Cities: Skylines (the Sim City we deserve)

[MatskiMonk]

Thought I'd have a mess around with the Barge mod.

SDV Oil now has a barge port, since it's on a river, and running in a rail line would have been slightly tricky, goods can leave on a barge, go down river to another terminal that's next to a rail freight terminal, and send goods out that way.

... in theory ...

... in practice, it's still faster for trucks to get to the rail freight terminal via road... so the barges didn't get used.

I've built the ship yard at the bottom end of the map, which doesn't actually have any road links yet, and placed another barge port next to it. That stimulated a flurry of activity, though the logistics network for my industry is only about 20% done, so even at 50% output the shipyard keeps running out of stuff... and of course, with no road links the Ship Yard won't work properly for long, but as I've seen pointed out somewhere, it's the only unique factory that doesn't generate any outgoing industry traffic of its own, and with incoming goods mostly arriving by barge, it should cause little traffic.

I now have way too many areas that I've started, or thrown together, that need finishing. I need a solid week or two where I don't even unpause the game, to get things back looking respectable.

 

[eran0004]

@Samus Yeah, those non-90 degree corners is a bit of a problem. You can plant some trees in the corner to try to hide the gap, or you can use the oddly-shaped lots for building mini-parks. You can also try to keep the European buildings for the square lots and use the international style buildings for the odd lots. If you zone in clusters of, say, 4x4 grid units, and leave one grid unit free in between them, you can make it look like the gap at the corner is "by design" since you have deliberately left some land open on other parts of the lot as well. I'd especially recommend that for taller buildings, since they should ideally have some open areas around them.

I've seen some other games, like The Architect Paris, that uses procedural buildings. That's something they should explore if they ever make a CS2.

 

[PJTierney]

Obligatory “I want this in the console base game of the sequel” opinion:

 

[Samus]

On a similar note, watching a video like this just makes me cry.

 

[Samus]

I made an interesting series of discoveries last night. In my ongoing quest for wider, tidy walking paths mimicking pedestrianised areas I accidentally realised you can place those square tiles from park areas anywhere you want. Three of them look too garish for use in cities except for Zoo, which is basically brown brick, something a lot of real pedestrianised areas are. So I stuck them between buildings to see how they looked.

Not too bad. Plus the really neat thing is they just act like regular ground, you can still put props and trees on top of them. So I started designing some nice walking areas.

This would be surrounded by commercial, naturally. But then when I ran the simulation I realised a rather big flaw, pedestrians won't walk on the tiles like they do within a park. I was just going to leave it but then I decided to see what happened if you lay a proper path on top. Bit of experimenting I found park paths on either side worked quite nicely

But then another accidental discovery while playing around. If you place a normal path exactly in the middle of two rows of the tiles the path becomes a tile path!

Tested it for real and sure enough, people will walk on it like any other path. You can definitely 'see' the real path in the pattern from certain angles but as with anything vanilla, you just have to live with some issues. I'm pretty happy though, and will be using these liberally going forward.

I'm sure I'm not the first one to discover this but it was certainly not something I'd ever seen in any YouTube videos I'd watched.

 

[eran0004]

I started working on a new map. Mainly because I had an idea on how to improve the tree planter algorithm for the Python Console mod.

The first image shows how the old version of the algorithm typically distributed the trees, a very even and uniform distribution (this is a 1024x1024 meter square):

The second image shows the result of the improved algorithm, where I've introduced a probability constant. This constant defines the probability that a tree is planted (in the case it's set to 0.2). If the probability is less than 1, there will be some gaps in the distribution of trees. And because of this it allows the trees that do get planted to be planted closer together, without any increase in the number of trees used. As a result, the trees spontaneously form clusters, which I think makes the forest a bit more interesting to look at.


Here is the map I'm working on. Snowfall, lots of water, endless coastlines.

 

[Samus]

@eran0004 looks lovely. Plop down one cabin, job done.

 

[eran0004]

With the terrain pretty much finished I started building the highway. I really enjoyed making the main bridge over the shipping lane.

The bridge is around 2.5 km long and the clearance under the main span is somewhere between 50 and 60 meters (the road surface is 65 meters above the sea level). Hopefully that's tall enough for the cruise ships.

Next to the bridge is the interchange leading towards the starting area. Designed with Network Multitool of course. I made it to be reasonable in size for a small town. Once it expands you can always upgrade the interchange.

Added an old castle ruin on the island next to the shipping lane. I imagine it would have been a strategically important location back in the days.

 

[eran0004]

The map is complete! I will share it on the workshop as soon as I've fixed a thumbnail for it.

I have started with the main town of the map. The plan is that this little town will develop incrementally and end up as a big city. I've stolen the idea from Two Dollar Twenty, I heard he'll be using a similar game plan for his next series.

The town is now mostly low density residential, with a single row of low density commercial. The sawmill and the farm are the two big employers. In the background you can catch a glimpse of the public works campus, with the power plant, sewage treatment, snow dump, boiler station and recycling centre.

This view, with the long straight road and the snow-covered fields, makes me think of Fargo.

I need to find a way to give my graphics a more blue (or even neutral) tint though, it looks very yellow here by comparison. (Edit: it looks a bit better on my phone though, perhaps it looked more yellow on my laptop because it went into “night mode”.)

By the way, I saw Biffa was preparing for the Red Bull esports competition by building a replica (well, a park version) of the Red Bull Ring Didn't expect that to happen.

 

[eran0004]

Really liking the winter atmosphere, especially at nighttime

The town is starting to grow in density and I've replaced a few intersections with higher capacity roundabouts.

 

[JohnBM01]

Apparently, Red Bull's Twitch channel is trying to make "Cities: Skylines" into an eSport right now. One of the different challenges put into place is to build the highest populated city in 30 minutes. One player's city got flooded and later had a sinkhole form. Yikes! There are a total of about seven or eight challenges Red Bull is setting up for this.

 

[Samus]

One of the different challenges put into place is to build the highest populated city in 30 minutes

That started out as a challenge on YouTube between all the well-known streamers, I guess Red Bull saw something in it.

 

[redhed17]

I enjoyed the Red Bull Cities Skylines event. There were certainly varied challenges. 😉 If they do it again, there are certainly things that need improving, particularly the display and explanation of the results of each challenge. Some challenges were scored out of 15 points with multiple criteria, but they didn't show how the results were arrived at, and then didn't show the results, just added to the total points the players already had. When it is a challenge that someone has judged, rather than a challenge iwth a winning number for something, the judging needs to be a bit more transparent imho.

I mainly watched Biffa's stream, with the Red Bull stream on as well so that I could see the other competitors doing the same challenges. Biffa showed a lot of the Red Bull coverage between challenges, though talking over their images. Weirdly, Biffa's stream was about 10-15 seconds ahead of the Red Bull stream. Not sure how that works. Also not sure how it would be just watching the Red Bull stream on any events in the future, should they do something similar in the future without being invested in a particular competitor.

 

[eran0004]

I watched Biffa’s stream as well, unfortunately I didn’t have time to watch all of the challenges (the only one I watched from start to finish was the biking one). It was entertaining but I agree that the scoring was a bit confusing and it would have been interesting to hear each builder present their result.

I also think it was a bad idea to have unlimited funds because the builds got too stressful and rushed. With a limited budget they would have had to focus on building smart, I think that would have made it more interesting.

 

[Samus]

I also think it was a bad idea to have unlimited funds because the builds got too stressful and rushed. With a limited budget they would have had to focus on building smart, I think that would have made it more interesting.

Yeah the original YT challenge versions didn't have it on and it was better, because they had to quickly work out how to generate income and wait for money to come in to build things, but they still had to quickly decide what to build, which would be best to stimulate growth. With it off, they just slap everything down without thinking.

 

[eran0004]

Started working on the city centre. It's still a pretty small town (the population is 3000), so I'm keeping the building heights relatively low.

This is the view from the small cemetery close to the city centre. I like how the sunlight hits the facade of that apartment block.

This intersection here was kind of messy, the roads connected in a kind of awkward way and it didn't make much sense. So I converted it into a monumental roundabout / square and I'm very happy with the result. I took some inspiration from Liberty Square in Tbilisi, but the connections are a bit different. The big lot in the upper left part will be turned into a park at some point in the future. Need to think about a way to make it look interesting though, landscaping is hard when everything is covered in snow

 

[Samus]

Has anyone else played any of the scenarios, in particular the Mass Transit ones? I remember briefly having a go at the traffic one a while ago but never really got into it, I decided to try them again yesterday whilst I was getting frustrated with my main build.

The ferries one was pretty simple, just build up the city, dot the ferry terminals around and turn on the prefer ferries policy, get there eventually.

The traffic one was trickier because the layout is SO atrociously bad, and you have to get back up to 35,000 before a certain point, but I got it first attempt.

The one called 'Trains' though is rather misleading in that the challenge is not really in the trains, it's in having to get to 12,000 population very quickly. Way quicker than if you build at a natural steady pace. First attempt I didn't even get past the first barrier, 1000 pop within 20 weeks. Second attempt I did, but I was miles short of the 12,000 target, barely 8,000.

Looking up online it seems sadly the only way you can get there is by building the most uninspired, boring grid city and constantly zoning. Never even let the bars rise a little. Which sucks, because then trying to stitch trains into it once you get to 12k is going to suck. It also means you'll have death waves later on, you'll have a city full of uneducated for a while because you give nobody a chance to go through schools, and overall it's going to be one boring city full of issues that you then have to stuff trains into.

 

[Samus]

Got it on the fourth attempt but....at what cost.

Actually went a bit too quick this time, finished with 25 weeks to spare. Surprised the traffic held up so well, but I guess my roundabouts helped. Most grid cities don't seem to have them, because I assume people mimic US cities that rarely have them.

Anyway now to actually tackle the trains part of the scenario. I'm thinking I'll start building a normal area of the city off to the side and gradually tear down bits of the abomination and remodel. Can't go too wrecking ball crazy though, got to stay above 12k at all times now.

 

[Darla Starch]

because I assume people mimic US cities that rarely have them.

tbf traffic circles are the devil's work

 

[Samus]

tbf traffic circles are the devil's work

Heh, well the cims certainly still struggle with them. Those already on the roundabout stop midway round and give way to entering traffic, the exact opposite of what is meant to happen. If you put a stop sign on the entering traffic so they give way then they just never enter and get backed up.

They also like switching lanes mid-way between exits and block both lanes.

Oh to have traffic manager on console.

 

[eran0004]

Finally got a train connection set up. This project cost my dear taxpayers more than 300,000 due to an unfortunate planning mishap. I wasn’t happy with the style and location of my first train station, so it got demolished and instead I built another one closer to the waterfront. Don’t know what the taxpayers have to say about it, but I think the new station looks great

I used the network multitool mod to connect all the tracks, it’s fantastic!

 

[sirjim73]

Finally got a train connection set up. This project cost my dear taxpayers more than 300,000 due to an unfortunate planning mishap. I wasn’t happy with the style and location of my first train station, so it got demolished and instead I built another one closer to the waterfront. Don’t know what the taxpayers have to say about it, but I think the new station looks great

I used the network multitool mod to connect all the tracks, it’s fantastic!

View attachment 1076678View attachment 1076676View attachment 1076677

Message from your taxpayers...

 

[eran0004]

That feeling when you see the entire fire department driving by in a hurry...

Taxpayers trying to tell me I'm fired? 🤔

 

[Darla Starch]

Message from your taxpayers...

Urgent message from the mayor's office:

 

[eran0004]

There may be an arsonist on the loose here. What makes matters worse is that the health and safety standards of the local fire department explicitly states that trees are off limits for ground-based fire crews.

 

[redhed17]

There may be an arsonist on the loose here. What makes matters worse is that the health and safety standards of the local fire department explicitly states that trees are off limits for ground-based fire crews.

View attachment 1076808

View attachment 1076809

An alternate option to the city heating. Toasty!

 

[eran0004]

The city is slowly but surely approaching the shoreline. I'm taking more and more inspiration from Stockholm because I realised that the landscape is very similar with all the water and islands and the general shape of the terrain.

At the top of the picture you can see the new harbor for passengers and cargo, quite far from the city centre but I will probably add a metro line heading in that direction since the central station has a metro stop that currently doesn't to anything.

Good to see that the cruise ship fits under the suspension bridge, even if it's a close shave 😅

A postcard view of "New Stockholm".

 

[sirjim73]

The city is slowly but surely approaching the shoreline. I'm taking more and more inspiration from Stockholm because I realised that the landscape is very similar with all the water and islands and the general shape of the terrain.

At the top of the picture you can see the new harbor for passengers and cargo, quite far from the city centre but I will probably add a metro line heading in that direction since the central station has a metro stop that currently doesn't to anything.

View attachment 1077191

Good to see that the cruise ship fits under the suspension bridge, even if it's a close shave 😅
View attachment 1077193

A postcard view of "New Stockholm".
View attachment 1077192

Looking good 👍

If you're wondering what that strange noise is in the background, it's the sound of the ship captain praying as they go under the bridge.. 😂

 

[eran0004]

The university started again this week, so I didn't have a lot of time to play. Here's an overview of the road network though, with the roundabouts highlighted in red (the flow is actually really good there, don't trust the traffic analysis). As the city grows, the arterial road along the bottom of the picture will probably be upgraded to a motorway.

The budget game is fun to play, it creates an interesting dynamic. For example, I could use the Big Business Benefactor policy to boost the tax revenue from the commercial zones, but then I need to increase the flow of goods into the city, and in order to do that I need to build a cargo hub and a warehouse, and perhaps a loan might be necessary to afford that. But if I take a loan, perhaps there is some other thing I could do with that money that would generate a greater return on investment?

It's like half the game is gone when you play with unlimited funds, so I'm glad I chose to stick to a limited budget for this build.

 

[Samus]

@eran0004 Yeah unlimited money/full unlock is great to start a city the way you want without being forced into one of a few generic layouts that you can afford for $70k, but once you get going and build out a city with the expensive unique stuff pretty quickly, leaving you not much left but just filling in the remaining gaps with zoning and roads. Although I guess that isn't as much a problem on PC with limitless mods. Whereas with a budget, you have to wait for that $200k building with 5k upkeep, and it feels more worthwhile to get it down finally.

That's kinda where I'm at in my current city, and I've also hit that point at ~25-30k where traffic starts annoying you, no matter what you do.

Exhibit A below for example, a perfectly logical 2 into 2 highway merge with plenty of space before the next exit for people to get in lane. It should be smooth as butter, each side flowing into their respective lane. But no. The folks on the left are adamant they will get into the outside lane immediately, stopping and holding up the traffic behind as they wait to cut across.

And Exhibit B. A perfectly adequate, very large roundabout on an entrance to the city. But they can't use it properly, diving across lanes and stopping the other lanes, and generally getting the yielding the wrong way around, those on the roundabout already stopping for those entering the roundabout, or those in other lanes. If you set a stop sign on the entrances then they just sit there for ages and create jams behind. There is no winning with the limited tools.

The most frustrating part is knowing that it's all a 2 second fix on PC with the traffic mod. But on console we must suffer.