Gatycon

It says in the full review that there is a built in mod to disable the unlocking of buildings, just giving them all to you at the start, and giving you infinite money. So that would probably be a sandbox mode unless there's some other stuff that would need to be disabled, I'm not sure.

It's worth checking out the full length review just for some of the screenshots of the city he made. I've watched quite a few videos on this game so far, but this was the first time I've seen a big city in this game made 'realistically' and in an aesthetically pleasing way. It looks great! It's also worth noting that most of the things people are saying the game is missing will likely be added later (like more realistic textures, disasters, terraforming) either through mods or through official game updates. It's still (very) early days though, so any major problems or improvements will remain to be seen. It's also interesting that the game is being released with some limitations and restrictions, similar to the SC2013 launch, but where SC2013 was crucified, people seem to be willing to accept that they'll have to wait for some features for Skylines. Guess by being upfront about it, CO is able to nullify the firestorm of criticism that SC endured. Or maybe the limitations of SC were just that much more permanent and damaging.

Wait, you mean simcity isn't a full time job for you guys? What am I doing wrong then... I agree that it's a lot of work, and sometimes it's just not worth it to perfectly correct every building. Still, if you really like one that's not behaving properly I find it's worth the time to fix it rather than just deleting it.

Like the others have said, you need to get your city and region to a certain size and make sure the local conditions are suitable before you can get a lot of commercial highrises. Playing this way takes time, but will result in much more natural looking cities. If you don't want to wait, you can use a demand mod to artificially increase the demand for certain building types to make them grow like crazy. A lot of people don't like using these kinds of mods since they tend to make the city look weirdly overdeveloped and unnatural. I'm not sure if these mods will get you past the growth stage limits either, so it may be that you would still need to reach a certain population threshold to get larger buildings (but with a demand mod that wouldn't take long, lol). Here's the one I use to make sure I can still grow farms at the edges of my larger cities:

One of the biggest mistakes I've made modding was assuming that the buildings I downloaded would have the statistics properly set up to allow them to grow in a natural way. Many of the lots available for download have improper occupancies, growth stages, lot sizes, densities, or what have you which can cause them to grow too prolifically, or prevent them from growing at all. For every building you download, you should take the time with reader or PIMX to verify that the stats are in line with your play style, be it vanilla or CAM or whatever you like. For a good variety of buildings growing, you want many buildings with similar stats so the randomizing algorithm has many options to choose from when it's picking a building to grow. Don't be like me where you have 50+ downloaded buildings with wonky stats that you have to slog through to correct!

Same with me, I won't be one of the first to buy it, but if it gets a good endorsement on here than I'll definitely be willing to give it a shot. Course, I'd have to upgrade my computer to run it... Oh well, I've been needing an excuse anyway!

Yeah, to fix this the only real solution is to mod. Either increase the power output of the default plants (as in the other thread Lennson linked to), or download something that suits your tastes. This is what I use:

Simple answer is that it depends on the lot. In the regular game there are growth stages 1-8. When you install the CAM it changes this to 1-15. So if the building you download has a growth stage higher than 8 (CAMelots) it will never appear in the regular game. If the stage is in 1-8 (CAMpatible lots) then it can appear, but the stats of the building will likely be off for the regular game mechanics. Like, it will have too many occupants or too few, or something like that that will throw off the game somewhat. The building download information should list what growth stage it is. That being said, there's nothing stopping you from downloading a building you like, then modding it for your own use to work properly with the normal game. Once you know how of course.

Basically it changes the dynamics of the growth of different building sizes in a city. Like at what population certain size buildings will grow (Growth stages), and how much demand you can have. I tried it a few years ago, but ultimately switched back because I didn't like it. There's a TON of set up work required in terms of finding and downloading CAMpatible and CAMelot buildings, and getting them all to work properly. This needs to be done to really get the most out of the mod. The end result is you can get better looking, more natural growth, and grow much larger cities, but for me the setup work just wasn't worth it. It isn't really a beginner mod at all. Regarding changing back after you've used it, it can be done. I had a region I was trying it in for quite a while before I ultimately decided to change back. Although I should say there was A LOT of economic turmoil, almost sinking the whole region, and a lot of weird bugs (like I-HT having way more jobs than they should have, and people refusing to drive to work, only walking) that took me a really long time to work out. Even now I'm not sure my region is 100% okay, although it's playable. So I DON'T recommend it.

It says in the full article sometime first or second quarter 2015. Really stoked for this, but I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.