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Giveaway412

Sergeant
13 Badges
Sep 29, 2017
77
8
  • Cities: Skylines Deluxe Edition
  • Cities: Skylines
  • Cities: Skylines - After Dark
  • Cities: Skylines - Snowfall
  • Cities: Skylines - Natural Disasters
  • Cities: Skylines - Mass Transit
  • Cities: Skylines - Green Cities
  • Cities: Skylines - Parklife Pre-Order
  • Cities: Skylines - Parklife
  • Cities: Skylines Industries
  • Prison Architect
  • Cities: Skylines - Campus
  • Crusader Kings II
I’ve been playing this game for a long time and browsing the Paradox forums and Cities: Skylines reddit for about as long. I love the game and I love what the devs are adding, I’ve bought just about every DLC because it’s all been very worthwhile, especially as of late. Contrary to what many may think, I still believe there’s much potential for new game content, and I’d like to see the game expanded to its full potential. As such, I have three ideas here for future expansion packs which I think will enhance the game tremendously. My goal is to foster discussion so please leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Many ideas are borrowed from the following people to increase exposure, make sure you read and comment on their original posts as well:

@Zerotheligerhttps://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...dlc-casinos-beach-and-golf-long-read.1179681/

@Devan0848 - https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/maritime-dlc.1184941/

@Erls - https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/city-council-dlc-proposal.1236693/

ISLAND CITIES

I feel like the biggest thing lacking in the game currently is a way to spruce up the coastlines. As such, I feel the next DLC should be centered on expanding everything related to water and beaches. Despite the name “Island Cities”, most of the features in this pack can be applied to any map with a body of water.

Marinas - New park buildings that dramatically increase the land value and happiness surrounding them and need to be placed connected to water. When placed, pedestrian boats will spawn from them and autonomously sail in the waters connected to it, filling the sea with life. There could be multiple tiers of marinas, earlier ones spawning fishing boats and sailboats while more expensive variants spawn whale-watching boats, houseboats, and finally yachts. Most Marina buildings have nodes that allow you to connect Boardwalks to them (see below).

Boardwalks - A new network path introduced in the expansion, available for pedestrian use only but it has a few special mechanics. For one, they can be zoned on, so houses can be built connected to them though obviously the cars of the people who own the houses would have to be parked on the nearest actual road. Secondly, when built at sea like bridges, pedestrian boats launched from Marinas can park at the sides of them much like cars do on land-based roads, allowing boardwalks to function as docks as well.

Promenades - New network path designed to look good next to quays and coastlines, with fancy tiling and trees lining the paths. They come in two variants: a purely pedestrian promenade, and a wider promenade still designed primarily for pedestrian use but allows cars to traverse slowly down the middle lane. Idea borrowed from the Network Extension mod.

Beaches - New park designation like the ones introduced in Park Life (I know some are tired of this mechanic, but I think it’s a great way to give creators more control over their cities) designed for use on coastlines. Beach paths blend in well with the sand to connect building to building, and park buildings such as bonfires, surfing spots, dune buggy tracks and large coastal resorts increase the attractiveness of the park. Props such as tents, towels, vending machines and parasols help complete the look. Policies are included to limit littering and the hours the beach is open.

Landscaping - New rocks, tropical plants, and coral reefs are added to spruce up the coast, both above and below the water (Maybe some bioluminescent coral so the water glows at night)? Sand can now be placed from the landscaping editor in-game. Owners of Snowfall will be able to do the same with snow, to designate colder areas such as mountaintops- it will still rain in snowy areas, but trees placed on snow will appear to have snow on their leaves.

New Commercial Specialization - Commercial districts can now be specialized as Seaside Commercial and will cause low-density commercial to develop into surf shops, seafood restaurants and tiki bars. They will increase in attractiveness when placed close to water (and be less attractive than regular commercial when placed away from water) and bring in tourists. The Tourism specialization from After Dark will now be a purely high-density specialization that creates large hotels, and low-density buildings from that specialization will be moved to Seaside.

Cargo Ferries - Cargo Ferries, or Barges, are ships designed to carry cargo over water from one point to another. This is different from Cargo Ships, which deliver cargo by water from outside the city, as Cargo Ferries would transport cargo within the city limits. This would allow players to build self-sufficient towns on islands away from the mainland without the use of bridges, and if they are using bridges, it could considerably free up traffic from commercial and industrial trucks on those roads. Cargo Ferries would require the construction of a Cargo Ferry depot, but they could use the same routes as Passenger Ferries.

Garbage Barges - A new pier building unlocked around the same time as the Incinerator that will periodically have trash delivered to them, before spawning large Garbage Barges that carry it outside city limits using the same pathways used by Cargo Ships and Cruise Ships.

Coast Guard - Occasionally, pedestrian boats, passenger ferries, and cruise ships at sea will experience emergencies, such as springing leaks or hitting underwater reefs. When this happens, the boat will stop in its tracks, and an icon indicating distress will appear over it. Coast Guard Stations are a coastal building that spawn Coast Guard speedboats (and possibly helicopters) to aid these ships. When a boat (or helicopter) reaches a distressed ship, the issue will be corrected, and the ship will continue on its way. If the Coast Guard does not reach the vessel in time, however, it and its passengers will despawn and seaside attractions will experience major reductions in attractiveness for a long duration.

Lighthouses - Another Coast Guard building, reduces the likelihood of nautical emergencies in its large radius.

Beach Housing - Concurrently with the expansion pack, a DLC pack adding Beach-themed houses as a district theme will be released, much like European Suburbia or University City. These houses are designed to compliment the buildings added by Island Cities.

GOVERNANCE

The Governance expansion pack is designed to expand the reach of the City government, add new policy options, make the player feel more like the mayor of a large city as well as add some assorted other features that are highly requested. This would be a larger DLC, and possibly as game-changing as Industries.

Contracts - This feature could probably use a better name but I’m going with this one for now. As Mayor of the city, once you build a City Hall building (unlocked early on) you will occasionally be presented with “missions” representing requests by concerned citizens or the higher government. These contracts can either be accepted or denied with no consequences. If accepted, an objective is provided, and a reward is given if the objective is completed. These can range from simple (enabling a policy or placing a service building) to much more complicated (providing public transport between two parts of the city, creating a certain kind of district, zoning a certain number of industrial squares, etc.) but the reward scales to the difficulty of the objective. To preserve the sandbox feel of the game, these can be completely ignored with no consequences or possibly even outright disabled with mods.

Government Buildings - In addition to the City Hall, a new series of Government Buildings are available to be plopped in the city. Bureau of Commerce, Department of Education, Department of Health, etc. While expensive, each building provides a slight global boost to its corresponding department, as well as unlocking powerful new policies and possibly even new building options.

Homeowners Association - A new Parklife-esque district zoning type focusing on Residential buildings. This feature makes a plethora of new low-residential style houses available to for the player to plop, varying in size from about the same as the growable residential houses at lower levels, to large mansions at the higher levels. At the highest level, you unlock the option to turn the houses in the Association into a gated community, requiring you to place a gate at the entrance and prohibiting non-residents (besides services) from entering. Families in Homeowners Associations prefer Charter Schools (see below) and require a certain amount of Charter School availability in addition to other factors for the zone to level up. Notably, once a Homeowners Association has been placed, the houses it unlocks can freely be placed outside its bounds and function as homes.

Malls - Another new Parklife-esque zoning type, this one focusing on Commercial. Malls can be built as either sprawling outdoor malls, massive indoor complexes, or a combination of both. Notably, if building an indoor mall, the mall comes in “pieces” that can be assembled modularly, with each one (except the entrance) not requiring a network to connect to as long as they’re connected to another piece of the mall. This gives the player some degree of control as to the shape of the mall. Outdoor mall pieces include plazas, shops, cafes, boutiques, and other various commercial outlets that can be connected to either pedestrian path or road. Malls can be massively profitable but require lots of cargo deliveries, so good road access is a must, and can decrease the attractiveness of nearby commercial zoning.

Military Bases - The final Parklife-esque district, the Military Base is unlocked when you receive a contract asking you to build a base of a certain size within the city limits. To construct one, a gate must be placed, and then you can place a variety of buildings within such as barracks, obstacle courses, shooting ranges, officers’ quarters, tank yards, naval docks, airstrips, and missile silos, as well as props such as sandbags and guard posts and the like. Military hardware and uniforms are given a generic look as in Sim City to avoid representing any real-world country’s military. Military Bases create lots of jobs and significant income, but also generate lots of crime, noise pollution, and are a definite NIMBY.

Charter Schools - (Borrowed from @Erls, please check out his suggestion post linked above) “Charter Schools include a new Elementary School and High School. Each School costs the same as the standard schools do, however they charge money for admission and have a reach 4x as long as conventional schools. They raise money, and are always preferred by households in Homeowners Associations, however each student in a Charter School decreases the effectiveness of a standard school on a graduated scale. Each student (in raw numbers) that attends a Charter School adds .01 % to the ineffectiveness of the standard schools. Thus, for every 100 kids in a Charter Elementary school 1% of students at a standard school are not educated. However, a multiplier of 0.1 is added based on the percentage of kids in a Charter school - Thus, if those 100 Charter kids were exactly 2% of the total elementary school body you would multiply the raw number (100) by 2% and add it back, giving you 120 - or a failing rate 20% higher.”

(Free Update) Parking - Parking is the major feature to come in the free update, adding several new buildings- parking lots of various sizes, and three tiers of parking garages. So as to avoid overwhelming people, parking is not suddenly a major demand of cities, and cities will not crumble if you don't add parking lots. However, parking lots boost the happiness of Cims around themselves, and Cims will prefer to park on a parking lot rather than on a road. Parking Garages function about as you would expect, providing more parking than standard parking lots. However, parking lots have some new zoning functionality.

VEQmay2.png

(On the left is the zoning grid of an empty road, on the right is the zoning grid of a road with a single 4x4 parking lot attached. Excuse my crummy MS paint skills)
Parking lots snap to the grid of roads, but they have their own zoning grids attached to them in all four cardinal directions, allowing you to place a parking lot on the road and then grow a building behind it, making creating strip malls and the like a much easier task. Furthermore, additional parking lots can be attached to the extended zoning grid of the first parking lot, allowing you to create vast, massive parking lots in any shape you like. Be aware though that at least one lot needs to be attached to a road, or else they won't function.

CITIES OF SPLENDOR

The third and final expansion pack idea, focused on casinos, tourism, and wealth. Many might think “But After Dark already focused on those things!”, which is true, but I feel that After Dark was created when CO had a different mindset. They likely did not know how successful Cities: Skylines would be, or how much DLC would be greenlit, so they tried to put as many highly-requested features as possible in After Dark. The day/night cycle, casinos, bike lanes, bus lanes, taxis, and more were all added, but none of them got quite as much attention as later additions did. I feel that it would be reasonable for another expansion pack to take a crack at these things, to bring them up to a higher level of polish.

VIPs - A new, special, one-of-a-kind tourist that visits your city when its popularity is high, or sometimes when a special event is happening (see below). VIPs are celebrities that tend to spend more money than regular tourists and if they have a positive experience in your city, you’ll get a boost to your tourism attractiveness, so always ensure they have lots to do. Limousine depots can be placed to spawn Limousines, taxis that can carry multiple passengers and are the preferred means of transport for a VIP. (Possibly) also “VIP” roads, roads only accessible to VIPs and service vehicles to ensure they have good access to important buildings, but that might be too powerful.

Events - Certain buildings are capable of hosting events that will draw a lot of people, both living in and outside of the city, to come visit them in the span of a day or so. Make sure these buildings have good road access to account for the increased traffic, and that VIPs can get there on time. A new building, the Convention Center, is the first building unlocked that is capable of hosting events, and the Match Day and Campus sports matches are retroactively considered events.

Casino Strips - Another Parklife-style district that adds a multitude of Casino buildings as well as Casino/Hotel hybrids, plazas, fountains, swimming pools, arcades, and lots of neon light props. Casino buildings should come in a wide variety of styles, ranging from Monaco to Vegas. These districts can net quite a bit of income, but cause a significant crime increase. They are especially attractive to tourists and VIPs and are capable of hosting events.

Golf Courses - A new park-type zoning centered around the titular sport. Ploppable buildings include several variations of holes, club house or country club buildings, driving ranges, golf cart rentals (with functional golf carts that can use pedestrian paths), as well as associated props. Golf carts are VERY expensive to keep and maintain but are extremely attractive, drastically boosting the land value around themselves. Golf Courses can host events such as golf tournaments.

Movie Studios - A Parklife-style zoning district (I swear this is the last one) or alternatively a very large ploppable building. I would prefer to see it as he former, allowing you to dedicate a zone to various studios, stages, outdoor filming locations, painted backdrops, a walk of fame, and props such as cameras and lights. Movie Studios are a good way to make money and tend to attract VIPs such as actors or directors, and host events such as film premieres.

Race Tracks - A Match Day-style stadium… except the ploppable building has network nodes attached to it, allowing you to place raceways that define the shape of the Race Track. Like Match Day stadiums and the event buildings introduced in this expansion, races will be held at the Race Track, and like Campus the city can even sponsor its own racer. Furthermore, raceways function as two-lane roads when they aren’t being raced on, allowing you to run them through your city- they’ll be closed of to the public when a race begins.

Desert Map Type - A new type of environment to build cities in. Desert maps, obviously, are almost entirely covered in sand, although a few grass patches may be present. Functionally they’re about the same as any other map, but new props are available for it such as desert rocks, palm tree variants, and cactuses of several types.

Casino City - A new building style sold in a DLC alongside the “Cities of Splendor” expansion that affects high-density residential, restyling them as colorful, grandiose buildings that would not look out of place in Monaco.

I'd like to foster as much discussion as possible, so please leave your thoughts below, and I'll edit any suggestions into the post.
 
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I want parking lots and garages. I don't want to have to spam them though. Just use them where I want to, and not be penalized for not using them somewhere else. (Workshop, yeah, yeah.)

Beaches/water areas need some loving.
 
I have to say I like a lot of this. I'm not sure about government or military as those have been controversial topics before, but the rest of it looks quite interesting.
Thank you for commenting! I can definitely see why there'd be concerns. With the government features, I specifically avoided adding any features related to real-world politics- I know some people actually go as far to suggest adding real-world political parties, which to me is absolutely absurd. Military can be controversial but Simcity did it well and I think it's fine as long as you avoid styling it after a real country's military or including any actual fighting. After all, military bases are often a feature of real-world cities and towns.

At the end of the day, such topics can be controversial but I think it drives home the dilemmas of running a city. It's not all sunshine and daisies, a player has to make many tough judgement calls about what to do with traffic, pollution, unemployment, disasters, etc. In the real world, topics such as environmentalism and industrialism have been controversial, but I still think CO hit them with flying colors with Green Cities and Industries. I'm confident they could pull off government and military.

I want parking lots and garages. I don't want to have to spam them though. Just use them where I want to, and not be penalized for not using them somewhere else. (Workshop, yeah, yeah.)

Beaches/water areas need some loving.
That was my intention with the parrking mechanics. I wanted something that would be a benefit, but wouldn't kill your city if you didn't use it. They boost attractiveness and Cims like to park in them, but Cims don't actually need to park and still have their pocket cars. But they look nice and would help get parked cars off the street.

Also agree on the Beaches. Hope that's the focus of the next expansion.
 
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Thank you for commenting! I can definitely see why there'd be concerns. With the government features, I specifically avoided adding any features related to real-world politics- I know some people actually go as far to suggest adding real-world political parties, which to me is absolutely absurd. Military can be controversial but Simcity did it well and I think it's fine as long as you avoid styling it after a real country's military or including any actual fighting. After all, military bases are often a feature of real-world cities and towns.

At the end of the day, such topics can be controversial but I think it drives home the dilemmas of running a city. It's not all sunshine and daisies, a player has to make many tough judgement calls about what to do with traffic, pollution, unemployment, disasters, etc. In the real world, topics such as environmentalism and industrialism have been controversial, but I still think CO hit them with flying colors with Green Cities and Industries. I'm confident they could pull off government and military.

I agree, I wouldn't mind military, perhaps as an extension of the police, or government for that matter, I just remember how many disagreements have been made in the past that, if we assume Paradox read all this stuff, I am skeptical they'll ever do it.
 
I love all of yor ideas! (only military base should be removed for me because less important element)

soory for my bad english i am french (but I understood what you say)
 
If charter schools were to be implemented, they shouldn't receive the educational boost policy benefit considering it's effectively independent from the standard schooling system in the game, in my opinion.

Already and as you know, the Campus DLC allows you to privatise schools and charter schools is really a PPP. By the way, why do charter schools get a 4x value in area effectiveness?

Would this be due to the fact that certain residents in your city can afford the fees charged by the charter school?

Thanks, Stal
 
I like most of these ideas. I really wish the game had a better parking simulation. Have lots of cheap parking and people will drive, have little and make it expensive and they don’t. I also love the idea of casinos and golf courses.
 
I wanted to add my support with this topic, hopefully bump it but also add my other thoughts.
I love all these ideas. I'd also like to see more along the lines of sports as well. Waterfronts need love with zonable beaches and water things to do like boat and jetski rentals. Parasailing would be cool and the nodding community has done pretty awesome with these.
I'd also like to see more with sports and recreation. We have some with the professional games but smaller regional stadiums for baseball football and soccer. I'd like to see golf courses and foot tracks, bike and car racing, skateboarding parks and things of those nature. Sunset harbor was a step in the right direction with fishing boats but having a nicer marina would be cool.
 
While beach resorts and marinas are good ideas they should've been included in Sunset Harbour, I don't think that they deserve a seperate DLC now.
Governance themed DLC is definitely a great concept but I think the ideas proposed here (other than contracts) have very little substance, it should include a major rework of many in-game mechanics (for example crime causing other problems than people moving out of a city, people rioting against certain decisions like raising taxes or building NIMBYs like landfills, factories, nuclear power plants, noise generating objects and other inconvenient buildings such as prisons - currently cims don't object anything, they'll get sick but if if the healthcare is provided they'll still live near such objects) - probably most of this content should be as a part of free patch in order to prevent turning off DLC for easier gameplay.
Military bases (or other contract buildings like for example SimCity had toxic waste dumps) shouldn't be a Parklife-esque because such things are not managed by city administration. There should be other possibilities such as importing/exporting trash or electricity (I know that the latter would require modification of many maps in order to include outside power lines connection but still).
Such DLC also should include Traffic Manager functions. I mean seriously - why CO have not yet included functions that modders created years ago?.
Also I'd like to see a working arcology building.
 
While beach resorts and marinas are good ideas they should've been included in Sunset Harbour, I don't think that they deserve a seperate DLC now.
Governance themed DLC is definitely a great concept but I think the ideas proposed here (other than contracts) have very little substance, it should include a major rework of many in-game mechanics (for example crime causing other problems than people moving out of a city, people rioting against certain decisions like raising taxes or building NIMBYs like landfills, factories, nuclear power plants, noise generating objects and other inconvenient buildings such as prisons - currently cims don't object anything, they'll get sick but if if the healthcare is provided they'll still live near such objects) - probably most of this content should be as a part of free patch in order to prevent turning off DLC for easier gameplay.
Military bases (or other contract buildings like for example SimCity had toxic waste dumps) shouldn't be a Parklife-esque because such things are not managed by city administration. There should be other possibilities such as importing/exporting trash or electricity (I know that the latter would require modification of many maps in order to include outside power lines connection but still).
Such DLC also should include Traffic Manager functions. I mean seriously - why CO have not yet included functions that modders created years ago?.
Also I'd like to see a working arcology building.
People have gone over it again and again and again (repeat infinity times). Traffic Manager increases processor strain, MAYBE NOT EXCEEDING PC/CONSOLE CAPABILITIES but it does push it above the specs the game is advertised as running on, something that Paradox can't do, legally.
 
People have gone over it again and again and again (repeat infinity times). Traffic Manager increases processor strain, MAYBE NOT EXCEEDING PC/CONSOLE CAPABILITIES but it does push it above the specs the game is advertised as running on, something that Paradox can't do, legally.
Yea. I asked on Twitter a while ago when they polled what mods should be in one of the updates. They said they can't but they know how essential it is. Even if I was sticking to pretty much vanilla, there are a few mods I can't live without. This and move it are prob my most needed.
 
Well even if there is an increase in resource usage it's not like they can't include at least some of TMPE features (like yield signs - you already can choose in game between traffic lights, stop signs or no signs at all, so I guess adding yield sign that requires to stop only when there is a vehicle nearby isn't that much of a deal, same thing with turning lanes - they can be changed in base game with using different kinds of roads but other than that you have no control. There is also truck ban district policy so why don't they move it to road menu? Otherwise vanilla players need to paint tons of small districts in order to prohibit trucks in certain areas).
 
Just having the lane connector from TMPE would make a huge difference and wouldn’t require that much of a tweak to AI. Vehicles follow the arrows and change lanes in advance according to where their turns will be made so the ability to “force” traffic to turn how we want wouldn’t change the traffic AI as will carry on following the current traffic rules in game. At least that’s how I believe it would work I’m not a modder/programmer