Cities: Skylines

[The Destroyer]

This is everything I've ever wanted. I must buy ASAP.

[Brethern]

In my case, it adds burden and limitations without adding anything I need or want. The only time I was unable to play a game I bough, it was because Steam was belly up. There's no reason for that, a single player game shouldn't need an Internet connection (or a client you can setup to be in offline mode). Period. Cards? Library? What the hell is that and why would I care about it?! I want to play the game, not exchange cards or whatever you do with them. I spent 20 years gaming with out a library of games in the cloud, I certainly don't need one now.

Anyways, the fact remains that the game looks cool and I can wait 5 years until it goes on sale at gog.com for 9.95. I have plenty of other games.

Survival of the fittest mate, either you adapt to the new fangled way of doing things or you go the way of the dodo.

[DuoDex]

I'm about halfway into being addicted to the game.

Twenty-eight thousand residents in one tile.

Rating : 9/10. Some of the traffic behavior the cars exhibit is downright stupid in my opinion, and there's some other nitpicky stuff that annoys me, but it's a great game.

[ZedNova]

I'm about halfway into being addicted to the game.

Twenty-eight thousand residents in one tile.

Rating : 9/10. Some of the traffic behavior the cars exhibit is downright stupid in my opinion, and there's some other nitpicky stuff that annoys me, but it's a great game.

Luckily it's got mod support, can't wait to see what the community makes.

[Camacha]

Survival of the fittest mate, either you adapt to the new fangled way of doing things or you go the way of the dodo.

Sure, I will adapt. But I am also very aware that somewhere in the next 15 years all my games will be gone, because Steam has died one way or another. And yes, I am the kind of guy that likes to play games that are that old. I do not want to rent these games, I want to buy them. Not to mention the numerous times I was not able to play my own games already, just because Steam was off-line, needed updating and internet was not available or one of the many other reasons Steam does not do what it is supposed to do.

Third party dependency is a bad idea for a whole host of reasons, but unfortunately we have little choice. I buy what I can without Steam, the rest I will just have to accept.

Edited March 11, 2015 by Camacha

[Superfluous J]

In my case, it adds burden and limitations without adding anything I need or want. The only time I was unable to play a game I bough, it was because Steam was belly up. There's no reason for that, a single player game shouldn't need an Internet connection (or a client you can setup to be in offline mode). Period.

I've never had this problem, and if the game company does it right (like Squad did) you actually don't need Steam for anything but downloading each patch.

I spent 20 years gaming with out a library of games in the cloud, I certainly don't need one now.

I don't *need* it either (and have been gaming for over 30 years), but it's really, really nice to go through a library of 50, 100, 200, or whatever games you've purchased but don't have installed (because let's face it, even these days there's only so much hard drive space for multi-dozen-gigabyte games you play once every few years if at all) and go "Oh. Tomb Raider. I never finished that did I? *click* install *click* play *click* your save is right there.

Anyways, the fact remains that the game looks cool and I can wait 5 years until it goes on sale at gog.com for 9.95. I have plenty of other games.

True dat. But after so many iterations of these games that didn't do it for me, I can't help but be excited for one that might.

I'm about halfway into being addicted to the game.

I'm about halfway to buying it

[Red Iron Crown]

Some of the traffic behavior the cars exhibit is downright stupid in my opinion...

So...it's an accurate traffic simulator then?

[Elthy]

I realy like this game, the problem is im bad in designing good traffic lines. Maybe i should use more one way streets...

[Superfluous J]

I was going to watch a few LPs of this game to see if I wanted to buy it, but then I accidentally bought it instead.

[Brethern]

Sure, I will adapt. But I am also very aware that somewhere in the next 15 years all my games will be gone, because Steam has died one way or another. And yes, I am the kind of guy that likes to play games that are that old. I do not want to rent these games, I want to buy them. Not to mention the numerous times I was not able to play my own games already, just because Steam was off-line, needed updating and internet was not available or one of the many other reasons Steam does not do what it is supposed to do.

Third party dependency is a bad idea for a whole host of reasons, but unfortunately we have little choice. I buy what I can without Steam, the rest I will just have to accept.

Seriously? you're thinking about 15 years later? In 15 years you're probably not going to care about video games.

In the last 15 years I don't play half the video games I used to, frankly if I log more that ten hours a week in a game it's a miracle. Besides given valve's history if steam was ever in a situation where it was going to close down they would release a patch or whatever it is to allow you to play your games without steam.

[Deadpangod3]

I played the game yesterday, after bankrupting my first city (i think it was the cost of the policies things that did it) i think ive got the hang of it in my second city.

the game is awesome and i cant wait to play it more when i get home from school today

[Superfluous J]

I played a bit this morning and had a similar problem to Deadpangod3. My first city was just to learn, and my second is coming along nicely. I've not gotten out of the "low density" phase but already have a positive money flow, basic city services, and am expanding inward from the starting freeway into the middle of the map where hopefully I'll have a little metropolis of my own some day.

So far so good. This is the city building game I've wanted since SC3000 didn't cut it for me.

[Darren9]

Hmmm, £10 more and a three day wait for the deluxe PC-DVD from Amazon vs. the basic from Steam now. Is the DVD still Steam? I have a feeling I won't be bothered to wait.

[FishInferno]

Hmmm, £10 more and a three day wait for the deluxe PC-DVD from Amazon vs. the basic from Steam now. Is the DVD still Steam? I have a feeling I won't be bothered to wait.

I think the AMazon is a game code to download from steam. Thats how it was for me with CivBE

[Darren9]

I think the AMazon is a game code to download from steam. Thats how it was for me with CivBE

Are they allowed to put "PC-DVD" on the box for a code? I was expecting a disc but still have to uncrunch it through the Steam client. That would of really agitated me, I caved in and clicked in Steam to have it now anyway.

[Cirocco]

Right, had the game for two days now, here's my two cents:

the amount of fun I'm having with this game is obscene.

Great citybuilder, intuitive and easy to get into, yet offers a lot of more in-depth gameplay with policies and the like. Quite forgiving though, not a game for the hardcore gamers out there who want to be seriously challenged and punished hard for every mistake (at least it isn't at the level/city size I'm playing).

Could do with a bit better explanation of the impact of certain building/functions (public transport, I'm looking at you), but overall and absolutely awesome game that has sucked me in completely. Last night I literally did a double take after glancing at the clock and going "holy **** midnight ALREADY?!"

Lots of stuff that I didn't see in other citybuilders (and which stopped me from buying them) is present in this game. Looooots of customisation is possible, though a word to the wise: make a couple practice cities that go up to decent population, then start over and PLAN AHEAD! Especially when it comes to your your road network! Don't be afraid to use highways for creative solutions (large roundabouts FTW!).

So yeah, absolutely awesome game. Also, because of all the policies and micro-management stuff, I can make GLORIOUS SOCIALIST PARADISE! DA, COMRADE!

[Deadpangod3]

i got to high density zones and skyscrapers and stuff yesterday (provided their small skyscrapers)

also unlocked hydro dams shortly before i went to bed, but didnt get to build one :/

upgrade lots of my low density residential areas to high density areas because of the tsunami that is residential demand

my city is really starting to look like a proper city instead of a group of houses and commercial buildings with some industry nearby.

[Randox]

After spending a few hours and getting a nice city established, I found the manual (I had looked for it in game files, forgot to look for the link in steam). It hasn't cleared everything up for me, but it's good to know things like families prefer low density residential, so I probably want to keep significant amounts of that around. Also, I think offices are sort of like a high density version of industrial (higher education demand, but very little goods production, so a bigger difference than you see with the others). I had been assuming offices were commercial (because they're blue). I think this makes more sense though, since commercial sells goods produced by industry and offers public services (like hotels), which offices obviously don't fit into.

I've also figured out some stuff with roads and not creating intersections that I don't need to, but I think I can fit that into my current city. I'm basically developing a bunch of fairly isolated districts (they all connect, but I'm trying to build them such that people don't need to move between them too much), so my traffic systems should continue to work anyway. I'm trying to build the suburbs first and then develop a downtown later, so that I don't have to deal with upgrading early infrastructure (I learned from other games).

I seem to be doing pretty well. Some residential re-zoning aside, I've been pulling a steady profit since like day 10 (lost it for a few days re-zoning). Some ups and downs, including a massive labour crisis in the industrial sector (no uneducated workers cause a lot of abandonment), but things are back to a nice balance and demand for residential and commercial is high, and I'm about to tap into the rail network to further relive the strain of industrial on my roads (right now I use districts and separate highway connections). I am however failing at property value and public transit, and it's keeping my property values pretty much at medium in most places, and my industry seems to be starting to freak out over services. Apparently commercial and industrial upgrade based on services, which seems to include transit, so its worthwhile. I think I have enough money to put in a metro instead of clogging up my entire city with busses, which also saves me from mapping out too many routes. Probably helps tourists too.

I also feel like I might have gone a bit to far from "everything is grids" towards "everything is all curvey". I was trying circular designs to see if that would help traffic, and I might have taken it too far. I think I'm going to try and keep things more on the regular grid for high density, especially since they need large zoned areas to build in, and leave more of my freeform for low density stuff. Still, everything does look pretty nice, though what I have built may never look like a city. theres no large whole sections yet, everything is split up by highways, a river, and some train tracks.

[Deadpangod3]

i think traffic always only uses one lane instead of all of them on large roads, or mostly try to stay in the lane where they can get to where their going from where they are, even when their nowhere near it, hopefully this is fixed.

[Camacha]

Right, had the game for two days now, here's my two cents:

the amount of fun I'm having with this game is obscene.

Great citybuilder, intuitive and easy to get into, yet offers a lot of more in-depth gameplay with policies and the like. Quite forgiving though, not a game for the hardcore gamers out there who want to be seriously challenged and punished hard for every mistake (at least it isn't at the level/city size I'm playing).

Could do with a bit better explanation of the impact of certain building/functions (public transport, I'm looking at you), but overall and absolutely awesome game that has sucked me in completely. Last night I literally did a double take after glancing at the clock and going "holy **** midnight ALREADY?!"

Lots of stuff that I didn't see in other citybuilders (and which stopped me from buying them) is present in this game. Looooots of customisation is possible, though a word to the wise: make a couple practice cities that go up to decent population, then start over and PLAN AHEAD! Especially when it comes to your your road network! Don't be afraid to use highways for creative solutions (large roundabouts FTW!).

So yeah, absolutely awesome game. Also, because of all the policies and micro-management stuff, I can make GLORIOUS SOCIALIST PARADISE! DA, COMRADE!

I totally agree with this. Amazing in depth gameplay, a not perfect but nonetheless pretty impressive simulation, lots and lots of detail, pleasantly large maps and massive amounts of tinkering. Also not unimportant is that performance seems to stay on par as the city gets larger. This game burns hours. If anyone is still on the fence: this is what SimCity should have been, and probably a lot more. I cannot get over how much EA messed that one up, and how this small team created an absolutely gorgeous game.

The point you make about things not being explained all too much is true, though I feel a bit that is part of what makes a city builder. If you want to be told what to do, go play a modern triple A title that takes you by the hand. If you want to create, explore, fail and build, go play this game. No fan of the genre can be disappointed by how this turned out.

also unlocked hydro dams shortly before i went to bed, but didnt get to build one :/

Be sure to save first. Not only do they cost a lot of money, they tend to flood your city sometimes and that is a real pain, as the water sometimes stays put after flooding your streets.

Edited March 13, 2015 by Camacha

[Randox]

The AI follow two very simple rules:

1. Vehicles will always take the nominally fastest route.

2. Vehicles will always get in the correct lane as soon as possible.

The traffic flow doesn't appear to be a driver AI, it's more like packages being forwarded in the postal system (I think the roads are controlling cars based on routing tables. It would be the simplest and least intense implementation for a system that has to handle potentially thousands of vehicles at once on road networks that offer thousands of possible routes. It just uses a lot of RAM, and might be a big part of the reason this game want's 6GB of it). So AI wont use all the lanes, especially on 6 lane roads, unless you design the road network to make that happen.

The system certainly has some downsides, but it does make traffic flow very predictable. Once you understand how it works, you can make the AI use the roads in the way you want. Perfectly predictable traffic is a city planners ideal situation, so while the AI might be really stupid, they are also easy to plan around.

I doubt this will be fixed, I think it's working exactly as it's supposed to.

[Camacha]

I doubt this will be fixed, I think it's working exactly as it's supposed to.

They are still tinkering with it, so as it is supposed to be it is apparently not They fixed the AI not using roundabouts properly. One improvement I would like to see made it that the chance of a car being in the right lane is ever closer to one as it approaches its exit. That way the cars are more distributed and it is a relatively simple addition that should not take too much calculative power - you could even make it easily update only every X time, rather than continuously.

Edited March 13, 2015 by Camacha

[Superfluous J]

They are still tinkering with it, so as it is supposed to be it is apparently not They fixed the AI not using roundabouts properly. One improvement I would like to see made it that the chance of a car being in the right lane is ever closer to one as it approaches its exit. That way the cars are more distributed and it is a relatively simple addition that should not take too much calculative power - you could even make it easily update only every X time, rather than continuously.

What I want to see is drivers waiting until the last second and cutting across 3 lanes of traffic to get from the left turn lane to the onramp, which causes the massive backlog of traffic to get worse.

...like in real life.

[RocketPilot573]

Just bought it today. And all I have to say is... Wow.

Summery: This game is a complete rip-off of Simcity 2013, except it's the polar opposite of a rip-off.

[megatiger78]

why do people hate SimCity?