Alright Boyz, Here We Go! Cities:Skylines Impressions
 

I have a feeling this one's gonna deserve it's own thread.

Only got a couple hours in last night, and restarted about 850 times. But I have good vibes thus far.

A better SimCity?

With the caveat that I did not purchase SC5, for many obvious reasons, and with the other caveat that I haven't gotten very far...this appears to be a very legitimate successor to SC4.

Pretty excited about this... would love to hear some details from anyone that is giving it a try.

Giving it time for people to weed out any broken mechanics, but my hopes are slowly rising.

FYI, Green Man Games has this for ~$22 in their VIP section (only need to have an account with them).

Cities: Skylines: The Kotaku Review

Kotaku review up

I've been following it all over the place and recommend the "Let's Play" videos on YouTube from both Quill18 and Skye Storme.

The word so far seems to be that it takes the stuff we liked from SC2013, didn't do the stuff everyone hated, and also added in more stuff, for a pretty competent and fun city-builder. But traffic is currently kinda fucked, although they're working on it (which is more than we can say EA/Maxis ever did).

Well that did it, taking the plunge...

Spent a good 5 hours on this last night. Traffic can be a little screwy but I sorta blamed my rookie city building skills. Only complaints I have so far are the lack of non-flat terrain (might be the map - I've only tried one), although I can't say that, realism aside, I enjoyed dealing with it in Sim City 4. Looking forward to starting a new town now that I know a little more.

Damn quill18 and his lets play videos - downloading now!

I bit as well. Having fun working on my first city.

Loving this so far. I just witnessed something close to an apocalypse. I was on the highest speed, zoomed in up close on something, and was working on something on my other screen. Went back to game about 10 minutes later thinking I'd just have a shit-ton of money.

Nope. It looks like sickness actually spreads in this game. I had one little area that had no hospital coverage and pretty piss poor traffic. I think bodies were taking too long to get picked up, people got sick, and the sickness spread. By the time I looked at the game, my entire city was sick, I was losing $20K a week, and my population was dwindling.

Love it!

Taking the plunge

How big is the download? I'm stuck in a hotel tonight and wondering if I should go for it with the shitty Wifi, or wait until I get home.

Not that bad, though I dont remember at the moment.

It wouldnt let me save the game. Anyone know why?

Less than 2GB. Not a horrible one.

And of course...started a new city, actually like how this one is coming along. And of COURSE my power plant burns to the ground, because it was placed such that my firetrucks couldn't get to it.

This is a really fun game. I also think there are going to be some great mods that enhance this game. Highly recommend it.

One thing that has bugged me is "cleanly" connecting my towns up to highways. Going to watch some vids and see how others are doing it.

I agree there, I miss SC4's relatively simple overpasses and building T intersections into existing highways.

Yeah, on the plus side, I expect modders to have every type of overpass and connector ever thought of available on the Steam workshop before long.

Yeah, the modders are already working in that regard (and I agree - the present tools just make connecting highways butt ugly).

I'd like to see them smooth out the zones on diagonals/curves a little better, too.

The bane of my Cities existence right now! Gah im so horrible at it.

Did this work for anybody? I just tried and it said I can't use the voucher for this game.

I got it, nevermind. I thought you had to use the 20% voucher code. Purchasing now.

Absolutely itching to purchase this.

I miss SC3K.

I almost never buy new release games, but I caved and bought it today. Set up the download during lunch so it'd be all ready tonight. Got some stuff done, sat down to play and...it won't launch.

it turns out, it requires a 64-bit OS. I do not have a 64-bit OS. I actually did look at the required specs for this one and didn't even notice that part, as I'd never come across another game that required 64.

my bad, but still a bit frustrating

That actually happened to me too. I ended up just using it as e motivation to upgrade my 7 year old computer finally though. My new one arrived but of course I am out of town this weekend so will have to wait til next week to check it out

yeah, I am hoping to upgrade this year. It's due - I think mine's about the same age. But it held up okay - this is literally the first game that physically would not run on this old box

2 hours into it (and one restart) - its definitely better than SC4 and the CXLs. I haven't gotten the hang of free form roads yet, so both my cities look a little boxy.

Gotta get my head around districts, too. Seems like a cool aspect that wasn't in the other city builders I have played.

Not sure what the issue with traffic is, but I am not far enough into a city to where it would be impacting me if its still an issue.

Surprisingly it seems to run decent even though I am well below recommended on the graphics card spec (GT460M).

Good thing the wife is going out of town for a couple of weeks - gonna be burning a few hours on this puppy.

I am having all sorts of problems running this game (well) with a Nvidia GT750M.. I am going to sell this rig and upgrade I am nearly certain.

I have NVIDIA GT 750M on my laptop and the game runs just fine.

Yeah, I can't buy it yet as I have to upgrade my 2008 iMac to do so. :o

Check and make sure the game is running with your GT750M and not with your integrated graphics. I am not aware of any way to tell while you are in game. The game defaulted to my integrated card and it was horrible/choppy/laggy. Went into the folder and found the .exe for the game and right clicked and selected my 780M to run it instead and it is smooooooooth....

Over half the games on my laptop with a Nvidia card(forget specific model) only work when running in Windowed mode, not full screen. It's annoying, but something worth trying.

Sounds like something I could pick up, if I had not just bought Rogue.

The biggest criticism I had with SimCity 4 was the predictable pattern of building each city/region - all very regular, symmetrical and patterned. Does Skylines offer a better organic city layout and growth or does one still put down a regular grid pattern at the start?

Using a GTX 570m and it runs at a solid 60fps with everything maxed.

aaaand after 30 hours of the game so far, I can soundly say this is and will continue to be the best city builder ive ever played. Completely engrossing. Can't wait for some of the bugs to be worked out and all the incredible mods to come.

This game exemplifies how bad EA is. It does everything right that SC got wrong.

As much as I love SC 4 I don't think I'll be playing it again. Skylines is excellent so far. :)

Spent a good 6 hours (maybe more?) playing yesterday. I played a good amount of SC4 but I was never particularly good at it - I could make a profit with my city, but I never really felt like I was doing more than laying out a grid.

C:S felt a bit like that at first too, I have to admit. I picked the beachy map (name escapes me), and started plotting out my nice little low residential/commercial city near the water, with an industrial area to the north off the highway. After quite a few hours I had upgraded all the streets to be nice and pretty with trees running alongside, and built public transport etc. etc. It was a nice little upmarket town.

Then I get access to the high residential/commercial zones, and build my Manhattan-esque skyscraper zone. But there's a problem. My industry zone is dying. Buildings are abandoned as quickly as they are built. There is a lack of workers, and those that are working are over educated. I build offices to try and keep the educated workers happy, but to populate the industry zones I do something I've honestly never set out to do in SC4 - I buy land to the north and build a 'blue-collar' town.

Still waiting to see if this achieves what I hope it does, but I'm having a ton of fun either way making decisions like this.

You did the exact right move. It'll take a little time to build that blue collar industry back up, even to the point you might even consider moving all those jobs closer to your new trailer park :)

Im at an intervention level of addiction to this game. Going on 45 hours.

Thanks for the help guys. I will try out some of those things.

Re: the problem connecting highways to towns neatly, I recommend the Texas U-Turn connector on the Steam workshop. It makes it easy to get the 4 lane, 2-way streets to your city. You need to plan ahead a little though as you aren't able to build the 4 lane/2-way streets at the beginning of your city.

One problem is avoiding traffic lights when connecting to these streets, though. Roundabouts are probably the solution here.

Long week at work, so I planned on going to bed early. But, I decided to fire this game up "for a few minutes of relaxation before bed." That was 3 hours ago. This game makes the time fly and is the most fun I've had with a city builder game in many years. Heck, I'm fighting the urge to fire the game back up and play for just a few more minutes...

I suspect I'm going to need to get this at some point.

Finally hit 30k in a city. This one is looking pretty solid after a string of heart breaking implosions.

Well I decided to spring for this game - haven't played a city builder in a long time but this one looks neat.

Thanks for this post, I can easily see the decision-makings. However, why did you decide to build a Manhattan-esque skyscraper zone? Is this game going to trend towards covering all the land with high-rise residential/commercial zones like the monstrosities that people built in SC4?

Nice thing I found from reddit on making parallel curved highways.

http://imgur.com/a/SBm7t

Bought it yesterday, I'll just add to the pile of praise. This game is as addicting as any Civ game. I played it for 5 hours, had to force myself to stop and I'm still itching to get back in it. I can't remember the last time a game had me immediately engrossed.

So enjoyable. And full price at $30? If you like this type of game there is no reason to wait. Won't disappoint.

I read some comments that there was some learning curve and not a lot of hand holding. I don't know, if you've played the SimCity games you should be able to pick this up pretty quickly. If you don't understand what G/Y/B zones are, you may want to read one of the many guides people have put together on Steam.

Any idea on how to connect electricity? My zones are complaining of no power, but I can't seem to connect the power lines to them - it stops just outside, and if I build the power lines inside they don't appear as blue so I guess they don't have power. Finding this whole thing very confusing so far.

I haven't had a problem with electricity - as long as the power lines connect the blue area around the power plant with the blue area around the buildings, you should be good.

Each blue area needs to be connected, but once any part of a blue area is connected, the whole place should have power.

Electricity doesn't flow immediately, power icon will blink for a few seconds before they go away.

Extend your lines from withing the blue of your power source (always use turbines) until they are inside the blue of the area that needs power. As your neighborhood grows, the power spreads from neighbor to neighbor, so all you need is one touch point and then let the growth of that area spread the power for you.

This is always a good start: Things you should know before launch [Tips & Tricks] : CitiesSkylines

and the wiki has some pretty valuable early game explanations.

out of all the mods, this is by far my favorite: Steam Workshop :: Extended Road Upgrade - Upgrade between one- and two-way roads!

Upgrade between one and two way roads! Massive timesaver.

My current mod list:

Steam Workshop :: Extended Road Upgrade - Upgrade between one- and two-way roads!
Steam Workshop :: Traffic Report Tool (Beta)
Steam Workshop :: AutoSave - Configurable
Steam Workshop :: HideUI
Steam Workshop :: Mod Achievement Enabler
Steam Workshop :: First Person Camera
Steam Workshop :: Refund
Steam Workshop :: Tree Brush
Steam Workshop :: Chirpy Exterminator
Steam Workshop :: Automatic Bulldoze
Steam Workshop :: All Spaces Unlockable

All of these are essential imo!

I would recommend resisting the urge to download a ton of interchanges, it's insanely difficult to weed thru all of the downloaded interchanges in game, if you stick with just a handful that meet your consistent needs, it makes things much easier to manage.

This is great and helpful. Thanks!

Because I got access to them. :)

But no, I don't think it will at all. Not if you want industrial zones, which is half the fun IMO - trying to reduce traffic is the hardest part of the game. I don't think it's bugged at all like people claim, it's just difficult.

I read paradox sold 250,000 copies in the first 24 hours. Great game with large maps and mods.
And to think I bought SC 5. Ugh.

And another 250,000 since then.

Looks like we broke the 500k barrier, HUGE thanks to every single Chirpy who has supported us so far! <3

— Cities Skylines (@Cities_PDX) March 16, 2015

Not sure if others ran into the same issue but with dual monitors it was really aggravating me how the screen scroll wouldn't work well "towards" the second monitor. I installed this program called DualMonitor Tools - it includes a utility called Swapscreen which gives you the option to lock the cursor to your main screen. Fire up SS and then CS and you're good to scroll in all directions.

Theres also a mod in the workshop called cursor jail.

I saw that also but seems to have some issues so I will stick with this till they get the kinks worked out.

edit - Actually scratch that, Cursor Jail seems to work for me and is better than my option.

+1


Thank you.

Really only issue I've had so far is I keep getting icons for uncompleted routes on public transport. I don't know if I'm missing something obvious or it's a bug, but I'm not sure what's incomplete. I add the stops and end on complete line.

I even got this annoying sub station that I demoloished altogether and it's still there with that icon and people bunching up waiting to board.

Also, make sure you un-pause the game if you are paused. you won't see any effects of changes until the sim is running again.

Watched parts of quill18's Let's Play and like what I see so far - seeing curved roads was cool. The one thing that made me most excited was seeing the thumbnail below



Is that background on the start menu actually from the game (i.e., a layout you can actually develop)?

Coming up on 45k in my city. I completely demolished my highways and started over from scratch. Connected all my zones much better than before, so very satisfying. Hardly any traffic at all now. garbage trucks.... uuuugggghhhh garbage trucks.. Always imagine where your garbage trucks are traveling.

Also, are there or could there be mods to develop real/historical places from scratch (like Boston peninsula or Bay Area, for example)?

Yep, absolutely :)

Yes, there are tons of them already in the workshop. You can actually import "official" geographical height maps into the map editor and apparently the results are very good. Ive only played the default maps so far, but the custom ones ive seen have been really nice.

Thanks, chinaski.

Yeah, someone has already recreated Los Santos from GTA V. Pretty dang impressive, considering the game just came out.

edit for link: http://steamed.kotaku.com/someone-re...nes-1691416466

One thing I have just now discovered is those nice touchy-feely policies can be crazy expensive! I only had two turned on but the costs of those two were almost half of my total expenses!

I ended up just getting used to using the ASDW keys to move around the map instead of the mouse due to dual monitors

If I buy this game I'm going to wind up divorced and unemployed within six months.

I decided to start with a new city after I managed to completely flood my city of 50,000 people beyond repair. Woops!

If you start a new city does everything you unlocked in the previous one stay unlocked, or do you have to go through that process every time?

I think it stays locked.

But I do believe there is an option to have everything unlocked at the start of the game, as well as unlimited money.

I thought I read that the monuments and some other stuff stayed unlocked, but you still had to meet certain requirements like population to build them.

I am so hooked on this game. You know you're making the shift to a more educated workforce when all your old blue-collar factories have the "not enough workers" icons and your high-tech offices are jammed with workers.

Is this on one-way roads? Make sure when laying the one-way roads and highways that you drag in the direction you want them to go. Learned this by making a highway that was connected but still had the symbols in the new area.

No, same icon, but it's train and subway.

So much is so polished in this game it's a shame stuff like highway connections and overpasses are so bad. I got so furious about not being able to build rails over a highway I had to install a mod which lets you build pillar-less rails. It's immersion breaking but seemed necessary since C:S has apparently never heard of a rail bridge.

I've built rail bridges over roads. Don't think I've tried highways specifically though.

In theory it works, but the game has a set idea of where the pillars have to be for a rail bridge - and if your road setup is one pixel out of line of what that is, you just can't do it without demolishing your highway.

I really am enjoying the game, and I cannot wait for upgrades.

I can't wait to refine my skill, my latest and most successful city is a sloppy mess...

totally agree. I'm sitting here at work thinking about my next move(s) for tonight when I fire it up again.

Last night was the first time I felt like I had a lot of things working and going right (after I figured out what I was doing wrong with the one way road/highway thing. Yes, you have to create the road in the direction you want the traffic to go).

A few things to note:

Wind power is the way to go.

Taking loans are necessary.

Creating districts were a little wonky with the paint brush but once I got the hang of it, very cool.

I was surprised how cheap the next parcels of land were.

The game is totally mind consuming.

How does this game shape up for someone with a laptop and no controller? I watched a walkthrough on youtube and this guy was moving the view all over the place

Why would you hook a controller to a laptop?! Laptops come with a keyboard and you can get a mouse pretty cheap.

I haven't put in much time, but I've been wondering - coal power is much more cost efficient than wind in the early game. If I replace my coal power plants with wind later, does the pollution go away eventually?

I don't know if I've lucked out or what, but with my first try on my first city I am inching up on 100k, everyone is consistently happy, no crime(even with very little law enforcement), constant growth and 40-50k a week. I did take a couple loans out early on, but paid them both back well before they were due.

Traffic could be better, which is my current project. But with my cash flow and current state of the city I should be able to tear down and build up as needed.

I put a huge focus on education early and public transportation later. Used unique building as they became available to build new districts. I demolished all my oil plants and replaced with Nuclear reactors, will likely do the same with coal at some point. I never saw the energy that was generated by windmills as being worth it.

Only hiccup was building up industrial, but used the "blue collar" tactic I believe someone posted on here and that fixed that issue.

Beyond that I tweaked taxes and policies as needed, but honestly my cash flow is such that I can set them to all spend aggressively and it will have a relatively small impact on my bottom line.

My only long term concern is I didn't realize there was a set amount of land blocks you could buy, I think once you hit 80k people you are maxed, correct? I may have expanded differently had I known that.


Yes, I believe that's the case.

Jeff, thanks for sharing your experiences. Sounds great.

Personally I pretty much only use wind for my city (and some incinerators.) Wind is more expensive up front but the maintenance costs are a lot cheaper, and once you get advanced windmills you can build them in the water so they don't take up space in your city. Plus no pollution (except noise.)

I have some buildings abandoned due to lack of enough educated workers. Do those buildings eventually become re-occupied if I get more educated workers or do I have to bulldoze them and let the land be rebuilt?

Abandon buildings eventually get torn down on their own and built over. I've been watching Skye Storme's youtube let's play and he hardly ever bulldozes abandoned buildings.

He does however stay with a minimalist fire department and just bulldoze buildings that catch on fire.

Major fucking annoyance that the map editor is buggy as shit - I've downloaded a map of my hometown off Steam, have to edit the map so the starting square is by the one highway exit and doing that puts me 800k in debt somehow. If I use the original map it's fine, I start with the correct amount of money but nobody moves into the city because there's no connection.

Edit to add that the game isn't even playable even with unlimited money, things disappear and reappear as you zoom the mouse in and out and you can't actually place roads or zones. Great game, but you knew Paradox would sneak an annoying bug in there that would break something.

They will be rebuilt - I use the Automatic Bulldozing mod which actually gets rid of the abandoned buildings automatically and they will usually rebuild pretty quickly.