I've been indulging in some deep geek with this over the past week.

Anyone else on this?

still burning my way through sim city 4, societies is a peice of shit.

The amount of custom content for SC4 is astounding, but it's definitely been usurped now.

Cities Xl looks apealing in terms of the depth and lengths they have gone to, may have to check it out soon. It nice how its not become redundant in terms of real issues such as economics and growth. whats what bugged me about societies as they dropped the "Maxis" department for developement and really dumbed down what building regions is all about.

It's not quite as intricate as SC4, but it's a lot more useable. The trade function for the online makes it a lot more realistic. Looks gorgeous in high graphics mode as well.