Cities: Skylines - like Sim City but not ruined

[Grif]

Question for those who bought the game. How heavy the requirements are? My PC currently can run Europa Universalis IV at speed 3 comfortably or Borderlands 2 at medium settings. Will it be enough to run this game?

[DigoDragon]

Try not to destroy your Hydro Dam. I blew mine up and when I rebuilt it it only produced 24 watts of power instead of 300+.

Dang, that a big deficit in power o.o

I am p. sure that's the motorbike level from Bayonetta....

Never played Bayonetta. Didn't know there were motorbikes.

[factotum]

Question for those who bought the game. How heavy the requirements are?

I've played Borderlands 2 on my ancient heap of garbage (3-core 3.1GHz AMD CPU, Radeon 5770 graphics card) and Skylines runs absolutely fine, at least up to a city size of 11,000 citizens--haven't got one bigger than that yet due to restarting too much.

[TechnoWarforged]

Question for those who bought the game. How heavy the requirements are? My PC currently can run Europa Universalis IV at speed 3 comfortably or Borderlands 2 at medium settings. Will it be enough to run this game?

http://www.gameplayinside.com/strate...rmance-review/

Hope this helps.


Edit: Also I can't seem to build any smaller Parks. The only small sized one I got was the Japanese Garden... then I quit and the then after the patch the Japanese Garden disappeared from both my build menu and all the Garden I built in my city also disappeared... :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9n1BPu2fGQ
And he polluted a river, dammed a river, and flooded a neighborhood.

Take that lowly peasants! They serves to swim drown in brown goo.

[Flickerdart]

Question for those who bought the game. How heavy the requirements are? My PC currently can run Europa Universalis IV at speed 3 comfortably or Borderlands 2 at medium settings. Will it be enough to run this game?

It's a Unity game, so the requirements probably are not that high.

http://www.gameplayinside.com/strate...rmance-review/

Hope this helps.

Hm, that's interesting. If it runs on the SP2, then my SP3 should be able to handle it no problem, making this game an excellent choice for gaming on the go - especially since it doesn't need a keyboard. It doesn't look like dumping settings to minimum really does much to the graphics, but the frame rate boost is nice.

[Avilan the Grey]

I've played Borderlands 2 on my ancient heap of garbage (3-core 3.1GHz AMD CPU, Radeon 5770 graphics card) and Skylines runs absolutely fine, at least up to a city size of 11,000 citizens--haven't got one bigger than that yet due to restarting too much.

My computer is odd. It's old, but powerful for it's age... And most games it can play well on mid to high settings. Notable exception is Dragon Age inquisition that just don't run, at all.
However, it does struggle with this game for some reason, the highest speed is barely faster than the slowest speed but stuttering (slowest speed is smooth).

[TechnoWarforged]

The Holland Land Reclaimation project:

Spoiler: The Underwater Bridge

Show

Spoiler: Half Submerged Park

Show

The Cars actually won't go into the bridge if the water is too deep, but Parks works even when it's fully underwater.

What I did was build a dam blocking the water from going into the bay and then start building when the water level drops. It's tricky thou because the water level will not rise up back to where it was initially.

[snowblizz]

The Holland Land Reclaimation project:

Spoiler: Half Submerged Park

Show

The Cars actually won't go into the bridge if the water is too deep, but Parks works even when it's fully underwater.

You must be saving a fortune on park waste clean up costs!

[DigoDragon]

The Cars actually won't go into the bridge if the water is too deep

I guess your citizens are that afraid of big bridges? Can you build tunnels under the water?

[factotum]

I guess your citizens are that afraid of big bridges? Can you build tunnels under the water?

The only tunnels in the game, AFAIK, are those for metro lines--you can't just build a road through a mountain and have it automatically bore a tunnel as it goes. Which is kind of a shame, would be cool to have underground roads in a city!

[Flickerdart]

The only tunnels in the game, AFAIK, are those for metro lines--you can't just build a road through a mountain and have it automatically bore a tunnel as it goes. Which is kind of a shame, would be cool to have underground roads in a city!

Gotta leave some stuff for the expansion pack. Do you think they learned nothing from Maxis, or how Paradox handles their own games?

[Seerow]

Gotta leave some stuff for the expansion pack. Do you think they learned nothing from Maxis, or how Paradox handles their own games?

I read an interview saying they meant for tunnels to be a core feature, and once it's done they will likely be released as a free DLC. Though they do of course have plans for expansions.

[Avilan the Grey]

Tunnels will indeed be free. Something else, too, but I don't remember what.

[Leon]

Whats its difference from Cities XL?

[factotum]

Whats its difference from Cities XL?

Well, it's a decent game for a start.

[GungHo]

Whats its difference from Cities XL?

It has a soul.

I realize that seems like a flippant response (and it is), but as I've said before here and elsewhere, Cities XL was created by people who considered city planning to be Serious Business with No Fun Allowed(tm). It's not as bombastic and gamey as something like Tropico or even Sim City 2000 (no aliens or giant robots), but it doesn't take itself too seriously. Not yet, anyway.

[Flickerdart]

How early do you guys start building traffic solutions? My first few towns (I usually realize I screwed up around that stage and start again) I just put down small roads everywhere, but lately I've been trying to plan ahead by putting down highways. This ended up screwing me over since the fire department couldn't figure out how to find the power plant. Is it best to just usurp the plot of land the highway is on and then use it as the central artery for traffic through your city? Should I wait until I can build highway ramps in order to avoid intersections on my big roads?

[Avilan the Grey]

I think having played Cities in Motion helps with the traffic.

Also, layout is the key. Roundabouts are good. Having industry connected as directly as possible to the highway is even better. One way streets are almost always preferable.

[TechnoWarforged]

How early do you guys start building traffic solutions? My first few towns (I usually realize I screwed up around that stage and start again) I just put down small roads everywhere, but lately I've been trying to plan ahead by putting down highways. This ended up screwing me over since the fire department couldn't figure out how to find the power plant. Is it best to just usurp the plot of land the highway is on and then use it as the central artery for traffic through your city? Should I wait until I can build highway ramps in order to avoid intersections on my big roads?

After a few fail start with me running out of cash, I figured out that cash is more important then anything else. With sufficient cash you can just fix any problem via bulldozing and rebuilding new zones. Traffic problems alone will not kill your city and burning down your power plant is just plain bad luck (should switch to Hydro power plant ASAP anyways... until you can get Nuclear Power Plant. Althought I suspect that your power plant isn't connected to your fire station via roads at all.

However just using small roads in all zones is just bad idea. I usually start visualizing how my city will look, reason where the traffic is, and just adjust on the fly when unseen consequence occurs. For example the road that connects your industrial zone to your residential zone should be a large road because people will travel between those two areas to get to work. I mix my commercial/office zones with residential zones so there's less commute. Finally having public transportation between major area helps a lot. I'm kinda learning as I go along and I just figured that you can use subway/bus with the same principle... subways for Cims to travel between zones, and buses to travel within the zone.

Also your first on/off ramp connecting to your city will always be packed with traffic... I'll consider using a roundabout there and also have separate hwy exit/entrance for your industrial zones so trucks can move in and out of the area away from where all the cars are.

My city is about 50k+ population.

[factotum]

Highways with junctions are better than six-lane roads, so you're better off leaving the highway where it is and improving your connections to it. As far as I know there's no particular reason why the highway on/off-ramp has to be an "official" ramp, though--I tend to use two-lane one-way roads for the greater traffic capacity unless I'm just trying to join two highways together, when the reduction in traffic speed would be a big issue.

If your fire department couldn't find the power plant then you're missing a road or an onramp somewhere--it's very easy to do that and build a highway that goes nowhere and thus doesn't get used by traffic!

[Avilan the Grey]

Highways with junctions are better than six-lane roads, so you're better off leaving the highway where it is and improving your connections to it.

Just like you never delete a railroad track unless you have the money to rebuild it to your liking, the same goes for highways.

[Flickerdart]

Highways with junctions are better than six-lane roads, so you're better off leaving the highway where it is and improving your connections to it. As far as I know there's no particular reason why the highway on/off-ramp has to be an "official" ramp, though

I'm not talking about editing the highway, I'm talking about spreading across it and using bridges to connect my city halves, and then developing along the highway with ramps leading into the city's districts.

As for official ramps, do highways automatically not have intersections? I tried replicating highways before I could build them using the six-lane roads, but with intersections every time there's an on or off ramp, it all goes so slowly.

After a few fail start with me running out of cash, I figured out that cash is more important then anything else. With sufficient cash you can just fix any problem via bulldozing and rebuilding new zones. Traffic problems alone will not kill your city and burning down your power plant is just plain bad luck (should switch to Hydro power plant ASAP anyways... until you can get Nuclear Power Plant. Althought I suspect that your power plant isn't connected to your fire station via roads at all.

This was way before hydro was available, unfortunately - and I never build cities where parts are unconnected, the firetrucks just took a long route I guess.

[TechnoWarforged]

This was way before hydro was available, unfortunately - and I never build cities where parts are unconnected, the firetrucks just took a long route I guess.

Hmm that's interest... as far as I know any vehicle will always take the shortest route to their destination. That's why there's traffic jam in the first place. Otherwise traffic will be evenly spread out. Part of my kinda wish the AI on traffic would apply some fuzzy logic so that say 80% of the time they'll take the shortest route while the 20% will take alternative route.

But anyways
1) the Firestation maybe too far away from your power plant and didn't get coverage
2) Your fire truck is stuck in traffic and can't get to the burning power plant. That happens to me once but with Garbage trucks... all 19 of them are stuck in one straight line on a street while the garbage keeps piling up in the city.
3) you build your power plant in a one way street ... so your fire truck has to take the seemingly longer route, or worst your power plant is in the middle of two one way street both going outward so the truck can't get in.

Either way I tried to move horrible stuff like power plants, garbage incineration, and landfills away from my population and have separate entrance/exit.

[Flickerdart]

Hm. What's the best street to use for one-way? There doesn't seem to be any stage between the basic 2-lane road and the 6-lane superhighway.

[factotum]

As for official ramps, do highways automatically not have intersections? I tried replicating highways before I could build them using the six-lane roads, but with intersections every time there's an on or off ramp, it all goes so slowly.

Intersections are not a thing on a highway no matter what type of road you join to it--the highway is always straight through and traffic will never need to stop while on it, unless a queue has backed onto the mainline due to inadequate roads elsewhere. Any other type of road will end up with traffic light intersections, as you discovered; plus, the speed of traffic on a six-lane road is considerably lower than on a highway.

[Flickerdart]

Has anyone gotten a "gc context thread" error that causes game crash? It just scythed down my city of 15,000.

[TechnoWarforged]

Spoiler: I know, I know, There's probably a special place in hell for people like me...

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Hm. What's the best street to use for one-way? There doesn't seem to be any stage between the basic 2-lane road and the 6-lane superhighway.

I usually use one way street as a way to control the flow of traffic. For example I have a roundabout for an onramp... I want one road to be strictly the exit while cars will use a road later on to get back into the roundabout to get on the highway... So I use one way street for that road and cars can only exit that way.

[Zyzzyva]

Just bought it! Looking through the thread, it seems my Sim City 2000 skills are probably serving me poorly... Are you telling me that tiling this

Res	Com	Res	Com	Res	Com
Res	Ind	Res	Ind	Res	Ind
Res	Com	Res	Com	Res	Com
Res	Ind	Res	Ind	Res	Ind

is not the recipe for a perfect, utopian megalopolis in this game?

[factotum]

You may have actually hit on the worst possible layout in Skylines...er, yay? The residents will be complaining about the pollution and noise from industry (plus a bit of noise from commercial) and the traffic to all those separated industrial zones will clog up every road in the system before you hit 10k population. Other that that, should work swimmingly!

[Flickerdart]

Just bought it! Looking through the thread, it seems my Sim City 2000 skills are probably serving me poorly... Are you telling me that tiling this

Res	Com	Res	Com	Res	Com
Res	Ind	Res	Ind	Res	Ind
Res	Com	Res	Com	Res	Com
Res	Ind	Res	Ind	Res	Ind

is not the recipe for a perfect, utopian megalopolis in this game?

There is precisely one advantage to doing it that way - when citizens go to work in the morning, they are not going to be clogging up a few key intersections, but instead place pretty even load on your roads. But in general you'll want to keep your residential zones as large as possible. I like to use commercial spaces as a buffer between residential areas and noisy, polluting, traffic-heavy industrial zones.