SimCity™ 4 Deluxe Edition

its fun even in 2025

Frivolous, and based in misogyny....

[h3] 5.5 hours on Steam, 550+ on Windows XP [/h3] 23 years later, SimCity 4 remains the best citybuilder ever made. It’s outrageously detailed, loaded with humour, and runs (albeit badly) on every machine created this century. Seeing hundreds of little buildings being constructed at 3x speed, thanks to demand you created, feels like watching an oven bake 50 perfect souffles in mere seconds. It never gets old. SimCity’s ultimate challenge is transport. Anyone can build a moderately large city packed with cheap tenement buildings and a scattering of commercial and high-end industry. However, long commute times and car pollution will eventually grind your city to a halt, rendering your once-fancy apartment blocks empty. Diversifying Sims’ transport options is often a very complex solution, but the only real effective one to grow your city. SimCity 4 offers virtually every transport method from car, bus, train, ferry, air and, my favourite, the subway. By default, your citizens will drive to their destination (more on this later). This creates traffic jams, road accidents, limited job opportunities and immense pollution. Bus provides a low cost option for the masses, yet don’t fix the issue of congested roads. Trains are often the best option but require immense forward planning to lay down. Ferries are very situational as most sims won’t live directly next to the coast, no one [i] wants [/i] to live next to an airport. Subways are excellent in most regards, but can drain even the biggest city’s budget. SimCity 4’s main problem is that city residents are [i] addicted [/i] to their cars. At least, in the base game. You can build some excellent, cheap, accessible transport systems yet they’re only ever utilised as a last resort option. This means, after a vanilla install, your city will inevitably stall as even the best build roads will only be able to handle so much, and your sims won’t change their travel preferences on their own accord, choosing rather to become unemployed and descend into poverty. There is a solution: NAM. You’ve probably seen this mentioned, but it’s essentially the go-to SimCity 4 mod. Everything else is considered optional. NAM rewrites the AI to actually utilise the most effective transport options to them, making advanced, considered planning of your city actually beneficial. It doesn’t make the game easier, it just makes it work as intended. NAM also brings in a host of other transport additions, but these objects generally seem aimed at higher level players designing the most complex logistics. There is one other transport mechanic that I haven’t mentioned: highways. Honestly, I’ve always struggled to take advantage of these. They’re expensive, complex, and still come with all the drawbacks of road utilisation. The amount of highways objects feels like the world’s most in-depth Scalextric set, and it feels like 90% of them you’re unable to build unless placed in incredibly specific locations. I’ve never cracked them, but I imagine serious SimCity 4 players will be able to speak much more confidently to these. I’ve purchased SimCity 4 at least three times. Once on disk, alongside its expansion Rush Hour (included here). Once on EA/Origin, the only digital storefront offering SC4 for the longest period. And, most recently, on Steam. Every time I buy it, my life is temporarily consumed. I’m spending time with friends, yet all I’m thinking of is transport logistics. It feels like owning my own, burgeoning garden which I look back on with immense pride. SimCity 4 is, in my eyes, the best simulation game ever made.