Coming in at #9 we have Cities: Skylines, a flexible sim game with hours upon hours of building enjoyment. Oh and a lesson from SimCity 4: one-way roads are boss.This week Shacknews is counting down its top ten 2015 Games of the Year, as tabulated by both staff votes and input from our own Chatty community. That's our ten tips to get started with! There is so much depth to the game, but it'll come over time. You can always window mode and let the game idle, hoping in every 10 minutes to clear burned down buildings and make sure nothing major has happened. Unlike SimCity (2014), you have a lot going on, so take awhile to get defeated by trash and pollution and restart, I promise it gets faster each go around. It takes a lot of iteration to get a general idea of where and how you want to build. Then slowly build out and expand from there.ġ0. Restarting should be a pleasure, not a sign of defeat. You have to lay the framework for when the city gets bigger, however, when you don't have much land or money, building out a small RCI area and letting the cash come in can help build a warchest for later in the game. Police coverage can be sparse, as long as patrol cars can get to an area, you'll be fine.ĩ. If you find yourself not making money ever, start building smaller. Likewise, fire is only an issue in areas where fire is very likely (industrial).
Medical isn't that important if you have enough clinics through your city. Be sure to place all improvements in areas where they touch as many zones as possible.Ĩ. However, there is a loss component - the additional taxes may not overtake the upkeep on any improvement. Some will refuse to go into the crematorium, so make sure you have a mixture of both.ħ. Land value affects tax income, the richer the area, the more tax they pay. Same rules apply in regards to traffic, the hearses can't move through traffic and you will reach a point where your cims age and begin to die, requiring you to have enough places for them to rest peacefully. Intersections are evil and you should avoid them as much as possible, because red lights slow traffic.Ħ. Make sure to have enough crematoriums and cemeteries. One way roads help a lot and avoid the small roundabout, it clogs up too quickly. Use bigger roads to move people around and smaller roads to keep costs low. There is too many traffic tips to mention, but remember that the major highway network that was laid out for you at the start is where most of your traffic pileups start at the intersection. Traffic is the most important determination of your cities success, because once traffic hits you're going to be stuck in a situation where you're screwed and you'll probably never earn enough money to dig yourself out of it. So you need to make sure that traffic is working properly.ĥ. Unused trucks will drive further but there is another gotcha here - they also follow traffic. So you need to make sure you have enough trucks. Watch out for trash in your city, you need an effective trash management plan and you only have two outlets to get rid of trash - landfills, which fill up fast, and incinerators which create pollution. This is great at lower levels when you just want to get things unlocked and some cash to start really building.Ĥ. The game will pause when your city "levels up" so that your cims don't leave with their new expectations. Popups will pause the game which is a good thing, as your city levels up, the demands of your citizens will increase. You can easily leave the game in windowed mode and let it idle, collecting revenue to build your next expansion. When you reach a net profit, you can "set it and forget it" if you have enough police, fire, and health coverage along with landfills and other services. Residential doesn't like being near industry because it pollutes, but needs commercial / industry for jobs and shopping.ģ.
Industry needs commercial to provide goods to and residential for workers. Commercial needs residential in order to employ cims and make sales. The only "gotcha" is to make sure that water input doesn't touch pollution, so put the sewage downstream and make sure any pumps aren't near any pollution.Ģ. You don't have to be too afraid of zoning industrial next to residential. Ground pollution and air pollution don't move far. Lots of complex mechanics means lots of complex ways to fail, so we've put together ten amazing tips to help you get started in Cities: Skyline.ġ. It's much more in-depth, going back more into SimCity 4 than the new SimCity. Cities: Skyline has been for some a savior after the "failed" launch of SimCity (2014). 10 Tips for Getting Started in Cities: Skyline.