Please share your observations about the game and its features.

Thanks.
Julia

My observation is that update #3 is available (finally!) and I might actually be able to play the game for the first time.

http://www.tiltedmill.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15694


Are there any plans for a new SCS contest?

Herodotus, We have one ready to go, but the question is, will there be enough players for it if we hold it during the team contest? How about posting here if you would ALSO play an SCS contest during the team contest?

Julia

Stringbags has some wonderful ideas for the next SCS contest. But we will first check to see if the new patch has.. erm.. altered anything and if I can actually play the game long enough to help him.

Julia

It seems to run stable enough, but I don't think I will like the game enough to want to play it much.

Obvious rhetorical question:
Why don't venues employ people and make a profit or loss. -- If a service station employs 6 people and makes 3 grand a week, how come a pizza shop needs no-one and makes nothing.
(I'm finding it hard to get over this one)

Addit:

I Tested it on Moneybags 2. I didn't have any crashes - everything seemed to be OK
For the record, my time was 11 days. My city size was 3200.
If it helps I can send a save.

This was in Normal mode, but the first city I built was in Basic strategic mode.
I thought Normal mode was a bit like playing CotN - ie almost impossible to lose, because there are no deductions. You just have to wait for the next harvest.
Basic mode was a bit more like citybuilding. I guess you might want to select that for any future contests.

I tried to build 1-2 of lots of things but it was a temptation not to build lots of banks. It would make it interesting if the game ran like the luxury shopkeepers in CotN where too much competition and not enough customers makes them go bust.

Because the pizza shop doesn't "make nothing", it makes a large profit.

It can produce up to 400 happiness points per day.

If that translates to your service station employees going ecstatic then your 3 grand a week goes to $4500 a week.

The employment of the pizza shop is more counter intuitive in that it doesn't "employ" people but does "service" people. As all your sims need happiness and the pizza shop can service a total of 80 sims a day this means that in this case your six workers and 74 drone sims can take happiness in any one day.

If it makes it easier to to get your head round the employment and put that side of it to bed just assume this pizza shop is like like every other pizza shop in the world and is staffed by labour that probably doesn't show up in the annual accounts.

This happens in a more subtle way with the sociatal values.

Thanks ADJB.
I just thought it should do all that, and need labour and make profit too.

Never been fond of Pizza, myself.

In the light of the up-coming contest, Some consideration needs to be given to demolition.

For a speed contest or a maximum money contest, last minute demolition becomes significant.

In the moneybags contest there were no additional mandatory criterea.
I can shorten the time taken to reach the WC from 4 days to 3 days in a test city by a total demolition of the entire city and still be within the rules.
ADJB would still have beaten me by a couple of hours anyway but that is not the point.
How can someone submit a save which consists of nothing at all except statistics?

I want to enter, I hope ADJB will too.
Anyone else? Please signify

I agree that wholesale demolition shouldn't be allowed but limited demolition is a very valid and legitimate tactic for at least two reasons.

You place a building / road in the wrong place and want to get rid of it.

You wish to demolish and replace a damaged building.

Its just a matter of where you want to draw the line.

This feature is worthy of clear explanation of contest game limits on the contest page. CBC takes a while to bang out these instructions over a few events. SCS took us a bit longer as there was no beta for SCS.

Please examine what other features need clarity for future CBC SCS contests.

ADJB has been testing for the next SCS contest and will be Stringbag's "right hand man" for the contest presentation. Once we know that the latest patch works with the prepared saved starting positions, we will get the contest under way.

Julia

News to me.

I've noticed in the last day or so that Moneybags at the start has several types of houses immediately available (and placeable) that should not be available because the unlocking conditions have not been met
Examples: Cybercorp Housing, Worker Barracks and several other types.
Indeed they simultaneously appear in the available and unavailable sections of the housing list.

Since I did not notice this until yesterday, Could this be down to the #4 patch? or was it like this the whole time?

If it is not a patch thing, was it intentional? or accidental?
If intentional, it runs against the normal progression of play, so should this be allowed?

I haven't checked but probably accidental due to placing the award statues would be my immediate guess.

I've not tested anything with patch 4 just yet. Moneybags had all the awards put on the map by Araman, so that everyone had the same start.

Julia

__________________
Companions the creator seeks, not corpses, not herds and believers. Fellow creators, the creator seeks - those who write new values on new tablets. Companions the creator seeks, and fellow harvesters; for everything about him is ripe for the harvest. - Thus spoke Zarathustra, Fredrick Nietzsche