Cities Skylines 2 Out Now!

[Ulisse Wolf 4,414]

Cities Skylines 2 is finally out! As of today the new city builder created by Colossal Order is finally available to the public and we can't wait to see your creations with the new city builder. You can share here your first impressions, links of your videos and live streaming and pictures and also help in case of technical problems

 

This is the released release trailer

 

 

[perafilozof 143]

Here is my little satire on this burning wreck:

 

[Cyclone Boom 16,938]

While the premise of CS2 has positive aspects over its predecessor, it seems the game is at least 5 years ahead for system requirements than what most people have. I can understand the whole idea to be a next gen game, but then there's the side of accessibility. If only gameplay could've still be developed to enhance aspects such as the traffic realism, while compromising on the graphical quality. Perhaps even a totally different port of the game to be economical on the graphics might've helped?

In terms of "accolades" the game receives, I think we can agree the main ones are those from players themselves. Those of us who want to spend hours upon hours enjoying creative explorations. For anyone to play a 9 out of 10 game, I fear many will be disappointed if not having the sufficient hardware requirements to enjoy the game. This is a big issue for many I suspect. There is of course the console versions, but then it'd sacrifice modding options (and consoles aren't everyone's cup of tea).

It sure looks a beautiful game aesthetically, but it'd be nice if more people were able to appreciate it.

As a side note, I was hoping Colossal Order / Paradox would reach out to Simtropolis so we could run some sort of community event (like last time). Simtropolis is a city-building community for all city builders (not just SC4), and so from my perspective as an admin, the door remains still open on that front in future.

For those who can enjoy CS2 it sounds like it'll be fun. For those of us unable, I suppose we'll have to keep with our comfy pairs of shoes...

-CB

[Ulisse Wolf 4,414]

Writing a hot review with 4.6 hours of play I can say a fun but frustrating game.

Here are the critical areas I have identified

1. The graphics suck in terms of performance. With RTX 4080 you drop into an FPS range between 10 - 20. Which evidence that CS2 was born as a game for RTX Series 40 and up but at the same time the 'optimization of the game is poor and non-existent. Perhaps with DLSS you could alleviate some of the problems but it was not included despite the fact that we have the file that allows you to execute DLSS
2. Pathfield. It seems that there are problems in the parhfield system and thus in the management of traffic and public transportation as the cims prefer cars despite the fact that there is efficient public transportation
3. Various bugs and some animations are very poor
4. Missing areas. There are points in the gameplay where some features are missing that will be included with DLCs

Apart from these problems I can say that CS2 is a good game that we finally have a simulation similar to SC4. I may do a more detailed review later, but for now these are my first impressions

[Ulisse Wolf 4,414]

2 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

As a side note, I was hoping Colossal Order / Paradox would reach out to Simtropolis so we could run some sort of community event (like last time). Simtropolis is a city-building community for all city builders (not just SC4), and so from my perspective as an admin, the door remains still open on that front in future.

I hope so too but from what I see Paradox wants to create a closed ecosystem. Anyway if there are people interested I could organize some challenges on CS2

[kschmidt 6,164]

CS heavy graphics load I till now haven 't enjoyed this sim. Futures, I have no wish invest more to run this succesor !

Sincerely tours,

Kschmidt

[Terring 6,473]

13 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

While the premise of CS2 has positive aspects over its predecessor, it seems the game is at least 5 years ahead for system requirements than what most people have.

This is what happened to me and SimCity 4 20 years ago. When it was released, it was such a heavy and advanced game that the PC I had back then couldn't handle it. 5 years had to pass before I finally managed to play it for the first time, in 2008. Of course I'm not saying that we have to wait for 5 years to get better computers and equipment to play Cities Skylines 2. I'm just saying that history is kind of repeating itself.

13 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

I can understand the whole idea to be a next gen game, but then there's the side of accessibility.

No matter how advanced and ambition your game is, always try your best to make it as accessible as possible to as many people as possible, without making too many sacrifices if possible. It sucks that not everybody can play the game right now, but more accessibility means more players and more money to financially support your projects and your company. That's a good reason to optimize your game, I suppose.

[watercitymadero 804]

From twitter account @BoldlyBuilding2

 

[SIM-ple Jack 17,444]

Beautiful graphics, assorted viewpoints, fantastic buildings...where's the challenge?!!! I'll stick with my ol' SC4, she's served me well.

[mosonče 75]

6 hours ago, Terring said:

No matter how advanced and ambition your game is, always try your best to make it as accessible as possible to as many people as possible, without making too many sacrifices if possible. It sucks that not everybody can play the game right now, but more accessibility means more players and more money to financially support your projects and your company. That's a good reason to optimize your game, I suppose

Most of GDC talks from Maxis regarding SC2013 is why they had to compromise this or that, I'm pretty sure they were capable of making a game "peasants" can play in few years but they didn't ofc.

Problem with CS2 seems to be more fundamental though, probably combination of constraints of Unity and their own ones.

Unlike this, SC4 even had software renderer for systems basically exempt of any decency for GPU, this game apparently scales up "well" but no sense of scale down is present atm.

5 minutes ago, SIM-ple Jack said:

Beautiful graphics, assorted viewpoints, fantastic buildings...where's the challenge?!!! I'll stick with my ol' SC4, she's served me well.

Is it only me finding graphics of full 3D ones extremely dull due to their nature? And yes, it's a sandbox franchise at best, city building elements layer on top of traffic manager CIM.

[watercitymadero 804]

Or, if you don't want the new CS2, just go back to play Cities Skylines 1 that now has a lot of great amounts of very well-made assets and mods.

 

 

yeah, the first game right now looks incredible, and maybe better than the new version. And you don't need to have the ultimate video card. 😁

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

I don't believe I didn't come here Tuesday! Well I was fortunate to get early access and have a little over 145 hours in. For playing vanilla, I been having a lot of fun. It may have some issues atm but I can say overall, it runs way better than CS1 so far and they are working to get things better. I'm on i7-8700k, RTX 3060Ti, 32gb RAM, 1080p monitor.

 

[watercitymadero 804]

First mods are coming.

 

[watercitymadero 804]

The amount of work to do this video, I can't imagine. That's a lot of GPUs

 

[watercitymadero 804]

 

I can't believe how much technology has advanced in videogames since this video came out. In city simulators, we are definitely almost there.

[watercitymadero 804]

Well, after reading some of the comments in CS2 forums, reddit, twitter and discord, I understand why some people aren't happy with the performance, and I totally agree with them. Yes, for a game that is promising future proof this shouldn't be the case. I really hope CO can solve this for the better, and hope the best for anyone involved.

CO:

Cities: Skylines II is built for the future with modern hardware in mind, allowing us to add more depth and detail to the game than its predecessor had.

OUR GOALS 

With the upcoming patches, the situation will largely improve with default settings. It is worth mentioning that for a game like this, the performance target is to run at a steady 30FPS minimum. There is no real benefit in a city builder aiming for higher FPS (unlike a multiplayer shooter) as a growing city will inevitably become CPU-bound. What matters more with this type of game is to avoid stutters and have a responsive UI.

For that reason, our simulation is also built around an expected update rate given 30fps. However, it does not hurt to get 60fps as it can contribute to better visuals in relation to temporal effects, so while our target is 30fps, we don't intend to limit or stop the optimization work just because we reach it on the recommended hardware. We just don't believe there would be a long-term benefit in setting the target to 60fps, especially because we face rendering challenges both from close-ups and far distances.

 

Some users:

"If it's built for the future, why doesn't it support DLSS? Why does it have performance issues even on really high-end PCs out of the box?"

"1080p as some target resolution isn't "the future"

"30 fps at 1080p is an unacceptable target in any game genre in 2023"

"I just don't like my GPU running on 100% permanently"

"Lots of people have 4K monitors and the game—any game—looks awful in 1080p, especially on a large screen. 4K@30fps is perfectly acceptable for me as a minimum on recommended hardware…dropping to 1/4 of the resolution is really unacceptable to me."

"And performance matters for ALL games, regardless of genre."

"The game doesn't even look nearly good enough to warrant running this horrible on top of the line systems."

 

 

[anonymous1234 216]

Well I'd love to play it, but I think I can't... my computer doesn't have dedicated graphics, it has got a processor with integrated ones so I think that it wont work.

[Jedimarine 119]

Ah yes.

Another swing at the plate of a genre that peaked 20 years ago.

Ever since, we've been over promised, over priced, over hassled, and underwhelmed.

-----

I get the idea of making the game muscular and people's hardware will grow into it, as @Terring mentioned above.

I myself had to wait a few years for a PC that could play SC4.  Heck, even now, I can't use some of more impressive mods for SC4.

If the developers could provide satisfactory tiers of functional play, that would be good start toward quieting the critics.

Kind of like the good old days of Minimum and Recommended specs.  You just prayed you were somewhere in between.

-----

But if the game is not even humming for people with the hardware for it....eesh.

What setup did they put before the company board and they said "that is good, let's release that."

But I suppose that is the sin tradeoff these days...release the game too early to have income and get roasted for it...or hold it in development forever until the company goes broke.

The ambitions of games are outstripping the most important resource when it comes to programming...time.

-----

One personal opinion on the game is just how bland the color pallet seems.

I wonder if this is a measure of stress reduction on the GPU if you can simplify the shades and gradients.

So while the renders look pristine and shiny...they are also drab and grey.

This then will fall back to the community to try to inject life and splendor into what the developers leave.

Will CS2 have a community with the time, capability, and sheer numbers to offer those needed inclusions?

Only time will tell.

Time, Time, Time.

[anonymous1234 216]

9 hours ago, Jedimarine said:

Ah yes.

Another swing at the plate of a genre that peaked 20 years ago.

Ever since, we've been over promised, over priced, over hassled, and underwhelmed.

-----

I get the idea of making the game muscular and people's hardware will grow into it, as @Terring mentioned above.

I myself had to wait a few years for a PC that could play SC4.  Heck, even now, I can't use some of more impressive mods for SC4.

If the developers could provide satisfactory tiers of functional play, that would be good start toward quieting the critics.

Kind of like the good old days of Minimum and Recommended specs.  You just prayed you were somewhere in between.

-----

But if the game is not even humming for people with the hardware for it....eesh.

What setup did they put before the company board and they said "that is good, let's release that."

But I suppose that is the sin tradeoff these days...release the game too early to have income and get roasted for it...or hold it in development forever until the company goes broke.

The ambitions of games are outstripping the most important resource when it comes to programming...time.

-----

One personal opinion on the game is just how bland the color pallet seems.

I wonder if this is a measure of stress reduction on the GPU if you can simplify the shades and gradients.

So while the renders look pristine and shiny...they are also drab and grey.

This then will fall back to the community to try to inject life and splendor into what the developers leave.

Will CS2 have a community with the time, capability, and sheer numbers to offer those needed inclusions?

Only time will tell.

Time, Time, Time.

I agree with you that the genre peaked 20 years ago. Out of all games of this category that I tried, SC4 remains my favourite. SimCity (2013) was such a sad ending to one of the greatest sagas of all times, atleast for me. It truly had its great things but overall I think it was a failure. Then came Cities Skylines and well, it isn't a bad game, but I think it lacks some, "soul". It's very serious. SimCity had it's sense of humor, the funny comments and everything. When someone that's not much into this type of games asks me what to buy, I always make a question to them before suggesting (well I make more, but this is one of the most important): Would you prefer to be a mayor or an urban planner? Because that's how I see it, SimCity's more focused on the management aspects and Cities Skylines on the building, landscaping etc. On the gray looking of CS I agree too. I like more color.

 

This year's being terrible in computer games performance. I mean, they're selling very good games poorly executed. That's why I'm mostly a Playstation player, it's cheapest than a good computer and atleast it guarantees you that the game's gonna work. But I think this genre of "Sim" games is wayyy better on the computer, because you need to select a lot of options and it's done better with the mouse than with the controller.

I also hate when a multi-million company release a game with a important bunch of errors made by their paid developers and they pretend to fix them with the unpaid labor of the modders. I think they exploit the fanatism of some of their players to be cheap and work less. But even with this, I can sort of be empathetic with companies in some aspects. Yeah they got roasted by the fans for releasing the game with such a bad performance rate. But look how Rockstar's also being roasted by GTA fans because of the time they're taking until releasing GTA 6. And the same happens with the graphics thing. If they release a game with high-end graphics the ones who can't execute the game because of that will be complaining. If they release a game with poorer graphics then people's gonna complain because they downgraded the graphics or didn't improved them in years... I mean, I understand that it is hard.

Sorry for the long text🙏

 

 

[watercitymadero 804]

"Here's a first look at the Editor in Cities Skylines II and it's functionalities"
 

[Ulisse Wolf 4,414]

As you know the launch of Cities Skylines 2 has not been good due to performance problems, lack of modding support and now many bugs are being discovered that ruin the simulation. 

For this reason Colossal Order a decided to move the release of DLC to 2024 always subordinate based on the condition of the game after the various patches.

For the new Expansion Pass Updated Timeline here is the link

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/expansion-pass-updated-timeline.1611880/

Also here is a preview of the upcoming patches where they are going to fix

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/co-word-of-the-week-4.1611897/

[mosonče 75]

Speaking of fixes, I don't intend to play this game (probably never ever except case studies) but I didn't get one thing from game play videos. Why taxation is based on education level while it should be based on income level?

It's so weird, weird on the level that who could even approve such mechanic. ( Unless game clinges to the mechanic of education level = more wealth for simulation purposes )

[Ulisse Wolf 4,414]

Important security bulletin for Cities Skylines 2 players

Below is the link that explains the safety incident that occurred with the Traffic mod and the resolution to this issue to mitigate the safety incident. An investigation is currently underway to understand how this could happen and what this malicious file that was inserted into the mod does. People are advised to change passwords to mitigate any problems

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/important-update-regarding-the-traffic-mod.1712835/

[Atur_Official 20]

Almost 2 years later and the game still isnt done...