Anyone play Cities: Skylines yet?

[paulthemapguy]

   If you are easily offended you are ESPECIALLY encouraged to read the description!

Sounds like someone is easily offenSIVE...

[ozarkman417]

I got a neat mod called CSL map viewer that generates maps of your cities:
image snipped
This is based on Lake Havasu City, AZ, but if it had freeways.

I may be a bit late to reply, I have not heard of this mod prior to see this post and it is SO much better than Cimographer for making a map of a city. The problem with Cimographer is when I export the city's map to OSM all the Network Extensions roads are removed, and I use them a lot.

[index]

   I just got this AWESOME game for Christmas for my PS4! I have been having a BLAST playing it. Here is a link to a brief You Tube video of my very first city which is VERY MUCH still a work in progress.

   Link: snipped

   If you are easily offended you are ESPECIALLY encouraged to read the description!

   Comments are welcome!

It probably isn't in very good taste to randomly inject politics into a thread about a city simulation game.

[rickmastfan67]

If you want to bypass the new launcher they just added (and don't mind losing Steam Overlay support), check out this:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1976349559

[yand]

I just wanna share this video I made talking about my newest city in C:S, basically a town of 29k population built on an entirely flat plain with lots of prefab components, at grade intersections, no overpasses, and very few pedestrian crosswalks. I don't have the skill to make my city look realistic (everything is too symmetrical and I rely heavily on assets from the base game, and I don't spend much time decorating anything) but I believe I've done enough to make traffic behave believably:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1W4k_rWXHE

[Roadgeekteen]

I just got the game, play with unlimited funds because I'm new. Some of by interchanges kinda look off so far.

[ozarkman417]

I just got the game, play with unlimited funds because I'm new. Some of by interchanges kinda look off so far.

Did you get the game because it is 75% off? I'm looking in to getting one or more of the DLC packs while the Steam Summer Sale is still on. Which one(s) should I get?

[Roadgeekteen]

I just got the game, play with unlimited funds because I'm new. Some of by interchanges kinda look off so far.

Did you get the game because it is 75% off? I'm looking in to getting one or more of the DLC packs while the Steam Summer Sale is still on. Which one(s) should I get?

Yeah, I got it since it was on sale.

[rickmastfan67]

You both missed a good chance to get the game when it was on sale on Humble Bundle.  It was bundled with several DLC and even cheaper than the sale prices on Steam right now.

[paulthemapguy]

The game isn't difficult with normal (not unlimited) funding conditions.  It just takes time.  I wonder what part of the game most people on this forum would be interested in seeing, though.  I've strung together some pretty wacky and interesting interchanges...?

[Hwy 61 Revisited]

I've been building a few cities, but as a console player I cannot access all 81 tiles, let alone the 25 shown in the basegame.

[jakeroot]

I've been building a few cities, but as a console player I cannot access all 81 tiles, let alone the 25 shown in the basegame.

As far as I know, there is no way to access all 25 tiles even in the basegame. There's 25 possible tiles that you can pick 9 from, but no way to pick all 25.

As a PC user and someone who also uses 81 tiles, I've had a great deal of fun building large metro areas. Without showing any pictures, here's a north-oriented map of my current hamlet:

[Roadgeekteen]

I've been building a few cities, but as a console player I cannot access all 81 tiles, let alone the 25 shown in the basegame.

As far as I know, there is no way to access all 25 tiles even in the basegame. There's 25 possible tiles that you can pick 9 from, but no way to pick all 25.

As a PC user and someone who also uses 81 tiles, I've had a great deal of fun building large metro areas. Without showing any pictures, here's a north-oriented map of my current hamlet:

I'm afraid that if I make my map too big that I will out of vehicles.

[ozarkman417]

I didn't know you could 81 tiles, though I do have a mod that allows me to use all 25 in the base game. If I do get the 9x9, I'm probably going to end up making multiple towns instead of one city.

[Roadgeekteen]

I didn't know you could 81 tiles, though I do have a mod that allows me to use all 25 in the base game. If I do get the 9x9, I'm probably going to end up making multiple towns instead of one city.

There is an 81 tiles mod, just search it.

[CoreySamson]

The game isn't difficult with normal (not unlimited) funding conditions.  It just takes time.  I wonder what part of the game most people on this forum would be interested in seeing, though.  I've strung together some pretty wacky and interesting interchanges...?

About wacky interchanges:

In one of my console cities (they should really make it so console players can access more tiles, even just 12 or so) I have two grade-separated DDIs on my busiest freeway. Doesn't sound too crazy, however, the freeway is the road switching sides; in two exits the northbound lanes cross over or under the southbound lanes 4 times! Surprisingly, it works pretty well.

In another city, I have an underground highway system almost completely separate from my main highway system for trucks. I don't really like how it turned out, though; it's hardly really even used.

[ozarkman417]

The Steam Summer Sale has come to a close. A couple hours beforehand, I bought two DLC packs which were both half off: ParkLife, and Mass Transit.

[JKRhodes]

I've owned the PC version for several years. My computer took a dump a couple years ago and I replaced it with a Walmart special, and the game hasn't run right since then.

So today I downloaded the Xbox One version. It seems promising, if I can get used to working all the features with a controller instead of a mouse and keyboard.

[okroads]

I've owned the PC version for several years. My computer took a dump a couple years ago and I replaced it with a Walmart special, and the game hasn't run right since then.

So today I downloaded the Xbox One version. It seems promising, if I can get used to working all the features with a controller instead of a mouse and keyboard.

You should be able to use a mouse and keyboard with the Xbox One version as well. Mouse/keyboard support was added to the console versions of the game earlier this year.

[jakeroot]

I've been building a few cities, but as a console player I cannot access all 81 tiles, let alone the 25 shown in the basegame.

As far as I know, there is no way to access all 25 tiles even in the basegame. There's 25 possible tiles that you can pick 9 from, but no way to pick all 25.

As a PC user and someone who also uses 81 tiles, I've had a great deal of fun building large metro areas. Without showing any pictures, here's a north-oriented map of my current hamlet:

I'm afraid that if I make my map too big that I will out of vehicles.

The point is to spread out your city, like you might in real life. Avoid too much density, allowing you to spread out the cars. You might still hit a vehicle limit, but it'll be more reasonable than if you did Tokyo-style density across all 81 tiles.

[paulthemapguy]

Now I am wondering if it's customary for Roadgeeks to fail to include enough public transit in their cities. A dense enough city necessarily cannot rely on only automobile transport- it's a functional requirement, not a cosmetic choice. It's relatively uncommon for American cities to reach a density where transit is a necessity, however.

LM-V405

[jakeroot]

Now I am wondering if it's customary for Roadgeeks to fail to include enough public transit in their cities. A dense enough city necessarily cannot rely on only automobile transport- it's a functional requirement, not a cosmetic choice. It's relatively uncommon for American cities to reach a density where transit is a necessity, however.

Cities Skylines, in particular, makes cities that rely only on road transport fairly difficult when looking just at the stock game. "Stock" vehicle mechanics are woefully under-coded, and you can get genuine gridlock really quick. Public transport makes this a lot less likely to happen.

In the case of the map above (that I shared), the vast majority of tourists, and a good portion of new residents, arrive to my city via the high speed rail system I have. The main hub is where the black and white line passes directly through that built-up area. At that station, there are several bus routes that connect the main city with the other suburbs. This definitely helps with traffic, especially if you're like me and use "no despawn" for vehicles (vehicles normally disappear into the drivers' pockets).

[ozarkman417]

The base game has a decent amount of land-based options, including buses, trains, and metros. Of course, bridges and tunnels can be created over/under water, but the Mass Transit DLC opens a number of new options for public transit. I have a metro with scattered settlements around a large lake, so the ferry service has had a great impact on commerce in the area. I have made a monorail system around much of the perimeter of the lake, having a station at each small town/settlement. Lastly, most modes of transport can be linked together for greater efficiency with large transit hubs.

[vdeane]

Now I am wondering if it's customary for Roadgeeks to fail to include enough public transit in their cities. A dense enough city necessarily cannot rely on only automobile transport- it's a functional requirement, not a cosmetic choice. It's relatively uncommon for American cities to reach a density where transit is a necessity, however.

Cities Skylines, in particular, makes cities that rely only on road transport fairly difficult when looking just at the stock game. "Stock" vehicle mechanics are woefully under-coded, and you can get genuine gridlock really quick. Public transport makes this a lot less likely to happen.

In the case of the map above (that I shared), the vast majority of tourists, and a good portion of new residents, arrive to my city via the high speed rail system I have. The main hub is where the black and white line passes directly through that built-up area. At that station, there are several bus routes that connect the main city with the other suburbs. This definitely helps with traffic, especially if you're like me and use "no despawn" for vehicles (vehicles normally disappear into the drivers' pockets).

That is true.  Things like cims deciding on their exact route, including lane changes, at the start of their journey, traffic and anything else be damned, really gunks things up.  I remember once trying to separate the directions of an interchange (like this) to stop the ramp from backing up onto the mainline, but no cims used the new ramp that was supposed to end the left turn movements because it was only faster when there was traffic (which there always was) and they don't take traffic into account.  Add to that the inability to define turn restrictions without mods, and I ultimately had to ban non-local traffic from one side of the street (which worked because I figured out that the trucks were using the avenue instead of the freeway to get to an industrial area).

Traffic congestion also has more severe effects in Cities: Skylines than SimCity 4 because everything is agent-based... including city services.  In SimCity, the worst that could happen is that homes start abandoning due to long commutes, and that took a while.  In Cities: Skylines traffic congestion can quickly cause most city services to break down and stop functioning.

All this discussion makes me wish I was still able to pay the game.  Unfortunately, while my computer was more than adequate when I first started playing, between needing more resources with each DLC whether you buy them or not and the Paradox launcher, the game is now unplayable on my computer (and I don't like the privacy problems of the launcher, either).  I can't even go back to SimCity 4 since I can't figure out how to get it installed on my computer; Wine on Linux doesn't work well for things that need more than one disk to install, and SC4 is especially troublesome for some reason.  None of the workarounds I have tried (which worked great for Civilization IV) have worked.

[Roadgeekteen]

Highly recommend this mod:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=844180955