Cities Skylines

[flexy]

I would appreciate it if someone has (or has links for) beginner tips.

I tried multiple times to start a city and ALWAYS end up in a disaster due to lack of electricity and water.

The money in the beginning is not enough to make a halfway sizeable city with power plants and water??

Also....all maps are starting out with the large highway/freeway intersection, do I need to connect them both? Why? It forces me into a specific way to design my cities which I don't like.

Also..are there mods which can give the cities a more "European" feel? I also don't necessarily like that all cities and buildings look "American" no matter what you do.

Short: I need starter tips to get a city going. Should I just start with 4-5 buildings, a power plant, water etc. and then look from there?

(I don't want to play with the "unlimited money" option for the time being)

 

[Yuriman]

I generally start with one pump station, one drain station, and one wind plant where it can generate 7-8MW. Then, I add roads and zones as I can afford it, keeping an eye on power and halting expansion if I'm getting close to my power production. Try not to expand too quickly.

So far, I've found I haven't needed to build a coal plant for a city that fits within one square. They seem far too much investment and monthly cost until you start to fill several squares.

 

[Regs]

Can't wait to play this. As I played Sim City over 10 years ago, this would bring me back - except I no longer have a lit cigarette burning my fingertip and a bag of Oreo cookies on my lap.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

So far my only semi-major frustration is the highways. I absolutely hate having to do each direction separately. I can see how that would be beneficial in some situations, but for grid builders like myself it's just supremely annoying. At the least, I would like to be able to change the direction of the flow after construction so I don't have to sit there trying to line it up with the other section of highway.

I also find the on ramps to be rather picky. Half of them it will let me upgrade to 2 lanes, half it won't. It insists the grade is too steep.

You can actually make both lanes of the highway right on top of each other. In terms of placement, it helps if just starting the highway to build two in the same direction, with the straight tool, snap to grid OFF for the second highway. Once you've got a decent length for each highway, delete a section in the middle of the highway that needs to change direction. Enable snap to grid again, and re-plop the highway in the correct direction where you just bulldozed it before. From here, bulldoze the old sections and rely on the snap to grid feature to continue the highway.

I would appreciate it if someone has (or has links for) beginner tips.

I tried multiple times to start a city and ALWAYS end up in a disaster due to lack of electricity and water.

The money in the beginning is not enough to make a halfway sizeable city with power plants and water??

Also....all maps are starting out with the large highway/freeway intersection, do I need to connect them both? Why? It forces me into a specific way to design my cities which I don't like.

Also..are there mods which can give the cities a more "European" feel? I also don't necessarily like that all cities and buildings look "American" no matter what you do.

Short: I need starter tips to get a city going. Should I just start with 4-5 buildings, a power plant, water etc. and then look from there?

(I don't want to play with the "unlimited money" option for the time being)

In the beginning, it's most cost effective to build a starter city/suburb by the highway to get the cash flow positive. To best use the highway and to have the option to upgrade later, I always:
1.) Lay down a 1 grid section of road. This will unlock one ways and the other roads.
2.) Lay down 1 way roads matching with the highway direction for a decent distance. These can later be upgraded to highways.
3.) Lay one medium stretch of 4 lane that can later be upgraded to a 6 lane (4 lane roads are horrible with larger populations due to every intersection having a street light). This will serve as the town center
4.)...
5.) Branch off industrial and residential to have a small buffer zone. Resist the urge to have a big contiguous commercial zone as it will swamp traffic. I find multiple 4x4 blocks of commercial interspersed with residential is best.
6.) Plop down 1x coal in your industrial district, and a water pump upstream, outflow downstream. Don't place them super far apart as pipe and electricity lines are very expensive for when you start up. I ran my first city into the ground by not understanding how expensive those lines are. You can relocate all of these buildings later at 20% cost.
7.) Build out slowly, get the positive cash flow first.

 

[Homerboy]

Played a little over the weekend.
What a fantastic game.

I'm finding it hard to adjust my play though from the latest SimCity though... my city thus far is so.... uncreative. It just looks like a HUGE SimCity city -- tryin g to cram as much density into one little spot as humanly possible.

Dumb question -- landfills keep getting full. Is the only cure to just build a pile of incinerators?

I'm almost fearing this game might be TOO much for me to handle

 

[Homerboy]

Followup question:

Think a AMD A8 7600 w/ IGP could run this?
Would love to install on my son's PC.

 

[XiandreX]

I would appreciate it if someone has (or has links for) beginner tips.

I tried multiple times to start a city and ALWAYS end up in a disaster due to lack of electricity and water.

The money in the beginning is not enough to make a halfway sizeable city with power plants and water??

Also....all maps are starting out with the large highway/freeway intersection, do I need to connect them both? Why? It forces me into a specific way to design my cities which I don't like.

Also..are there mods which can give the cities a more "European" feel? I also don't necessarily like that all cities and buildings look "American" no matter what you do.

Short: I need starter tips to get a city going. Should I just start with 4-5 buildings, a power plant, water etc. and then look from there?

(I don't want to play with the "unlimited money" option for the time being)

I used the following couple of clips to get my self going. Helped a lot.

Essentially only 3-4 short streets, a strip of road next to the water source and run 1 water pump, 1 drainage pipe and 1 power source.
Run just enough water and electricity to cover the areas.
Zone some green , blue and yellow. Keep the yellow at least a house size away.
Start slow. Go to the Green tab button at the bottom and reduce the electricity and water budget to 50%.
Increase budget as needed. Take things slow. Make sure you get to a point where you are making money even
if its slow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKEWpof6xho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2C1gjVAtyk

 

[XiandreX]

Played a little over the weekend.
What a fantastic game.

I'm finding it hard to adjust my play though from the latest SimCity though... my city thus far is so.... uncreative. It just looks like a HUGE SimCity city -- tryin g to cram as much density into one little spot as humanly possible.

Dumb question -- landfills keep getting full. Is the only cure to just build a pile of incinerators?

I'm almost fearing this game might be TOO much for me to handle

I am curious as well as that's all I have seen to counter it.

Followup question:

Think a AMD A8 7600 w/ IGP could run this?
Would love to install on my son's PC.

It should work fine. What resolution?

 

[Yuriman]

Followup question:

Think a AMD A8 7600 w/ IGP could run this?
Would love to install on my son's PC.

This might help:

http://www.game-debate.com/news/?ne...tle=Cities Skylines Benchmark GeForce GTX 650

I want to say a 650 is on the order of 25% faster?

 

[Homerboy]

This might help:

http://www.game-debate.com/news/?ne...tle=Cities Skylines Benchmark GeForce GTX 650

I want to say a 650 is on the order of 25% faster?

Yeah, I'm thinking if I bump to resolution and settings he should be able to run it decently enough.

 

[JTsyo]

I would appreciate it if someone has (or has links for) beginner tips.

I tried multiple times to start a city and ALWAYS end up in a disaster due to lack of electricity and water.

The money in the beginning is not enough to make a halfway sizeable city with power plants and water??

Also....all maps are starting out with the large highway/freeway intersection, do I need to connect them both? Why? It forces me into a specific way to design my cities which I don't like.

Also..are there mods which can give the cities a more "European" feel? I also don't necessarily like that all cities and buildings look "American" no matter what you do.

Short: I need starter tips to get a city going. Should I just start with 4-5 buildings, a power plant, water etc. and then look from there?

(I don't want to play with the "unlimited money" option for the time being)

You can also try the wiki guide for some tips. In the beginning don't build too fast, try to keep your budget positive. If you keep running into money problems, trying drawing a district around some industry over some natural resources and turning them into an oil district. It brings in 35% extra revenue. Expect a lot of truck traffic though, place it near the highway with a lot of access.

 

[Regs]

You know what I like about this game the most? How much it exposes EA/Sim City of being a pile of over-budget and over-priced garbage.

 

[Homerboy]

You know what I like about this game the most? How much it exposes EA/Sim City of being a pile of over-budget and over-priced garbage.

 

[InfiniteLurker]

Dumb question -- landfills keep getting full. Is the only cure to just build a pile of incinerators?

I had this same question, and when I had multiple landfills, emptying the full ones resulted in them emptying into other landfills rather than the incinerator I had added.

Then the light went on for me. Incinerators have their own garbage trucks, and a higher number than a landfill does. I ended up setting my landfills to all empty their contents, and the incinerator was working overtime, so one more incinerator to get good coverage for it's trucks, and that was it. Once all the landfills were completely empty, I bulldozed them. The garbage overlay available via the upper-left menu will show you how close you are to needing another incinerator.

I believe the same idea applies to cemeteries and crematoriums, although I haven't tested it out yet.

 

[Dahak]

I had this same question, and when I had multiple landfills, emptying the full ones resulted in them emptying into other landfills rather than the incinerator I had added.

Then the light went on for me. Incinerators have their own garbage trucks, and a higher number than a landfill does. I ended up setting my landfills to all empty their contents, and the incinerator was working overtime, so one more incinerator to get good coverage for it's trucks, and that was it. Once all the landfills were completely empty, I bulldozed them. The garbage overlay available via the upper-left menu will show you how close you are to needing another incinerator.

I believe the same idea applies to cemeteries and crematoriums, although I haven't tested it out yet.

I might have to look into that for the landfills and incinerators too, but i believe for the cemeteries it does not give you the option to empty them

 

[Homerboy]

I might have to look into that for the landfills and incinerators too, but i believe for the cemeteries it does not give you the option to empty them

Nope... the cemeteries do actually.
I'm REALLY hoping the animations for it are what I envision

 

[XavierMace]

You can actually make both lanes of the highway right on top of each other. In terms of placement, it helps if just starting the highway to build two in the same direction, with the straight tool, snap to grid OFF for the second highway. Once you've got a decent length for each highway, delete a section in the middle of the highway that needs to change direction. Enable snap to grid again, and re-plop the highway in the correct direction where you just bulldozed it before. From here, bulldoze the old sections and rely on the snap to grid feature to continue the highway.

Which gets super expensive.

 

[TeknoBug]

You know what I like about this game the most? How much it exposes EA/Sim City of being a pile of over-budget and over-priced garbage.

Couldn't have said it any better :thumbsup:

Followup question:

Think a AMD A8 7600 w/ IGP could run this?
Would love to install on my son's PC.

Works on my i3 with IGP albeit running Linux (Linux client is an absolute resource hog though) at 1080p.

 

[Subyman]

Yeah, I'm thinking if I bump to resolution and settings he should be able to run it decently enough.

I ran it last night with a GT 640 and was able to play with everything turned to low at 1440p. Game still looks fine enough to play it.

Thanks for all the tips everyone is posting. I just played it for the first time last night and am really enjoying it. I didn't think about expanding, just trying to get the basics down. That means my roads are pretty terrible for trying to upgrade them later. I'll likely start again. I tried starting by only using wind turbines for power, but that was a bad choice.

 

[vshah]

It will probably be $5 dlc with how city builder games work.

No, they've confirmed it will be a free update.

 

[BurnItDwn]

After playing for a while over the weekend .. I see a lot of shortcomings when it comes to highways/ramps, there are no 2 lane ramps or 3 lane ramps, highways currently cant be 8 or 10 or 12 lanes, NAM is MUCH more expansive for SC4.

One other complaint, the support pillars for the highways, they are kinda picky/finicky. Would be better if they could be dynamically moved when placing something under highway...

Still, this game is a lot less annoying then using NAM for ramps. And a lot more expansive than SC4 base game for highways.

I want to see wider/more lane highways and bigger ramps and interchanges with multiple turn lanes... perhaps the design of the game will allow that for a future expansion or update, if not, I can live without....


Good game, certainly worth the price, a lot of great things, some room to improve.

 

[SharpHawk]

Still, this game is a lot less annoying then using NAM for ramps. And a lot more expansive than SC4 base game for highways.

I'm thinking of getting either this or SC4 + Rush Hour + mods. Which do you think is a better simulation?

Also, does Cities: Skylines have missions or just sandbox?

 

[SLU Aequitas]

Which gets super expensive.

Well, yeah, not suggesting it when you're starting up a city, but I'm sitting on ~8M with 20k in the black, I can afford to build - destroy - rebuild to fix things up. Also you do get a partial refund when you bulldoze the things you just built.

 

[BoberFett]

This game looks like a big pile of awesome. I wish I had time for all the amazing games coming out these days.

 

[Homerboy]

I can't get away from my grid mentality... Everything is perfect city blocks. No wasted space. Freaking SimCity has programmed me too well!