Local Trivia: Farmitron

Well, reader[s], P.C. recommended that I try out a new game this weekend -- or new to me, anyway: SimCity Societies.

Let's just say I now understand how a person could spend an entire year playing a game and then, in a panic, think "what?!? How did it get to be 2011?? I WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE A MASTER'S DEGREE BY NOW!"

The difference between this and the previous Sims games (which I've never played) seems to be that you can place buildings wherever you want and you don't have to care about the people. I focus almost entirely on buildings, placing education, commerce and venue buildings as close to the best housing as I can, and I tend to ignore the everyday Sims filling the streets and cars.

Anyway, I started out with "Wheeler's Ferry" (name generated by the Sims' AI), where everyone's happy all the time. My populace is ecstatic. I imagine them still running through metaphorical daisy-covered fields even now, as I focus all my efforts on keeping the people of Farmitron in line.

Farmitron was an effort to marry the two lifestyles that intrigue me most: rural and cyberpunk. Yes, it was probably doomed from the start. But there's a river running through the center of my map, and I thought that if agriculture and small-town life dominated the west, with bustling commerce, manufacturing, and education just across the river to the east, everyone could find what they were looking for.

I didn't expect the farming Sims to start going rogue and shutting down their workplaces -- orchards, communal farms and co-ops -- probably because they didn't have enough venues to enjoy. I suppose one could have predicted that two "general stores" wouldn't be enough for Sims who could see the cybertech skyline just across the covered bridge, but I figured if they wanted to live in "solar worker barracks," they'd just move to the city.

I made compromises, but mostly authoritative ones. I put up another asylum (which calls in workers who are playing hooky because they're mad); I put up a Ministry of Propaganda and a Ministry of Thought. I put in some state prisons and detention centers. Somehow, people didn't settle down. They're all trending "rogue" now, and shutting down multinational headquarters and skyscrapers downtown.

I wonder what these people want from me. They just seem to be rioting for the sake of it -- most rogues say they've just been out for a long time and are looking forward to going to a venue to relax, which isn't something I can make them do -- and I find myself trending increasingly Authoritative in dealing with the befuddling masses.

So in true liberal-arts-educated form, I'm going to improve all of their housing. I'm going to put up rural-living-appropriate venues in the farm parts of Farmitron.

And if they're not happy with that?

Meteor shower.