SimCity 4 Review (Deploy The Boi)
This game hasn't aged well in certain aspects but has aged gracefully overall. Be warned that is virtually unplayable right "out of the box", but mods to fix it are cheap and abundant. It's still a reference for the city builder genre and I've played it for over 20 years and still learn new things about it. The entry level for SimCity 4 is extremely easy - anyone can get a city that functions, but the depths of gameplay are what makes people keep coming to it.
BUGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT:
-Traffic is bugged, get the Network Addon Mod - I can't stress this enough. It fixes the issues with traffic and expands mass transit/infrastructure options (bullet trains, pedestrian roads, trams, ground light rail, elevated roads and rails, underpasses, realistic highways, etc...)
-The opera house reward building has a hidden "capacity" stat based on how many people go to watch the opera. If it gets full the opera starts to drain the education level of the entire city (somehow if the opera is sold out people gradually become morons). This is only going to be a problem for very large and wealthy cities and you can just not build the opera house but there's a mod to fix the bug too.
-High-tech industry (I-HT) has a bug where it won't actually employ $$$ Sims due to how the job stats are calculated in-game. There's also a mod to fix that, but ultimately your only realistic late-game options to provide jobs for $$$ Sims in a large cities will be CO$$$ (luxury offices).
-The seaports are bugged and won't actually help industry as much as they should. There are several mods to fix this (industry thrives depending on how much stuff it can "export" outside the city. This can be done just by trucks but those trucks clog up roads. Freight trains clog up railways but leave roads relatively free).
-A lot of large lots like the country club, airports, county fair, army base, etc... have a bug due to how crime is calculated where the game thinks they're crime hubs. Technically there isn't any more crime there but the security advisor will keep annoying you about building police stations in the vicinity, but even if you surround the building with max-funded deluxe police stations the crime won't go down. It's mostly an annoyance but there's mods to fix that too.
-The carpool commute ordinance is bugged and doesn't do anything (I don't know if there's a mod about it though).