On building cities

I am quite a fan of city building games. From Caesar III to SimCity, I have been playing city builders for the past 20 years, but it has always been PC-based. Over the last few years I have migrated to console gaming, where the city builders have been sparse, until recently.

Because, recently, I discovered the joys of Cities: Skylines. It means hours and hours in front of my console, which has given me a wonderful break from the current political and human climate of ugliness. I worked through all the scenarios and started building some really lovely cities, until I watched some community videos, like this one:

And while this city was created with the PC version of the game, which gives you a lot more tools, I thought I would attempt something similar, especially with the new road tools that came with the Mass Transit DLC.

I used one of the flattest maps I could find, and did this in sandbox mode – there is no way you can do this in a standard for achievements city, considering the costs of the highways.

I expanded the map to all 9 tiles, proving a lovely large canvas. I then cleared the map, leaving the highway connections at the edge of the map, and used the 6 lane highway to connect corner to corner and then cross section the map. This allowed me to easily create the first circles.

I took some time to plan out the highway connections, trams and busses, and then got to work.I forgot to do some captures before I started populating the zones, unfortunately, and I am not quite happy with the rounding of the highway around the tower in the middle of the city, but it is a fair first attempt.

I did build a few industrial areas outside of the circle area towards the edge of the map, as well as the supporting utilities and lots of garbage incineration stations. I’ve also now stated on a second, smaller circle off to the side of the big one.

The smaller circle suburbs turned out a lot better, I learned a few things about the road building tools that I will apply in the next attempt in doing something like this.

So far, the city has a population of 60k, with little visible traffic issues and a very low unemployment rate.And the city is now, finally, stating to run with a green balance – about 3 years in.So definitely not something you can do with a achievements city, unless you build it up with a fabulous bank balance and then annihilate it to rebuild, but I estimate it probably cost in the region of 4 million to get started, if not more. Six lane roads are expensive

But it has provided me with some lovely views, and escape from a world filled with Nazis.

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The things that keep me busy when I’m not doing anything else. Also the cause of my lack of blogging recently

(Battlefield keeps the husband busy)

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Another random shot of ze new xbox

Coz it is pwetty.

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Welcome to the dark side, we have cool consoles.

Yes, we bought yet another Xbox, and are now a four-Xbox household. And we feel fine.

It is the Star Wars Xbox, as a side note.

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We gots ourselves a Wii, so that my daughter can play Zelda, and we can play Mario Bros

I still prefer my Xbox.

Stripper puppets, asthmatic chameleons and volcanic ponies

Where has the past month gone? Whoooooshh…

A month ago, I took part in the democratic process by not only voting in our local elections, but by also spending the day working at a voting station as a party agent. I woke up super-early the morning of the 18th of May and arrived at the voting station before 6am to witness the opening and unpacking and sealing of the ballot boxes and the setting up of the voting station. I spent just about the entire day at the voting station – apart from the 2 hours I spent going to vote at another station and charge my phone – and stayed for the count at the end. It was a long day – I was awake for 23 hours straight – but it was worth it.

I think it is something that each voter should do at least once. It makes you appreciate the system, and I definitely gained some trust in the process, and the IEC. Speaking of which, the IEC staff were wonderful, friendly and helpful all the way through, even though they were also awake from very early that morning. The guy in charge was incredibly dynamic, and he handled a very difficult and long day with grace and the patience of a saint, while being incredibly competent at keeping the wheels going.

Other than that, in 42 days time the husband and I are off on our very first adventure, and we have spent the past month getting our visas in order, buying the last of the camping gear and practised setting up the tent. We have also booked all our hotels and train tickets, which means we are set to go. I am still struggling to wrap my head around the size of Wacken (the festival, not the town), because my brain simply cannot comprehend seventy five thousand people in one place. I am really looking forward to seeing the sights and hope I can capture each sight adequately photographically.

We had a brief moment of panic when another Icelandic volcano erupted and caused some havoc with air traffic in Europe, but luckily that seems to have calmed down now. And I have made friends with Iceland. Tonight, while in conversation with the family, I brought up the Icelandic ponies and volcanoes, which immediately conjured up images of cute ponies ala Viva Piñata somersaulting into an active volcano. Much laughter ensued.

I have been playing a lot of Viva Piñata recently. I started over, because I finally have my own XBox and profile, so I am raking up my own gamer score now. I have finally broken my previous scores, and am starting to attract some interesting piñatas to my garden, the strangest of these to date being the Jameleon, which really sounds like an asthmatic chameleon, especially when it is sleeping.

Jameleon Romance Video

My daughter started her first exams for high school this week, and the first subject was Art and Culture. The grade’s classes were divided into smaller groups, and each group was tasked with putting together a 60 second puppet show. On the way to school one morning, she told us about seeing one of the other groups’ puppet, and it happened to be a stripper, “with a g-string and everything”. Much laughter ensued.

Laughter is a frequent friend, and it is good. I must just sometimes remind myself of this. Been a bit wound up recently, and swinging between what feels like more than two poles, each with their own brand of insanity woven through the cracks. I am missing writing again very much right now, but as soon as I sit down in front of the keyboard, the words are gone. I sure do hope they return, because there are many many stories that still need to be told. Maybe my muse awaits in the country of my ancestors. And hey, I wrote a blog post. With words and everything. 671of them to boot. There is hope for us yet, captain.

Two more

Yes please!

Sims 3

My daughter is a massive Sims fan, and has been playing consistently since Sims 1. And, as her mother, I always test drive the games she plays, just to make sure that, ahem, they are friendly and safe and all that stuff, you know, but I am not a big fan of the Sims, mostly because, when I play a game, I like to escape reality, and the whole business of having to take care of your sim’s bodily needs is far too much like reality for me.

When we bought Sims 3 for her recently, I of course had to install it and see what it is all about, as usual. And, out of the series, this one is by far the best.

Other than the improvements in the interface and the Sim creator, there are a couple of other things I really do like about the latest offering. I love the fact that the Sims are no longer bound to their property, but are able to go jogging around the neighbourhood or even walk to the beach. And, once they are on the beach, as you can see from the caps above, they are able to go fishing. And not only is fishing fun, but they can either use the fish they catch in their homes – either as pets or for cooking – or they can sell the fish at the grocery store, earning them money. And, every now and again, they can also donate the fish to science.

There are also more options for your sims to make money now. They can buy into the existing businesses in town, and earn weekly ‘royalties’, sell paintings, sell novels and articles and the vegetables and fruit they can grow in their own gardens.

Things I really like:

• More realistic sim creator
• Ability to customise everything, including furniture, without much effort
• Ease of making money without a job
• You can set lifespans to be longer

Things that annoy me:

• Swapping between households in the same game is cumbersome.
• You still need to take care of those bodily functions.

Sims have come a far way. I look forward to seeing what expansion packs will be available for this version.

Lego Harry Potter

 

This looks awesome. I love the other Lego games on Xbox, and this one looks like it will be as much fun :)

Emperor

I have long been a big fan of city builders, specifically the Sierra/Impression/Breakaway games collection. I started way back with Caesar II and still list Caesar III as one of my all time favourite games. I picked up a copy of Emperor this past week-end from the bargain bin at our local supermarket.

The gameplay is a vast improvement over Zeus and Pharaoh, and, dare I say it, more fun than Caesar III – that is, once you can figure out the interface. Maybe I am just blonde, but after playing a large number of these games, I have always found the interfaces to be fairly standard and intuitive, which is not quite the case with Emperor.

However, the things that bugged me about the other builders, like the fact that you needed your people to work close to your industrial and agricultural areas, is no-where in sight, meaning that you really can build highly desirable residential areas without your industries suffering.

Trading with neighbouring cities is also improved, and you have to win their favour before you are allowed to trade – which makes it far more interesting.

For me, the biggest selling points of these games are that they don’t really date, they don’t rely on graphics for fun and you can play them over and over for years to come.

I can’t believe I have waited this long to pick up a copy of this game, but I can see I am going to play it for a good long time still.

Tips and tricks site here: Emperor Heaven

Spore addicts unite

Indeed. I have spent the ENTIRE week-end playing Spore, and have made it to the Civilisation phase. This game is just so much fun. My husband and daughter both agree, and have been as glued as I have.

I cannot decide what is more fun though: creating the creatures, creating your population’s look and feel, or just generally watching them jump around.

I played, like a good girl, from amoeba to tribal phase, and then decided to start a new game, jumping right in at the tribal phase, so I could design my own creature from scratch with everything available to me.

I played around with the look for a while, until I decided on this one:

 

 

And these are some of the buildings for this civilisation:

 

I am curious to reach the space age, so I may just sneak in a couple of hours here and there this week.

First impression: Spore

I got just about no sleep last night. Because I installed Spore, and played until around sunrise.

Game play is amazingly intuitive, especially if you have played Sims, SimCity, etc – but this is to be expected, considering the designer.

What I like about Spore is the fact that it brings all my favourite bits of games like Viva Pinata, Age of Empires and Sims 2 into one game that is still fun to play.

After only a couple of hours of play, I have progressed into Tribes, and I cannot wait to see where this journey takes me.

Creating the creatures are fun, and changing them as you go along is interesting, especially when you take note of how the evolutions affect their lives.

I have the need

I am not a big gamer. No, seriously. Doh.

I will play a spot of Age of Empires every now and again, and I am addicted to Caesar III, when I can spare a couple of hours. The husband, on the other hand, is a complete games addict, and even managed to convince me that we needed an Xbox 360.

And he is a driving game addict. So i have sat through hours and hours of cars going whrooooom whroooooom as he played Need for Speed, Grid and many, many other racing sims.

Recently, I thought I would give this racing thing a bash, and installed Need for Speed Carbon on my laptop. It wasn’t bad, and the fact that I could use one of the Xbox controllers made it a lot better. But I wanted more. So, this week-end past, I installed Need for Speed Most Wanted.

Ok, so apart from the fact that the graphics are a little dated, when compared with those of Grid and Forza, this is a fun game.

I have already started climbing the black list ladder, and no longer drive straight into walls - and, considering I don’t drive in real life, this is quite a feat for me. I have had some fun evading the cops so far too, but, as a parent, kinda feel bad for enjoying it as much as I do.

I have set myself a new challenge. I would like to become such a good driver that I can whip my husband’s ass. He’s only been playing driving sims for around 8 years – I recon by the time I get to the top of the blacklist, I should be able to do it, right?

But, finally, I understand this need…

 

(and, at least, finally, I am playing games that were made this century *grin*)

Caesar IV

I have been addicted to the Sierra city building series for as long as I can rememeber. I have spent hours and hours, weeks, days, months, building Roman, Egyptian and Greek cities, so, when Caesar IV was announced last year, I marked it in my calendar, and starting counting down the days.

The release day has come and gone, and I have slowly started playing the ‘new and improved’ Caesar.

The interface is the biggest source of pleasure, and the greatest pain in the arse. The new 3d feel is great, but the game is a little difficult to manoeuvre, especially the whole right-mouse-button-rotate-thing. Sometimes, it rotates a little, sometimes, it rotates far too much, and, sometimes, it does something completely different. The buttons seem to behave the same way, where sometimes, you can click all you want, and diddly happens.

 

Game play, on the other hand, is great. The game is far harder than its predecessor, and I haven’t been able to find any cheats, which means I have to actually build cities that generate their own money!! (and I am enjoying it too)

The gods are also a little sensitive, and actually want shrines where the citizens can worship, otherwise they destroy your buildings.

Invaders can also be bought off – just make sure the price you pay isn’t more than a rebuild would cost.

 

I am not entirely sure I would spend as much time on this game as I have on previous editions, but it is slowly growing on me.

Vista and games...

So far, I have tested Sims 2 (+Open for Business) and Need for Speed Most
Wanted. The husband tested Call of Duty 2 and Crash Day.

Sims2 was dog slow the first time i loaded it up. Even changing the
resolution to 800x600 did not help a little bit. A couple of hours went by,
and i thought i would give it another bash. This time round it performed as
i am used to it performing, and i could even pump the resolution up to
1024x768 (where i have been playing all along). I created a new family,
built them a new home and even managed to get them to whoo-hoo a couple of
times :)

NFSMW was a little slow - not unplayable, but there was a notable speed
difference. It is not terrible that i will not play again, but the husband
might feel different (as this is his favourite game).

Call of Duty 2: this game only works if you run it as an administrator.
Other than that, it ran fine. Some of the graphics had distorted colours,
but most of the time, it ran fine.

Crash Day: this is a brand new game, and we have never run it on any other
platform than Vista, so we cannot compare performance. But, it played, and
there was no noticeable jerking or stuttering.

I think I will now try Age of Empires III. We pretty much realised, from
trying ourselves and reading online reviews, that there is absolutely no
point in installing F.E.A.R (although, considering the performance of above
mentioned games on only 1.25GB of memory, I am tempted to plug in our memory
stick, boost the memory of my machine, and try the high-end games now).

Vista: Next test - Games

I will be testing some Games under Vista from today onwards. I don't really
play a wide variety of games, generally, but for the purpose of this test, i
will install a couple that i don't normally play, as well as the games i
play.



Test machine specs:

AMD Athlon 64 2800+

1.25GB memory

ATI Radeon 9600SE

On-board sound



Not a high-end machine, but it has served my purpose well over the past
couple of months, allowing me to play various games (including Age of
Empires III) under XP/2003.



I will test the following games under Vista:

The Sims 2 (+ Open for Business)

Need for Speed Most Wanted

Call of Duty 2

And maybe Age of Empires III



I might attempt other games (but not F.E.A.R), if all goes well with these
games.