Comprehensive Wish- and Suggestions List (WIP)

[Hiramas]

I will rework this post after the patch, stay tuned

Greetings everyone,

a few people had the idea to try to collect all the wishes and suggestions into an organized list and I decided to try it. I hope you support this endeavor and reply with your suggestions and wishes.

Let's try to agree on a few rules:
- Please only post your suggestion in this thread, I think we should keep this thread clean and move the discussion about the suggestions to their respective threads.
- If your suggestion has it's own discussion already, post the link and I will add it to the list.
- Please try to sort your suggestion into one of the existing categories or suggest a new category for the list.
- I would like suggestions about the best way to permanently collect support for the various suggestions and wishes.

Edit: There is also this Idea Box page, if that is the preferred way to gather ideas for the community, I suggest to use it: http://citiesskylines.ideascale.com/

Categories

Basic Simulation

• Cellphone and Broadband Networks as Infrastructure
• Various Disasters [CONSIDERED]
• Day/Night Cycle [No Current Plans]
• Rush Hour
• Emergency Vehicle Right-of-way
• Weather [CONSIDERED]
• Seasons [CONSIDERED]
• Block ships from "climbing" dams [Planned] (Known Bug)
• Wall-to-wall buildings [Planned] (Source was the recent stream by Henkka and Mariina)
• Air Pollution
• Way to remove / reduce pollution mid-game
• Allow fire to spread if unattended
• Some form of regional play

UI, Sound and Game Mechanics

• Tree brush in game-mode
• Permanent Info-Views
• Route Query Tool
• Citizen Tracker [CONSIDERED]
• Raise district text from background
• Road naming
• Area filler, e.g. Cities XL style or brush style
• Terraforming in game-mode
• ^ Sunken tracks / sunken Highways
• Bulldoze Marquee Tool
• Planting trees on lots in-game (without the asset editor)
• Reduce the sound of ambulances
• District marquee tool
• Upgrade zoning without dezoning first
• Optional world grid for better road planning
• Undo Button

Tech and Engine

• Dedicated Full Screen Mode
• Auto save
• Ability to import new music
• Capture mouse for dual-screen setup

Modding and STEAM Workshop

• Traffic Simulation in the Asset Editor
• Road modding
• Better Workshop organization
• Asset Manager filters and organization
• Pictures of modded buildings in the game
• Left-hand driving in the asset editor

Zoned Buildings - Types and Styles

Residential

• Mixed Residential / commercial Buildings [CONSIDERED]
• -
• -

Commercial

• -
• -
• -

Industry

• Area effects for specialized industry ( e.g. fields, oil pumps)
• ^ Bigger industry buildings in the specialized industry (e.g. fields, oil pumps)
• Longer, more interesting production chains
• High-Tech industry specialization

Offices

• -
• -
• -

Functional Buildings

• Modular, extendable Buildings
• -
• -

Water

• Larger water treatment plants
• -
• -

Power

• -
• -
• -

Health- and Deathcare

• -
• -
• -

Education

• Modular Universities
• -
• -

Police and Fire

• -
• -
• -

Garbage

• Zoneable or Extendable Landfills
• "Greener" way to get rid of garbage.
• -

Parks and Decoration

• Waterfront decorations
• Canals
• Parks on pedestrian pathways
• Area filler, e.g. Cities XL style or brush style

Districts and district policies

• Chinatown District
• Social housing District Policy
• Historic preservation policy
• Medieval/Old City District
• University District
• Photovoltaic incentive policy, Solar Panels on the roofs, every building produces a small amount of electricity
• Restrict local services to district

Roads, Roadtypes and related things

• Merging lanes, Acceleration lanes
• Improved roundabout usage
• Pedestrian pathways with stairs
• Cul de sac
• More bridges
• Toll booth
• Different types of elevated structures (steel, concrete, brick)
• Bus lanes
• More options in setting up roads (turning lanes, traffic lights...)
• Road Layout help (e.g. snap-to-grid option, SimCity style lines for parallel roads)
• Bike lanes
• One way roads via upgrade tool, change direction with clicking
• Tunnels [Planned]
• Zoning on pedestrian roads
• Pedestrian Boulevards (with emergency vehicle access)
• Prefabricated Intersections snapping to already existing roads
• Single lane roads
• Double-direction Highway

Mass Transit

• Better Information on Transport Networks - "Bus Panels"
• New lines should have different colors by default
• -

Busses

• Bus lanes
• Long range bus stations for tourists
• -

Trains

• Larger train stations
• Train stations with multiple connections (bus, metro)
• Elevated Stations
• Different types of elevated structures (steel, concrete, brick)
• Underground tracks and stations
• Traintrack soundwalls

Metro

• Overground/Elevated Metro including stations
• Different types of elevated structures (steel, concrete, brick)
• -

Airport

• Larger Airports
• Modular Airports
• -

Harbor

• Bigger harbors
• Modular harbors
• Harbor waterfront [CONSIDERED]
• -

Other concepts

• New types of transport [Planned]
• Trams
• Monorail
• Ferrys and Waterbusses
• ^ Canals

 

[Allystrya]

Since I am currently in the process of creating my next map and theme I have a few wishes for the Map and Theme editors.
I REALLY wish there were happy mediums. Not drastic extremes in every option.

For instance the diffusion options in (call it a convenience thing) The only option right now is either scrolling is either 0.005 or 0.1 (Bottom or top) nothing in between and rarely do I want zero diffusion and rarely do I want 100% even having it move 0.01 increments with a mouse scroll would be nice so we can at least find a good feel good spot to manually enter numbers.

Also having more controlled options for terrain in the map editor. I can't tell you how many times "OH this spot is a bit off, gonna smooth it out. WHAM I have the Grand Canyon or Mount Everest. The vanilla live game terrain options have more control than those in the map editor. I can be on the smallest brush size of 50 and lowest strength of 0.01 (Let's not talk about 0.02 and the vast difference of strength between the two) and if I still don't dare use a regular small circle brush to do any type of detailing even though it is the right size and shape for what I want. Yes, I use other brushes but it is hard to find small pinpoint ones (even the brush size of 50 could go down.). Ever tried making a small width little brook going through an abandoned village? It takes hours just because you can't do one strokes but plops of your brush which aren't smooth but smoothing small areas like that can just erase all your work. Yes I have tried all sorts of brushes even got Mr. Myagi's suggested list. It doesn't matter what brushes I have tried it is either feathers or hammers no inbetween and so it doesn't feel like choosing your strength plays much of a factor and I can't choose 0.0001. In the live game though I can do it just fine with those options, it gets a bit hairy sometimes but much more smooth and controlled. I understand the love of brushes with weird shapes and designs and the need for them but for wanting a gentle touch with a small circular brush? Then even the small ones I have found this "aura" around them and then they may as well be the size of Montana The major options have their place absolutely but a detailing control would be nice. Even the ones from the live game would be greatly appreciated so we can have access to both.

The day/night cycle in the map and theme editors. I would love to see an option to toggle a cycle through and to actually do it's thing. even doing small incremental scrolls it usually goes from late afternoon to dark of night and I miss the sunset or sunrise. I spend alot of time on this due to the color variations and trying to get the sun to the right position on the horizon requires, again, such extremely small incremental movements that it is frustrating to spend 5 minutes just trying to get the sun into the rise or set position (then your dog comes and whacks your arm and there it goes again). The other reason though to have the day go through a cycle is depending on the variations of color your map can take on a different feel. Seeing how the cliffs look in certain lights, how deep the shadows go etc etc. in a smooth transition versus trying to use the bar that jumps dramatically through time and space.

And the option for entering colors with RGB or Hex or an actual color wheel. Trying to pick the same color of blue for water in the 4 different boxes so I can just make them lighter or darker is a challenge. The slider is wonderful but again it is just to small of an area for say for yellow, you go very quickly from yellow to orange with not even a movement of the mouse when you want to be very specific.

I have looked for mods to control these but if there are any I am blind as a bat. And if I am blind please point me the direction and I shall gladly follow

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

When a disaster hits, would it be possible for the Disaster Response Unit or the Road Maintenance Depot to repair roads? When a tornado hits a big city with dense neighborhood roads, its really time intensive to upgrade all the roads (not to mention find what roads match where).

A long time ago I thought it would be nice to have the vehicles drive out to do the repairs, while maintaining the ability to fix them the way you do now. This would allow you the choice to fix them quickly (manually) or wait and allow the repair vehicles to do their thing. It would also mean if you fixed 99% but missed something somewhere, it would get fixed automatically by the repair crews.

I would want them to get out of their trucks and fix paths too! (Sort of like Park Maintenance people get out and walk in the park).

Of course railway track (and tram without road) repairs would be required as well. I suggest the repair vehicles add retractable train wheels like these ones:



They could get onto tracks at any road crossing, as well as at train stations (somehow, as not everyone will have road crossings).

The problem with the Road Maintenance Depot (which would make the most sense in my opinion) doing it, is it is in a different DLC, and there's the whole "don't cross the DLCs" thing. Which makes a certain amount of sense, as this is actually generally consumer friendly. You don't want to have to buy multiple DLCs to have something work correctly. People would complain if "Natural Disasters" wrecks my roads, and I need to have "Snowfall" to (automatically) fix them.

I would suggest the Road Maintenance Depot become available to the player if you have either SF or ND. If you only have "Snowfall", it does what it does now, temporarily increasing road speed. If you only have "Natural Disasters", the vehicles only fix busted roads/paths/tracks. If you have both SF and ND, then the vehicles do both jobs.

 

[leach22ri]

More park buildings for the amusement park ..., also more Coin game props for the amusement park

• a Wooden Roller Coaster
• Scramble/Octopus ride
• 2 midway game stalls
  
• Games

2/27
I also think that the TV Station High tech Building should no be a Unique Building, the city I live in has 5 major local TV stations, one being a PBS Station.

 

[Oiltime]

For vanilla - Semi-arid or desert maps with sage brush, ponderosa and cactus would be nice feature for building. Maybe some Phoenix themed buildings.

Big box store options like Costco, home depot , etc.

More road options and cul de sacs

 

[DKS]

Copypaste from comment from your latest video
Paradox!!! I ask for just two small improvements:
-ability to copy-paste excel lists into for example lists of names in theme editor. I would like to put my long name of names for citizens but now it is horribly long work. It would take literally days to put whole list
-ability to change names of other cities (they appear on trains or other vehicles coming to and out of cities) in theme editor. I would make themes more climatic.
Please let me know if you read this dear Paradox people

 

[HyraxNixus]

As you know, 2020 is supposed to be the year of Summer Olympics in Japan. I thought about what it would be like to have a DLC that includes a Scenario that you would have to build every thing that necessary for Summer / Winter Olympics ( you could expand the Snowfall DLC to include Winter Olympics)

Imagine what it could be like to not only Micro manage a city, but to plan out entire venues, hotels, facilites , etc that come with The Olympics. On top of budgeting for the event as well.

You don't have to create new buildings either honestly. Most of the buildings can be repurposed from previous DLC. Instead of a soccer stadium (Match Day DLC), you can have a Olympic Stadium. Instead of the Aquatic Center (and other sports venues) from Campus DLC, you are able to repurpose them for the Olympics.

Just a thought honestly, but it could be fun and challenging.

If not possible, at least a bigger expansion of Sports DLC? Include MLB (Baseball), NFL (American Football), NBA (Basketball)

 

[Chirpynado]

Hyperloop Transport DLC.

Elon Musk's 'The Boring Company' developed a new transport concept with affordable tunnels beneath cities in which autonomous vehicles transport people from one place to another. Because the system is completely autonomous (a computer system regulates the speed of and the distance between the vehicles in these tunnels), an efficient means of transportation is created that for a large part can solve the congestion problems faced by very large cities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boring_Company

 

[leach22ri]

On this Disability Advocacy Day, I suggest that CO and Paradox add different levels of disabled Civs to the game along with native Paratransit, medical transport, and day program style services.

 

[LucusLoC]

I mean, I like the sentiment, but I feel that this would just set things up for all kinds of awkward hilarity. Have you seen the vertical parking spaces? Cims walking up cliff faced walkways? Scooters phasing through buildings to some random parking spot? I can only imagine the screenshots when we get a warning "path too steep for disabled pedestrians. Continue?" paired with a shot of a path going straight up a cliff face, or even worse going over 100% level ground. . .

 

[leach22ri]

I mean, I like the sentiment, but I feel that this would just set things up for all kinds of awkward hilarity. Have you seen the vertical parking spaces? Cims walking up cliff faced walkways? Scooters phasing through buildings to some random parking spot? I can only imagine the screenshots when we get a warning "path too steep for disabled pedestrians. Continue?" paired with a shot of a path going straight up a cliff face, or even worse going over 100% level ground. . .

There are also invisible disabilities like autism

 

[LucusLoC]

Not sure how those are relevant to the discussion? It is pretty easy to see how physical disabilities could potentially impact gameplay by forcing the player to think about access issues, but unless you are talking about implementing special needs education I fail to see how mental disabilities would impact the player at all. Nearly everything that mental impairment needs from society, from counseling to transaction assistance to medication, is all well below the abstraction level presented to the player. Attempting to implement it for this one thing would pretty much require expanding those mechanics in the general case too. Pharmaceuticals would become their own separate service from healthcare, education would get its own sub industry for special needs, you would probably need special zoning, or at the very least district policies, to facilitate access. . . The entire pipeline would probably need a dozen brand new mechanics or more.

But honestly even if we keep it at just physical disabilities the entire mechanic seems incredibly niche, and would probably require an entire engine rewrite to support (st the already mentioned vertical parking spaces. . . ). Again, I appreciate the sentiment, but I see nearly zero actual gameplay benefit for a whole ton of work.

 

[Dushess]

Hello. Surely nobody asked: Correct bus stops + behavior improvement.
As everyone knows any bus gonna drive into stop-area, stop inch-by-inch at awning, wait for passengers and leave after.
The problems: half of the stop-area is empty absolutely everytime, the bus behing not gonna even think about doors opening despite bus staying right in the marked zone, they even can wait there for unbunching... with described above consequences.

I will suggest long needed scenario, because nobody needs inadequate bus drivers.
Buses will same drive in, but use more stop-points all over the lane. First bus entered the lane stopping at 1st (very front of the bus-stop lane), doing it's business and leaves when ready. Any bus behind gonna join but stop at 2nd stop-point. All scripting for passengers boarding is the same, but if 1st bus leave, 2nd should slooowly go forward to 1st point and wait for finishing his shedule time, as usual when it triggered to depart further. Anyone behind follows to next free stop-point. If some bus need to depart but not at 1st point, it must drive out of bus-stop lane right from his spot, obviously next buses gonna join freed space.

And that way we will get good stops for public transport which not causes jams completely on small roads.

 

[Dushess]

I have some more and will separate by posts.
Gas powered power plants instead or coal powered ones.
Initial building should be as is, but later we might develop gas transfering infrastructure from Oil-class industrial areas. (Natural gas item to use)
After we charging some value and plant becomes equipped for gas usage. And before connected pipes starts transfer gas from fields. (New mechanics, can be childed from roads type?) Yes, storages near the consuming unit with our current warehouse mechanics, if some problems occured, we can import gas in tankers. But I should remind about glitch from that, even with balanced policy the storage automatically rush to be filled from outside of our city district. as I know, must be 50% fill everytime. Why not to change to 25-50% to smooth resulted local commercial disaster?
In addition the station will greatly cut the pollution and will disable coal transport requirement trigger. (Also, is there still only soil type pollution? We need air-type here)
Thanks.

 

[Dushess]

Cargo terminals improvements
As we know currently we have really insane and weird thing - constant row of trucks that driving into tiny box of terminal building (completely) and instantly coming outside from 2nd gate. Instead we need (2 possible ways) displacing stream to few zones when they gonna load/unload goods. Example: trucks going in, gets divided to 3 (or more for bigger hubs) lanes, each has the crane or something needed here. They stops at last point and waits before despawning, animation of loading is active atm. Then truck on lane will respawn at start point nearby (from current mechanics) and go outside from port/station. That is applicable for wood and other raw materials and containers. (Maybe we need also more types of loading equipment as secondary props inside? Not sure, but magnetic grip for containers, mechanical for logs, big pumps for liquid stuff. Gas included and gonna be liquified for transports. Your expert choice.) For common carriers needed another scheme. They gonna park at the gates of main storage building. Number of gates easily will counter jams in case of many trucks. The planes has reversing anim and we might use it here. Basically everything from driving on lanes is also applicable here and possible just right now. Just also wait near the gate w/o any anims and after waiting (to load/unload) the truck should respawn and start moving from the gate, then leave cargo station.
Oh yeah. For intermediate hubs we currently using short roads with same truck-sausages which is simple, but logically stupid. This requires combined ports, but very less importatn than simplier hubs ^^^^.
This is basically the same as I've described, but heavy goods will be unloaded right into boxcarts on the railway in the pier/cargo terminal area. Boxes/crates (light goods) gonna use backwise parking variant for trucks, first it will be delivered via pallets on the forklifts. Destination: plane/pier crane <-> warehouse building via inner side gates. Liquid goods just uses pipes trough pumps: truck tanker stop <-> railway tanker stop (valves above rails on entire path, tanks might be everywhere in the chain) <-> ship pump from a big liquid carrying boat docking point. the pipes will connect described equipment and also storage big round oil tanks.

 

[LucusLoC]

The Natural Gas pipe would be a really useful addition to the snow DLC too. That would give you three options for heating; Hot water pipes, electricity and NG. Did not know I wanted that, but I do. NG can also be used as an alternative fuel source for the hot water facilities. I love the idea of a new pipe delivery system for energy to cut down on truck traffic to facilities that run on hydrocarbons.

If we get this I would also love to see an "upgrade" option on the coal power plants. Coal plants should remain an earlier unlock and still be far cheaper to build initially. The upgrade should be more cost effective than building a new gas plant if you already have a coal plant, but it should also not really change the production values of the structure since all you are doing is changing the fuel source, not the turbines.

 

[Dushess]

Compliceted, but just on first look. You may correct something if need to.
Another one: Minor changes for transportation.
- Make plane landing anims a bit more... normal... On close ground proximity it must glide, you know the angles which applicable here. Then it making touchdown and starts to rotate forward, on axis located at rear gears. Unified anims, so every plane will spin a bit and have all wheels on the runway. Then it should do his usual things. Maybe to add taxiing rules, etc... Right, being serious,
-Taxi cabs should rarely transport 2/3 cims instead of one. Realism AND better road handling. Just link it on taxi boarding event, you know how it works, yeah.
-Allow vehicles injection from inbound lane to another road with common sense rules. (Not highways, it's for city roads) This will make cars enter road from another one in medium/heavy traffic with no troubles. Means skipping each 1 or 2 car on main road, then entering it. Doesn't require speed up/synch lanes. Because not everywhere is the lights installed and cars might go crazy and join right in front of a truck, they even clipping sometimes!
-Allow vehicles to change lane more smooth. Just because they're TOO abrupt with that sometimes.

 

[Dushess]

I'm sorry, cargo simulation is very complicated. Each lane -> spawn/despawn point, try to count just warehouse gates. It needs rework of truck handling in cargo areas completely.
Or just make 2 ways: trough combined port crane area (oil pump as props) and trough warehouse front area (somehow need to hide that mess, i suggest covered parking near the gates, trucks gonna enter it as usual and pretend to be parked somewnere we can't see, timer before depart back still actual). It means modular hubs: one part with own way is for container and logs near the crane, second for liquid pump stands, and third must use parkings near gates at warehouse. And despawn point for them all must be at outher entrance under awning (2nd security checkpoint/ mass control stand). Next just link truck type to right path, which is harder btw.
Implementable in theory.

 

[Dushess]

Terrain control improvements
Our grid is really big. By this any slope is large or very large ONLY and 'quadratish' as hell.
What if multiple them all by 4? -> x2 better detailed terrain.
Also gonna ask about bigger map, like 225Tiles, for big cities (15x15 instead of 9x9, probably asked by someone). But this is completely impossible with your current engine restrictions/settings and breaks SysReqs + mod support in very inappropriate way. Maybe we might see it in your next city simulator?

 

[leach22ri]

(Vanilla) More fine control when terraforming would be nice as an example an actual brush size slider
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=502750307

 

[hillcf]

A few suggestions, but probably for C:S 2 rather than the current version.

1. Domestic roads, ie. excluding highways and possibly large roads, should automatically include a water supply. Why, well when do you make a road and not put water along it. This could also apply to electricity, heating and sewage, if separate. Just makes the cost of road higher and minimise the pipes go need to install.

2. Have a list of types of building used in commercial, office and industry. Make the list modifiable so that modders can make there own additions and can then flag their building to match the type of building. That will get away from the generic 'Drug Store' which in actually a UK Pub. Allow themes to have some control on over what type of buildings can be built.

3. Allow for buildings to include both housing and commerce or office space. Very typical in Europe where you get commercial units with a housing on the top, or a large commercial unit with a housing tower on top.

4. Make the game better for modders. Make it easier for them to integrate into the base game. My guess that you did not realise just what modders could do, and you need to integrate them into the game from the base up.