Cities: Skylines

[PointOfViewGun]

New diary: Cities: Skylines – Dev Diary 9: Info Views

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Mangerman]

That looks good.

I am really hopeful for this game, something has to surpass SimCity 4 at some point. The last modern city builder I played was Cities XL, which, while fun, had terrible performance issues.

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

Soooooo this is what Simcity was suppose to be?
I am hyped for this sooo much, I have to show this to my friend!

[zznɟ ǝɥʇ]

Bought it. Know it's a risk, but I played the godawful SimCity for far too many hours for me to think this won't be at least as good.

[Adamwestisgod]

So has anybody played it yet? From what I can tell the reviews are all pretty good. Basically saying that its like SimCity (2013), but better.

[PointOfViewGun]

Currently downloading on Steam.

[Adamwestisgod]

Im downloading it now. I caved after the Steam reviews. If a game has good press reviews AND good user reviews then something was done right. Though im curious if the good reviews are just because Sim City was such a disappointment

[prithupaul]

Its brilliant. True sequel to SimCity 4.

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

I like it.

[Adamwestisgod]

Anybody else finding the easter egg "chirps" funny? Im finding them hilarious

[Destin Faroda]

Personal impressions so far

Negative:
- The standard maps force you to accept the prebuilt highway and train system. Looks like island cities will be impossibe.
- Unlocking stuff is so arcadish, but there's a mod getting rid of that.
- Buying 8 additional city squares is a nuisance. I prefer complete maps like in XXL which makes planning zones and streets much easier.
- Highway intersections don't seem to snap to existing highways. The same is true for the train stations.
- Different lot sizes and XXL's farm system would have been a better choice than standardized 4x4 lots. If you use curvy roads, the 4x4 lots turn into a mess.
- Service ranges are a bit low. In reality, a university offers education to a whole region and not only the next several blocks. Why not only using a capacity system?
- The art style is not very realistic. CiM 2 had a better and more realistic style.
- The German translation has several spelling errors, but it is understandable.
- Culture and entertainment is missing. There's not even a library (which was in Sim City 4)!
- Trash is a giant problem and despite dozens of garbage dumps (not that far away from zones), the problem remains.
- I'm missing trams and monorails.

Positive:
- The game is stable and runs well on my old machine. Good work!
- Roads are not as edgy as the ones from XXL and constructing them is quite easy.
- There is a nice variety of power plants (even water which I've been missing since Sim City 2000).
- The district system is a great feature that allows you to personalize the city.
- The flowing rivers are a nice addition as well.
- I also enjoy the industry specializations.

Neither XXL nor Skylines deserve the title "perfect city builder". XXL has bigger and better maps, different lot sizes, several kinds of fillers, superior farms and culture/entertainment. Skylines has the better simulation, performance, music, traffic and the look of the city really changes over time.

[Adamwestisgod]

I wouldn't call it the perfect city builder, but it's def. One of the best to come out in a long time. I'm honestly Eagerly looking forward to patches, mods, and dlc.

[Admiral Nelson]

I wouldn't call it the perfect city builder, but it's def. One of the best to come out in a long time. I'm honestly Eagerly looking forward to patches, mods, and dlc.

Yeah, this is an excellent base-game, the spiritual successor to SC4, and it can only get better from here. Exciting stuff.

[Adamwestisgod]

Exactly, the base game is very excellent and I can't wait to see what they'll release in the future. Plus the building customization tool they've released is surprisingly deep, and I can't wait to see what some talented molders will release

[Kahvipannu]

Yeah, this game is awesome, but I had to stop playing, becouse of the "parks or commercial" bug. It is almost impossible to have both and run your city well with hard-mode mod on. It is game breaking for me. I hope they fix it soon, I wanna build my city god damn it :/

[Manco]

Loving the game atm, but there's a few issues really annoying me.

The standard unlocking/procession removes the ability to truly "grow" a city in a natural way despite it being ostensibly added to give you exactly that (where's my small town library, city hall,..). I feel more like I'm part of the city zoning commission than I'm creating a natural city.
And even though you've got the ability to create all kinds of road shapes, the way the zoning works almost forces, or at least rewards, you to use rectangular streets. I long for a city builder where some sort of procedural technique is used so buildings can have all kinds of shapes. Most cities in the world do not use rectangular city plans.

[Kahvipannu]

Hmmm... Do you mean square road-design? I have found them to be the worst You can, and should build any shape you want, there is building types for all sizes. If you leave "cracks" between the places buildings would be, design roads for humans there. They love to use those, instead being on the way on the cross-roads. The road system and the traffic simulation is by far the best part of this game.

[Adamwestisgod]

Well the sales of the game passed 500,000. Gotta say congrats to paradox, seems like the game is becoming a hit

[Kahvipannu]

Yeah, I think it broke sales records for Paradox, or something like that, over 250k copies sold in one day

Modding has taken wind under wings really well too, all kind of cool stuff available allready.

Also, would be cool to see what kind of cities people have made here, or other assets.

[Finlander]

Never thought I had this problem but I cannot keep my houses low level despite my best attempts at doing it.

I wish there was a policy that would forbit any upgrades made for the buildings or at least a mod to archieve this. I have downloaded several building mods into my game, one being a Soviet blockhouse which requires level 1 in order to exist. The problem here is that I am never going to see the suburbs of my liking surrounding my city when they get automaticly upgraded and the style will be changed.

However, there is a policy that makes just that what I am looking after for tall buildings so I'm optimistic that a similar thing could be modded in.