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Greetings everyone! The newest expansion for Cities: Skylines called Industries was announced on 11th of October 2018, and we are happy to tell you fellow city-builders all about it. In the previous Dev Diary we gave a short introduction, so be sure to check that out if you haven't already!

So what is an Industry Area? The new Industry Areas uses a similar system as the Park Areas in Parklife expansion. Users can define Industry Areas with the Paint Industry Area tool and place highly specialized industrial buildings inside the area to create a multitude of different production chains. From extracting the raw materials all the way to the final end product.

Cities: Skylines - Industries tutorials

TwoDollarsTwenty has made lovely tutorial videos for Industries expansion! The first episode is available here:

All the tutorial videos will be available on this playlist at Paradox Interactive Youtube channel!

Note: Tutorials were made with a beta version of the Industries so you might notice some differences compared to the Dev Diary screenshots.

Creating your Industry Area

To better understand how to approach creating your first Industry Area it might be wise to make couple of things clear. Firstly the new Industry Buildings can be found in the revamped Garbage Service menu, which is now renamed to Garbage and Industry. Each Industry Area type has it's own Extractors, Processing Buildings, Auxiliary Buildings and Raw Material Storage Buildings. For example, Farm Industry includes buildings such as Crop Fields, Milking Parlor and Barns while Oil Industry has Pumps, variety of different kinds of plants like Oil Sludge Pyrolysis Plant and Crude Oil Storage buildings.

Secondly, and this is very important so sharpen your eyes, just like city service buildings the Industry Area Buildings do not spawn but are placed next to a road. Without road access the Industry Area Buildings are unable to send out trucks full of precious resources.

Now that we have the basic information let's get back to how to actually make an Industry Area.

Much like with Parklife and Park Areas or base game districts, defining an Industry Area happens with a brush tool. The new Industry Area tool is located in the same place as "Paint Park Area" or "Paint District" tools. So just select the tool, use it like you would use "Paint Park Area" or "Paint District" tools and when the desired area is painted you can determine its type by placing the Main Building.

And that's it! After the Industry Area has its type determined you can start placing Industry Buildings inside the area and start creating your first full production chain, more buildings are unlocked when your Industry Area progresses through the levels. But more about production chains and leveling the industry areas in upcoming Dev Diaries!

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After successful start, Oak Oil Products is looking forward to expanding

Types of Industry Areas

Industries expansion comes with four types of Industry Areas, each of them require different raw material and all of them have their own buildings fitting for their own distinctive style. It's only natural that the industry areas require different natural resources which is exactly the reason why we have Forestry, Farming, Ore and Oil Industries included in the Industries DLC.

Ever dreamed of maintaining your own lumberyard and having the workers rocking that eternal lumberjack look? Or wishing that your city would be absolute number 1 in paper production? Then the Forest Industry is definitely for you. Forest Industry can take advantage of the areas rich in forests and use those gathered forest raw materials to produce forestry special goods: planed timber and paper.

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I know, I won't get tired of watching those rows after rows after rows of trees being so... orderly placed.

Or perhaps the modest lifestyle of countryside is more of your thing, and instead of trees you want to create vast crop fields. In that case the Farming Industry with all its variety in crops, fruit and animals could be the thing for you. In order to produce special goods, like Flours and Animal Products, the farming Industry's processing buildings need crops to operate. That's why fertile land is the perfect place to build your Farming Industry, crop- and fruit fields nourish on fertile land, and the more the fertile land is, the more crops your fields produce! With Snowfall maps certain Farm Buildings are replaced with greenhouse versions for the buildings.

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A variety of appearances for fields really brightens up the country-side!

But some you may find it more satisfying to drill into the ground and look for the ore that it holds within. Ore Industry will do just that for you. Ore can be extracted from the ground with the help of mines, extracted ore can then be exported, stored or transferred to ore industry's own production buildings to produce special goods such as Metals and Glass.

Also! Don't forget that ore is not naturally replenishing resource so once it is depleted you might want to transfer your mines to a new location!

And just like with ore, oil is not a replenishing resource and can also be found within the ground. And if you want to get into that black gold you are going to need the Oil Industry. Oil can be pumped up from underground or underwater reserves and be processed into Oil special goods, like Plastics and Petroleum. While Oil Industry might be the most polluting Industry it also can be highly profitable.

Specialized and non-specialized Districts can be built inside Industry Areas and both can benefit from each others but we will get back to how they work together in more detail in the future Dev Diaries.
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Industry Area Info view and Industry Areas Overview

To quickly get a nice view of your Industry Areas we've added a new Info View dedicated to Industry Areas. From the Info view you can easily switch between different Industry types and access the Industry Areas Overview panel. Industry Area Overview panel nicely lists all the Industry Areas that are located in your city, shows their type, name, levels and how many workers are working for the Industry Area. From the Overview you can also easily open each Industry Areas Info Panel that shows even more details!

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Overview of the Industry Areas quickly summarizes how your Industry Areas are doing

Benefit of having Industry Areas in your city

When properly maintained the Industry Areas can provide a great boost to your city's economy and offer many work places for your educated citizens. Each Industry Area type has a wide selection of buildings to choose from. When placed inside the same-type area they will become operational and will start to produce goods and other resources which can be exported, sold to zoned industry or to Unique Factories.

The Basic resource chains from base game are now expanded upon and exposed for the players to create the ultimate, most honed and perfected production chains, this should keep even the perfectionists entertained for hours to come. The production chains provided by the Industry Areas expands the basic resource chains into more detailed and manageable system, but more about Production Chain Management, types of buildings and different resources in our next dev diary!
 
Would it be weird if I said yes (maybe not the the paperwork, but the other two things)?

Not really.

This game is a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and I don't doubt that it is difficult for CO to cater to everyone.

I enjoy a bit of micro-managing the city, but lean more towards "city painter". I mostly want to build and let the city do it's own thing. I don't want to constantly have to tweak and balance things.
I get that that is not everyone's cup of tea.

I do want to see the cims do realistic things, as much as possible within reason. I do want the city to look realistic. But 100% realism is not a goal I would want met.
 
Really enjoyed your videos; very informative and enjoyable. I'm experiencing a couple of issues with the new industries DLC. Firstly the ore runs out a few years which seems strange. I know it is not a renewable resource but seriously, it should be longer than a few years. So then I have to open up a new area and when I try to move the main building from the old depleted one and into a new one (correctly zoned) it says I can't! I have to buy a new one and destroy the old one. Is this is a bug? Any help appreciated.
 
Really enjoyed your videos; very informative and enjoyable. I'm experiencing a couple of issues with the new industries DLC. Firstly the ore runs out a few years which seems strange. I know it is not a renewable resource but seriously, it should be longer than a few years. So then I have to open up a new area and when I try to move the main building from the old depleted one and into a new one (correctly zoned) it says I can't! I have to buy a new one and destroy the old one. Is this is a bug? Any help appreciated.

Use the Industry Area tool to expand the existing area all the way to the new area. Move the main building. Move everything else. Then erase the area over the old area.

That way you are moving the existing area, not creating a new one. Keeps your level up.