After After Dark

[Greygor69]

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.

Have you looked at the 2 games they produced before this?

Cities in Motion - A public Transport Game and

Cities in Motion 2 - A public Transport Game.

 

[Steve B.]

They deliberately didn't because as Greygor 69 says that is what they're two previous games were about; and both of them were imo magnificent.

They chose not to because these two games were not very successful, as beautiful as they were. They appealed to a niche audience, and could not sell a million or more copies of the game as CSL has.

If what you really want is to create a public transport system, I would suggest buying CiM 2. It's not a city builder, but it's a great public transport game; unfortunately CO has abandoned it (I assume at Parodox's insistence). You can't build a transport game and a city building game; most computers are not powerful enough to sell enough games to produce a profit.

I'd love it if they could.

 

[Togfan]

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 that there should be more city planning involved, but I'd never put it at the expense of transport management.
As I see it, C:S is one of many city builders that has the same problem of being experienced as difficult in the beginning, but grow exponentially easier over time. Naturally you amass a large wealth as long as you have a steady positive income over a long period of time, so I wouldn't worry too much about the amount of money you have. What makes C:S unique from most other city builders is its simulation, and the huge potential it comes with. Unlike SimCity, which flopped enormously with both a bad engine and a horrible game design, C:S handles agents surprisingly well in large amounts. This is definitely a strength to the game.

Now, I understand why transport is a large part of the game, and it should be, but of course there is more to a city than just the transport management. For example, I quite like districts and the possibilities they have, both policies and mods that enable different architectural styles. Having the city's policy split up into districts could be used to greatly diversify each district to have its own unique touch and features.

To list things I'd like to see be done in the game (some mentioned by others);
- Unify the time in the game to have one long day/night cycle. This allows for buildings and services to work differently during night, as well as changing the traffic pattern. Rush hours and night clubs would have a meaningful impact to the city. Some forms of transport, like cargo, would have different traffic schedules than commuters.
- Metros should be reworked. Personally I never use them as I find them simply too easy. Firstly, underground station length should be near the same as train stations', and both the building cost but especially the upkeep should be increased. Metro lines should be extremely expensive both to build and maintain, and only be profitable if you have several thousand people to move over distance. The capacity of metros should also be increased of course. I'd also opt for having the option to build surface metro tracks like CiM, which are much cheaper than tunnels. They'd be well suited to connect extensive suburbs to important locations, with stations having large range and the metro trains being fast.
- Trains also need some love. Currently it is too easy to use them how metros should be used; as commuter trains that connect every part of the city with each other. Trains should have a very low spawn rate, and a large capacity. I also feel that trains should be longer, including their stations, and not allow steep curves. Basically, train tracks should be difficult to lay in an urban terrain, and trains' main function should be to bring tourists and commuters to and from other cities. If people actually could work in different cities, trains would have a much more fulfilling role. Trains also with their extended length should have a slow acceleration and high top speed. For these reasons it'd be ideal for commuter transport over large distances (for example in huge cities), but also for cargo hauling. Cargo trains should be long, slow and transport enormous amounts of goods.
- The milestones need to be changed. I dislike the idea of population being what determines rewards, but it works for now. As I see it, most road types should be available from early on, to allow future planning, but large roads should have a large penalty for low density housing (not high density). Taxi should be available immediately, and bus lines from maybe 5000 population. Trains should be unlocked early as well, maybe 10k, as they should be an important source both for new citizens, tourists and cargo. Metro and trams (if that day comes) should both be reserved for 100k population cities.
- Capacity in general. I use mods that alter population in each building to more realistic amounts, ie. a suburban home having one or two households and an apartment block having 50+. I see this as a necessity, and it should be included in the base game. If buildings more realistically portrays population, then it's already easier to tweak transport options to fit to it. The long day/night cycle would also prevent major cluttering of cars. This would also give a legitimate reason to use highrise bans, as it seems completely redundant without these population altering mods.
- Wealth. SC4's usage of wealth was quite clever, but in C:S it'd need to be more dynamic. There already is a district sq/m price, which is good, but it doesn't seem to serve any purpose as it is now. I suggest higher lot prices attract wealthier people, which will require more living space, parks and services to be satisfied, but also generate a lot more tax as well as buying a lot more from stores. They'd also use public transport less. As I see it, districts with high lot prices would be ideal either for low-density suburbs with a high concentration of services, like colleges, cultural services and monuments, or for downtowns with large luxurious skyscrapers side by side with office blocks. Districts with low lot prices would be good for large sprawling suburbs, commercial shopping areas or medium density residential areas consisting of low-height apartments.
- Offices should firstly have both low and high density options, but also serve a more important role in city planning. They should be kept to relatively central districts, benefit from public transport and a large surplus of people available nearby, and operate densely, ie. being more effective by building in height than width.
- Density: Buildings' heights should work cumulatively--taller buildings attract taller buildings. A hi-rise should never pop up in a suburb. Instead, buildings should grow taller on demand and wealth level, and depending on how many tall buildings surround it. This would condensate buildings more realistically, and make for more realistic cities without being necessarily too hard to implement. Additionally, zones of different density shouldn't remove each other; ie. replacing a low density residential zone with a high-density residential zone shouldn't remove the low density residential buildings there.
- Monuments should be dynamic instead of being purely tourist attractions that at the moment work horribly. A skyscraper in the middle of nowhere with the upkeep of over 1000 attracts 10 tourists a week, seriously? They should work more like a normal building and have various functions, for instance, an art gallery or an opera should be tourist attractions that massively increase wealth in surrounding areas, while office buildings should employ tons of educated people. They should also cooperate with the density heights, generating unhappiness if a tall building is placed near non-tall buildings, while generating happiness if placed near skyscrapers.
- Finally, services should be a lot more customizable. I'd like to see a function similar to SimCity, where you could expand each service building, but also allow for a manual control over budget. For example, a school should be possible to upgrade either for range (in a suburb) or capacity (in a downtown), and budget adjusted accordingly. Services should also have more policies attached to them, like subsidizing of school buses, healthcare, etc. or establishment of private schools/hospitals. Also, there should be a clear difference between a hospital and a clinic: a hospital should be citywide, and be able to treat a ton of patients, while clinics should be small and cheap, and be spread thoroughly across the city. They should not go under the same coverage, as realistically hospitals provide for other injuries than clinics do. Clinics should increase health and prevent sickness in a local area, while hospitals be reserved for seriously ill or injured patients, although still maintain the function of a clinic in a small radius.

That's what I can think of at the moment. I gotta say I love this game, and look forward to what the devs come up with, but this is what I have on my mind on how it could be improved. I'm not a programmer or I'd try to make some mods for this (thank god for mods).

 

[nuclearmissile]

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!

Well based on the developers responses so far complexity isn't what they're interested in. Apparently cosmetics is far more important, they want the game to look pretty and that's it. Oh you want new gameplay mechanics, more customization like modular buildings/variable-size zoning/services that can be zoned instead of forced plopping of buildings and more micromanagement? Sorry it's too time-consuming and difficult for our Small Team™®© to handle.

 

[Turjan]

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.

They actually had a very flexible tram system in CiM2. You could build double-track lines or single tracks, and you could choose on which lane the track was or whether it was on the avenue divider for any stretch between intersections. You could also run your trams on metro tracks, which resembled the current train system in that game.

However, trams introduce other headaches. As the scale of your city is probably reduced with many more intersections than in real life, and as the trams are real life scale, they take up a huge amount of real estate on your roads. Pair that with low vanilla passenger capacities, and you have a traffic nightmare of humongous proportions. In CiM2, I had to remove most trams from the inner city after the city had grown a bit, because they caused traffic jams that reached into the suburbs, and in the inner city nothing moved anymore.

 

[autobusik2]

I agree that there should be more city planning involved, but I'd never put it at the expense of transport management.
As I see it, C:S is one of many city builders that has the same problem of being experienced as difficult in the beginning, but grow exponentially easier over time. Naturally you amass a large wealth as long as you have a steady positive income over a long period of time, so I wouldn't worry too much about the amount of money you have. What makes C:S unique from most other city builders is its simulation, and the huge potential it comes with. Unlike SimCity, which flopped enormously with both a bad engine and a horrible game design, C:S handles agents surprisingly well in large amounts. This is definitely a strength to the game.

Now, I understand why transport is a large part of the game, and it should be, but of course there is more to a city than just the transport management. For example, I quite like districts and the possibilities they have, both policies and mods that enable different architectural styles. Having the city's policy split up into districts could be used to greatly diversify each district to have its own unique touch and features.

To list things I'd like to see be done in the game (some mentioned by others);
- Unify the time in the game to have one long day/night cycle. This allows for buildings and services to work differently during night, as well as changing the traffic pattern. Rush hours and night clubs would have a meaningful impact to the city. Some forms of transport, like cargo, would have different traffic schedules than commuters.
- Metros should be reworked. Personally I never use them as I find them simply too easy. Firstly, underground station length should be near the same as train stations', and both the building cost but especially the upkeep should be increased. Metro lines should be extremely expensive both to build and maintain, and only be profitable if you have several thousand people to move over distance. The capacity of metros should also be increased of course. I'd also opt for having the option to build surface metro tracks like CiM, which are much cheaper than tunnels. They'd be well suited to connect extensive suburbs to important locations, with stations having large range and the metro trains being fast.
- Trains also need some love. Currently it is too easy to use them how metros should be used; as commuter trains that connect every part of the city with each other. Trains should have a very low spawn rate, and a large capacity. I also feel that trains should be longer, including their stations, and not allow steep curves. Basically, train tracks should be difficult to lay in an urban terrain, and trains' main function should be to bring tourists and commuters to and from other cities. If people actually could work in different cities, trains would have a much more fulfilling role. Trains also with their extended length should have a slow acceleration and high top speed. For these reasons it'd be ideal for commuter transport over large distances (for example in huge cities), but also for cargo hauling. Cargo trains should be long, slow and transport enormous amounts of goods.
- The milestones need to be changed. I dislike the idea of population being what determines rewards, but it works for now. As I see it, most road types should be available from early on, to allow future planning, but large roads should have a large penalty for low density housing (not high density). Taxi should be available immediately, and bus lines from maybe 5000 population. Trains should be unlocked early as well, maybe 10k, as they should be an important source both for new citizens, tourists and cargo. Metro and trams (if that day comes) should both be reserved for 100k population cities.
- Capacity in general. I use mods that alter population in each building to more realistic amounts, ie. a suburban home having one or two households and an apartment block having 50+. I see this as a necessity, and it should be included in the base game. If buildings more realistically portrays population, then it's already easier to tweak transport options to fit to it. The long day/night cycle would also prevent major cluttering of cars. This would also give a legitimate reason to use highrise bans, as it seems completely redundant without these population altering mods.
- Wealth. SC4's usage of wealth was quite clever, but in C:S it'd need to be more dynamic. There already is a district sq/m price, which is good, but it doesn't seem to serve any purpose as it is now. I suggest higher lot prices attract wealthier people, which will require more living space, parks and services to be satisfied, but also generate a lot more tax as well as buying a lot more from stores. They'd also use public transport less. As I see it, districts with high lot prices would be ideal either for low-density suburbs with a high concentration of services, like colleges, cultural services and monuments, or for downtowns with large luxurious skyscrapers side by side with office blocks. Districts with low lot prices would be good for large sprawling suburbs, commercial shopping areas or medium density residential areas consisting of low-height apartments.
- Offices should firstly have both low and high density options, but also serve a more important role in city planning. They should be kept to relatively central districts, benefit from public transport and a large surplus of people available nearby, and operate densely, ie. being more effective by building in height than width.
- Density: Buildings' heights should work cumulatively--taller buildings attract taller buildings. A hi-rise should never pop up in a suburb. Instead, buildings should grow taller on demand and wealth level, and depending on how many tall buildings surround it. This would condensate buildings more realistically, and make for more realistic cities without being necessarily too hard to implement. Additionally, zones of different density shouldn't remove each other; ie. replacing a low density residential zone with a high-density residential zone shouldn't remove the low density residential buildings there.
- Monuments should be dynamic instead of being purely tourist attractions that at the moment work horribly. A skyscraper in the middle of nowhere with the upkeep of over 1000 attracts 10 tourists a week, seriously? They should work more like a normal building and have various functions, for instance, an art gallery or an opera should be tourist attractions that massively increase wealth in surrounding areas, while office buildings should employ tons of educated people. They should also cooperate with the density heights, generating unhappiness if a tall building is placed near non-tall buildings, while generating happiness if placed near skyscrapers.
- Finally, services should be a lot more customizable. I'd like to see a function similar to SimCity, where you could expand each service building, but also allow for a manual control over budget. For example, a school should be possible to upgrade either for range (in a suburb) or capacity (in a downtown), and budget adjusted accordingly. Services should also have more policies attached to them, like subsidizing of school buses, healthcare, etc. or establishment of private schools/hospitals. Also, there should be a clear difference between a hospital and a clinic: a hospital should be citywide, and be able to treat a ton of patients, while clinics should be small and cheap, and be spread thoroughly across the city. They should not go under the same coverage, as realistically hospitals provide for other injuries than clinics do. Clinics should increase health and prevent sickness in a local area, while hospitals be reserved for seriously ill or injured patients, although still maintain the function of a clinic in a small radius.

That's what I can think of at the moment. I gotta say I love this game, and look forward to what the devs come up with, but this is what I have on my mind on how it could be improved. I'm not a programmer or I'd try to make some mods for this (thank god for mods).

Nice job. I would have written the same thing, again perfect reply. But, trams should be available sooner than metro.

P.S. Only one little thing to the trains. There are two different things - an express train, which has a stop in the city (yes, it is common for cities with 10K citizens) and city train system, which is suitable for cities with more than 100K citizens.

 

[autobusik2]

They actually had a very flexible tram system in CiM2. You could build double-track lines or single tracks, and you could choose on which lane the track was or whether it was on the avenue divider for any stretch between intersections. You could also run your trams on metro tracks, which resembled the current train system in that game.

However, trams introduce other headaches. As the scale of your city is probably reduced with many more intersections than in real life, and as the trams are real life scale, they take up a huge amount of real estate on your roads. Pair that with low vanilla passenger capacities, and you have a traffic nightmare of humongous proportions. In CiM2, I had to remove most trams from the inner city after the city had grown a bit, because they caused traffic jams that reached into the suburbs, and in the inner city nothing moved anymore.

I think the problem was not with the trams, but with cars. Nowadays there is a trend to ban private cars from city centers, you can see it in many cities, especially in Scandinavia. So your trams should have stayed in the city and the cars should have been removed (I understand, there was no such possibility in the game). Tram lines are usually (or should be) separated from the the other traffic.

 

[autobusik2]

Have you looked at the 2 games they produced before this?

Cities in Motion - A public Transport Game and

Cities in Motion 2 - A public Transport Game.

I do not want Public Transport Game. Maybe you misunderstood me. I am interested in pubic transport, it is my hobby and i really do want to talk about trains, my father is a giant fan pf trains for decades, i have live with it since my childhood and i know hot it works in real life, so i see the potential of it. If i will be interested in something else, i would probable write about it. But when i saw metro line with three stops looking like a triangle (and i saw many more stupidities while i was watching gameplays), i really wanted to vomit. Maybe i am just frustrated from people who do not know how to play Skylines.

I love Skylines because of good features, but it still can be improved. If i see trams, rebuilt milestones, improved train spawning time and more expensive metro in the game, i will be satisfied enough. I do not want extremely detailed simulation of public transport. More details, higher change that something will go wrong.

 

[Greygor69]

I do not want Public Transport Game. Maybe you misunderstood me. I am interested in pubic transport, it is my hobby and i really do want to talk about trains, my father is a giant fan pf trains for decades, i have live with it since my childhood and i know hot it works in real life, so i see the potential of it. If i will be interested in something else, i would probable write about it. But when i saw metro line with three stops looking like a triangle (and i saw many more stupidities while i was watching gameplays), i really wanted to vomit. Maybe i am just frustrated from people who do not know how to play Skylines.

I love Skylines because of good features, but it still can be improved. If i see trams, rebuilt milestones, improved train spawning time and more expensive metro in the game, i will be satisfied enough. I do not want extremely detailed simulation of public transport. More details, higher change that something will go wrong.

Well you said the devs don't seem to understand Public Transport so I pointed to the fact that it's their specialty.

However the depth has been reduced for this as it's a city builder.

But of course the game won't stop players creating bad or stupid designs.

However I've seen youtube vids where players have designed proper routes and vastly reduced car usage.

The game rewards good design with public transport.

 

[Togfan]

Well you said the devs don't seem to understand Public Transport so I pointed to the fact that it's their specialty.

However the depth has been reduced for this as it's a city builder.

But of course the game won't stop players creating bad or stupid designs.

However I've seen youtube vids where players have designed proper routes and vastly reduced car usage.

The game rewards good design with public transport.

I just wish the optimal layout would be more realistic or close to reality.
Let's be honest here--no real city have industrial districts solely consisting of one-way 6 lane roads.

 

[autobusik2]

Well you said the devs don't seem to understand Public Transport so I pointed to the fact that it's their specialty.

However the depth has been reduced for this as it's a city builder.

But of course the game won't stop players creating bad or stupid designs.

However I've seen youtube vids where players have designed proper routes and vastly reduced car usage.

The game rewards good design with public transport.

I know that some reduction of the depth had to be done, but i think it could be done a little better.

 

[Greygor69]

I know that some reduction of the depth had to be done, but i think it could be done a little better.

Fair enough

 

[Greygor69]

I just wish the optimal layout would be more realistic or close to reality.
Let's be honest here--no real city have industrial districts solely consisting of one-way 6 lane roads.

Ahh, we weren't discussing Roads and Road Layouts.

We were discussing Public Transport, bus routes, metro placement etc.

As to your comment, I've never used more than 2 lane one way in Industrial areas. But of course the game doesn't stop you from doing ridiculous, unnecessary layouts if you want to. But that's the player not the game.

 

[Cruxador]

This is going back a couple pages, but I'm gonna add my support to the people saying SC13 had good ideas but poor implementation. The new Anno game fits that mold too.

What I want most, though, is dynamic modularity. SC13-style modularity would be all well and good, but it doesn't solve the big problem I have: Parks and campuses. Right now, parks are prefabricated little squares that you drop down here and there and everywhere, completely irrespective of surroundings and environment. Connect two of these prefab parks with trails and trees, and it's the same shit as if they were two parks by themselves. Hell, throw down a bike path along the coast with trees around it, and all you get is a transportation feature, nothing to do with leisure or attractiveness. It's bizarre.
And campuses: A decent-sized city will end up with a half dozen identical single-building universities. Who ever heard of something like that in real life? A university, like a park, should be built in a kind of designated zone including aesthetic features like trees, paths, statuary, and water features, and it should also have a small array of buildings, both those augmenting its core function (SC13 style) and stuff that has other functions, whether that be the aesthetic happiness boosters, or a "food court" commercial deal, or a dedicated subway entrance with an on-campus shuttle bus.
And while we're at it, add malls since those would fit the same structures really well, and allow little upgrades to primary and secondary schools and to plazas and metro stations.

tl;dr: I want to be able to build a rival to Retiro in my city, to line my residential zones with beauty and leisure, and to build a university that is the envy of the world around me.

Trams would be cool too, I guess, but I'm mostly satisfied with the public transport we have now if you include the extended public transport UI mod. Although I'd like more freedom in detailing and combining stations, since it's not like any city has every station be a simple hole in the ground with only two sets of tracks, and most have something like Atoche where there's multiple forms of transport connected to the same building.

 

[Togfan]

Ahh, we weren't discussing Roads and Road Layouts.

We were discussing Public Transport, bus routes, metro placement etc.

As to your comment, I've never used more than 2 lane one way in Industrial areas. But of course the game doesn't stop you from doing ridiculous, unnecessary layouts if you want to. But that's the player not the game.

Ah yeah. I guess I've given my two cents on transport routes already.

In industrial areas I just build normal roads and avenues if needed.

 

[Sotrax]

Now, that we survived New Years Eve .. Whaddup in the Collossal Order studio? What's next? WE CRAVE FOR INFORMATION

 

[MotownCountry]

three main things i wanna see....
School buses that are exclusive for kids in the elementary/high school level and then specific adults attending college/universities!
Emergency Vehicles that have precedence over traffic and traffic lights when the sirens are on. I notice them just sitting in traffic like a regular car.
Fast Food drive thru.

the above three things are a BIG BIG part of real life...so the game should try to at least mimic that.

 

[Cruxador]

Those are more like America things than everywhere things, mostly. Aside from the emergency vehicles, but for those to make sense, first we need emergencies.

 

[Bel_Alex]

autobusik2, as I understand you know Russian? If I right - you can read this small guide about public transport in Skylines. If you really want you can have trams right now: technically it will railways of course, but you really can built effective tram and public transport network in your cities.

 

[Omnius1Prime]

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.

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.

Hint hint - I built a city bigger than 340,000 because I did use one of the tile unlocking mods. As to optimizing the game I'll be the judge of that as I just bought the After Dark expansion pack and will be closely observing just how "optimal" they've made such disasters as traffic management on multi-lane roads or the broken Space Elevator and tourism. While they've talked about fixing that they've made no promises nor have I seen them actually do the trick yet in AD. Talk is cheap and I wait to see the action. My old and now new computers both had system requirements well beyond that needed for the game.