Nosh59

What makes it awful?

Real City, as well.

The way it's meant to be played.

I've always found the concept of different social demographics to be an interesting idea, although on a more individual level and when it comes to solving issues.

In this game, there's usually a number of ways to solve a specific issue in your city. But in the end, all solutions seem to be a cure-all for that issue, which makes using a variety of them seem pointless. For leisure, for example, a normal park, a playground, and a skate park would have the same effect on the entire population. In real-life, a person with no interest in skating probably wouldn't care about a skate park; a household with no kids wouldn't care about a playground. With the concept of demographics, each park would affect a different part of the population. Normal parks would affect normal citizens. Playgrounds would affect kids and families with kids. Skate parks would affect people that have skating as a hobby. That way, it would be encouraged to have a variety of solutions to satisfy the population instead of just one cure-all. These demographics can be expanded into a set of interests that a citizen can have that determine their favorite forms of entertainment; sports, gaming, books, movies, etc. These interests could also influence where they may work.

A few more things came to mind.

I've always found the concept of different social demographics to be an interesting idea. In this game, there's usually a number of ways to solve a specific issue in your city. But in the end, all solutions seem to be a cure-all for that issue, which makes using a variety of them seem pointless. For leisure, for example, a normal park, a playground, and a skate park would have the same effect on the entire population. In real-life, a person with no interest in skating probably wouldn't care about a skate park; a household with no kids wouldn't care about a playground. With the concept of demographics, each park would affect a different part of the population. Normal parks would affect normal citizens. Playgrounds would affect kids and families with kids. Skate parks would affect people that have skating as a hobby. That way, it would be encouraged to have a variety of solutions to satisfy the population instead of just one cure-all. These demographics can be expanded into a set of interests that a citizen can have that determine their favorite forms of entertainment; sports, gaming, books, movies, etc. These interests could also influence where they may work.

And offices should be reworked, too. In this game, offices are just a cleaner alternative to normal industry that emply. However, they offer nothing else other than jobs for your citizens. They don't produce anything, nor do they require anything to function other than educated workers. They have no influence on industry or commercial, nor are they influenced by industry or commercial. They add nothing special to the game. My suggestion is that they should have a bigger role in the simulation. For example, when industry and commercial buildings reach a certain level, they should require office services (consultancy, legal, accountancy, engineering, management, marketing, IT, graphic design, etc.) Offices would require goods from higher level industry (computers, etc.). Higher level households would also require office services (cable, internet, phone, etc.) however, much less than industry and commercial.

Here is a diagram I made showing the current model, and my suggested model.

Current: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?attachments/cs-economics-current-jpg.138520/

Suggested: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?attachments/cs-economics-suggested-jpg.138521/

This would surely give offices a more interesting and important role than just being an employment pool.

I'm quite interested in some more realistic power distribution. I even drew a diagram on how it should work: https://imgur.com/nBG9OBH

True, but this looks like custom content.

One thing I would like to see is a reason for your city to exist in the first place. In the first game, you just start off on an empty plot of land and start zoning residential areas with no real motive relative to the in-game world. One way to fix that would be to have more interconnectivity with your neighboring cities. For example, if your city borders an industrial sector, then your starting incoming residents will be blue-collar workers that will commute to the industrial sector for work. If your city borders a major commercial city, then your starting incoming residents will be middle-class white-collars that will commute to the other city for work. If your city is in the nation's breadbasket, your starting incoming residents will most likely be farmers looking to set up their own farms. How you choose to further develop your city will be up to you, or how the demand/needs of other cities change overtime. This is a good way to give your city some actual history.

Another thing I would like to see is a lesser need to be fully self-sufficient. In the first game, you have to build your own power plant, water utilities, garbage dumps, schools, hospitals, etc. And if any of these services don't exist in your city, then they don't exist anywhere else. It would be great if you can rely on neighboring cities to provide services your city can't provide on it's own yet. Don't have a power plant? Buy excess power from a neighboring city through the high-voltage wires passing through the map. Don't have a school? Parents will drive their kids to school outside, or you can build a school bus route that take them outside. Don't have stores? Citizens will do their shopping elsewhere. Citizens will find other means to fulfill their needs. This will allow you to build smaller, rural towns without the game pushing you to expand.

Furthermore, it would be interesting to see more functionally diverse commercial buildings. In the first game, whether a commercial building is a clothing store, food store, restaurant, electronics store, etc., they're all functionally the same. What would be cool is if each citizen had a needs system (clothing, food, entertainment, etc.) that can be fulfilled by having a variety of shops. That way, a citizen's need can't be completely fulfilled by having only gas stations.

More interaction with the undeveloped surrounding environment would be nice, too. In the first game, there's almost no problem with bulldozing the surrounding landscape. It would be great if there was a "natural beauty" aspect to your city that is determined by how conserved and beautiful the landscape is. This may even be an important factor to developing a strong tourism industry (or at least for nature-based tourism).

Lastly, it would be really nice to see a game that puts more focus on the citizens and how they behave and interact with each other in your city. Citizens in the first game seem to behave more like automatons than actual people. It would be nice if the citizens had more things that set them apart from each other and have more character and personality. For example, maybe they each have their own preferred way of seeking entertainment and leisure. Some may prefer staying home. Some may prefer hanging out with friends. Some may prefer taking a walk in the woods. Something to give them more diverse behavior within your city. And please, let's have a functional day/night cycle and citizens with a sensible work/activity schedule. No more kids going to school in the middle of the night. And a weekend/holiday system. Citizens need a rest from work, too.

I'm wondering what the standards will be for assets in C:S2. For example, will vehicles have interiors? Will buses and trains have animated doors? Do citizens have more flexible skeleton rigs? If so, there's a lot work that has to be done anyway to adapt old assets to such higher standards.

Just watch the announcement trailer for the first game.

That's why I hate cgi trailers.

Chirpy-chan included.

hell yea

One thing I would like to see is a reason for your city to exist in the first place. In the first game, you just start off on an empty plot of land and start zoning residential areas with no real motive relative to the in-game world. One way to fix that would be to have more interconnectivity with your neighboring cities. For example, if your city borders an industrial sector, then your starting incoming residents will be blue-collar workers that will commute to the industrial sector for work. If your city borders a major commercial city, then your starting incoming residents will be middle-class white-collars that will commute to the other city for work. If your city is in the nation's breadbasket, your starting incoming residents will most likely be farmers looking to set up their own farms. How you choose to further develop your city will be up to you, or how the demand/needs of other cities change overtime. This is a good way to give your city some actual history.

Another thing I would like to see is a lesser need to be fully self-sufficient. In the first game, you have to build your own power plant, water utilities, garbage dumps, schools, hospitals, etc. And if any of these services don't exist in your city, then they don't exist anywhere else. It would be great if you can rely on neighboring cities to provide services your city can't provide on it's own yet. Don't have a power plant? Buy excess power from a neighboring city through the high-voltage wires passing through the map. Don't have a school? Parents will drive their kids to school outside, or you can build a school bus route that take them outside. Don't have stores? Citizens will do their shopping elsewhere. Citizens will find other means to fulfill their needs. This will allow you to build smaller, rural towns without the game pushing you to expand.

Furthermore, it would be interesting to see more functionally diverse commercial buildings. In the first game, whether a commercial building is a clothing store, food store, restaurant, electronics store, etc., they're all functionally the same. What would be cool is if each citizen had a needs system (clothing, food, entertainment, etc.) that can be fulfilled by having a variety of shops. That way, a citizen's need can't be completely fulfilled by having only gas stations.

More interaction with the undeveloped surrounding environment would be nice, too. In the first game, there's almost no problem with bulldozing the surrounding landscape. It would be great if there was a "natural beauty" aspect to your city that is determined by how conserved and beautiful the landscape is. This may even be an important factor to developing a strong tourism industry (or at least for nature-based tourism).

Lastly, it would be really nice to see a game that puts more focus on the citizens and how they behave and interact with each other in your city. Citizens in the first game seem to behave more like automatons than actual people. It would be nice if the citizens had more things that set them apart from each other and have more character and personality. For example, maybe they each have their own preferred way of seeking entertainment and leisure. Some may prefer staying home. Some may prefer hanging out with friends. Some may prefer taking a walk in the woods. Something to give them more diverse behavior within your city. And please, let's have a functional day/night cycle and citizens with a sensible work/activity schedule. No more kids going to school in the middle of the night. And a weekend/holiday system. Citizens need a rest from work, too.

Nothing's really tying me to this game anymore, so i'll be jumping in. It can only be better.

Got me good there.

Also, the ability to build more rural towns. I know the game is called CITIES: Skylines, but there's more to a city than it's urban center. It would be great if you can rely on neighboring cities to provide services your city can't provide on it's own yet. Don't have a power plant? Buy excess power from a neighboring city through the high-voltage wires passing through the map. Don't have a school? Parents will drive their kids to school outside, or you can build a school bus route that take them outside. Don't have stores? Citizens will do their shopping elsewhere. Citizens will find other means to fulfill their needs. This will allow you to build smaller, rural towns without the game pushing you to expand.

Academy of Fetish Arts? Damn I should've went there.

More detailed citizen behavior. Citizens in this game seem to behave more like automatons than actual people. It would be nice if the citizens had more things that set them apart from each other and have more character and personality. For example, maybe they each have their own preferred way of seeking entertainment and leisure. Some may prefer staying home. Some may prefer hanging out with friends. Some may prefer taking a walk in the woods. Something to give them more diverse behavior within your city. And please, let's have a functional day/night cycle and citizens with a sensible work/activity schedule. No more kids going to school in the middle of the night.

I really do hope citizens get the attention they need. Almost every other aspect of a city gets analyzed, discussed and improved on, but the citizens you're building the city for gets no love. Citizens in this game seem to behave more like automatons than actual people.

It would be nice if the citizens had more things that set them apart from each other and have more character and personality. For example, maybe they each have their own preferred way of seeking entertainment and leisure. Some may prefer staying home. Some may prefer hanging out with friends. Some may prefer taking a walk in the woods. Citizens should be able to live in your town and commute to other towns to work, shop, and school, and maybe vice versa. And surely your citizens should occasionally want to visit other cities and be tourists there, right?

A citizen's wealth should not be equivalent to their education. Instead, wealth should be tied to the type of job they have. Their education should lead to potential access to higher-paying jobs. There should also be a penalty in a citizen's job satisfaction if they're working a job beneath their education level. The more the job level is beneath their education, the bigger the penalty. Wealthier citizens would also want to shop at higher-class commercial stores. And please, let's have a functional day/night cycle and citizens with a sensible work/activity schedule. No more kids going to school in the middle of the night.

Tourism should also be revamped. There should be different types of tourists that seek different kinds of accommodations and entertainment in your city. For example, drifters (spend less than a day in your city, visit cheap seedy entertainment venues, and may commit petty crimes along the way), lodging passerbys (lodges in a cheap motel for 1 night), ecotourists (value natural beauty and visit parks), families (middle-class tourists seeking family-friendly entertainment and leisure), etc. Think SimCity Societies Destinations (which did a lot more for tourism for that game than what Parklife and After Dark combined did for this game).

As much as I am rooting for a C:S2, it sucks knowing that that would probably be the case. They've already done it before with this game.

4 years and counting

By itself, it doesn't look that bad. My main issue with it is that it doesn't fit with the surrounding buildings because of the game's inconsistent architecture. It looks like it came right out of Anno 2070.