Multiplat Cities: Skylines II

[dwwaino]

Is this now worth playing on a PS5?

It's not out yet on console. They did say console release would be spring (our autumn) 2024 so it should release in the next couple months but judging by the state of the game on PC still I wouldn't be surprised if it gets delayed again.

 

[dwwaino]

Beach properties has been moved to the base game, so if anyone purchased it they'll be getting a refund. Other DLC has been moved back to 2025. Console release has been pushed back from their spring to October.

What an absolute shit show. Pre-release they were doing everything right. Showcasing the features was awesome but I guess that's all fluff if at the end of the day it can't be delivered.

The Way Forward, an update from the team behind Cities: Skylines

Dear Cities fans, We see and understand the disappointment many of you have expressed after the release of Cities: Skylines II and the recent release of Beach Properties. We asked for your patience and support, and you’ve shown those. In...

forum.paradoxplaza.com

 

[cats2rise]

Funny thing in the statement was the admission they rushed and shouldn't have released beach properties.

Surprised they didn't learn.

 

[dwwaino]

Long video but some positive updates coming soon.

 

[sataris]

is the performance still bad dwwaino ?

 

[dwwaino]

is the performance still bad dwwaino ?

Not sure, I haven't played in a while. I've gone back to CS1 while they sort out the next few major updates.

 

[dwwaino]

I was watching Egg go through the dev diary yesterday and my two biggest complaints are being fixed in the economy 2.0 update.

Firstly land value. Early game you start adding things like schools and services and it lifts the land value. However there are very few good paying jobs and your sims in low density residential can't afford the rent increase so you're forced to either create a ghetto somewhere for them to move into or build higher density residential to split the rent. This is being fixed where they'll still be able to afford to live in low density residential. I like this change because I'm not forced to play it like a game and can instead plan and build my city more how I wish.

Secondly the building add-ons can now be detached. Instead of having to attach the add-ons directly to the building there will be a range to build them within. For example a school playground doesn't have to be attached to the elementary school. It just has to be within range and in that particular case connected by a pedestrian path. This finally allows for some more unique building and not just plonking stuff.

All we need now is a prop finder and I'll be happy until future content DLC rolls in.

 

[sataris]

is the performance still bad dwwaino ?

I'm going to ask you this every few months dwwaino

 

[dwwaino]

I'm going to ask you this every few months dwwaino

This is a great honour.

 

[dwwaino]

Booooooooo

 

[dwwaino]

Anyone tried the update? I tried a new city and was bleeding cash and after even about an hour still couldn't turn a profit. I don't mind this change to make the game more stimulating but I definitely need to work out the "formula" to start earning. I've seen some of the streamers unlock all tiles from the start to remove tile upkeep costs, but that just tells me the economy still needs tweaking.

 

[cats2rise]

Anyone tried the update? I tried a new city and was bleeding cash and after even about an hour still couldn't turn a profit. I don't mind this change to make the game more stimulating but I definitely need to work out the "formula" to start earning. I've seen some of the streamers unlock all tiles from the start to remove tile upkeep costs, but that just tells me the economy still needs tweaking.

No. We were all waiting for you to tell us if it was worth it.

 

[dwwaino]

Eek no pressure then!

 

[dwwaino]

I've cracked it. You just have to play the game and watch your budget tab like a hawk. The process to turn a profit is at the start build very minimal roads as even the road upkeep will be a killer. Start zoning as much as you can and expand incremently, block by block. You have to ignore all services except for water despite the complaints as everything else will come from an outside connection. Also make sure to turn all budgets to 50% just like CS1. I didn't start making a profit until about the third or fourth milestone. Once I hit a profit of about 50k I finally put in a medical centre because it said it started at only an upkeep of 20k but I still went into the negative despite lowering the budget so I think you might have to truly max out the first tile with zoning to really have a healthy enough budget to put in services. Also watch your power budget because there becomes a tipping point where importing power is more expensive than the upkeep of a coal fired power plant.

My only complaint with starting this way is my starting tile has too many grids. I know IRL planned cities are grids as that's efficient I just prefer more organic looking cities, but I'll work that out with time. If this was the intent with the update then they've nailed it, early game is a real challenge now. Though with streamers unlocking all tiles from the start to remove tile upkeep costs then I think that will cause Colossal Order to slightly tweak the economy a little more.

And before sataris asks about performance - it's still the same as the performance patch a while ago. I'm assuming there is a major performance patch being worked on behind the scenes that will get rolled out when it launches on console as at the moment I don't understand how this is going to run on console at all. The LODs are still super aggressive even on max settings, they've added features like DLSS but something funky is going on there because even with it disable my clouds leave a ghost trail if I move my camera fast which usually happens when using frame gen. I also don't have a huge city to test on but apparently big pops are still causing issues because the actual simulation is still very demanding on CPU resources.

 

[cats2rise]

Interesting about the roads as I remember the announcement dev diaries discussing that roads would be cheaper to allow players to plan road networks more extensively

 

[dwwaino]

I think you can plan out a tile of road networks from the start as long as you zone it and everyone moves in, but from what I've played with so far a block of residential doesn't pay enough tax to overcome the road upkeep around them right at the start. The zones also won't level up without services so you need to brute force the ledger into green through zone taxes and you need more families per household but they won't come unless there are jobs so I think that's why mass road and zone planning from the start is a gamble. By building block by block I was able to build residential until unemployment hit around 30% and dry up residential demand, then I'd zone commercial or industrial (depending on demand) slowly to make sure there were enough workers and eventually that would drive more residential demand so I could then build some more blocks. That's my experience so far anyway, I'm sure Biffa and Egg and stuff will come up with something better but this way I only dropped to $850k before my budget turned green. It takes a long time to chew through the starting $1mill so you do have time up your sleeve if you're comfortable building out a road network first and confident you'll eventually make enough in taxes.

Here is an example of a city I started last night that went bust in about an hour because I wanted to see if I could provide it with enough basic services to level up the zones so they'd pay more taxes. This was roughly pre-planned to look organic but in my games since I've had to resort to more grids. It's a shame because in CS2 I love using cemetaries as like a central botanic gardens in early cities.



edit: ewww Windows takes horrible screenshots of HDR content

 

[dwwaino]

Another update. It sounds like this one might address the issue I was describing balancing early economy and closer to the intentions of CO with the economy update. Even when watching my ledger for example have a $40k surplus, if I dropped a medical clinic (think minimum $20k upkeep) I'd still blow out into the red. Though I'm experiencing it even prior to service upgrades. It's still doable if you micromanage everything and by about a pop of 2k you can put down a service or two then catch up with increased tax revenue as land value increases.

The new Cities Skylines 2 update addresses some of the issues that have remained since the Economy Patch. Most significantly, it fixes a problem where, after you construct upgrades to service buildings, employee’s wages would be doubled inexplicably, sending upkeep costs through the roof. That’s gone now.

Cities Skylines 2 just got even better, as Colossal Order drops yet another gigantic update

Cities Skylines 2 wage woes are fixed, as Colossal Order also adds free buildings in a sprawling new update for the city building sequel.

www.pcgamesn.com

Update: so there were more service buildings in this update (I haven't had a chance to play the last couple days) which are cheaper with lower upkeep. I take it they're in response to the economy change and the acknowledgement that early game since 2.0 was waaaayyyy too over tuned. These actually look cooler too. I think I'll be using the small elementary school a lot just because of the fields they include.

Also, surface tools!!

 

[dwwaino]

They're going on holidays for a month so hopefully not long after they get back there will be console release news. That also means it will be at least a month until the homeless bug is fixed . I was playing with the new parks and surface painting tools and stuff and my parks keep getting flooded by homeless. I thought it was just my own fault (high residential demand and low unemployment) but they've acknowledged on their forum that it's indeed a bug but they won't be able to address it until they get back.

 

[carn tigez]

They're going on holidays for a month so hopefully not long after they get back there will be console release news. That also means it will be at least a month until the homeless bug is fixed . I was playing with the new parks and surface painting tools and stuff and my parks keep getting flooded by homeless. I thought it was just my own fault (high residential demand and low unemployment) but they've acknowledged on their forum that it's indeed a bug but they won't be able to address it until they get back.

Their entire dev team is going on holiday for a month? Haha what

 

[dwwaino]

Their entire dev team is going on holiday for a month? Haha what

Yeah lol. I saw someone mention that too and a reply with something about it's a policy in Finland. Or something. I guess it's summer holidays and they shut down like we do over Christmas. A month is a long time though!

 

[dwwaino]

Wages are still the absolute killer . Spent hours on a starting tile today and everything was going swimmingly until I hit about the 3k pop mark. Land values were still low but for some reason households in low density residential couldn't keep up with the rent and it was like playing whack-a-mole constantly bulldozing abandoned homes. The solution was higher density residential but they were filling as quickly as I could build them. The moment I'd build a block of low income high density with space for ~72 households they'd instantly fill and it wouldn't stop the wave of low density abandoned buildings. I could lower residential tax to a point to try and stem the bleeding but after adding basic but under funded services like police and health (which did nothing to raise land values on their own but enough to address crime and health issues) I was only just barely making a profit.

At this stage unemployment was skyrocketing and the demand for office zoning was insatiable but I was simply running out of room on the tile and my road system wasn't planned at the start to handle a hodge of office and high density residential zoning. Even setting office zone tax to around 8% to encourage growth is massive profits. I needed it but no where to put it. Unfortunately to buy another tile would mean an extra over $6k upkeep which I could barely afford. That's only a tiny tile too as the starting area is 3x3 tiles and I needed probably another 3 to properly build out something to withstand the population and demands but I couldn't afford another $20k upkeep.

On top of this my electricity imports was costing $72k a month at a consumption of only 7mwh. A small coal power plant at even full budget has an upkeep of less than half of what I was spending, but after plonking it it was costing a whopping $66k in wages even after I reduced the budget to produce only about 10mwh.

So either the early game has a really brutal meta that requires some pretty stringent planning, or the economy still needs some massive tuning. I don't mind the challenge as I don't want to just paint a city like infinite money is turned on but it's almost the Dark Souls of city builders at the moment. It's reassuring to see the seasoned streamers struggling with it at the moment too.