Ok, I somehow survived the midsummer and got back to work for another week before the real vacation starts. It has been a super busy spring (when isn't it?) and the team and myself are basically now just finishing up some things and preparing for the autumn. We actually have our producers from Paradox visiting us and there are some cool plans being laid out for the future! I'm very happy to say that even after one and a half years of the release of Cities: Skylines the team over here at Colossal as well as at Paradox are very motivated to continue the development and we all hope you are excited to hear what we have to tell you later in the year.

Colossal is also growing slowly but steadily! I am very pleased to say that we will be getting a new team member to join us in August. There is room for improvement on the modding side and we hope to see our new programmer take on that task full time after he gets familiar with the game and the code. This also frees other programming resources for the gameplay itself. This will mean we are 18 people strong here at Colossal. Can you believe we were only 13 when Cities: Skylines was released?

The feedback you have given us is truly important to us and alongside the development of the new content we aim to improve the base game as much as possible. Lately we have been receiving feedback about the game being more of a city painter than a simulation. Even if I don't fully agree with this sentiment, we have taken this feedback seriously. The game won't be all about micromanagement, but bringing more gameplay can never hurt anyone, right? I'm confident we are on the right path with Cities: Skylines and with the help from you, the community, we can make city builders great again!

There will be one more update from me next week so stay tuned!

Cheers,
Mariina

 

[dreadicon]

Great to hear about adding a modder-focused programmer! That will give Skylines a huge longevity boost, and is a very wise investment. Also great to hear that you are looking more into how to expand the mechanics of the game so it offers more depth of challenge and interaction.

I think you've got a lot of good suggestions already here, but I'll just slip in a couple of my own thoughts to go with them:

First, consider progression mechanics. These don't bog down the specs or simulation but still add challenge and a sense of accomplishment. Not in the 'yay, I completed an arbitrary challenge for a steam achievement!', but in the 'Yes! I got access to more/bigger loans!' or "Sweet! I can define districts (or more districts) now!" or "Awesome! I can make trade deals with other cities to meet needs like power or water which I don't have good access to!". The list goes on, and these things don't bog down the simulation as they are static or statistical, not agent-based. While this isn't going to fully satisfy the players looking for that Sim City 4 crunch, it's low-cost high-reward. Some further suggestions:

-In 'Hardcore' mode, lock certain things (rationally) behind city development. Fine-tuning taxes could require the Tax Office. A City Treasury might give access to more/bigger loans, or offer alternatives like bonds. A Town Hall could be required before setting/adjusting taxes and policies at all, and a City Hall could allow for more policies as well as be a prereq for other government buildings. What you do next is gate the buildings behind a combination of objectives and intangibles. For example, objectives would be things like a certain income per week for x weeks, meet a population minimum, etc. Intangibles could be Donors, Sponsors, or Petitions that Citizens or external entities ultimately control, but are influenced by things like city image and happiness.

-Expand on the Match Day concept, not only by adding events to more existing or new buildings, but also by adding tangible effects to unique buildings. Sea and Sky Scraper could boost Offices nearby explicitly rather than a generic environmental buff, for example. A Waste Studies institute (obtained by building a huge and expensive university) could improve the sewage plants or allow for new ones with different trade-offs.

-Another one for Hardcore; charge the player for destroying growables and push the negative happiness resultant from it. No need to complicate it with detailed politics, but even Cities in Motion did this, and it made the game really, really interesting.

Further, these are all features that could sit behind a paid expansion. It's good for you, and it's good for the players. Just make sure to allow the assets to be used without the expansions only lacking the mechanical features. You won't get a massive uptake, but you'll make a lot of people happier and certainly get more new players who passed on the game because it just didn't have enough mechanics crunch.

Second, keep looking into the simulation. Most of all, I'd recommend making top level buildings more difficult to obtain, happiness more meaningful, higher education more expensive, and the aforementioned suggestions of reducing delivery & service vehicle road usage by increasing capacity and allowing for prioritization of the district they are in. These are relatively cheap in terms of simulation compared to say citizen or vehicle agent AI.

Finally, for the big investments, you'd make a whole heck of a lot of people happy by improving the traffic AI, increasing (or at least making moddable) the limits, and/or allowing for snow to come and go. Another suggestion I'd like to add to this is an extra depth to the industry chain: storage. Stock Yards would lend stability to the supply and pad any intermittent transit problems.

So, that's my 2 cents. Thanks again for a great game, and I hope my suggestions are useful!

 

[Grapplehoeker]

-Too many trains, most of them with very few passengers.

That sounds to me like you have too many stations connected to the outside. Each station connected to the outside on the same track will spawn trains from the outside and share load capacities, which results in many trains with less than full loads. It can also lead to train jams.
So, reduce your intercity terminals to just one or perhaps two per outside connection, and then connect these to your innercity network by a roadlink. This will require that you ensure that each outside connection is independent from all others and does not share track with your innercity rail network.

 

[Mca101]

There will be one more update from me next week so stay tuned!

Can we maybe expect another mini dlc soon? Before you guys disappear for your summer breaks

 

[Johnnysims]

This gives me a lot to think about... I am not bored of the game, my boredness has however started rising. It's not doom and gloom cause I love this game, I am going for 500 hours now, and that's not paused building road networks, this is building and growing.

- My feeling is that it's a little bit too much of a city painter. As I can see on reddit sometimes. This feeling comes from when I start a city it is challenging to make money etc, and you can't plan everything out. But then you make money and you can zone areas and not worry about them anymore. They become a little STATIC and not DYNAMIC.

- This leads to areas that just level up all the way, Commercial grows the easiest. Too easy I would say. Offices level up very difficult, but that is because I don't want to plop 20 service buildings around that area. So I agree that somehow the leveling up should not happens so INSTANTANEOUS to plopping service buildings. I think demographics and time should play a big role.

- So I suggest that a few years should go by to see if a certain area is desirable enough to level up all the way. Depending maybe on how many customers visit the stores, traffic around it, for the houses, travel time or school access and park access. (The difficulty of residential levelling up is reasonable to me).

- I agree with bloody Penguin above about offices, I don't know when to build them or industrial? Currently I start using them as soon as I have a university and then just build them because I don't want too many trucks and dirty industry. But that leaves you with when to build dirty industry again? Can I suggest a new district option of warehousing/light industrial, which can be placed next to residential without making them sick with pollution, these then function as a halfway point between products made by heavy large polluting factories and commercial zones. When these low land value areas have nice services and conditions are right (city is advanced and old enough) for high tech I think they should upgrade to high tech industry.

- Offices being hard to level up is fun, but not in the way it is now, like someone mentioning above bombarding them with services is not completely appropriate. Like I said time based and other factors are also important.

- Some of my current thinking comes from Tropico, I think because you can have such dirt poor people and where they work vs how richer people then live in nicer houses and apartments and have better jobs. This is obviously part of C:S but not in a visible way... That's why I suggest demographics to be more prevalent to how areas look or level up.

^ Those were my simulation improvement ideas. Now extras:

- More road options. I don't think this affects performance too much. I see in the mods there are smaller fast lanes and smaller four lane roads. And then highways, getting them straight (spacing) and maybe adding another lane.

- More names for the buildings that spawn. Too many "Gigastores" now. Lol

- A DLC that maybe brings in factions, like being more environmental or intellectual etc, Tropico does this well. Maybe just a way to know if cims need certain things, I don't find Chirpy to really help me like advisors would.

 

[Marov84]

Would add to other buildings and facilities:

- government buildings as the courts (the number of case list of the day), tax offices (more efficient tax collection), Town Hall (business meetings, events, people close to the mayor, limousine mayor), etc. should be more influence on entertainment than just to visit,
- power cables underground,
- office construction supervision - takes care of the buildings after fires, floods, collapsing buildings,
- television studio and a helicopter TV - follow current events in the city,
- more tourism: balloons, airships "zeppelin", etc.
- I miss the fire brigade helicopters, medical helicopters, police helicopters,
- would add to water vehicles (motor boats, small ships, sailboats etc.) to use, but not as static objects. Seafaring in the full sense of the word,
- please add the channels as water crossings for of smaller units (vehicles of water) as tourist ferries, trams boats, sailboats, water police - patrol canals etc. This will increase tourism "City closer to the water",
- I miss the construction of small lakes,
- reflections on the water,
- do please pools, fountains with real water. I do not like the texture imitating water
- more sports facilities (swimming pools - with real water, fields for ball games - sports rivalries schools, tennis courts, etc.),
- other educational facilities such as libraries (the number of books read), etc.
- other cultural objects such as operas, theaters etc. should offer cultural events and so on,
- I miss the centers of science and research, health centers exploring dangerous viruses, etc.
- random events: accidents, protests, fires (forests, buildings more than one), earthquakes, tornadoes,

If someday it will be possible to add to the game
thank you and love CO

Greeting Mariusz

 

[Momento Mori]

Slums and social tensions!

 

[Mca101]

- More road options. I don't think this affects performance too much. I see in the mods there are smaller fast lanes and smaller four lane roads. And then highways, getting them straight (spacing) and maybe adding another lane.
.

A good mod to use for now (unless you use it already) while we wait for possible transportation updates is Network Extensions:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=478820060

 

[Keltia_Vikinga]

social tensions would be fun but the cims are so well educated, the perfect citizens^^ how to solve these problems now ? would we get some control on Police and etc ?
Fire, we have enough in-game, I think but demonstrations would be fun. some spice to the game =)

Events for various buildings in the city could be fun, some challenges, =) but i cant say i enjoyed much that free dlc...now again, how would it work ? we can imagine small events the game entirely manages and big events we could manage.
for example, we could be informed for upcoming big events and get a bit of control on events, police again etc. We may approve or not big event and if approved, we may organize secure zone and it could be same for demonstrations in the streets... but maybe that concept is too complicated...?

True some industry names are "strange" when you look at the indus. building...
And yes, the 4 lanes is missing again...

 

[Johnnysims]

A good mod to use for now (unless you use it already) while we wait for possible transportation updates is Network Extensions:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=478820060

That Mod almost gives too much, my game is a bit overloaded on assets and mods, I would use it if I could only get like 3 extra road types.

But thank you for suggesting it.

 

[Johnnysims]

Maybe then dynamic education like the poster above mentioned a library, if the cims are adults they may start losing education unless the can access library or something. This would only be very helpful if the neighborhoods were more dynamic and changing.

 

[Steve B.]

That Mod almost gives too much, my game is a bit overloaded on assets and mods, I would use it if I could only get like 3 extra road types.

But thank you for suggesting it.

I agree with you. It is a verrrrrrrrrry heavy mod and though I like it, it has way too much in it. Love the zonable pedestrian paths, love the two lane road with turning lanes. As for the rest, I can do without it, and though I am subscribed to the mod, it is disabled in my games. It's just too heavy.

 

[Keltia_Vikinga]

Another thing that would be good is noise reducer by the soil (terraforming). In real life, they do hills which get that role of traffic noise reducer for traffic doesn't disturb residents around.

 

[huru2judge1]

City Painter:
City Painter, huh? I can see how that description would apply. CS is a bit more technical, but there are some aspects that do create the feeling that one is "painting" a city.

In my city I like to create little communities or hamlets. In some cases, however, I notice that the game lends itself towards 1950's urban planning. Large residential zones and localized commercial and office zones. I wish there was the option to create multi purpose buildings. For example, many big cities have first level commercial space and higher level dwellings.

Incorporate Mods in Core Game:
I wish you would formalize/adopt some highway intersections that are available in the community workshop. Some intersections are better than others. While it is awesome to have a large modding community, it is a slog to sort through so many some times. Perhaps in your next expansion you will officially adopt some mods into the core game?

Tree Painter?:
TREES! I am so tired of planting individual trees. Is there way to create a "tree painter?"

Improve on what you have!:
As some have said before, perhaps you can focus on expanding on the things you already have? For example, shows at the opera; exhibits, events and concerts at the expo center; research developments at the science center and press conferences. The football stadium is awesome! I love the mechanics. I enjoy building transport centers next to the stadium. I like seeing the increased traffic.

Media Buzz:
Oh, maybe you can add a newspaper building? Cities these large rarely lack a devoted news source. Maybe a newspapers or TV stations can help boost attendance at events and tourism districts by way of adverts?

Mayoral Legacies:
I appreciate your overall vision for CS. However, I don't think incorporating a "mayor" aspect to the game would be a bad idea. Perhaps you can go the route of CKII or EUIII/IV? In those games, rulers come and go. They get monikers for events that happen during their lives. Yet, each new mayor is still the player. Perhaps have mayors serve for a few years. If a player builds a large transport system for a few years, that mayor gets a "transport" moniker. Perhaps they make building even more transport systems cheaper (because they developed contacts over the years).

It would nice if you added different bridge styles too. Draw bridges, suspension bridges, causeways etc.

I love the game, nevertheless.

 

[co_martsu]

Thank you so much for all the feedback! I really appreciate it!

I like the "city painter" aspect, since I play games like these for relaxation and to be creative. I don't want it to get too complex or difficult. However the game has been out for 1.5 years, and it would be nice with some new (optional) challenges and gameplay elements too. After a while, every city you build turns out the same. The tricky part will be to balance it so both the "city painters" and "micro managers" can be happy.

Indeed, this is definitely a challenge. You can't please everyone unfortunately.

About "city painter" : I love this game like it is . If anyone want more challenge then change your city - like -the industry one left to the right and residentials from the right to the hill above... - sometimes its really difficuld . Or use mods - there are enough to make this game more personal for you .

@co_martsu : Will you post a clever screenshot of what you are working on? With some little hints in it to analyze and fiddle around with it for us - before you go to holiday ? Pleeeaasee...

We're not going to change the city painter aspect but offer more choice, or at least that's the plan

No screenshots, sorry But a new word of the week will still be released before I'm out.

Can we maybe expect another mini dlc soon? Before you guys disappear for your summer breaks

Not before the vacation, I'm afraid

 

[kenratboy]

Warehouse and light/non-polluting industry. So much of the world is made of this. Factories (as depicted in the game) are rare in most countries.

 

[ma2412]

Options are always good!

 

[AlexandrPivnyov]

Hi to all.
I have this idea for External Relations would like to have a game type connections as now - " outer city " - " My City ", but also the type - " outer city " - " outer city". As well as commercial activities between cities - Sale (purchase) of electricity sale (purchase) of water , the sale (purchase) of garbage etc. P.S. Sorry for my English.



Translated into Ukrainian (Переклад на українську):Привіт всім. У мене така є ідея щодо зовнішніх зв'язків хотілось би щоб в грі були зв'язки по типу як зараз - "Зовнішнє місто" - "Моє місто", але й по типу - "Зовнішнє місто" - "Зовнішнє місто". А також комерційна діяльність між містами - продаж (купівля) електрики, продаж (купівля) водних ресурсів, продаж (купівля) сміття і т.д. P.S. Вибачте за мій англійський.