Sim City 4: Top 20 Air Pollution Reducers

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Air Pollution in cities is high on the agenda in terms of research at the moment so its interesting that Sim City covers the topic so well. The movie above by SimmyDOTuk provides a rundown of the top 20 air pollution reducing techniques in Sim City.

SimCity: 4 Million Inhabitants

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The movie above details a city created in SimCity 4 with over 4 million inhabitants. The population density is 953,674.3 people/kmsq - 32 times denser than Mumbai.

See ErwinNegentig on YouTube for more facts, figures and a tutorial.

SimCity New York (Movie)

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It is interesting to see how close the Edushi (short for ECity in Chinese and pictured above) maps that we recently covered are to Sim City, see 'Edushi.com - Possibly the Best City Maps in the World?'

The movie below illustrates a detailed reconstruction of New York in Sim City 4 by way of comparison:



Uploaded by SimmyUK, Simmy states:

'Population is well over 300,000, with 150,000 commercial jobs and just under 1000 tech jobs. There is a very good mass transit system my city. The entire city is covered by an underground subway system. New York has very good Health and Education systems and there is plenty for my sims to do to relax'.

If we were going to create a Edushi style maps the easiest way would be perhaps to model in 3D Max and then import into Sim City to get that all important 'Sim City look'...

SimCity Societies - What Kinds of Cities Would You Build? (Video)

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Coming in November from EA is the latest incarnation of the SimCity franchise - SimCity Societies. EA have released a couple of teasers for the game via YouTube, as embedded below:

Teaser 1:



Teaser 2:


The game includes (according to EA) an all-new, revolutionary feature set, SimCity Societies allows you to create your own kinds of cities and shape their cultures and environments. Make your cities green or polluted, contemporary or futuristic, rural or urban. Create an artistic society or a police state, an industrial city or a spiritual community—or any society you want!

We will be running a full feature on SimCity Societies closer to its release date.

SimCity DS Advert/Movie

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SimCity was first released in 1989 - essentially a game of urban economics and planning the game was first developed in 1985. The four year wait for release and further development was due to publishers unwillingness to commit to a game a) about city planning and b) with no winning or losing.

In 1989 SimCity formed part of our MSc in Town and County Planning, then running on high end PC's. It is now available for a wide range of platforms, most recently the Nintendo DS.

The 15 second Japanese Advert below is interesting in its rearranging of the urban backdrop:



In terms of gameplay it looks similar to the previous PC and Mac incarnations of SimCity, although tailored to a younger audience. The movie below provides a good preview of the gameplay:



SimCity DS is a city in your pocket complete with the old school urban planning and economics. Yet, and maybe this is an age thing, we cant help but to be drawn back to the original version without all the 'blowing into the microphone' to put out fires....