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Hello there, city-builders! This time we are going to talk about reputation!

Campus area reputation is an important aspect of managing a campus. Reputation level dictates which campus buildings, how much tuition fee the students are paying and how many exchange students are currently visiting the city.

Increasing reputation
Reputation has three building blocks: Academic Works, campus attractiveness and the amount of students studying on the campus and each reputation level has increasing requirements that need to be met for the campus to level up in reputation. Also, for the first time in Cities: Skylines, the campus can also lose reputation if you can't fulfill the requirements of the campus' current level! Academic Works are created using certain statistical chances dependent on student amount and the size of academic staff. Campus attractiveness is increased by expanding the campus and placing different campus buildings such as education buildings (study halls, auditoriums and laboratories), supplementary buildings (club houses, statues, cafeterias and libraries) and faculties. Student capacity is affected by education buildings and the amount of eligible students is directly linked to the size of the city. To make sure not to overshoot by expanding too fast, it is good idea to keep an eye on the amount of eligible students in your city so that when you reach a certain reputation level, you are able to have enough students studying on your campus so that the reputation level doesn't decrease in the future.

Bonuses from increasing campus reputation
Reputation levels unlock new campus buildings and a higher reputation level also increases the amount of tuition fee students are paying to the school (that means YOU!) - unless you opt for the Universal Education policy where the students don't pay any tuition fee regardless of the campus reputation level. Tuition fee increases per reputation level and if you manage your campus wisely and add in the trophy rewards from a successful varsity team, you might even turn your campus into a profitable institution where the the income exceeds the expenses! It's great!

Higher levels also increase exchange student amount visiting the city and they then contribute to the city's overall tourism boost for commercial zones the city gets when it receives tourists.

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The requirements for increasing the campus reputation level. Also shown in the Campus Info panel is the amount of tuition fee the students are paying. Tuition fee size is connected to the campus reputation level.

Academic Works
Academic Works are the coveted end products of studies on a campus and are part of the requirements to increase the campus' reputation level. Each campus type has its own Academic Works reflecting the nature of the campus. Trade School's Academic Works focus on artisanry, hospitality and information technology and engineering while Liberal Arts College produces literature, cinematography and musical works. Dissertations, discoveries and scientific studies are the bread and butter of the University campus. When an Academic Work is created, the type of work is defined by the campus type and the category is selected randomly from those mentioned above.

Academic Works are created at the end of the academic year. While the creation is an automatic process, you, the player, have the chance to influence the odds of creating Academic Works. The campus has a base chance of 30% to create an Academic Work at the end of the academic year. This chance can be increased by hiring more academic staff to help the students write their theses and guide them towards graduation and creating their most influential works. Also, certain campus buildings also increase the chances. The number of Academic Works per year is related to the amount of students studying on campus at the end of the academic year. For each 500 students the campus has a chance to create one Academic Work, up to maximum 4 Academic Works per year.

Hiring academic staff happens in the Campus Info panel. Here you can use the Academic Staff slider to hire additional staff members who increase the chances of creating Academic Works by 2% per staff member (the campus comes with 5 academic staff members without an extra cost). However, note that the effect isn't instantaneous. The effect increases from 0% to 2% over time and if you fire academic staff and then re-hire them again, the process starts from the beginning. So, in order to get the maximum chance of creating Academic Works, hire staff members early in the academic year!

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Academic Works created on the campus are shown listed in the Academic Works tab in the Campus Info panel. Here you can also hire additional academic staff to increase the chances of creating Academic Works and give research grants to specific types of works.

In addition to the maximum of 4 Academic Works per academic year, you are able to give a research grant to fund the creation of one extra Academic Work. This Academic Work has the chance of 100% to be created and you can also choose which category it belongs to. For example, if you have a Liberal Arts College campus in your city, you can choose between literature, cinematography or music.

Academic Works can be viewed in the Campus Info panel under the Academic Works tab. Each work is listed here with a description of the nature of the work. Later, when your campus reaches the highest reputation level "Prestigious", you unlock the unique museum where the Academic Works are on display.

Museums

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Science Center is the museum of the University campus. Here are stored and on display all the Academic Works created on the University campus.

Museums are new unique buildings. Each campus type has its own museum but unlike campus buildings, museums can be built anywhere, inside and outside of campus areas. When the campus reaches the highest reputation level "Prestigious", its museum is unlocked. Museums can be found in their own tab in the Education build menu.

Just like other unique buildings, Museums increase the attractiveness of the city. Academic Works created in the campus of the same type and on display in the museum increase the museum's base attractiveness. For example, dissertations, discoveries and scientific studies created in the University campus and on display in the Science Center increase the Science Center's attractiveness, one point per Academic Work, which in turn increases the city's overall attractiveness.

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The Museum Info panel shows you all the Academic Works on display in the museum.

Exchange Students
The amount of exchange students visiting the city is determined by the reputation level of the campus. If there are multiple campuses in the city, their effect on the amount of exchange students stack up, according to their reputation levels. Exchange students are part of the overall tourism population visiting the city. You can check how many exchange students there are out of all tourists by taking a look at the Tourism infoview. Exchange students contribute to the positive economic effect of tourism to commercial zones.

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In the Tourism infoview you can now see also the percentage of exchange students from the tourist population.

Once again, we've reached the end of a dev diary. But let's keep the discussion going! What do you guys think about the Academic Works? Or the connection of the Academic Works and the museums and the boost they give to the buildings? We feel that the campus reputation is an interesting and dynamic feature that keeps the player on their toes. Once the expansion is out, we'll be interested to hear how your campuses evolved and leveled up (and down) in reputation as your cities progressed!

Until next time, city-builders!

Colossal Order developer team
 
I thought so but when you build first campus, and later second one.... so the begnining & end of the year are different for the two.
A bit strange when it is about Education : )

A bit weird for sure, if that is the case. If they have to wait for the start time to be synchronized, it could be a long wait after building.

Should find out more in today's Dev Diary. (#3 - Year Cycle and Faculties)
 
I translated to FR again... I have one small question :



When is the begnining and the end of the academic year in game ? :)


Ah! got my answer

If your city has multiple campuses the academic year cycle synchronizes with the first one.