Announcing Mayors United

Here's an idea: Get a group of SimCity 4 players together to work on a single region, one city at a time. Sound fun? Well, it's been tried and done plenty of times before: SimCityscape on the main SC4 website, The Region Game at SimPeg...and now here, at The Planning Pages. One might note that none of those games are around anymore...so why even bother trying it here? Simple: it's been a year since the last attempt, and it's been in demand for a while now. It might just be high time to give it another shot...and TPP's the place to do it.

This iteration of the game is known as "Mayors United." The finer detail of the game have yet to be worked out, but the general gist has been determined: mayors will cooperate to build a functioning region one city at a time (one mayor to a city, though mayors may have more than one city in the region). There will be at the most three simultaneous regions being played: each region will be pre-terraformed, and there will be a place to submit regions for possible future use. The mayors of a region will be able to communicate with each other and discuss certain aspects of their region: the theme (European, Middle Eastern, American, etc.), the type of city they hope to complete (rural farm, National Park, megalopolis, etc.), among other topics. Mayors will also be able to showcase parts of the cities they build, like a mini city-journal. There is a slight competition edge to Mayors United, as well. Each mayor building a city will have the option of putting their city up against the others in the region in a contest to see which city is the favorite of the region (mayors may refrain from doing this if they wish). There will also be recognition for the city with the highest monthly income, the most population for each zone, etc. (this happens for every single city in the region). This competitive aspect of the game is only a small part of the game; the true goal is to complete a region. If a region is completed, they will become available for download. So what will make Mayors United different from the rest? Well, there has been quite a bit of research done involving why past iterations of this familiar game have not lasted. With the help of vab423 of SimPeg, steps have been taken to help give Mayors United more longevity. Also, there has been a good deal of observation involving similar projects such as dedgren's Three Rivers Region and Need4Camero's interactive city journal, Blue Hope. By figuring out what makes these interactive SC4 projects so successful, steps may be taken to help TPP's game follow in their footsteps. Will Mayors United be successful? How many mayors will join together for a single cause? Will the spirit of SimCityscape live on once again? These questions have yet to be answered...but the staff at The Planning Pages have high hopes and big plans for their exclusive game.

Mayors United will be starting soon. For news on development: click here