is now animated. There are a number of buildings based on those found in San Francisco
, including the Shell Building (appearing as "Wren Insurance"), 450 Sutter Street
(appearing as "Vu Financial"), and the Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Building also known as 140 New Montgomery Street (as "The Galvin Corp"). The May Company store in Los Angeles, now LACMA
West, also appears as "Dennis Department Store."
graphics and sprites
, SimCity 4 primarily uses a 3D
engine to render its graphics. The landscape and moving props such as vehicles are modeled as fully polygonal
3D objects. Small buildings and props are drawn as flat images, which are pasted onto billboards; polygons with their surface normal
facing into the camera. Larger buildings are modeled using a hybrid approach; a simple polygonal model defines the shape of the building, then textures
are added to create detail such as doors, windows and rooftop clutter.
Although a 3D engine is used, the camera in SimCity 4 is restricted to a fixed trimetric orthographic projection for performance reasons. Additionally, a simulated city can now be seen at nighttime as well as during daytime. The time of the day does not affect the gameplay.
format, ranging from four to seven minutes in length. The music is divided between that used in Region Mode and God Mode, and that used in the city view in Mayor Mode and My Sim Mode. In addition, the game has a facility for players to use their own music in the game, also divided between the two views. The music, largely composed by Jerry Martin
, is available as a soundtrack on iTunes
and Amazon.com
.
' s release, several add-ons and development kits were made available on its official site.
New landmarks, including Rockefeller Center
, the Brandenburg Gate
, and Stonehenge
were made available online. Later, landmarks were primarily used to demonstrate the capability of Gmax
and the Building Architect Tool (BAT) around the time of the BAT's release.
The Terrain Generator tool allowed users to create maps based on any of the 48 contiguous United States. The maps are based on data collected by the United States Geological Survey
.
The Building Architect Tool (BAT) is a suite of tools developed for producing custom buildings. The suite consists of three applications: The Building Architect game pack for Gmax
, which enabled users to render
Gmax models into SimCity 4 sprites
or props to be imported into the LE; an updated version of the LE; and the standalone Plug-in Manager, which enables users to modify simulation properties for new lots. Several modified versions have been released that have, in effect, served as bug fixes for various problems that had not been discovered before the initial release. First released on February 2004, it enabled the modding community to produce custom buildings and props for SC4. SimCity 4' s Building Architect Tool is similar in function to SimCity 3000' s Building Architect Tool and SimCity 2000' s Urban Renewal Kit; however, previous programs of this kind were created from scratch by Maxis and used completely different interfaces. The SC4 BAT required a third party application (Gmax
) to function, and was never bundled with SC4' s or the Rush Hour expansion pack, as SimCity 3000 Unlimited had with its own BAT.
The Lot Editor (LE) is a tool which allows users to edit or design lots for SimCity 4 using available props. Because it was released several months before the BAT as a stand-alone version, users at the time were only capable of producing lots that consisted of built-in props from SC4. The BAT provided users with an updated version of the LE, which rendered the original LE utility obsolete
. However, the old version is still made available in the official site.
and Electronic Arts
have released a total of three patches
that improve or fix issues discovered in the original versions of SC4 and Rush Hour (two for the original SC4 and one for Rush Hour). Among other things, the patches contain performance improvements for larger cities and a variety of minor bug fixes. The two pre-Rush Hour patches each fixed errors in the game code that, while not impeding actual gameplay, were previously preventing nearly a third of the Maxis-designed buildings from ever appearing in the game. The first patch fixed the so-called "Houston Tileset Bug" which was leaving one of the game's three tilesets, a collection of contemporary Houston
-inspired buildings, completely out of the rotation, meaning that the only buildings from that tileset ever to appear were several smaller variations shared by all three of the game's original tilesets. With the introduction of that patch, it rapidly became apparent that there was another underlying bug that was preventing approximately two dozen of the game's largest buildings from appearing. This issue was fixed in the second patch.
Although not necessarily a "bug", players often complained about the unrealistic pathfinding mechanism; it would often find the shortest route but not the fastest, which often left mass transit and highways relatively unused. Many players have made mod
s which have corrected this issue.
An integer overflow bug is also present in the game. Under certain conditions, the Junior Sports Program and Parks and Recreation expense items will be a negative value - thus adding to the end of month balance instead of reducing it.
, and an 85.09% overall score from GameRankings.
The game got a 9.2/10 rating at IGN
, calling it a "major evolutionary step in the series". The review commented that the addition of the region view mode adds more depth to SimCity 4 and that the gameplay has a "more accurate representation of city planning and maintenance" than of previous titles in the SimCity series. The game scored an 8.1/10 rating at GameSpot
, stating that the game had a "sleek, attractive interface" and "great audio"; it added however that SimCity 4 was "rather rushed" and that the MySim mode "seems like an afterthought". The review concluded that it was a "complex and detailed strategy game", "though not as polished as it could have been". GameSpy
gave the game a score of 75/100, commenting that SimCity 4 is "graphically stunning"; the review also criticized the game for having issues "that will likely kill the game for casual players" including performance
and difficulty. 1UP.com
rated the game at B+ and praised the region view feature as well as the detail of the graphics which create a "deeper sense of simulation". The review however criticizes SimCity 4 for suffering crashes
and performance issues. Game Freaks 365 reviewed SimCity 4 giving it a 9.3 out of 10. The review stated that SimCity 4 "is a magnificent simulator of how to build, run and manage a city." It went on to say that, "If you want the best of the best then Sim City 4 Deluxe [sic] is the only way to go."
SimCity 4 received further reviews after the release of the Macintosh
version. The game received a rating of 7.25/10 from InsideMacGames
. The review commented that the regional gameplay was a "new and welcome addition" and that it had detailed and realistic graphics; it was also said however that the game was not "revolutionary", had "horrendous bugs", and that the tutorial and manual lacked information.
by the Parents' Choice Foundation.
released an expansion pack for SimCity 4 dubbed Rush Hour. SimCity 4: Deluxe Edition, a bundle of the original SimCity 4 game and the Rush Hour expansion pack, was released on the same day. On August 25, 2004, Aspyr Media released SimCity 4: Deluxe Edition for Mac OS X
. This was followed by a September 4, 2004, release of a Mac OS X version of SimCity 4: Rush Hour.
The expansion pack, among others, enhances the range of transportation facilities such as four lane avenues, as well as allowing the player to trace traffic flow, control vehicles and construct larger civic facilities, and introduces a new range of contemporary European-inspired architecture.
released the Deluxe Edition (SimCity 4 and its Rush Hour expansion) for digital download on Valve Corporation's
Steam digital distribution service. The game is also available on Direct2Drive
and Impulse.
was attempting to work out a "new direction" for SimCity after new versions had become "steadily more complex".
Electronic Arts
has since published a new SimCity game, SimCity Societies
, which was developed by Tilted Mill Entertainment
. It was released on November 13, 2007.
City-building game
City-building games are a genre of strategy computer game where players act as the overall planner and leader of a city, looking down on it from above, and being responsible for its growth and management...
/urban planning
Urban planning
Urban planning incorporates areas such as economics, design, ecology, sociology, geography, law, political science, and statistics to guide and ensure the orderly development of settlements and communities....
simulation computer game
Personal computer game
A PC game, also known as a computer game, is a video game played on a personal computer, rather than on a video game console or arcade machine...
developed by Maxis
Maxis
Maxis is an American company founded as an independent video game developer in 1987. It is currently a subsidiary of Electronic Arts . Maxis is the creator of one of the best-selling computer games of all time, The Sims and its first sequel, The Sims 2...
, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
. It was released on January 14, 2003. It is the fourth installment in the SimCity series
SimCity (series)
SimCity is an open-ended city-building computer and console video game series and the brainchild of developer Will Wright. It is published by Maxis . The game was first published in 1989 as SimCity, and it has spawned several different editions sold worldwide...
. SimCity 4 has a single expansion pack called Rush Hour
SimCity 4: Rush Hour
SimCity 4: Rush Hour is the expansion pack for SimCity 4 created by EA Games and Maxis, where the player builds a city from scratch.-U-Drive-It:...
which adds features to the game. SimCity 4: Deluxe Edition contained the original game and Rush Hour combined as a single product
Product (business)
In general, the product is defined as a "thing produced by labor or effort" or the "result of an act or a process", and stems from the verb produce, from the Latin prōdūce ' lead or bring forth'. Since 1575, the word "product" has referred to anything produced...
.
The game allows players to create a region of land by terraforming
Terraforming
Terraforming of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth, in order to make it habitable by terrestrial organisms.The term is sometimes used more generally as a...
, and then to design and build a settlement which can grow into a city
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
. Players can zone different areas of land as commercial
Commerce
While business refers to the value-creating activities of an organization for profit, commerce means the whole system of an economy that constitutes an environment for business. The system includes legal, economic, political, social, cultural, and technological systems that are in operation in any...
, industrial
Industry
Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...
, or residential
Residential area
A residential area is a land use in which housing predominates, as opposed to industrial and commercial areas.Housing may vary significantly between, and through, residential areas. These include single family housing, multi-family residential, or mobile homes. Zoning for residential use may permit...
development, as well as build and maintain public services
Public services
Public services is a term usually used to mean services provided by government to its citizens, either directly or by financing private provision of services. The term is associated with a social consensus that certain services should be available to all, regardless of income...
, transport
Transport
Transport or transportation is the movement of people, cattle, animals and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline, and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations...
and utilities
Public utility
A public utility is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service . Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and regulation ranging from local community-based groups to state-wide government monopolies...
. For the success of a city players must manage its finance
Finance
"Finance" is often defined simply as the management of money or “funds” management Modern finance, however, is a family of business activity that includes the origination, marketing, and management of cash and money surrogates through a variety of capital accounts, instruments, and markets created...
s, environment
Natural environment
The natural environment encompasses all living and non-living things occurring naturally on Earth or some region thereof. It is an environment that encompasses the interaction of all living species....
, and quality of life
Quality of life
The term quality of life is used to evaluate the general well-being of individuals and societies. The term is used in a wide range of contexts, including the fields of international development, healthcare, and politics. Quality of life should not be confused with the concept of standard of...
for its residents. SimCity 4 introduces night and day cycles and other special effects for the first time in the SimCity series. External tools such as the Building Architect Tool (BAT) allow custom third party buildings and content to be added to the gameplay.
SimCity 4 was praised for being the second game in the SimCity series to primarily use a 3D
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
engine to render its graphics, the first being SimCity 64
SimCity 64
is a city-building video game developed by HAL Laboratory and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64DD. The game and this peripheral were released exclusively in Japan...
for the ill-fated Nintendo 64DD
Nintendo 64DD
The is a peripheral for the Nintendo 64 game console. It plugged into the N64 through the EXTension Port on the Nintendo 64's underside, and allowed the N64 to use proprietary 64 MB magneto-optical discs for expanded data storage...
. It received widespread acclaim, won several awards, and was one of the top ten selling PC
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
games of 2003. It was however criticised for the difficulty of gameplay and computer performance
Computer performance
Computer performance is characterized by the amount of useful work accomplished by a computer system compared to the time and resources used.Depending on the context, good computer performance may involve one or more of the following:...
.
Regional gameplay
Mayor
In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....
(or several mayors), tasked with populating and developing tracts of lands into cities
City
A city is a relatively large and permanent settlement. Although there is no agreement on how a city is distinguished from a town within general English language meanings, many cities have a particular administrative, legal, or historical status based on local law.For example, in the U.S...
, while fulfilling the needs of fellow Sims that live in the cities. Cities are now located in region
Region
Region is most commonly found as a term used in terrestrial and astrophysics sciences also an area, notably among the different sub-disciplines of geography, studied by regional geographers. Regions consist of subregions that contain clusters of like areas that are distinctive by their uniformity...
s that are divided into segment
Segment
Segment may mean:*The divisions found in the internal section of a citrus fruit* Market segment, the smaller subgroups comprising a marketComputing*Segmentation , the division of computer memory into segments...
s, each of which can be developed. The player has the option of starting the city in a segment of any of three area sizes, in real measurement the smallest has a length of 1 kilometers on a side, and the largest has a length of 4 kilometers on a side. The size of a region and its layout of segments can be changed in a bitmap
Raster graphics
In computer graphics, a raster graphics image, or bitmap, is a data structure representing a generally rectangular grid of pixels, or points of color, viewable via a monitor, paper, or other display medium...
file provided for each region.
Neighbor cities play a larger role than in the previous versions of the game. For example, neighbor deals can be established, where a city can exchange resources such as water
Water
Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
, electricity
Electricity
Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...
, garbage disposal
Waste management
Waste management is the collection, transport, processing or disposal,managing and monitoring of waste materials. The term usually relates to materials produced by human activity, and the process is generally undertaken to reduce their effect on health, the environment or aesthetics...
with other cities for money. Players may develop several inter-dependent cities at the same time, eventually populating the entire region.
Game modes
Upon selecting a specific segment in a region, gameplay is divided into three "modes". Mayor and MySim modes become available after choosing a name for the city. The god mode is available before establishing a city.God mode
Terraforming
Terraforming of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth, in order to make it habitable by terrestrial organisms.The term is sometimes used more generally as a...
a selected tract of land where the city will be built. God Mode also allows players to trigger disaster
Disaster
A disaster is a natural or man-made hazard that has come to fruition, resulting in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment...
s, including tornado
Tornado
A tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as a twister or a cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology in a wider...
es and earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
s among several others. Players can select an area where a disaster will occur and even control the direction of certain disasters. Most terraforming tools are disabled after the city is named and founded. The player still has some terraforming tools made available in Mayor Mode, although they become very limited and expensive, and can still trigger disasters at will. However, a cheat (or mod) can be used to enable the terraforming tools lost after founding the city. In addition to these abilities, God Mode also gives the player tools to reconcile the borders of the cities, so as to fix any discrepancies created during the terraforming process, and a day/night cycle adjustment, so that one can make it always day, always night, or alternate between day or night in accordance with the in-universe game clock. Both the ability to reconcile the city edges and the ability to modify the day/night cycle are available even once the city has been established.
Mayor mode
The second of the modes is the Mayor Mode, where the actual city building is conducted. Several advisors may give advice to the player on how to best manage a city. Players can build transportation networksTransport
Transport or transportation is the movement of people, cattle, animals and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline, and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations...
, which include road
Road
A road is a thoroughfare, route, or way on land between two places, which typically has been paved or otherwise improved to allow travel by some conveyance, including a horse, cart, or motor vehicle. Roads consist of one, or sometimes two, roadways each with one or more lanes and also any...
s, street
Street
A street is a paved public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable...
s, avenues
Avenue (landscape)
__notoc__In landscaping, an avenue or allée is traditionally a straight route with a line of trees or large shrubs running along each, which is used, as its French source venir indicates, to emphasize the "coming to," or arrival at a landscape or architectural feature...
, highway
Highway
A highway is any public road. In American English, the term is common and almost always designates major roads. In British English, the term designates any road open to the public. Any interconnected set of highways can be variously referred to as a "highway system", a "highway network", or a...
s, railways, subway lines
Rapid transit
A rapid transit, underground, subway, elevated railway, metro or metropolitan railway system is an electric passenger railway in an urban area with a high capacity and frequency, and grade separation from other traffic. Rapid transit systems are typically located either in underground tunnels or on...
, and bus station
Bus station
A bus station is a structure where city or intercity buses stop to pick up and drop off passengers. It is larger than a bus stop, which is usually simply a place on the roadside, where buses can stop...
s.
Areas of land in this mode can be zoned
Zoning
Zoning is a device of land use planning used by local governments in most developed countries. The word is derived from the practice of designating permitted uses of land based on mapped zones which separate one set of land uses from another...
as residential
Residential area
A residential area is a land use in which housing predominates, as opposed to industrial and commercial areas.Housing may vary significantly between, and through, residential areas. These include single family housing, multi-family residential, or mobile homes. Zoning for residential use may permit...
, commercial
Commerce
While business refers to the value-creating activities of an organization for profit, commerce means the whole system of an economy that constitutes an environment for business. The system includes legal, economic, political, social, cultural, and technological systems that are in operation in any...
or industrial
Industry
Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...
areas where the city will begin to grow. Agriculture
Agriculture
Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
is now a separate industrial
Industry
Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...
zone-type, unlike previous version of SimCity enabling for farms to grow regardless of high land value
Real estate appraisal
Real estate appraisal, property valuation or land valuation is the process of valuing real property. The value usually sought is the property's Market Value. Appraisals are needed because compared to, say, corporate stock, real estate transactions occur very infrequently...
, so long as there exists demand for agriculture and agricultural zones have been provided. Zones are now automatically aligned towards roads and most buildings must be adjacent to a road in order to function properly; streets are automatically created when zoning on large tracts of land. Buildings are now classified into several wealth
Wealth
Wealth is the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. The word wealth is derived from the old English wela, which is from an Indo-European word stem...
levels, zone types, and building size stages, which are affected by the region's population and the city's condition. The game simulates urban decay
Urban decay
Urban decay is the process whereby a previously functioning city, or part of a city, falls into disrepair and decrepitude...
and gentrification
Gentrification
Gentrification and urban gentrification refer to the changes that result when wealthier people acquire or rent property in low income and working class communities. Urban gentrification is associated with movement. Consequent to gentrification, the average income increases and average family size...
with buildings deteriorating accordingly. Buildings originally constructed for occupation by higher wealth tenants can now support lower wealth tenants in the event surrounding factors forces the current tenants to vacate the building; this allows certain buildings to remain in use despite lacking its initial occupants. Buildings and lots can now be constructed on slope
Slope
In mathematics, the slope or gradient of a line describes its steepness, incline, or grade. A higher slope value indicates a steeper incline....
s.
School
A school is an institution designed for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is commonly compulsory. In these systems, students progress through a series of schools...
s, hospital
Hospital
A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....
s, park
Park
A park is a protected area, in its natural or semi-natural state, or planted, and set aside for human recreation and enjoyment, or for the protection of wildlife or natural habitats. It may consist of rocks, soil, water, flora and fauna and grass areas. Many parks are legally protected by...
s, police station
Police station
A police station or station house is a building which serves to accommodate police officers and other members of staff. These buildings often contain offices and accommodation for personnel and vehicles, along with locker rooms, temporary holding cells and interview/interrogation rooms.- Facilities...
s, jail
Jail
A jail is a short-term detention facility in the United States and Canada.Jail may also refer to:In entertainment:*Jail , a 1966 Malayalam movie*Jail , a 2009 Bollywood movie...
s, fire station
Fire station
A fire station is a structure or other area set aside for storage of firefighting apparatus , personal protective equipment, fire hose, fire extinguishers, and other fire extinguishing equipment...
s. These buildings now come in two or more sizes compared to the single, universal types that were used in previous games. Settlements also need public utilities
Public utility
A public utility is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service . Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and regulation ranging from local community-based groups to state-wide government monopolies...
such as electricity with more or less polluting and more or less expensive types of power stations, water pumps, water purification plants, and waste management
Waste management
Waste management is the collection, transport, processing or disposal,managing and monitoring of waste materials. The term usually relates to materials produced by human activity, and the process is generally undertaken to reduce their effect on health, the environment or aesthetics...
services. Facilities that had previously provided citywide coverage, such as educational facilities
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
and medical facilities
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
, have now been modified to provide a more limited coverage, as it has been with police stations and fire stations in previous SimCity titles. Funding can now be adjusted for individual buildings rather than having to change the funding to all buildings, allowing users to specify how much money should be spent to supply a service in accordance to the local population. Maintenance expenses for public utility facilities will increase as they age. The maximum output of facilities also decreases as they get older. The rate at which facilities age is dependent on the percentage of its capacity being used and the level of funding being given to it.
My Sim mode
The final mode is the MySim mode which enables players to create user-defined Sims, which will live and work in the city the player has created. When moving a Sim into a city, the player can choose from a selection of characters or import others from The SimsThe Sims
The Sims is a strategic life-simulation computer game developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. Its development was led by game designer Will Wright, also known for developing SimCity...
. Sims can be killed by certain disasters or catastrophic events, leave the city if conditions are unfavorable, or die of old age. After they die, their "child" sometimes takes over for them by taking their name, house, and job.
Building designs
Buildings in SimCity 4 borrow heavily from early 20th century architectural styleArchitectural style
Architectural styles classify architecture in terms of the use of form, techniques, materials, time period, region and other stylistic influences. It overlaps with, and emerges from the study of the evolution and history of architecture...
s, particularly Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
and Romanesque Revival
Romanesque Revival architecture
Romanesque Revival is a style of building employed beginning in the mid 19th century inspired by the 11th and 12th century Romanesque architecture...
, while houses can appear in a traditional American Craftsman
American Craftsman
The American Craftsman Style, or the American Arts and Crafts Movement, is an American domestic architectural, interior design, landscape design, applied arts, and decorative arts style and lifestyle philosophy that began in the last years of the 19th century. As a comprehensive design and art...
style. However, there is an additional, more modern, architectural style similar to Houston's architectural style, and a European style that is based on the skyline of Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
, Germany. The construction of new buildings on zoned areas is now animated. There are a number of buildings based on those found in San Francisco
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
, including the Shell Building (appearing as "Wren Insurance"), 450 Sutter Street
450 Sutter Street
The 450 Sutter Medical Building is a 26-floor office tower located in San Francisco, California. It is known for its unique "neo-Mayan" Art Deco design by architect Timothy L. Pflueger...
(appearing as "Vu Financial"), and the Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Building also known as 140 New Montgomery Street (as "The Galvin Corp"). The May Company store in Los Angeles, now LACMA
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is an art museum in Los Angeles, California. It is located on Wilshire Boulevard along Museum Row in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles, adjacent to the George C. Page Museum and La Brea Tar Pits....
West, also appears as "Dennis Department Store."
Development
Graphics
Unlike its predecessors, which used an engine based on 2D isometricIsometric projection
Isometric projection is a method for visually representing three-dimensional objects in two dimensions in technical and engineering drawings...
graphics and sprites
Sprite (computer graphics)
In computer graphics, a sprite is a two-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene...
, SimCity 4 primarily uses a 3D
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
engine to render its graphics. The landscape and moving props such as vehicles are modeled as fully polygonal
Polygon (computer graphics)
Polygons are used in computer graphics to compose images that are three-dimensional in appearance. Usually triangular, polygons arise when an object's surface is modeled, vertices are selected, and the object is rendered in a wire frame model. This is quicker to display than a shaded model; thus...
3D objects. Small buildings and props are drawn as flat images, which are pasted onto billboards; polygons with their surface normal
Surface normal
A surface normal, or simply normal, to a flat surface is a vector that is perpendicular to that surface. A normal to a non-flat surface at a point P on the surface is a vector perpendicular to the tangent plane to that surface at P. The word "normal" is also used as an adjective: a line normal to a...
facing into the camera. Larger buildings are modeled using a hybrid approach; a simple polygonal model defines the shape of the building, then textures
Texture mapping
Texture mapping is a method for adding detail, surface texture , or color to a computer-generated graphic or 3D model. Its application to 3D graphics was pioneered by Dr Edwin Catmull in his Ph.D. thesis of 1974.-Texture mapping:...
are added to create detail such as doors, windows and rooftop clutter.
Although a 3D engine is used, the camera in SimCity 4 is restricted to a fixed trimetric orthographic projection for performance reasons. Additionally, a simulated city can now be seen at nighttime as well as during daytime. The time of the day does not affect the gameplay.
Audio
The game includes over one hour of background music in MP3MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
format, ranging from four to seven minutes in length. The music is divided between that used in Region Mode and God Mode, and that used in the city view in Mayor Mode and My Sim Mode. In addition, the game has a facility for players to use their own music in the game, also divided between the two views. The music, largely composed by Jerry Martin
Jerry Martin (musician)
Jerry Martin is a jazz and New Age composer, famous for composing songs for television commercials, and for The Sims and SimCity series.- Biography :...
, is available as a soundtrack on iTunes
ITunes
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....
and Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
.
Maxis releases
Following SimCity 4New landmarks, including Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center
Rockefeller Center is a complex of 19 commercial buildings covering between 48th and 51st streets in New York City, United States. Built by the Rockefeller family, it is located in the center of Midtown Manhattan, spanning the area between Fifth Avenue and Sixth Avenue. It was declared a National...
, the Brandenburg Gate
Brandenburg Gate
The Brandenburg Gate is a former city gate and one of the most well-known landmarks of Berlin and Germany. It is located west of the city centre at the junction of Unter den Linden and Ebertstraße, immediately west of the Pariser Platz. It is the only remaining gate of a series through which...
, and Stonehenge
Stonehenge
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument located in the English county of Wiltshire, about west of Amesbury and north of Salisbury. One of the most famous sites in the world, Stonehenge is composed of a circular setting of large standing stones set within earthworks...
were made available online. Later, landmarks were primarily used to demonstrate the capability of Gmax
Gmax
Gmax is a 3D modeling application based on Autodesk's 3ds Max application used by professional computer graphics artists. Whereas 3ds Max is a comprehensive modeling, animation, and rendering package with some secondary post-production and compositing features, Gmax is much more limited due to its...
and the Building Architect Tool (BAT) around the time of the BAT's release.
The Terrain Generator tool allowed users to create maps based on any of the 48 contiguous United States. The maps are based on data collected by the United States Geological Survey
United States Geological Survey
The United States Geological Survey is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, and the natural hazards that threaten it. The organization has four major science disciplines, concerning biology,...
.
The Building Architect Tool (BAT) is a suite of tools developed for producing custom buildings. The suite consists of three applications: The Building Architect game pack for Gmax
Gmax
Gmax is a 3D modeling application based on Autodesk's 3ds Max application used by professional computer graphics artists. Whereas 3ds Max is a comprehensive modeling, animation, and rendering package with some secondary post-production and compositing features, Gmax is much more limited due to its...
, which enabled users to render
Rendering (computer graphics)
Rendering is the process of generating an image from a model , by means of computer programs. A scene file contains objects in a strictly defined language or data structure; it would contain geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information as a description of the virtual scene...
Gmax models into SimCity 4 sprites
Sprite (computer graphics)
In computer graphics, a sprite is a two-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene...
or props to be imported into the LE; an updated version of the LE; and the standalone Plug-in Manager, which enables users to modify simulation properties for new lots. Several modified versions have been released that have, in effect, served as bug fixes for various problems that had not been discovered before the initial release. First released on February 2004, it enabled the modding community to produce custom buildings and props for SC4. SimCity 4
Gmax
Gmax is a 3D modeling application based on Autodesk's 3ds Max application used by professional computer graphics artists. Whereas 3ds Max is a comprehensive modeling, animation, and rendering package with some secondary post-production and compositing features, Gmax is much more limited due to its...
) to function, and was never bundled with SC4
The Lot Editor (LE) is a tool which allows users to edit or design lots for SimCity 4 using available props. Because it was released several months before the BAT as a stand-alone version, users at the time were only capable of producing lots that consisted of built-in props from SC4. The BAT provided users with an updated version of the LE, which rendered the original LE utility obsolete
Obsolescence
Obsolescence is the state of being which occurs when an object, service or practice is no longer wanted even though it may still be in good working order. Obsolescence frequently occurs because a replacement has become available that is superior in one or more aspects. Obsolete refers to something...
. However, the old version is still made available in the official site.
Third party content
In addition to official tools, third party programs were released for further accessibility in editing SimCity 4 contents, potentially allowing users to change the nature of the game itself. Since the release of the Lot Editor and the BAT, the majority of add-ons in circulation consists of user-created content; most are buildings and lots, while others include cosmetic changes for terrains, custom vehicles and modifications in the game's behaviors; Some even fundamentally change the behavior of facets of the game. Both the skills of lot building and modding are also integrated at times, producing lots that are capable of affecting a city in a variety of ways.Bugs
MaxisMaxis
Maxis is an American company founded as an independent video game developer in 1987. It is currently a subsidiary of Electronic Arts . Maxis is the creator of one of the best-selling computer games of all time, The Sims and its first sequel, The Sims 2...
and Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
have released a total of three patches
Patch (computing)
A patch is a piece of software designed to fix problems with, or update a computer program or its supporting data. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, and improving the usability or performance...
that improve or fix issues discovered in the original versions of SC4 and Rush Hour (two for the original SC4 and one for Rush Hour). Among other things, the patches contain performance improvements for larger cities and a variety of minor bug fixes. The two pre-Rush Hour patches each fixed errors in the game code that, while not impeding actual gameplay, were previously preventing nearly a third of the Maxis-designed buildings from ever appearing in the game. The first patch fixed the so-called "Houston Tileset Bug" which was leaving one of the game's three tilesets, a collection of contemporary Houston
Houston, Texas
Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...
-inspired buildings, completely out of the rotation, meaning that the only buildings from that tileset ever to appear were several smaller variations shared by all three of the game's original tilesets. With the introduction of that patch, it rapidly became apparent that there was another underlying bug that was preventing approximately two dozen of the game's largest buildings from appearing. This issue was fixed in the second patch.
Although not necessarily a "bug", players often complained about the unrealistic pathfinding mechanism; it would often find the shortest route but not the fastest, which often left mass transit and highways relatively unused. Many players have made mod
Mod (computer gaming)
Mod or modification is a term generally applied to personal computer games , especially first-person shooters, role-playing games and real-time strategy games. Mods are made by the general public or a developer, and can be entirely new games in themselves, but mods are not standalone software and...
s which have corrected this issue.
An integer overflow bug is also present in the game. Under certain conditions, the Junior Sports Program and Parks and Recreation expense items will be a negative value - thus adding to the end of month balance instead of reducing it.
Intel Macintoshes
The game has major flaws when operating on computers by Apple using Intel processors. Aspyr released a beta of a patch to fix the problems in 2007, but the patch was never finalized and many bugs remain. Some have a serious impact on playability, including frequent crashes if a city exceeds 95,000 population, flawed display of the water surface, frequent blurring or replacement of objects with random other objects, and an inability to significantly accelerate the vehicle in driving mode that prevents many gameplay features from being unlocked.Reception
Shortly after its release, the PC version of SimCity 4 garnered mainly positive reviews, gaining 84/100 from MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, and an 85.09% overall score from GameRankings.
The game got a 9.2/10 rating at IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
, calling it a "major evolutionary step in the series". The review commented that the addition of the region view mode adds more depth to SimCity 4 and that the gameplay has a "more accurate representation of city planning and maintenance" than of previous titles in the SimCity series. The game scored an 8.1/10 rating at GameSpot
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
, stating that the game had a "sleek, attractive interface" and "great audio"; it added however that SimCity 4 was "rather rushed" and that the MySim mode "seems like an afterthought". The review concluded that it was a "complex and detailed strategy game", "though not as polished as it could have been". GameSpy
GameSpy
GameSpy Industries, Inc., known simply as GameSpy, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related services and software. GameSpy dates back to the 1996 release of an internet Quake server search program named QSpy. The current...
gave the game a score of 75/100, commenting that SimCity 4 is "graphically stunning"; the review also criticized the game for having issues "that will likely kill the game for casual players" including performance
Computer performance
Computer performance is characterized by the amount of useful work accomplished by a computer system compared to the time and resources used.Depending on the context, good computer performance may involve one or more of the following:...
and difficulty. 1UP.com
1UP.com
1UP.com is a video game website owned by IGN Entertainment, a division of News Corporation. Previously, the site was owned by Ziff Davis before being sold to UGO Entertainment in 2009....
rated the game at B+ and praised the region view feature as well as the detail of the graphics which create a "deeper sense of simulation". The review however criticizes SimCity 4 for suffering crashes
Crash (computing)
A crash in computing is a condition where a computer or a program, either an application or part of the operating system, ceases to function properly, often exiting after encountering errors. Often the offending program may appear to freeze or hang until a crash reporting service documents...
and performance issues. Game Freaks 365 reviewed SimCity 4 giving it a 9.3 out of 10. The review stated that SimCity 4 "is a magnificent simulator of how to build, run and manage a city." It went on to say that, "If you want the best of the best then Sim City 4 Deluxe [sic] is the only way to go."
SimCity 4 received further reviews after the release of the Macintosh
Macintosh
The Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
version. The game received a rating of 7.25/10 from InsideMacGames
InsideMacGames
Inside Mac Games, or IMG for short, is a website dedicated to Apple Macintosh computer gaming. Founded in 1993, Inside Mac Games has transitioned from an electronic magazine into a web-only publication...
. The review commented that the regional gameplay was a "new and welcome addition" and that it had detailed and realistic graphics; it was also said however that the game was not "revolutionary", had "horrendous bugs", and that the tutorial and manual lacked information.
Awards
SimCity 4 was chosen as one of IGN's "Editors' Choice" games for January 2003. It was also given the Parents' Choice AwardParents' Choice Award
The Parents' Choice Award is an award presented by the non-profit Parents' Choice Foundation to recognize "the very best products for children of different ages and backgrounds, and of varied skill and interest levels." It is considered a "prestigious" award among children's products, and has been...
by the Parents' Choice Foundation.
SimCity 4: Rush Hour
On September 22, 2003, MaxisMaxis
Maxis is an American company founded as an independent video game developer in 1987. It is currently a subsidiary of Electronic Arts . Maxis is the creator of one of the best-selling computer games of all time, The Sims and its first sequel, The Sims 2...
released an expansion pack for SimCity 4 dubbed Rush Hour. SimCity 4: Deluxe Edition, a bundle of the original SimCity 4 game and the Rush Hour expansion pack, was released on the same day. On August 25, 2004, Aspyr Media released SimCity 4: Deluxe Edition for Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
. This was followed by a September 4, 2004, release of a Mac OS X version of SimCity 4: Rush Hour.
The expansion pack, among others, enhances the range of transportation facilities such as four lane avenues, as well as allowing the player to trace traffic flow, control vehicles and construct larger civic facilities, and introduces a new range of contemporary European-inspired architecture.
Digital distribution release
On July 20, 2010, Electronic ArtsElectronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
released the Deluxe Edition (SimCity 4 and its Rush Hour expansion) for digital download on Valve Corporation's
Valve Corporation
Valve Corporation is an American video game development and digital distribution company based in Bellevue, Washington, United States...
Steam digital distribution service. The game is also available on Direct2Drive
Direct2Drive
Direct2Drive is an online game store offering PC videogames via direct download. On May 25, 2011, Gamefly acquired Direct2Drive from IGN Entertainment Group .- Competition with Steam :...
and Impulse.
Future updates
Will Wright has previously stated in an interview on May 16, 2003, that there would probably be more expansion packs after Rush Hour, but none has ever been released. In another interview on May 22, 2004, Wright stated that MaxisMaxis
Maxis is an American company founded as an independent video game developer in 1987. It is currently a subsidiary of Electronic Arts . Maxis is the creator of one of the best-selling computer games of all time, The Sims and its first sequel, The Sims 2...
was attempting to work out a "new direction" for SimCity after new versions had become "steadily more complex".
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts, Inc. is a major American developer, marketer, publisher and distributor of video games. Founded and incorporated on May 28, 1982 by Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer games industry and was notable for promoting the designers and programmers...
has since published a new SimCity game, SimCity Societies
SimCity Societies
SimCity Societies received mixed reviews. GameZone praised the game's increased accessibility and less "sterile" gameplay compared to previous titles in the SimCity series, and Game Informer concluded that the changes to the gameplay were "inventive"...
, which was developed by Tilted Mill Entertainment
Tilted Mill Entertainment
Tilted Mill Entertainment is a video game developer located in Framingham, Massachusetts. It was founded in 2001 by former Impressions Games lead designer and general manager Chris Beatrice, business manager Peter Haffenreffer, and designer Jeff Fiske....
. It was released on November 13, 2007.