SimCity a disaster for you? Take a look at Cities: Skylines (not related to CitiesXL)

I'm super excited for Skylines!

I was able to get my purchase of Cities XXL (X-tra X-treme Letdown) refunded (thankfully Steam support was good to me this time) and used that money towards Skylines!

P.S. I vote yay for Paradox to change the official name of the game to just Skylines. Or, I think Cities in Motion: Skylines would also be an acceptable name. That way, people know it's from the same franchise and devs as Cities in Motion and don't easily confuse it with Cities XL/XXL. But I wonder if people would be upset with the idea that it's not focusing on just transportation even though "In Motion" is in the title...
 
I wonder if Colossal Order realized how big of a market this game could potentially have. This game could make a fortune with word of mouth and positive reviews.
 
Ayt said:
I wonder if Colossal Order realized how big of a market this game could potentially have. This game could make a fortune with word of mouth and positive reviews.
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Going by the recent Angry Joe interview with the CEO of Paradox, the preorders of this game have already exceeded expectations.

I hope to jeebus that this game is actually as good as everyone hopes it's going to be. Another disappointment would be heartbreaking for the genre.
 
wit3tyg3r said:
I'm super excited for Skylines!

I was able to get my purchase of Cities XXL (X-tra X-treme Letdown) refunded (thankfully Steam support was good to me this time) and used that money towards Skylines!

P.S. I vote yay for Paradox to change the official name of the game to just Skylines. Or, I think Cities in Motion: Skylines would also be an acceptable name. That way, people know it's from the same franchise and devs as Cities in Motion and don't easily confuse it with Cities XL/XXL. But I wonder if people would be upset with the idea that it's not focusing on just transportation even though "In Motion" is in the title...
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Yeah, Skylines would be an intuitive name. It's ironic that a label as generic as "Cities" can be completely and utterly tainted, but... uh, yeah. thanks Cities XL!
 
Pandemic said:
While I understand the feature, I personally like seeing traffic jams building up, causing my cities to struggle.

Makes me rethink the road planning to try and avoid it in future.

Hopefully it can be edited/modded to remove this feature.
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The link Rentahamster posted makes it sound like you'll have plenty of traffic struggles if you don't have alternative transportation systems in place.
 
Rentahamster said:
This article tested out mass transit and gave an insight into the importance of traffic management. This gives me relief that the teleporting cars doesn't automatically turn the game into easy mode. Read the whole thing.

http://www.cimexchange.com/page/index.html/_/articles/exclusive-csl-inner-city-transport-r124
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Trains can reverse at stations now! That was so annoying in CiM2, you needed to build a large loop or build a depot if you wanted a bi-directional line. Hopefully we see trams and elevated metro in later patches.
 
Preordered. I was going to wait for some previews but I couldn't help it. Got it for a cheap price and wanted to support the devs anyway.
 
You can get it cheap? Where? I haven't bought it yet but am definitely going to. Who is offering it on sale? And is it a Steam purchase? (Or at least will have a Steam key later?)
 
Boss Doggie said:
Oh yeah, will there be air-based and water-based transportation and cargo?
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Yes, they said there will be both cargo and passenger traffic with airports and normal ports. Although I think the airport based passenger traffic was just tourist, although I am not sure.
 
The Real Abed said:
You can get it cheap? Where? I haven't bought it yet but am definitely going to. Who is offering it on sale? And is it a Steam purchase? (Or at least will have a Steam key later?)
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Nuuvem is the cheapest. Just use paypal to pay them. SHould give a Steam key on release.
 
kiunchbb said:
I will wait one month after release for reviews and feedback. City sim is not some kind of game you can review after playing for a few days.
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I'm waiting a week or so til after release to decide if I'm buying or not, but that said this is one of my most anticipated, if not THE most anticipated, game for me in 2015. I need something modern to replace the 10+ year old Simcity 4. Banished is great but very different. Simcity 2013 was a sloppy stinky turd with a pretty bow on top of it. Cities XXL is as broken as ever and not worth a dime.

Hopefully Cities: Skylines delivers, and I have high hopes for it. If it turns out good I'll pay full price for it gladly!
 
XiaNaphryz said:
Given their previous games in the Cities In Motion series, I'd be disappointed if they didn't support transfers between mass transit systems. Good to see it still works here.
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Yes, I forgot that the CiM games were pretty robust in that regard. I would love to see a Grand Central Station type building where buses, trains, and subways all meet for quick connections. That would tickle me a great deal.
 
I'm working on lining up an interview with someone from the dev team. As soon as I have a time frame of when that will happen, I'll make sure to grab some questions from the thread if any of you have them.
 
Psykoboy2 said:
I'm working on lining up an interview with someone from the dev team. As soon as I have a time frame of when that will happen, I'll make sure to grab some questions from the thread if any of you have them.
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Well, I'll bite:

  • Are you planning to take advantage of the new Steam Workshop features to let some of the best modders sell their items for your game directly?
  • If Skylines goes well, what do you see as the future for the Cities in Motion series? Could the Cities in Motion series be integrated into Skylines? Would they be compliments but unrelated? Could the next CiM game be an optional standalone expansion?
  • What is the biggest thing you wish you had added to the game but couldn't yet?
  • If I wanted to build a PC to play this game perfectly, what are the key PC components I need to invest in? Most FPS games just need a big GPU and almost any CPU. What is the biggest PC bottleneck for building enormous cities in Skylines? RAM? CPU?
 
Psykoboy2 said:
I'm working on lining up an interview with someone from the dev team. As soon as I have a time frame of when that will happen, I'll make sure to grab some questions from the thread if any of you have them.
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Let me write a few down, before I forget.
  • Do you think SimCity2013 could have had larger map sizes if it was multicore and 64-bit?
  • How early in the development cycle did you decide that Cities Skylines should be multicore and 64-bit?
  • In what way are multiples cores utilized (e.g. does one thread handle pathing, and another thread handle animation, etc?)
  • In what ways does it benefit your game to have multicore support as well as access to more than 4GB or RAM due to 64-bit?
  • How well do extra cores scale? Is it optimized for 4, or will it scale equally well with 6 or 8 cores?
  • In what ways does your game work that it is able to handle more citizen agents than SimCity2013? It seems that you choose not to model utilities like water, electricity, and sewage as agents, and thus free up resources to concentrate on what matters: citizens.
  • How did you decide what to simulate using an agent model, and what to simulate using a statistical model?
  • Can you give us some examples of the kinds of research you did into real urban planning concepts, and how you integrated that into the gameplay?
  • Are offices similar in function to SimCity4's high tech industry, in the sense that they are a non-polluting industry? Is there a tradeoff? Does it require higher education to prosper, or does it create less jobs than polluting industry, or generate less money than polluting industry?
  • In SimCity4, commercial zones benefited from high foot and street traffic volume passing by (more shoppers, I guess?) Is this concept in Cities Skylines as well?
  • What is the relationship between happiness and land value in Cities Skylines? Do they persist in the buildings themselves, or the zoned land? If a building or zoned land is destroyed/deleted, does happiness or land value persist for a little while? For example, if I have a wealthy, high land value group of apartment buildings, delete them all, and then rearrange the zoning slightly, will high land value apartments immediately spring up again, or will they have to redevelop all over again?
  • We know that if a citizen can't make it to work, they will teleport to their destination? Does each citizen have a timer that counts down before it decides to teleport? Do citizens ever not make it to work at all? If a citizen has to resort to teleporting, does that cause a negative impact on happiness? How is the teleportation system balanced in order to not make the game too easy?
  • Is there a maximum distance/commute time that a citizen will consider as a potential workplace? How do the job assignment and pathfinding algorithms work together to determine this?
  • Will all 3 levels of schooling be required for a functioning city (primary, secondary, and higher education)?
  • Will I be able to customize my university with a large, customizable campus that lets me specialize in certain fields (like in SImCity2013), or is the university just one building, like in SimCity4?
  • Do child agents go to school in a similar way that adult agents have a work cycle? Are there schoolbuses?
  • I know this won't be in at launch, but will you eventually be able to work in a region system like in SimCity4? That way, it would look like we are managing much larger cities than our computers could actually handle.
 
Dolor said:
Well, I'll bite:
If I wanted to build a PC to play this game perfectly, what are the key PC components I need to invest in? Most FPS games just need a big GPU and almost any CPU. What is the biggest PC bottleneck for building enormous cities in Skylines? RAM? CPU?
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Good question!
 
DopeyFish said:
just looking at this sold me

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?833752-Cities-Skylines-%96-Dev-Diary-9-Info-Views
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Oh YUM
RYv5jle.gif


Between this and the reemerging theme park Tycoon genre... There is a god.
 
Rentahamster said:
Let me write a few down, before I forget.
  • I know this won't be in at launch, but will you eventually be able to work in a region system like in SimCity4? That way, it would look like we are managing much larger cities than our computers could actually handle.
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I emphatically vote for this one as well.
 
Rentahamster said:
Let me write a few down, before I forget.

  • What is the relationship between happiness and land value in Cities Skylines? Do they persist in the buildings themselves, or the zoned land? If a building or zoned land is destroyed/deleted, does happiness or land value persist for a little while? For example, if I have a wealthy, high land value group of apartment buildings, delete them all, and then rearrange the zoning slightly, will high land value apartments immediately spring up again, or will they have to redevelop all over again?

Click to expand...
Maybe along this you could ask about this:

Is there any reason to keep land values low on purpose or is it in your best intrest to just get it as high as possible city wide?
 
asmudge said:
Not exactly skylines related but does anyone know how to make workers commute between cities in 2013? Sorry if OT.
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You missed the brouhaha. It was bullshit lies and marketing spewed by EA/Maxis. Workers never actually commuted.

Quixzlizx said:
I thought Brazilian and Russian keys were region-locked now. Or is that only for gifting purposes?
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They are, but a few sites like Green Man Gaming (UK) and Nuuvem (Brazil) are still authorized to sell keys. To what region those keys can be sold largely depends on the developer/publisher.
 
asmudge said:
Thats looks exactly like what gta 5 does if your high above ehh.

Not exactly skylines related but does anyone know how to make workers commute between cities in 2013? Sorry if OT.
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You have to have a differential in demand in workers/jobs.

If City A has lots of available jobs, but not enough workers to staff them, other cities that have a surplus of workers will send them over to work in City A.

This, however does not work on a completely 1:1 comparative basis. Any given city with a surplus of workers will only be able to send 1/4 of those eligible to work. So like, if City A has 100 low wealth jobs available, and City B has 100 unemployed low wealth workers, you will only ever see about 25 of those workers from City B come over to work in City A over a period of time.

It's kinda dumb; I don't know why they made it like that. I mean, I sorta do, but I sorta don't.
 
Psykoboy2 said:
I'm working on lining up an interview with someone from the dev team. As soon as I have a time frame of when that will happen, I'll make sure to grab some questions from the thread if any of you have them.
Click to expand...

Some more:



  • Do tourists count in your overall population numbers?
  • What determines how long tourists stay in your city and how much they spend?
  • What factors contribute to the "draw power" of your cities for tourists?
  • Do tourists consume goods in my city's commercial zones?


  • Can you please describe the relationship between RCI in a little more detail? Specifically -
  • Are there divisions based on wealth like in SimCity? Can low wealth citizens only work at low wealth jobs? Can higher educated citizens work at low skill jobs if there are no high skill jobs available?
  • Is there a distinction between shoppers and workers like there is in SimCity?
  • On what kind of schedule to people shop for goods in commercial zones? Does it work like SImCity where they make money at their job, use that money to buy a good, and then take that good home in the form of happiness?
  • Is that process similar to SimCity in that any accrued money or happiness by a citizen is reflected in the building that citizen lives in rather than the citizen itself?
  • How will citizens decide which commercial zone to shop at? Proximity? Wealth value? A mix of both?
 
Only just starting to read up on this game and find it very intriguing. I see it says that it runs on OSX, does this genuinely mean it'll run on a MBP? I only ask because it's not exactly a machine for gaming and wonder if it'd be impossible to build a big city on it.

Forgive me if this is a silly question because I'm a total ignoramus when it comes to this sort of thing.
 
Wow! Thanks for the responses. I'll only have about 30 minutes with them when/if it happens. So we might need to skim through and pick the most burning ones out of the bunch. I hope to know something tomorrow.
 
Psykoboy2 said:
Wow! Thanks for the responses. I'll only have about 30 minutes with them when/if it happens. So we might need to skim through and pick the most burning ones out of the bunch. I hope to know something tomorrow.
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Oh neat you have an in-person interview? Or will it be via Skype?
 
I'm probably stupidly excited for this game. Got it pre-ordered and am waiting for the 10th so I can load it up and play this in the background.
 
More info about the teleporting cars. Click the link to read the whole, long, post.

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...raffic-jam&p=18900912&viewfull=1#post18900912

What's the issue here?
Cities: Skylines has a mechanic that will teleport vehicles to their destination if they can't reach their destination due to extreme traffic problems.
EDIT: Goods/cargo will attempt to redeliver. Citizens teleport to destination.

Why was this mechanic put in?
The mechanic prevents traffic jams from getting so out of hand that it destroys your entire city's traffic simulation, which would shut down your whole city.
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The city in the video posted at the beginning of this thread is a disaster. The makers of this city were showing off certain aspects of the game, and mistakenly ignored this traffic problem. I'm not dissing the makers of the city, it was just a simple oversight that is now being overexaggerated and considered a "norm" when it certainly is not normal. The honest truth is that this round-a-bout/highway route is a functional nightmare. Plan your city just a little better, and you'll probably never see disappearing vehicles.
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Doesn't this feature break the simulation?
That's one way to look at it. The unfortunate matter is that traffic simulation can't be perfect. There will always be situations that can't be mimicked correctly. In this case, citizens stuck in super long traffic jams can't reroute. They don't have the logic to pull a U-turn and go looking for a new route.

And as you can see in this showcased city, there weren't even alternative routes to take.

So your opinion is valid, we understand that this backup feature isn't realistic. But we consider it necessary because without some kind of backup mechanic, it would literally break your entire city's traffic simulation.

What would happen if the mechanic was turned off?
The city in this video had the traffic problem on a highway. Without the mechanic, that traffic would have piled back into the city, effectively blocking every single intersection. No services or citizens would be getting anywhere, even if it was just a block away.

If this traffic nightmare happened inner-city, your city would flood so fast that your city would break and you'd go bankrupt, all your citizens would move away, and your buildings would all be abandoned before you could properly fix the problem. Even after you fixed the problem, your city would take a long time to re-adjust and fix itself.

This is what we mean by "broken simulation". We believe that this situation would be unenjoyable for most of our players (if they even ever encounter this problem).

Remember, this is only in situations where the traffic is so dire that your citizens can't even take alternative routes.

What if I want traffic to flood into my city and shut everything down? REALISM!
Just being straightforward: gameplay comes first in this situation. As stated above, we believe most of our players would not enjoy this situation.

Is the real problem here bad logic design by CO?
No. The traffic logic isn't perfect, but that's not the main problem behind this particular traffic jam in this city.
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Quixzlizx said:
I thought Brazilian and Russian keys were region-locked now. Or is that only for gifting purposes?
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Gifts are generally always region locked, outside of 4-pack copies(unless they fixed that) and some weird outliers. Keys on the other hand can vary, it's the publishers choice basically.

I've bought Paradox games from Nuuvem in the past, EU4 and Warlock 2 to name two, and I had no problems. Not to mention they do usually ask the publisher, and make sure to put it on the games store page if there is a region lock on a key.
 
Zafir said:
Gifts are generally always region locked, outside of 4-pack copies(unless they fixed that) and some weird outliers. Keys on the other hand can vary, it's the publishers choice basically.

I've bought Paradox games from Nuuvem in the past, EU4 and Warlock 2 to name two, and I had no problems. Not to mention they do usually ask the publisher, and make sure to put it on the games store page if there is a region lock on a key.
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They do seem to be on the ball with this. I preordered Alien: Isolation from them, and some months later they cancelled and refunded when they found out that it was region locked. I didn't have to do a thing - I wasn't even aware it was locked until that point. Obviously, I can't guarantee they'll always do this.
 
Munin said:
But what I don't understand is why the solution has to be so in your face? Can't they simply make the cars that were about to hit the traffic jam disappear when the player isn't looking? Or at least stop the disappearance from looking so jarring?
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Eh, to be honest, it doesn't seem so bad. It would be more trouble than it's worth to program it like that. I'm going to take them at their word for now, that this system won't even activate unless your city is pretty fucked up, and that it'll be pretty rare.
 
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