I was a very early purchaser of C:S and went through a few install/play briefly/uninstall cycles, but now I’m back. None of my uninstalls had anything to do with the quality of the game.
Given there is a Steam sale underway, what DLCs, if any, would you recommend?
I already have from prior sales:
Park Life
Mass Transit
Pearls from the East (free)
Any great DLCs that you’d recommend that don’t require late “end game” advancement or deep micromanaging?
On all my games (Bethesda included) I tend to run pretty close to vanilla, but I’m not agin’ nice mods that add cool content or have quality-of-life improvements. I am currently running mod-free in C:S.
Any “must-have” mods?
I haven’t got into mods with C:S yet, just Workshop content like more mass transit options, vehicles, parks, and highway interchanges – which the game doesn’t count as mods.
The thing with C:S Workshop content is that there are tons of content reuploaded by someone other than the original author. I always try to find the earliest example of anything in hopes that the original author gets the recognition.
To show my age: Holy Cow! 700 !?!#!
In looking at that top 10 list I linked to, I noticed that many/most of those are just one-off items, like a particular lighthouse. I’m not sure I’d find those unique items all that useful, at least to start with.
Most of what I’ve added to the game via the Workshop is just interchanges. The basic interchanges they give you in the base game are just not good enough for all situations and a lot of times they tend to make things worse.
The official DLC is mostly aesthetic add-ons or radio stations, and the rest is stuff like “Industries” which adds an extra layer of micromanagement to the game that I’m just not looking for. Only official DLC I’ve bought are Park Life and After Dark.
Workshop items are in two classes: mods (that affect how the game mechanics work) and custom assets (which are just buildings, roads, etc). Assets are themselves in two classes, growables and ploppables. You’ll find this thread useful I think:
Official DLCs have two categories also; expansions (like mods, that modify gameplay) and cosmetic DLCs (buildings, music, etc). Here is a thread on that topic you might also find useful:
Oh boy, that’s nothing! I think the record I’ve seen while supporting this game is ~20,000. Note that, being a Unity game, ALL subscribed items use up memory all the time, even if not in use in the current city. So don’t go wild; especially assets can chew up almost any amount of memory, if badly written.
8gb of system memory can run say 500-1,000 subscribed items, depending on size and complexity. 16gb double that.
I’ve been busy with other things and forgot about this thread. Here we go:
Parks
Great for filling empty space next to a roadway: 12×1 Promenade – trees 12×1 – trees & benches 9×1 – trees, benches & gazebo 9×1 Row of Trees – also benches & lampposts 6×1 – trees, picnic table & gazebo 5×1 – trees, picnic tables, gazebos & lampposts 3×1 – trees, benches & a lamppost 3×1 – trees, benches & lampposts 2×1 Garden – mini arboretum 2×1 Pavilion – gazebo, benches & birdbath fountain 2×1 Park Large Fountain – plus benches, shrubbery & lampposts 2×1 Dog Park & Light – plus trees & benches 1×1 – just a large fountain with a couple of benches, some trees & a lamppost
I’m tempted to pick up some DLC during this 50% to 60% sale going on now, but I have a feeling most or all of them will go on a much deeper discount in a few weeks when the Airports DLC is released.
I’m edging up toward 100 hours into the game pure vanilla and I just this morning finally came up with a starter tile design I can live with for my first city. I spent all yesterday mocking it up with unlimited money running 3x speed to let it build up to check traffic. It passed my noobtastic and surely insufficient traffic test with flying colors, so now the challenge is to recreate this design in a real game. Pure vanilla, but I’m not opposed to adding mods and DLCs. Just not a pressing need quite yet.
I really want freaking bike paths, though, and I think I need to buy After Dark to get them. For just bike paths along my roads, I can wait a few weeks. Unless there’s a mod? I very much want to see the people riding bicycles on my streets.
What do you think? Is there going to be a better sale in a few weeks than the one going on right now through Monday?
Oh by the way, what map should I be using for my first city?
I didn’t realize it was up to me; I thought I was playing the first map the game gives you. Turns out I’m playing the map that sorts first alphabetically by name when you just install the base vanilla game. Black something. Map type boreal, and the starter tile is a peninsula.
In my experience, the Cities: Skylines DLC doesn’t often get low discounts, especially on Steam where 50% is often as good as it gets except for the oldest stuff (After Dark, etc) or maybe the radio stations.
If you want cheaper DLC right now, the best option is GameBillet, WinGameStore or maybe Fanatical for a couple (though GameBillet is generally cheaper). All three are reputable sellers of Steam keys and running cheaper right now than the prices on Steam itself.
Snowfall presents some new gameplay: not only are you responsible for heating your city’s buildings, you need a fleet of plows to keep the roads clear and places to dump it all. As with garbage buildings and garbage trucks, snow disposal buildings generate the plows. Snowfall also has unique winter parks.
I’m basically viewing this as a traffic simulator, with everything else being window dressing in service of traffic. I never knew how much I needed a traffic simulator in my life.
Unfortunately I have zero artistic ability, so my cities are going to look grim and repetitive. But that’s okay. I’m having a blast just trying to figure out how to make it all work. Currently I’m playing around with bus lines. Haven’t looked at trains yet, really.
If you start a game with unlimited money and everything unlocked, there’s a bug where you won’t get any industrial demand. Buildings just don’t appear in any zoned yellow, and the yellow bar is empty showing no demand. This was annoying to me because it was the industrial traffic that killed my first attempt, and pretty quickly. By 4500 population it became clear it wouldn’t scale.
But you can’t just throw up a network of roads on a new map with unlimited money on to test industrial traffic. I happily discovered that after around 5000 population, I did start getting industrial demand, and by 10k population my planned starting industrial site is full capacity.
Those 3 are indeed okay. Here’s a list of authorised resellers for Paradox:
PLEASE do not buy from anywhere else but that list, Steam or the Paradox store. Others are grey market vendors, Paradox get none of your money if you buy from any of those.
Wow! Thank you so much; I’ve already subscribed to some of those parks.
Playing conservatively (I thought), I was running out of money at around 2,000 population. I’d try to nudge my taxes up to 16% or so, but then everyone complained.
I definitely didn’t splurge - I only bought ONE of each major infrastructure item as they became unlocked (fire dept, trash, etc.).
For fun, I’m going to use an unlimited money mod and see how things go.
There us a Super Demand mod that jacks up the demand for all zone types.
If you like micromanaging your traffic flow, there are a few popular mods you should explore:
Move It is kind of critical so you can fine-tune placement of roads and buildings. Especially useful if you want to make your own custom interchanges.
Various …Anarchy mods are also useful for overriding the games placement of roads.
Traffic Manager: President Edition lets you customize your roads in excruciating detail - turning lane rules, speed limits, parking, right of ways, stoplights, traffic AI, etc.
Node Controller helps with what I consider a significant fault of the game - the shitty exit ramps and other road transitions. It lets you smooth out ramps and lane merging so that it looks more fluid. It also lets you selectively remove or add crosswalks.
Intersection Marking Tool useful for creating custom road and intersection markings.
A typical use case for all these mods would be to create a realistic looking (and behaving) exit ramp off a 3 lane highway by turning a segment to 4 lanes, then split off an exit ramp and 3 lane highway again, use the Node Controller to smooth everything out, use TM:PE to enforce the right lane is exit only, then use the IMT to add additional lines and markings (like the exit ramp chevrons <<<<<< ).
Pretty sure bike paths and most other “networks” (roads, tracks, paths, power lines, just lines, quays, etc) are standard without buying DLC.
Oh by the way, there is an Airports DLC coming out in a few weeks.
I stick with 12% taxes on everything based on a beginner YouTube video from City Planner Plays. (Great channel.)
I also learned about road hierarchy there and from various other channels. My first (pathetic) attempt was without hierarchy, my next one will be with. It really is amazing what a difference it makes.
My advice is go with the more recent version, even if its a different author. Usually they give credit to the original author anyway. The reason a new author branches off someone else’s mod or asset is that the original author often stops supporting it. This can create a problem as mods and assets often need to be updated once a new DLC is released. If you are subscribed to the old version, it might not work properly or even break your city.