Full Circle Magazine FR

It’s been described as the game that SimCity 4 should have been. I can neither confirm nor deny that statement, as I’ve never played SimCity 4 since Maxis didn’t have the decency to make a native Linux version. Colossal Order (a small Finnish team) did have the decency and foresight to make a Linux version of Cities: Skylines. And I’m so glad they did. In The Beginning On first starting the game you’re given a choice of maps to choose from. They’re different, but each contain some body of water (which you’ll initially use to generate power), and mostly land to build upon. You’re given hints and tips along the way telling you to place roads, zones, electricity, water, and so on. If you’ve ever played the original SimCity, or SimCity 2000, then you’ll instinctively know what to do.

On l'a décrit comme le jeu que SimCity 4 aurait dû être. Je ne peux ni confirmer ni infirmer cela, car ju n'ai jamais joué à SimCity 4, puisque Maxis n'a même pas eu la décence de créer une version native Linux. Colossal Order (une petite équipe finnoise) l'a eue, ainsi que la prévoyance nécessaire pour faire une version Linux de Cities: Skylines. Et, vraiment, je m'en félicite.

Au commencement

Au départ, quand vous commencez le jeu, vous devrez choisir parmi plusieurs cartes. Elles sont différentes, mais chacune contient un quelconque plan d'eau (que vous utiliserez initialement pour produire de l'énergie) et, principalement, des terres sur lesquels bâtir.

Au cours du jeu, on vous donne des indices et des astuces vous indiquant qu'il faut placer des routes, des zones, de l'électricité, de l'eau et ainsi de suite. Si vous avez joué au SimCity original, ou à SimCity 2000, vous saurez instinctivement ce qu'il faut faire.

The Basics Your map has two roads leading into it. These connect your future city to the highway which has vehicles coming/going to your city. You need to connect to these highways to allow your city to expand. Once you have some roads in place, you can place zones beside the roads. You have three choices (initially); residential, commercial, or industrial. Obviously you need to keep your (noisy, smelly) industrial zones away from your housing and put your commercial zones somewhere in the middle. This is where the detail in CS shines through. Bad planning means that your residents will complain about noise pollution from the factories. Yes, you need to take into account noise when building your town. Even small things such as wind turbines to initially give you electricity need to be kept away from residents. Details such as planting trees to block noise are here too. All zones need two basic commodities; electricity and water lines. You’ll need to connect pumps to the water areas to pump clean water in. But watch out. You also need to connect pumps to dump your sewage. Dump your sewage upstream from your intake pump and, well, you can imagine the results. Wind turbines supply your power at the start, but, as you establish your city, you can use water/solar power or just good old fashioned coal. Even placing roads has its good and bad points – placing the wrong road in a busy area means massive traffic jams and pollution. A planners life is not an easy one.

Les bases

Il y a deux routes menant vers l'intérieur de votre carte. Celles-ci relient votre ville future à une grande route sur laquelle roulent des véhicules qui entrent dans/quittent votre ville. Il faut vous connecter à ces routes pour que votre ville ait la possibilité de s'étendre. Une fois que vous aurez placer quelques routes, vous pourrez placer des zones à côté de ces dernières. Vous avez trois choix (au début) ; résidentielle, commerciale ou industrielle. Il faut, bien évidemment, que les zones industrielles (bruyantes et odorantes) restent loin des logements et vous placerez les zones commerçantes quelque part au milieu. C'est ici que les détails dans CS brillent. Un mauvais aménagement de votre ville signifie que ses résidents se plaindront des nuisances sonores qui viennent des usines. Oui, il faut prendre en compte le bruit quand vous construisez votre ville. Même des petits éléments, comme des éoliennes, qui, au départ, fournissent l'électricité, doivent rester à l'écart de la population. Des détails, comme planter des arbres pour bloquer les bruits, y figurent aussi.

Toutes les zones ont besoin de deux produits de base : l'eau et l'électricité. Vous devez brancher des pompes dans les zones d'eau pour pomper de l'eau propre vers la ville. Mais faites attention. Vous devez aussi brancher des pompes pour débarrasser la ville des eaux usées. Si vous déversez ces eaux usées en amont de la pompe qui amène l'eau propre… je vous laisse imaginer le résultats. Des éoliennes vous fournissent l'électricité au début, mais, au fur et à mesure que la ville s'établit, vous pouvez utiliser l'énergie hydraulique/solaire ou, tout simplement, du bon vieux charbon.

Il y a même de bonnes et de mauvaises façons de placer les routes : mettre la mauvaise route dans un quartier animé engendrera des bouchons monstres et de la pollution. La vie d'un urbaniste n'est pas facile.

Stats There’s a ton of statistics and management in the game too. Top left of the screen gives you quick access to information regarding who has/hasn’t got electricity, water, etc. The range the police/fire services cover. The aforementioned noise pollution. You name it, it’s all here. Even down to how much electricity you’re generating and how much your citizens are using. This is also shown when you click the building options at the bottom of the screen. Here you place roads, zones, buildings, etc. Another really nice feature, and really well implemented, is the use of districts. You can choose an area of the city and give it a name. You can select it by using a box tool or by literally painting over the town. This means you can apply certain rules/policies to certain districts within the city. Again, details such as forcing industrial districts to install fire alarms can reduce the strain on your fire department. Districts can also be given an industry. So, for example, you can select an area of nice countryside, give it a name, and use it only for farming. Oh, and everything – and I mean everything – has a name/title in CS, and you can change them all. There is much fun to be had renaming people, animals, and zones. Speaking of people, everything in CS has a purpose. You can select any person and it will tell you who the person is, where they work, and/or where they are going. Same with vehicles. I’ve only scratched the surface of the detail in CS. There’s so much more such as buying adjacent land to expand your city, mining, and tweaking budgets.

Mods As if all that goodness wasn’t enough, the entire game is mod friendly. There are already hundreds of mods that will give new maps. One awesome mod I have installed is one that gives you the ability to choose any citizen and look through their eyes. No, the graphics won’t look hugely impressive (as you were really never meant to get in that close), but it’s great that the developers allow such mods. Conclusion If you hadn’t already guessed: I love CS. CS uses the Unity engine, and it really is nice. Graphics settings are highly adjustable to allow play even on lower-end machines. My machine has a lowly GeForce GT640, and it runs the game great even with tilt-shift, medium shadows, medium detail, and filtering on. My city isn’t a sprawling metropolis, but there’s a lot going on in there for my little graphics card. Pointing out every feature of CS would fill a large book, so if you loved SimCity 2000, or hated SimCity 4 (for various reasons), then give Cities: Skylines a look. Cities: Skylines is available through Steam for USD $29.99.

System Requirements Minimum: Operating System: Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit, Ubuntu 14.10 64-bit, Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit, Ubuntu 14.04 (64-bit) Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 3.0GHz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 6400+ 3.2GHz RAM: 4GB Graphics Card: nVIDIA GeForce GTX 260, 512 MB / ATI Radeon HD 5670 (Does not support Intel Integrated Graphics Card), 512 MB Hard Drive: 4GB Recommended: Operating System: Ubuntu 14.04 64-bit, Ubuntu 14.10 64-bit, Ubuntu 12.04 64-bit, Ubuntu 14.04 (64-bit) Processor: Intel Core i5-3470 3.20GHz / AMD FX-6300 3.5Ghz RAM: 6GB Graphics Card: nVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 (Does not support Intel Integrated Graphics Card), 2GB / AMD Radeon HD 7870, 2 GB Hard Drive: 4GB