Cities: Skylines

2ndcoming

The Origin Access €25 a year deal is absolutely fantastic value. Got to play a fair few quirky indies like Unravel and The Witness as well as AAA titles like Titanfall 2 and SW:BF that I was never going to pay full price for.

JoseJones

What sort of spec PC are people using to play this game? I picked it up yesterday with the deluxe pack for like £7.

Anyway I built my PC like 10 years ago and it's years since I did anything graphics intensive, not surprisingly it's really struggling.

Core 2 duo E6750 2.66GHz
GeForce 8600 GT
ABIT IP35V socket 775
2GB DDR2 RAM

I'm putting another 4GB RAM in tomorrow to bring it up to 6GB, will that give it the boost it needs? Or do I need a faster processor? In which case I probably need a new motherboard as 775 is old afaik.

Graphics card should be okay?

None of your specs meet the minimum as far as I can see.
I doubt extra ram is going to transform your experience.

JoseJones

Oh yeah looks like you're right... No point trying to polish a turd! I might take a look at a laptop that can handle it, there's a few more games I have my eye on too.

JoseJones

JoseJones wrote: »

What sort of spec PC are people using to play this game? I picked it up yesterday with the deluxe pack for like £7.

Anyway I built my PC like 10 years ago and it's years since I did anything graphics intensive, not surprisingly it's really struggling.

Core 2 duo E6750 2.66GHz
GeForce 8600 GT
ABIT IP35V socket 775
2GB DDR2 RAM

I'm putting another 4GB RAM in tomorrow to bring it up to 6GB, will that give it the boost it needs? Or do I need a faster processor? In which case I probably need a new motherboard as 775 is old afaik.

Graphics card should be okay?

You know, I'm not a million miles away from you:


Plays well enough until I get to population ~50,000. But by that time I always look at the unholy mess I've created and want to start a new city anyway. :pac:

Conchir

Big ol sale on all things Cities: Skylines on Steam. Might get another DLC with it.

Mc Love

Only 25 percent off parklife, I'll wait until its half price

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0Z6OQ8kJ5A

More here:
https://www.dualshockers.com/cities-skylines-industries-expansion-announced-pc/

errlloyd

I'd be sort of tempted to run a fresh install of cities skylines and grab all the expansions at some stage. Seems like it's turned into a very deep game.

This Fat Girl Runs

I can tell right now I won't be getting this expansion. I don't like Park Life either and wish I hadn't bought it. The two are just getting to micromanaging for me and I'm just not into that.

Mc Love

Its going the way of football manager, too much detail and taking the fun out of it.

This Fat Girl Runs

This Fat Girl Runs wrote: »

I can tell right now I won't be getting this expansion. I don't like Park Life either and wish I hadn't bought it. The two are just getting to micromanaging for me and I'm just not into that.

I know what you mean, not my kind of thing either. Some people like it I guess. *shrugs*

Park Life was actually the first thing on Steam I have ever refunded. It should have been great, but like most of the DLC, it's overpriced for the half-arsed content you get. I'm likely to buy all the DLC eventually, but not until they're on a deep sale.

Haithabu

This Fat Girl Runs wrote: »

I can tell right now I won't be getting this expansion. I don't like Park Life either and wish I hadn't bought it. The two are just getting to micromanaging for me and I'm just not into that.

I did not get Park Life because I saw it went that way. Also I did not get the Concerts DLC for the same reason. I would not mind having extra parks or concert venues but I would not like to spend time bothering about ticket prices or shows. The Concert DLC could have been a great idea if the concerts manage themselves. You would face a wave of visitors for one day cycle and it's up to you to make sure they have transport to get to the venue and home again. It's like when The Rolling Stones were at Croke Park. Anything deeper would be too much.


I am a bit more optimistic about "Industries", looks like we finally get bigger fields for agriculture and for the other industries. Also if there are more production chains I would not mind, but again, it should manage itself. I am happy to zone the area and create an infrastructure for companies. Anything else should be done by the people living in the city.

Nice review from LGR. Basic gist is ParkLife for industries. I'll be passing on this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XEaakK-cfY

Rattlehead_ie

OK, So I really want to jump back into this. I have the original base game and I see there have been a few expansions, some good some.....not so good. What ones do I need to get? Also to the expansions change the gameplay. I found that certain things were just impossible in the base version like garbage management.

Internet Friend

IMO Natural Disasters and Mass Transit are must have expansions. Green Cities adds some nice features for garbage management but isn't absolutely necessary, if on PC you can just grab the recycling centre mods from the workshop.

Internet Friend

Internet Friend wrote: »

IMO Natural Disasters and Mass Transit are must have expansions. Green Cities adds some nice features for garbage management but isn't absolutely necessary, if on PC you can just grab the recycling centre mods from the workshop.

Agree with Mass Transit, but Natural Disasters too? Have to say, it didn't appeal to me much, but I never really liked that aspect of SimCity either.

Worth to consider Snowfall too if it's on a decent sale, because trams! You get some winter themed maps with different city running aspects to consider (clearing roads, piped heating). It's a hard sell now, especially because one of the big features (trams) is largely superseded by monorails in Mass Transit.

After Dark and Green Cities are just fillers imo.

Anyway, I'd look at LGR's reviews of the DLC and decide for yourself after that.

Internet Friend

I just enjoy the chaos some of the natural disasters can cause!

Mc Love

Are monorails better than trams?

Rattlehead_ie

Thanks guys,
Think Mass Transit and some of the mods are a 100% get. I can add the others ones as I go along, but After Dark and Natural Disasters do seem somewhat attractive to me as well

Mc Love

Mc Love wrote: »

Are monorails better than trams?

(All of the below is just my opinion, hopefully someone else will post with things I haven't thought of.)

When I said before that trams were largely superseded by monorails, I was being overly harsh. I'd say they serve different purposes. It's probably more accurate to say that the monorail is an alternative to the metro.

It's hard to talk about tram/monorail without talking about the other transport options too.

So first their capacities:
Train: 240
Metro : 180
Monorail : 180
Tram : 90
Bus : 30

A train is great for moving large volumes of people between cities/urban centres. Usually, if the map I'm on is large enough, I'll run train lines to a few satellite towns I'll have dotted around the place. Works really will with the larger train stations you get in the Mass Transit pack.

The metro I'll use inside the larger urban areas; usually these are closed loops.

Trams are great for medium lengths. It's best to think of them as large buses. They seem to work better on avenues (two lanes each direction) than the smaller roads (single lane each direction) because they have dedicated lanes on the avenues, so they don't get stuck in traffic as much. They also have dedicated tram lines (no road), so it can be convenient to run them behind a row of buildings. There a few nice custom road in the workshop that make the trams even more versatile (e.g. 6 lanes with dedicated trams).

The monorail kind of sits between the metro and tram. So like the tram, it's above ground... and potentially taking up space you could otherwise use in a better way. The major benefit over the tram is that they are above the road, so there's no interplay between the traffic and the monorails. They provide roadside stations and on-road stations; I especially like the combo stations that the Mass Transit DLC provides (bus/monorail, train/metro/monorail). I'd love a monorail/tram combo, but they're in different DLCs so I can see why it's absent. (Has anyone seen anything in the workshop?) Monorail trains are much faster than trams too. (More comparison later on.)

Comparing monorail to metro, I think monorail is cheaper, and monorail is far easier to work with if you're crossing a river/canal. Convincing a metro to go under a river/canal can be a huge pain sometimes. At times, I do find the monorail a little awkward to work with too. Like getting things to line up or connect exactly as I'd like. usually I can work it, but it can take a little time and a lot of tinkering.

Buses are buses, so grand for short hops between places. Very handy to plug gaps in your transportation infrastructure, like shuttling people between the larger transportation options.

Anyway, enough pulp, to answer your actual question:

• Trams are cheaper
• Trams need a dedicated depot (which needs to be connected to your tram lines). Monorail (and metro) spawn at the stations.
• Monorail has larger capacity (180 vs 90)
• Monorail is faster
• Once you have your tram tracks laid down, placing stations is free (and easy). Placing monorail stations will interfere with your city. Actually, working with trams is easier overall.
• Monorail stations are noisy, but the tracks themselves aren't.

I use both in my cities... monorail in the downown/urban areas and trams in the residential areas.

If you need more details, worth to have a read of this : https://skylines.paradoxwikis.com/Transportation

Mc Love

Great thanks Wilfinity - nice post. I'm using nearly everything bar monorails at the moment, but your post definitely gives me food for thought.

Mc Love

Has anyone used bike paths or roads with bike lanes on them? I've just upgraded all my roads with them and of course it takes away the parking but I've noticed reduced traffic as a result. Funnily enough, I'd normally be adding trams or buses but haven't needed to yet.

Mc Love

Mc Love wrote: »

Has anyone used bike paths or roads with bike lanes on them? I've just upgraded all my roads with them and of course it takes away the parking but I've noticed reduced traffic as a result. Funnily enough, I'd normally be adding trams or buses but haven't needed to yet.

I've never done it with all roads in a city. Usually just the trunk roads where there would be cross-city traffic; I find that's plenty to encourage the Cims to cycle. They cycle from the smaller/local roads (no cycle lane) onto the larger roads with cycle lanes. I've also used dedicated cycle paths; can be much cheaper when you don't need an actual road. Plus they can be elevated or go underground so the cyclists don't even need to stop with the traffic.

You say that you haven't needed to provide any buses/trams yet. That's interesting... I always built public transport anyway, and noticed that I still had plenty of Cims using the public transport. Though I think that's just a case of them using it because it's there. Must try your approach and force the lazy bastards to cycle. :pac:

Mc Love

Came across this very detailed traffic guide if anyone wants to have a look but I'd nearly want to have two screens to play the game and plan using it.

tbh I'll just wing it

cherryghost

I just use traffic mods to remove/add lights/stopsigns/ped crossings, topped with some custom made flyovers

Dcully

Worth installing this guys?
I see its on origin premiere access.

Dave_The_Sheep

Short answer, yes. If you like city sims or the like, definitely yes.

Dcully

I find its a genre you have to be in the mood to play,, i loves the last sim city for a week until i saw its countless flaws, always felt like i wasted money on that game.

Mc Love

Yeah it's not a game you can sit down and play for a half hour because it gets so addictive