What do you think which mistakes do players make most often?

[perafilozof 143]

My opinion based on what I have see here, Reddit, on Facebook and Discord:

These are some of the most common mistakes which players make when building cities in Cities: Skylines:

Zoning too much residential which sets up future death waves and population decline
Polluting the water supply and making Cims sick
Losing money, credits, because of unused utility (power, water, garbage) capacity
Zoning on all the roads resulting in traffic jams and low traffic flow
Accidentally placing one way roads the wrong way creating havoc with roads which don't work or cars and trucks which get stuck on them

Which would you add to the list? And which have you learned, the hard way, to avoid making?

Shameless plug:

I also made a short overview video on this subject, if you are interested to give feedback on and discuss the points above.

 

[BoredEnthusiast 2]

Building too much residential area without setting aside more space for trash buildings. It either leads to trash piling up, or having to put a furnace too close to other buildings. Either way, the citizens get real mad. 

[Glitcher 5]

The most common problem I've seen:

Using Anarchy and Environmental Tools to solve everything.

Those mods are crutches for incompetence. Players who can't weave a road up a mountainside resort to Anarchy. Players who can't build a functional dam resort to Environmental Tools to get a stronger water source. (*cough*Biffa*cough*) I discourage the use of both mods because it just enables players to cheat the balanced limitations of the simulation.

[perafilozof 143]

Hi, thx for the auditions to the discussion! I will mention these in my next, minus the "you know who" reference so I don't antagonize the horde of angry blind followers.

[Kiwiwriter47 472]

1. Overspending and going into deep deficits.

2. Not pre-planning and reserving space for municipal facilities (fire, police, health, recreation, education)

3. Avoiding balance in zoning

4. Not pre-planning for superhighways and transit line spaces

5. Not creating one-way streets from the start in alternating sequence to cut traffic

6. Not naming streets 

[Propfam 2,294]

On 11/12/2020 at 9:39 AM, Glitcher said:

(*cough*Biffa*cough*)

 

[Darth Apple 54]

In my opinion, it's never good to be too stingy early on. I always run a deficit for the first in-game year or so, but I do so very carefully. I invest strongly in education right from the very beginning. As soon as everyone is educated, the tax revenues increase significantly. It ends up creating a very healthy revenue stream that contributes to everything I do from that point on. 

Of course it goes without saying not to take this too far. I usually try to start out with a city of 4-5K and keep it there until I'm in the green. I also don't build any highways or fancy infrastructure until everyone gets educated, usually a year or two into the game. This has done well to prevent me from running out of money too early on. 

This is, of course, much harder to do if you're playing without everything unlocked.

[Kiwiwriter47 472]

4 hours ago, Darth Apple said:

In my opinion, it's never good to be too stingy early on. I always run a deficit for the first in-game year or so, but I do so very carefully. I invest strongly in education right from the very beginning. As soon as everyone is educated, the tax revenues increase significantly. It ends up creating a very healthy revenue stream that contributes to everything I do from that point on. 

Of course it goes without saying not to take this too far. I usually try to start out with a city of 4-5K and keep it there until I'm in the green. I also don't build any highways or fancy infrastructure until everyone gets educated, usually a year or two into the game. This has done well to prevent me from running out of money too early on. 

This is, of course, much harder to do if you're playing without everything unlocked.

This is very sensible.

[perafilozof 143]

Hi,

Thank you all for the extra posts and your experiences. I will soon put them all together into a new 5 Common mistakes video. But do keep these coming so I can make a third.

[Prince Siegfried 7]

Not a player...been SimCity user and intending to buy, but watched enough videos on the game in the process of preparing to buy to get an idea...and lived in a large city--LA, as well as a smaller large metropolitan area in the Southeast. 

Road layout. If you're going for European, I understand needing to make some narrow streets, etc, but remember Paris has some pretty large boulevards. 

Assuming an American city, not enough large avenues is a problem. Take LA, for example...as notorious as it is for traffic, what helps is having large avenues, like Western that go from more or less the bottom of LA County up to Hollywood.

And a good freeway system. LA might have its cursed traffic jam, but it's still a good layout. Also, freeway bypasses...you know, the type of freeways that go around a city. Also, good public transportation layouts. Think of each line having a purpose. All lines should go to one center point (downtown), but then have a plan where each line intends to turn around. You can also do endings in the same place, but going through different neighborhoods so that those citizens who need to get to the same point use those.

Same with subways and train lines. Those should have a POINT. These points should all be important areas in your city, ideally the edge. LA's problem, and they are fixing it, is their subway lines don't extend far enough. They are finally building one to the airport and extending the Purple Line to at least Beverly Hills...maybe Santa Monica. The idea that they ended it in the Central LA was bad design. People should have a direct subway line to one of the most important points in the city--Santa Monica. LA's problem is this: it's a big city with massive geographic obstacles where the buses have a hard time getting you into the Valley from Koreatown in less than an hour. You live in Koreatown and are trying to become an actor, but don't drive. It's a heck of a long ride. The problem is, even with what subway and train there is, it's really ineffective. You could blame the mountains between the city and the Valley, but I think they could do it, though I'm no expert on engineering, so maybe I'm wrong, but a subway line right up to the studios from the bottom of LA County would really be a blessing. Those studios (most) are not in Hollywood. They are way up in Burbank, which with public transport, is a heck of a long ride. I use LA because it's known for its traffic jams, but they have done a good job of mitigating it, but have a long way to go, I think. Traffic is a big factor in any case, so:

1) avenues ever so often that go directly from one place to another. This works well one a grid layout especially, but even without a grid system, you can do it.
2) a good freeway system. Freeway bypasses are important
3) A very deliberate bus system. It's too easy to just say "Well here are my bus lines" but not have no system. 
4) A good subway/train layout with clear destinations to important parts of the city. 
5) Subway layouts should not be as interwoven as bus lines. They should be very simple, but always lead to an important destinations. Also, subway and trains should always have a stop ever so often at bus routes so the passengers can connect. Always do this at your major avenues. 

[Leo -- 186]

One of the issues that I've seen a lot is making a road with too few nodes causing the traffic to be unable to change lanes causing major traffic issues.

[csSniper 1]

Believing the Steam BS