CO word of the week #1 - 2/2017

metacritical · Jan 12, 2017

After Dark for me though I've not really played the game much since Natural Disasters (thanks to Transport Fever and just being generally busy) so I can't say whether I like it yet (only played, and lost, one scenario); i was never a fan of disasters in Sim City but I did have fun completely destroying my city of 200,000 CIMs down to the hardcore 500 CIMs who refused to move despite the city being completely destroyed. I only really bought Snowfall for trams and rarely use any of the other content from it. I like the tourism/entertainment aspect of After Dark and also the shoreline parks like fishing and restaurant piers; more tourism/entertainment buildings would be appreciated since the workshop seems to ignore this part of the game.

hny etc too

JCan · Jan 12, 2017

co_martsu said:
I have a couple of questions for you to start the year: Which one of the three expansions we have released so far is your favourite - After Dark, Snowfall or Natural Disasters? Or do you skip the post-release content and rather stick with the base game?

After Dark.

Avanya · Jan 12, 2017

I think I'll have to go with After Dark. The commercial specializations make for interesting districts, and the bus terminal and taxis are something I find myself using alot. I very much love the trams from Snowfall too and the snow maps are gorgeous, though I never really stick around on the snow maps for long (especially the little icons for snowy roads get on my nerves and the many custom trees which don't have snow applied). While I prob won't play much with disasters on I agree it feels like a solid expansion adding some more challenge to the game.

I can't really say much about scenarios as I haven't even opened the editor yet or really played the scenarios.

I really love the feature though! I've seen a few scenarios pop up on the workshop, which look promising, and I'm sure we'll see more and more as time goes on. I'd love to see some sort of tutorial scenarios added from you guys. It's pretty common to see new players ask on forums or reddit how to get started with the game. There are some lovely usermade guides out there and the ingame tips do help a bit, but I think some step-by-step tutorials especially for players new to the genre would be great.

co_martsu · Jan 12, 2017

Avanya said:
I can't really say much about scenarios as I haven't even opened the editor yet or really played the scenarios. I really love the feature though! I've seen a few scenarios pop up on the workshop, which look promising, and I'm sure we'll see more and more as time goes on. I'd love to see some sort of tutorial scenarios added from you guys. It's pretty common to see new players ask on forums or reddit how to get started with the game. There are some lovely usermade guides out there and the ingame tips do help a bit, but I think some step-by-step tutorials especially for players new to the genre would be great.

Thanks, this is very good feedback!

Mca101 · Jan 12, 2017

@co_martsu After Dark is definitely my favourite. There is definitely room to expand on it too!- The Rush Hour Mod (accompanied by Time Warp) and Traffic Manager President Edition in steam workshop is definitely a good place to start as this is something you should incorporate into the game and expand upon.

After Dark made our cities more real and alive and that's what I would love to see more of!

The introduction of trams in snowfall was a great addition too (although I'll be honest, overall snowfall was not my favourite DLC you've done

).

There are loads of suggestions that have been posted on your last word of the week, lots of them are definitely workable!
Just please keep supporting this game as long as you can, the potential for more content is virtually limitless

Whale · Jan 12, 2017

After Dark is my favorite. The day night cycle added a lot of visual interest. The specialties are a fun addition.

Snowfall is the most disappointing expansion so far. It would have been amazing if snow was a seasonal thing, but as an always on map choice it's very unappealing. Trams are good though.

Disasters and scenarios aren't something I care much about, but it fills in a standard city building feature many people wanted. The disaster preparation and recovery aspects are cool and creative additions to the formula. A solid expansion overall if not what I would have chosen.

I really like the stadium, I wish more of the unique buildings had special simulation effects and policies associated with them. Things like convention centers holding conferences, college gradation days, etc.

prismaticmarcus · Jan 12, 2017

i'll answer by saying snowfall was the only dlc i haven't bought. the only thing that appealed to me about it was trams and permanently snowy maps are a turnoff, i'm afraid.

JimmiG · Jan 12, 2017

After Dark was my favorite, because it let you add so much stuff to your existing cities, such as new landmarks/attractions and of course the commercial specializations. The day/night cycle was one of the most significant additions since the game released, although it wasn't really part of "After Dark", since it was free for everyone.

Natural Disasters is also good, but the scope is limited to well...natural disasters. When you don't play with the disasters (which is most of the time), the game is basically the same as before. Also it has a few rough edges - Why do fire trucks travel across the city instead of dispatching from the nearest fire station? Why do we need helicopters to put out a tree on fire in the central park or in someone's backyard? Why do fire trucks return home after putting out a building on fire, when 3 buildings next door are also on fire? It has highlighted some issues with the AI that should have been fixed long ago.

Snowfall was a big disappointment I'm afraid. Limiting snow to specific "perma-winter" maps meant it became a separate mini-game rather than an expansion of the base game. The trams were the only useful addition, since you can use them on any map.

Also, don't forget all the free additions like canals, terraforming, day/night cycle, increase of the building and road limits, dynamic weather, theme support etc. The free content that each major patch adds has been at least as exciting as the paid content. I hope this continues with some of the most popular mods being implemented in the base game (Rush Hour, Network Extension, Traffic Manager, above-ground metro etc.). Just see here for inspiration:
https://steamcommunity.com/workshop...cribers&browsesort=totaluniquesubscribers&p=1

racerua · Jan 12, 2017

I really loved the scenarios to be a part of CS. I liked that feature in SC3000 Unlimited and missed it a lot in later games. So I'd be happy to have more of them done by CO.
As for EPs, I'd say that After Dark is the best of three and ND being not too far from it. Why? Because AD seems to give more content to use in the cities for most times. In the future I'd like to see more transport options in the game (like Rush Hour EP for SC4) - ferries, monorail, etc.

co_martsu · Jan 12, 2017

Thanks everyone for the feedback so far! I get your point with After Dark and how the content slightly differs from the two other expansions.

MotownCountry · Jan 12, 2017

holy cities skylines, Batman...has it been TWO years?

as for my fav expansion...? After Dark brings the coolness into the game, and Natural Disasters brings the excitement. I love creating my Downtown area with skyscrapers, hotel districts and nightlife districts. my least fav expansion is Snowfall. all that constant WHITE hurts my eyes. i don't like the permanent snow season.

the expansion that i hope is next? EVENTS! parades, big business grand opening with ribbon cutting ceremony. award shows. movie premieres. concerts! and holidays such as Valentines Day, Xmas, New years, ...or other holidays with fireworks! also, rallies/protests, charity events, school events (plays, parent teacher conferences, school vs school in sports competitions) and whatever else could fit in this category!

esbenmf · Jan 12, 2017

After dark was most interesting game play wise, though ravaging your own creation with disasters has a charm of its own.

Most needed is merging lanes on roads, particularly on highways.

Thanks for a wonderful game. I'll look forward to more content.

Synthtronic · Jan 12, 2017

The best DLC for me is After Dark an I am totally agree with Avanya and all other members before my post.

I think these two post brings it to the point:

Avanya said:
I think I'll have to go with After Dark. The commercial specializations make for interesting districts, and the bus terminal and taxis are something I find myself using alot. I very much love the trams from Snowfall too and the snow maps are gorgeous, though I never really stick around on the snow maps for long (especially the little icons for snowy roads get on my nerves and the many custom trees which don't have snow applied). While I prob won't play much with disasters on I agree it feels like a solid expansion adding some more challenge to the game.

I can't really say much about scenarios as I haven't even opened the editor yet or really played the scenarios. I really love the feature though! I've seen a few scenarios pop up on the workshop, which look promising, and I'm sure we'll see more and more as time goes on. I'd love to see some sort of tutorial scenarios added from you guys. It's pretty common to see new players ask on forums or reddit how to get started with the game. There are some lovely usermade guides out there and the ingame tips do help a bit, but I think some step-by-step tutorials especially for players new to the genre would be great.

JimmiG said:
After Dark was my favorite, because it let you add so much stuff to your existing cities, such as new landmarks/attractions and of course the commercial specializations. The day/night cycle was one of the most significant additions since the game released, although it wasn't really part of "After Dark", since it was free for everyone.

Natural Disasters is also good, but the scope is limited to well...natural disasters. When you don't play with the disasters (which is most of the time), the game is basically the same as before. Also it has a few rough edges - Why do fire trucks travel across the city instead of dispatching from the nearest fire station? Why do we need helicopters to put out a tree on fire in the central park or in someone's backyard? Why do fire trucks return home after putting out a building on fire, when 3 buildings next door are also on fire? It has highlighted some issues with the AI that should have been fixed long ago.

Snowfall was a big disappointment I'm afraid. Limiting snow to specific "perma-winter" maps meant it became a separate mini-game rather than an expansion of the base game. The trams were the only useful addition, since you can use them on any map.

Also, don't forget all the free additions like canals, terraforming, day/night cycle, increase of the building and road limits, dynamic weather, theme support etc. The free content that each major patch adds has been at least as exciting as the paid content. I hope this continues with some of the most popular mods being implemented in the base game (Rush Hour, Network Extension, Traffic Manager, above-ground metro etc.).

mntoes · Jan 12, 2017

Best up-date Natural Disasters (even though I never thought In would have bought it) Only one simple request going forward . Can you please add sound effects when you reach a new achievement. (should be an easy do).

Anttonilla · Jan 12, 2017

Finally you are back

My favourite expansion was After Dark too. I was super hyped after the announcement at Gamescom and the expansion delivered nicely. I was left a little hungry for more, but hey I understand that you are still a small team. I my eyes Snowfall flopped and Natural Disasters doesn't really bring anything new to the city building side of things. I don't really care about the scenarios either, even though they might be fun for others.

I listed my thoughts on the expansions, some pros and cons:

After Dark
+ Amazing new visuals: Day/Night cycle, reworked skybox etc.
+ New transport options
+ Commercial specializations & New Tourism mechanics (even though they were kind of broken) <3
+ Content rich, many parts of the game got reworked
- You left a lot of bugs/weird design choises to the game that weren't fixed until months later.
- It suffered from weird design choises/laziness: Schools open during night, solar power stopped working during night etc.
- Doesn't have rush hour mechanics, although that's understandable because of the limited time and resources you had

Snowfall
+ Snow is kind of nice i guess
+ Trams are nice and functional
+ Free patch was awesome: Weather, performance boost....
- Missed opportunity, players asked for seasons, instead we got eternal winter maps
- The paid content mostly only included the three maps and new boring ploppable parks (Just as an example: Draggable cross skiing routes would have been nice? Or maybe the water could have been frozen?)
- You asked us money even though you hadn't fixed the things people complained about

Natural Disasters
+ Disasters ended up looking super cool
+ I love the radio stations
+ Evacuations are nice
- Adds nothing for those who just wanted more stuff and mechanics for their existing cities

Now while I'm here I could maybe offer you some ideas for future expansions

- New tools for custom parks:

A tool for placing props
Closer zoom levels for the camera so that placing props would be easy
Fancier version of Surface painter by bloodypenguin implemented to the base game
Tree brush added to the game
Random Tree Rotation by boformer added to the base game
Custom park area selection tool for land value and possible visitors (example pic below). This could even be used for making things like custom cemeteries and there could possibly be an option for filling the area automatically with paths, trees and tombstone props.
Doesn't that sound interesting huh?

- More transport options

Bike rentals?
Monorail?
Better metro system (above ground etc.)
Multi track stations! This is so important for me, modded solutions work poorly and the stations get very busy.
Passenger ferries, maybe also add some marinas and functional leisure boats

- Gameplay enhancements

Rework of the service capacity system: Hospitals/Schools (etc.) should be able to handle patient/student amounts that go over their capacity. That would however lead to strikes that shut down the entire building temporarily. When this happens you just have to increase the capacity at the area by building more hospitals or by raising the budget. You could introduce central hospitals that have bigger capacity and hospitals that don't get used that much should be lowered in budget.
At the moment the citizens don't really seem to care if they don't have city services available (whether their children can go to school or not and so on). This should change. The land value created by the services should be more visible. The citizens seem to be happy as long as a police car visits their house once in a while because "crime level is high"... Maybe the problem is that the service buildings can dispatch vehicles to the complete opposite side of the city and that's how everybody stays happy even if they lived super far away from the service buildings.
Maybe add parking capacity as a new city service. An info view could tell the player if more parking space is needed.
As many other have already said: EVENTS! The stadium is a nice start, but we could have way more.

- Industry enhancements

Cargo airports!
Logistics centers?

- Other things

Traffic AI could be tweaked
Open things like animations, object limits and citizen models to modders.
Maybe polish the GUI a little bit, it's inconsistent with it's design, text isn't always centered, buttons have glitchy icons etc.
Maybe multithread the pathfinding, it should help with performance?
Add internal resolution scale to graphics options for better anti aliasing
Take a look at the workshop and consider adding most popular mods to the base game

I hope you liked the ideas. Maybe I should have made an separate thread for this...

EDIT. Rush Hour. Please. Take a look at the mod in the workshop. You will fall in love with it, then add it to the game in one way or another

Erei · Jan 13, 2017

I feel the expansions, free or not, are good ideas that fail to reach what people expect.
The European building patch for example, most players thought it would be a district based aesthetic, to mimic real life where most cities I know of where I live have "old" quarters surrounded by "modern" ones, but it was map based. We had to wait for a mod to "fix" it (theme manager). After dark had the awesome night and day cycle, but the impact on the city was minor at best (school open all night long for example), and once again a mod came to "fix" it (rush hour). Finally, snowfall had, well, snow, and pretty much everyone expected it would be a seasonal thing, like 2 seasons winter and not winter, sadly we got a permanent winter map, which tend to become dull quickly. Especially if you are not living near the arctic circle, and thus rarely have snow at all, much less all the associated infrastructure.

As for the rest, well, AD had more about tourism, but it is still the useless mess it was. Now with more low level commercial. Prisons didn't change the criminality mechanic at all. Taxis replace cars... with cars. But they are yellow and black. Snowfall's snow plowing is a re-skinned garbage mechanic. As for the heat, that's just a water mechanic 2.0. Trams are cool, if you can handle the permanent "ding ding" sound.

I didn't play natural disaster because I was not interested in the first place, I feel like it cater to a specific audience, which I'm no part of. As such, I can't give an opinion. Nevertheless it seems the addition of emergency center, shelter and whatnot is a good idea.

I'm aware it might be a bit harsh, I apologize for that, but while the vanilla game was very good for the price, and the success is well deserved, the DLCs were a letdown. And ironically, sometimes the best part was the free part of the DLC. Which is good for us, I guess, but not that good when you want to buy the DLC.

If I had to vote for a DLC, that would be AD. If only for the night and day cycle. Which was the free part (ironically).

CRCinAU · Jan 13, 2017

... if we could just fix the traffic AI... That would make me so happy.

BadPeanut · Jan 13, 2017

Erei said:
I feel the expansions, free or not, are good ideas that fail to reach what people expect.
I didn't play natural disaster because I was not interested in the first place, I feel like it cater to a specific audience, which I'm no part of. As such, I can't give an opinion. Nevertheless it seems the addition of emergency center, shelter and whatnot is a good idea.

Just an FYI, you might be thinking the disasters are more like the simcity variety but I found that having thunderstorms, lightning, bushfires added a load of realism as they are very common occurrences (maybe not fires for you haha #straya)
that still might not appeal to you but it appealed more to me than the meteors

(the tornadoes are tragically beautiful to watch tbh)

Badi_Dea · Jan 13, 2017

Please forgive the fact that this is my first post. I have been following this game all through it's development, and I appreciate all the communication and hard work CO has put into it. I had to sign in for the first time to talk about an issue very near and dear to my heart.

co_martsu said:
What also is interesting for me to hear is that how do you feel about the scenarios and the scenario editor? Do you play scenarios or create them yourself? Are scenarios something you would like us to release in the future?

I was originally very excited about scenarios. I remember the scenario editor from StarCraft, both old and new; the power they have to completely change the mechanics of the game is amazing. I was completely thrilled that Cities Skylines was getting something like it.

Finally it came, literally the first thing I did after I bought ND was fire up the scenario editor.
The excitement left faster than a traffic induced deathwave. The triggers are a little rudimentary but serviceable. The effect statements are so limited. Your options for conditional effect statements amount to: Win, Lose, Get Money, Lose Money, Call Disaster, and put up a text message.

The problem we have now is that there are no repercussions for anything you do in game (outside of the early game money crunch) because the taxes keep flowing in while you neglect the city for 30m. We need to be forced to either chose between keeping garbage services going or keeping the university open, we need to be punished for building an international airport for 10k citizens, or building an 8 lane bridge to nowhere.

Imagine a scenario where there are a set of conditions that fire:
Industry tiles > 500 = -25 happiness
Residential Tax rate > 8% = -25 happiness
Happiness < 70 = Global land value -10%

Now, what happens is that you can't easily sustain enough industry to employ people and generate enough tax revenue to stay afloat. So you need to raise taxes, but you can't! That will make your citizens mad.
You may be able to get away with one of those triggers if you've done a good job and everything is perfect, but not both; the repercussions would be an almost inevitable death spiral leaving you in worse shape than if you would have just tried to squeak by with what your people are demanding.
Making difficult decisions in a scenario will make the game so much more mechanically interesting.

The #1 thing I would like to see in the next expansion is much greater expansion to the available conditional trigger and effect statements.

Just a few effect statements off the top of my head that could help to improve the situation:
Global Happiness - Up, Down, Set
Global Land Value - Up, Down, Set
Money - Set (Up and Down already present)
Residential Demand - Up, Down, Set
Commercial Demand - Up, Down, Set
Industrial/Office Demand - Up, Down, Set
Create Natural Resource - Oil, Ore, Fertile Land -Placed on: Marker, District
Remove Natural Resource - Oil, Ore, Fertile Land -Placed on: Marker, District
Center Player Camera - Marker
Game Speed - set 1, 2, 3, Pause
Player Message - Allow adding a picture to embed in the textbox.

Thanks for reading, assuming you made it this far. I hope we can have a nice discussion about this feature that has the potential to be amazing with a little more love and attention.
Edit: I also wanted to say thanks for opening up stock sub-building functionality in the asset editor, it makes life so much easier as an asset creator.

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