SimCity Societies

SimCity Societies is a city-building simulation computer game of Electronic Arts (EA) and is part of the Sim games series. The game was developed by Tilted Mill Entertainment and was released worldwide on November 13 2007.

Announcement
On June 5 2007, Tilted Mill Entertainment, creator of Caesar IV, announced that it would be developing SimCity Societies instead of Maxis, which had created all preceding titles. Rob Humble, head of EA's Sims Division, indicated that EA representatives had asked Tilted Mill to create the game at E3. Fans reacted poorly on the official forums of the developer towards this game. Responses directly from the developers attempted to ease some concerns.

Gameplay


While previous mainstream SimCity titles could be best described as mayordom, or "God" simulators, SimCity Societies is different, as foreshadowed by the previews and statements from the developers, by being a 'social engineering simulator' rather than a city-building simulator.

Public works and a tax system do not play a part in the game. Instead, players get weekly income from workplaces in the city. Transportation networks have been simplified to dirt roads, paved roads, subways and bus stops. Players do not build zones, a key element of past SimCity games, instead they have the ability to directly place individual buildings, something not seen in previous editions, and similar to Monte Cristo's game City Life. There are also six "social energies" which allow players to learn about the characteristics of the citizens. The six energies are productivity, prosperity, creativity, spirituality, authority, and knowledge. The city will look, and act, in accordance with the energies the players choose. Players may focus on satisfying one, several, or all of the energies. An improved version of the reward system introduced in SimCity 3000 has been included in the game.

The game is "fully customizable" and allows the players to customize individual buildings, decorations, citizens and game rules. Prior to its release, when mentioning the depth to which the game will allow customization a Tilted Mill representative stated that those who were proficient in C# and XML will have easy access to every asset of the game and that basic tools would be provided for building editing.