What is the difference between SimCity, Cities Skylines, Transport Tycoon, A-Train, and Soviet Republic's five urban development simulations?



Urban development simulation is a game genre that develops a city by installing public services such as schools, police, fire departments, and hospitals, and infrastructure such as power plants, railways, and airports. Blogger Alfred Twu compares five of the most prominent urban development simulations: SimCity series, Cities Skylines, Transport Tycoon, A-Train 9 series, and Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic. I am.

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All of the five works compared this time have the same point of 'urban development', but their design ideas are different.




Each game can be roughly divided into 'Player role', 'Player builds the following things', and 'Zoning ( Zoning : area division such as residential area / industrial area)'. 'Vehicle routes' etc. are different. For example, in SimCity, players are in the position of 'Government', and 'Roads', 'Rails', 'Public buildings', etc. can be built by themselves, but 'Individual homes and' 'Businesses (individual housing / workplace facilities)' cannot be constructed. Zoning is possible, but the movement route cannot be set.




It is said that the SimCity series opened up the game genre of urban development simulation. In the SimCity series, numbering titles such as ' SimCity 2000 ', ' SimCity 3000 ', and ' SimCity 4 ' have been released since the first ' SimCity ' released in 1989 on hardware such as Comodor 64, Amiga, Macintosh, and IBM PC. It has been, but no new work has appeared at the end of 2013 ' SimCity (2013) '. The graphics have evolved over the course of the series, but one of the features of the SimCity series is that the game system itself does not change significantly.




One of the real thrills of the SimCity series is the traffic jam problem. The SimCity series is a system that 'as the population grows, so does the traffic jam,' and how to solve the traffic jam determines the success or failure of development. One of the mysteries of SimCity is, 'Where does that car come from?', But the designer said, 'Please think that the parking lot is underground.'




The Soviet Republic is tackling the mystery of parking lots head-on. The cities that can be developed in the Soviet Republic are more compact than the SimCity series, but the feature is that if you want residents to use their cars, you need to build a parking lot.




On the other hand, Cities Skylines, also known as the 'successor to SimCity,' is a work that emphasizes transportation compared to SimCity. Colossal Order, the developer of Cities Skylines, has a maiden work of ' Cities in Motion, ' which focuses on the maintenance and management of public transportation such as railroads, trams, buses, water buses, and helicopters. I can tell you that the company is particularly interested in.




The above SimCity series, Soviet Republic, and Cities Skylines are all common in that the player is a local government. On the other hand, the A-Train 9 series in Japan is characterized by the fact that the player is in the position of a railway company and a real estate company.




In the A-Train 9 series, you can not only develop businesses and houses automatically, but also build and sell your own buildings. In addition, 'production and distribution of building materials' can be cited as an original element not found in other urban development simulations.




Transport Tycoon is similar to the A-Train 9 series in that the player is the president of the transportation company. However, Transport Tycoon has a feature not seen in other urban development simulations that a 'rival company' appears, and if its transportation efficiency is poor, it will succumb to rival companies and sales will drop, so transportation It is necessary not only to lay the facility but also to improve efficiency.




Each urban development simulation has a different system for intervening in the economy. SimCity can intervene in the development of cities with systems such as tax rates and city ordinances, and enacts a city treaty called 'nuclear abolition district' to forcibly abolish all nuclear facilities in the city to please environmental protection theorists. can also do.




SimCity 4 implements a system that 'can change the tax rate according to the income group', such as imposing a low tax rate on low-income earners and a high tax rate on high-income earners. By imposing a particularly high tax rate, It is also possible to wipe out certain income groups from the city. This is due to the historical background that Newark, New Jersey and Edwards, Mississippi have tried to drive out low-income groups such as African Americans by imposing particularly high property taxes.




Cities Skylines can impose different property taxes depending on housing density.




On the other hand, the Transport Tycoon and A-Train 9 series have nothing to do with tax revenue because the player is a private company called a transportation company. In Transport Tycoon, the only source of funding for players is operating profit from transportation, and there is no concept of taxes.




Rather, you have to pay taxes for the A-Train 9 series. The early works in the A-Train 9 series were subject to a particularly high tax of '50% of profits', which reflects the Japanese corporate tax of the 1990s.




In the Soviet Republic, players are 'leaders of socialist nations,' so there are no taxes or personal assets, and it's up to the player to provide everything from people's clothing to television radio waves. Funds can be obtained not only by domestic industry but also by trade with other countries.




After comparing the five works, Twu said, 'As a different type of urban development simulation from these five works, the player can build not only public transportation but also housing and workplace facilities from the standpoint of the government, China and Dubai. I can think of a 'state capitalist' type game like this. '




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