Cities In Motion Gameplay
Amatista Sheeley
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]
A gameplay guide and strategic walkthrough to the original Cities in Motion, a game developed by Colossal Order and released by Paradox Interactive in 2011. This guide is for the base Windows game with no DLC. Strategies should be applicable more widely.
The most basic principle of efficient network design in Cities in Motion is hub and spoke: Use short bus routes to feed local tram routes, and then use those tram routes to feed cross-city metro routes. This keeps each mode operating efficiently, and critically maximises revenue, since passengers pay for each mode used separately.
Beginner Tip: Any network that attempts to move passengers from door-to-door without interchange will tend not to generate sufficient revenue because each journey is only charged once. Cities in Motion invites the player to mimic common principles in continental European public transport network design, and does not respond well to anything else.
Bus routes should be used to achieve full local coverage of houses and minor employers, especially on the edge of cities. They should not be used to connect popular destinations together, and should not be used in the most densely built-up areas of cities. Trams should not be relied upon for cross-city travel.
When designing the network, try to keep major interchanges within the radius of important destinations. This will tend to focus journeys to popular destinations on the modes most able to deal with larger volumes of passengers. Metro (to-tram) stations should ideally service shopping centres, colleges, hospitals, stadia, or large railway and airport termini. Tram-to-bus interchanges should try to identify local hubs, such as clusters of offices, or a local grocery store or cinema.
Beginner Tip: When starting a new map, pause and get a sense for where the main interchange hubs should be. Conceptualise at least a future metro network to link those hubs, even if only a very small part of that network is initially constructed.
Cities in Motion features no public transport competitors, and your reputation is based only on the services you actually provide, so there is no need to initially try and serve the entire city. It is entirely plausible to operate locally. However, without providing a network that invites interchange, revenue potential is low.
So the initial aim when developing a new city map should be a sufficiently large network to promote lucrative bus-tram-metro-tram-bus journeys. Such a network may be as simple as one pair of metro stations, with a couple of tram lines at either end, each linking to a couple of highly local bus routes. Initially focus on areas with high population density (look for tenements) and popular destinations (especially shopping centres, colleges and railway termini).
Beginner Tip: Although metro-only routes can be profitable, especially if they link popular destinations in densely built-up cities, a more limited network that promotes interchange onto metro is generally even more profitable.
Scenario objectives that involve building expensive metro lines need to balance the cost of any diversion against the reward. Prior awareness of upcoming objectives is (unfortunately) very helpful in strategic planning.
Metros can be constructed at 3 different levels below the surface, as indicated by the 1/2/3 icon that appears next to the construction toolbar. To have a metro track change level, build at the initial level, select the icon for the next level, then click on the built track and drag sufficient distance for a ramp to appear that changes level. Transitions to the surface require a similar dragging of track between level 1 and an underground-to-overground section (confusingly, underground-to-overground sections do not drop as low as level 1).
Deeper metro tracks are slightly more expensive to construct. Shallow rivers can only be crossed by metro tracks at level 2 and 3. Deep rivers and seas require level 3. Otherwise different metro track depths allow lines to cross without conflict between trains. That is useful in densely trafficked networks, for example where more than one route through the city centre is required to provide sufficient capacity.
Early century trams are short, relatively slow, and may have little road traffic to deal with, so can appear to suit a similarly simple line design to buses. However later articulated trams are far longer and faster, so particularly benefit from long sections of traffic-free running with wide turning circles and station stops that have no junction conflicts on either side: Fluid tram stop design becomes far more important with later eras, to ensure articulated trams can get in and out of stations without delay, and thus make the most of their high top speeds between stops.
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