I hope Cities Skylines 2 won't be another Traffic Simulator

[Teodosio7]

Cities Skylines is a lovely game. Well presented, great music. But I have stopped playing a long time ago. Why? Bacause Traffic Management is enjoyable up to a point.

Calling Cities Skylines a "City Management game" or "City Simulator" is a misnomer. Traffic is the only challenge in the game. There is no actual city management going on. E.g.:

• Budget is a non-issue after the city is medium-small, you will have infinite money;
• Getting maximum education and health is trivial;
• No social issues, poverty, ghettos;
• No political debate, societal choices, unrest;
• No environmental issues (super heavy industry? No prob, jut put it ten tiles away from homes).

Can I have any hope that City Skylines 2 will be any different?



Edit: Industry and Supply Chains: again, the only challenge is traffic. In the real world traffic is the least of the problems: there are all sort of political, technological, regulatory, patent and human capital issues that influence industrial supply chains. None are represented in the game.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Traffic is the only challenge in the game.

you say that like there's something wrong with that.

that's WAI. they've said that's what the game's about.

but i think 2 will lean into the supply chain thing more. they hit on something good there.

is there another city management game out there that might be more up your alley maybe?

 

[MarkJohnson]

Well, this is an agent based simulator. Traffic is the core of the game. It was modeled after SC2013.

But it also teaches you how to balance your city through districts. so cims can get from point A to point B and not kill your city.

It does quite a lot of other things as well, but it is mainly about controlling mand manipulating traffic.

Computers are very limited in power and can't make anything even remotely close to reality. All simulators have to sacrifice a great deal of simulation for the game to work at all. I think this game strikes just the right balance, plus enough mods to take it to the next level. Also, you seem to be using mods to play, so you may be altering the game too much? I know a lot of people disable as much of the game as possible to just make it as close to photoshop as they can and detail their cities to a great extent.

But like any other game, once you play it a while, you can learn the rules and quickly become bored with it. At least this game keeps you coming back for more and not just sit in your library collecting dust.

But I'm sure traffic simulation will be in the next incarnation, otherwise the city will look dull and mlifeless.

 

[ASGeek2012]

Honestly, I like the game as it is now. I just want to build. I don't want to have to fight through a plethora of problems to get the city the way I want it. Having to manage traffic gives it just enough spice to me to keep me engaged.

I know not everyone feels this way. If CS2 features all these additional obstacles, I will likely still play it, but I will have to find different reasons for enjoying it. It won't be a builder game anymore to me, it will become a strategy game, and Paradox already gives me tons of those to choose from.

 

[Teodosio7]

Dear all, thanks for your replies.
I get the impression that the game may be working fine for its intended user base then, and that I am the odd one out!
I will perhaps give a look at "Citystate", that may be closer to my tastes.
I will also keep an eye open for City Skylines 2, in case they are going to do anything different.

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

I get the impression that the game may be working fine for its intended user base then, and that I am the odd one out!

Cities Skylines is a lot of things to a lot of people. You can never please everyone, but I think CS does manage to please (for the most part) a lot of different players. I'm sure it is a difficult balance. You're not alone in wanting different things from the game.

There are always going to be groups of players that want opposite things, and CO can't always please both. Being able to make some things optional (infinite money, fire spread, disasters on/off, etc) does help some with that. But we've even had someone complain about having those options.

I lean towards city painter myself, but I generally have infinite money turned off. I do like some challenge.

I wouldn't mind some run-down areas, etc., but I don't want too much politics, budget management, spreadsheets, etc.

 

[baronsabato]

I'm pretty moderate when it comes to this issue. I'm definitely a city painter but I think it'd be nice to add just a little more interactivity in the game. To be honest, I'd be very happy if they added random events. Sorta like how in Sim City 4 you'd get an offer to build a military base or a movie studio or, conversely, have a threat of a terrorist attack or riot. This goes along with the possibility of having a more robust socioeconomic system, but I don't think it needs to be so complex as to become a political game, just enough that it could lead to greater unrest, crime, protests, and abandoned areas.

 

[Anna_Gein]

I admit the low level difficulty in Cities Skylines is the main reason why it is my favorite city builder game. To be clear I am not saying this to reject OP. I just want to share how I feel regarding challenge level in Cities Skylines.

I would not be against more interractivity in the game. Though I barely scratch the surface with what is already possible right now with districts policies and DLC features.

 

[sys_64738]

Cities Skylines is a lovely game. Well presented, great music. But I have stopped playing a long time ago. Why? Bacause Traffic Management is enjoyable up to a point.

Calling Cities Skylines a "City Management game" or "City Simulator" is a misnomer. Traffic is the only challenge in the game. There is no actual city management going on. E.g.:

• Budget is a non-issue after the city is medium-small, you will have infinite money;
• Getting maximum education and health is trivial;
• No social issues, poverty, ghettos;
• No political debate, societal choices, unrest;
• No environmental issues (super heavy industry? No prob, jut put it ten tiles away from homes).

Can I have any hope that City Skylines 2 will be any different?



Edit: Industry and Supply Chains: again, the only challenge is traffic. In the real world traffic is the least of the problems: there are all sort of political, technological, regulatory, patent and human capital issues that influence industrial supply chains. None are represented in the game.

Hi there,

I've read this a lot in the past times... Although, I'm not really against you: what do you think?

I mean even in the legendary Sim City 4, traffic was the was daunting challenge...

So please, could you flesh out the thoughts of yours a bit more?

Best regards,
sys

Just for the record: The difficluilty for this game is at some ttimes redicously low, so I'm playinng ot with a lot of personal challenges like low taxes e.a. (this is the beauty of a game llike this!) but let's be real: Setting this up with a set of even more tighter limitations (aka challenges) would be really nice!

 

[Fox_NS_CAN]

I'm a bit older... SYS64802

 

[MarkJohnson]

Not quite as old, I had the TS1000. Yes, Timex the watch company made a few computers. lol Until IBM announced they were going to make a personal computer, after saying they wouldn't.

IBM painted themselves in a corner by saying they wouldn't make one for the home market, as computers needed highly educated people to use them and said they just wouldn't sell enough to the public to be worth their while. lol As you can imagine the hate, basically calling the public idiots, so then they had to make a personal computer they didn't want. lol

I think that is why Microsoft got their deal, as IBM wanted to hand off the whole thing and be rid of it, so IBM only needed to make the hardware, which they left open ended so the public would take over the 3rd party devices.

So when IBM made the announcement that they would make a PC, everyone started bailing out of the computer market, and I got the Sinclair for like $40 with a 16k memory module. lol

 

[Orphalesion]

Personally I just wish there was at least an option in the game to simplify traffic management, since I really just want to build a beautiful city without having to get a graduate degree in traffic management to prevent the eternal gridlocks and traffic congestions.

 

[Kain2K]

Personally I just wish there was at least an option in the game to simplify traffic management, since I really just want to build a beautiful city without having to get a graduate degree in traffic management to prevent the eternal gridlocks and traffic congestions.

I second that. SC2013 has shown how to absolutely not do it. Skylines has shown how to do it better, but there's still much room to grow. While an agent based system has its perks, mostly in terms of realism, it also has its negativ sides, mainly in regards of its dependency on an intelligent AI, and on how smart it is designed.

Emergency services for example, should be seperate from the "normal" traffic AI. While the normal traffic can use the fastest route in terms of travel distance, emergency services should always use the fastest route in terms of travel time, as to avoid traffic jams. Also, traffic AI needs a routine to let emergency services pass, SC4 did that for example. Even though this was more of a visual thing, and only had real gameplay relevance once Rush Hour was released, and you had all of those "Drive yourself"-missions.

And, as a side note, even though traffic could also be an issue in SC4, it always was manageable, and could never "destroy" your city. The issue with Skylines on the other hand is, that, thanks to the agent system, traffic can be the death of your city. This propably wouldn't be as much of an issue, if there weren't those regular death waves, since it would then only affect you ability to get oil or coal for your power plants, and since there are more than enough alternatives for that, thats somethin to easily avoid. The death waves on the other hand... You can plan ahead as much as you like, as soon as traffic becomes an issue, death will become one too. And yes, you can avoid both, but this isn't much of an argument, seeing as many players seemingly can't.

 

[CardboardArm]

I generally agree with OP.

Cities Skylines is a great step up from Simcity 4 as far as traffic management is concerned. You need to take flow, public transport and lane usage into account, among other things. Sharp angles slow down traffic but cleverly designed intersections help a lot. Traffic management is interesting and provides many different solutions to the problems you encounter.

Unfortunately other aspects of the city management are not as divers. I think most problems are binairy: you make enough money or you don't, you have clean water in your pipes or you don't, you have enough services to level up or you don't. Choosing between a small fire station or a large one are not perticularly interesting choices.

I hope CS2 will keep it's traffic managment but focus on Cim management on top of this. Especially socioeconomics seem like an interesting direction to explore. Poverty, displacement, seperation of rich and poor or gentrification, city parts were land value becomes too high for people to live. etc. Affordable housing are a major concern for many cities and an integral part of city planning. I would love to see such things simulated in CS2 too.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

emergency services should always use the fastest route in terms of travel time, as to avoid traffic jams.

and how many routes would you like them to compare when working this out?

 

[prismaticmarcus]

The issue with Skylines on the other hand is, that, thanks to the agent system, traffic can be the death of your city.

you understand that this is a feature, not a bug, right?

 

[Kain2K]

and how many routes would you like them to compare when working this out?

Calculate a few routes based on travel distance, then take the one with the least amount of traffic.
Alternatively, if normal traffic hears a weewoo weewoo, just let them build a damn rescue alley, like they should.

you understand that this is a feature, not a bug, right?

Ehm, no, no it really isn't. Like I wrote. Traffic is only such a problem, because your emergency services are unable to pass, which in turn leads to a bunch of cims dying, which leads to empty housing, wich then leads to cims from outside wanting to move in, which then leads to more traffic. Thats not a feature, thats just bad, design.

If emergency vehicles would be able to pass, as they should, then traffic wouldn't be as much of an issue. It may hinder further growth of the city, again, as it should, but it wouldn't lead to self-increasing death waves.

A change in how emergency vehicles calculate their route, or a simple thing as letting other vehicles form a rescue alley would alleviate the problem. Traffic would still be an issue, but there wouldn't be anymore idiotic, unnecessary and unrealistic death spirals, because of it.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Alternatively, if normal traffic hears a weewoo weewoo, just let them build a damn rescue alley, like they should.

so now every vehicle has to listen out for it.

they have to consider that not everyone has a quantum computer.

but did you know they did change the weewoo vehicles so they behave more realistically? they change lanes more than they used to. i guess if you're using TMPE you might not have noticed.

 

[Kain2K]

so now every vehicle has to listen out for it.

they have to consider that not everyone has a quantum computer.

but did you know they did change the weewoo vehicles so they behave more realistically? they change lanes more than they used to. i guess if you're using TMPE you might not have noticed.

OMG! Visually, other agents drive a bit to the side and the emergency vehicle passes through the middle. Programmaticaly the Emergency Agent just passes through all the other agents. It is neither rocket science, nor do you need a computer the size of a planet to calculate it. Would it need a bit more performance? Possibly. But since usually just a tiny little fraction of all the agents are emergency vehicles, it should barely be noticable, except maybe, if you actually managed to run Skylines on an actual toaster.

 

[sys_64738]

Personally I just wish there was at least an option in the game to simplify traffic management, since I really just want to build a beautiful city without having to get a graduate degree in traffic management to prevent the eternal gridlocks and traffic congestions.

I feel you on this one.

Though I like the challenge (and often frustration) of handling traffic problems in the game, your intention reminds me a lot of myself, when I played the first Sim City back in the '90s. I also just wanted to build great cities without the problems and struggle that came with the game.

I just looked into the Steam Workshop, but unluckily, there seems to be no mod that could fix the game for your needs.

Or is there anybody on the forum who could name a suitable mod for Orphalesion's playstyle?

Best regards,
sys