Cities : Skylines

[Mazisky]

I am waiting for citybuilder that will actually put game into genre again.

While cities skylines is terrific sandbox game and looks really well and has interesting aspect of it (transport management) i doesn't provide you game. You almost can't lose, nothing never goes south, there is very little accountability for mistakes and your careful planning doesn't matter.

And it is problem not exclusive to CS, Simcity2013, SimCity4/3 also had this problem but to lesser extend.

I think what i look from games is context. By doing essentially creative mode you don't have that context and you essentially paint instead of playing a game where you struggle.

Happiness and fulfillment from game at least for me in this genre comes from struggle of solving problems in order to grow such city/village. If city building was such easy task like in games will all would live in cities with perfect roads, canalization, all green no industrial cities which is obviously not the case.

I hate for example that dirty industries almost always are seen as starting industries. There is a level to degree of complexity of dirty business. I might agree that some sweatshirt manufacture could be reasonable starting business but something like chain of petrochemical plants are something whole cities are build around instead of them being build around cities.

I am yet to see such game in genre. There is banished which tries to some degree tackle that problem but at much smaller scenario and Dwarf Fortress but aside from that there isn't really anything.

What about making a single player campaign within the game with characters, stories and events a la Dungeon Keeper? I've never seen that in a city builder if i am am not wrong.

 

[Perkel]

I would rather see problem solving companies for this genre.

For example you get city which has fucked up budget and you can't really remove hospitals etc because people would throw tantrum. Or city that is placed on hills with very little space to build.

Good example of such thing was Roller Coaster Tycoon 1 campaign though it was much more about achieving growth rather than solve problem.

 

[thesheeep]

I am waiting for citybuilder that will actually put game into genre again.

While cities skylines is terrific sandbox game and looks really well and has interesting aspect of it (transport management) i doesn't provide you game. You almost can't lose, nothing never goes south, there is very little accountability for mistakes and your careful planning doesn't matter.

And it is problem not exclusive to CS, Simcity2013, SimCity4/3 also had this problem but to lesser extend.

I think what i look from games is context. By doing essentially creative mode you don't have that context and you essentially paint instead of playing a game where you struggle.

Happiness and fulfillment from game at least for me in this genre comes from struggle of solving problems in order to grow such city/village. If city building was such easy task like in games will all would live in cities with perfect roads, canalization, all green no industrial cities which is obviously not the case.

I hate for example that dirty industries almost always are seen as starting industries. There is a level to degree of complexity of dirty business. I might agree that some sweatshirt manufacture could be reasonable starting business but something like chain of petrochemical plants are something whole cities are build around instead of them being build around cities.

I am yet to see such game in genre. There is banished which tries to some degree tackle that problem but at much smaller scenario and Dwarf Fortress but aside from that there isn't really anything.

What about making a single player campaign within the game with characters, stories and events a la Dungeon Keeper? I've never seen that in a city builder if i am am not wrong.

Anno has that. All its entries, if I am not mistaken.
Each campaign level (or almost each) has some kind of situation to be solved.

The question is how many people actually want that from a game like Cities Skylines. I also usually get bored some time into a "session" because the game doesn't really give me any specific targets, challenges or goals - but I have no idea how many others feel that way.

 

[ortucis]

The only thing that defeats me in Skylines is.. water.

That's right. It's THE most annoying fucking thing ever in the whole game. Suddenly sewer water starts mixing up with regular, despite the stream going downhill and pipe being miles apart from water intake, cause the water intake sucks in whole river like a vacuum and the river dries up, somehow pushing sewer water upstream. Derp.

I got so bored and annoyed dealing with water stream, I just stopped playing.

 

[Turjan]

The vanilla solution to this would be to use water towers. No mixing possible. With mods, you have countless different ways to solve this issue, either on the source or on the wastewater side. In my current "vanilla" city (as in "will load without workshop or mods"), I used a mod to place a water source (a misnomer, as it basically tries to clamp water levels to a certain value) in a valley on one of the vanilla maps and unceremoniously dump all waste water into it:

But that's just one of many possible solutions.

 

[LESS T_T]

Paradox is doing a survey about a city builder game: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...ur-future-in-our-new-gameplay-survey.1119889/

It is once again time for us to turn to you, our community for guidance in paving our path for the future! This survey will be used to decide the fate of games and game content to come! We're endlessly greatful to anyone taking the time to fill it in and promise to use it to bring you all the best games that we can!

Click here to go to the survey

2. Please select the games that you have played 10 or more hours of

The Last of Us
Tropico 5
Into The Breach
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Prison Architect
What Remains of Edith Finch
Surviving Mars
Dark Souls 3
God of War (2018)
Fallout Shelter
Anno 1404
Factorio
BattleTech
Banished
Frostpunk
Europa Universalis 4
Cities: Skylines
Hearts of Iron 4
Stellaris
Crusader Kings 2


*3. Please rate how much you think you would enjoy the following settings in a city-builder game

Post-apocalyptic
Modern day
Sci-fi planet
Cyberpunk
Historical Rome
Future Earth
Steampunk
Fantasy

4. How important is the theme of a city-builder game to you?


5. How important are the following for you to enjoy a city-builder game?

Being able to use the game to relax
Growing a city as large as possible
Building my city creatively
Trying to reach goals the game has set for me
Having to make tough decisions
Building an efficient city
Performing management tasks (e.g. keeping population happy, gathering resources)
The game is visually appealing
Setting and completing personal goals
The game has an appealing atmosphere

 

[Night Goat]

Bros we've been playing this game wrong.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

Interesting concept, faggy voice.

 

[Drax]

The Never-Ending DLC roadmap. Now: Industries!

INTRODUCTION
A Well Managed Industry
In Cities: Skylines, Industry becomes a larger and more meaningful part of the game. Players can customize their industrial areas with supply chains for the four different resource types and unique factories. Well managed industry areas will level up and become more efficient.



Synthetic Dawn Radio:
Get in the groove with some stellar tunes from Synthetic Dawn, the most far-out radio station in Cities: Skylines for sure, dude. The channel consists of 16 songs divided into four sub-genres ranging from 80’s Electro to Futuristic Synths.
MAIN FEATURES
-> Make It Happen: Follow your products from harvesting to processing, storage and production, then transport them to commercial zones or export to other cities.

-> Captain Your Own Industry: Define an area with the industry area tool and place highly specialized industrial buildings to build and manage the production chain from raw material extraction up to final end product. Industry Areas are divided into four types based on the natural resource they are processing: Farming, Forest, Ore and Oil. These areas can level up upon reaching productions goals and staffing requirements.

-> Build it up, Buttercup : New industrial buildings include Extractors, Warehouse Facilities, Processing and Auxiliary Buildings, Industrial Props and Roads. Unique Factories, such as Food, Toy, Furniture, Car and Electronics produce luxury products, and require a large quantity of workers, water and electricity as well as input from your industries.

-> Ship Ip: Manage traffic and logistics with industry warehouses and the use of the new Cargo Services including a cargo airport.

-> Go Postal: Boost your citizens’ well-being with mail delivery and collection services. Post sorting facilities handle mail between outside connections and the post offices, and new Post Van and Truck vehicles enable the carriage.

-> Wonk Hard: Three new Industry Policies and four City-wide Policies, including Workers’ Union, Sorting, Tolls, Wi-Fi, Logistics, Work Safety and Automation.

-> Five New Maps: Rich in natural resources, transportation options and industrial opportunities, these new maps have all the right stuff.

-> Four New Hats for Chirper!

https://www.paradoxplaza.com/cities...nt=post&utm_campaign=indu_cs_20181011_pla_ann

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

was about time.
too late for me, but perhaps there're still many people playing and enjoying it so to them an industries overhaul is going to be big.

on a side note, more than this i miss in the city builders the possibility to make small but self sufficient towns, which even don't look like ass.

 

[Turjan]

The toll booths are part of the free update by the way.

 

[Turjan]

They publish a dev diary plus a bite-sized tutorial video every day, usually in the hour after 3 pm CET.









The dev diaries have additional info. The system is very similar to the Parklife parks, just with production chains.

 

[Alienman]

Wtf... you plop it down? Not growing up industries anymore?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

one step forward, two steps back =_= growers, not showers, is what makes city builders feel alive.

 

[Turjan]

Wtf... you plop it down? Not growing up industries anymore?

The part that's already in the game doesn't change. You can also get the raw materials from the standard grown special industries or buy imports (it would be interesting whether you have to pay for stuff from the zoned industry, like you do for imports). If you want to have fields that are 8x16 a piece, you have to plop them. The "generic" industry part is more or less unchanged, anyway.

The economics are somewhat different. This is basically "state sector". You build the stuff, don't get taxes, incur expenses. You try to make money from the end products. In other words, you manage your little state-owned companies.

 

[Turjan]

The last two videos:





The policies seem boring, and the less said about the maps the better. That's more or less a given though.

Let's hope those warehouses provide some buffers against those "not enough raw materials" situations.

Regarding the postal service, I like how he says "it's time to clog up the roads again..." Yeah. Probably lots of traffic for a happiness increase most cities don't need.

I once tried what you have to do to get the "Unpopular Mayor" achievement, because that one eluded me. You basically have to zone houses at the start of the game and not build any fire station, sewage outlets or anything else to get this. Once pretty much all houses have been wrecked by disease, fires and criminals, the achievement finally kicks in. It says all about the difficulty of the game that some of the hardest achievements are those where you really have to be inventive to fail at the game. I think the cake takes the one to unlock the court building, which needs you to keep up a certain crime rate over two years, which is rather difficult. You certainly don't play this game because of the challenge. Most people who fail, fail at traffic management. Of course, there's Natural Disasters, but those err on the "nearly impossible to survive" side of things.

 

[Turjan]

Finally, the Biffa video. He's usually concise and to the point, so a good opportunity to get an overview.

 

[Turjan]

The LGR review:



Also the last "tutorial" about the free stuff that's added:

 

[Mark.L.Joy]

Anyone enjoyed this? Messing around with industrial areas and supply lines reminded me a bit of factorio, it makes me wait enough time that the rest of the city can grow without me getting bored maybe I'll finally mess with public transport.

 

[Mazisky]

After skipping this game for years finally i decided to invest time in it.

I am more of a sandbox builder than a manager in those games so i am having a lot of fun! the only thing that bother me is the engine.

I have a pretty powerful rig but this game runs quiet badly, looking on internet i've seen this is a common complain because of the Unity engine. I wonder, can this engine be upgraded or optimized somehow or we need to wait the sequel with another engine or tech?

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

abandon all hope, it can't be done. unity is 2000's flash, it's a plagye we'll not get rid anytime soon.

 

[Thane Solus]

its not unity, never was... it seems the latest DLC puts some pressure on some systems. Cities Skyline was one of the first big games on Unity (when this engine was mediocre), and was running flawlessly. Stop being ignotards. Unity is not the next coming of Carmarck, but is not a bad engine either, is just bad programmers or rushed development + (in some cases) bad mods and retardo users.

its gets all this shit, because assets flips and bad programmers, but now is actually on par with Unreal in some cases and has better tools overall.

Also when you make it Paradox garbage like this: https://www.paradoxplaza.com/games/?prefn1=pdx-brand&prefv1=Cities: Skylines , there is a chance that you wont optimize everything cause: DLCs cause cash grab! 15 DLCs

Disgusting company.

 

[Mazisky]

its not unity, never was... it seems the latest DLC puts some pressure on some systems. Cities Skyline was one of the first big games on Unity (when this engine was mediocre), and was running flawlessly. Stop being ignotards. Unity is not the next coming of Carmarck, but is not a bad engine either, is just bad programmers or rushed development + (in some cases) bad mods and retardo users.

its gets all this shit, because assets flips and bad programmers, but now is actually on par with Unreal in some cases and has better tools overall.

Also when you make it Paradox garbage like this: https://www.paradoxplaza.com/games/?prefn1=pdx-brand&prefv1=Cities: Skylines , there is a chance that you wont optimize everything cause: DLCs cause cash grab! 15 DLCs

Disgusting company.

I don't get the point: if they optimize they will even sell more DLCS, i mean, refusing to optimize is not increasing sales. it would be a win-win for them if they optimize more. Am i missing something? im not an economist

 

[Perkel]

What the hell you people talk about ? Have you seen any game handing huge cities really well ?
Skylines problem is in CPU and it is very optimized to point where you can actually run 100k pop simulation with mods.

 

[Mazisky]

I am 100 hours in now. I'm having lot of fun, i am only at 18 k pop yet i feel like i've made a huge city. I can't imagine reaching >50k without having an headache lol, expecially for traffic.

Since im a fag and there aren't other games like this around, i've bought all but 2 DLCs and i think it was worth it, the last 2 expecially (seems like they improved over time). EA has the same business model with the Sims but its DLCs costs 3 times more and content-wise they are similar.

Side note, a year ago, on this thread, i've criticized the game for being worse than Simcity 5 in art and look of cities, assets, etc. (i like Simcity visuals a lot)

Well, maybe vanilla, but with just a couple of mods (ambient occlusion improves the look a lot) and Dlc this game looks amazing and i have to admict better than Simcity.

I hope they will do Cities 2 and not some Egypt\Rome\Greek spinoff as Paradox last survey would suggest. Modern day is the best for a city buider (altought i'd like medieval or renaissance)