Should I get Cities: Skylines?

[Atlas2342]

Is it worth it?

[Dafni]

I got it when it was on sale, but man, those Kerbals, they would not let me play anything else than KSP

 

my friends here are all over it though, so I'd say it must be a decent game

Edited April 7, 2016 by Dafni

[RainDreamer]

I mean...why not? It is a decent city building game, with lots of pretty buildings and multiple mod content to customize your playing experience. There is also Cities XL, but I prefer the modability of skyline. Managing traffic is a pain though...

[pxi]

Bought it on sale myself a few months ago.  It didn't hold my attention as long as I figured it would, but there's nothing wrong with the game per se.

I wouldn't tell you not to buy it, wheras I certainly would tell you to avoid the last SimCity.

[The Destroyer]

32 minutes ago, pxi said:

Bought it on sale myself a few months ago.  It didn't hold my attention as long as I figured it would, but there's nothing wrong with the game per se.

I wouldn't tell you not to buy it, wheras I certainly would tell you to avoid the last SimCity.

I agree with you. Also, make sure you have a decent cpu because if you have a FX-4100 you get lag over 70K population and you cri as your city grinds to a halt

[cantab]

Well I say yes. It's my second most played PC game after KSP.

It's one of the best city building games there is, rivalled only by Sim City 4 really. It's excellent for creative freedom and building on a scale worthy of the term "city". However it's rather forgiving and easy, expect a creative sandboxy experience not a tough management challenge. What gameplay there is is 90% road design and traffic management, making it sometimes feel one-dimensional. And the expansions aren't really worth their full price.

[Rainbowtrout]

Buy it. I only have 30 hours on it but it's really good. If you can run it, don't hesitate to pick it up, ideally in a sale.

[Endersmens]

I agree, make sure you have a good computer. When your population increases (read: when it get really fun) it uses more and more resources. Most people hit a limit where frame rate slows to Cities: Skylines, and interactive slideshow. For me this is about 50k. Had to stop playing because of it. :/

 

If your PC is good then by all means get it! You will have lots of fun.  

[Spaceception]

It's up to you but I'd say yes, I've seen lets plays of it, and it looks really fun

[HebaruSan]

21 hours ago, cantab said:

However it's rather forgiving and easy, expect a creative sandboxy experience not a tough management challenge. What gameplay there is is 90% road design and traffic management, making it sometimes feel one-dimensional.

Yeah, I've found that once you get a basic grasp of traffic and how to place services, the gameplay becomes pretty uneventful. Pick an area for a new subdivision, draw roads till it's saturated with buildable areas, designate the zoning, place a very simplistic water pipe network, add access to electricity, wait for the population to fill in. Repeat. I have not had to do much serious analysis to figure out problems my city was having, other than perhaps chronic railroad congestion (which can only be solved until rail traffic volume increases again, over which you have zero control).

The end-game mechanics are not great. There are a handful of game-breakingly good buildings available (infinite electricity, infinite healthcare, infinite education, etc.), and to unlock them, you have to build all of a lower tier of unique buildings with a variety of unlock requirements. However, those lower tier unique buildings have no function except as recreation/tourism destinations and increasing land value, and those benefits don't cover their exorbitant upkeep costs. In my cities, I've spammed all of them in a designated wonder-ghetto, then opened their properties and turned them off, just to unlock the top tier stuff. It feels insufficiently designed.

The budget is kind of opaque and random-feeling. I've watched weekly net income fluctuate between -10000 and +20000 without me making any changes to the city. Luckily it's easy to accumulate a reserve for padding so the current specific budget numbers matter less than the long term trend. You can see how much you're spending overall in categories like health and transport, and you can scale expenditures up and down proportionally, but it's hard to tell whether you're meeting needs or overspending until, say, dead bodies are piling up all over the city. Similarly, sea ports and train stations show you how much you're spending on upkeep but not how much you're making from the added commerce, so you have to guess whether they're worth it.

I also found the natural resources run out too quickly. You build a whole section of your city to exploit oil or ore, and by the time the population in that area is settled and stable, the resource is gone and it's just another generic zone. I decided to install an infinite resource mod so such areas could retain their distinctive character.

But I can't say I had no fun with it. The visuals are particularly good. If you like city builders, your time and money will be relatively well spent. If you don't like city builders, I wouldn't expect this game to draw you into the genre.

[legoclone09]

I've got it and tried to start it multiple times. It was very fun but I could never make my city work, even though I've gotten tons of working cities in SImCity 5 from a year or two back.

[SpaceMouse]

Absolutely. Fantastic city builder with a great selection of mods already.

[StrandedonEarth]

The last SimCity I played was SimCity 4. The one fun thing from that that I find missing in CS is the disaster feature. Other than that it's great, but traffic is always a pain, like any other City sim.

Today I wanted to get the "Observatory" which requires 1000 abandoned buildings, so I cranked up the taxes. My population crashed from over 100k to 30k, ending with a sea of red ink on the city's bottom line. The population has recovered to about 60k so far, but the budget is still wonky. I still have an awful lot of bulldozing to do. All those black w/grey house symbols are abandoned buildings waiting to be bulldozed, and that's just a small portion of the city. A fair number of bodies to pick up to, since I've slashed the medical budget.

Edited April 10, 2016 by StrandedonEarth

[HebaruSan]

1 minute ago, StrandedonEarth said:

I still have an awful lot of bulldozing to do. All those black w/grey house symbols are abandoned buildings waiting to be bulldozed, and that's just a small portion of the city.

The mod to auto-bulldoze abandoned and burned down buildings is one of my must-haves. If a game presents me with a "problem" the solution to which is to click the same things over and over, I'll install a mod for that every time.

[RainDreamer]

3 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

The last SimCity I played was SimCity 4. The one fun thing from that that I find missing in CS is the disaster feature. Other than that it's great, but traffic is always a pain, like any other City sim.

Today I wanted to get the "Observatory" which requires 1000 abandoned buildings, so I cranked up the taxes. My population crashed from over 100k to 30k, ending with a sea of red ink on the city's bottom line. The population has recovered to about 60k so far, but the budget is still wonky. I still have an awful lot of bulldozing to do. All those black w/grey house symbols are abandoned buildings waiting to be bulldozed, and that's just a small portion of the city. A fair number of bodies to pick up to, since I've slashed the medical budget.

The lives of citizens in a city building sim is a rather ... disposible it seems. 

[StrandedonEarth]

8 hours ago, RainDreamer said:

The lives of citizens in a city building sim is a rather ... disposible it seems. 

Yeah, you'd think they were a city of kerbals. But that's nothing compared to SC4, where you can torment them with earthquakes, tornadoes, and gigantic robot attacks.

[RainDreamer]

1 hour ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Yeah, you'd think they were a city of kerbals. But that's nothing compared to SC4, where you can torment them with earthquakes, tornadoes, and gigantic robot attacks.

At least those has a cartoonish element to them. But tax raise and health care budget cuts? Hits too close to home.

[StrandedonEarth]

14 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

The mod to auto-bulldoze abandoned and burned down buildings is one of my must-haves. If a game presents me with a "problem" the solution to which is to click the same things over and over, I'll install a mod for that every time.

Thanks for that, that cuts down on a lot of drudgery. My ghetto is certainly keeping the auto-dozer busy. I still haven't managed to recover it yet, despite trying a few different strategies. The best I could do so far is slow the bleeding.

[cantab]

On 08/04/2016 at 3:51 PM, HebaruSan said:

The budget is kind of opaque and random-feeling. I've watched weekly net income fluctuate between -10000 and +20000 without me making any changes to the city.

This only happened when they brought in the day-night cycle, and commercial buildings generate less taxes at night. To be honest it's still a mess though, especially because one night lasts about three months.

17 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

The mod to auto-bulldoze abandoned and burned down buildings is one of my must-haves. If a game presents me with a "problem" the solution to which is to click the same things over and over, I'll install a mod for that every time.

Be careful though. An intact abandoned building transfers power, the empty space when it's demolished does not. You could get the power cut to a whole neighbourhood, or even your entire city, by the auto-bulldoze mod and if you don't realise and restore power quickly then you get your city decimated.

[StrandedonEarth]

2 minutes ago, cantab said:

Be careful though. An intact abandoned building transfers power, the empty space when it's demolished does not. You could get the power cut to a whole neighbourhood, or even your entire city, by the auto-bulldoze mod and if you don't realise and restore power quickly then you get your city decimated.

So I've now noticed, as I try to recover my ghost town. I think I almost have it functioning again; the population is growing and the budget is almost balanced. But I'm over 500k in the hole so I can't build power lines if needed.

[HebaruSan]

1 hour ago, cantab said:

This only happened when they brought in the day-night cycle, and commercial buildings generate less taxes at night. To be honest it's still a mess though, especially because one night lasts about three months.

I assume it varies from city to city. My second one was much more profitable and stable, which I attribute mostly to using only the cheapest roads in a huge integrated mess rather than trying to set up tiers of land value with appropriate arterial connections.

1 hour ago, cantab said:

Be careful though. An intact abandoned building transfers power, the empty space when it's demolished does not. You could get the power cut to a whole neighbourhood, or even your entire city, by the auto-bulldoze mod and if you don't realise and restore power quickly then you get your city decimated.

Oops, that's a good point. The mod is essential for the day to day "a building has been abandoned" tedium, but it is a bit of a risk when trying to unlock the observatory. I must have had enough savings to see me through that whole process without dipping into the red. I hope I didn't wreck @StrandedonEarth's city.

[StrandedonEarth]

44 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

I hope I didn't wreck @StrandedonEarth's city.

Nah. I wrecked my city all on my own. But I have saves so I can always go back if I can't salvage it.

 

[StrandedonEarth]

I'm happy to say my city has finally recovered, back up to 95k population and the bank account in the black. After being down to 30k pop and about 875k in the hole. Had a little hiccup when I accidentally let over 1000 dead bodies pile up.