Cities: Skylines, SimCity, other city building games etc.

[SkylineObsession]

For the two people here that play them, perhaps we can use this topic to share experiences/pics/vids etc of our creations.

I finally caved late last year and got my brother to build me a PC with specs beyond the recommended for Cities: Skylines and even though there are still some framerate issues sometimes, so far it's paid off as this is one bloody good looking city building game - and much more realistic than the last ever SimCity game since your unlocked blocks to build in are all beside each other instead of being connected by motorways (the reason i never bought the last SimCity).

At the time of this post i haven't got screenshots handily available, but will work on that. Only have two cities at the mo too, neither of which has over 50k people i don't think. Still learning things as i go.

But so far this is the best city building game i've ever played, and i loved the crap out of SimCity 2, 3 and 4 (when i wasn't getting constant CTD's)...

[Rare White Ape]

Man the only game in this genre that has ever grabbed me is Sim City 2. I think it's the nostalgia at work here. I've put so many hours into it on and off over the years.

Unfortunately I think the subsequent Sim City games have been utter trash. So tell me, does Cities: Skylines carry the mantle that the Sim City games have neglected?

[SkylineObsession]

Okies. My first city, with unlimited cash mod enabled (which i found out about later, as my brother had turned it on after he set up my new PC and Steam, and created this save).
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/98351418453349849/902C11F4D02B01577AFB946CF999A9CE801EDA6C/

CBD beginnings including the main drag;
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/98351418453350524/BB00C15C5A983CF3A91150BC328BA8F090755B8D/

From above
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/98351418453350748/172A9DDCA6572F7A6776EF043949DCAFD84DC4F2/

[SkylineObsession]

New residential sections. The hills are hard to notice sometimes unless you angle the view this way, which is an awesome 'feature'
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/98351418453351126/A16884FE1D9E4B4617ED13D01AA93DF72737D08A/

This is how bad my pollution got until i (i think) replaced the wastewater pipes with waste/water treatment stations. Took a few ingame months for the polluted water to dissipate. Looking down on my industrial area in the forest. Was orginally near the commercial area, but as i unlocked more of the map i kept moving it further away, to where it is now
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/98351418453351270/2906E77D754F64F28A3AD0C0FFAA859AF88374D3/

City still getting bigger. That green patch is eventually going to be the main cbd/skyscraper area.
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/98351418453351438/A5C9A21CDCD1D3A09CEA6F8E91A6046C74D8BEBA/

[SkylineObsession]

Farming fire doesn't work - just stick to fireplaces
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/98351418453351569/E29F84FC21D0885FC8DCE50212F9E96E655F78F5/

And my last shot of that city for now, have moved onto my second one with no mods now i've gotten the hang of the game a bit more.
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/98351418453351724/C3CF4780D00EA09E20DC904E07B9D4B48F3FF25F/

Commercial and industrial (distance) in my new city
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/98351418453352005/475CF11A5332B5F4DFD9D65E2243A73900236195/

[SkylineObsession]

Love how you can zone specific regions in commercial (leisure etc) and industrial (farms, oil farming, ore extraction, forestry). This is one of my farms (now right in the middle of a residential zone - but had no complaints so far so is staying for the mo.
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/98351418453352276/5A366ACDD43D41B9D4789EB35ABA7F5F49A63462/

And my forestry zone, now a lot bigger and greener
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/98351418453352408/B883B59A09D30827AAB1E2B65312644B43E80660/

From another angle
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/98351418453352584/417A4B4E1E12ACD405243E2E71E2442101A12F96/

[SkylineObsession]

New fancy subdivision over the other side of an inlet, with curved streets
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/98351418453352862/15A4156BF6315934F65581149005194B7657CAB4/

My hydro-electric dam massively overflowing. I had a much bigger dam just past the bridge on the right, but because this river goes in two different directions from its source directly to the right (out of shot) it was pumping in more water to the dams than they could cope with, which meant my industrial area in the foreground got flooded before i could build flood walls. So bulldozed the big dam and the resulting waves somehow made this one overflow, so got rid of them both eventually. Water effects are still awesome though.
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/98351418453353038/24CA3ABC6B66851C270774D5438BD1B13C908127/

City as it is right now
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/98351418453441298/C2FFBB7C595DA252EA58D4C35E9B5D4A8315BCD6/

[SkylineObsession]

Last three shots for now

My first attempt at a wharf. Would be nice if the ground on the land side of it automatically went the same height, but oh well
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/98351418453441605/871584E40C302849053291C47EDAF43584F671A3/

Container ship docking to the out of shot wharf on the right. Haven't found a decent place for the cruise ship wharf yet
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/98351418453441845/B952671F9DEC9C81591ADD839F103CA7FABCDADD/

CBDish and residential view
http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/98351418453453729/FC5C99AE16ECFA159A0A00E37EDD3CA9CD77152C/

[SkylineObsession]

What is it that the SC games have neglected RWA? I know curved roads was one for a while, which this one does with ease (mostly up to you how curved you want it). You can also press page up when making roads to raise them above ground to pass over other roads/railways etc, or Page Down to make tunnels anywhere. I've bulldozed a lot of default motorway intersections and made my own with ease (there are preset ones, but they aren't always the best depending on available land etc).

Unlike SimCity, putting down RCI zones doesn't cost a thing, neither does de-zoning. Can only put them next to roads though, so roads come first.

Unlike SimCity it doesn't cost to use the bulldozer. And purchasable buildings (police station, cemetery, hospitals, parks etc) can be relocated (at a small cost) or bulldozed.

Depending on how soon you bulldoze something you've paid for (roads, pipes, buildings etc) you can get a partial refund on it/them. Handy if a road design isn't what you want it to be or didn't turn out how you wanted.

Any road can be up or down graded. Select the type of new road you want, press the upgrade icon and re-lay the new road on the old road. It'll make your single lane roads into six lane roads (some purchasable buildings may need to be moved, but it automatically demolishes any RCI buildings if needed), or vice versa. Or simply line the edges of your road with grass or trees. One of the best features about this game!

Management wise i think its similar to SimCity, but possibly has some different things too.

Features wise it has craploads more. You can make/build; all sorts of different design and size roads, hydro-electric dams (completely up to you as to the location/length/height etc), bus routes (like, actually plot the routes yourself, and put stops where you want - and you can have multiple routes), taxi stands, cruise ship wharfs, cycle paths, walking paths (sealed and gravel), canals (three depth options), flood walls and more.

Only things i've found troublesome at the moment is that you always need backup power lines to your residential etc areas (or you need a sharp eye/memory), as if the power gets lost your population of say 40,000, it will drop to a few hundred in a matter of seconds(?)/in game days and then after repairs you'll have to turn off costly buildings (another great feature) around the city and get your budget back into the green and wait for your residents to slowly return.

Happened to me twice (badly) so far, and nearly went bankrupt the first time. :s

[GreatScawt]

Very nice!! I own and enjoy Cities Skylines, but I just haven't put the time in. I always have issues with the early game and managing my utilities and loans.

[SkylineObsession]

Thanks. :)

Yeah it took a few attempts for me to keep it in the green. Haven't used any loans so far, you just have to follow the RCI demand (and tweet/Chirper requests) closely and do things only when they need done. After a while when you build up funds it makes it easier.

The great thing is it's easy to upgrade and relocate things, so don't worry too much about city design until you unlock more 'blocks'.

[drew]

That looks pretty effin cool.

Too bad you couldn't build a city, they drive/fly around it :)

[GreatScawt]

There's mods for that... I'm very certain. :up:

Thanks for the tips Skyline, much appreciated :D

[drew]

Nice. I may need to check this out. :up:

[GreatScawt]

Just to make sure I wasn't misleading you: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=406720673

There might be some other, better ones. Could have sworn I saw something about flying planes or following cars in third person.

[Jason]

I need to re-visit Skylines. I liked it quite a bit, then got away from it for some reason.

[21Kid]

I really like Skylines. I've started 3 different cities in it. I enjoy it a lot more after I got a new video card. It was really chugging before. But, now it runs smooth and looks great. The wastewater management always bothers me. I always seem to have brown sludge along the coast where I try to build beaches or something. :( And there aren't options open early enough to avoid it all-together. I should probably look to see if there's a mod that can help with that. I've added some of the cars, buildings, and intersections. But, have mostly stayed away from the ones that effect the main gameplay.

I don't think anyone plays SimCity anymore.

[Jason]

You want a water treatment plant, as well as pay careful attention to water flow when placing. I tend to play with the full grid/unlimited funds, so I end up placing them at a pretty far corner of the map :up:

[Kchrpm]

I tend to play with the full grid/unlimited funds

Is that just an option? I would play that mode for sure.

What are your options for sporting events/buildings?

[21Kid]

Yeah, I know. But, it takes forever to get them, and by that time, it's already a huge mess. And a few of my maps have had really slow moving water. There were no arrows at all for a few miles.

edit for Keith.
I think it's an option, or one of the mods at least. the full map one is a mod.
There are basketball courts, soccer stadiums, baseball, football, etc... that you can add. But, you can't pick a team name or anything. And they don't really show games being played or anything. :|

[Jason]

Is that just an option? I would play that mode for sure.

What are your options for sporting events/buildings?

One of the really nice things that C:S does is that it has built in mod support via Steam. Unlimited money is an option straight out of the box, and opening up the entire grid is a Steam supported mod.

As far as sporting events, I don't think there is anything like that. The game is very minimalist when it comes to personality, unlike the Sim City games. There's some special buildings built into the game, and a boat load of buildings in Steam's mod section.

[Kchrpm]

So...you can't build a racetrack outside the city?

[21Kid]

You could build one...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lv_Ho16TXHM

[Jason]

I've definitely seen race tracks built... but getting race cars to go around it is another issue entirely.

[SkylineObsession]

Shit. Wish i hadn't seen that... Busy enough making cities as it is. :/

[Kchrpm]

https://www.vg247.com/2017/01/20/cities-skylines-for-xbox-one-to-finally-be-shown-off-next-month/

I was just hoping it'd come to consoles, but questioning the possibility because of the videos I'd seen.

[Tom Servo]

I finally started playing this a couple of weeks ago, apparently I've owned it since 2015 :lol:

Took me 3-4 tries to get past the initial phases, I just kept screwing things up, especially not really understanding how to transition traffic off the highway and onto surface streets. I'm still not sure I totally get it, but whatever.

I'm around 40k people so far on my most successful city and have just started putting in cargo trains to move stuff around. There's so much stuff in this game, I feel like I'm barely scratching the surface so far.

Solar power plants make me happy.

[21Kid]

I keep picking it up from time to time. My problem is packing stuff in too densely that it is difficult to expand later on.

[GreatScawt]

Yeah, same, I keep coming back to it, and I'm stubbornly trying to push through the same shit city I started with and I'm plateauing around 2000 people. I need to restart fresh.

[Jason]

When/if I pick it up, I know I'm going to be concentrating on simply building a city and not really worrying about population... every time I try to chase numbers, I enjoy city building games less.

[Tom Servo]

That's where I'm at. I'm responding to demand when it's there, but knowing that essentially if there's no demand for residences, but there is some demand for industry and commercial, I'm basically at a break even point.

My biggest problem right now appears to be traffic. I started making access points a lot like this: https://www.google.com/maps/@33.8200017,-116.4100891,638m/data=!3m1!1e3

I get a lot of traffic backing up onto the highway, but making something more complicated feels unwieldy with the tools I have.

[Jason]

There's some good mods to help you get more control over roads and the what not, including forcing drivers to use all the available lanes instead of stacking up in one lane. Helpful if you dump them into various traffic circles. I've heard the latest DLC improves traffic a lot though, so I might pick that up even though I don't play much... just to at least show support for what they're doing (vs the SimCity folks)

[SkylineObsession]

I love the fact i can have my main city (eventually, once i've 'unlocked' expansion areas) and then a wee bit down the road i can have a successful small town, then another small rich person place overlooking the sea etc. I spend a lot of time going over established areas (or new areas) making them laid out interestingly and such.

[21Kid]

The new update really helps with road layouts. :up:

[Tom Servo]

Setup my first metro system and passenger rail station (that's basically entirely for tourists to come in and out of town). The Metro's getting a ton of use, but I wish that my cargo trains felt like they were relieving more of the truck traffic on the roads.

I also thought that if I had my main passenger rail station surrounded by various transport options (there's a metro stop across the street and multiple bus routes heading away from it to various other locales, especially tourist centers) that it'd be a great idea to put it right near the center of town where lots of tourist spots are, just like when we took the train right into central Stockholm. Then the first train came in and I don't know if I've ever seen a bigger traffic jam. Emergency vehicles stuck in gridlock as buildings burned down. Not a great plan.

[GreatScawt]

The new update really helps with road layouts. :up:

I may have to take a looksee again...

[21Kid]

Patch notes for Mass Transit expansion 1.7.0-f5 (https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/mass-transit-1-7-0-patch-notes.1022869/)


Free update for all players
Naming of roads
New road types
Added option to toggle road names on/off
Option to mark railway stations to accept or not accept intercity traffic
Ability set stop signs at intersections
Ability to toggle traffic lights for an intersection
Visual aids to road building
Multiplatform train station with metro station
End-of-line train station with metro station
Ferry + bus stop
Monorail + bus hub
Monorail + train + metro hub

[Jason]

Oh shit, toggling stop signs and street lights is huge.

[Tom Servo]

Interestingly, I don't have Mass Transit, I think that just went out to everyone, as I can toggle street lights and stop signs.

You can cause some serious chaos by turning off a few traffic lights.

[21Kid]

I don't have it either. The update is separate from Mass Transit. :)

[Rare White Ape]

My interest was piqued by a random YouTube video suggestion, and now I'm playing this game :)

First up I wanted to see if my old trick from Sim City 2000 held true, and it looks like it does:

Build the bare minimum required to have a population below 400 people and limit it to that. Next, be patient. Spend as little as possible in your budget for each service. Then as soon as your income overtakes your expenditure, leave the game alone. Literally just leave it running and make some m4d $krilla. As long as you don't go over 420 people, the game won't unlock the need for healthcare, waste disposal, or education. Your town can happily tick by indefinitely without any hassle.

Once that's sorted, make dinner or go off and do some other things while you gradually amass a fortune.

I used to be able to start a city in SC2000 right on the edge of the map with a few short roads, a power plant, some water pumps, and 24 squares of dense residential, 24 squares of dense commercial, and 24 squares of dense industrial. Once I set my ordinances and tax levels at about 10% I could make all the money (or barely more than enough to replace the plant every 40 years), and set the simulation speed to cheetah for a while. I'd look at it again in the year 3000 with billions in the bank and all the cool futuristic services unlocked :lol:

[SkylineObsession]

I've found even with a largeish city you can still pile in money after a while. Made heaps of money on a city to the point where i forgot i didn't have unlimited money turned on and just about spent it all. ;)

And i'm yet to try out a great way to dispose of wastewater i've seen clips of, by digging a large hole in a landlocked area and filling it with water then connecting the sewerage/wastewater to that.

[Alan P]

I started a new city again, with much better traffic flow and it's working out great so far. Far more use of one way 6 lane highways too.

With my old city I was bring in about 30k a month so it was easy to just fast forward for a few minutes and then build anything I wanted.

[SkylineObsession]

Member to press the print screen button and save yer city pics so you can upload em here. ;)

[21Kid]

I got a water treatment system that cuts out 80% of the sewage.

Don't forget to check out the mods. Some of them are absolute game changers, like the auto-bulldoze. The pre-made round-abouts and highway interchanges are a huge help too.

Another issue I have is with pedestrian traffic. I keep trying to build elevated cross walks. But, almost always the buildings are in the way. They take a lot of space. I usually end up bulldozing half a city block. :(

[Rare White Ape]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oje38lSrAOI

[SkylineObsession]

I have enough trouble making my cities look pretty as it is without placing things individually like that!

There are some insanely detailed city builds out there for this game, and even the developers are constantly impressed by what players are coming up with.

[shakes]

I really should just go on Steam and get a copy of Skylines. I'm still playing Simcity4, and playing it a lot. Its still a fun game and you can keep it fresh with all of mods and DLC.

[SkylineObsession]

I stopped playing SimCity 4 because i couldn't find a fix for the crash to desktop bug. Lost so much progress during city builds cos of that. :(

[Tom Servo]

This is one of the more impressive things I've seen on Cities: Skylines -

https://i.redd.it/11jiapfhm2m11.gif

https://www.reddit.com/r/CitiesSkylines/comments/9flyit/f1_car_crash_and_head_to_head_functional_overtake/

[Kchrpm]

The game is now available on Switch.

[Jason]

So tempted, but I'm a little wary of how it'll perform

[SkylineObsession]

Yeah, cos my PC got pretty well specced up to play this game, and it's still not grunty enough to have all settings to max. :/

Surely the console versions, Switch anyway, will be dumbed down in some way?

[Rare White Ape]

Nope. Full experience.

If anything, Switch with touch controls will require less dumbing down than joypad only systems.

[SkylineObsession]

Dayum. Maybe i shoulda held off a little longer instead of upgrading the PC.

[Rare White Ape]

I’ve got a pile of shame longer than my arm that suggests that buying a Switch is worth it for other reasons :)

[Jason]

I'm weak, so I picked it up. Seems to run smoothly so far, definitely lower resolution assets/textures, but frankly graphics isn't the point of the game imo. Seems to be mostly fully featured, though I already miss mods. Controls are really good actually :up:

[DelSolMan]

The Switch release reminded me that I bought this day 1 on Steam and haven't played it. Played it on the weekend and had lots of fun. Traffic management is really getting to be my bottleneck.

[Tom Servo]

Every time I start a new city I get all irritated at the initial road coming from the highway. I feel like there's no clean way to have that just feed into a city, so you end up with all sorts of weird shaped roads leading to some roundabout.

[SkylineObsession]

Same.

I prefer the (original) SimCity way, where you choose where to place the first road.