The Green Cities expansion adds new policies, specializations, city services and scenarios and city services to the game. While they do not change the gameplay in a radical way, they present the player with new possible ways to play the game and change the economical and city service dynamic in your city. In some cases turning your city green can also pose new challenges, as too great changes at once might destroy the economy of your city completely and it can take a while for your city to recover from that impact.
The new city services offer alternatives for the existing buildings. They have a little different stats – typically more eco-friendly, but also otherwise – so they might be suited better for different situations than the basic service buildings. Some of the buildings provide new approaches to handle garbage and pollution, for example, the new school buildings have a smaller student capacity, but on the other hand they serve a larger area. A good option for more sparsely populated areas, for example.
Specializations and Policies in general work as modifiers and alternative rulesets in the game. That is the case with the new Specializations and Policies also. They provide new means to control pollution and traffic but also a way to affect garbage accumulation and electricity consumption. In addition to their gameplay effects Specializations also have a visually different look allowing you to control better how your city looks.
The new scenarios, specializations and the new city service buildings are handled in detail in a separate dev diary posts, but let’s take a closer look at the different new policies.
Policies
With the policies the player can adjust different sub-systems within the city or a defined district. Some of the policies have synergies that work well together, like the Electric Cars and the Combustion Engine Ban policies. With the new policies the player can control the amount of ground and noise pollution in the city. You can read more about Policies and Districts HERE.
The new policies add four eco-friendly ways to manage your city.
Recycle plastics increases the efficiency of the Recycling Centers by 20% while increasing the upkeep cost by 100 / Recycling Center / Week. This is a good way to get more out of the Garbage city service. This way you need less service buildings and there will be less garbage trucks burdening the road network.
Electric Cars policy forces the citizens to change their cars into electric cars. The cost for this policy is 2 / vehicle / week, but it also reduces the noise pollution significantly. The Noise Pollution system was given a big overhaul when we added the electric cars and biofuel buses. It used to be so that the noise pollution was based on the road type – bigger roads generated more noise pollution – but now every vehicle type has its own noise pollution value. Electric cars and biofuel busses produce only around half of the normal noise pollution. With less noise pollution the citizens will feel better and not need some much healthcare services.
Combustion Engine Ban reduces the amount of noisy traffic in a given area by banning all vehicles except electric vehicles and service vehicles from the area. (The local residents are also allowed to have their cars in the area) . Like the Electric Cars policy, this is also closely related to the overhauled Noise Pollution system.
The new city services offer alternatives for the existing buildings. They have a little different stats – typically more eco-friendly, but also otherwise – so they might be suited better for different situations than the basic service buildings. Some of the buildings provide new approaches to handle garbage and pollution, for example, the new school buildings have a smaller student capacity, but on the other hand they serve a larger area. A good option for more sparsely populated areas, for example.
Specializations and Policies in general work as modifiers and alternative rulesets in the game. That is the case with the new Specializations and Policies also. They provide new means to control pollution and traffic but also a way to affect garbage accumulation and electricity consumption. In addition to their gameplay effects Specializations also have a visually different look allowing you to control better how your city looks.
The new scenarios, specializations and the new city service buildings are handled in detail in a separate dev diary posts, but let’s take a closer look at the different new policies.
Policies
With the policies the player can adjust different sub-systems within the city or a defined district. Some of the policies have synergies that work well together, like the Electric Cars and the Combustion Engine Ban policies. With the new policies the player can control the amount of ground and noise pollution in the city. You can read more about Policies and Districts HERE.
The new policies add four eco-friendly ways to manage your city.
Recycle plastics increases the efficiency of the Recycling Centers by 20% while increasing the upkeep cost by 100 / Recycling Center / Week. This is a good way to get more out of the Garbage city service. This way you need less service buildings and there will be less garbage trucks burdening the road network.
Electric Cars policy forces the citizens to change their cars into electric cars. The cost for this policy is 2 / vehicle / week, but it also reduces the noise pollution significantly. The Noise Pollution system was given a big overhaul when we added the electric cars and biofuel buses. It used to be so that the noise pollution was based on the road type – bigger roads generated more noise pollution – but now every vehicle type has its own noise pollution value. Electric cars and biofuel busses produce only around half of the normal noise pollution. With less noise pollution the citizens will feel better and not need some much healthcare services.
Combustion Engine Ban reduces the amount of noisy traffic in a given area by banning all vehicles except electric vehicles and service vehicles from the area. (The local residents are also allowed to have their cars in the area) . Like the Electric Cars policy, this is also closely related to the overhauled Noise Pollution system.
And last, but not least, Filter Industrial Waste reduces the ground pollution generated by the industrial areas. It costs 2 / building / week. This is a good way to decrease the effect of the ground pollution surrounding the industrial zones.