Long post follows, now that I've played it awhile. I'm kinda concerned about the nuts and bolts of this thing, although it is fun. Part of the cool thing about this game and glassbox is that every individual sim is in the game, you can follow them around, etc. It sounds neat. Probably stop reading if you still want to think its neat.
So has anybody actually noticed how this game actually works? Its very intuitive for the agents like sewage, power, water, etc. They are generated at a source, and then move down the line toward the closest building that has a need for them and as they pass it you can see them filling the need (a circle under the building is shown filling up). If a building is too far down the water network, all the buildings in between suck up all the agents moving down the line.
For water and sewage it is particularly accurate, I think.
One problem is that power also acts this way. This is not how power works in real life. The old way I think was more accurate where you are either connected to the grid or not, and the whole netwowk is either overstrained or not leading to blackouts that rol, not "well all the power got sucked up by the first few building along the road before it got to you"
meh, alright
Bigger problem.
Your sims also act like this. Everyday they all wake up and start wandering like zombies toward the nearest job. Not "their job"...the "nearest job". If its filled by other zombies before they get there, they just move on to the next one down the line of a similar wealth/education level until they are all sucked up just like the power/water/sewage blobs.
Then they get off work and its time to go home. So they take the fastest/shortest route to their home, right? Wrong. Any home will do, thats of the right wealth level. So the zombie herd starts wandering toward the residential districts, filling up the housing they find along their path until they all get sucked up.
Uh, thats realistic...I guess. Each person did their own thing that day! But uh, they didnt work at the same job, and they didnt sleep at the same house...isnt that kinda weird?
The police, firetrucks, buses, garbage trucks, freight trucks, all work this way too I think, leading to good results for some, and comical results for others.
I dont think everything in the game being a mindless agent searching for its needed place is a good thing. This game is fun, FUN, FUN right now, but I think it will be increasingly counterintuitive once you begin to learn what is actually going on with the "agents" that make up your city. Less realistic layouts will be more optimal than they should be.
All of my police cars should not head to the nearest crime, in reality the appropriate number would be dispatched. I should not have a fleet of 8 busses following each other around the map trying to pick up one zombie that has stopped at the bus stop, and then 7 of them racing to the next nearest bus stop for the next zombie. It would be better if you could put the busses on pre-planned routes, but Im sure that would add a layer of complexity.
In any case, this fun, and I still highly recommend it to those who are wondering whether to try it out, but for all the "we use agents, so its ultra realistic, and not just a mathematical simulation!" marketing, its really just a different type of simulation, its not that realistic.
[This message has been edited by JJxvi (edited 3/12/2013 4:28p).]