Cities: Skylines

[Nippelspanner]

Hey Subsim,
I know a lot of you are old SimCity fans and I bet most of you are just as disappointed about that terribad mess EA presented us than I am.

Now, in case you haven't heard, there is a new game being released on March 10th, that basically takes Sim City... and fixes it while adding lots of awesome stuff.

Steam store page (http://store.steampowered.com/app/255710/)
Official home page (http://www.skylinescity.com/)

From what I have seen and heard so far, it IS living up to the hype and I have yet to read a negative review and can't wait for release! :)

[Oberon]

I'm definitely looking at this one with a great deal of interest. :yep:

[Betonov]

Same here. Although I'll wait for some patches and a DLC or two and the buy it in a bundle during a sale.

Paradox makes great games (publishes in this case), but they have a bug problem that always plagues them at launch. A DLC later it's the sweet mana from heaven and a deathtrap for the private life

[Sailor Steve]

Looks intriguing. :sunny:

[Arclight]

Can pick it up for some 20,- for the normal version, 27,- on the deluxe: http://www.greenmangaming.com/

First time using thatt retailer for me, but from what I can find it's not some scam or such. After creating an account it will show under the "VIP" section. Some rather nice deals in there at that.


Rather looking forward to this one. Tried CitiesXL at some point... Rather disapointing. Wouldn't touch SimCity 2013 with a 10ft pole.

Been watching a lot of streams and whatnot on this one. Hard to say how it really holds up in the long run, but it seems pretty competent.

[CCIP]

I was about to post asking whether anyone had any impressions :D

Very curious, but I've always been a little wary of the Cities games due to mixed feedback I heard about both performance and gameplay :hmm2:

[Dowly]

Wot I Think: Cities: Skylines (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/03/10/cities-skylines-review/)

Skylines is very much the traditional yet hyper-modern city-builder that everyone’s been crying out for.

--

Personally, I'm getting a bit tired of these modern city-builders. Would be like to see some other era for a change.

[CCIP]

That's true, but I'd at least like them to get the modern one right first.

It's like the Silent Hunger games - it'd be really cool to see something other than U-boats/fleet boats, but it'd be even better to see one of those done completely right first!

My biggest complaint with city games has always been scale/simplification - it felt like playing a city-themed theme park more than playing a real city. This one at least looks big!

[Oberon]

I can't help but be reminded of the 'Try the soup, captain' guy from SHV when I read 'Silent Hunger', CCIP. :03:

Anyway, C:S is out, the internet is speaking and so far it seems to be speaking favourably. On Steam there's 1,022 positive reviews versus 33 negative. It's sold extremely well, so I'd wager that there's definitely going to be DLC and a C:S2 is a given. Perhaps quite possibly the beginning of a new franchise which will take over now that Maxis has been culled by EA. It's rather bittersweet to see Maxis go, in fact if and when I do get C:S I will probably call my city Maxis in respect to what has gone before. It will most likely end up just like its namesake but most of my first cities in these kind of games tend to do that. :haha:

The only thing holding me back right now is my hardware. I have enough to run the game on 'Minimum' settings, but not enough to run it on 'Recommended', so I'm a bit iffy...but I might well look at this greenmangaming and if they still have the offer on at the weekend when I should hopefully get a bit of disposable income then I might well take the plunge.

I know at least one person on this thread has it, so I hope to see some screenshots soon. :up:

[Nippelspanner]

On Steam there's 1,022 positive reviews versus 33 negative.
And I'm not surprised!
Didn't review it yet, I think it is too early for an in-depth review, but these numbers speak a clear language - and from what I have seen while playing for uhm... way too many hours, I can only agree.

It is like Sim City, just a lot of annoying things eradicated, some nice features added and overall way more user friendly. The game lets you do what YOU want, not what EA/Maxis demand you to do for whatever stupid reasons.

Also, day one mod tools, that is like a phenomenon these days.
Steam workshop is already thriving with maps and mods of all kinds.
Hours after release.
Can't imagine what we get to see in ~2 months. :doh:

Tl;dr: Worth every penny, a city builders wet dream, buy it!

[Nippelspanner]

I said buy it!

[CCIP]

I can't help but be reminded of the 'Try the soup, captain' guy from SHV when I read 'Silent Hunger', CCIP. :03:


I did not notice that at all until now! That's what I get for posting from my phone :haha:

And yeah, I'm ruled out from running it on my own system by the requirements, BUT I may be able to get my hands on a machine for it soon :)
If they finally nailed what the Cities series was promising all along, I'll open this game with open arms!

[NeonSamurai]

FYI to my knowledge there is no connection between the Cities XL series and this game, other than being city builders of course. Something we can all be very grateful about, as that other series was pretty terrible.

I am curious how this game stacks up to to Simcity 4 Deluxe/Rush Hour, a game that I still play. It does have an 89 metascore on metacritic too FYI (out of 19 critic reviews).

[Dowly]

My two small towns Foggy Park and Florence. :smug:
http://i.imgur.com/P7eRo4C.jpg

[Arclight]

Went pretty "blocky" in terms of building style. Post some screenies when they let me out of here. Just got up to 7k people, sprinkled some offices around and can finally begin burning of garbage in the incinerators.

Somebody decided turning off a PC while updating was a good idea. You know, when the text on the screen says "do not turn of your PC"... Windows is going all NOPE! so it might be a while. :roll:


-
Right, so;
http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/527258234653743406/99A3ECB24ED6B1B4FC8F32CCB254A584E99ED79C/
City with industrial district across the highway. Farming district off across the river.

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/527258234653743740/4EDB007EC094E3C59D3C39ECBBF041195321F241/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/527258234653744027/4AFB0F2FC1B235D5BE110147C0608888EC2570D8/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/527258234653744285/7C758A2B0C63134833A00120DDFA37879D4ADD4F/
New incinerators working away the thrash that had been stockpiling before, contributing a bit of energy generation to the oil burning plant in the process.

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/527258234653744621/D0E6A7ECC4FE65BC6A528D71265D0B5632CFD4B8/
Mess of an overpass. Don't really have the tools or resources to do it proper at the start, but it's doing the job so far.

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/527258234653744895/D6C7CDB8849FEFA1A382B9F21F41AE3A8093FE07/
String of offices sandwiched between the main artories in and out of the city, flanked by commercial zones and residential beyond.

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/527258234653745275/54FFD423EE1B7C5A466406A125D726D6470197AD/
After it bends around the hospital the commercial zoning ends, giving way for more residential. Once the commercial stuff starts upgrading you really don't need to zone a lot of it.

[Lionclaw]

Overview of the city.

http://i.imgur.com/b6r8LG6.jpg

City entry - Before.

http://i.imgur.com/ACXtV2c.jpg

City entry - Now

http://i.imgur.com/TxnC2Wm.jpg

Oil industry closest to the camera, mining industry visible above the village, and the main city top left.

http://i.imgur.com/thoK03j.jpg

[Betonov]

Labrador city

http://i.imgur.com/v5BAGIV.jpg?1

I'm still using too much grid, but I hate if there are empty green spaces between towers (give us a pavement brush)


Like every fat city, this one also has a clogged artery
http://i.imgur.com/t1uSUIs.jpg?1

And the line between the ''old village'' and downtown
http://i.imgur.com/irnBj5S.jpg?1

[Dowly]

So, what is everyone's verdict?

I'll give it a solid 9/10 for the release version.

I dont want to go in any great or lesser details as to why, because it would be just rehashing what the older Sim City games did.
Basically, it takes the older SC games and updates them to 2015. There are some changes, but I have not yet come upon one that wasnt a good one.

Now, the things I would like to see added/improved:
-Day/Night toggle: I want to see what my city looks like at night.
-Tunnels: I don't think its possible to build tunnels through mountains?
-Fixed Anti-Aliasing: Not sure if this is an issue with unity, but they need to fix that.
-Separate views for all the transportation modes: Seeing your metro tunnels when planning bus routes is kinda distracting.
-Remove Film grain: Just, remove it.
-Option to build two-way highways: The current system is a bit messy, and a nightmare for a perfectionist like me. :)

I think that's about it.

Oh right, Colossal Order is a finnish game dev. Further proof of our awesomeness. SUCK IT SWEDEN! :O:

[Betonov]

My review: also a 9/10

This game is a gem. Beautiful to look at, fun to play, very well polished (no bugs on my end, just a glitch here and there when you're bulldosing roads).
I wanted to complain about a lack of things to build (only one elementary, one high school, one kind of hospital), that lack of variety. But I can't, the modding community is already churning out content and I'm glad they worked more on gameplay than content and then left us with a modding tool.

Two things I miss: signs (the district names are just too hard to see) and in-game terrain tools. And maybe when building two one way roads, maybe a snap option like the one Train Fever has, when other road/line snaps next to the first one to follow it.

I wanted to give it an 8/10, I started making sick amounts of cash when I got to 5000 people, but I never tried the hard mode :oops:

[Dowly]

I wanted to give it an 8/10, I started making sick amounts of cash when I got to 5000 people, but I never tried the hard mode :oops:
yeah, I noticed that too. I'm on my 20th or so city, I usually play to the 7000 mark and start over as I like to make and manage these small suburban areas.
At 7000, they want University and offices and all that.
I wish there was a "low tech" city mode/policy. :hmmm:

[Nippelspanner]

Now, the things I would like to see added/improved:
-Day/Night toggle: I want to see what my city looks like at night.
-Tunnels: I don't think its possible to build tunnels through mountains?
-Fixed Anti-Aliasing: Not sure if this is an issue with unity, but they need to fix that.
-Separate views for all the transportation modes: Seeing your metro tunnels when planning bus routes is kinda distracting.
-Remove Film grain: Just, remove it.
-Option to build two-way highways: The current system is a bit messy, and a nightmare for a perfectionist like me. :)
- They want to implement day/night cycles, the guy-dev said it in the steam forums.
- Tunnels? I heard they are content of the first DLC they have planned. Don't know more about it myself though.
- The AA thing is, I think, engine (Unity) related. We may get better AA with the engine being updated at some point I hope.
- Did you notice you can custom-color every single route via the info menu? That helps a lot.
- Film grain can be removed with a mod (http://steamcommunity.com//sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=406018056). (worked for me the second time I started the game after subscribing to it)

See? Most of your wishlist has been granted already! :)

Also, a good example of how deep this game can be and what one can do when bored. Be advised, contains some profanity...
Nathan criticizes the fire service (http://i.imgur.com/rGO2EZE.png)

Hilarious! :haha:

[Dowly]

I know of the mods etc. for film grain removing, but would like to see the option in-game.

Fires, they need to spread like they did in older SCs.
They are not a threat anymore. Building burns down? Bulldoze and they'll build it again.

[Oberon]

http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lkw023ifUV1qhgj0q.png

And I'm just sitting here playing:

http://sydlexia.com/imagesandstuff/snes100/snes31.png

[NeonSamurai]

I couldn't imagine playing the original SC again. SC2000 absolutely, but not the first one.

[Oberon]

So...

The worlds worst designed city!
(other than Detriot)

http://i.imgur.com/a5saeQD.jpg?1

Enjoying this so far, barely scratched the surface. :salute: :up:
Runs very well so far, better than I expected it would. :yeah:

[Arclight]

Don't care for numbers, agree with the opinions.

Aaand... yeah. Solid city builder on a modern engine and interface. It's what I thought Simcity (2013) would be and what CitiesXL should be. That's not to say that it's a winner by default, just that it is right what I wanted.

And then some, really. Fluid simulation? Oh my. And that road tool is quite fancy.

[Betonov]

And then some, really. Fluid simulation? Oh my. And that road tool is quite fancy.

Fluid simulation is only charming until you build your first sewer outlet :Kaleun_Sick:

[Arclight]

Or a dam. Damn those dams.

So, it has come to this:

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/527258415824029178/7834FD993109052C2548149F7821F78935D0C686/

Traffic is holding up, trains are backing up all over the place though. Gonna put in a harbor, but that prolly only makes things worse. :hmmm:

[Betonov]

Ok, first major beef, the traffic lights are the main cause of trafic jams and unused lanes on multi lane roads

See here
http://i.imgur.com/di0ikWd.jpg?1

The trucks coming from above are turning onto the offramp (2 way road) and have a clear path, but have to wait for the green light. Vehicles coming from below also have their own lane and also have a free path. other vehicles have two forward lanes to themselves to proceed straight.


http://i.imgur.com/znobVo6.jpg?1

Cars have 4 straight lanes to use, they only occupy one and create a traffic mess behind them. I'll have one of these lines over half a city and since the lights are not in sync the line will only move when the front end will get a green light.


I'm not ranting but this needs fixing. Not gamebraking but very annoying since busineses actually need to have people/goods personally delivered. I had blackout problems because coal trucks were stuck in traffic on their way to the power plant.

[Nippelspanner]

Yep, traffic really needs some fixes!
Only way to solve it is with rather "gamey" road designs that turn every simmer away... and even they are no guarantee.

Let's hope they CAN fix this...

[Betonov]

Let's hope they CAN fix this...

I've been watching traffic a bit and the system is there, sometimes they take an empty lane but not often enough. It may be that the system is there but there's a bug.

[Arclight]

It's that they plan their turns and merges entirely too early. If there's a merge to a 2-lane road at the end of a stretch of 3-lane then they will only really use 2 lanes to avoid merging at the end. Same with turns, they do their sorting at the earliest oportunity. I'm willing to bet all those busses there are making a left turn on that road.

You'll only get good use out of multiple lanes if the flow is balanced. If the majority is going in a particular direction, you'll see most of the use on the relevant lane.

Traffic plans their route at the start of their journey, and as a result it's not adaptable at all.


For the traffic lights, yeah... Been using a lot of one-way to control the flow. Can get rid of the lights on most occasions. Try 2-lane one-way or highway with sound barrier.


I guess the traffic lights can be fixed with a mod. Just take the 6-lane and give it the logic of highways and small roads. For the traffic they'd need adaptive AI instead of basic pathfinding. Might be a stretch.

[Betonov]

It's that they plan their turns and merges entirely too early. If there's a merge to a 2-lane road at the end of a stretch of 3-lane then they will only really use 2 lanes to avoid merging at the end. Same with turns, they do their sorting at the earliest oportunity. I'm willing to bet all those busses there are making a left turn on that road.

You'll only get good use out of multiple lanes if the flow is balanced. If the majority is going in a particular direction, you'll see most of the use on the relevant lane.


Straight forward. The left turning vehicles used the empty lane on the left.
The devs could just set waypoints (the AI already uses it as it calculates when to change lanes) on every few blocks of road and not just on intersections. And use merging like the buses use when joining the traffic from a stop. They just place themselves between two cars and the car behind waits. There's some graphic overlap which is perfectly acceptable.

[Oberon]

Or...just remove cars... :o

http://imgur.com/gallery/o8L3l

[NeonSamurai]

I suspect part of the problem is that the devs are trying very hard to save processing power, so that the system requirements don't go through the roof. Tracking and managing every single car in the game in real time for a large city would take serious processing power.

[Oberon]

So, the monstrosity is growing ever still!

http://i.imgur.com/0Wd0Ix0.jpg?1

With an elevated train line (pity there isn't elevated stations, and you can't have the lines travel over the top of the roads ala Chicago, that would be nice)...of course, this being my city, the trains instantly get confused:

http://i.imgur.com/1I0ge6s.jpg?1

The trains also like to jump when two tracks don't quite meet (look at the tracks on the left side of the crossover/switchover)

http://i.imgur.com/W9rBZAT.jpg?1

But the city is growing and growing well, approaching 30k citizens now.

http://i.imgur.com/GjexT0O.jpg?1

[Betonov]

Oberon, that city looks to nice, where's the spontanious organic growth that slowly leads to chaos and GPS overloadings ?? :O:


And I suggest the grounds eye camera mod

http://i.imgur.com/pBBjG8A.jpg?1
Love the licence plate

http://i.imgur.com/0bfL7my.jpg?1
Mind if I join ??

http://i.imgur.com/uXnXMRk.jpg?1

http://i.imgur.com/wXcu5yl.jpg?1
Dispatch says there's a fault in fault-tec

[Arclight]

"Nucular" power is go. Finally.

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/527258415829479981/876C1205A363F7BEFE1D960184A11B687D1A1E05/

[Betonov]

"Nucular" power is go. Finally.



Whistling the Simpsons intro

[AngusJS]

Nerd Cubed's very favorable take on the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dSaEXBv2C4

This looks absolutely amazing. And to me it really shows how disingenuous EA was with their excuses for the Simcity 5 trainwreck, as this accomplishes so much more but without the supposedly necessary limitations.

I can't wait to pick it up.

[Oberon]

It is a lovely time-sink and the accessibility of it towards modding is quite beautiful. It's the big hit that the developers needed and I really hope that it continues to do well.

On Betonovs advice I grabbed the First Person camera mod today, plus one that gets rid of the GUI when you press F11. :yep:

http://i.imgur.com/iARaEQs.jpg?1
As you can see, the results are fantastic

http://i.imgur.com/qC8VX5Z.jpg?1
And that's before I turned the details up a notch.

http://i.imgur.com/fmSoOzP.jpg?1
Electricity was getting low, there was another river nearby so I decided to build a dam. I changed my mind about it a short time after and demolished it...in retrospect this was a bad idea...

http://i.imgur.com/A72ag2E.jpg?1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUWlmED6m5s

http://i.imgur.com/Bv0OcZu.jpg?1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hknVoAoyy-k

http://i.imgur.com/gHAhnpL.jpg?1
Anyway, back to slightly more normal areas...

http://i.imgur.com/2KRHtz9.jpg?1
Just breached 32,000 citizens. :yeah:

[Arclight]

Keep hovering between 40 and 42k. Traffic finally imploded, gonna take some effort to fix.

Got rid of the specialised ore and oil industry, replacing it mostly with more manufacturing. Put a bit more strain on the road system around the 2 industry parks... At least they aren't crying over workforce anymore. :roll:

*
plus one that gets rid of the GUI when you press F11.
There's a button bottom right for a free camera... Or am I missing something here?

Rather sounds like someone just modded something into the game that was already in there. :hmmm:

[Nippelspanner]

Specialist industry is kinda broken in this game in my opinion.
Theoretically, it works fine but the underground resources are used up in absolutely no time, so just when you think "its finally running", the oil or ore will be depleted and then they gonna import that stuff which

a) is bad for the budget
b) defeats the purpose of that feature
c) causes a traffic mayhem if you have harbors/train stations

So watch your spec. industry guys...

[Oberon]

There's a button bottom right for a free camera... Or am I missing something here?

Rather sounds like someone just modded something into the game that was already in there. :hmmm:

You can't click the button when in FP mode AFAIK, although I'm not sure whether it's a bug with the mod but I was unable to purchase extra land around the city last night either. So I'm going to disable those mods and try again in a bit.

EDIT: Derp, the mod works, I don't.

Specialist industry is kinda broken in this game in my opinion.
Theoretically, it works fine but the underground resources are used up in absolutely no time, so just when you think "its finally running", the oil or ore will be depleted and then they gonna import that stuff which

a) is bad for the budget
b) defeats the purpose of that feature
c) causes a traffic mayhem if you have harbors/train stations

So watch your spec. industry guys...

I've noticed that the little ore industry park I built (which is where that road that 'nobody canna cross it' in the above screenshots is going) has run out of ore, and it's not doing much to begin with. In fact, once you've unlocked the office business, so long as you keep a good education system going there doesn't seem to be much point in the heavy industry at all. :hmmm:

[Nippelspanner]

Yep.
You can, theoretically, rip down all your industry and replace it with offices.
I didn't do that, I want kinda realistic cities, but one could do that.
Education is a joke, the game is way too easy in general - but that is not really a complaint, this can be easily fixed.

In my city I had to actually tear down 2-3 universities and countless high schools to finally get some hillbillies to work in the industry since my people where too smart. :haha:

[Oberon]

I dunno if it would be unrealistic, I mean most countries move away from heavy industry as they transition from a Less Economically Developed Country (LEDC) to a More Economically Developed Country (MEDC), they start with mainly primary industry, mining and farming, then move to secondary, smelting and producing, and then mainly to teritary, IT, public sector working, tourism and the like. A city like New York or London contains very little in the way of high pollution industry and a lot in the way of offices and high technology industry. Not sure if you can push the industry in C:S into the latter. Might be worth a look. :yep:

[Nippelspanner]

"Amity" is doing good so far...
http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/539643314347030713/69F490620D1F0530617C3BFC5119D4896CAAE2DB/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/539643314347031928/F7CC17E87559CC33058EA868D9222EC5C19774DC/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/539643314347034262/654BA746A056F9C5C8D07B093DFC80BE4C9AF5D7/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/539643314347032578/43E57CF96813C79A483D99143AFD127749CC0815/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/539643314347033023/8F7335B11AA7406F1C32CF27F8C04EA27B7B0977/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/539643314347033766/0D4591E432362D38C4B2FE68D8B0E237211C82F5/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/539643314347034831/EB8B1A6E294E01C47FDD420F74A9AA8C56A82683/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/539643314347035916/63B4B29AE9254751BAB252A4C294F558E59556FF/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/539643314347036807/C50DEDE7B33FB5B205C0BB7A1444220DC2EEC9BC/

http://cloud-2.steamusercontent.com/ugc/539643314347037245/48FC3D5E6EA4E515D1D6BBCF78601A69EE6BCA18/

[Betonov]

Damn, I really want that industry statue :wah:

The problem with educaton here us that enyone with acces will go. Only a percentage of the population should be smart enough to gain university education. And the percentage rises as the happines does. But I'm affraid this one is hardcoded.

Although factories do hire over-educated people. I don't know why still a problem arrises with the industry.

[Arclight]

You can't click the button when in FP mode AFAIK,

Can't you just go to the options and bind it there? This thing has more keybinds available than the average RTS.

Nevermind though, just my usual "I R Skeptical" nonsense towards mods.

* ah right, about industry; goods sold at commercial zones can be manufactured locally by general industry. Saves some cost over importing, gives you a chance to control traffic instead of it all coming down the highway.

Think I'll maintain a bit of forestry for the few uneducated souls, try to tune the manufacturing to the demand from the commercial zones. I have to agree with the specialization not being worth it though. Either you keep moving it around or it runs out of materials too quick. It's reasonable early on to get some extra cash, but in the long run it doesn't have much value. That it is rather easy to keep the income balanced pretty much elimates any purpose for it, even early on.

[Oberon]

HOW TO TRAFFIC:
http://imgur.com/a/WdJim

[seaniam81]

Elevated round-about... hmmm.... awesome idea.

Bad idea two dams fairly close together... flooded out my oil industry, and the train tracks, and an off-ramp.

[Oberon]

http://i.imgur.com/yWouR1G.jpg?1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9vrfEoc8_g

[Betonov]

Mod sdvice: there's a ''toggle trafic lights'' mod in the workshop.
It alloes you to remove traffic lights from junctions that are backed up

[Betonov]

After dark DLC gives you a night/day cycle with beautifull effects

http://i.imgur.com/estK99g.png?1

2 things I should add:

-the day/night cycle is in the free update, not the payable DLC. For the time being I have no intent to buy it
-the release was a disaster and many of you will find out you can't load old cities. THIS (http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=520741974)hotfix solved it for me.
Disaster part is due to the hotfix being made by a modder and the devs just said to turn off all assets (right, with 200 custom assets in my city I'm not to keen on doing that)