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[Sowelu]

So I had an idea for a multiplayer SimCity/Tropico/whatever kind of game.  In fact it should work ON SimCity as it stands today, it would just require a lot of bookkeeping.

Here's the deal.  There's one communal city.  Each player plays twenty independent years of it.  Then, you look at population * mayor approval, and whoever's score is the highest, gets to save that version of the city.  Everyone plays from their version, and the cycle repeats.

Here's the tricky Fun part.  You don't restart from the end of the 20-year plan.  You saved game that is four years into the winner's plan.  Does your grand plan involve tearing down a huge swath of downtown, putting a freeway through it, and vastly improving traffic to everyone's rejoicing?  Well, the next player is likely to start with a huge hole in downtown.  Do they go through with your freeway?  Do they decide that it's better to scrap that idea entirely?

It would be neat to set up organized, in-game support for this.  So, you would hop onto a centralized server, select a city, play twenty years and then set it aside.  If your 20-year plan gets picked, you get more score on your account...the more players were competing, the higher the score.

[Volatar]

Hmmm, an interesting idea. I would probably more enjoy a less competitive version. Something more like a bloodline game of Sim City 

[Sowelu]

Yeah, but the problem with SimCity as-is is that it's too predictable.  Really, this version is the same as a bloodline game...it's just that everyone gets their own shot at perpetuating the bloodline, and it trains you to play for some sort of score.  Whether that's happiness, or raw population, or land value.

Which, okay, some people like to build pretty cities.  Hell, that's what the community is built around these days I think.  That's not quite my playstyle though...which is kinda why I'm after this idea.  In fact I wouldn't say that you're competing against other players exactly, as much as you're competing against yourself.  SimCity is too easy because you can never get voted out of power!  This idea...this, is a way to get yourself voted out.  By having someone else propose a better vision of the future.  It's realistic that way I guess.