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[Shooer]

It just bumps up the claimed numbers on anything, so there's only a couple thousand actual sims being simulated and the "phantom" sims just appear and disappear at places to make the numbers bigger.

But from a programming perspective that is pretty much what you should be doing.
Nobody cares about the lives of all 150,000 sims. They might get maybe six or seven they really care about, if they are that kind of player. Sims that just exist as population statistics is ideal.
Why do we want all those sims existing as fleshed out entities? Does anybody actually care?

It's not that I want to know everything about my population (not like you can since they disappear as a unique entity once they stop being an agent and enter any building) it's that when I have 90,000 people only 10,542 work, and I have 24K jobs that need to be filled.

Also you can open the pop panel and the see that the green bar (labeled resident population) represents the true number and not the fabricated pop number.  I first noticed it when my example city above had 11K people commuting in and the orange bar (labeled visitor population) was larger than the green one.

I could kind of get behind it, if the numbers weren't so extremely false.  (like if I had 30K workers from a 90K pop)

[Chattox]

I could kind of get behind it, if the numbers weren't so extremely false.  (like if I had 30K workers from a 90K pop)

I imagine this may just be a case of balancing, and they just have to fine tune it a little. As you can imagine, it's probably not very high on their list of priorities right now.

And, you know what? I'm gonna get this game. Why? Because I freaking love Sim City as a franchise, and I love city builders in general. And you know what else? I've literally never used this non-ironically before now, but god damnit, YOLO.

[pilgrimboy]

I think the biggest issue with the fudged population is that the agents were the reason given for small cities. We couldn't have larger cities because there would be too many agents, so the cities had to remain small. But that's not true. The phantom population proves it. Just create a good agent/phantom ratio that would allow larger cities.

[PanH]

It's clearly lazyness. There is easier way to show a bigger population (e.g. multiplying pop, workers and jobs by 10), which would be logical. Phantom pop as done is completely stupid.

[alexandertnt]

I would think (but I don't know) that they would just fudge job numbers etc by about the same ratio. So your 10k population can fill up 24k jobs because you dont actually have 24k jobs. Or somthing like one agent can fill up more than one job (based on the same ratio). But I dont know, Im just guessing.

I think the biggest issue with the fudged population is that the agents were the reason given for small cities. We couldn't have larger cities because there would be too many agents, so the cities had to remain small. But that's not true. The phantom population proves it. Just create a good agent/phantom ratio that would allow larger cities.

That doesnt prove it at all.

If you had larger cities you would still need more actual non-fudged agents or larger city without the extra agents and a larger fudged population would visually appear more empty, even if the population readout was larger. So it would seem that this reason for not having larger cities may still hold true.

[Max White]

Ideally, the best way to handle population would be have the big population based on housing and job availability, then get a small percent of that for the small, simulated population. Making the big population based off the simulated population is putting the cart before the horse.

[Deon]

I want to love this game, but I've lost so many cities due to server faults that I am almost out of juice. Basically any of my 100k pop cities eventually start to be unavaliable ("the city is being processed, please try another time"), and one morning they are not there. That's a bullshit, I want a long-lasting city, not two-day experiences.

[PTTG??]

I'm really enjoying Sim City 4.

[Alkhemia]

I'm really enjoying Sim City 3000.

[Max White]

I'm really enjoying populous.

[ank]

If my not-born-yet son ever asks me about evil capitalism, I'm going to say EA. Just E-A.

And if he asks for a game by EA, HE GETS THE BELT!

No, worse:
He gets a game by EA!

Let the punishment fit the crime...

or make your son play ALL the newer EA games, the old smoking thing...

[Silent_Thunder]

I'm really enjoying Cities X- Nope. Cant say it with a straight face.

[PanH]

I'm really enjoying this quote pyramid.

[sneakey pete]

Pfft, real gamers study city planning and run for mayor, not play sim city

[Sergius]

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130316/04473722350/maxis-gm-our-vision-is-more-important-than-our-customers-lots-people-love-our-crappy-drm.shtml

In other words: fuck you customers, you love this so shut up!