Cities Skylines 2 ideas and whishlist

[Rimobul]

I know there has been a bunch of similar threads and articles, but here is my take on the topic:

1. World Map - instead of having a bunch of separate maps, lets have one gigantic map, where you can place multiple cities. Of course, you would be able to play just for one city at a time, but you could interact with the other cities via the World Map: establish new road, train, ship and plane connections, exchange goods, plan tours, hold sports matches against each other... While you are playing for one city, the other cities could be on some sort of autopilot (similar to how households in The Sims work).
2. Biomes and seasons - this has been on the table since the release of Snowfall. Let's make real seasons. With a "Biome editor", you could create various climates - 4 equally long seaons for the temperate climate, long winters and short summers for the arctic climate and short winters but long summers for the subtropical climate. But why stop at 4 seasons? We could introduce either a second set of tropical biomes with the 3 monsoonal seasons (rainy, transitional and dry season), or mix them alltogether in a Indian style 6 seasons year. Of course, the additional tropical seasons would probably be a part of a DLC
3. Festivals - at the end of each season, there could be a major festival in town. You could create your own calendar and make each of your cities specific, with the celebration of different festivals. Some, that come to my mind are: Easter, Haloween, Christmas, Carnival, Day of the Dead, Lunar New Year, Ramadan, St. Patrick's Day, etc. Again, new festivals could be added either via mods or DLCs.
4. Townhall - instead of starting a new city with a grid of houses connected to a highway, let's start with a townhall, town square and a temple. Again, you could choose from multiple different townhalls, which could then affect the visual style of your city - European, North American, Latin American, East-Asian, Middle-Eastern... (More DLCs, more town halls). And the idea of townhall ties to the next point, which is...
5. Expandable buildings - buildings like the townhall, police station, fire station, hospital, harbour and airport should be expandable. It shouldn't be the style of expansion which is used for Parks, Universities and Industries, but rather something similar to "upgrading your base in a strategy game". E.g.: Fire station could become Fire headquarters, then a Disaster response unit building would be added, Firefighter heliport, Baywatch... Police station could be upgraded to Police Headquarters, added a Prison, Police heliport, Justice Court. Clinic would be upgraded to Hospital, then a Lab could be added, followed by Medical heliport and Gene therapy clinic. Upgrading townhall could be an alternative way of progressing in the game and unlocking new features.

Of course, there are a plenty of other features, that could be improved:

• Roads, line and crossroads management
• Building of bridges, quays and dams
• Parking lots
• Mixed pedestrian and bike pathways
• Mixed RCI zones - (e.g.: tall buildings with shops and offices in the lower floors, aparments in the higher floors and a restaurant at the top)
• Curved and triangular RCI zones
• Better management of building styles (blocks of houses or individual houses, large yards or large buildings, skyscrapers or a row of middle-rise buildings)
• New park areas - like Spa and wellness
• Parklife-like sport areas - Ski resorts, Beaches, Racing tracks
• Reworked industries (no more RCI zoning for industries, but something like the Industries expansion with better integration of Fishing and maybe introduction of a new industry chain)
• Displaying individual underground layers separately
• Building the game in a more optimized engine
• Etc.

Well, what do you think. Would enjoy a Cities Skylines game with these ideas? Or would you prefer something else?

 

[cityrailsaints]

I am actually firmly against a Cities:skylines 2, given how much money of us have spent on DLCs for the original Cities:skylines. I actually wrote this email to Collosal Order and Paradox Interactive expressing my concerns about the matter:

Firstly, many of us have spent exorbitant amounts of money on DLCs for the original Cities:Skylines. Once Cities:Skylines is replaced by Cities:Skylines 2, many of us, such as me, would think that the original Cities:Skylines would be obsolete. For people that wish to continue playing Cities:Skylines and Cities:Skylines 2, that’s excellent, however, for those of us who will think that Cities:Skylines will be obsolete once Number 2 is released. The excellent about Cities:Skylines is that DLCs allow you to add to the original game enhancing the original game, rather than replacing it. The original Cities:Skylines will never be obsolete when DLCs are added, as it enhances rather than making it obsolete. If I purchase a DLC for Cities:Skylines, it wouldn’t make previous DLCs obsolete. This would not be the case if Cities:Skylines 2 is released. The original DLCs will be obsolete. I would be willing to pay to upgrade my original Cities:Skylines to Cities:Skylines 2, as long as doing so is fair to those of us who already own Cities:Skylines DLCs and think that the original game will be obsolete. DLCs are far superior as they don’t make your purchases obsolete. If there is a Cities:Skylines 2 which costs $100 vs Cities:Skylines DLC which costs $100, both CO and the customer will benefit. If there were a fair way for Cities:Skylines DLC owners to be able to upgrade to Cities:Skylines 2, even if we were to pay for it, I would highly support it. It should be fair. DLCs are fair, as they don’t make previous DLCs obsolete, but still allow CO to make the same amount of profit. If you’re make the same amount of profit. It’ll make no difference to your profit margins, but be fairer to your customers. Please consider how this would best work for all your customers who purchased DLCs and think that the original game would be obsolete.

I've invested too much into Cities:Skylines DLCs in order for there to be a CS 2. I like your suggestions to add to the original game, though

 

[cityrailsaints]

If seasons were to be a thing, I would want the option for tropical and temperate seasons (with snow) to exist in different regions of the same city

 

[cityrailsaints]

Perhaps one way to do this would be to offer discounts for anyone who has Cities:Skylines DLCs to upgrade to similar DLCs for a discounted price, if you're willing to give up the original access to the game (for example, Snowfall DLC can be upgraded to a seasons DLC for a discounted price, if you're willing to upgrade the game). If you're willing to upgrade to Cities:Skylines 2, rather than keep both at separate games. E.g. Download SC 2 for $150 (for example), upgrade to SC 2 for $70 (for example). If you upgrade, you have CS2 only, and if you want CS1 again, you have to pay for it again. Ditto for DLCs, but considering that not all DLCs will be created simultaneously, that might be a bit more complicated, as many DLCs will temporarily be disabled, so I don't know what to do about that

 

[Kuzu9999]

Seriously you can't say "don't make a sequel" because you invested a lot into a game. That isn't how business works.
The whole point of sequel is to make more money - that is the perspective of companies.

On the perspective of consumer, sequel is extremely important at this point, because this old game have a very serious problem right now:
- dated software engine with extremely severe memory consumption & didn't utilize modern hardware processing power

Never heard of any cases where company offer discount if you have older games. That is a plan that that will cut their profit, it just not something logic to do.

 

[cityrailsaints]

Seriously you can't say "don't make a sequel" because you invested a lot into a game. That isn't how business works.
The whole point of sequel is to make more money - that is the perspective of companies.

On the perspective of consumer, sequel is extremely important at this point, because this old game have a very serious problem right now:
- dated software engine with extremely severe memory consumption & didn't utilize modern hardware processing power

Never heard of any cases where company offer discount if you have older games. That is a plan that that will cut their profit, it just not something logic to do.

Once again, CO as a business can produce whatever price they want at whatever they want, and as a customer, I can buy whatever I want at whatever price is reasonable. CO is ultimately bound by what their customers are willing to spend money on. I am not telling CO what they can and can't produce, I am telling CO what I am and am not willing to spend my money on

 

[Cityplanner 53]

Once again, CO as a business can produce whatever price they want at whatever they want, and as a customer, I can buy whatever I want at whatever price is reasonable. CO is ultimately bound by what their customers are willing to spend money on. I am not telling CO what they can and can't produce, I am telling CO what I am and am not willing to spend my money on

Even if they start a new game, it won't mean the current game will die, will the workshop expansion slow down some? Probably, as certain creators move to the sequel, but many will likely either stick with the OG, or split their focus between both games, and everything we've already got for the game will still be there. There are limitations the game has that simply cannot be patched through DLC, and there are plenty of us that would be willing to start fresh with a new game, if you are not among us that is fine.

On the world map concept, I am not sure about that, for one thing it seems like something like that would be very processor heavy, before we even start working a full city, for another if the game worked like that then, certainly the way OP described it it'd be prohibitive for the implementation of custom maps, particularly the more sci-fi map makers who've made maps for the moon, Mars.

Perhaps some sort of senergy between different save files could suffice? Say you perhaps have some incoming vehicles listed as coming from cities from other save files.

 

[cityrailsaints]

Even if they start a new game, it won't mean the current game will die, will the workshop expansion slow down some? Probably, as certain creators move to the sequel, but many will likely either stick with the OG, or split their focus between both games, and everything we've already got for the game will still be there. There are limitations the game has that simply cannot be patched through DLC, and there are plenty of us that would be willing to start fresh with a new game, if you are not among us that is fine.

Yes, which is why I won't be purchasing the second game if it isn't worth my while. How many people would agree with me? CO could end up making less money by not rewarding us who already own the game and DLCs. Further, if there were to be a sequal, there would need to be at least as many DLCs as the original game, in order to make downloading worth our while

 

[THGK]

A functional townhall is notably absent in CS. The other points of the numbered list are material for an EP.