I got to tinker with my dice game after drafting out technology charts, etc.

I think it looks promising.

It's resembling less of a dice game and it will probably end up using cards for helping to keep track of improvements and the like, but I'm getting ahead of myself.  I should probably explain a little about how it works.

The general gist of the game is to balance development with zoning and improvements to acquire the most Victory Points (VP).  It runs 10 turns*.  You start with one district which can have 3 slots filled with residential, commercial and industrial buildings.  Each district can hold three improvements as well.  Zoning can be light, medium and heavy.  As zones are filled, improvements with different requirements are laid down.  You can also pass ordinances which bestow special effects for the current turn at the cost of a VP at the end of the game.

Basically, there are nine dice - five white, three representing commercial, industrial and residential development and one red event die.  RCI is a number that starts at 7 and can vary from 9 to 3.  Each RCI value goes "up" 1 point if you build anything for that zone type and goes "down" 1 point if you don't build anything that turn.  All 9 are rolled and any white dice matching the number rolled on the red die are put to the side, including the fancy colored ones for RCI.  If an RCI die turns up like that, that type of zone can't be built up this turn.  Any other dice not locked by the event die may be rerolled.  The more event dice are locked, the worse things happen to your city, from corruption to catastrophe where buildings and whole districts can be wiped out.  A separate special demand ('S') is used for improvements and infrastructure and is always a value of 5.

Zones are built up after the roll.  If, for example, you roll a green '6' and have white '4', and the Residential demand is '5', you can build two blocks because 10 divided by 5 is two.  If the demand was '6', you could only build up 1 residential block.   The white dice that aren't locked can be applied to anything.   A double block could be built as one unit or split out into two blocks.  The bigger the unit, the higher the VP award at the end of the game.

City improvements are built in a special manner.  Each one usually requires at least one zone to be built.  From there,  the appropriate roll has to be in place to use enough "blocks" to build the improvement.  Improvements vary from letting you use multiple white dice for building zones to adding districts to earning VP for combinations of dice.  Each group of technologies is grouped by theme and have roughly the same compounding effects.

Finally, there are districts.  At the moment, a district usually has two and sometimes three zones with 1, 2 or 3 blocks per zone.  The player gets to roll two dice and may draw a district from the chart that matches either a single die roll (smaller districts) or the sum (a district with more slots).

Anyhow, at the end of the game, VP for improvements are tallied.  Single block structures are worth half a VP, double block structures are worth 1 VP and triple block structures are worth 3 VP.  VP for using ordinances and penalties along the way are totaled.  And there's your score.

So, after all that, how did it play?

Better than I thought it would.  Yes, rough edges, but I was expecting that.  It played hard.  It plays like a cross between Pocket Civ, Roll Through The Ages, and, in a weird way, Tetris.  Setting up the zones to place improvements would be delayed due to demand being pulled from the event die, VP would be drained, demand wouldn't be high enough and so on and so on.  The limit of three improvements per district made planning improvements and where to put them much more important than at first glance.  It took longer than I wanted (about an hour), but it went quickly.  My mind was spinning the whole time.  Just when things started coming together, my term as mayor ended.  Booooooo! 

I did feel like I was building something though which is the important thing.   I put together a string of power plants, built up a lot of industry and built an amusement park, shopping mall, highways, a college, private school, public school district and a wilderness preserve!  I also was convicted of corruption five times.  All told, it was worth 20 VP at the end of the game, most of it coming from the last turn with the shopping mall finally being built.  

In terms of luck versus perfect information, yes, there's a fair bit of luck, but ordinances can be used to beat back some particularly gruesome rolls.  There are multiple paths to win based on improvement categories that will need tested and balanced but for the most part work as I want to.  Most improvements are only for a VP or two until things start to roll later on.  The game plays tactically in terms of determining what to do in the short term, but the need to plan from district to zones to buildings to improvements - and the web of what's needed between them - is intricate.  I often had to change course due to forgetting a key part of a strategy to build a power plant if certain things just didn't roll the right way - which I liked.

This game probably won't be for everyone.  It is medium weight although the rules really aren't too terrible.  We'll see.  

At the moment, it is a pad and pencil game with charts, but I plan to switch the improvements and districts to cards.  I imagine I will do the districts as card drafting so that players can basically plan the type of city they want.  

But it is a very promising design and I'm glad I got to play it tonight.