Green Cities is the brand new expansion, what will be next ?

[Hyomoto]

@ristosal - Well, as far as I know high crime results in, like most things in the game, abandonment. The same way that uncollected dead, trash or lack of utilities do. I probably didn't really wrap that up nicely, but the point is I'd like to see your city have more dynamism between high/low income areas and the causing effects. Land value does affect how fast buildings upgrade, so it could be interesting to see them 'downgrade' under negative circumstances, perhaps to a 'poverty' tier if things get really bad as opposed to the 'one dead body on the thirtieth floor means we need to bulldoze the whole skyscraper' we have now. I'd just like to see the game layer given a turn, we have plenty of content at this point.

 

[Genghis Kawaii]

I would definitely like real farms! Large fields, and being able to create small villages. Technically you can go small now, but it seems like the game is forcing you to constantly grow.

At some point I read a topic about zoneable parks and beaches and that seems great too. More fleshed out tourism, national parks, more plants (not just trees), natural forests with narrow paths, and definitely low density tourism buildings, not always skyscrapers. I would like low density offices too, and medium density for all zones, so you don’t end up with skyscrapers right next to one-story houses.

On that note, I really want mixed use zoning. It's something we're trying to push hard where I live, and it isn't well modeled in the game.

Basic idea is, you zone for retail, restaurant, or light manufacturing on the ground floor, but residential or office for subsequent floors. It's awesome zoning for dense areas, IMO.

I also would like the option to allow in-laws. For the unfamiliar, an in-law is when you build an apartment inside a single family house. I live in such an apartment, in fact. They're a good option for cheaply and quickly densifying a low density residential district in a high demand area.

 

[Genghis Kawaii]

I also want more district styles. Like, a ton more. Right now, I can do modern generic American, modern generic European, and modern European Suburbia. I want more than that. I want to build American districts with a distinct Spanish colonial flair. I want to build cities that look like they're Brazilian or Mexican or Chinese or Indian or South African. If I'm building something that looks like San Francisco, I want to be able to build a belt of Victorian houses. I want to emulate the Tudor houses that are often popular here. If I'm building a European city, I want to be able to have a historic Medieval district in the city center. If I'm building a European city, I want it to really matter where my city is. A nice, sunny Mediterranean Italian city shouldn't have architecture that looks like a city in Norway, and a lowland Scottish city shouldn't resemble either, and neither should a Bavarian city, or a French city that's totally not my attempt at Strasbourg. I dream of a DLC that's just tons and tons and tons of well made district styles, so that I can go in and really customize what the architecture of my city should look like.

 

[Timmysoboy]

So, I read through the comments and organized things how I'd like to see them... a lot of this is stolen wholesale from other people, but whatevs.
Also, apparently I'm going to just keep updating this list because it helps me limit day dreaming. Let me know if its inconvenient to anyone and I'll stop.

Next DLC: Open Spaces
Focus on primarily rural planning as well as a hint of parks to go along with it.
*The primary selling point is a new 'Generic Rural' theme that effects low density commercial and residential (possibly industry?).
-Policies:
--Local Economy: Reduces household sizes as well as commercial and industrial worker needs. In exchange, commercial and industry yield less.
--Rural Services (Name very WIP): Increases the effect area of services but reduce the capacity in the area.
--Extract Economy: Resource gathering industry (forestry, mining, etc) only extracts resources in the effected area. Must be sent elsewhere for processing.
-Assets:
--Smaller everything; Fire stations, police, trains... within reason, no need for a small garbage dump.
--Park entrance: A park with a welcome center, parking lot and paths coming off it. Designed as a nice entrance to a large pathed area. Huge effect area, but relatively small effect amount.
--Camp sites: Camp sites.
--Beach: b/c a lot of people like the idea, and so do I.
-Unique Buildings:
--Local Hero Statue: Related to local economy.
--Vineyard: Could be cool, and PC compared to winery
--National Park: A bigger Park Entrance. - MASSIVE (global) effect area.
-Other:
--UI overhaul. Organize better. Create separate categories for Small versus Large buildings (fire, police, etc.), make a category for leisure / health overlap (sauna etc.) - maybe put it with parks too. Carousel etc shouldn't be in the same place as parks. Make secondary categories in public transit: Hubs - Tracks - Tracks with roads. Organize unique buildings by type as well (Parks - Skyscrapers - Plazas)
--Make paths produce tiny amounts of leisure: It gives people a reason to use home-aid parks.
-UI overhaul and Paths as leisure would be free update stuff.

Why I'm rejecting painted parks / farms:
--It just doesn't feel like it fits the theme of the game. Otherwise it might be weird from a programming standpoint in a game that everything is built on a grid. That being said, I wouldn't be at all upset if these were added.

Otherwise:
Industry DLC
-High-tech industry: Make it consume both refined resources and goods, makes a product that makes other buildings (industry, commerce, some services) more efficient. Likes air freight (their exporting synthesized human organs and nuclear powered micro-robotics, speed is of the essence)
-Office overhaul: make generic offices more dynamic (unless it significantly effects cpu usage). I was thinking have them pair with cargo traffic to allow slightly greater carry capacity, thus reducing overall traffic.
-Assets
--All the tasty transit stuff (bigger freight, airfreight, barges [freight ferries] etc.)
-More education options
--New level of school (graduate) to furnish the highly skilled workforce.
--Effit; Libraries and Intercity (large) schools?
--Libraries: allows citizens to educate at all levels. Does not provide education service area, very low capacity.
-Probably a good time to add traffic overhaul if there's ever a time to improve AI - maybe just have road and destination usage a greater factor in choosing route on spawn. Also, improve parking features by making it more necessary for drivers. Could make parking lots a park that only helps commerce, maybe industry.

Politics
-Make it like concerts and game day; Interesting / fun / and entirely unnecessary.
-Mayor elections held every two years. Popularity (and therefor electability) base state is residential happiness. If you fail to be re-elected it's NBD, you just get a new mayor with base stats as usual. Bonus points if mayor is an actual citizen.
-Basic building is the Public Forum (vague idea). This gives you options to complete political quests. Completing the quest (basic stuff like reduce pollution x percent, make x more ag. squares) gives a boost to Mayor popularity, failing to complete it reduces Mayor popularity. Building checks for completion during assemblies every six months (including election day). On check days (assembly / election days) citizens assemble at the Forum.
-If you have low mayor popularity, and you fail to complete quests, there is a chance that a protest will form. This continuously attracts people to the forum, eventually spilling onto the streets around it, preventing traffic. Protesters are holding down jobs, but don't go to work, resulting in the potential for businesses to go under because of not enough workers.
-Forum Policies:
--Long term promises: Failed quests have a chance (based on mayor popularity) of staying after forum days at no penalty, but double the potential negative points each time it is bypassed.
--Emphasis on advertising: Passed quests yield 25% better popularity points, failed ones yield 50% worse. Bilges money.
-Unique Buildings
--Public Forum
--Mayors House: Win an election with x percent popularity.
--Mayor Statue: Win x amount of elections in a row.
--Statue of Corruption: Win an election with 100% popularity (a toast to all the dictators in the world).
--Guillotine Park: Have x% of population participating in a protest (50-75%?)

Dreams:
--Seasons (SF DLC)
-->Then move trams to MT?
--Low density tourism (AD)
--Median on intersections that prevents traffic from crossing main roads (toggleable with the intersection signs tool) (MT)
--More transit building sizes (smaller train hub, metro hub, etc) (MT)
--More sports parks; Baseball Diamond, Football fields (both types). (Game Day?)

-Fox_NS_CAN Like the toggle bio / regular buses, especially SINCE bios have a downside (smaller capacity)
-Seneon More assets is a big yes overall...
--> Related: -Genghis Kawaii I'll keep paying for theme packs as they release them. Hazah more assets.

*Edit* Organization
*Edit* Content 11DEC17

 

[Timmysoboy]

ALSO! Let me use assets from whichever theme. I'll judge if a European firehouse fits my generic suburb, thank you very much!

 

[Genghis Kawaii]

I would like the ability to designate buildings or districts as historical. This would prohibit the removal of such a building, and prohibit the buildings within a district from changing over time, save by becoming run down. Also, historical districts would attract tourists. So, if I build a city center with a Medieval district style and then designate it, all the buildings would always remain identical, rather than changing over time. They well never grow to a higher level (except maybe growing in tourism or recreation value). This makes sense to me, because you aren't going to knock down buildings in the Medieval historic center to build modern Medievalesque buildings. People would lose it.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

ALSO! Let me use assets from whichever theme. I'll judge if a European firehouse fits my generic suburb, thank you very much!

It is possible now (since the Green Cities patch) to have both European and non-European service buildings on the same map. Must be enabled in the Content Manager in the Styles section. "European/Vanilla".

 

[Timmysoboy]

Thanks for the tip. I'd thought it forced me to use European theme, but I'll try again.

 

[OCO]

Well, i would like to see some ghettos i need people are crying in poverty and cause high crime rates while some areas of the city are well-educated and reach.

 

[Brazilian Joe]

Well, i would like to see some ghettos i need people are crying in poverty and cause high crime rates while some areas of the city are well-educated and reach.

Agreed. Not all players want eco-friendly paradises. Depicting society sometimes means looking at its seedy, ugly underbelly.

Give us our cyberpunk dystopias, thank you.

 

[Hyomoto]

As funny, or even silly, as this may sound: probably not going to happen. At least, not as the 'headlining' feature. I know Prison Architect is a thing, but it would be pretty ... bold for the next expansion to be Cities: Skylines - Poverty Tier. Announcing the new DLC where your citizens starve, deal with substandard education and face outright discrimination to ensure a high standard of living elsewhere! I would like to see a 'poverty' tier of building as a response to unsolved issues with crime, waste management, power, or the like, but that would have to be part of the 'free' update alongside another DLC.

The interesting part about that is I'm not sure the game can handle that sort of stuff very well. Staying in the green is very easy once you get the game started, then you spend your time adjusting budgets. If you had an area with high crime, you'd just build another police station. I know the game has a robust simulation layer but high crime rates is generally the result of a lot of factors, and if "add more police" was the solution we'd have solved it by now. So perhaps a deeper simulation. My review for Cities: Skylines is usually that the world builds itself, so you spend most of your time fretting over traffic. It would be interesting to have to deal with a lot more factors.

 

[adil3tr]

Increased specialization of cities would add a lot to replayability, as well as automatic public transit like in Simcity (2013). I would really be interested in more policies and ways that allow you to understand and affect demand for the three zones. Honestly if the game could add all the features Simcity had (not that this game isn't much better) it would put them way over the top. I also think they should replace the entire unique building system with something a lot less decorative. And a soviet style cosmetic dlc pack would be really cool.

 

[Timmysoboy]

Would love to see (pay for) a soviet block theme!

 

[Voeille]

as well as automatic public transit

What exactly do you mean by that, not needing to set up lines? I have fun with that, I would miss it if they removed it.

 

[Fred T]

I need more transport tools, because the biggest and mainly problem we have while playing is logistical. More hubs for industrial train system, more hubs for metro system, and inter-city busses to bring turists, actually them come to city only by airplanes, rains, ships and cars.

Yes, a BIG +1 on this one. I also miss tools to develop and tweek the transport system. For example. It's pure hell to try to re-draw subway lines, bus routes etc. The demands for transports are also very fuzzy....

 

[adil3tr]

What exactly do you mean by that, not needing to set up lines? I have fun with that, I would miss it if they removed it.

I mean being able to have it done automatically if you want. In Simcity you just dropped bus stops and such all over the roads (they didn't take up space since they were on sidewalks, which would be a nice addition here too). I just think it's too difficult and fiddly to be a requirement.

The game needs a better end game too, with expensive rewarding projects instead of the decorative buildings that pad out the game right now. It's a good game definitely, but it could amazing. Paradox should teach them more about how all the design studio games combine gameplay with simulation.

 

[adil3tr]

Would love to see (pay for) a soviet block theme!

I wouldn't mind some planned economy and drastic policy additions too. Maybe a palace of culture or too as well.

 

[Turjan]

The game needs a better end game too, with expensive rewarding projects instead of the decorative buildings that pad out the game right now.

You mean those buildings that turn the game mechanics upside down ? It may be the little fanfare how you get them though that leads to the impression that they are just there for looks.

Placing bus stops down manually improves their efficiency though. In principle, that is what comprises much of this game. Where exactly at the metro station do you place your bus stop so that the pedestrians don't block the adjacent crossroads? Do you split your bus line into an inner and outer branch in order to improve average ridership per bus? Stuff like that.

 

[adil3tr]

You mean those buildings that turn the game mechanics upside down ? It may be the little fanfare how you get them though that leads to the impression that they are just there for looks.

Placing bus stops down manually improves their efficiency though. In principle, that is what comprises much of this game. Where exactly at the metro station do you place your bus stop so that the pedestrians don't block the adjacent crossroads? Do you split your bus line into an inner and outer branch in order to improve average ridership per bus? Stuff like that.

Okay well Hoi4 automatically executes your battle plans and arranges divisions. This isn't Cities in Motion 2, it's a city builder. I feel like right now too much of the game is making your transit system.

 

[Voeille]

Okay well Hoi4 automatically executes your battle plans and arranges divisions. This isn't Cities in Motion 2, it's a city builder. I feel like right now too much of the game is making your transit system.

Well, I enjoy it. I like to build my city exactly how I want, and then create transport lines and see if they’re any efficient, and if not, try to improve them. I find it rewarding to see them used by cims. And, without that there wouldn’t be anything to manage in the city (with respect to services you just plop the buildings) and the game would be a pure city painter. While I like ‘painting’ a city, it’s nice to have some form of management (but nothing too challenging, I find this game relaxing and I want it to say like that, I would play something else for a challenge).