What do you want in Cities: Skylines?

[AidanA28 17]

While we have been "assured" that this won't be as bad as the SC launch, and I believe them, there are many problems that I fear will not be fixed.

 

A: Will we get better zoning tools?

B: A better UI, by that I mean a vast improvement.

C: What will the simulation be like?

D: The plopables are horrible, as well as all of the models.

E: How smoothly will the game run?

F: When will it be available to the US?

G: WILL it be a US game?

H: Terraforming?

I: All textures, besides for terrain, are horrible

 

Ect ect. What do YOU want in the game, will YOU be open to buying a Beta? and will YOU buy it in any way, shape, or form? I'll personally watch this closely, as well as watch the markets and snipe on the lowest price IF I want it.

[CapTon 592]

I have plans to buy this game it can't be as SC at launch, so I think I can handle any problems that I would encounter.

[Prophet42 1,500]

I noticed in the latest video, that zoning only included low density and high density.  I would like to see medium density to have better control on zoning and the height of buildings in certain areas.  Also, for the region I would like to be able to start several cities in the region, not just one and then annex land.  And I don't want any pre-built transportation networks in the region.  I want to build all transportation networks myself.

[zbeginendz 55]

Time will tell I guess for this release. So far so good. I hope it's combines the best aspects of SC4 and SC2013 together in one game. That would be the total package.

With easier access to modding tools sounds like there could be many possiblities for mods also.

 

There is always SC2020 though if not lol.

[zimmie 521]

wow, they are just going with low and high density? I've been waiting for a city builder to expand on the low/med/high densities that SC4 uses. To give more control of what gets built. For instance like having rural, urban or suburban for each density... 

[MTYland 35]

wow, they are just going with low and high density? I've been waiting for a city builder to expand on the low/med/high densities that SC4 uses. To give more control of what gets built. For instance like having rural, urban or suburban for each density... 

 

 co_martsu CSL developer says:

 

"Cities: Skylines has low density residential zone which is detached houses evolving to fancy villas and high density residential zone which is apartment buildings that evolve to fancier looking as well. How the areas evolve is based on the land value of the area. The higher the land value the fancier building the residents will build and are willing to pay more taxes. You can increase the land value with city services to allow for the areas to develop or you can choose not to. Also the high density commercial and office zones are available and those fit well in downtown or business districts, for example.

As for the requests for a medium density zone I'm afraid we're not adding it to the game at this time. However there will be a policy available that limits the height of the buildings in a certain district. This will lock the development of the buildings to the wanted level.

 

question from a fan: "Could you please explain how we have control over this?

I like to build LA Metro styled cities. A downtown with some big highrise high density, surrounded by a few blocks of medium density. Then sprawling low density for the rest of the map with a few medium density suburban centres here and there. Can this be done? If not, then I need medium density."

 

For example the downtown could have high density residential, commercial and office zone at the highest level (requires good land value) and some special buildings like monument offices that not only look good but also help to increase the land value. High density residential zones for the surrounding areas possibly using the policy that limits the height, if needed. High or low density commercial zone/high density residential for the suburban centres depending on the need as well as placing city services like schools, hospitals etc there."

 

link: post #50 http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?804999-Petition-For-Medium-Density/page3&s=f194636b8a4645e70ae4397519939250

[mgomrjsurf 16]

Exit Signs? Telling what's off it like Exit 33 Todd BLVD/Jamesville. Also Highway 441,Youkels,Barstow,Winery,Zoo of it to and like a Holiday Express,Neal's Gas Mart,Walgreens,7-11,Aky's Steakhouse,Subway,Pizza Hut.

Naming Roads like one might be Hicks Way because their's a Hick's Store on it.

Sign saying saying like 12 miles to Gardnrer,47 to Sunnyville and 105 to Clearwater Beach.

Shopping Centers with Pad Sites? In SC13 Building are for sale or lease or rent so in this game a developer wants to build Altamonte Crossings that consit of like Junior Anchors,2 big Box stores,4 Pad Sites or wants to build City Springs Mixed Used development it would need approval to build it.

6 lane roads?

[Wiimeiser 434]

Better Expressway Terminus Junctions than what CIM2 had.

[deimo5 52]

ZONING:

I would like to see different categories of zoning (at least for Residential and Commercial) to better control the personality of the city:

 

Low Density Urban Residential - Townhouses and brownstones, smaller yards, alleys, etc.

Low Density Suburban Residential - Single family homes on small-/medium-sized lots, townhouses with parking lots

Low Density Rural Residential - Single family homes on large lots, trailers

Medium Urban Residential - Low- to mid-rise apartments, no parking lots, designed to be shoulder to shoulder with other buildings

Medium Suburban Residential - Low- to mid-rise apartments with parking lots (complexes), trees, grass, etc.

High Density Urban Residential - Sky-rises with storefront on lower floors, no parking lots, but may have parking garages underneath, designed to be shoulder to shoulder with other buildings

High Density Suburban Residential - Sky-rises with no storefront, large parking lots

 

Low Density Urban Commercial - City-block shops designed to be shoulder to shoulder with other buildings

Low Density Suburban Commercial - Restaurants and shops with parking lots

Low Density Rural Commercial - Restaurants and shops that look like they could homes or made from wood and things like that

Medium Density Urban Commercial - Mid-rise buildings designed to be shoulder to shoulder with other buildings

Medium Density Suburban Commercial - Mid-rise buildings with parking lots, may have grass, good for office parks, etc.

High Density Urban Commercial - Skyscrapers with skywalks to adjoining buildings, bases that integrate well into city blocks

High Density Suburban Commercial - Skyscrapers with parking lots, do not look like they belong in the middle of a city

 

TRANSPORTATION:

I think the transportation options are great for now. I would like to see better seaports and airports. And the pre-existing network on the map, I really hope we can get rid of that and design our own.

 

REGION:

So they don't have region play, the large maps are good for now, but eventually, I hope they can make this work. I would really like to build my expansive metropolitan area some day. For now, I am unclear about how we will be able to utilize the whole map if we uncouple the restriction. Can we use it all for one city? For multiple cities?

 

SERVICES:

I like how they are implementing the way hospitals and fire trucks and the like service the communities (i.e., it's not a radius, but rather a travel distance from the building), but I think even a small infrastructure should have a wider range of service. One building can service quite a large community in reality.

[LivingInThePast 364]

I used to have a huge laundry list (like 50+ items) of what I wanted, but the one BIG thing I want to see is the option for a realistic scale.

 

Even in SimCity 4, the large city tiles could produce a "large" city on what is actually a relatively small part of land. I did some number comparisons and found that the 2km * 2km city tiles were extremely small--in real life (my own city), that constituted just a full neighborhood, so maybe 1,200 single family homes, a few apartment complexes, a school, a post office, and a Walmart.

 

A 6 mile x 6 mile area was substantially larger, which included a city of about 100k people (in real life), which included a massive university campus (minus the airport, of course), several neighborhoods, numerous grocery stores, nearly all of schools, and plenty of room for expansion. And if I was going for a recreation of my home town College Station, Texas, that would be a good option (sure it cuts off some portions and add some portions better utilized, but go with me here). In theory, I could fill it with a full recreation of every street, and in theory, every building.

 

But if I was going for a recreation of a larger city, say, Houston, I would still have comparatively a lot to work with--the entire downtown and the "inner inner loop" the highways create with it, all of the Wards, Rice University (most of it at least), and Midtown. It would be a whole lot larger than even SimCity 4 and definitely more than SimCity 2013 (with that, I could make a whole "city" of just the airport terminals, and little more than downtown).

 

There are going to be players that don't care about the scale and would rather have a downtown in their tile than a more realistic sprawling single family homes area, but players that do care about scale, will there be a way to satisfy "real life" boundaries without trying to "cheat" by forcing more residential than the game thinks there should be?

[LivingInThePast 364]

Of course, when you're talking about a computer simulation, 6x6 miles is pretty big. I suppose if you wanted to make bigger cities, there should be an option to "link" two cities together so they'll share characteristics like crime rate and total $$$ and all that. But without a region, long-term travel like even mass transit makes not a whole lot of sense. But given that restriction (and there is room for expansion packs down the line!) the freight railroads should at least be present. Not just in the sense of "transporting stuff off the map" but they must provide somewhat of a challenge. In my old lists, I wanted options for railroad crossings, whether you wanted gates, lights, cantilevers, and all that jazz--which is nice, I know, but not the most important thing.

 

SimCity Social, as bad as it was, introduced a concept that I wish we would see more of--an unmovable, pre-existing railroad. Then you can have a challenge of trying to work around the train. Would you have crossings and let trains tie up traffic at crucial times? Or make the expense of having overpasses and underpasses?

 

On that, I'm sad to see to the whole "traffic makes emergency vehicles" slow problem. While that is a problem, it's not really how things work in real life. The traffic patterns suffers by emergency vehicles (keep back 500 feet, you'll miss a stoplight cycle, etc.), not the other way around. Where emergency vehicles WOULD suffer are mostly three issues:

 

1. Trains.

2. Traffic patterns (one way roads--it's why highways have turnarounds for "official use only")

3. On-street parking. On street parking is convenient and makes urban roads more realistic, but in reality, there's plenty of roads that are on paper two lanes, and could, in theory, have two lanes of parking on either side (parking requires less width than driving lanes), but it makes the remaining roads scarily narrow, and an emergency vehicle would definitely have problems with that (this usually happens due to lane widths 8-9 feet wide).

 

Everyone also talks about mixed-use buildings, but I'd like to see "any" zones, so buildings will tend to develop by land value and market forces and everything sorts itself out (see: Houston). This will result in homes converted to businesses, for instance. As for the rest of the zones, deimo5 has some good concepts, but I think there needs to be some refining...(next post)

[deimo5 52]

I used to have a huge laundry list (like 50+ items) of what I wanted, but the one BIG thing I want to see is the option for a realistic scale.

 

Even in SimCity 4, the large city tiles could produce a "large" city on what is actually a relatively small part of land. I did some number comparisons and found that the 2km * 2km city tiles were extremely small--in real life (my own city), that constituted just a full neighborhood, so maybe 1,200 single family homes, a few apartment complexes, a school, a post office, and a Walmart.

 

A 6 mile x 6 mile area was substantially larger, which included a city of about 100k people (in real life), which included a massive university campus (minus the airport, of course), several neighborhoods, numerous grocery stores, nearly all of schools, and plenty of room for expansion. And if I was going for a recreation of my home town College Station, Texas, that would be a good option (sure it cuts off some portions and add some portions better utilized, but go with me here). In theory, I could fill it with a full recreation of every street, and in theory, every building.

 

But if I was going for a recreation of a larger city, say, Houston, I would still have comparatively a lot to work with--the entire downtown and the "inner inner loop" the highways create with it, all of the Wards, Rice University (most of it at least), and Midtown. It would be a whole lot larger than even SimCity 4 and definitely more than SimCity 2013 (with that, I could make a whole "city" of just the airport terminals, and little more than downtown).

 

There are going to be players that don't care about the scale and would rather have a downtown in their tile than a more realistic sprawling single family homes area, but players that do care about scale, will there be a way to satisfy "real life" boundaries without trying to "cheat" by forcing more residential than the game thinks there should be?

 

With Cities: Skylines, you will be able to create cities up to 6.2 x 6.2 miles, but you would have to uncouple the restriction that is in place that allows you to only be able to expand to nine 1.24 x 1.24 mi blocks of the map. They said that you would be able to uncouple this restriction and use all 25 blocks on the map.

[Fantozzi 4,064]

http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?813695-Cities-Skylines-%C2%96-Dev-Diary-4-Public-Transport

 

I miss Tramways like NAM has. At least one inner city overground rail system.

 

 

I wish there were taxicabs in addition to busses.

[Wiimeiser 434]

Metro and Trains are the same thing, so they should be able to join up...

[pcwhiz24 1,185]

A night mode!! How can we have a city game without a night mode? If CIM 2 has night mode and Skylines uses the same engine, why no night??

[Skimbo 304]

Maybe the zoning tools are moddable. If the building's data contents the height of the structure one can do some script mods to include more zonal types. On the other hand: A too complex zoning will confuse many players who ain't that much into this stuff. It wolud be interresting if the "lot" contains a number or percentage of unusd land on the lot, this might make a mod possible which can limit by heigh and land usage (like we use in urban planning)

[Jim14409 448]

I would like to have some way of pre-zoning or future planning. Perhaps it could be a lighter shade of the actual zone color or have diagonal lines to indicate that it was not yet actually zoned. Also someway to designate future streets, roads, avenues, and highways as well as a way of designating the area where a university, zoo, airport or other building will be placed later. These building placement markers might all be one color and then use the text aspect to denote the actual building to be placed. Any of this may not be possible but would be helpful in my game play and planning for future growth of any town, city, or region.

[47ply 1,100]

I would like U-drive it, full free range camera. terraforming and modding of textures

[JackStraw 19]

I want subway and elevated metro.  And I also want to be able to plop stations diag for both.  I would also like this game to be more North American centric.  The fact they are going to allow mods right from the start is nice.  Hopefully trams will be added in a later DLC.  One thingthat i have a question about is... after watching some trailer, it seems that water must come from river sources, no water tables.  That's Ok, but what about land locked cities?  Oh... and I almost forgot.... WALL TO WALL Buildings !!!!!!

[AidanA28 17]

I would like to have some way of pre-zoning or future planning. Perhaps it could be a lighter shade of the actual zone color or have diagonal lines to indicate that it was not yet actually zoned. Also someway to designate future streets, roads, avenues, and highways as well as a way of designating the area where a university, zoo, airport or other building will be placed later. These building placement markers might all be one color and then use the text aspect to denote the actual building to be placed. Any of this may not be possible but would be helpful in my game play and planning for future growth of any town, city, or region.

I love it! Maybe a whole seperate data layer that you can access with ease from your actual city. I hate how you just have to guess and check in simcity, unlike an actual mayor.

 

I want a lot more micromanagement tools. For example:

Naming streets myself

Naming different suburbs and annexes

Naming other things (but not like shops and people, that's too far.)

Gouverment policies

More control over events (and more events.)

 

Disasters:

Hurricanes!

Riots

Severe Thunderstorms

Blizzards

Car Accidents

Aliean Attacks (but a bit upscaled from simcity)

Pandemics (ooooooh!)

Intelligent Dog Uprising (maybe a little more of a joke than anything, but would be cool)

Cosmic events/black holes/no sun.

 

Other things:

Plopable interchanges

A small social factor (chat with your friends, offer them recources, collaborate and give your friends annexes of your city.)

Interstellar colonisation!

 

That's all for now

[LivingInThePast 364]

I would like the game to be more North American-centric, or at least have the option to be so at release. I know SC4 was already SoCal-centric when it was released, but having the game be Euro-centric (in regards to architecture/zoning/etc.) will be annoying. The textures already could use some help: I was hoping that there could be a difference between asphalt and concrete, like concrete would be more expensive but need less maintenance. Of course, a NAM equivalent could help with making it look more like an Interstate, etc.

 

I'm less impressed with screwing around with bridge curves then making nice-looking bridges, anything from 1930s-era viaducts to post-modern signature bridges. 

 

That being said, I kind of like "painting" the area for different uses. Agriculture seems a bit out of place, but I would like to see areas with lots of oil refineries (and despite them producing a substantial amount of pollution, not demonizing them), or maybe an area with lots of distribution centers.

 

Metro and Trains are the same thing, so they should be able to join up...

 

Not even close. The "El" and the New York subways don't connect to the commuter rail system directly.

[Akeem J Lenoir 9]

I'd like to see a free-forming zoning tool. SimCity 2013 almost got this right... almost... as we were able to zone an area without placing rectangular lots, like in SC4, or squared lots, like in Cities XL. In real life, not all buildings are uniformly close to main road, nor are they always squared. I want to form my zones to my liking.   

[mr.v 40]

Farms

 

Terra forming (in-game)

 

Real dark at night (the area that far away from city should be a lot more dark.)

 

Day/Night/Auto day & night switch

 

Be able to disable or ignore micro management

 

Riots

 

Disasters

 

Resource trading

 

Moddable

 

The building should be able to automatic merge lots to has an area to build bigger/taller building.

 

Historic building (the building that was marked as history will not be able to destroy, upgrade automaticly until unmark.)

 

Many network or transport options (narrow street, street, road [1-6 lanes], highway [ground, underground, elevated], toll booth, rails [train, elevated, subway, mono rail, tram], water bus[transport people only, or with cars])

 

Customizable parks (just like simcity 2013, place the main park and customize trees or path to smaller area.)

 

Gangster or some super bad guy in the area that has very high crime level. (Think about 1 or 2 GTA guys in your city and make your city in chaos. Burn, massive kill, bomb, theft, rob, etc...)

[mgomrjsurf 16]

Real Buildings

[Sap59 3]

many of what was already said in the above posts.

[flyer2359 92]

Disasters

 

Day/Night cycle

[meowza 230]

I'm still on the fence with CS. There are still a lot of missing staple features in the game. Like a simple day and night cycle for example... :/

Plus, we have no idea about the game's bugs yet.

 

It's just too early to tell.

[Azurespecter 506]

I'm still on the fence with CS. There are still a lot of missing staple features in the game. Like a simple day and night cycle for example... :/

Plus, we have no idea about the game's bugs yet.

 

It's just too early to tell.

 

We see a lengthy thread about day/night cycles about every week over on the Paradox forums. I'm curious to know what a lot of Simtropolis users think about it though. 

 

Why do you consider a day/night cycle to be a "core" feature?

How high or low of a priority would you say adding a day/night system is post-release?

How would you implement a day/night cycle?

How would a day/night cycle work with aging citizens?

[meowza 230]

 

I'm still on the fence with CS. There are still a lot of missing staple features in the game. Like a simple day and night cycle for example... :/

Plus, we have no idea about the game's bugs yet.

 

It's just too early to tell.

 

We see a lengthy thread about day/night cycles about every week over on the Paradox forums. I'm curious to know what a lot of Simtropolis users think about it though. 

 

Why do you consider a day/night cycle to be a "core" feature?

How high or low of a priority would you say adding a day/night system is post-release?

How would you implement a day/night cycle?

How would a day/night cycle work with aging citizens?

 

 

First of all, I'm pleasantly surprised that you are part of Paradox.  Anyway,

I can't speak for everybody in the community. So this will be all based from my perspective.

 

Why do you consider a day/night cycle to be a "core" feature?

- It has been a tradition. I know it sounds superficial. But it's one of the reasons why SC2013 did not made me fully settle down -it ditched too many traditional elements.

 

How high or low of a priority would you say adding a day/night system is post-release?

- I haven't really thought about ranking common features. But as long it's doable in an elegant manner, then it's ok for me to wait further down the line. I'd prefer disasters and its management over day-night though.

 

How would you implement a day/night cycle?

How would a day/night cycle work with aging citizens?

- I'm not familiar with how CS' gameplay exactly works, so it would be wrong for me to suggest how to properly implement day and night cycle. But as long as it's similar and improved (mainly simulation-wise, graphically, and moddabilty) over what we have all been used to, then it's fine with me.

 

On a side note, it's not the crude features that's going to make me say "I need that game now". CS needs to be mind blowing in many aspects (mind blowing day and night cycle for example). Like when we saw SC2013's agent simulation for the first time. In which, the enthusiasm was sadly extinguished by the lack of other features.

 

I'm trying to limit my expectations for the game mainly due to the small dev team. Which in my opinion is bad. SC2013 has raised the bar when it comes to simulation, sound, and among other select aspects, which doesn't help the situation. I prefer to dream big, to the point of perfection and even impracticality. But ofcourse it all boils down to the capability of the team, whether if they can make dreams come true or not.

[Turjan 1,048]

We see a lengthy thread about day/night cycles about every week over on the Paradox forums. I'm curious to know what a lot of Simtropolis users think about it though. 

 

1. Why do you consider a day/night cycle to be a "core" feature?

2. How high or low of a priority would you say adding a day/night system is post-release?

3. How would you implement a day/night cycle?

4. How would a day/night cycle work with aging citizens?

 

1. It's the breath of a city, the ebb and flow of traffic from living areas to workplaces and back. The SC4 extension bore the name "Rush Hour", which embodies this concept.

2. Honestly, ask me when I've seen the rest of the game .

3. Tricky, especially if you model each citizen. I liked the idea of rush hours and weekend traffic in CiM2, but the execution didn't work out. However, if there are no detailed schedules for public transport, the main problem of CiM2 will not come up.

4. No idea. How fast do the citizens age?