For those who are having issues with your game, you’ll be glad to know that Patch #3 has been released by EA. I’ve got the full list of bug fixes below:

With this update, we are adding performance improvements, a variety of user interface enhancements, and the UFO Attack!

New features:

In Strategic modes of play:

  • When you meet the criteria for an Achievement reward in any of the strategic modes of play, you are offered the opportunity to accept that award. Doing so will restrict you from winning any other achievement in that city (including the Jack of All Trades – if you’re looking to unlock the next difficulty level, save your one achievement for that).
  • Sims may get sick even when they haven’t visited a building that causes illness.
  • Workers who were late to work finish out their full workday, even if they have to stay late.
  • Increased event frequencies in all strategic modes.

In all modes of play:

  • Many building actions can now be set to automatically fire as soon as they are available. Building actions with this capability are marked with a yellow border; right-click them and they will activate whenever possible.
  • Additional messaging and tools to help you find and fight fires. Click the red button to center on a fire. Click the blue button to center on the nearest fire station.
  • A message has been added to notify you when you might wish to change settings to improve performance.
  • A new road placement method has been added that simplifies road drawing. Use it by building a “Rigid” road. The existing road placement method is still available as an “Adaptive” road.
  • A UFO Attack disaster has been added. (UFOs show up in your city and destroy buildings. Your citizens flee in terror.)
  • A filter for finding buildings by their role in the game (law enforcement, for instance) has been added. You can also create your own set in XML and add it to the filter.

Fixes and improvements:

  • Cities with large worker populations use an internal model to abstract a portion of the Sim population. This improves large cities performance and can be adjusted to your taste and machine.
  • Memory footprint reduced.
  • Fix for a problem with terrain level-of-detail on low settings that could lead to a crash.
  • Fix for an overwrite in memory pool allocation which could lead to a crash.
  • Fix for a situation where alerts wouldn’t disappear correctly if you clicked at just the right time.
  • Ice cream trucks will now work properly when the building spawning them is set back from the road 1-3 tiles.
  • Sims saved in a waiting state will now correctly still be waiting when the game is loaded.
  • Pathing through Wind Farms and Major Wind Farms is now allowed.
  • Items added by mods were sometimes not getting their names until the second run after they’re installed. That’s been fixed.
  • Music xml files are correctly additive to make adding new music to the game easier.

Also includes Game Updates #1 and #2

  • No need to install previous Game Updates; the improvements and content from Game Updates #1 and #2 are included in Game Update #3. Game Update #3 can be applied to the base game, or the game with either or both of the previous updates already applied.

You can download this patch from our SimCity Societies Patches Page or directly from the official site.