Cities: Skylines

[Begbie]

@BUDFORCE

As mentioned before your progressing cities development is forcing you to the workshop to remain as close to the theme as possible. The HDR choices on vanilla would not complement your map and look at odds. Sort of wish that this game had medium density residential

The BD Easter egg must be too subtle for me
Looked for billboards, diners or signs etc, meh I'm hopeless, lol.


EDIT Spoiler for egg.....

Spoiler

The car wash .!

Progressing nicely there

@Begbie did you sort out that strange traffic issue.? I have seen something similar where each vehicle in turn mysteriously seems to jam their brakes on for a pause and then go again, causing traffic jams. IIRC just deleting that section of road, then rebuilding, and then deleting all traffic to start it again usually sorted it.

Deleting it wasn't working, I'd removed sooo much road.

I read the TMPE manual trying to find something on their. I turned on the A.I features there (along with the parking which I never knew about) and bam all of a sudden cars are behaving like expected. My traffic elsewhere also improved. Cars moving lanes properly.

If you've not turned it on, it's per save so needs done in game not in the main menu, do so!

Nice work @BUDFORCE I had literally made something very similar the other day. Two similar blocks, then used move it to duplicate it and turn it around added in some roads and boom a up market little residential area.

 

[Vimes]

Typically I would use the AI feature along with dynamic lane selection at 50%. Just remember that this does hand an impact on CPU usage when the city gets very big. But it is useful to use I think.


I tend to be in two minds about the Parking AI tho. The city certainly looks more loved in and great for filling up with parked cars. It is also good if you wish to use car parks a lot. But I found that using it when my city was at less than 90k I had already hit half the maximum allowed parked cars that the game can support at 16k. The game supports around 32k parked cars.

Glad that it worked out well for you.

 

[Begbie]

Typically I would use the AI feature along with dynamic lane selection at 50%. Just remember that this does hand an impact on CPU usage when the city gets very big. But it is useful to use I think.


I tend to be in two minds about the Parking AI tho. The city certainly looks more loved in and great for filling up with parked cars. It is also good if you wish to use car parks a lot. But I found that using it when my city was at less than 90k I had already hit half the maximum allowed parked cars that the game can support at 16k. The game supports around 32k parked cars.

Glad that it worked out well for you.

The parking deffo makes it look better, and it's cool seeing all the cars find a parking space.

So I deleted all my assets the other day, basically deleting my city. Now I just can't find any inspiration to start anything new at all. Loads of ideas, but when I implement them it just never looks right.

Need to find the right map. I wanted to do some sort of mountain apls thing, with an old town by the river and chalets around the mountain side. But damn it's hard work finding assets/creating seperate themes etc.

I might just go for another big American themed thing.

 

[Vimes]

The parking deffo makes it look better, and it's cool seeing all the cars find a parking space.

So I deleted all my assets the other day, basically deleting my city. Now I just can't find any inspiration to start anything new at all. Loads of ideas, but when I implement them it just never looks right.

Need to find the right map. I wanted to do some sort of mountain apls thing, with an old town by the river and chalets around the mountain side. But damn it's hard work finding assets/creating seperate themes etc.

I might just go for another big American themed thing.

Sounds like what I did - meaning when I got to around 580k or so in Cims the game was running too slow for my enjoyment. It had been like that for a while. I had noted that the bigger the city, if population and big cities is your thing, the less traffic that there is proportion to the number of Cims. You have to have a very good public transport system to sustain them BUT that often means extensive use of the Metro. Typically for me that means a massive city but generally lifeless.The bulk of the transport being unseen underground. If the MOM mod wasn't buggy, or had a performance hit as it seems to do, then above ground transportation would at least offer some visual movement. That probably accounts for the performance hit.
It's not as tho you get masses of people / tourists walking up and down, that is why I do kinda like the Parking AI mod, it at least adds vehicles parked to make the city look inhabited.

So putting that mega city aside, too sterile and relatively empty, I still am yet to get interested in starting another map, tried once or twice. I agree that the more elaborate or themed map you find then you have to spend even longer (x10) collecting the assets etc to compliment it.

Plus Parklife and the patch will be out soon, not sure how much the DLC will add to the game, goodness knows how much they can keep adding without it imploding, but it might mean the patch knocks out a few mods for a while.

 

[Begbie]

Sounds like what I did - meaning when I got to around 580k or so in Cims the game was running too slow for my enjoyment. It had been like that for a while. I had noted that the bigger the city, if population and big cities is your thing, the less traffic that there is proportion to the number of Cims. You have to have a very good public transport system to sustain them BUT that often means extensive use of the Metro. Typically for me that means a massive city but generally lifeless.The bulk of the transport being unseen underground. If the MOM mod wasn't buggy, or had a performance hit as it seems to do, then above ground transportation would at least offer some visual movement. That probably accounts for the performance hit.
It's not as tho you get masses of people / tourists walking up and down, that is why I do kinda like the Parking AI mod, it at least adds vehicles parked to make the city look inhabited.

So putting that mega city aside, too sterile and relatively empty, I still am yet to get interested in starting another map, tried once or twice. I agree that the more elaborate or themed map you find then you have to spend even longer (x10) collecting the assets etc to compliment it.

Plus Parklife and the patch will be out soon, not sure how much the DLC will add to the game, goodness knows how much they can keep adding without it imploding, but it might mean the patch knocks out a few mods for a while.

Yeah I also don't like using the subway system, because it makes cities look empty. Especially in high density 'downtown' areas. I prefer using trams and then busses and watching cims walk about to use them. Plus I like to see traffic, to an extent. But obviously the metro system is by far the best public transport system.

Making a walkable city is by far the best way to work cities IMO, thanks to the Sam Burr videos you mentioned previously.

I think I'll wait for the DLC and start another city.

My favourite thing now is making a transport hub and watching everyone change over

 

[Vimes]

Yeah I also don't like using the subway system, because it makes cities look empty. Especially in high density 'downtown' areas. I prefer using trams and then busses and watching cims walk about to use them. Plus I like to see traffic, to an extent. But obviously the metro system is by far the best public transport system.

Making a walkable city is by far the best way to work cities IMO, thanks to the Sam Burr videos you mentioned previously.

I think I'll wait for the DLC and start another city.

My favourite thing now is making a transport hub and watching everyone change over

Of all the YT city builders, Biffa is ok, Sam Burr does seem to create his cities very much with the Cims being the priority in his builds. Pedestrianisation, with lots of paths, and a good mix of transport types. He doesn't go OTT either with his "painting" of the city like some seem to like a lot of detailing. Green spaces and parks feature a lot. I realised that getting to a humongous population was getting further away from actually liking the city, I would never want to live in it...!

When I had my huge multi transport hub I reckon that too was my favourite part - perhaps because it was the main focus of representing "life" in the city. But I am hoping that when I do start another build it will be more similar to that of the type Sam develops, than a mega city.



EDIT: Also I will intend to either miss out the Metro altogether or at least minimise its use as much as possible. As you said, trams and buses are at least a visible means of travel, along with the Monorail. Taxis are useless tho.

 

[BUDFORCE]

If you've not turned it on, it's per save so needs done in game not in the main menu, do so!

Legend!

I turned this on in the main menu only up until now, always thought to myself that it didnt seem to do much, but I though ahh, it must be making a difference somehow.

Doh!

Yeah makes a big difference now, jumped my traffic up by about 10% doesnt seem to affect FPS all that much either. Also with traffic in general, I think you can end up focusing too much on this, I think as long as its not completely gridlocked to the point where you start getting issues, or have huge snakes of queued cars, then personally I don't mind it. Some of the youtube guys go way over the top building road systems to keep traffic flowing, intricate interchanges through the whole city, in my opinion just look ridiculous, look at google maps, especially american cities and you will find the road layouts are flat/straight with junctions everywhere.

Also if you guys do decide to make a new city, aim small - you can always expand later if you wish. Even my city, which I never intended to be huge (probably max 100k) I am starting to realise just how much of a bite I have taken.

 

[Begbie]

Legend!

I turned this on in the main menu only up until now, always thought to myself that it didnt seem to do much, but I though ahh, it must be making a difference somehow.

Doh!

Yeah makes a big difference now, jumped my traffic up by about 10% doesnt seem to affect FPS all that much either. Also with traffic in general, I think you can end up focusing too much on this, I think as long as its not completely gridlocked to the point where you start getting issues, or have huge snakes of queued cars, then personally I don't mind it. Some of the youtube guys go way over the top building road systems to keep traffic flowing, intricate interchanges through the whole city, in my opinion just look ridiculous, look at google maps, especially american cities and you will find the road layouts are flat/straight with junctions everywhere.

Also if you guys do decide to make a new city, aim small - you can always expand later if you wish. Even my city, which I never intended to be huge (probably max 100k) I am starting to realise just how much of a bite I have taken.

Yeah I don't care about traffic at all, the above photo though was causing the whole city to be completely gridlocked.

This is what I normally do, this time I wanted to get all the roads layed out etc. But then I get bored. So I'll probably go back to my usual playstyle.

 

[Vimes]

I'm not too bothered with "heavy" traffic, if anything it adds realism to some parts of the map.
It's when you get despawns and service issues etc that you know you have a real problem.

As for TMPE being a per save setting, and need to be done within each three running game, I don't think that is emphasised enough as it does allow you to make all the changes you need in the main menu, if they were locked until in the map you might get the idea sooner.
Just by enabling the AI and DLS at 50% does make a real difference tho.

 

[BUDFORCE]

Had to give this asset some love.

 

[Vimes]

^^^^ Now he does paint and detail his cities...!

Nice to see the pedestrians and cyclists, but get them on the road with a cycle lane

Good to see that they are using the walkover for crossing.

It looks to be a living city

 

[Begbie]

That looks fantastic @BUDFORCE Those KingLeno assets are beautiful.

Hod did you even manage a different colour pavement! Fantastic.

I've started a new build with these as a kind of theme to start with;

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=527042948

They look fantastic. So easy to get more Euro style stuff, throw in some churches and universities, some trams and boom it looks fantastic.

 

[BUDFORCE]

Yea Kingleno is awesome seems to make a lot of assets that fit my theme perfectly.

He's also got a YouTube channel and makes a city (sort of) called paradise valley, is still in progress actually. He doesn't sound anything like I imagined, sounds like some trailor park drunk, ye'all.

That theme you posted looks great, little bit like Barcelona or Paris I guess. Could quite quickly whip up a great looking town and then use the saved time to work on all the features.

 

[BUDFORCE]

So been looking in to district themes a little more.

I downloaded the district theme manager, which allows you to select a theme per district in game, so you can add different themes to different districts in the same map - which is handy. It also has an editor to make your own (much better than the original game version in main menu) one thing I notice however that most of my residential/RICO assets I downloaded do not show up, so I guess you have to download "growable" assets to add them to a custom theme?

Looking through the workshop, either I am not looking properly, or there doesnt seem to be many residential growables that would suit my city theme

Also looking through that workshop, if I were going to build a new city now, I would make a UK map, there are tons of UK assets on there, take a medium size town/small city, maybe somewhere up north where the city is based from old industry/redevloped - and has hills, and copy it.

 

[Vimes]

In all the time that I have used the theme manager I have found that it will only support growables. But as I do not look for RICO buildings I have not needed it to support those.

Begbie commented a few posts back on how difficult and it is finding stuff in the workshop for a particular theme / map.
I have found even with the UK ones, which have lots of types of housing in the workshop, can have issues when it comes to themes.

Another mod is Plop the Growables, that can be useful.

I have not used RICO, apart from a quick test, as that can sometimes bug out and prevent a game from loading. It also can be one of the first casualties of a game patch. Maybe that has improved.

I have often wished that the vanilla games buildings would be greatly improved and varied.

 

[BUDFORCE]

Yeah agree. The more work and detail I put in my city, the more out of place the vanilla assets start to look, the low residential isnt too bad for an american theme, but most of the buildings favour a big tall city (like new york) most cities, even in america are pretty low rise in the majority.

 

[Vimes]

^^^ Even the service buildings I find do not quite match, if you are looking for them to compliment a building style. As you have noted the vanilla HD are skyscraper type, better for NY, but not much good for elsewhere. Some created growables don't have all five levels of housing either. The vanilla LD isn't that great for anything outside of america, maybe I'm too fussy tho...!

The Brooklyn reworked theme, as an example, looks pretty good.....

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=866047074

and the creator notes....

"But 2 stories is to low for high residential?"
Too bad,...check the collection thumbnail, this is a preview of what the theme will be, there will be everything between 2 and 6 stories, maybe even up to ~10 stories on level 5. This collection is aimed to function as a medium density zone, even though there is no medium density in the game. Im tired of this question btw, so I might delete any question/opinion regarding this topic .

.....so you do not get the same number of residents using them as you do for the big skyscrapers, but they do fit nicely in what would have been called "medium density".

He has others in his collections.

Using the theme manager is good but you have to create the right plot sizes for them to grow and sometimes I have needed to manually plop them down due to the corners or attached buildings not matching up.

 

[willhub]

I'm finding the only way for smooth running roads and high traffic flow is to have constant flow, restrict peds from crossing roads, lots of flyovers, and using lots of slip road to keep a constant flow and 2-3 lane roads as well as split entry and exit points. Without this traffic just turns to chaos.

 

[BUDFORCE]

^^^ Even the service buildings I find do not quite match, if you are looking for them to compliment a building style. As you have noted the vanilla HD are skyscraper type, better for NY, but not much good for elsewhere. Some created growables don't have all five levels of housing either. The vanilla LD isn't that great for anything outside of america, maybe I'm too fussy tho...!

The Brooklyn reworked theme, as an example, looks pretty good.....

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=866047074

and the creator notes....



.....so you do not get the same number of residents using them as you do for the big skyscrapers, but they do fit nicely in what would have been called "medium density".

He has others in his collections.

Using the theme manager is good but you have to create the right plot sizes for them to grow and sometimes I have needed to manually plop them down due to the corners or attached buildings not matching up.

Yeah the brooklin buildings are great, they do not fit a Vegas Style theme though, they could be used for quite a few American cities but I would say older cities and ones more north/east coast, it wouldnt really fit LA/Vegas most of the south west cities tend to favour a similar build style. To be honest, I might rezone a lot of my HD resi to low density. Honestly looking at google maps, if you exclude the strip, Vegas is basically all low density houses in big squares, a lot of other south west cities, Mirimar/San diego/the vast majority of Los Angeles all follow the same style.

I am going to abandon the theme manager idea also for my city, there just are not enough assets that fit my theme that will work with it, but I dont think it will be too much to place the apartments manually, then zone the low stuff, everything in the strip needs to be manually placed anyway due to the way the assets are and how built up the immediate area around the strip is.

I know I said it previously, but I had a very good trawl through the workshop this morning, and there are absolutely tons of UK assets, vast majority of which are also growables, I would totally make a UK style map if I were to start a new one today.

 

[Vimes]

There is a mod called force level up which, iirc, allows you to control the level a building will grow to and when to do it. That can help to cap HDR growth etc. I think it can control single buildings or whole districts.

The UK is indeed pretty well supported in the workshop even with vehicles, roads and road markings.

Did you bother to pre order Parklife.?