management simulation game - govern an island
- Thread starter ArchAnGeL
- Start date
Soldato
- Joined
- 22 Feb 2008
- Posts
- 11,114
Sounds like Tropico... but as a test? You're invited to swindle whatever you can in Tropico and rule with an iron fist. If that's a workplace test then... can I join? 
![[FnG]magnolia](/styles/overclockers/avatars/9.png){kind=avatar}
Caporegime
- Joined
- 29 Aug 2007
- Posts
- 28,763
- Location
- Auckland
When starting your city you need to find a balance between speed of zoning and cashflow. Go too slow and progression will be snail pace. Go too fast and the chances are road networks will end up a bit of a mess. Keep your cool and enjoy it.
Use the game speed toggle to slow things down or even pause the game when you’re thinking about layouts. Speed the game up only when you are happy that the city can function and there are no impending issues that need to be dealt with.
Building Placement and Roads
When placing an important building such as a hospital, fire station or police station next to a single small two way road, remember that in the future you are likely to want to upgrade that road. You can’t upgrade a road if one of these types of structures are present. However, you can move the whole building for a fee. With that in mind, leave space next to or near the building so you can move it later prior to clicking the upgrade road button. One method is as follows:
Upgrade the road section next to the building.
Move the building from next to the small single road
Upgrade the road where the building was.
Moving a building any distance will cost the same amount no matter where you move it to on the map.
Increase land value to boost happiness. Place parks and recreational buildings next to areas that need a boost. Again, check the sphere of influence of each of these buildings before placing them down.
Cemeteries are vital city service to remove the dead. They do however fill up. They can be emptied and bodies are moved to either another cemetery or a crematorium.
Landfill sites will also become full. These can be emptied and waste moved to another fill site or to an incinerator.
When emptying a landfill site or cemetery, it can take a long time so be careful where you place these. You may want to make use of the land they are on later for something else. They have to be completely emptied before you can remove them from their location. You can alternatively move these buildings as above.
Don’t forget you can elevate roads with PAGE-UP and PAGE-DOWN keys. This is really useful if you want to get traffic to the other side of highway without creating another junction which may have the potential to clog up with traffic.
Be creative! The freeform road tool is excellent. Sure a grid city is nice, but have some fun with the road network.
Zoning and Zone Density
Zoning is quite straightforward, select the zone type you want and paint the squares next to the road. Late in the game you can change zones to high density but you have de-zone selected zone first before applying the high density. You can’t simply apply a high density colour on top of a low density colour. De-zone it first.
When you de-zone an area, all the buildings on the zone will deconstruct and be lost. They will be replaced when a new zone type is applied.
Water and Electricity
Pay attention to your water pipe system. You want to supply water as cheaply as possible so cut down on the cost of laying pipes by checking their sphere of influence when placing. Run pipe in parallel with roads and assume you will create more roads adjacently so run pipes between the two parallel pipes for maximum coverage of an area.
Pylons are only used to transfer electricity over long distances or where buildings are not touching each other. You do not need to place pylons down to link up every building. As long as one building is powered, the buildings next to it and each other will also be powered.
Hydro dams are expensive to build but they are also quite expensive to run. If you do build one, keep an eye on how much money it’s sucking away from the balance. You can always turn it off from time to time if you have enough power from other sources.
Wind farms are great for clean energy but make sure you place then in area where there’s strong winds. Check the wind information overlay before placing wind farms down so they are placed in an optimal location.
Be very careful where you place dams. You can flood your city!
Industrial and Commercial Zones
Keep taxes as low as possible which will keep residents, commercial and industrial zones happy. If you do increase taxes, keep an eye on happiness levels, especially on industry.
Make sure industrial and commercial zones have enough workers. Keep an eye on the residential demand bar.
Make sure industrial zones can be supplied with goods easily. This is achieved by good transport access to those zones. This can make or break your cashflow.
Excess goods manufactured in your city will be exported so make sure you’re industry is healthy to boost funds.
Fertile land industries give off no pollution and can import the resources required to function if none are available on the map.
Forestry industries utilse a renewable resource and give off a small amount of pollution.
Oil industries provide high tax but are emit high pollution and are electricity hungry.
Ore industries produce high ground pollution but less so than oil. They require more electricity than other industries.
Districts
Districts can be viewed as subsections of zones. These specialise in a particular industry and can also have their own policies. To get the most out of districts, place specific industry districts on top of a particular resource. This means that industries in this district can utilise the local natural resources.
Apply specific district policies to these districts to make them more efficient. Remember though, policies cost money to keep running.
Pollution
When placing a sewage plant, make sure the output flows away from your water supply. Place it downstream and check the arrows on the water to see which way it is flowing. Don’t poison the people!
Noise pollution will affect residential zones so make sure inhabitants are not affected by this, keep them away from industrial areas.
Reduce noise pollution by placing trees and parks, placing roads with trees and placing Highways with sound barriers.
Wind farms also cause noise pollution and upset residents so keep them away from housing.
Nasty toxic pollution doesn’t travel by air in Cities: Skylines which is one less thing to worry about. It is only transferred to surrounding areas via the ground
Traffic
Good traffic flow is essential so avoid four way junctions and traffic lights.
Use roundabouts to keep traffic flowing and you can always tweak the standard templates by adding or removing junctions on a roundabout with the road tools. The Steam Workshop also includes some pre-made junctions if you’re looking for something a little more elaborate.
Use one way streets when possible, it can stop traffic clogging. It’s not always easy to do this at the start but think about it later in the game by changing some of the roads.
Connect your cities to roads that were already on the map when you started the game. This can provide extra access and exit points to your city and improve traffic flow, especially into industrial zones where goods are imported an exported.
Transport
As a city get bigger public transport will be required. If you place a train station, metro or bus station make sure you have set a start and end point for the route. This can be a little fiddly but persevere and make sure it’s connected up so a route is formed.
For ferries and freight you need to make sure the water level next to the dock is high enough for a ship to dock. If the water level is too low no ships will turn up and the building will be a waste as far as I can tell.
Use the game speed toggle to slow things down or even pause the game when you’re thinking about layouts. Speed the game up only when you are happy that the city can function and there are no impending issues that need to be dealt with.
Building Placement and Roads
When placing an important building such as a hospital, fire station or police station next to a single small two way road, remember that in the future you are likely to want to upgrade that road. You can’t upgrade a road if one of these types of structures are present. However, you can move the whole building for a fee. With that in mind, leave space next to or near the building so you can move it later prior to clicking the upgrade road button. One method is as follows:
Upgrade the road section next to the building.
Move the building from next to the small single road
Upgrade the road where the building was.
Moving a building any distance will cost the same amount no matter where you move it to on the map.
Increase land value to boost happiness. Place parks and recreational buildings next to areas that need a boost. Again, check the sphere of influence of each of these buildings before placing them down.
Cemeteries are vital city service to remove the dead. They do however fill up. They can be emptied and bodies are moved to either another cemetery or a crematorium.
Landfill sites will also become full. These can be emptied and waste moved to another fill site or to an incinerator.
When emptying a landfill site or cemetery, it can take a long time so be careful where you place these. You may want to make use of the land they are on later for something else. They have to be completely emptied before you can remove them from their location. You can alternatively move these buildings as above.
Don’t forget you can elevate roads with PAGE-UP and PAGE-DOWN keys. This is really useful if you want to get traffic to the other side of highway without creating another junction which may have the potential to clog up with traffic.
Be creative! The freeform road tool is excellent. Sure a grid city is nice, but have some fun with the road network.
Zoning and Zone Density
Zoning is quite straightforward, select the zone type you want and paint the squares next to the road. Late in the game you can change zones to high density but you have de-zone selected zone first before applying the high density. You can’t simply apply a high density colour on top of a low density colour. De-zone it first.
When you de-zone an area, all the buildings on the zone will deconstruct and be lost. They will be replaced when a new zone type is applied.
Water and Electricity
Pay attention to your water pipe system. You want to supply water as cheaply as possible so cut down on the cost of laying pipes by checking their sphere of influence when placing. Run pipe in parallel with roads and assume you will create more roads adjacently so run pipes between the two parallel pipes for maximum coverage of an area.
Pylons are only used to transfer electricity over long distances or where buildings are not touching each other. You do not need to place pylons down to link up every building. As long as one building is powered, the buildings next to it and each other will also be powered.
Hydro dams are expensive to build but they are also quite expensive to run. If you do build one, keep an eye on how much money it’s sucking away from the balance. You can always turn it off from time to time if you have enough power from other sources.
Wind farms are great for clean energy but make sure you place then in area where there’s strong winds. Check the wind information overlay before placing wind farms down so they are placed in an optimal location.
Be very careful where you place dams. You can flood your city!
Industrial and Commercial Zones
Keep taxes as low as possible which will keep residents, commercial and industrial zones happy. If you do increase taxes, keep an eye on happiness levels, especially on industry.
Make sure industrial and commercial zones have enough workers. Keep an eye on the residential demand bar.
Make sure industrial zones can be supplied with goods easily. This is achieved by good transport access to those zones. This can make or break your cashflow.
Excess goods manufactured in your city will be exported so make sure you’re industry is healthy to boost funds.
Fertile land industries give off no pollution and can import the resources required to function if none are available on the map.
Forestry industries utilse a renewable resource and give off a small amount of pollution.
Oil industries provide high tax but are emit high pollution and are electricity hungry.
Ore industries produce high ground pollution but less so than oil. They require more electricity than other industries.
Districts
Districts can be viewed as subsections of zones. These specialise in a particular industry and can also have their own policies. To get the most out of districts, place specific industry districts on top of a particular resource. This means that industries in this district can utilise the local natural resources.
Apply specific district policies to these districts to make them more efficient. Remember though, policies cost money to keep running.
Pollution
When placing a sewage plant, make sure the output flows away from your water supply. Place it downstream and check the arrows on the water to see which way it is flowing. Don’t poison the people!
Noise pollution will affect residential zones so make sure inhabitants are not affected by this, keep them away from industrial areas.
Reduce noise pollution by placing trees and parks, placing roads with trees and placing Highways with sound barriers.
Wind farms also cause noise pollution and upset residents so keep them away from housing.
Nasty toxic pollution doesn’t travel by air in Cities: Skylines which is one less thing to worry about. It is only transferred to surrounding areas via the ground
Traffic
Good traffic flow is essential so avoid four way junctions and traffic lights.
Use roundabouts to keep traffic flowing and you can always tweak the standard templates by adding or removing junctions on a roundabout with the road tools. The Steam Workshop also includes some pre-made junctions if you’re looking for something a little more elaborate.
Use one way streets when possible, it can stop traffic clogging. It’s not always easy to do this at the start but think about it later in the game by changing some of the roads.
Connect your cities to roads that were already on the map when you started the game. This can provide extra access and exit points to your city and improve traffic flow, especially into industrial zones where goods are imported an exported.
Transport
As a city get bigger public transport will be required. If you place a train station, metro or bus station make sure you have set a start and end point for the route. This can be a little fiddly but persevere and make sure it’s connected up so a route is formed.
For ferries and freight you need to make sure the water level next to the dock is high enough for a ship to dock. If the water level is too low no ships will turn up and the building will be a waste as far as I can tell.
Soldato
- Joined
- 14 Feb 2004
- Posts
- 14,315
- Location
- Peoples Republic of Histonia, Cambridge
Maybe ArchAnGeL is applying for PM.
Soldato
- Joined
- 12 Dec 2002
- Posts
- 2,951
From looking at the product information it's an 85 minuite test with a pre programmed fail situation which you will be judged on your ability to not lose your **** during said failure. And some other usual stuff like risk taking and management strategy. Sounds like 85 minutes of fun.
Permabanned
- Joined
- 28 Dec 2009
- Posts
- 13,052
- Location
- london
Is it 1080p? if its not 1080 then i am not interested. haha (only joking)
I think it sounds like an interesting game. I would like to try it.
I think it sounds like an interesting game. I would like to try it.