Cities: Skylines (the Sim City we deserve)

[redhed17]

Thanks! It’s a mod called CSL MapView. When you have installed it, go the the options menu while in the game, and from the mod options click on “export”.

Then you can open a separate application (think it’s also called CSL MapView or something like that) and that lets you see the map of your city.

Thanks for replying Eran. I did a search for something that could do it, and found the same one. Nice to have a 'map' of your city. I've always loved maps. Good way to get a view of the whole layout of my city, as I can't zoom out enough to see it all. It is more of a random mess than I thought it was.

I also downloaded a first person view mod, and that worked fine. It is weird how different the layout seems, and how quickly I lose where I am in the city in the first person pov.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Finally installed Snowfall and Natural disasters, so I'm running all the paid DLC.. man, the fan in my computer is flat out!

After 2 hours or so with the DLC's installed, the natural disasters add on decided to hit me with a 7.7 magnitude earthquake.... despite having switched off the actual disasters element of the pack. I wanted it for the additional services (helicopter first-aid and firefighting are a lot faster than the vanilla options), this killed one of my Campus DLC universities, and the surround area... I opted to go back to a previous save .. be careful with the ND DLC if you use it.

EDS just got updated, which sent the equivalent of a death wave through my industries... annoying since it hit the vanilla Industry (and OFFICE!) zones, which the EDS doesn't control

Lost a good few thousand citizens tonight, and bull-dozed a lot of buildings, including many growables that I placed by hand, which had become abandoned....

Thanks for replying MatskiMonk.

I don't have any one way tracks. I do have an area where lines do cross, as it was an area in the middle of the city I started (a Scenario) and had to adjust it to make a container station not affect the passenger trains, and I wasn't able to put in a pre-made junction next to the container station in the space. I maybe should have just got rid of the container station but I wanted to build on what was there for the most part.

Just remember, two way tracks have to cross each other like turning right at a T Junction on the road, if it's busy, it's going to make trains stop and wait.

 

[redhed17]

Finally installed Snowfall and Natural disasters, so I'm running all the paid DLC.. man, the fan in my computer is flat out!

After 2 hours or so with the DLC's installed, the natural disasters add on decided to hit me with a 7.7 magnitude earthquake.... despite having switched off the actual disasters element of the pack. I wanted it for the additional services (helicopter first-aid and firefighting are a lot faster than the vanilla options), this killed one of my Campus DLC universities, and the surround area... I opted to go back to a previous save .. be careful with the ND DLC if you use it.

EDS just got updated, which sent the equivalent of a death wave through my industries... annoying since it hit the vanilla Industry (and OFFICE!) zones, which the EDS doesn't control

Lost a good few thousand citizens tonight, and bull-dozed a lot of buildings, including many growables that I placed by hand, which had become abandoned....

After seeing some of Biffa's videos with the disasters on, I didn't like the randomness so switched it of. I don't like the idea of a lot of work being ruined. It is bad enough with the random fires.

Just remember, two way tracks have to cross each other like turning right at a T Junction on the road, if it's busy, it's going to make trains stop and wait.

Thanks MatskiMonk.

I've found it weird that trains, and metro's, sometimes decide to use seemingly the wrong platform. So sometimes a train will come into a station and move to the left platform, and then the next train from the opposite direction has to wait for the train to cross in front of it to clear the platform so it can enter.

 

[eran0004]

Lost a good few thousand citizens tonight, and bull-dozed a lot of buildings, including many growables that I placed by hand, which had become abandoned....

Ouch, that's quite a distaster. You should build some kind of monument to remember the event.

I discovered a nice trick with abandoned buildings. Before bulldozing you can use the move it mod to copy the building. The new copy will be a non-abandoned version of the same building. Then you can just bulldoze the old copy. It saves some time compared to having to look for the exact same building in the menu.

I've found it weird that trains, and metro's, sometimes decide to use seemingly the wrong platform. So sometimes a train will come into a station and move to the left platform, and then the next train from the opposite direction has to wait for the train to cross in front of it to clear the platform so it can enter.

I think it depends on which direction the train is going when leaving the station. If it continues in the same direction I think they don't switch sides, but if they go back the same way they switch. Although I haven't really paid too much attention to this, so it might be wrong.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Ouch, that's quite a distaster. You should build some kind of monument to remember the event.

I like that idea! It's in the area analogous to Manhattan in my city, it's the part I didn't like in V1 of my 25-tile city, and again this time round I'm really struggling to make it work visually, with everything I've already bull-dozed, I might take a new route of building out from the central station, instead of starting at the top of the Island. Lessons learned about traffic flow from V1 have definitely helped this time time though... adding Cape Ring junction was a big help!

I discovered a nice trick with abandoned buildings. Before bulldozing you can use the move it mod to copy the building. The new copy will be a non-abandoned version of the same building. Then you can just bulldoze the old copy. It saves some time compared to having to look for the exact same building in the menu.

Good to know, thanks. My concern is that they became abandoned because of the manner in which I'd place them, however it could also be the EDS mod affecting Office zones... might make a back-up of my save and just leave it running for a few hours to see if it sorts itself out, or, if this is going to be an ongoing concern.

After seeing some of Biffa's videos with the disasters on, I didn't like the randomness so switched it of. I don't like the idea of a lot of work being ruined. It is bad enough with the random fires.

Yeah, I switched off the random disasters option, but still got the massive quake. Some people on the workshop say you have to move the frequency slider to zero as well... which I've now done. I turn off fire spreading also, I don't mind the theory, it just makes the burned out area look rubbish with all the blackened ground.

I've found it weird that trains, and metro's, sometimes decide to use seemingly the wrong platform. So sometimes a train will come into a station and move to the left platform, and then the next train from the opposite direction has to wait for the train to cross in front of it to clear the platform so it can enter.

I think it depends on which direction the train is going when leaving the station. If it continues in the same direction I think they don't switch sides, but if they go back the same way they switch. Although I haven't really paid too much attention to this, so it might be wrong.

Yeah, this is the case as far as I've seen. I was in the habit of putting all my stations on spurs off the mainline, this works but I find making the spur long enough to stack a couple of trains either side of the station is the best plan. If a train can't queue before that little crossing without blocking a junction, it'll cause tail-backs.... on heavier traffic rail routes I still use one way sections to make sure trains don't have to cross each others patch to exit or enter the mainline. I'm not getting the rail traffic problems I had in V1 this time round at all.

edit: Discussion on Steam workshop would indicated the updated EDS mod is borked. Maps are seeing massively less export requirement. Mine dropped massively, I was importing about 1000 tonnes of goods (5000 total, but most was mail), and exporting about 7000 tonnes... my exports have now dropped below 3000, and my imports were about 9000 total. Hope they get this fixed, it's a really handy mod, but at the moment it's killing all my industry.

 

[Eks]

Just picked up the game on PS4 along with all the DLC, minus Campus. I've played it a bit on PC, but with a Pentium G3240 / GT 1030, my experience was not pleasant. It'd run okay-ish, but I just could not stand the load times (20 minutes was common). To see it load so fast and run as well as it does on PS4 blows my mind. I have to wonder if there were some cuts made to the quantity and quality of simulation. In any case, I'm having tons of fun with it.

I find myself running in to the same issues with every city I have: Not enough educated workers, then abandoned buildings. I don't understand why, I'm very excessive in my placement of schools, libraries, etc. Other than that, it's impossible to go back to SimCity 4.

 

[eran0004]

Just picked up the game on PS4 along with all the DLC, minus Campus. I've played it a bit on PC, but with a Pentium G3240 / GT 1030, my experience was not pleasant. It'd run okay-ish, but I just could not stand the load times (20 minutes was common). To see it load so fast and run as well as it does on PS4 blows my mind. I have to wonder if there were some cuts made to the quantity and quality of simulation. In any case, I'm having tons of fun with it.

I find myself running in to the same issues with every city I have: Not enough educated workers, then abandoned buildings. I don't understand why, I'm very excessive in my placement of schools, libraries, etc. Other than that, it's impossible to go back to SimCity 4.

I find that the "not enough educated workers" issue is mostly related to low density commercial and the fact that their employee education requirements go up as they level up - but they don't recruit new workforce. They only seem to recruit new people when their old employees die (or perhaps retire?). So in essence they complain about not enough educated workers, but they're too dumb to recruit new employees.

---

Over in my city I finished the island by building a fancy golf course / country club next to the palace and adding a lake to the palace gardens. Also gave the island a ferry connection.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Just picked up the game on PS4 along with all the DLC, minus Campus. I've played it a bit on PC, but with a Pentium G3240 / GT 1030, my experience was not pleasant. It'd run okay-ish, but I just could not stand the load times (20 minutes was common). To see it load so fast and run as well as it does on PS4 blows my mind. I have to wonder if there were some cuts made to the quantity and quality of simulation. In any case, I'm having tons of fun with it.

My load time from desktop to being in the maps is over 5 minutes now. I have to run the game with shadows off, anti-aliasing off, medium detail, medium textures etc... and now, even with no time progressing and focusing on low density areas, my CPU fans are flat out.

I'm running it with After Dark, Industries, Green Cities, Snowfall, Campus, Mass Transit, Park Life, Natural Disasters and Sunset Harbour DLC's installed, and the following mods; Traffic Manager, Enhanced District Service, Prop & Tree Anarchy, Network extensions 2, Move It, Find It, Show It, Plopable RICO or Plop the Growables (can't remember which), Big City (25Tiles), clouds & fog toggler, Advanced Outside Connection, Elektrix Road Tools, CSL Map Viewer, No Pillars Mod... and probably a couple more... and I've probably got only about 50 additional assets...

My 'big' city is still only at 80,000 population since I keep bull-dozing stuff. My target would be something like 300-400k, in a 25 tile city... but I know from previous when I get over 100k the game will sow down even more.

At 1× game speed the frame rate is alright, it starts to stutter a bit whilst actually doing anything. I'd love it to run silky smooth like on a PS4, but I don't think I can go back to the vanilla game.

It's prompting me to think a bout getting a new PC. Mines a good 10 years old, maybe more... so it's about due.

 

[redhed17]

As I add more Mods, but mainly assets, the startup is getting longer. It's about 1.5min atm. Still a lot better than 5 mins, so I'll count myself lucky. I run the game at1600x900 which is good enough, not sure what all the other setting are, defaults I assume, but the CPU and Graphics Card are still running flat out too. The Graphics Card wasn't bought with the intention of gaming, and the CPU wasn't either, and just the most powerful I could afford for mainly Photography and Photoshop.

I'm in a discussion in another forum atm about PC cooling as the weather gets warmer, as I was worried about doing damage to either or both of the CPU and Graphics Card. I should be OK though.

I normally get up to around 100k before I run out of ideas of what to build, but the city's still run pretty snappy up to now. I'm not putting in specific assets, or detailing. Most assets I try to add are larger buses, metro stations with multiple tracks and road intersections and rail junctions. I think you need a really powerful computer to get into detailing to any depth. Good luck to anyone who does it, thankfully it's not the way I play the game. Atm at least.

 

[eran0004]

The Loading Screen Mod speeds up loading quite a bit. Apparently it also saves 1.5 GB of memory for every 1000 assets you have. It's also makes it seem faster because you can see what is loading and get a rough idea about how much longer you need to wait.

On another topic: the helicopters from Sunset Harbor look great!

 

[eran0004]

New first person ride, following a truck delivering seaweed to the fish factory.

 

[redhed17]

Another good video Eran. 👍

I'm always amazed at the little things in the game in close up. In this video, the exaggerated leaning of the cars when taking corners is in this video right at the start, and always makes me smile. I hadn't seen the the female cyclist with the shopping bag attached and rolling along at the back. Either in the game or real life.

The Volvo design is perfect for a video game. I haven't gone in for cycle routes yet in my city's yet, but I didn't expect the cyclists to sometimes cluster in groups in the cycle lanes.

I've put in the first person view mod and I'm enjoying following random things around the city. I followed a Cim getting on a Monorail, so you see inside the Monorail station, onto the train, so you get the view of the train, off train onto bus, and the into school. The school was empty inside, but you could see out through the windows. Simple things, but it is fun.

 

[MatskiMonk]

The Loading Screen Mod speeds up loading quite a bit.

I think it knocked maybe a minute off my save file loading time 👍, though it's clear that it's two of the Expansion packs that take the most time to load.

I've also switched off the Enhanced District Services mod and Advanced Outside Connections mod. Something's just not right with them since the last update, and the 30 or so "Not enough buyers for goods" warnings I was getting all disappeared virtually straight away... my Import/Export stats started recovering straight away, and my generic office and industry areas are no longer ghost towns.

On the downside, industry traffic is no longer channeled along such specific routes between areas, so my traffic stats have gotten a bit worse. And I still get the odd "Not enough resources/special goods" message from certain factories, that frustratingly are sat next to warehouses containing tonnes of the required resource.

 

[eran0004]

Building a mine is a good way to fill a big part of the map.

And I made a video showcasing some intersections (and a bridge).

 

[MatskiMonk]

Yeah, had to record off the screen but here's my stacked junction...

.. you might hear in the background the CPU fan speeding up. Graphics settings were turned up, so it was virtually impossible to move the camera.



I need to pay some attention to the look of it... I'd like to get some more consistent or constant radii on things.

 

[eran0004]

Yeah, had to record off the screen but here's my stacked junction...

.. you might hear in the background the CPU fan speeding up. Graphics settings were turned up, so it was virtually impossible to move the camera.



I need to pay some attention to the look of it... I'd like to get some more consistent or constant radii on things.

Wow, it looks really cool in motion! Like some kind of almighty traffic robot.

As for loops, I usually build them as a set of 90 degree corners because then it's easy to get the same radii. If I don't need exactly n*90 degrees then I simply cut the last segment (it's important to brace the loop first, because otherwise it might merge two segments together which distorts everything).

At the ends of the loop it looks best to have a gradually increasing/decreasing curvature. I made this little guide, which might be useful:

In this figure, r is the radius of a circle segment. In the example the segment is 90 degrees, but it could be any length. Connecting to the circle segment are two elliptic arcs where a is the length of the short leg and b is the length of the long leg. The ratio between the legs determines the shape of the arc, a ratio close to 0 gives a stretched out arc and a ratio close to 1 gives a more circular arc.

The circle segment has constant curvature (constant radius), while the curvature of the ellipse gradually increases as it gets closer to the end of leg a. In order to get the same curvature at the end of point a as on the circle segment it connects to, decide which shape of the ellipse you want by selecting a ratio R (I would recommend somewhere between 0.5 and 0.9), then a = r/R and b = r/R^2. In the figure I have provided values for a and b for some different ratios.

Usually I just eyeball it though, but this helps building perfect transitions for loops

 

[eran0004]

^ 42 000 citizens now and the skyline looks really good! Still missing about 2000 workers to fill those skyscrapers, hopefully they'll stop complaining once I reach 50 000 people.

^ Mass housing project from the 1960's. Homes for nearly 4000 people.

I don't remember if this building is a theatre or a concert hall, but it was kind of hidden behind the highway and the elevated metro so I built a little hill for it to give it more of a landmark status. As a bonus the hill provided a great entrance for a tunnel leading directly to the fishing harbour and the port.

 

[eran0004]

I built a small park along the river, using some workshop assets: concrete wall network, stairs and ploppable asphalt (although the grass version). I also made a walkable quay using the game's asset editor and I'm happy to see that it's so popular among the citizens!

 

[MatskiMonk]

Thanks for the detailed response @eran0004!

I've built another unnecessarily squid like junction, that again, doesn't have particularly accurate geometry...I quite like it though.

 

[TJ13]

Skylines will be Free for PS+ users starting in May.

 

[eran0004]

I reached 50 000 citizens now! Still those skyscrapers are nowhere near happy.

A new addition to the workshop is this great quay. I modified it in the asset editor to give it a pedestrian path and some lifebuoys.



Using the concrete wall network I built this amazing waterfront vista point/cafe. Looks pretty nice, especially at night when the lights are switched on.

 

[redhed17]

I don't know whether it has been mentioned here, but I found an interesting Mod that can place pedestrian bridges over roundabouts automatically. Works great so far. Automatic Pedestrian Bridge Builder

I finally got through almost of the University to become Prestigious. I got confused for quite awhile because I had other non campus Universities that were stopping learners from coming to the campus.

I'm still getting plagued every so often with there suddenly being masses of traffic appearing, but I think the game is just set up to do that every occasionally. It does force me to try and make changes to the traffic flow every so often.

 

[Blitz24]

This is going to be something I try in a couple of weeks. Cities Skylines is free on PS+ in May.

 

[MatskiMonk]

I finally got through almost of the University to become Prestigious. I got confused for quite awhile because I had other non campus Universities that were stopping learners from coming to the campus

I've got a Uni stuck at level 4 because 1400/1800 students, I can't seem to increase it even though the city has grown by about 40,000, and I've smashed the other two criteria. I wanted to put all three types of Uni in my 25 tile city, but I'm struggling filling one so far!

I'm still getting plagued every so often with there suddenly being masses of traffic appearing, but I think the game is just set up to do that every occasionally. It does force me to try and make changes to the traffic flow every so often

Industry traffic or cars?

 

[Silver_Wolf]

Well this has been a good year on PlayStation Plus for me, with this game I will have added a total of 9 games to my PS Plus library this year.

Not one I will be playing immediately as have way too many games to get through but will enjoy it when I do get started.

 

[Jtheripper]

Looks interesting fun, glad i can try it soon with ps+. Was curious to try.
The 1st person view is only with a mod i guess, looks cool.
Im guessing the free ps+ game will be the base game, is it worth getting dlcs,? Seems fun the disaster thing hehe.

I don't have much experience with this type of game, did a little like tropico on 360.

 

[redhed17]

I've got a Uni stuck at level 4 because 1400/1800 students, I can't seem to increase it even though the city has grown by about 40,000, and I've smashed the other two criteria. I wanted to put all three types of Uni in my 25 tile city, but I'm struggling filling one so far!

What I did, and am by no means an expert.

First, check how many Cims are available for the University.

Delete any other Uni's you have close to the Campus area. I tried turning them off and it didn't seem to work. If needs be give them only the one Uni to go to.

Make sure transport links are good to the Uni.

For the closest population zones set it so they prefer education. I can't remember what the actual policy is called. If that doesn't work set more areas to prefer education. This may affect Cims working, but all you need to do is get Prestigious and then the level won't go down again.

Make sure you keep on setting the Academic Works each year. It is costly, but I think it will be the only way to unlock everything once you have reached L5.

Hopefully you are adding everything you have unlocked up L4.

It may or not make a difference, but make walking paths, for the correct Uni type, between the various Uni buildings.

If you are not doing any of that then hopefully something there will work.

Industry traffic or cars?

Traffic of one type or another.

One time I put it on and the vehicles suddenly got gridlocked. Last time I put it on and the trains that had been working perfectly last time I saved it, were suddenly blocked. With the trains, it doesn't help that there are sometimes cargo trains hardly filled, and it keeps on sending them out, whereas if it waited for them to fill, there would a lot less trains. I've tried splitting lines for cargo and passenger trains to a certain degree, but if it suddenly starts spewing out a load of cargo trains 20% or less full, the tracks soon fill up. I think it is a random thing, but hopefully time will tell.

 

[redhed17]

Looks interesting fun, glad i can try it soon with ps+. Was curious to try.
The 1st person view is only with a mod i guess, looks cool.
Im guessing the free ps+ game will be the base game, is it worth getting dlcs,? Seems fun the disaster thing hehe.

I don't have much experience with this type of game, did a little like tropico on 360.

See if you like it before you start thinking about the DLC's.

I think without Mods, and using the controller as an interface, it will be a very different game to the PC version, but how different I wouldn't know. It'll be free to try though.

 

[DesertPenguin]

Just saw this is now on PS+ and there's a thread here. Is this just a better Sim City?

 

[eran0004]

Atop the hill next to the golf course I built a viewing platform and a cableway connection from the fishing harbour. I'm extremely pleased with the serpent road snaking its way up to the top.

Just saw this is now on PS+ and there's a thread here. Is this just a better Sim City?

Pretty much. I haven't played Sim City in a long time, but I think this game has more focus on traffic and logistics.