Introduction to Policies, Park Maintenance and New Buildings
Hello again and welcome back to our Dev Diary. Have you ever wondered what would Cities: Skylines be without policies, city services and buildings? Coincidently those are also the topics of our Dev Diary of the Day.

Policies
So let's start with three new City Policies, which are a paid feature of upcoming Parklife DLC: Prefer Parks, Park Maintenance Boost and Boost Connections. These Policies can be accessed from the already familiar Policies panel. Prefer Parks Policy encourages your Tourists in the area to choose to visit parks more often than Unique Buildings. Boost Connections Policy on the other hand is perfect for all those huge Cities out there, since now your City can receive even more vehicles carrying tourists, increasing the number of visitors in the city! Wow!

Parklife also introduces all new paid feature Park Policies that are active only inside a Park Area. Park Policies are accessed from Park Info Panel and include both general Park Policies and Policies tied to a specific Park type (but don't worry, they still work in every park since you can mix-and-match your new buildings). These Policies change how parks work by allowing you to set extra rules to apply in the desired Park Area. The new Park Policies include for example Advertisement Campaign, which advertises the park throughout the city to have more visitors. Hint! Those with a keen eye can spot the advertisement billboards appear around the City! Animal Ethics Policy is tied to a specific Park type, since activating it makes Zoo animals receive extra care and activities to keep them happy and entertained which results in happier visitors. There's several new Park Policies to choose from, affecting everything from fireworks to garbage accumulation in order to give you the freedom to tailor your dream park!

Don't they look happy?

Gameplay tips

Use Prefer Parks Policy to give your newly built Parks just that little extra nudge to get them to the next level. The good news? The Policy also affects your already existing parks! Draw in more tourists (and cash) with Boost Connections. Park Policies help boost your Park Areas just where you need them and allow you to have a complete control over your Parks. And when you finally manage to create that perfectPark you can mark it down as your Main Park in the Park Policies to really lure in the wealthy tourists!

Park Maintenance City Service
Parklife DLC is all about the beautification of your city, and Parks are the perfect way to make your city more attractive to tourists and overall, make your city more livelier. So why not give them a boost to push the fun you can get out of the parks over the roof!

Park Maintenance is a new city service that does not only boost parks created with Park Area tool but also existing parks and plazas! The dogs in Dog Park will be wiggling their tails over this new Service Woof!

Also not to worry, existing parks will not be made worse by this new service, they are here only to increase the happiness and attractiveness effect of your parks, giving them extra value! To added convenience we also included Park Maintenance in the Info Views. From the Info View players can easily see what parks could use a boost and where the party is already on-going!

Work work!

So, how does one build and use this City Service? Firstly the Park Maintenance City Service is located in Parks & Plazas menu so that's the place to start.

After building the Park Maintenance Building it will automatically start to send out vehicles to the parks around your city. The Park Maintenance vehicles visit parks about once per two weeks, or whenever is the next optimal time to visit the park, for example higher level Park Areas require more care and love from the Park Maintenance so they tend to visit there more often. When a park is visited, it receives a 20% boost to happiness effect and happiness radius. We have new models for the Park Maintenance Vehicle and Park Staff for the Park Maintenance City Service, so you can more easily spot them amongst the traffic and citizens.

Oh, did I forgot to mention that there is still one new City Policy we probably should mention here: Park Maintenance Boost! With a small fee your Park Maintenance will work double shifts and tend to your parks more efficiently! This will surely blast the fun with parks through the roof.

New Buildings
Moving on the one topic we had a hard time agreeing on: which buildings to introduce here since they are all SO cool?

As a part of paid content, Parklife offers 6 all new Unique Buildings. Each of them have their own little quirks and tricks but this time we're only going to focus on one. A humongous statue reaching high up the sky in a heroic pose - The Statue of Colossalus (heh!) It is unlocked in Milestone Small City along with other level 6 unique buildings. The Statue of Colossalus requires a shoreline to build and as an effect Tourists will stay 20% longer in the City that hosts this majestic statue. In all honesty I can't think of a better way to welcome tourists to my City's harbor.

A gigantic statue standing proudly on the shore welcoming tourists to the City.

And there's no better building to pair it with than...

New Monument / Castle of Lord Chirpwick
.. the mighty Castle of Lord Chirpwick! Castle of Lord Chirpwick is a big and fancy castle with multiple tower and floors. It will make other cities envy upon yours and attract a ton of tourists to visit.

Besides looking impressive and having fireworks show every night, it also has global entertainment value and it also increases the Attractiveness of all Unique Buildings by 25%! To unlock this skyline polisher player needs to build all Parklife Unique Buildings, but it will be worth the wait.

While not taking walks in the garden, Lord Chirpwick likes to gaze upon the bay of Chirpshore

New Park buildings and paths

When it comes to buildings inside your Park variety is rewarded and building many of the same building will lessen its effect. That's why we've tried to give you plenty of new buildings, paths and props to choose from. Remember! Park buildings can be placed anywhere, but are most powerful in Park Areas when they receive bonuses based on Park Area level! The free update contains also a collection of props when they previously have been available only in editors.

 

[Beer Fiend]

I agree overall (though a challenging economy and fleshing out the traffic system and mass transit options would come way before crime in my simulation priorities list). However this DLC adds functionality to what most people have been doing at least a little bit (decorate empty spaces to do their own "parks"), so it does improve the simulation slightly both in the economic and immersion department.

Well yeah, I'm for this DLC, I was referring to the suggestion of adding different types of sports stadiums.

Fair point about the jokes, but Beer Fiends post right below mine is downvoted too and it doesn't mention the jokes.

It's also a joke itself. Referencing this post.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

Well yeah, I'm for this DLC, I was referring to the suggestion of adding different types of sports stadiums.

The game could certainly use some more stuff like that. There was a brief discussion awhile back about it, but search doesn't find anything for me before April, so I can't find it. Don't recall everything, but I think baseball, horse racing track and so on were mentioned. I think a lot of people would like it. Sports parks I was mostly thinking, though a few larger ones (stadiums) would also be nice.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

I don't go around downvoting people's suggestions though, and I don't want to take away what they like.

I'm confused.

 

[SplendedPickles]

What's the difference between Parklife and Parklife Plus? The store page says "Cities: Skylines - Parklife Plus is a playful combo pack, making your city more alive with new amusement parks, nature reserves, custom parks, gardens and zoos, and adding a country radio station for good measure." But aren't all of these included in the regular parklife?

 

[Steve B.]

What's the difference between Parklife and Parklife Plus? The store page says "Cities: Skylines - Parklife Plus is a playful combo pack, making your city more alive with new amusement parks, nature reserves, custom parks, gardens and zoos, and adding a country radio station for good measure." But aren't all of these included in the regular parklife?

The only difference is that the 'plus' option adds a new radio station.

 

[metatoaster]

View attachment 368604

I'm confused.

Yup, you are. I'm still gonna disagree with you if you suggest the exact opposite of what I want (I think parking lots are realistic, looks be damned.) But I don't go out of my way to shoot down people's suggestions if they want content added that doesn't particularly interest me, but won't ruin my gameplay. Clear now?

 

[muttonnoir]

I understand people get excited about any new DLC specialization and their creativity can and does go into overdrive BUT they do tend to rush headlong down some dead end rabbit hole fantasizing about a new area of functionality that is so niche and would serve such a small section of the player base that it's totally impractical and uneconomical to implement as well as forgetting the core theme of the game- BUILDING A CITY. If you want a roller coaster simulator you already have one available to you! Never stop dreaming but we do need to return to earth occasionally and accept the practicalitIes/ restrictions placed upon any future development for the game.

 

[metatoaster]

I understand people get excited about any new DLC specialization and their creativity can and does go into overdrive BUT they do tend to rush headlong down some dead end rabbit hole fantasizing about a new area of functionality that is so niche and would serve such a small section of the player base that it's totally impractical and uneconomical to implement as well as forgetting the core theme of the game- BUILDING A CITY. If you want a roller coaster simulator you already have one available to you! Never stop dreaming but we do need to return to earth occasionally and accept the practicalitIes/ restrictions placed upon any future development for the game.

For some reason you're focusing specifically on my very last bonus suggestion, where I was already admitting going a bit into "overdrive". The rest of my suggestions (consequences for cutting down on park maintenance and specific commercial buildings for parks) fit right in with all-caps "BUILDING A CITY".

But for argument's sake, since we have a Concerts DLC, I think Colossal wouldn't be against a Rollercoasters DLC. Chances are that between the Networks system and Unity physics, it wouldn't be a demesurate effort to implement compared to the fun provided. And then mods can do the "go wild" part. The game doesn't need to get bogged down to the level of detail of Parkitect or Planet Coaster to incorporate some similar elements (see: slippery slope fallacy).

 

[muttonnoir]

For some reason you're focusing specifically on my very last bonus suggestion, where I was already admitting going a bit into "overdrive". The rest of my suggestions (consequences for cutting down on park maintenance and specific commercial buildings for parks) fit right in with all-caps "BUILDING A CITY".

But for argument's sake, since we have a Concerts DLC, I think Colossal wouldn't be against a Rollercoasters DLC. Chances are that between the Networks system and Unity physics, it wouldn't be a demesurate effort to implement compared to the fun provided. And then mods can do the "go wild" part. The game doesn't need to get bogged down to the level of detail of Parkitect or Planet Coaster to incorporate some similar elements (see: slippery slope fallacy).

Hi I wasn't specifically focusing on you Meta. My point is that so many fans have their own area of interest that they would love to see incorporated in dlc that it is of course impossible for devs to please everyone therefore they have to take the middle line and appeal to the majority- also remembering the demographic of the fans! It's a great game - with all it's flaws and limitations- that could be taken in so many different directions but of course economics and the lowest common denominator wins out every time!

 

[kingleno]

Hi!
I'm afraid the old unique buildings will still need a road access but new Parklife buildings do not.

Also thanks for the DLC idea, I think it sounds cool, because sports could easily have pony racing

On the next DLC can you PLEASE add Video Poker and Slot machines to the Casino (I suppose pony racing betting too). I get so tired of alt+tabbing to get my gambling fix while playing. and it's too difficult of a decision to make between wasting hours playing and building for Cities Skylines or wasting hours, gas, and $$$ driving to the casino.

 

[kingleno]

Sure! There can be more than one type of racing course for different sports, since it factors into the building aspect of the game. On the subject of sports, it would be really cool if you expanded the game's winter assets with a customisable ski resort! The current ski parks in Snowfall are unrealistically small. What the game really needs is a large ski resort that you can build to your own design. It would be like a different type of park where you can draw ski pistes and mountain-climbing routes. In creating pistes, the game automatically calculates the direction of the piste depending on elevation, and both ends need to be connected by a chair lift (drawn in like a cable car) in order to function. You can fill your ski resort with amenities like cabins, restaurants, infirmaries and various services. The more successful the resort, the higher the rating and the more it boosts the city value! What do you think?

Most of this would be possible with ParkLife DLC, but would require custom assets made by creators. The only issue I see with that is that it would require playing on a Snowfall map, and who does that!?

Or I suppose CO could make ski resorts a different type of park like the amusement park, zoo, etc. and includes assets for it. But it would seem (and understandably so) that CO/PDX doesn't like content that mixes functionality and subsequently requires more than one DLC.

 

[metatoaster]

Hi I wasn't specifically focusing on you Meta. My point is that so many fans have their own area of interest that they would love to see incorporated in dlc that it is of course impossible for devs to please everyone therefore they have to take the middle line and appeal to the majority- also remembering the demographic of the fans! It's a great game - with all it's flaws and limitations- that could be taken in so many different directions but of course economics and the lowest common denominator wins out every time!

Alright I think I can agree with that. Anyways, while the possibilities offered by this DLC are very exciting, I'd still rather have more depth added to existing systems, and more tools to understand what's actually going on in the simulation. Like in-game info on the alternative transit paths a Cim could take and why he's picking a specific one, for instance. Or some way to visualize how much external train and ship connections are actually reducing your external truck traffic, if at all. The simulation is very detailed but we don't know the rules and analogies to reality are only half-true, making fixing things unintuitive and often frustrating.
Hopefully they sneak some of that in this update.

 

[muttonnoir]

Alright I think I can agree with that. Anyways, while the possibilities offered by this DLC are very exciting, I'd still rather have more depth added to existing systems, and more tools to understand what's actually going on in the simulation. Like in-game info on the alternative transit paths a Cim could take and why he's picking a specific one, for instance. Or some way to visualize how much external train and ship connections are actually reducing your external truck traffic, if at all. The simulation is very detailed but we don't know the rules and analogies to reality are only half-true, making fixing things unintuitive and often frustrating.
Hopefully they sneak some of that in this update.

Agree, How can we make improvements to systems if we don't know how the system operates/criteria etc. Knowledge is power!

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

Knowledge is power!

I used to say that all the time, and it certainly applies here.

Now I suppose my "catchphrase" is probably "There are no five minute jobs."

 

[muttonnoir]

I've just watched Biffa's review of Park Life on You Tube. An excellent 30 minute show packed with info and sshowcasing the impressive new content. CO/Paradox have done a crap job in presenting the new DLC. Biffa has really explained what's included and sold the package to me. The quality of this dlc is superior to any previous release. Looks like a new team of design talent has been employed. The assets are beautiful. I predict Park Life will be the most successful CS DLC to date!

 

[metatoaster]

I've just watched Biffa's review of Park Life on You Tube. An excellent 30 minute show packed with info and sshowcasing the impressive new content. CO/Paradox have done a crap job in presenting the new DLC. Biffa has really explained what's included and sold the package to me. The quality of this dlc is superior to any previous release. Looks like a new team of design talent has been employed. The assets are beautiful. I predict Park Life will be the most successful CS DLC to date!

I watched the same and also watched Sips mess around with the DLC a bit - it was quite funny. Can't say my enthusiasm about the DLC was at maximum though.

The overall amount of content is impressive, and I agree that some of those assets look amazing. But since a lot of it is segregated by park type, it doesn't feel like there'll be much variety between a city park and another, for example (I'm under the impression that each one must follow the upgrade path from the start, too, limiting your choices a lot). It wasn't clear from the videos whether you can mix and match buildings between parks, for instance put a giant chess set in an amusement park.

I was disappointed that they didn't modify some the existing parks to be placeable within the new park zones, it feels like the japanese garden, Paradox Plaza and a couple more would've fitted well in a huge city park. Hopefully modded assets can fall under multiple categories at least (for instance a building you can place in all parks types OR roadside).

Also, even within a park zone, cims will stick stricly to paths from what I've seen? It would've been nice to see them roam freely and use benches or picnic tables that you placed somewhere under a tree. Actually the whole park gate and park path stuff feels very artificial and is obviously there because of technical limitations.

Lastly there are a few assets that just feel cheap/unprofessional, like those ploppable pavement tiles. You have to painstakingly place them one by one, the pattern repetition is super obvious, and if they overlap a bit they flicker when you move the camera. Would've expected something more advanced to paint/place those tiles, with automatic blending and/or snapping with adjacent ones and some pattern variation. As-is it feels like you downloaded a bad mod.

On the positive side, the tour buses and hot air balloons are nice. They give some visibility to tourism which adds life to the city, before you had to randomly chance upon a tourist while clicking cims to see one.

This reminds me that numbers in this game make no sense (gotta finish on a grumpy note ). A city of 20000 with tons of parks and tourism specialization gets 115 tourists per week, which looks ridiculously small. It's actually an ok number in game terms, because the number of moving actors is very limited. But you have nothing to compare it to to know if it's a good number except experience from past cities. Same with public transport users, you'd have to see it next to the number of local cars out there to have any idea of whether your numbers are good. Colossal needs to put some effort to explain this stuff better.

 

[muttonnoir]

I watched the same and also watched Sips mess around with the DLC a bit - it was quite funny. Can't say my enthusiasm about the DLC was at maximum though.

The overall amount of content is impressive, and I agree that some of those assets look amazing. But since a lot of it is segregated by park type, it doesn't feel like there'll be much variety between a city park and another, for example (I'm under the impression that each one must follow the upgrade path from the start, too, limiting your choices a lot). It wasn't clear from the videos whether you can mix and match buildings between parks, for instance put a giant chess set in an amusement park.

I was disappointed that they didn't modify some the existing parks to be placeable within the new park zones, it feels like the japanese garden, Paradox Plaza and a couple more would've fitted well in a huge city park. Hopefully modded assets can fall under multiple categories at least (for instance a building you can place in all parks types OR roadside).

Also, even within a park zone, cims will stick stricly to paths from what I've seen? It would've been nice to see them roam freely and use benches or picnic tables that you placed somewhere under a tree. Actually the whole park gate and park path stuff feels very artificial and is obviously there because of technical limitations.

Lastly there are a few assets that just feel cheap/unprofessional, like those ploppable pavement tiles. You have to painstakingly place them one by one, the pattern repetition is super obvious, and if they overlap a bit they flicker when you move the camera. Would've expected something more advanced to paint/place those tiles, with automatic blending and/or snapping with adjacent ones and some pattern variation. As-is it feels like you downloaded a bad mod.

On the positive side, the tour buses and hot air balloons are nice. They give some visibility to tourism which adds life to the city, before you had to randomly chance upon a tourist while clicking cims to see one.

This reminds me that numbers in this game make no sense (gotta finish on a grumpy note ). A city of 20000 with tons of parks and tourism specialization gets 115 tourists per week, which looks ridiculously small. It's actually an ok number in game terms, because the number of moving actors is very limited. But you have nothing to compare it to to know if it's a good number except experience from past cities. Same with public transport users, you'd have to see it next to the number of local cars out there to have any idea of whether your numbers are good. Colossal needs to put some effort to explain this stuff better.[/QUOTSkylines
Watch a few minutes of any interview with the Cities Skylines team and you get an insight to just how quirky they are and their personalities dominate in the idiosyncrasies associated with the game, None of the dlc dovetail seamlessly with existing content- the team don't come across as the most practical logical thinkers. Mass Transit for example was anything but! By comparison Park Life is impressive. I look forward to seeing what modders do with it!

 

[Beer Fiend]

I've just watched Biffa's review of Park Life on You Tube. An excellent 30 minute show packed with info and sshowcasing the impressive new content. CO/Paradox have done a crap job in presenting the new DLC. Biffa has really explained what's included and sold the package to me. The quality of this dlc is superior to any previous release. Looks like a new team of design talent has been employed. The assets are beautiful. I predict Park Life will be the most successful CS DLC to date!

Yeah, Biffa's look at the DLC was very good (although his playthrough is full of perfectionism which always frustrates me when watching Let's Play's of this variety), Sips is good for building a city as I do (whack it down and see what happens) but I do think he can be a bit stupid when it comes to basic gameplay here and there.

 

[OnTheMap]

Also, even within a park zone, cims will stick stricly to paths from what I've seen? It would've been nice to see them roam freely and use benches or picnic tables that you placed somewhere under a tree. Actually the whole park gate and park path stuff feels very artificial and is obviously there because of technical limitations.

That bugs me a lot, although I presume someone can mod some invisible paths perhaps that could mitigate it slightly to give the impression of people walking across open grass.

 

[Steve B.]

That bugs me a lot, although I presume someone can mod some invisible paths perhaps that could mitigate it slightly to give the impression of people walking across open grass.

There is such a mod already.