Cities: Skylines (the Sim City we deserve)

[Samus]

It annoyed me how the cargo trains reversed out of the cargo hub, so I built a balloon loop using the one-way track.

Good to hear you still have to work around game quirks even on PC.

I spent this evening experimenting in my testbed city to find a reliable, reproducible method for some clean highway junctions. Got two so far that I'm pretty confident are as smooth and clean as you'll get on console. I made videos of them for my own benefit so I don't forget but I figure I might as well post them here

This is a basic two lane highway merging with a one lane slip road into a 3-lane.


And this is the best I could do joining double two lane highways into one four lane highway.


As you can see the main trick is building everything with dirt roads and turning off road length snapping when required to find the sweet spot in distances.

Nothing special to PC players of course, but maybe some other console players find it useful.

 

[Samus]

Built myself a nice city centre rail and metro hub area, learned from my last city and haven't just plopped the rail station directly on the main road, given a good length one way exit and also gave them options to drive out in the other directions. So they shouldn't all just pile out onto the main road at once.

Now I've just got to build a city centre around it, heh. I have already got some ideas in my sandbox test area. I think my city centres are definitely getting better though. Always a learning process with this game, it's one reason I enjoy it so much. Even if you end up hating a city and abandon it, there is always something, somewhere, you've learned for your next one, or an idea you can bring over.

Also having bought the last DLC packs I didn't realise the Japanese one came with so many unique buildings. Granted a lot of them have Japanese language on them when you look up close but otherwise many of them can just about pass for modern-ish European architecture.

 

[Touring Mars]

Jeez, I just brought my city back from a 20% population drop and was on the road to recovery when the entire place started to get sick with water pollution, and I couldn't figure out what was happening. I lost all the population progress I had made and was back to under 70000 and I was ready to give up, when I found one tiny stretch of pipework that was contaminating my entire water network, as the pipes it cut through were exclusively for dumping sewage.

The level of detail in this game (even the PS4 version) is brilliant though, though a mistake like that can cost you very dearly. It looks like it was indeed the culprit and so I hope my city will soon be on the mend.

 

[eran0004]

The financial district is starting to take shape. Also created a little combined zoo and amusement park next to the train station.

 

[eran0004]

I did some upgrades to one of the arterial roads into the city, as the traffic was starting to reach the limit of what the old configuration could handle. Replaced the roundabout connecting to the port with a dog-bone interchange and then I split the roundabout connecting to the southern part of the city into a pair of roundabouts, with the major roundabout having three connecting roads and the minor four. From the minor roundabout I added a new road crossing over the arterial and providing access to the new sports and exposition centre (work in progress).

Near the city centre I increased the residential density by replacing a couple of blocks of single family houses with apartments. The big empty field in the middle I'm not sure how to use (it's the old farm area, which has now moved further away from the city centre). Perhaps some kind of park area or open-air museum?

 

[eran0004]

Here's a gif showing the before and after view of some road changes. The most obvious one is the new highway connection in the north-east, which significantly reduces the amount of traffic going through the city centre. The second change is the collector along the hillside to the east of the train station. Instead of just randomly connecting back with to the very same road it came off from (what's the point of that?) it now crosses the railway and connects to the public works campus and the residential area south of the hills.

Here is the central station, with stops for train, metro and intercity buses (the intercity bus station is just behind the main building). The disaster memorial looks great in front of the building.

On final approach to the airport you get a nice view of the city and the waters.

 

[Samus]

Station plaza looking nice @eran0004 , I had to ditch the one I posted recently in my city because, surprise surprise, traffic AI was being silly trying to en masse cut through past to get to the residential area on the other side. One of these days I'll remember they take the shortest route possible by distance and speed, and don't take into account size of roads or how busy they are, that they'll be clogging up even more.

Anyway I was determined not to lose interest in another European city at the city centre area again so I dug into the wiki and looked up all the building types, what they all look like for different zone shapes, of all three types. Two primary targets, avoiding any ugly illogical parking lots on the back of the blocks and make them a bit more cohesive looking. Far from finished but It turned out pretty well so far I think. I'm not hating the area yet, anyway. Think I might regret the tramway between two one way roads when traffic ramps up though, but I liked the pedestrianised effect.

Knowing the spawn types/colours makes it far easier to achieve something like that although I have found the slight annoying thing where you know for example a 2x4 plot will always spawn a building with a red roof, but when it upgrades it has the chance to change into a 2x2 brown building with a 2x2 parking lot attached to the back. So you have to make them all historical to avoid that.

Also found an interesting quirk with the corners. There are brown 2x3 corners and red 3x2 corners, where the first number is the roadside value and the second one is the depth. But since on a corner both edges are roadside, how does the game decide which is the true roadside value? Well I haven't figured that out, but once you do find which way around it goes the other corners always alternate.

So take this block:

The left one is zoned two on the top road, three on the left. The right one is the opposite, and they will come out as 3x2 red buildings 100% of the time. No matter how many times you force a rebuild, it'll never build as a 2x3 brown building. However switch them round, two blocks on the right top road, three on the left top, they'll always be brown. Therefore if you zone them both the same way, two on the top both sides, they'll always come out different colours.

As I say I can't really work out what the game is doing. It's treating the top road as the roadside against the left road but against the right road, the right road "wins". Dunno, but it's pretty simple to build one corner, see what colour it is, and plan accordingly.

Yes, as you can tell, I spent WAY too much time on this.

 

[eran0004]

@Samus Wow, that’s impressive! I might borrow some of those block designs for my city

As for the corner buildings, they are all turning the same way, with the corner being on the left side of the building. In the example below the front of the building will always face the bottom road. So by zoning this way you can choose between a 2x3 or a 3x2.

 

[Samus]

@Samus Wow, that’s impressive! I might borrow some of those block designs for my city

As for the corner buildings, they are all turning the same way, with the corner being on the left side of the building. In the example below the front of the building will always face the bottom road. So by zoning this way you can choose between a 2x3 or a 3x2.

View attachment 1083167

Thanks!

Ah right that makes sense, I think I'd already frazzled my brain by that point to work out what was going on.

Now I've just got to tame the modern city centre area on the other side of the station. That one should be far easier though, the majority of those have simple white roofs.

 

[eran0004]

The city reached a population of 20,000 and to celebrate that I decided to add some public transport in the forms of trams. Unfortunately I don't have any trams+bike roads, so the bike network needs an overhaul since I converted a lot of bike lanes into tram lines.

The tram depot is looking good in the old industrial neighbourhood.

An overview of the tram network.

 

[MatskiMonk]

Not really getting much time for CSL at the moment. Been playing a lot of Geoguessr though... I have to say... streetviewing your way around the world really makes you think about how CSL 2 could handle Biomes and assets - but how much work would have to go into it.

 

[eran0004]

I had some problems with the traffic by the central station, mainly because of tourists with their pocket cars exiting from the zoo and taking a right turn directly onto the collector instead of turning left and going the long way around as I had intended. So I had to make the street a one-way only. Unfortunately I couldn't do that since that street was also servicing the trams, which had to go both ways. After some headache I simply grabbed the tram-only network and dragged it straight across the square instead of following the road, problem solved.

On the small island close to the city I started working on a prison complex. I placed the regular prison as well as this old fort which I imagine is the old prison (now museum). I also created this little rock monument outside, I imagine it's a runestone or something along those lines.

And last but not least, I recorded a part of the blue tram line, from the prison to the ice hockey arena. Didn't record all the way to the port, because it passes through a tunnel to get there and I don't have any rendered tram tunnels. Some of the turns are a bit too sharp (I read somewhere that 18 meters is pretty much the minimum curve radius for modern trams), I'll be fixing those later.

 

[Samus]

haven't just plopped the rail station directly on the main road, given a good length one way exit and also gave them options to drive out in the other directions. So they shouldn't all just pile out onto the main road at once.

Well, I might have changed the layout from the original posting but this did.....not work out so well. Turns out for some reason the cims like to walk out the station, across the bridge, to the main road, and then spawn into their cars there. So effectively still the exact same problem. They aren't interested in spawning outside the station and driving down the underpass exit as I intended.

Lovely stuff. The traffic in this game can be so baffling.

 

[MatskiMonk]

They aren't interested in spawning outside the station and driving down the underpass exit as I intended.

I could be wrong... but can they actually spawn cars on that type of road network? I know they can't park with tree or grass networks, but I'd never thought about spawning.

Perhaps try with the standard 2L1W road?

edit: From the wiki https://skylines.paradoxwikis.com/Roads

Roads without decorations (grass or trees) provide parking spaces, allowing residents and tourists to switch to pedestrian mode (to enter their homes or businesses, switch to bus or metro lines, visit tourist areas, etc.). Four-lane roads, with or without decorations, will always provide parking spaces, allowing residents and tourists to leave their cars, and reducing noise. Indeed, land value will be increased.

Can't believe I've never thought about this before, but if a road needs to provide parking spaces in order to allow for switching to pedestrian mode... do they also need them to switch back? I've just always treated them as "parking prohibited" roads, without thinking about the spawn mechanism.

 

[eran0004]

I could be wrong... but can they actually spawn cars on that type of road network? I know they can't park with tree or grass networks, but I'd never thought about spawning.

Perhaps try with the standard 2L1W road?

edit: From the wiki https://skylines.paradoxwikis.com/Roads

Roads without decorations (grass or trees) provide parking spaces, allowing residents and tourists to switch to pedestrian mode (to enter their homes or businesses, switch to bus or metro lines, visit tourist areas, etc.). Four-lane roads, with or without decorations, will always provide parking spaces, allowing residents and tourists to leave their cars, and reducing noise. Indeed, land value will be increased.

Can't believe I've never thought about this before, but if a road needs to provide parking spaces in order to allow for switching to pedestrian mode... do they also need them to switch back? I've just always treated them as "parking prohibited" roads, without thinking about the spawn mechanism.

You may be on to something there! I never thought about that.

 

[sirjim73]

I had some problems with the traffic by the central station, mainly because of tourists with their pocket cars exiting from the zoo and taking a right turn directly onto the collector instead of turning left and going the long way around as I had intended. So I had to make the street a one-way only. Unfortunately I couldn't do that since that street was also servicing the trams, which had to go both ways. After some headache I simply grabbed the tram-only network and dragged it straight across the square instead of following the road, problem solved.


View attachment 1084048

On the small island close to the city I started working on a prison complex. I placed the regular prison as well as this old fort which I imagine is the old prison (now museum). I also created this little rock monument outside, I imagine it's a runestone or something along those lines.
View attachment 1084049

And last but not least, I recorded a part of the blue tram line, from the prison to the ice hockey arena. Didn't record all the way to the port, because it passes through a tunnel to get there and I don't have any rendered tram tunnels. Some of the turns are a bit too sharp (I read somewhere that 18 meters is pretty much the minimum curve radius for modern trams), I'll be fixing those later.

@3.15

News Flash! Road swallows car!

 

[Samus]

I could be wrong... but can they actually spawn cars on that type of road network? I know they can't park with tree or grass networks, but I'd never thought about spawning.

Perhaps try with the standard 2L1W road?

edit: From the wiki https://skylines.paradoxwikis.com/Roads

Roads without decorations (grass or trees) provide parking spaces, allowing residents and tourists to switch to pedestrian mode (to enter their homes or businesses, switch to bus or metro lines, visit tourist areas, etc.). Four-lane roads, with or without decorations, will always provide parking spaces, allowing residents and tourists to leave their cars, and reducing noise. Indeed, land value will be increased.

Can't believe I've never thought about this before, but if a road needs to provide parking spaces in order to allow for switching to pedestrian mode... do they also need them to switch back? I've just always treated them as "parking prohibited" roads, without thinking about the spawn mechanism.

Ah yeah good call, I'd not considered that. I'll make the changes tonight and see what happens.

 

[Samus]

You were spot on @MatskiMonk, changed it to a normal one way and they spawned on it. Interesting quirk I'd never considered.

Thanks!

 

[MatskiMonk]

You were spot on @MatskiMonk, changed it to a normal one way and they spawned on it. Interesting quirk I'd never considered.

Thanks!

Good to know, thanks for confirming it.

 

[eran0004]

One more church for the city. Like many of the others I put this church at the top of a hill, just to make the dome more visible.

I like the line flow of these roads and metro track.

The school of medicine overlooking an arterial road.

 

[eran0004]

I made some changes near one of the big squareabout traffic circles. I demolished the buildings in the central reservation in favour of a bit of green (well, white) space, so now it's a miniature park, linking the square to the metro stop a bit further down the road. Then I filled the gap between the road and the railroad with some decorative office buildings. In the background you can see that I replaced the vanilla university with one of the more monumental main buildings from the university dlc. I'll try to find a new spot for the vanilla uni, probably somewhere along the waterfront.

Thinking about finding a new place for the smaller building in front of the university, partly because it's blocking the view a little but mostly because it looks rather small now compared to the giant in the background.

I modified the layout of the arterial to the east of the city, to let it follow the landscape a bit better. I'm liking this island here, where I stacked the roads to make them fit along the hillside. Easy and fun with Network Multitool

I also did a complete overhaul of the interchange where the arterial meets the highway. Much better looking than what I had before.

This is the area I want to work on next. I want it to feel a bit more modern than the rest of the city and I'm thinking it might be cool to design the blocks with plenty of park space running in rows through the entire neighbourhood and have the rest of the land densely packed with tall buildings. Green in the image below indicates park space.

 

[eran0004]

Did a little mini traffic fix around the central station, because I noticed there was some occasional backing up. What I did was to open up a one-way street to traffic in both directions and to limit the allowed turns from the collector (you can see by the median what turns are forbidden now). I also reduced the speed limit on the collector to 40 km/h, which makes sense because of the many pedestrians around here. I also think the slower speed allows for a more steady flow. So far these fixes seem to work surprisingly well, I haven't seen any tendencies of backing up yet.

I'm planning to record a car trip from the new mining area to the city. It's a 10 minute drive and to make it a bit more interesting I'm filling in some empty spots along the road with houses and mini farms. Really enjoying to build these things

The old bridge of mine has found a spot as well. This gap happened to be the exact length of the bridge so it was an offer too good to refuse.

 

[eran0004]

Here is the car trip, from the mine to the city.

 

[eran0004]

I reworked the interchange here and turned it into a parclo. Then decided to build a little low density residential neighbourhood next to it, since the city is mostly high density at the moment. Added a little farm area across the road too for some local jobs.

The neighbourhood is connected to the city with a local train line. The train station building here is actually the ski lodge from the Snowfall DLC. There are quite a few nice looking buildings in this DLC, it's a shame they're not available on non-winter maps.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the city, disaster strikes as the soft paper factory goes up in flames. Oh the humanity!

 

[MatskiMonk]

I must have spent 5 hours on Cooper county today, and it barely looks any different. CSL fatigue sets in quickly when all you're doing is placing props and decals, building walls, fences and hedgerows to try and make your dead space look realistic(ish). Annoyingly my frustration is evident in the actual building I'm occasionally doing, which ends up being a bodge...

... building low density and avoiding grids is a trudge... simple as.

edit: and when you zoom out, most of it disappears

 

[sirjim73]

I reworked the interchange here and turned it into a parclo. Then decided to build a little low density residential neighbourhood next to it, since the city is mostly high density at the moment. Added a little farm area across the road too for some local jobs.

View attachment 1086783

The neighbourhood is connected to the city with a local train line. The train station building here is actually the ski lodge from the Snowfall DLC. There are quite a few nice looking buildings in this DLC, it's a shame they're not available on non-winter maps.
View attachment 1086781

Meanwhile, at the other end of the city, disaster strikes as the soft paper factory goes up in flames. Oh the humanity!
View attachment 1086782

No toilet paper on the shelves again then... 😉

 

[eran0004]

@MatskiMonk Yeah, there’s a very clear diminishing return effect when it comes to detailing. If you want it to look twice as good you need to spend 4x the time. I mostly just do the bare minimum of details (trees, parking lots, perhaps a network fence), unless it’s somewhere special, like the airport or the central train station.

No toilet paper on the shelves again then... 😉

Oh the humanity!! 😅

 

[PJTierney]

I'm getting Barcelona superblock vibes from this

 

[eran0004]

I added a working cargo plane terminal to the airport by taking the vanilla cargo airport and deleting its runway and taxiways (using Network Multitool to unlock these first), then connecting it up to the taxiways of my own airport. I wasn't sure if it would work, so I didn't actually save anything until I saw the first cargo plane appearing.

The cargo airport comes with a control tower and I wanted to orient it so that the tower would have a good view of the runway and taxiways, so I rotated the building 90 degrees clockwise. To cope with the additional traffic I created a separate road for the trucks behind the metro station and joined it to the main road with a roundabout.

Some other buildings around the airport are the police and fire helicopter depots, the mail sorting facility, a snow dump and a fire station.

 

[eran0004]

I replaced the vanilla suspension bridge with a cable-stayed bridge from the workshop. This one fits much better with the elevation required for the ships to pass underneath. I recalculated the curvature of the bridge deck as well, so that the change in slope between each segment is 0.5%. The old bridge had a constant slope on each side and a sharp crest in the middle, while this new design has a smooth parabolic shape all the way.