Cities: Skylines

RMC · Post by **RMC** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 1:21 pm

Lorini wrote:
Chaz wrote:Interested!

The vital question: Can I unleash disasters on my city at will? Bonus points if one of the disasters is a giant monster attack.
Nope, no disasters built in. Haven't heard if they will be added or if they can be modded in.

Ah HA! A fault with the game. I am not buying it now!!! Well, I am not buying it right this second anyway, and I actually don't mind it doesn't have natural disasters, but it's a reason to not buy it, so I am going with it.

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 1:21 pm

From the FAQ:

Will there be disasters?
It is on the list but it is not certain when disasters, and which types, will be added.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 1:23 pm

RMC wrote:Ah HA! A fault with the game. I am not buying it now!!! Well, I am not buying it right this second anyway, and I actually don't mind it doesn't have natural disasters, but it's a reason to not buy it, so I am going with it.

I prefer them unnatural!

RMC · Post by **RMC** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 1:40 pm

coopasonic wrote:
RMC wrote:Ah HA! A fault with the game. I am not buying it now!!! Well, I am not buying it right this second anyway, and I actually don't mind it doesn't have natural disasters, but it's a reason to not buy it, so I am going with it.
I prefer them unnatural!

You mean you want, Gamerra and Godzilla to fight on top of you city?

That would be cool, as long as you could build anti-monster defenses..

Or build those robot things from that one movie, that had the wall that didn't work. Forget the movie...

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 1:50 pm

They got me. I'll have to take it for a spin this evening.

TiLT · Post by **TiLT** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 2:05 pm

The only disasters in this game so far are the ones that come through your own actions. For example, you could end up flooding your entire city by accidentally (?) diverting a river, or you could (and probably will unless you know what you're doing) unleash a horrible plague upon your city that will leave the streets littered with dead people.

I never understood the appeal in the random SimCity disasters anyway. I always turned them off. I play these games to create, not to destroy, and the disasters almost never provide a feeling of realism.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 2:12 pm

TiLT wrote:I never understood the appeal in the random SimCity disasters anyway. I always turned them off. I play these games to create, not to destroy, and the disasters almost never provide a feeling of realism.

It gives you something of a story. There's not much of a story to tell without them. "There was demand for parks, so I built some parks," comes across a bit dry.

Archinerd · Post by **Archinerd** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 2:16 pm

No disasters doesn't bother me a bit. I understand the desire to destroy something but there are so many other games that allow you to have that satisfaction it's no longer needed in city planning sims.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 3:08 pm

coopasonic wrote:
RMC wrote:Ah HA! A fault with the game. I am not buying it now!!! Well, I am not buying it right this second anyway, and I actually don't mind it doesn't have natural disasters, but it's a reason to not buy it, so I am going with it.
I prefer them unnatural!

You mean like the state governor decides he's pissed at you so he causes traffic to back up throughout your city?

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 3:19 pm

Last night I had a chunk of one way going to the highway pointing the wrong direction. That was very close to the same thing. Nobody could get out of the city.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 3:36 pm

Made my first asset in the Asset Manager and uploaded to the Steam Workshop, couldn't be easier. Not a really challenging item, I took the existing 1x1 house and expanded the tiles to 2x2 so I could add some ground decoration, plus I changed the color of the house.

What looks like empty grass in the front left is actually two parking spaces. I'll place it in game and try to get a pic of it in action.

naednek · Post by **naednek** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 3:38 pm

I want a flying BBQ!!!

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 3:49 pm

naednek wrote:I want a flying BBQ!!!

Sorry it doesn't fly, just levitates. Flying BBQs are impossible.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 3:49 pm

Well, bummer, there's something wrong with my little house, I got an error when I tried to load it:

So I've taken it off line so I can play with it.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 4:02 pm

Rip wrote:
naednek wrote:I want a flying BBQ!!!
Sorry it doesn't fly, just levitates. Flying BBQs are impossible.

Grill.

jztemple2 wrote:Well, bummer, there's something wrong with my little house, I got an error when I tried to load it:

So I've taken it off line so I can play with it.

Doh! Let us know how you resolve it for our own learning. It looks like you need to give the asset a different name.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 4:03 pm

I'm an idiot

. No, wait, there's more!

My broken asset message was because I had two versions of the same asset with the same name, the one I created and uploaded, and the one I subscribed to and downloaded

. As soon as I disabled the one the other worked, or rather it didn't throw an error. I still don't know how to make it selectable in-game to actually be placed on the map.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 4:06 pm

jztemple2 wrote:I still don't know how to make it selectable in-game to actually be placed on the map.

I think it would have to be a particular type like the unique buildings. Are there flags to set for the asset type?

I like fixing things, but not having looked at the asset editor it is really hard to help.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 4:42 pm

Actually it turns out that my little created house is in the game, but certain building types, like houses, offices, factories etc cannot be placed, you just wait till they are spawned. So at some point my little house will be spawned somewhere. Intersections, parks and some special buildings (like the Annunciation Cathedral) are selectable and place-able. For instance, I found this great intersection called by the author a Texas U-Turn and I used it as a basis for my new subdivision (called "Texas Town") on the south (natch) part of my map:

TiLT · Post by **TiLT** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 4:57 pm

Today I ended up spending a lot of time merely improving traffic and creating some fancy and/or unusual solutions to the problems it causes. Anything goes at the moment, from routing traffic where I want it with one-way streets, to opening alternate routes to stop cars from driving into a problem zone if all they want to do is to get through it instead of having it as their destination, to this nifty little thing:

Yeah, that's a walkway across a three-way intersection, keeping pedestrians off the streets as much as possible. The less often cars have to stop for pedestrians, the better.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 4:59 pm

Hmmm, I am not sure I have ever zoomed in close enough to even notice pedestrians of there are any. I guess I need to look closer.

noxiousdog · Post by **noxiousdog** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 5:14 pm

Those Texas U-Turns are a staple in Houston, but I've always wondered why most other places don't have them.

TiLT · Post by **TiLT** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 5:15 pm

coopasonic wrote:Hmmm, I am not sure I have ever zoomed in close enough to even notice pedestrians of there are any. I guess I need to look closer.

Pedestrians are a vital part of traffic in this game, and you really shouldn't ignore them. Ideally, you want your cims to leave their cars at home and walk to work, and the more you can do to help them get there effectively, the better. Give them public transport they can get on, paths that serve as shortcuts through busy neighborhoods, and so on.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 6:41 pm

What's the best way to deal with garbage when you have a population of under 500 and haven't unlocked the dump? By the time my cities get to about 300, folks start moving out because the sewage is backing up.

gbasden · Post by **gbasden** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 6:52 pm

tgb wrote:What's the best way to deal with garbage when you have a population of under 500 and haven't unlocked the dump? By the time my cities get to about 300, folks start moving out because the sewage is backing up.

Sewage isn't the same thing as garbage. Basically, you have to give them both a source of fresh water and a way to get rid of waste. Build a pumping station *upstream* on a river, run the pipes to your houses, then put an outflow pipe on the river *downstream* of the inlet. Hook pipes to both and you are good to go.

Lorini · Post by **Lorini** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 6:57 pm

Look at the way the waves of the river are pointing, think a bit, and then place your water pump and sewage pipe.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 7:18 pm

gbasden wrote:
tgb wrote:What's the best way to deal with garbage when you have a population of under 500 and haven't unlocked the dump? By the time my cities get to about 300, folks start moving out because the sewage is backing up.
Sewage isn't the same thing as garbage. Basically, you have to give them both a source of fresh water and a way to get rid of waste. Build a pumping station *upstream* on a river, run the pipes to your houses, then put an outflow pipe on the river *downstream* of the inlet. Hook pipes to both and you are good to go.

When I went back to my game I realized I never ran power to the sewage processing facility. Just for shits and giggles, has anyone tried putting the outflow pipe upstream?

Nightwish · Post by **Nightwish** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 8:10 pm

coopasonic wrote:
Chaz wrote:Interested!

The vital question: Can I unleash disasters on my city at will? Bonus points if one of the disasters is a giant monster attack.
The only disaster I am aware of is the one that comes if you build a dam in the wrong place.

I think I heard a dev say even then, it's just temporary, the roads and buildings aren't actually destroyed.

TiLT wrote:
to this nifty little thing:

Someone had you beat before launch with an elevated roundabout for pedestrians.

Zurai · Post by **Zurai** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 8:14 pm

tgb wrote:When I went back to my game I realized I never ran power to the sewage processing facility. Just for shits and giggles, has anyone tried putting the outflow pipe upstream?

Yeah, that's bad, mmmkay?

It'll make all your citizens sick. Deathly sick. And you don't have access to deathcare yet, so all their corpses will pile up in buildings and cause even more sickness.

Chaz · Post by **Chaz** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 8:31 pm

I thought you guys said there weren't disasters in the game! If I can manufacture a plague, I'm back in!

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 8:47 pm

Chaz wrote:I thought you guys said there weren't disasters in the game! If I can manufacture a plague, I'm back in!

Yea that could be fun. Build a nice 1 million person city, slap some sewage drains a few squares up from your fresh water source and see how long it takes to wipe them out.

Lorini · Post by **Lorini** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 9:03 pm

Chaz wrote:I thought you guys said there weren't disasters in the game! If I can manufacture a plague, I'm back in!

You don't even need to do the sewage thing, just do what I did, and not build medical clinics. All of a sudden, it's Ebola everywhere! I had 2,000 sick people and my clinics could only take like 400 patients, so soon they were all dying, and then I only had like 6 hearsts to take the dead away, so they rotted in the houses and and people moved out (the people who had been cured of Ebola). Then the industry all left because their workers died. Took about an hour to get everything back into balance.

noxiousdog · Post by **noxiousdog** » Wed Mar 11, 2015 11:07 pm

So I just lost three hours of my life to the game, which is a good thing. It's the best city builder probably ever. I know people did some cool things with Sim City 4 and Rush Hour, but I think this surpasses out of the box.

Few nitpicks.
The lane changing algorithm needs an upgrade. I know they are working on it though.
I'm not sure how to tell my services coverage. I know the streets turn green, but what does that mean, and what does it mean for a school? I'm almost 100% positive the service extends much farther than just the green roads.
While the population counts are accurate, the city is definitely abstracted. High rise apartments should have more than 20 households as an example. I'm fine with that. I just want my city to look big.

naednek · Post by **naednek** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 12:00 am

TiLT wrote:Today I ended up spending a lot of time merely improving traffic and creating some fancy and/or unusual solutions to the problems it causes. Anything goes at the moment, from routing traffic where I want it with one-way streets, to opening alternate routes to stop cars from driving into a problem zone if all they want to do is to get through it instead of having it as their destination, to this nifty little thing:

Yeah, that's a walkway across a three-way intersection, keeping pedestrians off the streets as much as possible. The less often cars have to stop for pedestrians, the better.

Sorry Tilt, but this guy 1 upped ya

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =405777360

Rip · Post by **Rip** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 12:31 am

That is brilliant. Not to mention a perfect example of how great opening this game up to modding and the workshop is. Developers would have never spent the time/money for something like this. Not even for DLC.

tgb · Post by **tgb** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 12:41 am

I think there are a couple of things in play that make this such a great city builder. It doesn't try to reinvent the wheel. Anyone who's ever played SimCity 1-4 can pretty much dive right in. At the same time, it's probably the most accessible builder ever. Everything you need to know is easily accessed and easy to understand, yet the game never feels "dumbed down". It also helps that it's so durned pretty.

I can't remember a city builder that I enjoyed more. I was really on the fence on this, and was going to wait for a sale, but I'm glad I didn't.

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 1:23 am

At fifteen hours played, I'm still having a blast. My population is 37K but I've really been tweaking and trying new things, plus downloading Workshop assets and checking them out. For instance, what city wouldn't be complete without a statue of Lenin?

I've been spending a lot of time on my newest subdivisions, Little Houston and Little Dallas.

The reason they are called this is because of the very Texas highway and frontage road combination, an asset I got on the Workshop:

jztemple2 · Post by **jztemple2** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 1:35 am

But I haven't been neglecting the business side of the game. For instance, my latest region purchase got me access to ore resources and so I build the division of OreVille

That cargo train station is really making me some moola as it ships out off the map. Biggest problem was to try to relieve the traffic build up. I finally just routed the trucks one way so after leaving the train station they go across the river and link back to the highway.

I'm making gobs of money with the ore and oil shipments, but it's nothing compared to what I'm making through taxes. My biggest expense line item? Garbage!

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 2:17 am

Any real reason to get the Deluxe over the basic version?

TiLT · Post by **TiLT** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 3:19 am

Zarathud wrote:Any real reason to get the Deluxe over the basic version?

Not really no, unless you really want that soundtrack, those 5 landmarks, or just want to give the devs a little extra well-deserved support.

Vorret · Post by **Vorret** » Thu Mar 12, 2015 8:58 am

So... call me retarded but I can't figure out how to do elevated roads...