What's the most important part of City Building Games?

[JohnEZ]

Just out of curiosity, with the official announcement of City Building Games being just around the corner, I'm a little curious as to what you guys think the most important parts of City Building games are and why.

Personally, I LOVE the transportation networks. There's something about them that I can't get over--maybe it's the variety that was offered in SimCity 4? I dunno. Either way...

I also love the financial management. I dunno, I'm weird like that. :p

What makes City Building fun for you? If you don't see your selection above--add it! Write a reply! :D

[Odinmoon]

Finance management
Building
Transport
Infrastructure

I like playing Lord Mayor:D
And designing a city is fun. Putting in lovely parks trees and separating industry from city's. And building industry's with lots of trees to hide the ugliness of them.
Also building roadways that work.:rolleyes:

[muffin-tacos]

Transportation because I think that's important - peeps gotta be able to get from one place to the other! Financial Management because that's why you're playing the game, right? Graphics because nobody wants a game that's all splotchy and disasters because I'm evil. :)

[Mirelly]

Transportation definitely. No previous Sim City has ever had enough transportation flexibility. Too often Maxis has added extra layers of transport options where the better option would have been greater diversity of options for the existing networks. eg with SC4, Rush Hour added elevated rail and monorails, where I would have been happier seeing more building options for road and rail: eg diagonal bridges and tunnels, greater flexibility in junction design, greater flexibility in road/rail cross-over design ... not to mention more -- and more flexible -- highway junctions.

Also zoning could be substantially improved. Industry should be more realistic with Mayoral options to tout for specific industries to set up shop ... and to field petitions from would be industrialists wanting land to build on. Industry should be more like SC4 airports: auto-maker asks to build car plant ... needs so-many squares to build on, wants rail terminal, port etc. offers $$$ to cover infrastructure, guarantees nnn jobs for yyy years. A somewhat realistic car plant then grows on the land are you set aside ...

[Nevets]

For me it would have to be being able to build my dream city.

Finacial management is my least important since I usually just use a cheat for unlimited money so I have the resources to build my perfect city without any restricitions.

[Mirelly]

Is this vote rigged? I see that the poll records 8 voters but 25 votes ... :rolleyes:

[Flameback777]

It's a multiple choice poll. :P

[Mirelly]

duh :o

[Rexer]

I'll agree that transportatoin and management of the economy are the top two for fun, for me. Probably in that order. It could be because I am a logistics professional, and also a businessman, finance manager and accountant.

Managing the transportation network and infrasctructure is only fun, however, to the extent that the traffic model is realistic. All previous SC versions to date have not had very realistic. Trips are generated from one type zone with a destination of any tile of a target type. Destinations should be specific tiles in the case of home-work/school-home commutes, any tile of the proper type for shopping and parks, and specific tiles in the case of landmarks, and large recreational facilities like stadiums, opera houses, amusement parks, zoos, etc. Also, the transportation model should have separate weekday/weekend patterns.

[Mirelly]

And the sims citizens should definitely actually use tsansportation features like avenues. So often in SC4 I have seen a road parallel to an empty avenue clogged to a standstill ... and guess what? The avenue was put in because the road it replaced was clogged to a standstill ... the darn traffic just moved over a block. That's nuts.

[doubleyewgee]

Def transportation for me. I'd love to be a traffic flow manager in real life. So in the games, I take major time and pride in my air, land and sea routes!