How is the Game's Replayability?

[lordmichael95]

I am not the hugest of city building fans, but I have played Tropico 4 and 5, and have sort of had my eye on this game. I have watched Quill18's LP videos of this game, and while watching it, I wondered about two things: 1) How easy is the game? 2) How Replayable is the game? As these two questions ultimately determine if the game is worth buying for me.

From Quill's video it seems that one can have a good sized income pretty quickly, which seems to answer question 1) as too easy, as there isn't any external threats in the game. Question 2) then seems to be answered in the following way: because it is easy to make money in this game, and it is really the only resource in the game, is seems that for any sort of longer term replayability to exist, one needs to impose personal challenges (i.e. I won't building these buildings, or I won't expand beyond this size). Are these correct assessments? If so, will these concerns be address in the near future? If these assessments are wrong, in what way are they wrong?

 

[hert]

I would say that money isnt really the objective for this game. As you said its fairly easy to amass a fortune. Getting a decent size population and growing it and dealing with traffic is something I find more enjoyable. Mods have really helped on this front.

 

[Doctor Machete]

If you go for a grid layout is pretty easy, there are not disasters. The hard part is mainly traffic if you grow a high population city AND you want to have a lot of industry. Cities which 100% perfect traffic can easily collapse when you reach a critical amount of vehicles in the road (trains too), forcing you to rework big chunks of your road (and railroad) system. And this is in fact perhaps the biggest fun for most of us, when you figure a traffic solution to a massive traffic problem (which I think all have experienced), with things like figuring a design for an intersection that can fit in the space available without bulldozing lots of buildings around.

But if you go grid setup and replace industry with offices once you begin to have heavy traffic then yes, is very easy.

In other words, the game itself is pretty easy, but is not so easy if you want a city with high population and no grid layout that also works well and in a map with big areas of irregular terrain (a lot of the cooler ones), as some maps make the game a lot harder in the beginning until you figure an approach. Also there are mods to make the game harder, above the hard mode of the vanilla game. But even so is not a hard game, because if you’re getting a stable income, as long as you don’t zone more residential/commercial/industry you can left the game for hours with no problem. And also, the recent patch added tunnels, which makes the game a lot easier.


A challenge many people impose to themselves is replicating their city, or a very complicated map with almost no space to build, forcing them to creative solutions regarding road design. For example, trying to make railroad system work just for aesthetics, even knowing in that particular case it could be easier with less industry, more offices and no railroad system, or just trying a good looking but maybe not very efficient road layout, even if it requires to use the unlimited money mod at the beginning. In this regard, many people just want to build a very good looking city and don’t care about getting money nor having to unlock anything, just begin a map with unlimited money and all unlocked (included 25 tiles) and build the layout they want from the start.

And almost forgot, many people enjoy simply designing very complicated intersections (or buildings) and maps. I suggest you to take a look to the intersections, buildings and maps of the workshop (the best rated first).

 

[Kevin Lorenz]

Cities skylines is more of a software toy than a game. The worst thing they could do is slow the money. I would hate it if I had watch the game for ten hours in order to build some new project. Skylines is all about building new parts of your City and then changing parts as time goes by.

Just a note Software toy is a term that applies to Sim City. If you expect Cities Skyline to not be in that mold you are playing the wrong game.

Following the success of SimCity, Wright designed SimEarth (1990) and SimAnt (1991). He co-designed SimCity 2000 (1993) with Fred Haslam and in the meantime Maxis produced other "Sim" games. Wright's next game was SimCopter (1996). Although none of these games were as successful as SimCity, they further cemented Wright's reputation as a designer of "software toys"—games that cannot be won or lost.

 

[Cropper]

I am not the hugest of city building fans, but I have played Tropico 4 and 5, and have sort of had my eye on this game. I have watched Quill18's LP videos of this game, and while watching it, I wondered about two things: 1) How easy is the game? 2) How Replayable is the game? As these two questions ultimately determine if the game is worth buying for me.

From Quill's video it seems that one can have a good sized income pretty quickly, which seems to answer question 1) as too easy, as there isn't any external threats in the game. Question 2) then seems to be answered in the following way: because it is easy to make money in this game, and it is really the only resource in the game, is seems that for any sort of longer term replayability to exist, one needs to impose personal challenges (i.e. I won't building these buildings, or I won't expand beyond this size). Are these correct assessments? If so, will these concerns be address in the near future? If these assessments are wrong, in what way are they wrong?

You are correct on both fronts. no matter what you do you will become a multi millionaire within the first hour of playing Your city.

As for the second part, yes it affects replay ability. It should be way harder to make money in this game. Once you have multi millions, you can tear down and build anything you want anytime you want making the game essentially "easy".

This game is not focused on the hard core city builder crowd that likes a strong challenge. It is focused on making good looking cities and roads and intersections.

if you are looking for challenge then you may be dissapointed, except for the challenge you will have working through the numerous bugs such as death waves and crappy hearse/garbage truck AI.

There is some challenge involved in traffic management, but since you will be a multi millionaire within the first hour of playing, you can just fix and rebuild roads as much as you want since you have essentially unlimited money. Also, some of the traffic challenge comes because the traffic simulation has bugs, such as everyone using the same single lane when you have 6 lanes to choose from.

I have personally found that the game is only playable for me with heavy modding that alters the game play and makes it more challenging. There are a few great mods that help out like Aris mods that fix the buggy garbage/hearse AI and traffic ++ that fixes the buggy traffic AI and a few others.

Other people seem to enjoy the simple game play and just want unlimited money to draw roads and post them on reddit.

By the way, the workshop and reddit are overflowing with submissions (mostly assets and cities) from people, the vast majority of which range from horrible to terrible. Good luck finding good assets and mods in the sea of garbage. There are gems in there, but it is a pain in the butt to find them.

 

[Lord Canterbury]

On your queries:

1 - The game is designed to be accessible. So it tends towards the 'easy' (and also steamlined, intuitive UI, etc). You can mod it harder if you like, but you're unlikely to 'lose'. (Though if you browse forums there are more than a few people who can't make money in game, but once you have the hang of it you're away).

2 - Its a sandbox, so its either infinitely replayable, or totally un-replayable depending on your style. You'll either replay it many, many times as you create new challenges for yourself, or you'll hardly play it at all as there is not story/missions/win-state. So its replayable (or not) in the same way as minecraft is replayable (or not)

I'd suggest the two main numbers you want if you are deciding to buy are the 95% positive rating on steam, and the relatively low price.

For me I think this is likely a game I'll keep popping back to for the next decade or so.

 

[Gilga]

On your queries:

1 - The game is designed to be accessible. So it tends towards the 'easy' (and also steamlined, intuitive UI, etc). You can mod it harder if you like, but you're unlikely to 'lose'. (Though if you browse forums there are more than a few people who can't make money in game, but once you have the hang of it you're away).

2 - Its a sandbox, so its either infinitely replayable, or totally un-replayable depending on your style. You'll either replay it many, many times as you create new challenges for yourself, or you'll hardly play it at all as there is not story/missions/win-state. So its replayable (or not) in the same way as minecraft is replayable (or not)

I'd suggest the two main numbers you want if you are deciding to buy are the 95% positive rating on steam, and the relatively low price.

For me I think this is likely a game I'll keep popping back to for the next decade or so.

Agree.

The hard part of the game is not the budged, but the balance. It's an easy game if you wanna just be creative and try to build cities of different layouts. The budget will not stop you. But if you want to build a big metropoli then your job will be harder given the cities change over time, due to the death/birth cycles, traffic, import/export, RCI layouts.

The game is a sandbox so its replayability is infinite, as long as you have fun building cities.

 

[Cropper]

Agree.

The hard part of the game is not the budged, but the balance. It's an easy game if you wanna just be creative and try to build cities of different layouts. The budget will not stop you. But if you want to build a big metropoli then your job will be harder given the cities change over time, due to the death/birth cycles, traffic, import/export, RCI layouts.

The game is a sandbox so its replayability is infinite, as long as you have fun building cities.

What's so hard about big cities? I've had many huge cities and none of them are hard to manage except possibly traffic. Since by then you have basically unlimited money, it's easy to tear down and fix whatever you need to.

I disagree with this reply. Big cities are no harder than small cities. The game needs a much higher level of difficulty.

 

[Gilga]

What's so hard about big cities? I've had many huge cities and none of them are hard to manage except possibly traffic. Since by then you have basically unlimited money, it's easy to tear down and fix whatever you need to.

I disagree with this reply. Big cities are no harder than small cities. The game needs a much higher level of difficulty.

I didn't said the game is not easy, I said it's harder compared to small cities. Not in general. I have huge cities too and I can manage them with no harm.

 

[AustinPowersFas]

Unlike CiM2 and other grand strategy games from Paradox (Like EU4), i got bored really fast due to bugs, glitches, imperfections (like garbage, hearse-systems).

In other games, the sky is the limit. In CSL there are a lot of set limits (i dont care for the reason, so dont bother explaining).

So imho, the replayability is pretty low.

 

[Gilga]

I don't understand why people that fail to balance a city calls "imperfections" some behaviour that need just more thinking. I had garbage/hearse problems at beginning, but it's long time I figured out how the services can work correctly in big towns, I no more have the big spikes as I got when started the game.

There are some bugs, of course, but it's more about tweaking the simulation.

xAustinPowersFas: Don't believe all the people that calls for bugs anytime they have problems, just try to figure out how the simulation works and find your way.

This is only my opinion, of course, and if you think the game has a low replayability, it's ok.

 

[Inge Jones]

I am used to The Sims where normally the challenges come from within the player, or we challenge each other to them. Except in The Sims 4 where it has been imposed on us. Give me a sandbox any day - especially one that allows me to play in a relaxed way when I feel like it, where every thing I want to do doesn't have some hurdle involved.

 

[Cropper]

I don't understand why people that fail to balance a city calls "imperfections" some behaviour that need just more thinking. I had garbage/hearse problems at beginning, but it's long time I figured out how the services can work correctly in big towns, I no more have the big spikes as I got when started the game.

There are some bugs, of course, but it's more about tweaking the simulation.

xAustinPowersFas: Don't believe all the people that calls for bugs anytime they have problems, just try to figure out how the simulation works and find your way.

This is only my opinion, of course, and if you think the game has a low replayability, it's ok.

The simulation as you call it has fundamental bugs that need to be fixed. Hearse not picking up dead people is not something you learn to play with. It's something that should be fixed plain and simple.

And just to prove it further, an entire set of mods has been made to fix this issue since it's so bad and people shouldn't be forced to work around this bug. if people are making mods to fix it, do you still think it's not a bug?

Sheesh. The game is good but why can't people admit there are bugs. It's a good thing, don't be afraid. It will make the game better.

 

[Gilga]

Well, I don't know why in my cities hearses pick up people now. The entire set of mods you speak of, don't fix "bugs", they tweak the maths, the simulation. I don't use them.

Bugs are the trains piling up at borders, cars using one lane only, crashes, and some other stuff. The rest is balancing the gameplay. You can say that the game is not well balanced, but speaking of bugs is a different thing.

Okay, we have different opinions, live with this fact.

 

[Govner717]

I'm curious about the unlimited funds thing after your city is beyond a certain size. Couldn't the taxes be lowered to the point where the funds coming in is really quite small? From what little understanding I have of the game, there appears to be little incentive to ever lower taxes, as the residents still will require some of the happiness / services anyway. The mayor could lower taxes to 2% and the residents wouldn't care about the pollution and the multiple land fills around them and all the noise, as an example. From what little bit of testing I've done, it doesn't appear that's the case. Those people will always be pissed.

I'm not a hardcore city sandbox player and it would be nice to have some external goals (or disasters) to liven things up from time to time.

 

[Chyll]

I've found the replayability to be pretty good - each map gives a different flavor. And I learn a little more each time I fiddle around with a new community. Plus new assets keep coming out so the things get a new look each time.

 

[lordmichael95]

Well thank you guys for the information. I have decided to give the game a go.

 

[cRAGGLE]

Well thank you guys for the information. I have decided to give the game a go.

The replayability will depend on you.

A couple of beginners tips:

- Build up gradually until cims move in and you get a positive income, then watch your expenses;
- You can change stuff later, don't stress if it's not perfect at first;
- Start with cheap utilities; and
- Go down to ground level and watch your towns folk every now and then, being in god mode above the town can make you forget how pretty the game is down there.

 

[Mr Maison]

Name one game in history without bugs. A city building game is not about reaching goals except for the ones you imagine for yourself. It's more of a creative outlet while getting the simulation to sustain your ideas. Replayability is really up to your imagination. I have cities in SC4 I never called finished that I been playing for years.

You will also find in the very beginning with this game that if you don't use cheats, you will go bankrupt quick if you don't watch your spending and build the right stuff early.

 

[Lord Canterbury]

Well thank you guys for the information. I have decided to give the game a go.

Cool, have fun. One tip if you do run into replayability struggles... download a random save game from the workshop and 'fix' it for them. Its like a whole new type of game.