DRM, always on, online only saves...none of that stuff really bugs me.

My main question is can I successfully play this game without interacting with anyone? Can I control all cities in a region?

Yes, you can create a private region in any of the servers and claim all the cities for yourself. That's what I'm working on right now.

Yes you can, and you can completely lock regions so that no one else can join. Unless you can get it for a discount somewhere, I suggest waiting a few days before buying it as they are still having server issues and it might take a few days until it's fully resolved.

That being said, when you can get on it's pretty fun, and the different cities in the region have major differences in terrain and resources.

Despite all the rage, I'm enjoying the game. Would be nice if it reliably saved my cities though.

And yeah, a private region is totally doable.

Yes you can run an entire 16 city/4 great work region all by yourself. I don't have the same issue with that as Jeff does where you only care about one city and all the others are power/water/etc. whores. I find playing a whole region by yourself actually negates some of the small city size issues that people keep complaining about.

This is great!

Can you terraform on a grand scale like in Sim City 4?

@traveux: Here's where you are about to be let down. you can't terraform AT ALL. All maps are pre-made. Removing trees for zoning is about all you can do.

Yes you can, but you should wait another week or so before buying it. Maybe that'll be long enough to be able to play it.

Likelihood of bigger cities being modded in? Sold?

@renegadedoppelganger: Maxis came out and said they are open to larger zones in the future but nothing is certain.

Anyone who doesn't already own this game, should not buy it! No understatement, this game is broken right now. I've had problems every time I try to log on and there have been numerous bugs that have completely messed up my game. My region/city is current stuck on the West coast server with 20+ minutes wait times to even attempt a log in. Wait a few months, this initial raging will pass and people will abandon this game and it will drop to $30 in no time.

No. It doesn't work. Don't support broken games with broken DRM.