Comments on: Tilting At Publishers: Tilted Mill Go It Alone

By: Stromko

Stromko — Sat, 31 May 2008 06:46:28 +0000

With patch 5, SimCity Societies has gotten hard enough (on just the basic Strategic difficulty mode) that I kind of stall out and fail at it. Just like the old SimCities! So I guess that’s good, if you don’t suck at SimCity like me, or if you’re willing to put the effort into getting better at the game. Actually I do slightly better than with the old SimCities as the death-spiral is slower and you have more options (like selling back buildings) to get you into the black.

Until now even with the maintenance penalties you could still just build whatever and never fail, but income and maintenance is now very strictly tied together. There’s less of a difference between those two numbers, so after the initial spending spree you’re really operating on a shoe-string. Rogue citizens are more of a problem when losing a day of business productivity means going into debt, and when you have almost no cash you’re very tempted to plop down crime-ridden tenements because they’re so much cheaper to buy and cheaper to maintain.

By: Pidesco

Pidesco — Fri, 30 May 2008 17:18:47 +0000

I had loads of fun with Caesar IV, even if it wasn’t a step forward.

By: jamscones

jamscones — Fri, 30 May 2008 08:54:34 +0000

Tilted Mill is made up of ex-Impressions staffers, and others AFAIK. They did the Caesar/Pharaoh/Zeus “walker” based City-Builder games, so they do have a lot of background in the genre.

But yes, Caesar IV was another disappointment, though it kinda had an excuse as they were contracted to deliver a Caesar sequel, not an original design. That doesn’t stop it from being a retrogressive step from CotN.

By: RichPowers

RichPowers — Fri, 30 May 2008 01:38:03 +0000

SCS and Caesar IV are rubbish. Twisted Mill has zero city builder cred as far as I’m concerned. Why it was handed the keys to two venerable city building franchises still perplexes me.

By: jamuel scones

jamuel scones — Thu, 29 May 2008 20:31:46 +0000

CotN is my favourite City Builder ever, but it does take a different approach to others by being largely people-driven as opposed to building-driven.

SCS was rubbish.

By: Lucky

Lucky — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:43:23 +0000

Maybe this will make me finally play my copy of it.

By: propanol

propanol — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:28:38 +0000

More of this, please. Publishers suck dicks. Especially if they’re called ‘EA’ – I’m still angry about their insistence on not letting Europeans get Mass Effect through their digital download service until the EU store date.

By: Pidesco

Pidesco — Thu, 29 May 2008 19:12:31 +0000

Ooh, I might get Sim City Societies now.

By: fluffy bunny

fluffy bunny — Thu, 29 May 2008 18:54:30 +0000

I tried hard to get into Children of the Nile, but I failed miserably. Still, I suppose this is good news and I’d certainly be interested in seeing what other things Tilted Mill comes up with on their own.

By: Rook

Rook — Thu, 29 May 2008 18:25:54 +0000

I’ve been told that Sim City Societies has been so heavily patched that it’s actually ok at the moment.