Hi guys, this is my first forum post. Just dropping my two cents about the game. Im not a native english speaker. First of all, I'm not a hardcore gamer. I like to spend a few hour playing each day after my works day. This is my second city builder ever after the massively bugged SC2013, and let me tell you that CS was the perfect antidote to that frustrating experience. With yesterdays announce (Happy Birthday CO!) noticed that I be been playing on the same few cities for nearly a year now. Which is impressive in comparison to any other game I'be ever played. I managed to put 549 hours in this game alone. Wow!
So, I recently fully populated the 9 tiles of my first city and wanted to share a few observations and experiences. As mentioned before, this is my first city ever on this game and started it about a year ago.
Mac Game: Cities Skylines + After Dark + Snow Fall. Vanilla. No Mods.
Hardware: iMac 27" (Mid 2011), Radeon HD 6970 1Gb Vram, 14 gb Ram, HD 1 TB SSD.
Unlocked tiles: 9
Population: 300.000+ citizens
In game year: 2.228
Playing time: About 1 year (in and out)
Bank balance: $20.000.000+
Weekly income: $160.000+ (day)
Performance: In general the game is impressively stable and as gained more stability with each update/upgrade. My only complain is that once It passes the 150k population barrier there's no noticeable speed difference between x1 x2 x3. At times the games suffers sudden slowdowns and in general it is related to passengers waiting and piling up at the transportation stations.
RCI: As long as I can tell the ideal ratio is about (R): %50, (C): %30, (I): 20%.
RCI works as follows: Residential demands Commercial and then Commercial demand Industrial.
Note about Offices: You can satisfy Industrial demand with Offices, BUT then the Commercial will begin importing Goods from the outside via Highways or Cargo Hubs/Ports. This will quickly clog your access roads with delivery vehicles and bans. You can notice these process with the Outside Connections Panel -> Import. If you see too much Violet color and high import numbers rest assure that traffic will be a mess. And the consequence is that these delivery vehicles will not reach the Commercial building that requested it and a warning of "Not Enough Goods To Sell" will appear. If not satisfied the building will be abandoned soon after. Just plop enough Industrial to satisfy basic Commercial demand. Note: This way no visible Goods delivery vehicles are spawn between (I) and (C). To avoid traffic clogs simply plop industrial with as many connections as possible to residential and commercial areas (don't bottleneck it wit a single access road) and place it also near highways and cargo hubs for import/export. Remember that Commercial imports goods trough these Hubs so it is not necessarily a good idea to put them too near Industrial areas.
Important: Low Density Residential is only satisfied with Low Density Commercial. The same goes for High Residential with High Commercial. In my current city I reached a point where Low (R) just stalled. I was plopping only High (R) and (C) at that time. And the only solution was to begging plopping Low (C) again (I spent weeks trying tho figure this out...). Also, be really careful on erasing big areas since each new area is somehow linked to recently generated RCI. One time almost lost an entire +150k city because I wanted to relocate a huge Industrial area. This caused my whole Commercial to get abandoned and reached a point of no return, only fixed by an old Save Game.
Traffic: This is the main game challenge. I created a long underground grid with highways with many two lane ramps as connections (see the last pic). This eases the in and out traffic. This underground grid connects to every outside highway access. Remember that traffic between (C) and (I) is crucial. Not so important in case of (R) and (C) since citizens simply teleport to their destinations if necessary (or could spend months walking to a single commercial building and stay inside forever).
Death waves: Every couple game years the population recycles itself and these death/birth process generated the so called "Death Waves". This has no impact in the city at all. Just be patient. Something similar happens to Commercial and I believe is related to how good are you outside connections/ports.
District Policies: Not so important and mostly useless. The only usable ones are: Heavy Traffic Ban: to avoid heavy cargo trucks inside residential areas. Recycling: so citizens generate less garbage. Industrial Space Planning: to plop less and more efficient Industrial areas. Small/Big Business Enthusiast: to generate more income from commercial areas, but at the cost of increasing the Goods demand ("Not Enough Goods To Sell" dilemma). High Tech Housing: it plops nicer and less traffic prone residential areas.
Services: There is little to no challenge on balancing the city services whatsoever. To avoid complains/abandoned areas the service availability need to be well over the demand. And I mean over a 100 times more in some cases. Since services work for leveling up RCI this is no much of a problem.
Water/Sewage/Healthcare/Death Care/Fire/Police: Plop as many as necessary until every inch of road is green. Done.
Electricity: Unlock the Fusion Power Plant. Done.
Garbage: Set all districts policies to Recycling (this reduces city garbage production). Plop as many Incinerators as necessary. To avoid traffic jams put them in a separated area connected to a highway. It does not need to be near the city at all nor covering the roads with green color. Create 3/5 separated areas with 10 to 15 Incinerators in each corner on a 9 tiles city.
Education: Plop as many elementary/high schools as necessary until every inch of road is green. Be careful not to plop too many Universities. Just 3 or 4 is enough on a 9 tiles city or your industry will get abandoned since university graduates will no take cheap industry jobs.
Transportation/Tourist: Busses are "la creme" of traffic congestion. I only use Metros, Trains, Ships and Trams since these area the most effective and generate lest traffic spawn. Remember that citizens morph (literally) into cars if there are no other transportation options available. Set the trains and cargo in separated circuits to avoid jams. It is more important for cargo trains to go outside than passenger trains. Tourist are almost for cosmetics since theres no gain on income when they get to the city. Airport and Taxies are for visuals only. Sadly, plopping any kind of transportation circuit path is a huge mess in this game and erasing any road will cut the circuit in half and leave the transport vehicles clueless. Many times is better to erase all the circuit and start fresh.
Decoration: Plop as many decoration as necessary until every inch of road is green. I only use the Paradox Plaza, the new Fishing Pier and Volleyball Court since these are the best up-keep cost, size and influence area ratio effective.
Unique building: Use them for cosmetics only (I really dig the Snow Fall ones!).
Economy: Never touched the Taxes/Budget (ever).
So, I thinks thats about it. Great, fun and beautiful game overall with lots of things to do and spend time working on. There's only one big low point in my opinion and it is that CS is not really challenging. In fact, there is almost no danger at all regarding the city development as long as you over provide services and fix traffic flow (I remember forgetting SC2013 running on the background and then finding half my city burned to the ground or abandoned...).
As a wish list It would be great to add more depth and challenge to the game. Industry Specialization with different kinds of Factories like in SC2013 would be great too. And letting the player choose what kind of game he wants to play. Such as money, entertaining, tourism or farming oriented cities.
So, I hope that this post was no too boring and help other players to achieve their projects. If you be got any questions please ask. I leave you guys with a few pics of my city.
Best.
Note: Underground highway system.
General stats.
So, I recently fully populated the 9 tiles of my first city and wanted to share a few observations and experiences. As mentioned before, this is my first city ever on this game and started it about a year ago.
Mac Game: Cities Skylines + After Dark + Snow Fall. Vanilla. No Mods.
Hardware: iMac 27" (Mid 2011), Radeon HD 6970 1Gb Vram, 14 gb Ram, HD 1 TB SSD.
Unlocked tiles: 9
Population: 300.000+ citizens
In game year: 2.228
Playing time: About 1 year (in and out)
Bank balance: $20.000.000+
Weekly income: $160.000+ (day)
Performance: In general the game is impressively stable and as gained more stability with each update/upgrade. My only complain is that once It passes the 150k population barrier there's no noticeable speed difference between x1 x2 x3. At times the games suffers sudden slowdowns and in general it is related to passengers waiting and piling up at the transportation stations.
RCI: As long as I can tell the ideal ratio is about (R): %50, (C): %30, (I): 20%.
RCI works as follows: Residential demands Commercial and then Commercial demand Industrial.
Note about Offices: You can satisfy Industrial demand with Offices, BUT then the Commercial will begin importing Goods from the outside via Highways or Cargo Hubs/Ports. This will quickly clog your access roads with delivery vehicles and bans. You can notice these process with the Outside Connections Panel -> Import. If you see too much Violet color and high import numbers rest assure that traffic will be a mess. And the consequence is that these delivery vehicles will not reach the Commercial building that requested it and a warning of "Not Enough Goods To Sell" will appear. If not satisfied the building will be abandoned soon after. Just plop enough Industrial to satisfy basic Commercial demand. Note: This way no visible Goods delivery vehicles are spawn between (I) and (C). To avoid traffic clogs simply plop industrial with as many connections as possible to residential and commercial areas (don't bottleneck it wit a single access road) and place it also near highways and cargo hubs for import/export. Remember that Commercial imports goods trough these Hubs so it is not necessarily a good idea to put them too near Industrial areas.
Important: Low Density Residential is only satisfied with Low Density Commercial. The same goes for High Residential with High Commercial. In my current city I reached a point where Low (R) just stalled. I was plopping only High (R) and (C) at that time. And the only solution was to begging plopping Low (C) again (I spent weeks trying tho figure this out...). Also, be really careful on erasing big areas since each new area is somehow linked to recently generated RCI. One time almost lost an entire +150k city because I wanted to relocate a huge Industrial area. This caused my whole Commercial to get abandoned and reached a point of no return, only fixed by an old Save Game.
Traffic: This is the main game challenge. I created a long underground grid with highways with many two lane ramps as connections (see the last pic). This eases the in and out traffic. This underground grid connects to every outside highway access. Remember that traffic between (C) and (I) is crucial. Not so important in case of (R) and (C) since citizens simply teleport to their destinations if necessary (or could spend months walking to a single commercial building and stay inside forever).
Death waves: Every couple game years the population recycles itself and these death/birth process generated the so called "Death Waves". This has no impact in the city at all. Just be patient. Something similar happens to Commercial and I believe is related to how good are you outside connections/ports.
District Policies: Not so important and mostly useless. The only usable ones are: Heavy Traffic Ban: to avoid heavy cargo trucks inside residential areas. Recycling: so citizens generate less garbage. Industrial Space Planning: to plop less and more efficient Industrial areas. Small/Big Business Enthusiast: to generate more income from commercial areas, but at the cost of increasing the Goods demand ("Not Enough Goods To Sell" dilemma). High Tech Housing: it plops nicer and less traffic prone residential areas.
Services: There is little to no challenge on balancing the city services whatsoever. To avoid complains/abandoned areas the service availability need to be well over the demand. And I mean over a 100 times more in some cases. Since services work for leveling up RCI this is no much of a problem.
Water/Sewage/Healthcare/Death Care/Fire/Police: Plop as many as necessary until every inch of road is green. Done.
Electricity: Unlock the Fusion Power Plant. Done.
Garbage: Set all districts policies to Recycling (this reduces city garbage production). Plop as many Incinerators as necessary. To avoid traffic jams put them in a separated area connected to a highway. It does not need to be near the city at all nor covering the roads with green color. Create 3/5 separated areas with 10 to 15 Incinerators in each corner on a 9 tiles city.
Education: Plop as many elementary/high schools as necessary until every inch of road is green. Be careful not to plop too many Universities. Just 3 or 4 is enough on a 9 tiles city or your industry will get abandoned since university graduates will no take cheap industry jobs.
Transportation/Tourist: Busses are "la creme" of traffic congestion. I only use Metros, Trains, Ships and Trams since these area the most effective and generate lest traffic spawn. Remember that citizens morph (literally) into cars if there are no other transportation options available. Set the trains and cargo in separated circuits to avoid jams. It is more important for cargo trains to go outside than passenger trains. Tourist are almost for cosmetics since theres no gain on income when they get to the city. Airport and Taxies are for visuals only. Sadly, plopping any kind of transportation circuit path is a huge mess in this game and erasing any road will cut the circuit in half and leave the transport vehicles clueless. Many times is better to erase all the circuit and start fresh.
Decoration: Plop as many decoration as necessary until every inch of road is green. I only use the Paradox Plaza, the new Fishing Pier and Volleyball Court since these are the best up-keep cost, size and influence area ratio effective.
Unique building: Use them for cosmetics only (I really dig the Snow Fall ones!).
Economy: Never touched the Taxes/Budget (ever).
So, I thinks thats about it. Great, fun and beautiful game overall with lots of things to do and spend time working on. There's only one big low point in my opinion and it is that CS is not really challenging. In fact, there is almost no danger at all regarding the city development as long as you over provide services and fix traffic flow (I remember forgetting SC2013 running on the background and then finding half my city burned to the ground or abandoned...).
As a wish list It would be great to add more depth and challenge to the game. Industry Specialization with different kinds of Factories like in SC2013 would be great too. And letting the player choose what kind of game he wants to play. Such as money, entertaining, tourism or farming oriented cities.
So, I hope that this post was no too boring and help other players to achieve their projects. If you be got any questions please ask. I leave you guys with a few pics of my city.
Best.
Note: Underground highway system.
General stats.
Last edited:
- 3
- 3
Even 300,000 seems a bit low for a city that looks like that.
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