SimCity 4 is one of my most played games of all time. Considering the times I spent on Origin, GOG, Steam, and on the disc, I would have spent over 10,000 hours. It is a game that is unspeakable in its profound experience and replayability. It has charm and character that modern city builders are missing and a level of incomparable depth and difficulty. It's older than some people on the planet (over 16 years old!), and it still holds up in graphics and systems. It's a game that is still better than Cities: Skylines and one of the last great EA games. How can I forget the soundtrack! It's amazing! Can't I forget that you can get it for dirt cheap?

It has a very active and passionate modding community (shout out to Simtropolis and SC4 Devotion). Mix in a couple of mods and fixes, such as Network Addon Mod (NAM) and CAM (Colossal Addon Mod), and you got something that is complex and very enjoyable to play. The only complaint is the game's age, it can be very choppy, and loading can take forever on modern systems. The game can be buggy, and you need to get fan-made fixes (such as crime does not pay and opera house fix). The game's camera angle, a fixed trimeric (not isometric!), can make things difficult to see when you have lots of high-density buildings.

The game has interconnected regions where you can mix urban and rural together, build small farming towns or build a large metropolis—the transportation systems in this game rock. Build complex highways via Real Highway (using NAM), and you can drive vehicles. God mode is an exciting idea before crafting your city. There are advisors to yell at you. There's goofy messaging, a Mayor Rating and even riots (although extremely rare).

Cities: Skylines is a good recommendation to anyone that wants to enter the City Building genre, but the game has many flaws too great to me to recommend the game. The great benefits are the mods, customisation, map sizes and active devs. That's it.

The game has a lot of DLC, some are alright, meh to dreadful (Green Cities and Industries is a good example of this); Snowfall and Mass Transit feels halve baked, the only worth it in Snowfall is the Trams. Do not buy the DLC at its full price. There is a lot of expensive content packs-these are also NOT worth it at ALL. Hell, I even preordered the game...

The game to me feels incredibly different from a SimCity game. When compared to SimCity 4 and SimCity (2013) respectively, the game feels very off to me; it feels very bland, soulless and boring. It lacks this 'charm' and character. The game feels like a 'city painter' than a 'city simulator'. The 'traffic simulation' and a basic government system doesn't do the job for me. No advisors to yell at you, the base game building and lighting are awful. You can always drag roads, zone residential but it gets boring, it lacks a challenge and the sensation to continue building the city.

Well yes, SimCity (2013) has broken simulation and game-breaking bugs, small city sizes... ...but it has character and charm that Maxis gave to it and it cannot challenge that. Time-to-time I come back to SimCIty (2013) and I still continue to play SimCity 4. Oh, music in SimCity is much superior. Staring at SimCity 4's statistical simulation is a bit boring but it's terrain tools and transit networks (with or without NAM) is superior. I feel like it's more fun. SimCity 4 is the only city building game to include a proper agricultural zone tool, better city and building growth and density. SimCity 4 is still king in my books, and I total think you should try it out even if it is over 15 years old. Oh, the modding community is still active!

Cities: Skylines does a lot of good and I hope that the sequel address zoning, government and other hard-coded features like the traffic 'feature' and my stated annoyances.