Cities: Skylines II(store.steampowered.com)
store.steampowered.com
Cities: Skylines II
https://store.steampowered.com/app/949230/Cities_Skylines_II/
266 comments
EA is supposed to be pretty happy with its SimCity BuildIt as it is a new way of generating lots of revenue through micro-transactions and makes the balance sheets look better. Meanwhile, players are pretty happy with Paradox's real passion about how to build a better city simulation game. For what it is worth, it is a win-win-win for EA, players, and Paradox Interactive.
The original Maxis team are the losers here. They worked 4 years to make something they thought would drive the genre forward but were sabotaged by executives who forced them to add DRM which destroyed the franchise when the servers exploded on release day. Then all their assets were transferred to another team who made the mobile version.
The gameplay imitations were far more severe than the DRM and online stuff. A clean release may not have generated such a brutal backlash, but it wouldn't have resulted in a genuine SimCity successor either.
Especially recently, Paradox has a streak of publishing overpriced, unfinished, even broken games. I'd wager that the success of Cities Skylines lies more with the developer than the publisher, and hope hope hope that PDX stayed away as much as possible from CS2s development.
"EA" didn't have the concept down, Maxis did. They bought out something and ruined it, par for the course for acquisitions.
Isn't it great when founders get a pay day but does that kind of thing really benefit everybody else? Just in general it doesn't seem that allowing most mergers is a particularly good thing for the American public, benefiting mostly just very large corporations who get to offload risk on to startups and their investors and reward only a lucky few (though skill is important, who succeeds and gets a good exit has a lot to do with luck)
Isn't it great when founders get a pay day but does that kind of thing really benefit everybody else? Just in general it doesn't seem that allowing most mergers is a particularly good thing for the American public, benefiting mostly just very large corporations who get to offload risk on to startups and their investors and reward only a lucky few (though skill is important, who succeeds and gets a good exit has a lot to do with luck)
Perhaps a more optimistic view is that the acquisition represented a one-way transfer of wealth from EA to the founders and shareholders of Maxis, who to their credit did bring good things into this world. It’s not clear to me that we would be better off if Maxis had never been acquired.
Simcity 2013 was the first time i asked for a game to be refunded. After that was rejected it became the first time and maybe only time i've used a credit card charge back.
I know "boycotts" don't work in the gaming industry but i can honestly say i haven't bought an EA product since.
That has been slightly easier by them only churning out yearly sporting games filled with micro transactions mind.
I know "boycotts" don't work in the gaming industry but i can honestly say i haven't bought an EA product since.
That has been slightly easier by them only churning out yearly sporting games filled with micro transactions mind.
It’s amazing just how few EA games I have purchased in the last 10 years!
Wonder why a "The Sims" competitor hasn't appeared yet, would the lack of branding and general "charm" of The Sims(like Simlish) be a dealbreaker?
Paralives is the big one that's in development and crowdfunded.
They pull in >$40k/mo in Patreon funding, and have a team of >10.
Website: https://www.paralives.com/ Their Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/alexmasse
Unaffiliated, just a massive Sims fan :)
They pull in >$40k/mo in Patreon funding, and have a team of >10.
Website: https://www.paralives.com/ Their Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/alexmasse
Unaffiliated, just a massive Sims fan :)
They actually announced one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNhV-Gnjdy8
Interesting, seems Paradox is becoming the new Maxis, or maybe it's Colossal Order (developer of Cities: Skylines) who is also the developer of this "Life by You"?
I hope we someday get a spiritual successor to SimEarth or SimAnt
That was actually one of the announcements made! Seems to be a Sims clone, in the early stages of development. I'm honestly looking forwards to it, rather than spending 1,000$ on Sims 4 on Steam.
Their sims-like game is actually developed by Paradox, so it's guaranteed there will be endless paid DLCs.
sims style DLCs are just a proxy subscription revenue model. As long as people are engaged consumers you can keep developing. If they don’t care about a particular DLC they don’t have to buy it. Sims 4 now has like 8 years of developer labor in it, if you were to install all the content. The original $30 (after retail cut) a user paid in 2015 wouldn’t have sustained that work.
Having to actually pay a subscription is actually much friendlier to players who want to get into the game a couple of years after it was first released. Of course the DLC model is much more profitable overall
If you're getting into a game years later then you probably don’t want all the content at once. Buy the base game with none of the DLC and play that for a while. Then decide which DLC will best enhance your current game; for example you might decide you want an amazing airport in your current city, so you get the Airports DLC. Or you might prefer a large University campus, so you get that one instead. Spread the content out over a year or two so that you are sure to get your money’s worth. Or just ignore the DLC and download mods and assets from the Steam workshop; you could spend a lifetime doing that and never catch up.
> probably don’t want all the content at once
If we’re talking about games developed by Parodox itself I really can’t imagine something like this. Core mechanics in most grand strategy games have usually been changed to a significant degree and while they are technically playable without DLCs the changes were most often made to better integrate the new content. Which overall left the base game in a largely crippled state.
Skylines is a lot better in this regard than something like Stellaris though.
I found https://store.steampowered.com/app/1538960/Crusader_Kings_II... to be an extremely good deal especially because I never tend to play these games continuously for significant periods of time. Obviously they are not offering this for newer games since it would usually lead to people spending 10s of dollars instead of 100s for the same amount of content .
If we’re talking about games developed by Parodox itself I really can’t imagine something like this. Core mechanics in most grand strategy games have usually been changed to a significant degree and while they are technically playable without DLCs the changes were most often made to better integrate the new content. Which overall left the base game in a largely crippled state.
Skylines is a lot better in this regard than something like Stellaris though.
I found https://store.steampowered.com/app/1538960/Crusader_Kings_II... to be an extremely good deal especially because I never tend to play these games continuously for significant periods of time. Obviously they are not offering this for newer games since it would usually lead to people spending 10s of dollars instead of 100s for the same amount of content .
On one hand, that’s absolutely true. On the other hand Paradox does a good job in maintaining the base game and constantly supplying it with free new features with every expansion.
PDX has been burned before by releasing DLC features that implicitly depend on other DLC features, and having to release patches that either unblock or kludge around it. The policy of “new mechanics are free, special abilities are paid” seems to me like a hard-learned lesson on maintaining configurations.
I am extremely optimistic looking at the CK3 DLCs though - they're closer to the early CK2 expansions that massively rehaul large portions of the game mechanics. I'm not certain if they're fully committed to that direction but it certainly feels better to look at those sorts of expansions than, say, HoI4 or some of the EU4 expansions which are generally just regional flavor packs.
I think they're not enamored of their reputation for crap shoveling and are making a concerted effort to deliver more value with their overhauls and that's why I've never really viewed them the same as skin-pushers like Roblox, CS:GO, The Sims or Fortnite.
I think they're not enamored of their reputation for crap shoveling and are making a concerted effort to deliver more value with their overhauls and that's why I've never really viewed them the same as skin-pushers like Roblox, CS:GO, The Sims or Fortnite.
Life By You seems to be that, which was also announced.
Another one is called Paralives: https://www.polygon.com/23433566/sims-5-project-rene-paraliv...
Another one is called Paralives: https://www.polygon.com/23433566/sims-5-project-rene-paraliv...
Actually, I want a Sims-like game with a real language instead of Simlish. It would be a great way to learn a language when immersion isn't possible.
I guess one reason they did this was because there would be a limited number of phrases and it would get repetitive quickly. LLMs could work around that today.
The brand is too strong with The Sims. It has multiple generations of fans who started with the original and are still playing the latest game.
As a long time fan I'm completely open to alternative takes on the life sim idea.
Turns out, building good _anything_ is profitable.
It's definitely not! Many good things cost more to build than people are willing to pay for them.
Yeah, lots of good things aren't profitable (at least to the ones making them). Xerox PARC comes to mind, Xerox didn't want to capitalize on those good things that were made there and thus Gates and Jobs did instead.
Xerox wanted to capitalize, but their business model, target customer and price point was not as innovative as the technology they had to offer.
The Dreamcast was considered by many gamers the best console of its time, great hardware, affordable price, great games, developer friendly. And yet, it was a commercial failure and it ended the Sega consoles.
Generally, for big profit, you need to build something good, but the reverse is not true. And you can still make small profit with crap.
Generally, for big profit, you need to build something good, but the reverse is not true. And you can still make small profit with crap.
But building user-hostile crap _anything_ is way more profitable
Well, no, not really - the example of Simcity 2013 vs Cities: Skylines given above is a great example where the user-hostile crap was much less profitable than what EA could have gotten based on their brand if they would have just made a straightforward remake similar to Cities: Skylines.
There's brand destroying short term strategies, and strategies that optimize for longevity.
> It just goes to show that
unlikely stuff does happen but not as much as likely stuff. Generalising from anecdotes and cherry picking data remains ill advised.
unlikely stuff does happen but not as much as likely stuff. Generalising from anecdotes and cherry picking data remains ill advised.
I posted this earlier [1] but it’s an interesting little twist to this story…
While EA was busy destroying the SimCity brand with unadulterated capitalist greed, Cities: Skylines was created with public funding from the Finnish government.
No VCs wanted to invest in such a niche company. They were only able to get off the ground thanks to money from Finland’s public startup funding and arts grants.
Capitalism on its own isn’t always enough to ensure that successful products get built. Sometimes it takes public funding to salvage a good idea that capitalism managed to burn down.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35047255
While EA was busy destroying the SimCity brand with unadulterated capitalist greed, Cities: Skylines was created with public funding from the Finnish government.
No VCs wanted to invest in such a niche company. They were only able to get off the ground thanks to money from Finland’s public startup funding and arts grants.
Capitalism on its own isn’t always enough to ensure that successful products get built. Sometimes it takes public funding to salvage a good idea that capitalism managed to burn down.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35047255
A single example of government funding an indie developer of a niche title proves that the entire industry up until this point has been going about it wrong?
Government bureaucracy and inefficient spending never burned down good ideas? Never wasted untold billions on failed projects? When it comes to innovative ideas and forward thinking, people turn to short sighted bureaucracy and public funding.
Government bureaucracy and inefficient spending never burned down good ideas? Never wasted untold billions on failed projects? When it comes to innovative ideas and forward thinking, people turn to short sighted bureaucracy and public funding.
The post you are responding to isn't claiming that
> the entire industry up until this point has been going about it wrong?
but it sometimes goes about it wrong.
> Capitalism on its own isn’t __always enough__ to ensure that successful products get built.
You are building up a strawman and attacking it with very hostile language. I would also disagree with your assumption that governments are inefficient, as there are good examples of efficient governments. Governments can get it right too, and the parent comment certainly isn't suggesting that governments are always right.
Every criticism you have levied: "burn[ing] down good ideas", "wasted untold billions on failed projects", "short sighted"-ness also have examples in the private sector and even with public companies.
> the entire industry up until this point has been going about it wrong?
but it sometimes goes about it wrong.
> Capitalism on its own isn’t __always enough__ to ensure that successful products get built.
You are building up a strawman and attacking it with very hostile language. I would also disagree with your assumption that governments are inefficient, as there are good examples of efficient governments. Governments can get it right too, and the parent comment certainly isn't suggesting that governments are always right.
Every criticism you have levied: "burn[ing] down good ideas", "wasted untold billions on failed projects", "short sighted"-ness also have examples in the private sector and even with public companies.
Yes it does say exactly that.
EA is not an isolated company afflicted with capitalism. When you say a companies failures are due to capitalist greed, that means something. You are blaming the fundamental economic principles that the majority of publishers (and western businesses) operate on. Words like greed imply there is an inherent evil or 'sin' in capitalism that corrupts, and EA has somehow become its victim. In steps our hero the government with its keen eye for missed opportunities to save the day.
There is absolutely no assumption's about the inefficiency of bureaucracy and government.
EA is not an isolated company afflicted with capitalism. When you say a companies failures are due to capitalist greed, that means something. You are blaming the fundamental economic principles that the majority of publishers (and western businesses) operate on. Words like greed imply there is an inherent evil or 'sin' in capitalism that corrupts, and EA has somehow become its victim. In steps our hero the government with its keen eye for missed opportunities to save the day.
There is absolutely no assumption's about the inefficiency of bureaucracy and government.
That’s a completely incorrect interpretation of what I wrote.
EA destroyed a valuable brand by managerial greed. That’s a fact. Another company got funded by public means when capitalist institutions didn’t want to give them the time of day, and is now a successful business. That’s another fact.
I didn’t say anything about an inherent evil or sin. If you believe capitalism always executes perfectly and is beyond criticism, that’s your ideological position. You may be projecting this expectation of ideology onto others.
EA destroyed a valuable brand by managerial greed. That’s a fact. Another company got funded by public means when capitalist institutions didn’t want to give them the time of day, and is now a successful business. That’s another fact.
I didn’t say anything about an inherent evil or sin. If you believe capitalism always executes perfectly and is beyond criticism, that’s your ideological position. You may be projecting this expectation of ideology onto others.
You have no proof the brand was destroyed by managerial greed. You also never said managerial greed, you said capitalist greed.. big difference.
You mention capitalisms failures and destruction of ideas while public funding saved the day. Pointing out that a single government grant does not make a game industry or save ideas destroyed by capitalism is not projecting ideology.
You mention capitalisms failures and destruction of ideas while public funding saved the day. Pointing out that a single government grant does not make a game industry or save ideas destroyed by capitalism is not projecting ideology.
Did you read the story of SimCity 2013 linked here?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35041202
It seems pretty clear that this game was destroyed by EA management's poor decisions. They forced the game to require an active online connection primarily as an anti-piracy move, but then underfunded the development of the server-side functionality, so the servers were down for most buyers. For strategic reasons, they wanted to tie SimCity into EA's Origin game distribution platform, but this was just a hindrance to players.
Why did management make these decisions? To maximize shareholder value and increase their quarterly profits. EA as a company is a good example of the kind of short-term thinking that capitalism can encourage.
It's good to have a counterbalance. It can come in many forms. Tax-funded public instruments are one, but another important source of funding that's not distributed by capitalist principles are the various private foundations. And most of those were of course founded on wealth created by capitalism. So I'm not at all opposed to private wealth and market-driven resource allocation — I just don't think it should be the only way, or some kind of received truth that's above criticism.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35041202
It seems pretty clear that this game was destroyed by EA management's poor decisions. They forced the game to require an active online connection primarily as an anti-piracy move, but then underfunded the development of the server-side functionality, so the servers were down for most buyers. For strategic reasons, they wanted to tie SimCity into EA's Origin game distribution platform, but this was just a hindrance to players.
Why did management make these decisions? To maximize shareholder value and increase their quarterly profits. EA as a company is a good example of the kind of short-term thinking that capitalism can encourage.
It's good to have a counterbalance. It can come in many forms. Tax-funded public instruments are one, but another important source of funding that's not distributed by capitalist principles are the various private foundations. And most of those were of course founded on wealth created by capitalism. So I'm not at all opposed to private wealth and market-driven resource allocation — I just don't think it should be the only way, or some kind of received truth that's above criticism.
A company attempting to prevent the theft of their product on a platform rampant with piracy is capitalist greed? Improving their share value by stopping the theft of their product is capitalist greed? How about they incompetently implemented anti-piracy measures and paid for it with consumer backlash?
PC gamers want to run games on a platform open to piracy, and call it greed when companies try to stop the theft of their own work.
...And where is the government in all this by the way? Anti-piracy laws seem to be grossly ineffective as it is so widespread. Companies have to protect their own work as government sits by idle.
PC gamers want to run games on a platform open to piracy, and call it greed when companies try to stop the theft of their own work.
...And where is the government in all this by the way? Anti-piracy laws seem to be grossly ineffective as it is so widespread. Companies have to protect their own work as government sits by idle.
This is somewhat out of context. Colosal Order developed two niche games before C:S; a transport simulator series called Cities in Motion. They received government funding before the first game was released. Many European countries have grants, tax cuts or loans for new businesses, so it's not anything unusual.
CiM 2 is a really good game, and very beautiful (which I guess is how they got the idea to build C:S). The focus is on transportation, and it does a much better job of simulating it than C:S (no despawning for starts). It has a few bugs and performance issues which I guess will never be fixed now, but worth playing if you like games that are a bit more constrained.
https://youtu.be/Bkwbajm7nG8
CiM 2 is a really good game, and very beautiful (which I guess is how they got the idea to build C:S). The focus is on transportation, and it does a much better job of simulating it than C:S (no despawning for starts). It has a few bugs and performance issues which I guess will never be fixed now, but worth playing if you like games that are a bit more constrained.
https://youtu.be/Bkwbajm7nG8
> “…it's not anything unusual.”
I would argue it’s actually unusual on HN to hear such an origin story for a successful business. Everybody has heard a hundred versions of the VC-funded twenty-something boy genius and also the bootstrapped hustler… But the story where your seed funding comes from government grants in a small European country doesn’t align with that kind of hero founder narratives.
Personally I got started in the software business with a Finnish government loan too, and I’m grateful for it. So I wanted to highlight that this actually happens and leads to products that people want.
I would argue it’s actually unusual on HN to hear such an origin story for a successful business. Everybody has heard a hundred versions of the VC-funded twenty-something boy genius and also the bootstrapped hustler… But the story where your seed funding comes from government grants in a small European country doesn’t align with that kind of hero founder narratives.
Personally I got started in the software business with a Finnish government loan too, and I’m grateful for it. So I wanted to highlight that this actually happens and leads to products that people want.
I liked Cities in Motion. But like many other games like it, the joy dies when the UI can't keep up with the growing complexity as I build. Things that were easy in the beginning become a chore later on. That's when I give up and move on.
Finn here and i know the game and company and by no means Im not downplaying what you said but; In general - there are quite a few possibilities to apply for grants and similar monetary benefits from the goverment, municipalities and few ngo's here. And as a finn - I would find it actually miraculous that company such as Colossal Order would have never ever benefited from public funding.
Interesting! I suppose they recouped their investment via taxes.
> He's made over $300 million in revenue so far and might be the first solo game dev (or even regular software dev) to hit $1 billion in the course of the game's existence.
So you use revenue as a measuremeant of success, which is very reasonable.
> (hint: they don't want always-online DRM-filled games that nickle and dime you with microtransactions (well, most people anyway, there are always gacha/gambling-type whale gamers))
Then you said this. You know in terms of revenue, microtransaction is the most successful model, right? Mobile gaming is now bigger than PC gaming + console gaming. And they're basically all microtransactions. $300 million sounds a lot but it's just 2~3 months of Genshin. If revenue is a sign of what players "want", then the only logical conclusion is a lot people "want" microtransactions, they just don't admit it like people want BigMac but say they want to eat healthy.
I think it's a strong no-true-scotsman fallacy right here. You believe players don't want microtransactions, because you don't think those casual players who play Candy Crush, Clash of Clans or Genshin are "true players".
So you use revenue as a measuremeant of success, which is very reasonable.
> (hint: they don't want always-online DRM-filled games that nickle and dime you with microtransactions (well, most people anyway, there are always gacha/gambling-type whale gamers))
Then you said this. You know in terms of revenue, microtransaction is the most successful model, right? Mobile gaming is now bigger than PC gaming + console gaming. And they're basically all microtransactions. $300 million sounds a lot but it's just 2~3 months of Genshin. If revenue is a sign of what players "want", then the only logical conclusion is a lot people "want" microtransactions, they just don't admit it like people want BigMac but say they want to eat healthy.
I think it's a strong no-true-scotsman fallacy right here. You believe players don't want microtransactions, because you don't think those casual players who play Candy Crush, Clash of Clans or Genshin are "true players".
So apparently people _want_ to smoke tobacco.
My issue with your comment that I have attempted to frame in that pithy one-liner is that microtransactions are often sold through a manipulative sales window, in some cases games are designed around them to make the micro-transactions more appealing (e.g. games that throttle your progress unless you spend).
In addition, using revenue as a measure of popularity with micro-transactions is problematic because they are designed to effectively segment the market. This means they're not necessarily a solid indicator of what an average/median user might want because sometimes much of that revenue is a product of relatively few users (aka "whales").
My issue with your comment that I have attempted to frame in that pithy one-liner is that microtransactions are often sold through a manipulative sales window, in some cases games are designed around them to make the micro-transactions more appealing (e.g. games that throttle your progress unless you spend).
In addition, using revenue as a measure of popularity with micro-transactions is problematic because they are designed to effectively segment the market. This means they're not necessarily a solid indicator of what an average/median user might want because sometimes much of that revenue is a product of relatively few users (aka "whales").
I disagree. Target audience is not the same. Stardew Valley and Cities Skyline do not compete with Clash of Clans.
Making something unique can make more revenue than replicating other successful model with hight competition.
Making something unique can make more revenue than replicating other successful model with hight competition.
The only thing that was bypassed was forced disconnect after losing internet. You still could not save or trade between regions while offline. Server emulator appeared 4 months after release. Official offline mode was released a year after release.
Even if you got past the always online aspects, it just felt like a huge step down from Sim City 4. Too many opaque things going on, too much thrown at you, too high concept, didn't feel like building a model train set anymore.
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> He's made over $300 million in revenue so far and might be the first solo game dev (or even regular software dev) to hit $1 billion in the course of the game's existence.
That would be Notch, who made Minecraft
That would be Notch, who made Minecraft
As of May last year Stardew Valley sold over 20 mil copies, so 300 mil sounds about right. As staggerring as it is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stardew_Valley#Sales
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stardew_Valley#Sales
Was Notch a solo dev when he sold to Microsoft? I think he had a team already. The Stardew Valley creator still doesn't have a full time team, I believe.
I have put many hours into Cities Skylines and I am really looking forward to this. The obvious thing people will want them to fix is traffic and vehicle pathfinding, put personally I hope they let us build more pedestrian-focused streets. I so desperately want to build walk and bike friendly cities with beautiful pedestrian malls and walking-only streets but the game kind of forces you to build out extensive car infrastructure. I also hope they offer a way to do true mixed-use building instead of being forced to choose residential/commercial/industrial/office.
I also hope that they'll let us build more "european" cities that aren't so horribly car centric and are more diverse.
Hopefully we also get a bit more diversity of gameplay - Skylines got pretty repetitive quickly with only challenge being traffic optimization. The new DLCs didn't really add that much to gameplay except different things to paint between roads. I hope things like universities, industry, agriculture, airports, etc. become a an actual challenge to build, fund and retain - maybe pull in some things from the Anno series to make it happen.
Hopefully we also get a bit more diversity of gameplay - Skylines got pretty repetitive quickly with only challenge being traffic optimization. The new DLCs didn't really add that much to gameplay except different things to paint between roads. I hope things like universities, industry, agriculture, airports, etc. become a an actual challenge to build, fund and retain - maybe pull in some things from the Anno series to make it happen.
If they don't give us mixed-use zoning I'm going to tableflip, so here's hoping. I dislike how Western-centric the concept of zoning is - in most of the world having a grocery store at the bottom of a building is normal!
Likewise I wish they would model the amenity effect of businesses. Commercial zones in C:S are only about employment, but IMO having good amenities near residences is a huge influencer of QoL and should be modeled.
In fact I would love to see zoning become a more full-fledged game mechanic - balancing the amenity effects of mixing business with residential with the nuisance drawbacks.
Likewise the idea that you had to start every city with a huge freeway is a bit of a turnoff. Give me a start with a train station! I want to make a beach town that's primarily accessed by train!
Likewise I wish they would model the amenity effect of businesses. Commercial zones in C:S are only about employment, but IMO having good amenities near residences is a huge influencer of QoL and should be modeled.
In fact I would love to see zoning become a more full-fledged game mechanic - balancing the amenity effects of mixing business with residential with the nuisance drawbacks.
Likewise the idea that you had to start every city with a huge freeway is a bit of a turnoff. Give me a start with a train station! I want to make a beach town that's primarily accessed by train!
> Western-centric
Don't you mean US-centric? I don't recall a UK city where there wasn't a grocery store within a 10 minute walk of everywhere and I don't recall visiting a city in Europe that wasn't pretty much the same.
Don't you mean US-centric? I don't recall a UK city where there wasn't a grocery store within a 10 minute walk of everywhere and I don't recall visiting a city in Europe that wasn't pretty much the same.
I think they meant vaguely North American. That kind of awful zoning is quite prevalent in Mexico and Canada as well.
It's very common for Dutch shops to have apartments above them. Sometimes it's where the shop owner lives, sometimes not. Many modern shopping malls include a lot of residential space of some sort. Many neighbourhoods have corner shops.
Another interesting thing that these games don't support is reusing existing buildings for a different purpose. Former industrial or dock areas are always popular places to turn into expensive housing or shopping areas.
Another interesting thing that these games don't support is reusing existing buildings for a different purpose. Former industrial or dock areas are always popular places to turn into expensive housing or shopping areas.
There are a couple of mods that let you change what buildings are used for, or rebalance how dense they are. Ploppable RICO, Realistic Population, etc. You can even go so far as to use Procedural Objects with Service Cubes. Use PO to create a completely unique building, then hide a Service Cube inside it that provides housing for 100 families, another that provides some commercial, and another that provides a city service like a school or a morgue. There, instant mixed–use building. Overlap it with a subway station for extra realism.
One of my favorite Youtube series is Cities Skylines: MARS <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDX8YQ_aGnY>. The author goes hog–wild and builds a complete city into a dome on Mars using custom assets he created himself (the game comes with asset editors), Procedural Objects, Service Cubes, and liberal use of the Move–It mod. It really is an astounding work of art, but you can also see why Colossal Order didn’t make a game with that level of freedom built–in; it almost becomes more of a 3D modelling program than a game. There’s a fine line between competing with SimCity and competing with Maya or Blender!
One of my favorite Youtube series is Cities Skylines: MARS <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDX8YQ_aGnY>. The author goes hog–wild and builds a complete city into a dome on Mars using custom assets he created himself (the game comes with asset editors), Procedural Objects, Service Cubes, and liberal use of the Move–It mod. It really is an astounding work of art, but you can also see why Colossal Order didn’t make a game with that level of freedom built–in; it almost becomes more of a 3D modelling program than a game. There’s a fine line between competing with SimCity and competing with Maya or Blender!
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I'm curious how much they'll pull over from the existing DLCs, the Plazas and Promenades pack does allow for pedestrian cities. But not in a European sense despite the dev being in Europe.
We could even begin with a concept of mixed zoning that's so standard in many world cities. The usual "stores on the street, apartments above" design.
(I was really surprised that actual USA is building cities the same way SimCity modeled - with complete separation between commercial and residental areas).
(I was really surprised that actual USA is building cities the same way SimCity modeled - with complete separation between commercial and residental areas).
The limits of every simulation game come into play where they start to "cartoon" how the world actually works, which has always been the case with city builders in the Simcity mold. The approaches to traffic, crime, pollution etc all act in a way to give an impression of the real world while not really going deep into the subject and making the solutions be a bit lock-and-key, fitting our existing norms rather than presenting an emergent problem: a lot of times it comes down to building "expensive structure X" to solve your city's issues. The original Simcity is ultimately broken, speedrunner style, by reaching into the guts of the sim to realize that every zone just needs a token road or rail by it, not a connection, and therefore can be approached with a nonsensical pattern of disconnected structures.
I think Skylines did a good job of modelling complex traffic, but when I came back to it a month or two ago, I was disappointed by how much it felt like I was steered towards creating a "city of the past" and not engaging with any new technological or economic developments. Like, you can build an Amsterdam-like bike city in Skylines, with the appropriate DLC, but it's not modelled in a fine-grained way and just feels like you have magicked away commuter traffic by dumping bike lanes everywhere.
In the end, if I want to plan a city of the future, I should probably go back to drawing on graph paper like when I was 8 years old.
I think Skylines did a good job of modelling complex traffic, but when I came back to it a month or two ago, I was disappointed by how much it felt like I was steered towards creating a "city of the past" and not engaging with any new technological or economic developments. Like, you can build an Amsterdam-like bike city in Skylines, with the appropriate DLC, but it's not modelled in a fine-grained way and just feels like you have magicked away commuter traffic by dumping bike lanes everywhere.
In the end, if I want to plan a city of the future, I should probably go back to drawing on graph paper like when I was 8 years old.
Well, I personally think that these sandbox games need a bit of suspension of disbelief and roleplay to be truly fun.
If you optimize the fun of the game by breaking it (and that's usually rather easy), you'll just... not have fun with it. This is why I personally prefer to avoid using broken strategies and set my own fun challenges to build themed cities.
Which is why I kinda wish there was more variety in Skylines - besides Vancouver, I also want to make messy cities like Shenzen or Bangkok, or London and maybe deal with local limits and idiosyncrasies.
If you optimize the fun of the game by breaking it (and that's usually rather easy), you'll just... not have fun with it. This is why I personally prefer to avoid using broken strategies and set my own fun challenges to build themed cities.
Which is why I kinda wish there was more variety in Skylines - besides Vancouver, I also want to make messy cities like Shenzen or Bangkok, or London and maybe deal with local limits and idiosyncrasies.
> The original Simcity is ultimately broken
Magnasanti
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTJQTc-TqpU
Magnasanti
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTJQTc-TqpU
One rather big cartooning, which the old Sim Cities did better, has to do with development over time. In the first Sim City you started in 1900. And although the implementation of any kind of historical progress was extremely limited (it took a while to get access to nuclear plants as I recall), my imagination did a lot of the work. (Listening to Dire Straits "Telegraph Road" helped too). And SC2000, the last I played, had a lot of progress elements and even the memorable "arcology" futuristic buildings.
In Cities: Skylines, you start in 2010 as I recall. Not only is it rather more implausible to start a city in the wilderness then than in 1900, but you have idiots tweeting at you - forever.
I'd love to see a city builder where the challenge wasn't about urban planning, but in adapting to a changing world. ("Then came the trains, then came the ore, then there was the hard times, then there was a war")
In Cities: Skylines, you start in 2010 as I recall. Not only is it rather more implausible to start a city in the wilderness then than in 1900, but you have idiots tweeting at you - forever.
I'd love to see a city builder where the challenge wasn't about urban planning, but in adapting to a changing world. ("Then came the trains, then came the ore, then there was the hard times, then there was a war")
This was standard in US cities in the early 20th century (prior to 1920) before the value of the real estate (and taxes) and automobiles changed the model. Mixed use may be coming back-California recently passed a state law allowing for it, I believe . Here is one article on the topic of mixed-use:
https://www.secfin.com/private-money-blog/2021/12/15/the-ris...
And if you haven’t read anything by Jane Jacobs, it’s worthwhile checking out her books written (1950-1960) about the importance of city neighborhoods from the perspective of NYC urban dwellers.
https://www.secfin.com/private-money-blog/2021/12/15/the-ris...
And if you haven’t read anything by Jane Jacobs, it’s worthwhile checking out her books written (1950-1960) about the importance of city neighborhoods from the perspective of NYC urban dwellers.
Not only many world cities, but also at least some parts of iconic USA cities like New York City Manhattan, downtown Chicago, etc.
essentially pre-automotive cities vs. post-automotive cities.
but that's the issue. most sims are designed after american cities
> I also hope that they'll let us build more "european" cities that aren't so horribly car centric and are more diverse.
Yeah, I wanted to start Skylines but found that it all begins with a highway...
Yeah, I wanted to start Skylines but found that it all begins with a highway...
It’s true that every building needs to be on a street but it is nevertheless possible to build substantial pedestrian architecture. I’ve spent many happy hours building pedestrian infrastructure and encouraging my peeps to walk and catch the subway.
And if you don't want your cities to die from traffic congestion you need to make it all walkable with good public transportation.
I can get much further through the middle game by focusing from the start on not building all kinds of roads. I used to run a big highway down the middle of my city thinking that was the right way to do it, but you're vastly better off not doing that, because if you build that road, they'll overuse it.
The sims will walk a pretty unreasonably long way as well, I've built ped overpasses that were packed, while having nice and quiet roads.
CityPlannerPlays is a good youtuber to learn how to build cities that aren't terrible, and aren't overly cheesing the game mechanics:
https://www.youtube.com/@CityPlannerPlays
I can get much further through the middle game by focusing from the start on not building all kinds of roads. I used to run a big highway down the middle of my city thinking that was the right way to do it, but you're vastly better off not doing that, because if you build that road, they'll overuse it.
The sims will walk a pretty unreasonably long way as well, I've built ped overpasses that were packed, while having nice and quiet roads.
CityPlannerPlays is a good youtuber to learn how to build cities that aren't terrible, and aren't overly cheesing the game mechanics:
https://www.youtube.com/@CityPlannerPlays
CPP is really great. Recently discovered, and I'm binge-watching through all his content. I love the stories he's telling, plus the insides he gives as being an actual city planner.
It would be so cool to only have a rail station to begin with.
The game desperately needs a 'campaign', similar to (but hopefully richer than) what the Roller Coaster Tycoon series had, just to give some structure to repeated gameplay.
There are scenarios[1] in the game, from my experience that is very similar to what RCT used to have. You're given a map and a point in time where the map has certain issues, and you have to solve them. The issue is that they are gated by DLC, so not all players can experience it. Also they aren't really deep and don't have too much re-playability.
[1] : https://skylines.paradoxwikis.com/Scenarios
[1] : https://skylines.paradoxwikis.com/Scenarios
Oh yeah, I've played the game and some of dlc and didn't even know about them.
Be good if the cost of car parking was accounted for. Want to have cars? You've got to have large parking lots cluttering your space with low appeal, or your buildings cost far more to build / lower density etc
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/05/the-p...
Geoff Manaugh: While you were making those measurements of different real-world cities, did you discover any surprising patterns or spatial relationships?
Librande: Yes, definitely. I think the biggest one was the parking lots. When I started measuring out our local grocery store, which I don't think of as being that big, I was blown away by how much more space was parking lot rather than actual store. That was kind of a problem, because we were originally just going to model real cities, but we quickly realized there were way too many parking lots in the real world and that our game was going to be really boring if it was proportional in terms of parking lots.
Manaugh: You would be making SimParkingLot, rather than SimCity.
Librande: [laughs] Exactly. So what we do in the game is that we just imagine they are underground. We do have parking lots in the game, and we do try to scale them -- so, if you have a little grocery store, we'll put six or seven parking spots on the side, and, if you have a big convention center or a big pro stadium, they'll have what seem like really big lots -- but they're nowhere near what a real grocery store or pro stadium would have. We had to do the best we could do and still make the game look attractive.
Geoff Manaugh: While you were making those measurements of different real-world cities, did you discover any surprising patterns or spatial relationships?
Librande: Yes, definitely. I think the biggest one was the parking lots. When I started measuring out our local grocery store, which I don't think of as being that big, I was blown away by how much more space was parking lot rather than actual store. That was kind of a problem, because we were originally just going to model real cities, but we quickly realized there were way too many parking lots in the real world and that our game was going to be really boring if it was proportional in terms of parking lots.
Manaugh: You would be making SimParkingLot, rather than SimCity.
Librande: [laughs] Exactly. So what we do in the game is that we just imagine they are underground. We do have parking lots in the game, and we do try to scale them -- so, if you have a little grocery store, we'll put six or seven parking spots on the side, and, if you have a big convention center or a big pro stadium, they'll have what seem like really big lots -- but they're nowhere near what a real grocery store or pro stadium would have. We had to do the best we could do and still make the game look attractive.
I too have put lots of time and energy into this and many other city building games.
Agree on everything you say, but I do wonder to what extent the bad traffic and all those limitations are an inherent statement that these games carry by design. A statement on how we think urban design should work blah blah.
SimCity 2000 certainly had a sharper, more pointed set of things to say that presumably originated with Will Wright. Skylines obviously can’t be too political about it, they just have to keep it mild to sell.
I do remember this guy making a great series of videos explaining a lot about how cities were/are made while playing through a modded copy of Skylines. Highly recommend here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwkSQD3vqK1S1NiHIxxF2g_Uy...
I can imagine what you’re wanting for will probably be delivered with a variety of mods and community content. Or as DLC?
Agree on everything you say, but I do wonder to what extent the bad traffic and all those limitations are an inherent statement that these games carry by design. A statement on how we think urban design should work blah blah.
SimCity 2000 certainly had a sharper, more pointed set of things to say that presumably originated with Will Wright. Skylines obviously can’t be too political about it, they just have to keep it mild to sell.
I do remember this guy making a great series of videos explaining a lot about how cities were/are made while playing through a modded copy of Skylines. Highly recommend here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwkSQD3vqK1S1NiHIxxF2g_Uy...
I can imagine what you’re wanting for will probably be delivered with a variety of mods and community content. Or as DLC?
How is using your legs in an urban area political?
> How is using your legs in an urban area political?
Since you asked, "Conspiracy Theorists Think Walkable Cities Are Really Open-Air Prison Dystopias Now":
* https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7g898/walkable-15-minute-ci...
"Conspiracy Theorists Are Coming for the 15-Minute City"
* https://www.wired.co.uk/article/15-minute-cities-conspiracy-...
Since you asked, "Conspiracy Theorists Think Walkable Cities Are Really Open-Air Prison Dystopias Now":
* https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7g898/walkable-15-minute-ci...
"Conspiracy Theorists Are Coming for the 15-Minute City"
* https://www.wired.co.uk/article/15-minute-cities-conspiracy-...
Yeah, after all the insane conspiracy theories of the past couple of years, I thought conspiracies had peaked. But no, this one takes the cake. Apparently everything that helps people and makes life a bit nicer is inherently suspect and evil. Only if we suffer in mindless dystopia can we be truly free, or something.
phpisthebest(1)
How that urban area came to be is highly political. How it evolves is as well.
Some people oppose walking and biking and transit infrastructure on the basis that poor and other undesirable people will start showing up in their neighborhoods.
Not everything has to be political, but if you start digging, everything is.
Not everything has to be political, but if you start digging, everything is.
[deleted]
It would be great if a game like that was such an accurate city simulation that you could use it to experiment with different kinds of infrastructure and draw conclusions from that. I'm probably asking way too much, but it would be awesome if possible.
a cool extended feature of that would be to have pre-built unoptimized cities with a budget to update existing metro areas to more walkable and efficient metro areas (with metrics that track things like CO2 emissions).
I have a hard time with freeform city builders like Skylines or SimCity. The amount of unrestrained freedom makes me question why I'm even playing. I have the same issue with The Sims or something like Planet Zoo.
That and Skylines giving me a blank canvas paralyses me. How does one plan a city? Where do the roads go?
It's the sort of game I want to love, but I just get so overwhelmed by the sheer number of options and I'm not sure what to do.
On the other hand, games like Tropico (at least the later titles - 3, 4, 5, 6) having a "story" to play through help a bit because there is direction in what to build and where. Conversely, though, cities I build in Tropico end up being haphazard patch jobs where I find an empty space and put a dozen wind turbines in it because that's what the mission calls for, and so I miss out on some of the potential satisfaction.
That and Skylines giving me a blank canvas paralyses me. How does one plan a city? Where do the roads go?
It's the sort of game I want to love, but I just get so overwhelmed by the sheer number of options and I'm not sure what to do.
On the other hand, games like Tropico (at least the later titles - 3, 4, 5, 6) having a "story" to play through help a bit because there is direction in what to build and where. Conversely, though, cities I build in Tropico end up being haphazard patch jobs where I find an empty space and put a dozen wind turbines in it because that's what the mission calls for, and so I miss out on some of the potential satisfaction.
> The amount of unrestrained freedom makes me question why I'm even playing.
After a while, grownups lose what to do with a plastic bucket and shovel at the beach.
After a while, grownups lose what to do with a plastic bucket and shovel at the beach.
And then when they have kids, they remember how much fun it is. Kids give me the excuse not to be embarrassed, but I'm not really building the sandcastles just for them!
Thinking about schools, the workplace, the economic systems we live under, and how many things constantly require action from our brains (vs. free space to imagine), the former three all frequently punishing significant deviation from a given norm, this isn't entirely surprising. Unfortunately I've found it impacts me, too.
Ironically, my absolute favourite beach activity is road building. I head off to the edges where the rocks, sand, and shore meet where the sand is damp. I then compact damp sand onto the rocks to make little roads and try to build a network of roads that keeps road gradient below a certain threshold. It’s a fun problem solving exercise and almost on a par with Cities Skylines!
I like making dams.
That's why I love my job as a software engineer: I never unlearned to create something out of nothing.
Never heard that
Good reminder
Good reminder
I similarly get bored of Skylines as soon as the game starts handing you near-infinite money. Making something aesthetically pleasing is only so interesting to me - I want the challenge of constraints.
I actually have a similar problem with the Tropico remakes. Tropico 1 was hard. You could not survive a mission without dipping into the dictator toolsets. So striking a constant balance between economics and human rights was an interesting challenge. (It also made for a much more biting satire). The games since 3 are still pleasant city-builders in their own rights, but make it a bit too easy to win on the straight and narrow.
I actually have a similar problem with the Tropico remakes. Tropico 1 was hard. You could not survive a mission without dipping into the dictator toolsets. So striking a constant balance between economics and human rights was an interesting challenge. (It also made for a much more biting satire). The games since 3 are still pleasant city-builders in their own rights, but make it a bit too easy to win on the straight and narrow.
Almost all simulation games suffer this problem of, well, winning. You'll see complaints that the late game of Civilization 6 is boring, as a sufficient advantage means a winner has been effectively determined.
The only fix I can see is to have much better scenarios, or AI opponents, which I tend to think only the external communities around these games can produce. They generally don't allow that level of access for mods though.
The only fix I can see is to have much better scenarios, or AI opponents, which I tend to think only the external communities around these games can produce. They generally don't allow that level of access for mods though.
I haven't really spent much time on simulation games past SimCity 2000, but I find this odd. Even the most winsome cities and countries in the world are struggling.
Instead of scenarios or AI, why wouldn't it be the case that success invites more problems? You've got issues with immigration happening too rapidly for the population's taste, inflation devalues your accumulated resources at a more rapid pace, essential workers' pay isn't keeping up with FAANG, inequality is rampant, lots of homeless druggies appreciating your shelter & food bank infrastructure but locals are fed up, and also the next level up in government works against you out of envy or simple lack of appreciation for you contribution to the public purse. Power structures crumble because citizens get lazy and entitled, not knowing how good they have it, populism and self-interest rule the day.
Design success as the enemy of success, and you never run out of issues to solve. That said, it would be nice to see the winning endgame in real life for a change.
Instead of scenarios or AI, why wouldn't it be the case that success invites more problems? You've got issues with immigration happening too rapidly for the population's taste, inflation devalues your accumulated resources at a more rapid pace, essential workers' pay isn't keeping up with FAANG, inequality is rampant, lots of homeless druggies appreciating your shelter & food bank infrastructure but locals are fed up, and also the next level up in government works against you out of envy or simple lack of appreciation for you contribution to the public purse. Power structures crumble because citizens get lazy and entitled, not knowing how good they have it, populism and self-interest rule the day.
Design success as the enemy of success, and you never run out of issues to solve. That said, it would be nice to see the winning endgame in real life for a change.
> Design success as the enemy of success, and you never run out of issues to solve.
And a game almost everyone will hate, as it slaps you in the face and spits on you for succeeding.
And a game almost everyone will hate, as it slaps you in the face and spits on you for succeeding.
I'm sure you could design it in a way that people wouldn't mind. Most games get harder as you succeed at them. Rimworld is a builder game that does it. And not just through increased complexity, but by making the environment more hostile.
Having a dynamic environment is one of the things that I've long wanted city sims to have. SimCity always had disasters, which is in the same vein, but they always felt like an afterthought (or a joke, in the case of alien or monster attacks). City simulations pretend to be serious flaw toys, so let me deal with a recession (or even a boom), or a dioxine contamination, or civil unrest. Not with a minigame, but let me deal with the city management aspects of those events.
Having a dynamic environment is one of the things that I've long wanted city sims to have. SimCity always had disasters, which is in the same vein, but they always felt like an afterthought (or a joke, in the case of alien or monster attacks). City simulations pretend to be serious flaw toys, so let me deal with a recession (or even a boom), or a dioxine contamination, or civil unrest. Not with a minigame, but let me deal with the city management aspects of those events.
Same decay happened in Civilization. Civ4 was a great challenge in terms of making choices and fighting off a somewhat competent (at least enough to make you take it into account) AI. Civ6 seems to be more of a design game after you get past the initial hump a getting some early infrastructure together without going bankrupt or conquered.
You could use a game trainer to limit how much money you receive. I usually do the opposite since I hate grinding in a game for virtual money or points, feels like a waste of time for me as compared to working on something cool in the real world.
Cities: Skylines has that built in, actually. The more money you have saved up the lower your revenue from taxes is.
Exactly. It's essentially a sandbox city builder with some highway optimisation thrown in. SimCities 4 was more fun because it was more challenging and felt more like a game, rather than a sandbox.
There are so many interesting gameplay things Skylines could do to be more fun for me like:
1. Subway optimization, e.g faster train cost more but people get to their destination faster, slower trains allow for shorter distances between stations.
2. Parking optimization, e.g. building with parking costs more (because more land has to be bought), but allows people to travel to the place in
3. Low vs high taxes, nanny state or pure capitalism? How would that affect the economy and people's satisfaction?
There are so many interesting gameplay things Skylines could do to be more fun for me like:
1. Subway optimization, e.g faster train cost more but people get to their destination faster, slower trains allow for shorter distances between stations.
2. Parking optimization, e.g. building with parking costs more (because more land has to be bought), but allows people to travel to the place in
3. Low vs high taxes, nanny state or pure capitalism? How would that affect the economy and people's satisfaction?
There's two separate subgenres, and that's fine. Because its just a different game in general despite both being simulators.
If you like Tropico, then you probably should give TwoPoint Hospital a try, as well as Ceasar 3, Cleopatra, and a few other games of the more "agent simulation" nature... with actual goals and challenges to defeat and win.
Sim City / Cities Skylines is less about gaming and more about play. There is no winning or losing in these games... I mean nominally, if you run out of money I guess you lose. But the games are setup so that you don't really run out of money under typical circumstances.
If you like Tropico, then you probably should give TwoPoint Hospital a try, as well as Ceasar 3, Cleopatra, and a few other games of the more "agent simulation" nature... with actual goals and challenges to defeat and win.
Sim City / Cities Skylines is less about gaming and more about play. There is no winning or losing in these games... I mean nominally, if you run out of money I guess you lose. But the games are setup so that you don't really run out of money under typical circumstances.
Two Point Hospital is really a fantastic game. I'm curious how Two Point Campus is, I am not sure if I'm as interested in that one.
The 'pointlessness' is what attracts me. I dislike playing according to other peoples goals, achievements, rules. I'll make up my own, thank you very much. And I will change my mind whenever I feel like it.
How does one plan a city indeed! Why would you want the answer?
How does one plan a city indeed! Why would you want the answer?
Do you know that Cities Skylines introduces the services after you reach certain population milestones? It starts with just Power and Water. https://skylines.paradoxwikis.com/Milestones
I think it correlates to how much uninterrupted blocks of free time you have. My almost middle school son loves it, but he has much more free time than I do (maybe because he hasn't discovered HN yet!). In my free time, I want to have a specific end goal or victory condition.
Nah, there are countless roads to different game style preferences. Sandbox games without constraints can be a nice escape from a life that feels especially regimented, even if you only get to play in them here and there; or they can just be a fun game style that you ran into at the right and that stays interesting through nostalgia and accessible through familiarity; etc.
Conversely, goal-oriented games can just feel like "work" to someone who feels like their life involves a countless measurements and expectations, or just like intellectual labor to someone who is learning all the time; etc
As they say, it's really very hard to account for taste. It's usually not worth trying to analyze it for anyone but yourself (and only then if it helps you to do so).
Conversely, goal-oriented games can just feel like "work" to someone who feels like their life involves a countless measurements and expectations, or just like intellectual labor to someone who is learning all the time; etc
As they say, it's really very hard to account for taste. It's usually not worth trying to analyze it for anyone but yourself (and only then if it helps you to do so).
The trick is to start small, like a country town with farms and a small downtown. Build from there.
There's also the flip side which is just sandbox building a city to your specifications and ignoring the city building aspects of it. Almost like building a model of a city.
There's also the flip side which is just sandbox building a city to your specifications and ignoring the city building aspects of it. Almost like building a model of a city.
For me, a lot of game choice comes down to: I build/plan/learn things all day. Sometimes I want to do that in a game, but often I'm looking for something that doesn't feel like that -- either because its a game style that taps into a very different kind of experience or because its one that I internalized so long ago that engagement feels pretty chill.
Learning a new sandbox's toolbox of system parts and laying out clever designs while I stare at a screen can read a lot like what I do with most of my weekdays, but without the return in pay or reputation.
Learning a new sandbox's toolbox of system parts and laying out clever designs while I stare at a screen can read a lot like what I do with most of my weekdays, but without the return in pay or reputation.
> That and Skylines giving me a blank canvas paralyses me. How does one plan a city? Where do the roads go?
The base game isn't quite this much of a blank canvas. You have a budget, and you have city needs. You try to fit the needs within your budget, while trying to expand and grow with what the immediate geography allows you to do.
You almost never (unless you're an advanced player who knows how to scam a bunch of money) have money to waste to treat central planning as a blank canvas.
The base game isn't quite this much of a blank canvas. You have a budget, and you have city needs. You try to fit the needs within your budget, while trying to expand and grow with what the immediate geography allows you to do.
You almost never (unless you're an advanced player who knows how to scam a bunch of money) have money to waste to treat central planning as a blank canvas.
I think a lot of people compare playing the game to the hobby of model trains / town building.
There really isn’t an end goal for me, I’m not trying to make my city a certain size. I’m trying to make something beautiful, that is fun to imagine living in.
I also think mods are essential if this is the way you want to play, as it’s much easier to get nit-picky and detail oriented with the correct tools.
There really isn’t an end goal for me, I’m not trying to make my city a certain size. I’m trying to make something beautiful, that is fun to imagine living in.
I also think mods are essential if this is the way you want to play, as it’s much easier to get nit-picky and detail oriented with the correct tools.
City builders experience leans too much towards god mode that closely resembles creators vision rather than the compromised mess that actual urban planning is. A proper city building experience would lead to a haphazard landscape where you hate 50% of what exists but just relieved it even got built in the first place.
I was fixing some traffic issues in a Cities: Skylines game and had to bulldoze some of the first housing I had laid down. I thought for a moment about the families who had lived there for years, and where they would move to, as I put in wider roads.
These games all represent resident happiness as some function of traffic, crime, garbage, pollution, but I don't think any of them have made an effort to zoom in on particular actions and how they effect the population. Or to represent long-term fulfillment. It would be a very different kind of game to highlight what actions an urban planner takes that have the biggest impact on residents.
Maybe the old newspaper function in Simcity games tried to capture this - or the outraged advisors a bit too, but it's never felt narratively driven to me.
These games all represent resident happiness as some function of traffic, crime, garbage, pollution, but I don't think any of them have made an effort to zoom in on particular actions and how they effect the population. Or to represent long-term fulfillment. It would be a very different kind of game to highlight what actions an urban planner takes that have the biggest impact on residents.
Maybe the old newspaper function in Simcity games tried to capture this - or the outraged advisors a bit too, but it's never felt narratively driven to me.
This is what attracted me to the Surviving Mars series. It does a good job of constraining resources and giving you a general goal to build towards when building your settlement in a specific drop zone. You do reach a point where you feel like everything is on cruise control and there's nothing more you can really achieve, but its fun to pick up once a year at this point.
This is the sentiment that caused Sid Meyer to create Civilization.
That game is Simcity with objectives.
That game is Simcity with objectives.
[deleted]
> The amount of unrestrained freedom makes me question why I'm even playing.
Well I hope you don't have the same feeling about life. Because we are all free to choose our own adventure (with some choices obviously better than others), and there are no clear objectives or goals besides what you set for yourself.
Well I hope you don't have the same feeling about life. Because we are all free to choose our own adventure (with some choices obviously better than others), and there are no clear objectives or goals besides what you set for yourself.
yes, but then why not just do life instead?
One of my favorite mod in Skylines that you can import _real world_ terrain maps into the game. Building your own city but better is a good fun (and challenge!) https://terrain.party/ Hope this will work in the sequel too
I spent so many hours hunting for cool bits of real world terrain and then massaging them into playable scenarios for myself (it's a lot of work to smooth out artifacts in the data and then add functioning water, vegetation, initial road connections, etc.). I don't know what the licensing concerns for the elevation data and maps would be, but I hope they consider integrating this functionality directly into the game in the future.
You can get heightmaps from NASA's SRTM data without any licensing concerns at all, and they can be used in Cities Skylines (without mods) without any problem (provided you put the heightmap into the right file format). This was pretty much always possible, it's just been a lot of steps and sort of a hassle without projects like that facilitating the process for people.
It would be incredible to have a globe viewer/DEM download tool built in to the game, but the bandwith required for hosting the project might turn into an issue (I'm reminded of the situation with high res imagery for Command: Modern Operations/TacView, where users are strongly encouraged to download only what they need due to server constraints).
It would be incredible to have a globe viewer/DEM download tool built in to the game, but the bandwith required for hosting the project might turn into an issue (I'm reminded of the situation with high res imagery for Command: Modern Operations/TacView, where users are strongly encouraged to download only what they need due to server constraints).
If you could find heightmaps dating back to seattle's founding that would be pretty annoying map, but only if you couldn't just flatten out parts of it at will with no cost. it's still pretty challenging geographically to this day, but it went through many re-grade projects as it grew.
this doesn't work anymore and is no longer maintained.
Use this instead: https://heightmap.skydark.pl/#
Use this instead: https://heightmap.skydark.pl/#
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Thank you. You've just killed my weekly productivity at work hahaha
There was a similar thing for OpenStreetMap.
Very nice, I didn't know this existed. Will give it a try.
I feel like most of these city building games is that they feel like a doll house. You can create all the nice things you want and have a pretty city that you'd like to live in.
However, the cities themselves don't have much of a personality. It's barely a simulation. I'd like to see certain areas becoming rough sort of ghettos. People in the city having different backgrounds. Just creating a school in those places would not necessarily improve things.
I'd like to see economic effects happening and causing disruption in the city. Big companies coming and going and affecting daily life.
I'd also like to see rich regions forming. Cool places that everyone wants to go.
Essentially, I'd like to have less control and see things not working out exactly like I planned. Everything always goes exactly to plan.
However, the cities themselves don't have much of a personality. It's barely a simulation. I'd like to see certain areas becoming rough sort of ghettos. People in the city having different backgrounds. Just creating a school in those places would not necessarily improve things.
I'd like to see economic effects happening and causing disruption in the city. Big companies coming and going and affecting daily life.
I'd also like to see rich regions forming. Cool places that everyone wants to go.
Essentially, I'd like to have less control and see things not working out exactly like I planned. Everything always goes exactly to plan.
I completely agree, and it's true more for Skylines than the old SimCity games. The "simulation" aspect is lacking in respect to developing different kinds of neighborhoods. I spent a lot of time in Skylines modding and creating custom neighborhood sets that could emulate various levels of density or socio-economic status. But that's the doll house approach, it doesn't emerge from the simulation. At least in SimCity 4k you could create distinctly rich and poor neighborhoods and the factors that led to those neighborhood types were reasonably well-simulated.
I think one problem with many city builders is how they don't really have proper sense of time. Houses you plop down now are exactly the same as you did 50 in-game years ago, and even megaprojects usually complete in trivial amounts of in-game time. Combine this with the player having near god-like powers to build whatever and eventually raze down and reshape any parts, and it leaves cities very hollow
Well crap, I'm going to have some serious competition :D
I've been developing a city builder myself over the last year (Metropolis 1998). I wanted to do a 3D version sometime in the future, but alas. Maybe people will be tired of purchasing $15 DLCs on top of a shallow base game (probably not).
Time to get to work
I've been developing a city builder myself over the last year (Metropolis 1998). I wanted to do a 3D version sometime in the future, but alas. Maybe people will be tired of purchasing $15 DLCs on top of a shallow base game (probably not).
Time to get to work
As long as the shallow base game still has more gameplay hours than most games I don't think people mind additional (also needing to be worthwhile) content costing money. That's Paradox's general business model and I think it works great for the types of games. I think I have nearly all of the optional content for Cities Skylines now but dollars per hour I'm still doing better than when it launched and when it launched the dollars per hour was still significantly lower than traditional games.
Looking at Metropolis 1998 my feedback would be I'm excited for the concept of a modern take on retro builders but I'm worried the gameplay will end up more "2D grid traffic simulator" than city builder. "Traffic simulator" can be a key layer for city builder die-hards but I'm hesitant that a 2D grid approach would be more interesting than base CS1, particularly with a free mod that simulates traffic more realistically (albeit not as performant what you can do with the traffic and road designs in 3D freeform is also much more interesting). I'll keep an eye on it though, it may be something I pick up in the future as it materializes :).
Looking at Metropolis 1998 my feedback would be I'm excited for the concept of a modern take on retro builders but I'm worried the gameplay will end up more "2D grid traffic simulator" than city builder. "Traffic simulator" can be a key layer for city builder die-hards but I'm hesitant that a 2D grid approach would be more interesting than base CS1, particularly with a free mod that simulates traffic more realistically (albeit not as performant what you can do with the traffic and road designs in 3D freeform is also much more interesting). I'll keep an eye on it though, it may be something I pick up in the future as it materializes :).
Thanks! I agree with your feedback. I intend to have different options to mitigate the traffic if people don't want to manage it. My biggest inspiration for the game is actually roller coaster tycoon. I want to offer to the player the option to sit back and enjoy what they built (from scratch if they want!), and then switch back to managing and building their city, much like a theme park.
i like that idea. i would enjoy watching what i built. taking this as a springboard for a feature discussion: many sim games suffer from needing to build american style car centric cities. how is your approach here? could we build historical european cities? futuristic car-free ones? public transport like trams? separate bike paths?
I'd love to fulfill all of those options, and I plan to, but I dont think I will have them all available in the first release build. I'm the only developer working on the game, and the only other person I work with is the pixel artist.
So expect cars and sidewalks. Pedestrian-only walk ways should be possible in the first release.
So expect cars and sidewalks. Pedestrian-only walk ways should be possible in the first release.
i am obviously not expecting miracles here, more wondering in which direction you want to go, and if those ideas fit your goals.
found it on Steam. added to my wishlist. will also check out early access...
found it on Steam. added to my wishlist. will also check out early access...
Also if you're willing to wait about 6 months for any DLC, you can pick it up for a couple dollars. I don't think I've paid more than $5 for any of Cities Skyline's major DLC.
Looked it up, here's a clickable Steam link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2287430/Metropolis_1998/
The graphics remind me a little bit of the ones in OpenTTD (an open source transportation tycoon game), the top down view also looks interesting, since most games just stick to one perspective. Oh, maybe the style is a little bit like the Simutans game (another transportation tycoon), but that depends on the graphics package.
I don't think that anyone has quite done city builders where you can look inside of buildings, so that sounds pretty unique - good luck with your project. I'm pretty sure that the genre is big enough for Cities: Skylines II, niche games like Urbek City Builder (voxel based city builder where building placement matters, almost like a puzzle) and plenty of other games out there, so don't feel too discouraged.
The graphics remind me a little bit of the ones in OpenTTD (an open source transportation tycoon game), the top down view also looks interesting, since most games just stick to one perspective. Oh, maybe the style is a little bit like the Simutans game (another transportation tycoon), but that depends on the graphics package.
I don't think that anyone has quite done city builders where you can look inside of buildings, so that sounds pretty unique - good luck with your project. I'm pretty sure that the genre is big enough for Cities: Skylines II, niche games like Urbek City Builder (voxel based city builder where building placement matters, almost like a puzzle) and plenty of other games out there, so don't feel too discouraged.
I wouldn't be worried, the market for modern city builders is large enough to support a few of them, assuming they're distinctive enough. I'm kind of shocked nobody made an attempt to displace C:S in the last couple of years. Meanwhile we have hundreds of variants of The Settlers and Caesar.
Yes. I'd rather buy an indie game with SOVL and pixel art than a big production. Just seeing the photorealistic images on the steam page is a turn-off. I'll take a game looking like SimCity 2000 or 3000 over that.
Btw I'm also working on my own indie game, it's quite challenging but I'm happy with progress I'm making by being consistent on it.
Btw I'm also working on my own indie game, it's quite challenging but I'm happy with progress I'm making by being consistent on it.
Looks neat, added it to my wishlist!
I'm curious about some of the tech behind this if you don't mind me asking:
1. Is the top down view just rendering the same isometric assets from a different viewpoint, are they pre-baked sprites, or are they completely different and hand-tuned?
2. How are you doing the changing wall height for seeing inside buildings? Do you just have 4 pre-set wall heights that you're animating between globally, or is it dynamic?
I'm curious about some of the tech behind this if you don't mind me asking:
1. Is the top down view just rendering the same isometric assets from a different viewpoint, are they pre-baked sprites, or are they completely different and hand-tuned?
2. How are you doing the changing wall height for seeing inside buildings? Do you just have 4 pre-set wall heights that you're animating between globally, or is it dynamic?
One thing that annoys me about the first game is the way the commute times are not factored in at all to happiness or whatever. People literally go from one side of the map to the other for work and you aren't punished for terrible transit design (and cars magically disappear). I think the AI is too crappy for commute times to be a feature, but I hope they improve AI and add it for the sequel because it is just one of the most important aspects of city design.
> and cars magically disappear
Not with the Traffic President mod which allows you to disable cars despawning and adds to the challenge of building a good transit system.
Not with the Traffic President mod which allows you to disable cars despawning and adds to the challenge of building a good transit system.
That would be a nice improvement to the simulation. Currently traffic really only affects city services; more buildings will burn down if the firetrucks take longer to arrive, more sick people die if the ambulance can't pick them up in time, etc, etc.
I loved the SimCity series, so you'd think that Cities: Skylines would have appealed to me, but it's always felt frustrating, which I attribute to a few core issues:
- Agent-based simulation instead of model-based (the latter is what the Maxis games used). Agent-based simulation is performance-intensive, and in practice it led to all sorts of gamebreaking bugs. Last I checked, the game still caused traffic jams because every car would enter the turning lane immediately. It also causes the infamous death waves. Some of these are hard to fix without changing the core simulation model. Some of these would be trivial to patch, and it's kind of embarrassing that they haven't.
- The DLC is essentially mandatory, in that they release updates to the free game alongside every DLC, and the free updates introduce some of the features but not all, and they end up breaking the balance of the game unless you purchase the full DLC.
- The game is far too easy, unrealistically so. Even on the harder difficulty setting, it's just way too easy to create a cash cow and create the optimal city without any real challenge.
Cities:Skylines is good in sandbox mode, if you want to create beautiful-looking models of cities. Which is a valid use case and there's definitely a market for that. But for people who like the original SimCity games and enjoy simulations, it's... just not that. There's a reason that professional city planners used the original SimCity games as tools for study and development, and that's what made (for example) SimCity 4 Rush Hour so much fun to play.
Whenever I want to play a citybuilder, I end up going for Factorio, Oxygen Not Included, or Rimworld. None of those are citybuilders, but they're the closest thing I've found to substitute for what made SimCity games enjoyable that Cities:Skylines lacks.
- Agent-based simulation instead of model-based (the latter is what the Maxis games used). Agent-based simulation is performance-intensive, and in practice it led to all sorts of gamebreaking bugs. Last I checked, the game still caused traffic jams because every car would enter the turning lane immediately. It also causes the infamous death waves. Some of these are hard to fix without changing the core simulation model. Some of these would be trivial to patch, and it's kind of embarrassing that they haven't.
- The DLC is essentially mandatory, in that they release updates to the free game alongside every DLC, and the free updates introduce some of the features but not all, and they end up breaking the balance of the game unless you purchase the full DLC.
- The game is far too easy, unrealistically so. Even on the harder difficulty setting, it's just way too easy to create a cash cow and create the optimal city without any real challenge.
Cities:Skylines is good in sandbox mode, if you want to create beautiful-looking models of cities. Which is a valid use case and there's definitely a market for that. But for people who like the original SimCity games and enjoy simulations, it's... just not that. There's a reason that professional city planners used the original SimCity games as tools for study and development, and that's what made (for example) SimCity 4 Rush Hour so much fun to play.
Whenever I want to play a citybuilder, I end up going for Factorio, Oxygen Not Included, or Rimworld. None of those are citybuilders, but they're the closest thing I've found to substitute for what made SimCity games enjoyable that Cities:Skylines lacks.
> Whenever I want to play a citybuilder, I end up going for Factorio, Oxygen Not Included, or Rimworld. None of those are citybuilders, but they're the closest thing I've found to substitute for what made SimCity games enjoyable that Cities:Skylines lacks.
You know, I never thought about the factory automation/colony simulator genres as being similar to the city builder genre, but... now that you brought it up, I think I see how said genres would appeal.
You know, I never thought about the factory automation/colony simulator genres as being similar to the city builder genre, but... now that you brought it up, I think I see how said genres would appeal.
I wonder if the sequel will also have a mortuary-based economic system.
I'll be so excited if this allows multiplayer city building. Imagine the possibilities...
First of all, you get to collaborate and build things faster. You could have a voting mechanic where the citizens (AI) resolves conflicts. You could assign roles to subordinate players to manage things like traffic, services, new developments, etc. You could implement trade across city lines, and have acquisitions. It could easily turn into a MMO of epic proportions; with whole worlds built out.
So. Many. Things!
First of all, you get to collaborate and build things faster. You could have a voting mechanic where the citizens (AI) resolves conflicts. You could assign roles to subordinate players to manage things like traffic, services, new developments, etc. You could implement trade across city lines, and have acquisitions. It could easily turn into a MMO of epic proportions; with whole worlds built out.
So. Many. Things!
There is a mod for that but it doesn't work terribly well.
Not much info other than the fact that it’ll release sometime this year on PS5, XSX, and PC. Teaser trailer is just a bunch of cinematics.
Yea. It's "cool" in concept but there is nothing information-wise about the game. Does it fix the problems of CS1? Does it introduce new features? I want to be excited about it, but there is nothing to be excited about. Getting excited about a single trailer will just lead to disappointment later.
It’s annoying but it seems to be the way things are marketed these days to build up hype so I can’t really fault them for it. Better to release info piecemeal as opposed to one big info dump if you want to build up a following.
I'm all for the build up with piecemeal information, but this "release" contains no information. If they so much as said "Seasons matter", I'd be happy.
If foreshadowing is one of their intention with the teaser, I'm afraid they'll push raytracing very hard. Their trailer had a lot of 'reflect in water', 'reflect in glass panes' moments.
Eugh, graphics is the least interesting things about these kind of games! I would take better simulation and pixel grapics rather than fake simulation and "RTX ON".
I hope they get perf down. The first game runs great on my M1 until we get to around 100K residents or so. That's not a huge number of people for a real world city, but I guess simulating traffic + pathfinding for 100K+ actors is a dicey proposition CPU-wise.
IIRC, SimCity 4 didn't have this issue but it sort of cheats by chopping the map up into multiple tiles in a region and only simulating a subset of your population. Which honestly seems acceptable to me.
IIRC, SimCity 4 didn't have this issue but it sort of cheats by chopping the map up into multiple tiles in a region and only simulating a subset of your population. Which honestly seems acceptable to me.
SC4 doesn't simulate residents at all, merely statistics. Even a single SC4 map is as large as one in CS, regions can be much, much bigger.
Someone came over and asked what I was using the PC in the living room for. I told him -- it's the Cities Skylines Mainframe!
If you have a spare desktop lying around, it really helps to do the simulation "in the cloud."
If you have a spare desktop lying around, it really helps to do the simulation "in the cloud."
What do you mean exactly?
You run it on the desktop and remote play it using remote desktop or steam’s equivalent on your laptop?
I used to do that with my powerful desktop, leave it in my home office and remote play CS from the living room. Lag was good enough to play.
You run it on the desktop and remote play it using remote desktop or steam’s equivalent on your laptop?
I used to do that with my powerful desktop, leave it in my home office and remote play CS from the living room. Lag was good enough to play.
Precisely. Latency on LAN is very good, especially for a non realtime game like Cities.
IMPORTANT: the trailer and the screenshots are not actual gameplay. There is essentially nothing of the gameplay. At best you could say it is concept being shown but... I mean, what more of a concept can you do than just making better iteration of the first game?
Some people have also said they switched to Unreal Engine 5 but I have a hard time finding definitive source of that. It would be a major change since the original was made in Unity.
Some people have also said they switched to Unreal Engine 5 but I have a hard time finding definitive source of that. It would be a major change since the original was made in Unity.
City Planner Plays initially speculated it was Unreal 5 because of the trailer but he has since retracted his video and issued a correction on his Youtube community tab that Paradox reached out and confirmed it's still based on Unity. Drat.
I hope this time the game can really take advantage of multi core computing, the first one was bounded to a single core: a long as a city has more than 5/10k citizens, it starts lagging
That was my thought as well. Hell, just subdivide my city as my CPU core count goes up. There would be overhead for boundary interactions but it would still be way better. We can buy 32core chips now.
What a missed opportunity. Nothing futuristic, nothing good. Same old, same old. Car-centric cities.
I'm sure the game will be great. But I would have loved something more revolutionary.
I'm sure the game will be great. But I would have loved something more revolutionary.
Right? Like mixed-use housing Or even pedestrian only streets ! Who can imagine!
For a Finnish studio, I would have hoped Colossal Order focused a bit less on American cities, American urbanism.
For a Finnish studio, I would have hoped Colossal Order focused a bit less on American cities, American urbanism.
What has made me give up on Cities Skylines is that you can't build a liveable city. It forces you to build US-style car-centric dystopias.
I found that once you reach a certain city size this game is just car traffic management.
I found that once you reach a certain city size this game is just car traffic management.
You can definitely make the city less traffic-heavy, especially after the DLC. But even in vanilla, for the commute traffic it's mostly a matter of having enough pedestrian bridges and tunnels so that they have uninterrupted journeys, and for the trucks the trick is to place rail depots near industrial and commercial districts so that they never need to get to the highway. Do those two things and you've cleared out most of the problem.
Everything else is taken care of by designating a faster arterial road at certain intervals(so that the driving AI's preferences are more predictable) and then designing a one-way flow in and out of areas with a lot of conflict points. It is not exactly how I want to envision my city, but it's also not extremely complicated to work out.
The game really limits traffic reduction mostly through the city services, which all have to drive down the roads to provide services.
Everything else is taken care of by designating a faster arterial road at certain intervals(so that the driving AI's preferences are more predictable) and then designing a one-way flow in and out of areas with a lot of conflict points. It is not exactly how I want to envision my city, but it's also not extremely complicated to work out.
The game really limits traffic reduction mostly through the city services, which all have to drive down the roads to provide services.
There's a pedestrian focused expansion pack.
Earlier today we had this HN story about how EA’s greed essentially killed the SimCity franchise for good:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35041202
In that context it’s notable that the company behind Cities: Skylines, the most prominent SimCity replacement, was originally funded by the Finnish government as explained on their Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Order_(company)
VCs wouldn’t invest any money to build such a niche game, but Finnish national funding instruments for startups and arts were more willing to take risks.
A small story to keep in mind next time someone claims everything successful can be created through capitalism alone. It also happens that successful things are destroyed by capitalism and salvaged by public means.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35041202
In that context it’s notable that the company behind Cities: Skylines, the most prominent SimCity replacement, was originally funded by the Finnish government as explained on their Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossal_Order_(company)
VCs wouldn’t invest any money to build such a niche game, but Finnish national funding instruments for startups and arts were more willing to take risks.
A small story to keep in mind next time someone claims everything successful can be created through capitalism alone. It also happens that successful things are destroyed by capitalism and salvaged by public means.
The part of the trailer where we zoom-in to pedestrian level gave me an idea.
For all the higher-level systems thinking happening in city builders, we never go into the more subtle signals that can make a city feel great or terrible to its people.
Would be cool if we could zoom-in to a specific person in the game, and ask them how they actually feel living here, what they like or dislike about it. Including useless things that we can't possibly fix as a mayor. But that would give us cues to let us figure out what we could improve.
Then once we interview a few of them in a neighborhood, we'd get a picture of what to change to make them happy. We could also have different types of populations and neighborhood for different types of people.
Something more complex and organic than "people in this neighborhood don't feel safe, so you need to add a police station". This would add a layer of discovery and aliveness to the game.
For all the higher-level systems thinking happening in city builders, we never go into the more subtle signals that can make a city feel great or terrible to its people.
Would be cool if we could zoom-in to a specific person in the game, and ask them how they actually feel living here, what they like or dislike about it. Including useless things that we can't possibly fix as a mayor. But that would give us cues to let us figure out what we could improve.
Then once we interview a few of them in a neighborhood, we'd get a picture of what to change to make them happy. We could also have different types of populations and neighborhood for different types of people.
Something more complex and organic than "people in this neighborhood don't feel safe, so you need to add a police station". This would add a layer of discovery and aliveness to the game.
What you’re describing is — almost exactly — like how the Rollercoaster Tycoon series works.
You can click any visitor, and see all the stats for that individual visitor, including how happy, sick, bored, etc. they are. You can even see them saying things like “I reall like Rocket Coaster!” or “The line for Very Merry-Go-Round is too long.”
Then you can aggregate how many visitors are saying each thing about the various attractions or the park in general.
And then it allows exactly what you said: make tweaks based on the aggregate feedback and see the positive (or negative) effect your tweaks have.
You can click any visitor, and see all the stats for that individual visitor, including how happy, sick, bored, etc. they are. You can even see them saying things like “I reall like Rocket Coaster!” or “The line for Very Merry-Go-Round is too long.”
Then you can aggregate how many visitors are saying each thing about the various attractions or the park in general.
And then it allows exactly what you said: make tweaks based on the aggregate feedback and see the positive (or negative) effect your tweaks have.
WoW i didn’t know this. I need to play tycoon games.
I have always wanted something like this but on an even more in-depth scale.
Let people playing game dev tycoon represent how successful a local business is. Let someone playing a GTA-like game be part of a police chase. Allow truck simulator players to be part of freeway traffic.
Obviously this would be extraordinarily difficult to pull off well, but I can dream.
Let people playing game dev tycoon represent how successful a local business is. Let someone playing a GTA-like game be part of a police chase. Allow truck simulator players to be part of freeway traffic.
Obviously this would be extraordinarily difficult to pull off well, but I can dream.
That would be brilliant but indeed sounds almost impossible to pull off.
I wanted to like Cities but I didn't.
The main issue is that the way zoning is done is really damn bad. Like not even American cities are that bad, zoning at its very very worst. There is no reason why it should be possible to have a much more flexible and powerful zoning code. Having mix use zoning, exclusion zones and so on. Why can offices and high density building not be in the same place?
I also dislike the roads, the basic building block is the road, but it should be the lane. You should be able to easily put together a few lanes, into a new road and then be able to use that. Currently you have to basically load 500 DLC road types just to cover all the basic things and even then it isn't great.
Parking, parking is the biggest problem with car based cities. And the game just ignores that issue, and that results in the problem with cars just being about optimization of intersections.
I also found the creation bus routes and other public traffic routes to difficult. It gets complex pretty quickly and once you have lots of them it just becomes almost unmanageable.
The main issue is that the way zoning is done is really damn bad. Like not even American cities are that bad, zoning at its very very worst. There is no reason why it should be possible to have a much more flexible and powerful zoning code. Having mix use zoning, exclusion zones and so on. Why can offices and high density building not be in the same place?
I also dislike the roads, the basic building block is the road, but it should be the lane. You should be able to easily put together a few lanes, into a new road and then be able to use that. Currently you have to basically load 500 DLC road types just to cover all the basic things and even then it isn't great.
Parking, parking is the biggest problem with car based cities. And the game just ignores that issue, and that results in the problem with cars just being about optimization of intersections.
I also found the creation bus routes and other public traffic routes to difficult. It gets complex pretty quickly and once you have lots of them it just becomes almost unmanageable.
I think we get spoiled. CS came out 10 years ago. At the time, it kind of had to be a recognisable competitor to SimCity, which pioneered the zoning system we all somehow hate now.
I wish they will introduce mixed zoning but you have to bear in mind that these games are also meant to work on consoles, with limited UI complexity. So that could be a challenge to implement (or maybe it’s not).
Parking works. I haven’t played in a while, but I think the Traffic Manager mod is the one that allows you to see areas of the city where parking is needed (building appear red in the traffic view).
Bus routes can be complex, but real world ones are also complex. I’m not sure how this could be better handled. There are mods that give you more stats to help you make better decisions, like also show you where people are coming from and where they want to go, but it’s always going be a challenge.
I wish they will introduce mixed zoning but you have to bear in mind that these games are also meant to work on consoles, with limited UI complexity. So that could be a challenge to implement (or maybe it’s not).
Parking works. I haven’t played in a while, but I think the Traffic Manager mod is the one that allows you to see areas of the city where parking is needed (building appear red in the traffic view).
Bus routes can be complex, but real world ones are also complex. I’m not sure how this could be better handled. There are mods that give you more stats to help you make better decisions, like also show you where people are coming from and where they want to go, but it’s always going be a challenge.
I really don't think its that hard to make mixed zoning or exclusionary zoning work in terms of UI. A list where you can hit check boxes or not is most of what you need.
> Parking works.
Parking aren't even in the base game, and yeah you can add lots of mods I think overall the dynamics about parking, induced demand and traffic isn't that great.
> Bus routes can be complex, but real world ones are also complex. I’m not sure how this could be better handled.
Yeah I don't want my game to be as hard to manage as the real world.
It could be significantly easier to draw routes, modify them after you created it. The UI around that stuff I found really hard to work with.
It just feels like much more thought was put into car traffic then any of the others. The game could suggest service patterns to make it easier to get started. Give you good visualizations of where the routes are, make it easy to modify them.
I just found the whole experience of trying to make public transit work frustrating and to time consuming.
> Parking works.
Parking aren't even in the base game, and yeah you can add lots of mods I think overall the dynamics about parking, induced demand and traffic isn't that great.
> Bus routes can be complex, but real world ones are also complex. I’m not sure how this could be better handled.
Yeah I don't want my game to be as hard to manage as the real world.
It could be significantly easier to draw routes, modify them after you created it. The UI around that stuff I found really hard to work with.
It just feels like much more thought was put into car traffic then any of the others. The game could suggest service patterns to make it easier to get started. Give you good visualizations of where the routes are, make it easy to modify them.
I just found the whole experience of trying to make public transit work frustrating and to time consuming.
Having read the other article about EA's botched SimCity release, I had come across this trailer earlier today.
Does anyone have any interesting links, papers, references, etc. for implementing a city simulation? I really like the idea of agent-based models and actor systems, and I think it would be a lot of fun of learning about the science and engineering of the models behind these types of games.
Does anyone have any interesting links, papers, references, etc. for implementing a city simulation? I really like the idea of agent-based models and actor systems, and I think it would be a lot of fun of learning about the science and engineering of the models behind these types of games.
Dunno… After spending many hours in Cities in Motion, and even more in Cities in Motion 2, Cities: Skylines just didn’t click for me somehow. It was kind of barren, with awkward road building (compared to CIM2), and just kind of restricting in a hard-to-define way.
Perhaps the DLCs have improved the situation, but I lost interest by then. Hope CS2 will be better!
Perhaps the DLCs have improved the situation, but I lost interest by then. Hope CS2 will be better!
Oh shit, it's real this time. If they expect me to get a 4090 for those reflections though, pass.
All joking a salad, probably all the very common constraints should be addressed, but I'd be stoked on an online component like SimCity 2000 Network edition. I'm not so into the idea of a pure sandbox anymore. They've had one of the longest beta testing cycles ever with that first version though, I'm hopeful.
One thing I was never fully able to explore, was the idea of taking a kind of broken city, and exploring ways to improve it given real constraints. I think a lot of people hate their hometowns, and would love to just start with that somehow.
Fwiw I do know about importing terrain maps and so on, which is cool, but it's still a sandbox. I like the idea of starting like 100 years into a city that's just been broke and struggling, with terrible infrastructure and lott of complaints.
All joking a salad, probably all the very common constraints should be addressed, but I'd be stoked on an online component like SimCity 2000 Network edition. I'm not so into the idea of a pure sandbox anymore. They've had one of the longest beta testing cycles ever with that first version though, I'm hopeful.
One thing I was never fully able to explore, was the idea of taking a kind of broken city, and exploring ways to improve it given real constraints. I think a lot of people hate their hometowns, and would love to just start with that somehow.
Fwiw I do know about importing terrain maps and so on, which is cool, but it's still a sandbox. I like the idea of starting like 100 years into a city that's just been broke and struggling, with terrible infrastructure and lott of complaints.
I hope we can have more European style zoning.
Let's hope it won't be another car simulator.
Trailer disappointed me. Pass from me.
Trailer disappointed me. Pass from me.
My only regret with Cities Skylines is that it's taken Colossal Order off of working on Cities in Motion - CiM 1&2 were very niche transit simulators but they were extremely well executed.
I'm glad to see colossal order and paradox are behind the sequel.
Truly excited about this one - there are not enough of these games in the genre. I wish they had announced a date but even if they had who knows how accurate it would actually be?
I hope they don't go again with a car-centric idea of city building, but seeing the steam page screenshots I'm preparing for disappointment.
there are no trains or buses in the trailer
You can see a bus at 1:27 and 1:52, but I really hope that the public transport system is better than what they showed in this first trailer, especially trains.
I don't really this game because there is no real granularity: the amount of citizens is simulated up to a certain amount, and above that amount, the game just increment numbers that don't mean anything.
I prefer games like factorio or microtown for example, where every object exist in the game, and is not just a statistic.
I prefer games like factorio or microtown for example, where every object exist in the game, and is not just a statistic.
Having spent countless hours in Cities: Skylines I’m a bit worried that I haven’t spotted a single form of public transport nor more bike infrastructure than a painted bike lane. I hope we won’t have to wait for countless DLCs to add more interesting modes of transport that just cars
You get bus routes pretty early and can also build metro lines. You don't need DLC for that. So it's in there?
Hugely excited to see what the game really looks like. If they could fix performance and add some new gameplay dynamics it'd be great but if they are going to make it something completely different I'd be excited to see it as well.
This will come down to pricing. I don't see the core gameplay dynamic being substantially different so pricing will need to be reasonable for me to buy it if it's functionally a graphics upgrade
Anyone able to read between the lines and see what features will be coming?
The game will have seasons and probably improved graphics as it is based on the Unreal 5 Engine instead of Unity.
Finally, ray-traced cities! I jest, but the Matrix demo on UE5 looked amazingly realistic.
The only thing I got from the trailer would be ray-traced graphics and the description suggests that actions have more consequences which I read as bulldozing peoples houses makes people really mad at you and things like that
Would be super cool if citizens had stories and lives, more like dwarf fortress dwarves.
This is just amazing. I still enjoy Cities Skylines I, have spent so many hours on it. A 2nd version can only be even more amazing. Understood that it will use Unreal engine 5.
I have a feeling that this isn't going to be available on the Series S (or if it is, it'll be like CP2077 on the original PS4/XB1). Oh well.
I don't think there's been any official communication from MS, but it seems well-established at this point that Xbox games are required to release both on Series X and S, and with feature parity - except for graphics modes.
Would love to play this on my m2 mac, but i'm assuming its windows or console only? Or do we think this would be available on Apple devices?
One random post on the Internet suggests that C:S1 was doing 45fps @ 4K on an M1 two years ago, so presumably the C:S2 sequel will do fine on M2.
https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/jw3e1c/game_benc...
https://www.reddit.com/r/macgaming/comments/jw3e1c/game_benc...
Most Paradox game are available on Mac, strong possibility CS2 will be too
The original's available on Mac (and Linux, I think).
Was available on Linux, yes. Performed much worse though, AFAIK.
The first game you could play on mac. That doesn't mean this one will be but who knows.
Same, don't know though
The game looks fantastic, I just hope it doesn't become a DLC hell like other games (and the previous version of this game).
I'm really hoping they don't botch this release like some of their DLC. Most of the DLC released have pretty bad ratings on Steam.
Some of the later DLC have been pretty half hearted yet at the same time they've hired modders for some of the more popular mods (like traffic manager) who've said they weren't working on DLC, so this has been in the works for a while
I wonder if this will still use Unity
City Planner Plays believes it is built on Unreal Engine: https://youtu.be/r9XHvsm9OVE
And he has since corrected that it will still be based on Unity. Check his community tab on Youtube.
Cool!
I hope somebody makes a Streets of SimCity-style exploration/battle game from this.
That game was so much fun!
I hope somebody makes a Streets of SimCity-style exploration/battle game from this.
That game was so much fun!
Sort of: enjoy developing a city, then some other country declares war and the same city becomes a Call of Duty scenario.
It's probably too soon to have interchangeable world data between games, but one day, who knows...
Is the original good? Growing up playing SimCity 2000
As someone who absolutely adored SC2K, SC3K and SC4... I'd pass on Cities Skylines at this point. The similarities between the two basically stop beyond they both have zones, roads, and utilities.
CS is basically a mediocre traffic manager and production chain management game with a city builder attached.
CS is basically a mediocre traffic manager and production chain management game with a city builder attached.
Traffic. Traffic, Traffic, Traffic. Please.
I love the Traffic challenge. Often I build a super condense city with horrible traffic, and then work towards optimizing it while keeping as much as possible intact. I hope that traffic will as well be realistic and that it can be used by city planners. It should not get easier, but more realistic.
Oh shit, it's real this time
They never fixed the terrible traffic AI in the first game.
I have no confidence in the sequel.
I have no confidence in the sequel.
I'm looking forward to another soulless paradox game where the core mechanics are really stupid e.g all people who move in are born at the same time and will die at the same time so 90% of your city will instantly die in a year
And then they'll want £400 from you for DLCs while still not adding to any of the core mechanics
And then they'll want £400 from you for DLCs while still not adding to any of the core mechanics
This reminds me of the same thing that happened with Stardew Valley, the creator missed the old Harvest Moon games, didn't find a suitable substitute, and just build the entirety of the game from scratch, teaching himself art and music composition too. He's made over $300 million in revenue so far and might be the first solo game dev (or even regular software dev) to hit $1 billion in the course of the game's existence.
It just goes to show that the dominant players are not always dominant forever, and that common YC startup advice of understanding what exactly users want (hint: they don't want always-online DRM-filled games that nickle and dime you with microtransactions (well, most people anyway, there are always gacha/gambling-type whale gamers)) and serving them well is still correct.