Yeah.. from the "state of the art" GlassBox engine.. due to the game's reliant of simulation on that engine as well as bad design/planning, the really breaks the game once you reach mid/end game.

My city for example has 350k population.. 4 large fire stations, 4 large police station etc.. but i still have problems with fire/crime and what not, due to the game maker's decision to use and rely on the GlassBox simulation.

There would be multiple fires going on, but all stations will send all available fire engines to only ONE fire at a time, as opposed to spreading out. Same goes with garbage and recycling collection. I have 3 fully maxed out garbage collection facility and 2 fully maxed out recycling centers, but instead of spreading out to collect rubbish and all, they move in herds like cows.. So obviously with a city of 300k people, it is never enough as they do not cover enough ground. Busses moves in herds as well.. so for example I have 2 Grade Schools and 2 High Schools, with maxed bus.. but since they move in herds, they only cover one area at a time.. even by the time school is over they still have not covered 20% of the city.. They just all move together and one by one will fill up and head to school.

Also, the city has only ONE highway connection in. You should see the traffic jam at the highway for mine. It extends ALL the way PAST the other city's entrance, that is how bad it is. The highway will merge from 3 lanes into ONE lane at the ramp. How not to have traffic jam, you tell me? I have two maxed out Municipal Bus stations as well as 3 passenger station, still not enough to help the traffic problem at the highway.

Let's go to power. Power in the game is distributed via GlassBox agent style as well, where you rely on the small little "power agents" traveling around the city's roads. So what does this mean? If you so happen to have your power plants at one corner of the map (so that pollution will only stay at one area), the buildings at the other end of the map will not have enough power. The agents will run out of power to give out and disappear before it even gets to that corner. All the power hungry industries and manufacturing plants in the center will eat it all up before power gets to the end of the map. Of course you can just solve that by having another plant there.

The list goes on.. The game is just broken.. the idea is good, but the engine is not up to scratch yet.. There is too much micro required, but then the game's interface is not designed for that kind of micro managing. I find myself pausing the game more often than ever to try and slowly manage every single aspect of the game.