The goal of the game is to implement and improve the public transport system in various cities. This can be achieved by building lines for buses, trams, metro trains, waterbuses, buses, and helicopters.
It was released for Microsoft Windows in 2011. Paradox Interactive released the Mac version of Cities in Motion on May 20, 2011.[2] A port of Cities in Motion to Linux was announced by Paradox Interactive in 2013, with it eventually arriving via Steam on January 9, 2014.
The main objective of the game is to create a profitable transport network that provides residents access to places of work, leisure, shopping centers and residential areas in various cities. The player acts as the head of a company providing public transportation, building new transit networks and completing from city residents or the mayor. 4 European cities are available in the base game: Amsterdam, Berlin, Helsinki and Vienna, but other cities have been released with DLCs and more can be added with addons and the map editor.
Public transport lines in the game are closed loops of stops along which transit vehicles move. There are five types of transport in the game: bus, tram, metro, water bus and helicopter. Depending on the type of transit, structures required for the operation of the route differ. A bus route needs a few stops installed along an already built street, trams need rails and stops along them. Metro needs large stations connected with metro tracks. Water bus needs two water bus stops on water, and a helicopter needs two helipads.
Management in the game involves regulating the salaries of workers and setting fares. Increasing fares increases revenue from routes, but may reduce the number of potential passengers, who are divided in the game by social cliques. At the same time, as employee salaries increase, costs increase and the condition of vehicles improve.
There are two game modes available for the game: campaign and sandbox. The campaign mode consists of scenarios depicting historical stages of public transit development in various cities throughout the 20th century. In each scenario the player needs to complete all tasks provided by the city mayor or citizens. The player is given a certain amount of money, and can take out loans from different banks with different interest rates and earn money from the transit system. Loan payments are made monthly until the entire amount is returned to the bank. At the same time, the number of available loans is limited, so if the budget is spent inefficiently the player might go bankrupt. Sandbox mode is a free game mode; when starting the mode, the player can select the city, the starting year from 1920 to 2020 and the starting amount of money. In the sandbox mode, the player is not limited to completing scenario tasks and can build the city's transport network at the player's own discretion.
One of the game's lead designers Karoliina Korppoo has mentioned that the focus in Cities in Motion was on the citizens.[3] Citizens divide into 7 social clique groups, each with their own public transportation preferences and needs:
Cities in Motion has a built-in map editor that allows players to create their own city maps and edit existing ones. The editor is equipped with various tools that allows landscaping, placing trees, buildings, roads, etc. With the help of mods and addons it is possible to increase the number of available object models and expand the functionality of the editor.
A poll on the game's Facebook page made the city of Munich a free download for all users in addition to the expansion pack. During their Holiday Teaser, Paradox Interactive released a photo of the Statue of Liberty with the title Cities in Motion. U.S. Cities soon revealed in a press conference in January 2012.[17]
Overall, Cities in Motion received mostly favorable reviews from reviewers and players. The review aggregation website Metacritic displays the score of Cities in Motion at 72/100.[29] Reviews from players on the Steam platform are "mostly favorable". Among more than five hundred reviews left by users of the service, 75% are positive.[30]
Reviewers noted that the video game has quite good graphics and soundtrack, as well as interesting gameplay, which at the same time can become too repetitive. They also believe that despite the convenient interface, the video game lacks direct passenger-player communication to show why exactly passengers are dissatisfied with a particular route. The opinions of reviewers were divided in regards to the difficulty of the video game and its scenarios. According to some reviewers, the complexity is unduly overestimated, which leads to significant micromanagement, while for others it has become not an obstacle, but a kind of challenge. Some reviewers have noted that the game had very few playable cities in the base game.
"City maps are attractive but are lacking in atmosphere and are somewhat utilitarian, presumably to best show off the game's focus on roadways" noted Brett Todd in his review for GameSpot. In addition he has noted that the game completely lacks the day-night cycle, as well as any weather conditions. The clear and intuitive interface, as well as the complexity of game scenarios were in Todd's opinion the greatest achievements of Cities in Motion. At the same time, he emphasized the repetitiveness of the gameplay and the need for a more accurate description of passenger dissatisfaction, as well as some tips for the game: "For example, when people are mad along bus stops because of wait times, do you add more buses to the existing routes or lay down new routes?".[31]
However, beyond the progress in the development of each of the cities in the list, it is advisable to evaluate other factors that affect or have a direct negative impact on the daily activities of residents in those cities.
Among those factors that can be added to future studies, we can mention:
The infrastructure such as streets, electrification, potable water supply, sanitary system, environmental health, solid waste collection and wii-fi among others.
Traffic
Public transport efficiency
Inflation
Unemployment
Bureaucracy and corruption.
Street nomenclature, signage and Digital mapping
Information to the tourist
Acces to emergency room and security services
Schools and Universities
The report, IESE Cities in Motion Strategies, comes jointly from the Center for Globalization and Strategy and the Department of Strategy of the IESE Business School at the University of Navarra, Spain. It has examined 135 cities, 49 of them capital cities, from 55 countries using publicly available data for the years 2012 and 2013.
It examines cities through 10 what it calls "dimensions" or indicators: Governance, Urban Planning, Public Management, Technology, The Environment, International Outreach, Social Cohesion, Mobility and Transportation, Human Capital, and The Economy.
The University Department responsible for the report is primed to develop leaders of tomorrow; nothing wrong with that, and, rightly, it stresses the importance of networking. Unsurprisingly, this is a feature of its model for cities, but the perspective of the Department is responsible for creating confusion in the criteria for evaluating the cities.
When talking of the benefit of networking for cities, for example, its introduction says, in support, only: "As already indicated in a report by the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) in 2001, a network focus ensures that local policies revolve around the people."
Firstly, to quote the pro-globalisation OECD, of all organisations, in support of this argument is a giveaway, secondly to rely on a text - whose claim is unsupported by evidence - 13 years old is odd to say the least, but thirdly, and most importantly, a network focus does not ensure necessarily that local policies revolve around people. It depends entirely upon the efforts made to be inclusive.
So what criteria is are included under "the environment"? They are listed as: "fighting pollution, supporting green buildings and alternative energies, efficient management of water, and policies which help counteract the effects of climate change". No mention of Waste minimisation, resource management, closed loop economy, etc. The indicators given for this "dimensions" are confined to:
This cannot be correct. Switzerland is a banking centre, extremely wealthy, and many studies correlate poverty with low environmental impact. The impact of these cities' citizens' activities upon the environment spreads far beyond their boundaries and these impacts escape being quantified under the chosen indicators, such as their waste, carbon impact and impact on social equity of all the imports into the cities from abroad.
It is clear that it is the weighting given to each of the 10 "dimensions" which is principally the cause of this variance. There is a strong emphasis on governance, public management, international outreach, human capital and the economy. These topics, while important, do not normally figure in similar studies quite so strongly.
The authors admit that there are some problems with the methodology, and that the winner, Tokyo, for example lags far behind in social cohesion, blaming this on the Fukushima earthquake. London, it judges, also lags behind on public management and social cohesion.
Both cities are financial capitals, responsible for all sorts of unsustainable financial activities. Tokyo was last year awarded a prize for excellence in urban sustainability by the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group and Siemens, under the Finance and Economic Development category. This was for launching Asia's first cap and trade program for carbon emissions in April 2010 which required large commercial and industrial buildings to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
It is a place for answers, analysis and inspiration about the intense and evolving relationship between cities, transport and, essentially, our lives as citizens and mobility actors. Published in a yearly format, each issue features a range of news, exciting policies and best practices to help cities keep innovating. Plus, we get to hear from the leaders of our network and our field in exclusive interviews as they reflect on their work and look forward to the future.
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