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Cities : Skylines

Turjan

Arcane
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Mar 31, 2008
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What about the new green cities ?
This is mostly building packs. You have one office specialization (IT) that gives you much higher buildings for your downtown, a residential district specialization for low and high residential that works with slightly different numbers and looks a bit different, and a commercial specialization that gives you a few organic produce outlets and loading stations for electric cars. In addition, you get a new full set of three education buildings. The new garbage solution is cheaper and more efficient than anything they had before, which means it's one of those balance breakers they use to entice people to buy this.

Needless to say, while you won't get the district specializations via mods, you can have more or less all of this via workshop assets, even if there won't be any garbage buildings that produce some raw materials for your industry. The district specializations can be emulated via bulding themes (look for the mod of that name). You can make cheat garbage buildings yourself, or just download one from the workshop. Etc.

The important thing from the free update is road modding. You can get lots of nice new roads already from the workshop. Some of those may need DLC's (like roads with trams obviously need the Snowfall DLC, or those with bike lanes need After Dark).
 

Turjan

Arcane
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Mar 31, 2008
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FitGirl recently updated her repack (which is like 256 kb) with the last DLC, and mods work with her repacks, I started installing some before last update but obviously now a bunch won't work until the modders update them :argh:
Pretty much all important mods work again. I never used Rush Hour though, so if you have a city using that, you may be out of luck. Removing that one from a city usually doesn't work well, similar to adding it to an already established city.
 

Mazisky

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Rome, IT
I've just taken those from my PC:

2017





2013




Cities skyline looks just dull and those assets are pretty unpleasant to look at.

After all those years and paid DLCs have the decency to look better than a 2013 game of the same genre

Condirering how Maxis was killed by EA, Paradox could hire some artists from there
 
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Alienman

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Problem with SimCity was that it didn't fill out the plots. Made everything look so damn messy.
 

Mazisky

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Problem with SimCity was that it didn't fill out the plots. Made everything look so damn messy.

Simcity had many problems, but it had pretty good art. (Simcity 4 also had (has) good art)

Cities Skyline just look depressing. There is no immersion in creating a city with almost all identical buildings that look like some Cernobyl neighborhood
 

Turjan

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2008
Messages
5,047
I've just taken those from my PC:[snip]

Cities skyline looks just dull and those assets are pretty unpleasant to look at.

After all those years and paid DLCs have the decency to look better than a 2013 game of the same genre

Condirering how Maxis was killed by EA, Paradox could hire some artists from there
You have said this already a few times in this thread, and the answer is always the same: Cities: Skylines will look as good or as bad as you make it. There are a few mods available, like Dynamic Resolution, Sharp Textures, Softer Shadows or PostProcessFX that make the game look much better. If you don't like the environmental colors, make your own theme and LUT or choose one of the many on the workshop. And regarding buildings, there are thousands to choose from. Or is your computer so bad you don't have any RAM left?

This whole game is basically a modding platform. Who really cares what buildings Colossal Order makes. They outsourced the residential building sets of their last expansion, which makes for a slightly different look, but it doesn't really matter one way or the other.
 

Mazisky

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I've just taken those from my PC:[snip]

Cities skyline looks just dull and those assets are pretty unpleasant to look at.

After all those years and paid DLCs have the decency to look better than a 2013 game of the same genre

Condirering how Maxis was killed by EA, Paradox could hire some artists from there
You have said this already a few times in this thread, and the answer is always the same: Cities: Skylines will look as good or as bad as you make it. There are a few mods available, like Dynamic Resolution, Sharp Textures, Softer Shadows or PostProcessFX that make the game look much better. If you don't like the environmental colors, make your own theme and LUT or choose one of the many on the workshop. And regarding buildings, there are thousands to choose from. Or is your computer so bad you don't have any RAM left?

This whole game is basically a modding platform. Who really cares what buildings Colossal Order makes. They outsourced the residential building sets of their last expansion, which makes for a slightly different look, but it doesn't really matter one way or the other.

Already done man.
the screenshots i posted were taken with the last post processing mod, ambient occlusion and the best lut i've found.

Also, there are thousand of new assets via workshop but they are not automatically all good.
It is a bit tedious to find all the good ones while scrolling through a pile of trash
 

Turjan

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2008
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Already done man.
the screenshots i posted were taken with the last post processing mod, ambient occlusion and the best lut i've found.
It's hard to tell on upscaled 640x360 pixel images. Try other themes if you think the originals are drab.
Also, there are thousand of new assets via workshop but they are not automatically all good.
It is a bit tedious to find all the good ones while scrolling through a pile of trash
After a while, you know which people make quality assets. Anyway, my point was that you can make cities without any vanilla assets, if you want.
 

Mazisky

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Disputing the finer points of graphical fidelity in a city building game.

:philosoraptor:

The Codex embraces all.

Naa. It's about the art style and details, not the graphics.

Simcity has very cool assets, also all the growable stuff is incredibly different so you don't get 10 identical building like in CS.

Lot of buildings have animations like citizens walking around or neon billboards, etc., CS ones are entirely static.

Also, Simcity had day\night cycle, tourism and disasters since start without the need of adding them as different DLCs.

Too bad EA forced them to always online and that crap city size, i can imagine what great game it would be now if they did not make those huge mistakes.

Also, sad Maxis employes said on reddit they add big plans for sequels before being melted from publisher.
 

Turjan

Arcane
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Mar 31, 2008
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You know, much of that isn't really true. Day/night cycle doesn't need any DLC, despite this being repeated again and again. The building variety of the base game has increased quite a bit over the lifetime of the game (and, as said, it was clear from the beginning that making buildings would be one thing where asset creators would deliver anyway). European style has become already part of international maps and the other way round (you just have to press a button, and many people don't do it an don't even know all the unique buildings that come with the European set). There's animated billboards, and quite a few unique buildings have animated people doing stuff.

Of course you get more repetition, if your city is at least 9 times larger, and realistically about 20 times larger than SimCity. Even with lots of RAM and thousands of different buildings, you will not be able to have everything unique.
 
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A user named cat

Guest
Why is this thread so dead? I know this game is getting old now but I'm just getting around to playing it, pretty impressive despite Unity :M

Mod community still seems pretty active too. Aside from maybe Banished, have there been any other worthwhile city building games since this came out or is there anything on the horizon?
 
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Turjan

Arcane
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Mar 31, 2008
Messages
5,047
Why is this thread so dead? I know this game is getting old now but I'm just getting around to playing it, pretty impressive despite Unity :M
Oh, I thought I'm the only one on this forum who actually likes the game. As you said, it's getting old. Most of the forums for the game move like molasses, too. You can see from the achievement stats that the expansions sold less and less. The only place that I know of that is kind of active is Reddit. Simtropolis houses part of the modding community, but of course modders mostly use modern stuff like Discord etc., too. Nowadays, the game is most popular with people who just plop their cities as they like, ignoring any game elements.

As for new city building games, sure, there are always coming new ones out. However, they are either casual, more simulation-oriented with very basic graphics, or very limited in scope.
 

Turjan

Arcane
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Mar 31, 2008
Messages
5,047
Not sure what you are after. Metro Overhaul Mod got an overhaul. Ever since road modding was made easy, you have got lots of different road types, but also walls, power lines, train tracks on brick structures, tram stations and similar. There's also those procedural objects that let you adapt for example brick bridges to any height, width, arch lengths etc. that you need. For just plopping cities, you have "Plop the Growables" and everything else that's necessary for this to work.

Here's someone's recreation of Cork, Ireland:

44C89C0BB171ED009B1AB62A5809D69BB7630B08


Here are two comparisons of game to Google Maps:

0hkottyjny301.jpg


myotb2xjjo801.jpg


Here's more stuff: https://imgur.com/a/gAoiT
 
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Turjan

Arcane
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Mar 31, 2008
Messages
5,047
C:S got some promotional material thrown at it in order to entice the users to buy Pdx's upcoming "Surviving Mars". One thing is a new radio station, "Official Mars Radio", which, I guess, plays music from the upcoming game and sports a moderator with a Finnish accent. The other thing is a new building:

2F3F75AD751816CA74DBB9373A3F9BAF7E8933EE


I tried this out in a vanilla city of mine. It takes some time for the rocket to be built in that building. When it's done, the doors open and that Saturn V style rocket moves to the launch pad. You launch the rocket per button press. Afterwards, that carrier vehicle moves back into the building. That's it more or less, a nicely animated cool little gimmick. It's free, so nothing to complain.

By the way, they didn't use the SpaceX as model because it looked "too thin" compared to the huge building. I suppose they wanted to dodge complaints that the boosters don't return, as that had been originally planned but was cut. Whatever. It's moddable. Someone already released a working Soyuz:

466B87B9FF2CDA8DD973AB4CAE1DB6011FDF8B61


As always, there's also another stupid Chirper hat, but that's a given.
 
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Turjan

Arcane
Joined
Mar 31, 2008
Messages
5,047
There will be a new expansion coming out in May, and here is the announcement trailer:




"We're pleased to announce that Cities: Skylines will be getting a playful new expansion, Parklife. Parklife is a lively new add-on for the PC version of Paradox Interactive and Colossal Order’s hit city-builder. The expansion will make your city more vibrant than ever with new amusement parks and zoos; nature reserves and city parks, giving new life to your empty land with custom green spaces.

Parklife adds new ways to play with everything from roller coasters and campsites to flower beds, fountains and flamingos. There’s also a new park area tool, five new maps, a ton of new assets and level-up features that increase your park’s property values in play.

More leisurely features:

Parks and Recreation: Use the new park area tool to create park districts wherever there is empty land, and new city services like Park Maintenance, which boosts happiness and effectiveness, and helps level up parks.

Brick by Brick: Customize your city with new buildings and assets, including a new sightseeing bus line, new service buildings, fresh attractions like amusement parks, nature reserves, city parks and zoos. There’s also a regal new monument, the Castle of Lord Chirpwick.

Freeway Free for All: For the first time in Cities: Skylines, you can place buildings next to paths in the park districts (not just next to roads). Props can be placed anywhere inside park areas.

Recesses Between Buildings: Transform those empty spaces between your buildings into vibrant parks and gardens.

It’s a Walk in the Park: Customize routes and set ticket prices for new walking and sightseeing tours, among other tourism enhancements.

Policies, Please: Take on three new city policies and eight new park policies to deal with recreational hazards like Fireworks and Animal Ethics.

More than that, Cities is adding a new radio station: Country Road Radio. The radio host is pure Dixieland Delight, spinning six instrumental tracks and ten songs with original vocals covering Appalachian Folk, Bluegrass/Honky Tonk, Nashville Modern Country and Unplugged country.

In addition to the paid expansion, Cities: Skylines will also get a free PC update, as usual, including a new tourism panel, trees that reduce noise pollution, a camera mode upgrade, new tourist models, and new modding features, including submeshmodding and an improved camera system so users can control the camera with scripts."

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...to-announce-cities-skylines-parklife.1089905/


Zoneable parks was something people have been asking for pretty much since release of the game, and the same is true for having buildings on pedestrian paths. Plus, you will be able to play some rudimentary Rollercoaster Tycoon or Zoo Tycoon in the game, if that's your thing. Not that I expect it to be more than very basic, but let's see how it turns out.

In case you are curious what the difference between the two versions of the DLC is: it's the country music radio station. The "Plus" pack contains the latter, the normal one doesn't.
 
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Mr. Pink

Travelling Gourmand, Crab Specialist
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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH;
I DEMAND ZONABLE FARMS NOW!!!!!
:flamesaw:
 

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