Cities: Skylines

Should have probably clarified a bit

Cities XL and XXL are one franchise (both with different developers)

CIM, CIM2 is another franchise with the same developer

Skylines is another game with the same developer as CIM]

Having clarified this, I have now rendered my original point invalid. Go me

I believe the reason that traffic management was not included in Skylines is because CiM was primarily about traffic management where as Skylines is about city management as a whole
 
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^^^^^ I understand what you mean. But remembering that traffic management (TM) had real implications with your zoning and routing within SC4. I did not expect the complexity of what if offered in the CIM games but just that they are a developer who have had great experience of TM games where that was a primary focus.
Thus having a TM system where if you create an issue vehicles do not just teleport away but leave it to the player to create alternate routes or deal with congestion etc might have been a better consideration..?

Still, as the video stated, the game isn't even released as yet and thus it might well work out fine.

I did see a video though showing a developed city where you could hear traffic noises as you zoomed in but could not see any vehicles, it was like a ghost town.!
 
It may have just Over complicated what is probably meant to be a light hearted city builder. I could see it being a fun thing but only if I could turn it off as it would get frustrating.

Guess we won't know until it is released.
 
Not sure it'll be something we can turn off tbh, we cant silence the chirper bird and any solution would be post-release, so it'll be something we need to 'deal with'.

I've just posted over on paradox with a theory and a few pics to show. I'll just dump the main one in:
3.jpg


IMO that highway running straight through the 2 halves is the biggest issue, its certainly going to create a bottleneck IRL, let alone with a half-decent AI.
Theres only 3 routes from left to right (and conversely so), and only 1 of those is by road, the others are a footbridge just above the junction, and the other is the rail bridge just below. Every car has to pass that junction.

Images from higher up shows that the vertical highway crosses the river, goes onto a fairly significant sized island, and then comes back up to the right. So some traffic could pass through the junction and go south onto the island and back to the mainland, but its one heck of a journey... and we dont know whether some traffic is already taking that route anyway (its their only other option).

So hopefully with better traffic management, this could solve the issue, because that highway is seemingly creating more traffic issues than i bet its solving.
 
A couple of new images, highlighting the dynamic water simulation.

waterfall.jpg


waterfall2.jpg


waterfall3.jpg


Looks nice, not particularly realistic looking as it looks more like a shopping center fountain water sculpture type thing, the water seems too calm, some white froth... but its still rather nice looking and its good seeing screenshots with some actual terrain

hillface.jpg


tropical.jpg


reflections.jpg
 
Got a reply from CO staff member, Azurespecter.
http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...raffic-jam&p=18900912&viewfull=1#post18900912

Its a fairly big post so i'll snip bits:

What counts as extreme?
The city in the video posted at the beginning of this thread is a disaster. The makers of this city were showing off certain aspects of the game, and mistakenly ignored this traffic problem. I'm not dissing the makers of the city, it was just a simple oversight that is now being overexaggerated and considered a "norm" when it certainly is not normal. The honest truth is that this round-a-bout/highway route is a functional nightmare. Plan your city just a little better, and you'll probably never see disappearing vehicles.

Can you give an example of extreme?
Take a look at this picture. Thanks PC2K for posting these very informative pictures, by the way.
2.jpg

Look at how far back that traffic line goes! That's a LOT of stuck cars. Check out the distance of this traffic jam. That's a congo-line of 200 plus cars that just aren't going anywhere.

Oh, and to add to the problem, there is no other way to get to that city section. No alternatives existed for those "vanishing" vehicles to take.

Can we still have traffic jams?
Of course! This mechanic isn't eliminating traffic problems, or magically curing them, and it's certainly not a cheat. It's an emergency feature.

I did some tests, and I had traffic congestion filling up 5 whole intersections in a city. Not a single vanishing car. I tested again on a highway, 67 cars backed up... no disappearing.

Your traffic problems aren't going away because of this feature.

What would happen if the mechanic was turned off?
The city in this video had the traffic problem on a highway. Without the mechanic, that traffic would have piled back into the city, effectively blocking every single intersection. No services or citizens would be getting anywhere, even if it was just a block away.

If this traffic nightmare happened inner-city, your city would flood so fast that your city would break and you'd go bankrupt, all your citizens would move away, and your buildings would all be abandoned before you could properly fix the problem. Even after you fixed the problem, your city would take a long time to re-adjust and fix itself.
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It seems as though i was correct, and it was a case of it being a pretty city, poor logistics.

What concerns me somewhat is that this wasnt built by some casual gamer, it was one that someone within the CO/Paradox chain has created. Its creative and realistic, if somewhat naive on how they've implemented highways with poor access (a lot of it you can only enter one direction, you'd have to travel to a roundabout and go back the opposite way!), but even without intentionally clogging things up, its still happened.

I've made the suggestion that in the not too distant future it'd be nice to have the option to be notified that the simulation is breaking and failsafe solutions are being applied, preferably before its at the breaking point of teleportation, as nobody can fix a problem they dont know is happening. If some arent fussed, let them go on blissfully ignoring it and not being notified, let them enjoy themselves. But notify those who want the opportunity to fix their mistakes.


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Oops, good catch. Yes, trust TotalyMoo on that. Goods/cargo will attempt to redeliver. Citizens teleport to destination.

Highway round-a-bouts do work, just not as well as they should. Lane usage and that stuff.

And as for the suggestion to have a warning: that's a very reasonable suggestion. I'll pass it on. Perhaps we can have the Chirper bird warn players? haha, that'll teach all of you who want to remove poor Chirpy.
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TotallyMoo had explained it this way, however the explanation post quoted above only mentioned vehicles teleporting to their destination. So it was just a slip really.
 
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Penfold99 said:
Developer AMA on Reddit, wednesday the 25th 18:00 CET- Modding

http://www.reddit.com/r/CitiesSkylines/comments/2wuvxb/developer_ama_feb_25th_main_topic_is_modding/
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Should be good that, and apparently the modding Dev Diary will be the same day, before the AMA, so hopefully that covers the basics and people can ask about stuff not detailed within that.

Im quite tempted to take a look at Blender and see if its reasonably accessible, would be nice to get involved in the modding. What i'd like to see come through is building sets for different countries, i know a common future DLC/update request has been to be able to specify districts to use specific model sets, so you can have a chinatown, slums, high-roller areas etc etc. I'd love to see houses which look British, and IF they added the district options being able to have Victorian era areas, modern affordable housing, counsel houses, bungalows & thatched cottages etc... that sort of stuff.
 
PaulC2K said:
TotallyMoo, the Paradox Community Manager has just confirmed that nuuvem is an authorised retailer for the game. Its ~ £12 & £15 for the standard & deluxe editions. [edit £15.53 for deluxe, says paypal email]

I took a punt before the weekend, but kinda had uncertainty, but it seems like a safe bet afterall.

http://www.reddit.com/r/CitiesSkyli...st_rgamedeals_cities_skylines_deluxe_edition/


Just digging through some of his posts on Reddit today:
http://www.reddit.com/r/CitiesSkyli...ities_skylines_constant_ama/con0mz6?context=3
"Okay so I don't think we'll work with physical versions on amazon.in - unfortunately.

How does a site like this work for you?
http://www.nuuvem.com.br/produto/2651-cities-skylines-deluxe-edition

Still a lot of restriction? These keys are not region bound to my knowledge. There will be physical copies available from Amazon.uk though. Maybe you can sway a nice community member to get you a copy and send it via personal mail?

I'm still waiting for confirmation about India specific retailers but it doesn't look bright, I'm afraid."

He's gone out of his way to highlight A) Use Nuuvem (to a Indian customer) and B) he's not aware of it being region locked. The underlined bit is important, but i suspect if it turns out its not, and he's been suggesting people use this site which locks us still, we should have a decent claim to receive a localised key from them... that said, Nuuvem apparently IP checks you when adding an item it knows it region locked, and prevents you buying it, everything else is *supposed* to be region free.
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Just bought this from Nuuvem and I see...

Pré-venda, liberação em 10/03/2015

...so I'll get the key after that date. Would I need a VPN for Steam to add it to my games or is it region free as noted above....?
 
We havent heard (or at least i certainly havent seen it) when official resellers will be receiving the keys, hopefully it'll be just before launch day though, that date is just the release day, doesnt mean too much.

As for the key itself, it shouldnt be region locked. Nuuvem actively prevents you from buying region locked keys when you try, so that helps, plus TotallyMoo (Community Manager @ Paradox for CSL) said as far as he's concerned its region free, plus that above post he's suggesting someone in India buy from Nuuvem (Brazil). That said, i HAVE seen there was a site selling gifted keys and that was locked to the Russian territories etc, so its not concrete.

What i would say is that we should know before release, and if Paradox has staff saying they're an official seller, its not region locked, and advising people of buying from them, then anyone who gets stung by this should have a reasonable case to complain to Paradox about it and get a new key. I wouldnt worry though. I think i'll be checking the Nuuvem site occasionally in the week leading up to release to see if they've added a region lock message (eg: Football Manager 2015) and get a head start on pursuing an EU safe key if need be.
 
PaulC2K said:
We havent heard (or at least i certainly havent seen it) when official resellers will be receiving the keys, hopefully it'll be just before launch day though, that date is just the release day, doesnt mean too much.

As for the key itself, it shouldnt be region locked. Nuuvem actively prevents you from buying region locked keys when you try, so that helps, plus TotallyMoo (Community Manager @ Paradox for CSL) said as far as he's concerned its region free, plus that above post he's suggesting someone in India buy from Nuuvem (Brazil). That said, i HAVE seen there was a site selling gifted keys and that was locked to the Russian territories etc, so its not concrete.

What i would say is that we should know before release, and if Paradox has staff saying they're an official seller, its not region locked, and advising people of buying from them, then anyone who gets stung by this should have a reasonable case to complain to Paradox about it and get a new key. I wouldnt worry though. I think i'll be checking the Nuuvem site occasionally in the week leading up to release to see if they've added a region lock message (eg: Football Manager 2015) and get a head start on pursuing an EU safe key if need be.
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Many thanks for that. A saved screen grab from Nuuvem and then the noted messages should help to ensure support from Paradox, if needed.

I agree though unlike Kinguin etc which indicate if regional lock or VPN is needed nothing is shown with this game at Nuuvem.
 
^^^^Agree but after pre ordering the last SimCity I didn't think that I would have risked doing it again, but I did. Hope that it works out as good as it seems to be shaping up to be.

I reckon that Cities XXL would need to be at XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXL and it would still be carp. Thankfully I did not bother about the 50% discount, still too expensive for what it is.
 
Vimes said:
^^^^Agree but after pre ordering the last SimCity I didn't think that I would have risked doing it again, but I did. Hope that it works out as good as it seems to be shaping up to be.

I reckon that Cities XXL would need to be at XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXL and it would still be carp. Thankfully I did not bother about the 50% discount, still too expensive for what it is.
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Where did you pre order from?
 
Nuuvem is around £12 & £16 for the 2 versions, go back a few posts (#90) for more info. I've never had issues with Nuuvem, and the only 'issue' would come down to their community manager being incorrect about them receiving 'global' keys. So its essentially assuming the worse, theres nothing to say it wont be perfectly fine. I paid £15.53 all in, for the Deluxe.

Also apparently GMG gets down to about £19 after discount for the basic version, if you wanted to play it safe with the pre-order.
 
I'll wait until the game is released before buying, just incase there is anything gam breaking (hopefully not).

I have also used Nuuvem before but not for a pre-order game!
 
JOSH86 said:
I'll wait until the game is released before buying, just incase there is anything gam breaking (hopefully not).

I have also used Nuuvem before but not for a pre-order game!
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Pretty sure i had Saints Row 4 preordered from them, x2.

For the sake of the pre-order dlc plopables, waiting shouldnt be an issue. I think the various youtubers get keys a week before, or that might just be the embargo date, but we should get proper feedback for depth in a short while and its also possible the keys are released a day or 2 beforehand meaning you've got feedback and the dlc. That said, it really shouldnt be hard to replica the assets, im sure someone will at some point, but its really minimal stuff anyway, no big loss.
 
They've updated the Skylines Wiki to include modding information
http://www.skylineswiki.com/Modding

Theres quite a lot to read, but then at the same time not really a lot that you'd sit and read, its a wiki entry rather than a PR piece like the Dev Diaries (which is what we were told was coming today).

Theres also a video for modding, but again... doesnt really say anything its mostly regurgitated footage from another video.

Not sure i'll be expecting anything from the AMA at 5pm (GMT) either now, just a lot of already asked & answered stuff like 'will there be trams/can we mod in trams' and CO answers essentially saying 'maybe, we'll see'... Soon find out i guess :D
 
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