After After Dark

[Burningfeetman]

Stop the development now! We can't possibly do that to anyone, it sounds terrible



Sometime next year maybe? Colossal is going on a Christmas vacation in a couple of weeks and we will be out until mid January. Not that I don't love making games, but the team and I really deserve a small break



We are taking our time with the expansions so it's very cool to keep an eye on what the modders are up to!

Take your time, add new features, squash the bugs, balance the game = everyone wins.

 

[Erik Steiner]

I hope that the focus for new content is bringing more depth to the actual city planning. I really like this game, especially the presentation of the traffic is very challenging, but my problem is that most of the time I will do traffic related things in my city and this becomes more and more boring. I hope that the next DLC (Addon) will shift the game from a transport minister to an acting mayor like it was in SC4.

Currently there is no challenge to plan all services like placing schools, fire departments or hospitals. I just have a look at the green influence at the streets and place this thing. There is no micro-management like it was in SC4, because the only bars that I actually change are the one for energy and water. Besides the fact that this game is too easy in relation to the money. I have a 26k City with +10k income with well educated citizens, providing a good amount of services..

I want to see more micro-management in the future, like adjusting the money for a specific school, handling the capacity of it, optimizing the amount of beds in hospitals, seeing broken streets because I lowered the budget for the streets, broken water pipelines for saving too much money. This would be a challenge, were you are proud to get a +1k or +2k income, because you finally managed to get the best out of it and because without the optimization you will not get a +10k like me now..

If this would be achieved in the next Addon, we can then talk about the lovely details I am missing, like a combination of Trams that drive on roads at the same time (like the Network Addon Mod from SC4), police cars/ fireservices/ ambulances that will not stop at lights, that can overtake other cars, like the little details of SC4 when you lowered the budget of a police station, or when it was missing and kids threw toilet paper at the trees, officers that chased someone on foot, having broken down houses because the land value is low or because they are not well educated.. and well more decoration stuff like little paths for the country site, this little bricks to the left and right with some trees around.. Etc..

So in my opinion there is enough content for two big Addons like the After Dark DLC. I hope that the next DLC will fix all the stuff that I currently miss to feel like a real acting mayor. Civilization V for example made such a development, with the first and the second Addon there came so much new depth into it.. It was wonderful..

So guys, Happy Holidays! Enjoy the free time and maybe play some Sim City 4 over the holidays, you will then get an idea of what I am currently missing!

 

[grizzycz]

I hope that the focus for new content is bringing more depth to the actual city planning. I really like this game, especially the presentation of the traffic is very challenging, but my problem is that most of the time I will do traffic related things in my city and this becomes more and more boring. I hope that the next DLC (Addon) will shift the game from a transport minister to an acting mayor like it was in SC4.!

I agree. I love the game. I always start a new city with passion, but after few hours the game feels just... empty and boring. There is simply something missing. I hope after cosmetic AD DLC we will get something that first fixes the bugs and second adds more depth to the game.

 

[lebossu]

Different specializations (ore, petroleum, agri...) are not sufficiently exploited.
There should be a more specific follow-up since the matter first to the finished product.
It also lacks the places of storage (with encrypted vision of stocks).

 

[Spec. Tater]

Stop the development now! We can't possibly do that to anyone, it sounds terrible



Sometime next year maybe? Colossal is going on a Christmas vacation in a couple of weeks and we will be out until mid January. Not that I don't love making games, but the team and I really deserve a small break

"...really deserve a chance to see the sun in the next month..."

We understand. It explains why After Dark's new daylight is so intensely yellow.

 

[autobusik2]

Cities Skylines is a very good game, but there still can be some improvements. Here is what i would like to see in the game:
1) Trams - I know all people want it and so do I. Now it looks crazy when city with less than 8 000 citizens has its own metro system, i think metro should be available to completely end since city has 80K citizens.
2) It is necessary to do something with the offices, now they are not interesting, they just creates jobs for educated people, but definitely they are less important than any other zone in the game and you do not have to create them so much as the other zones. There is also an offices indicator missing showing you how many offices are required, but the other zones in the game have it. So something should be done with them. What about offices specializations?
3) Taxes for cars and traffic pollution - people do not want to live near highways, they do not want to breathe all exhaust gas. Traffic pollution is a major problem in all big cities n the world, so why don not have it included in the game. Taxes for cars are possibly another way how to decrease number of people travelling to work by car. This along with traffic pollution polices like different taxes for cars with ecological engines could create nice way how to deal with traffic.
4) Cargo planes and cargo airports.
5) Traffic jams in metro stations, where stop more than one line are really weird. There is a subway hub missing in the game - two stations with one ground exit, but one station is above the other. And overground metro of course.
6) Road conditions - Roads in Cities Skylines are pretty idealistic. I think we should add road conditions, every road should be slowly damaged by traffic, dense traffic makes more damage. Sometimes should be necessary to close the road for example for a week and repair it. This cold be a big challenge when you have to close more major roads in the same time. Same thing is possible for metro tunnels and railways
7) When we are building a city, why there is no town hall there? It should be built as the first building. Also every district should have its own city office and there should be ability to build important buildings typical for city centre. There is usually one in the center of every city, every citizen must visit it sometimes (post office, library, financial office, cadaster, banks, health and social insurance company, registry office...), because now i can not clearly see where is the center of my city, because there are not any typical building for the city center.
8) Someone wrote in previous report, that it could be nice to have internet as facility. I must agree with that. And policy for free internet in the city.
9) Things like nature (walk in forest in better than walk in a park), single track railway, main railway station (with 8 or 10 tracks, i have never found a mod for this), natural disasters, different ethnic and social groups of citizens (they could love or hate each other), historical buildings (castles and cathedrals) and many others.

P.S. And could you change the policy Free public transport? Because free should be busses, trains and metro, but certainly not taxi or ever planes.

 

[Omnius1Prime]

We at Colossal will be focusing on making more stuff for Cities: Skylines. Free and paid updates, things we wanted to have in the game but didn't have a chance to yet. I bet there's one thing we all agree the game needs, can you guess what that is? This is definitely something that has been asked for a lot, a new feature... Do you need more hints?

I hope I got that right, otherwise we'll have a bunch of angry people telling us it was the wrong choice, but hey, you can't win them all...

Cities in Motion <3, I love that game. My personal wish is to make a sequel at some point, but Cities: Skylines turned out to be such a hit we definitely will put all effort on it for the time being. And Stable Manager, you just wait. One day it will happen. So we will definitely make a new game at some point, but now the focus is on after After Dark, haha. The next game is not going to be CIM3, though, nor the Stable Manager

co-martsu,
I'm still waiting for the Space Elevator and tourism to be fixed for cities with more than about 340,000 population. I want to build larger cities than 9 tiles and wonder why bother to increase building limit without increasing tile limit. I also wish to see the horrible traffic programming on multi-lane roads and highways improved, sad to watch a single-file ant line running down the middle of a 6-lane one-way road. Traffic needs to spread out better and we shouldn't have to wait for mods to come out to do that. The 6-year set lifespan needs to be fixed, I like the [ARIS] mods that spread out when Cims die between all age groups as well as the Very Slow Aging mod that multiplies life expectancy by 16 times. Turns a chaotic arcade game into more of a thinking person's game. I hope you'll be smarter than Maxis at fixing core problems instead of relying on modders to do that important work. Not all mods are maintained as new versions of the game are released.

 

[safe-keeper]

Side note/pet peeve: I wish Cities Skylines devs would be recognised by the forums as such so that I could hit the "Show only dev replies" button and easily catch up on their posts.

Interesting thread. There are certainly lots of things that could be added, but either way, I welcome improvements to traffic (such as trams). The fact that CS simulates every single individual means traffic is going to become a big deal, like it or not.

Having said that, I would like more politics in the game, perhaps (with a big emphasis on perhaps ) even a system where you have people voting for or against you based on various issues, and you have to make promises to your cims like "I will reduce crime rate" or "I will solve traffic problems", and things like cims growing attached to certain old buildings or districts and protesting if you tear them down.

co-martsu,
I'm still waiting for the Space Elevator and tourism to be fixed for cities with more than about 340,000 population. I want to build larger cities than 9 tiles and wonder why bother to increase building limit without increasing tile limit.

Did you read the latest patch thread? It has to do with system requirements. It's a fairly easy change, which is why (hint, hint) there are mods easily available on Steam Workshop which lets you unlock all 29 tiles, but it would increase the system requirements of CS, so the devs are reluctant to do it. The only reason why limits were increased is that the devs have optimised the game, so that they can do more without increasing the strain on end users' computers.

I also wish to see the horrible traffic programming on multi-lane roads and highways improved, sad to watch a single-file ant line running down the middle of a 6-lane one-way road.

Certain aspects of traffic and its AI could be improved, yes, but overall, you shouldn't complain too much about your cims obeying the law .

 

[autobusik2]

co-martsu,
I'm still waiting for the Space Elevator and tourism to be fixed for cities with more than about 340,000 population. I want to build larger cities than 9 tiles and wonder why bother to increase building limit without increasing tile limit. I also wish to see the horrible traffic programming on multi-lane roads and highways improved, sad to watch a single-file ant line running down the middle of a 6-lane one-way road. Traffic needs to spread out better and we shouldn't have to wait for mods to come out to do that. The 6-year set lifespan needs to be fixed, I like the [ARIS] mods that spread out when Cims die between all age groups as well as the Very Slow Aging mod that multiplies life expectancy by 16 times. Turns a chaotic arcade game into more of a thinking person's game. I hope you'll be smarter than Maxis at fixing core problems instead of relying on modders to do that important work. Not all mods are maintained as new versions of the game are released.

I think 6-year life set is not bad, the main problem is the time in Cities Skylines. One day is extremely short, it takes only a few seconds on max speed. Unfortunately it is much faster than day/night cycle. I think one day should be much longer, the same as one day/night cycle. Because now you can not add effects of different times of day to the game. Like traffic is different n the morning, noon, afternoon and evening and at night. With longer one day, also a life set would not be such a significant problem.

 

[slornie]

Side note/pet peeve: I wish Cities Skylines devs would be recognised by the forums as such so that I could hit the "Show only dev replies" button and easily catch up on their posts.

Pretty sure I've seen the odd post by a CO dev highlighted by the forums but I believe they have to tick a "mark as dev post" box each and every time (unless there's a profile setting to change the default state of the tick box).

 

[autobusik2]

I would like to write something about public transport in Cities Skylines, which it totally unrealistic and it is now useless and without mods can not be used as the main traffic system in big cities in Cities Skylines.

The main problem is capacity of public transport vehicles, relating to buses, metro and also trains, ships and planes. It does not exist a city bus in real life which has capacity 30 passengers. It is too little. For example i use a mods where can i change the capacity of every public transport vehicle to be more realistic. I use Bus (90, in game 30), Articulated bus (140, it is not in the game), Metro (800, in game only 180 - metro is the best public transport vehicle, so i do not understand why we can build it when our city has only 7000 citizens with such a low capacity, if there are trams 4in the game with capacity around 250 - 300 passengers and better trains, i will not use metro till at least 300K citizens, because it will not be necessary), Train (400, in game 240), Ship (400, in game 100) and Plane (350, in game 200). This is also connected with the milestones and unlocking another public transport types.

I often read, that Cities Skylines is extremely easy, because you nearly can not lose. I think ne reason it that creating public transport in so easy, when i watch gameplays from Skylines on YouTube, it often ends with 100K citizens and 20 metro lines. But this is not how it works in real life! With this all bus lines are useless, when you can have metro everywhere. I would like to have a challenge with placing bus lines and possible future tram lines, not just add 1,000 metro stations and problem is solved. Secondly I can not understand why is a metro station so cheap (only 15,000$), it is much cheaper than a small train station, which is also far away from reality, where metro is building by cities with more than 500K citizens, because it is so expensive. I thing acceptable rice for one metro station in the game is 100,000$. And also Subway Hub is missing as i wrote earlier in this blog.

I also think, milestones rewards should be changed - 4,600 citizens Bus, 10,000 possibly in the future Trams, 19,000 Trains and finally metro since your city has 80,000 citizens. With this you will not have every public transport types so early in the game and creating a public transport system will be more difficult and add the challenge that most players want in the game.

What make me really angry are trains. They are totally unrealistic, especially those coming to my city from surrounding or leaving the city. They spawn time is total mess, i think they have spawn time like a normal car on highway, it is totally wrong. One train replaces many cars or trucks, so it should have larger spawn time. This is a problem not only for passenger trains, but also for cargo trains. When i have bigger city it always ends with a huge traffic jam on every track in the industrial zone. The capacity of cargo trains is also too low, just like the passenger trains. The capacity of cargo trains must be increased to at least to quadruple, they number must be reduces to a fifth of current number. Same problem with passenger trains and their spawn time. This was the main reason for bug in the initial game with train stuck of the end of the map, fortunately it was removed, but extremely short spawn time for trains coming or leaving city is still in the game. And one point at the end, minimal safe distance between two trains on one track in around 2,000 meters.

Trains could be divided into regional trains (which bring people living around the city to the work) and rarely coming international trains (in Europe mostly knows as EuroCity trains) which are used mostly by tourists.

We got international airport in After Dark DLC, but there is no Main Train Station in the game. With 8 or 10 tracks, metro station, bus station etc. I hope it will be added to the game soon.

Bus lines, which were a mod at the beginning are now a regular part of the game. So i do not understand why also multi track station enabler and single track railways are not a part of the game too.

I hope that Paradox will continue in support Cities Skylines in the future. It is a very good game, but once it could be perfect.

P.S. And what about public transport tickets price? We have only Free Public Transport policy, but i would like to have a possibility to change ticket price, but not for every type of vehicle like i can do wit modes. There are usually general ticket for one journey and tickets for one month/year in the reality with different prices for students, adults and seniors. It would be a nice feature in the game.

 

[Turjan]

I think you are right: the capacities of vehicles (like buses, passenger trains, freight trains) is a fundamental design flaw of the game. I guess the reasoning went something like, as the number of people per apartment complex or commerce highrise has been reduced considerably, compared to real life, we have to do the same with vehicles. However, this forgets the mismatch of real-time traffic with a hugely condensed time scale, which in turn raises the need to increase vehicle capacities in order to compensate for this time mismatch.

This was already a flaw in the CiM games (have fun with 10 parallel metro lines to move people in your town). I can only assume that this was never tackled because most players compensated with mods anyway.

 

[Masonicon]

Here's my Idea for the (possible) next expansion pack of Cities Skylines: let's starts with East Asian style buildings, as well Unique buildings from Asian countries in addition of ones from European countries. Supernatural/Paranormal elements(explained through Quantum Physics, String Theory, and so on) where they're can be as trivial as "Extinct" animals sighted alive randomly in wilderness(which is basis for Loch Ness Monster), cattle mutilation, to even Alien Invasion(many of those Paranormal stuff are can increased through enough uncollected corpses), and Haunted house(only happens to Abandoned buildings that abandoned from uncollected dead people). there's also holidays(which occurs on right in-game dates and lasts for few in-game days), new unique Buildings(includes one like Military Base to protects city from Disasters). and new Monument(as shown here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...t-cities-skylines-building-class-idea.882275/ with one additional function: it can also turns Sewage water into Fresh Water)

what do you think?

 

[Masonicon]

I think 6-year life set is not bad, the main problem is the time in Cities Skylines. One day is extremely short, it takes only a few seconds on max speed. Unfortunately it is much faster than day/night cycle. I think one day should be much longer, the same as one day/night cycle. Because now you can not add effects of different times of day to the game. Like traffic is different n the morning, noon, afternoon and evening and at night. With longer one day, also a life set would not be such a significant problem.

how about making Medical Center monument makes Cims lasts twice as long as usual(12 in-game year instead of 6) as this quite possibly the only way of Medical Center covers Deathcare?

 

[Masonicon]

I would like to write something about public transport in Cities Skylines, which it totally unrealistic and it is now useless and without mods can not be used as the main traffic system in big cities in Cities Skylines.

The main problem is capacity of public transport vehicles, relating to buses, metro and also trains, ships and planes. It does not exist a city bus in real life which has capacity 30 passengers. It is too little. For example i use a mods where can i change the capacity of every public transport vehicle to be more realistic. I use Bus (90, in game 30), Articulated bus (140, it is not in the game), Metro (800, in game only 180 - metro is the best public transport vehicle, so i do not understand why we can build it when our city has only 7000 citizens with such a low capacity, if there are trams 4in the game with capacity around 250 - 300 passengers and better trains, i will not use metro till at least 300K citizens, because it will not be necessary), Train (400, in game 240), Ship (400, in game 100) and Plane (350, in game 200). This is also connected with the milestones and unlocking another public transport types.

I often read, that Cities Skylines is extremely easy, because you nearly can not lose. I think ne reason it that creating public transport in so easy, when i watch gameplays from Skylines on YouTube, it often ends with 100K citizens and 20 metro lines. But this is not how it works in real life! With this all bus lines are useless, when you can have metro everywhere. I would like to have a challenge with placing bus lines and possible future tram lines, not just add 1,000 metro stations and problem is solved. Secondly I can not understand why is a metro station so cheap (only 15,000$), it is much cheaper than a small train station, which is also far away from reality, where metro is building by cities with more than 500K citizens, because it is so expensive. I thing acceptable rice for one metro station in the game is 100,000$. And also Subway Hub is missing as i wrote earlier in this blog.

I also think, milestones rewards should be changed - 4,600 citizens Bus, 10,000 possibly in the future Trams, 19,000 Trains and finally metro since your city has 80,000 citizens. With this you will not have every public transport types so early in the game and creating a public transport system will be more difficult and add the challenge that most players want in the game.

What make me really angry are trains. They are totally unrealistic, especially those coming to my city from surrounding or leaving the city. They spawn time is total mess, i think they have spawn time like a normal car on highway, it is totally wrong. One train replaces many cars or trucks, so it should have larger spawn time. This is a problem not only for passenger trains, but also for cargo trains. When i have bigger city it always ends with a huge traffic jam on every track in the industrial zone. The capacity of cargo trains is also too low, just like the passenger trains. The capacity of cargo trains must be increased to at least to quadruple, they number must be reduces to a fifth of current number. Same problem with passenger trains and their spawn time. This was the main reason for bug in the initial game with train stuck of the end of the map, fortunately it was removed, but extremely short spawn time for trains coming or leaving city is still in the game. And one point at the end, minimal safe distance between two trains on one track in around 2,000 meters.

Trains could be divided into regional trains (which bring people living around the city to the work) and rarely coming international trains (in Europe mostly knows as EuroCity trains) which are used mostly by tourists.

We got international airport in After Dark DLC, but there is no Main Train Station in the game. With 8 or 10 tracks, metro station, bus station etc. I hope it will be added to the game soon.

Bus lines, which were a mod at the beginning are now a regular part of the game. So i do not understand why also multi track station enabler and single track railways are not a part of the game too.

I hope that Paradox will continue in support Cities Skylines in the future. It is a very good game, but once it could be perfect.

P.S. And what about public transport tickets price? We have only Free Public Transport policy, but i would like to have a possibility to change ticket price, but not for every type of vehicle like i can do wit modes. There are usually general ticket for one journey and tickets for one month/year in the reality with different prices for students, adults and seniors. It would be a nice feature in the game.

agreed, Realistic public transport capacity is prequisite for having Anti-Gravity based vehicles(that combines Airplane's speed with trains' and ships' transport capacity) that can only unlocked by building Area 51 monument

 

[nuclearmissile]

I would like to write something about public transport in Cities Skylines, which it totally unrealistic and it is now useless and without mods can not be used as the main traffic system in big cities in Cities Skylines.

This was already a flaw in the CiM games (have fun with 10 parallel metro lines to move people in your town). I can only assume that this was never tackled because most players compensated with mods anyway.

I thought it was pretty obvious with the release of After Dark : The developers don't play their own game. After Dark won't be half-baked and shipped with useless 'features' if the devs actually sit down and play through the game.

 

[Miwi]

Here's my Idea for the (possible) next expansion pack of Cities Skylines: let's starts with East Asian style buildings, as well Unique buildings from Asian countries in addition of ones from European countries. Supernatural/Paranormal elements(explained through Quantum Physics, String Theory, and so on) where they're can be as trivial as "Extinct" animals sighted alive randomly in wilderness(which is basis for Loch Ness Monster), cattle mutilation, to even Alien Invasion(many of those Paranormal stuff are can increased through enough uncollected corpses), and Haunted house(only happens to Abandoned buildings that abandoned from uncollected dead people). there's also holidays(which occurs on right in-game dates and lasts for few in-game days), new unique Buildings(includes one like Military Base to protects city from Disasters). and new Monument(as shown here: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...t-cities-skylines-building-class-idea.882275/ with one additional function: it can also turns Sewage water into Fresh Water)

what do you think?

I think you need a doctor...or even better an alienist

 

[autobusik2]

I think you are right: the capacities of vehicles (like buses, passenger trains, freight trains) is a fundamental design flaw of the game. I guess the reasoning went something like, as the number of people per apartment complex or commerce highrise has been reduced considerably, compared to real life, we have to do the same with vehicles. However, this forgets the mismatch of real-time traffic with a hugely condensed time scale, which in turn raises the need to increase vehicle capacities in order to compensate for this time mismatch.

This was already a flaw in the CiM games (have fun with 10 parallel metro lines to move people in your town). I can only assume that this was never tackled because most players compensated with mods anyway.

Cities Skylines is a simulator of building your own city. But you can not simulate something you do not understand. It is clear that computer programmer do not understand how to create public transport system. It is complicated. But they can ask some transport expert and Cities skyline' authors definitely did not do that.

I also understand, that some reduction had to be done. It would be impossible to create detailed city with 5M people, because of computer power and it would be also a massive chaos. But when i reduce something i usually use the same scale for everything. For example real city bus has capacity around 90, in Skylines it is 30, so game bus has 30% capacity of real vehicle. But metro has 22,5% (180/800) and train 60% (240/400) and I can not understand how did they get these numbers that are in the game now. With illogical order of unlocking public transport types this creates totally chaotic public transport system with many metro lines (it is cheap and easy to build) and without any challenge. Because now you can have (and a lot of people do it like this) 20 metro lines (and in later phases of game you usually do not know what to do with money, so let's build even more metro lines). But the challenge is to create 10 bus lines which can replace all these metro lines (and they also can be used by more citizens). But you have to know how to build them and how public transport works. Now nothing compels you to thing about where to place metro station, because it is not important how it is useful.

Secondly is that i have never found radius around bus/metro/train station which represents people using this stop. For example in real life it is usually 10-minutes walk distance for metro and 5 for buses. Because if this radius is small in the game, then more stops must be created, it means more people will use the line, but also slower public transport. I do not understand why we can not see this radius while placing stop, it is not difficult to program it.

So my final advice for game developers it to call some transport expert and ask him how public transport works. Then please fix it in the game.

P.S. I think the reasons why there are no trams in the game now are two. First tram tracks can be build in the middle of the road, in the side of the road, or they can be independent of the road (and cars can or can not drive on tram tracks) and this can change very often (i know it from my city). It is definitely more difficult to program this than wide black line represents metro tunnel which can be done very easy. Second is that Paradox created such stupid milestones, there is no space for unlocking trams now. Unlock them with metro, with buses or after metro is bullshit! And also one tram can not have the same capacity of metro or half of it (in reality it is one third or one fourth). So i think they do not know what to do with it and we still have to wait.

More in the second part of my reply.

 

[autobusik2]

I thought it was pretty obvious with the release of After Dark : The developers don't play their own game. After Dark won't be half-baked and shipped with useless 'features' if the devs actually sit down and play through the game.

I am sad, but i must agree. The longer i play After Dark, the more i see how it is incomplete. I would compare it with cassis and four wheels sold as Ferrari.

The best example from game is day night cycle. It looks nice, but that is all. It is not included to the game mechanisms at all and this are the reasons:

1) You can not have two different times in one game in the same time. But we have them. Everything from money profit to citizens transported by taxi is counting from time (let's call it ONE) we can see in the left bottom part of the screen. But it is extremely fast. This makes stupidly fast life cycles, totally unreal public transport numbers (in one week some vehicles are not able to travel half of its line, so i really would like to see the magic how is calculated number of people using public transport). But when there was only ONE it was crazy, but ok.

2)Problems started with After Dark when Paradox added day/night cycle (let's call it TWO). It is independent of ONE, and this is the biggest mistake of Cities Skylines. It creates so many bad situations, i must think Paradox added day night cycle, only because it looks nice, but they did not think about its effects. For example during the day i have weekly profit +60K, but at night it is now -40K. The reason? One day in TWO takes a few weeks in ONE, so factories work more for one week and less for the other. But you do not change everything, so now it is clear how mess is in ONE and TWO. The same is why schools still work at night, when it is reported as a bug for couple of weeks. Because if thousands of people are visiting school one week and nobody in the other week with such a short life cycle it would probably totally destroy offices and commercial zones (because of the education level they require). One week they would operate normally, the other they would be abandoned. And i could continue for a long time.

3)I think the only solution is to merge ONE and TWO - enlarge ONE to the size of TWO. It will ends fast people dying, jumps in profits, adds the ability to close schools at night etc. And also it would add possibility of effects of different daytime (morning, evening) and weekends.

I really would like to know if nobody in Paradox realized the effect of having two different times in the same time. Do not they play their games?

I often read that seasons could be in the next DLC. But if Paradox do not fix this mess, it will be only another set of skins for our city (i can not imagine adding new time for changing seasons, possible THREE, then the game would not be playable). And i will not pay my money for skins. Another thing i often read is when it is not good, use a mod. I understand that sometimes mods can be useful (for example i have a mod adding one bus type, with whom i travel every day to work, and i know Paradox will not create 1000 bus types for everyone). But i do not think moders should act for the role of developers and fix wrongly made features in the game.

 

[CaptRobau]

I hope that the focus for new content is bringing more depth to the actual city planning. I really like this game, especially the presentation of the traffic is very challenging, but my problem is that most of the time I will do traffic related things in my city and this becomes more and more boring. I hope that the next DLC (Addon) will shift the game from a transport minister to an acting mayor like it was in SC4.

Currently there is no challenge to plan all services like placing schools, fire departments or hospitals. I just have a look at the green influence at the streets and place this thing. There is no micro-management like it was in SC4, because the only bars that I actually change are the one for energy and water. Besides the fact that this game is too easy in relation to the money. I have a 26k City with +10k income with well educated citizens, providing a good amount of services..

I want to see more micro-management in the future, like adjusting the money for a specific school, handling the capacity of it, optimizing the amount of beds in hospitals, seeing broken streets because I lowered the budget for the streets, broken water pipelines for saving too much money. This would be a challenge, were you are proud to get a +1k or +2k income, because you finally managed to get the best out of it and because without the optimization you will not get a +10k like me now..

I think the focus on traffic is due to the developer's background. In their country Finland, and in many other north European countries the level of wealth/education is pretty homogeneous. There are less extremes of poor and rich (i.e. ghettos and the like), and those who do have villas can be separated from the working villas by only a few streets. Traffic is probably one of the biggest headaches for city government in those areas.

Contrast that to Maxis and SimCity. Even if those devs grew up in a nice suburb, they will have had more experience with the bigger divides in American society. So there's a bigger focus on the service side of things. The traffic in those game has always been less important, as those mayors often used less tools to get traffic flowing (everything's a grid, there's a bigger focus on cars than public transport, few roundabouts, etc.)

From a gameplay perspective, having a wealth approach like the Maxis games is more interesting. Having different neighborhoods developing differently would make it much easier to make non-traffic stuff fun than the current setup.