City Building Games

[John Arne]

Anyone play City Building games?

I gave up on Cities: Skylines pretty quickly last year, but I've just tried some older games out.

Transport Fever is great fun - I like the transport side of city building, so this game was made for me - loved it.

Banished - quite and old game - good fun due to the basic start to the game and how easy it is to play - still got to give it some more time though.

Can anyone recommend me anything else to try?

[ItalAussie]

I found a couple of really enjoyable grid-based city-building flash games back in the day.

Do you prefer thing on a slightly larger scale? Or one you can knock out in ten minutes or so?

[John Arne]

I found a couple of really enjoyable grid-based city-building flash games back in the day.

Do you prefer thing on a slightly larger scale? Or one you can knock out in ten minutes or so?

I prefer games that need a bit more attention to detail, I don't mind plumbing hours into games, and I much prefer spending larger chunks of time, rather than 10 minutes here and there.

[Pepe]

What didn't you like about Cities Skyline? Seems to be the only one worth bothering with. Well, Banished is also pretty good.

[John Arne]

It not that I didn't like it.
I just got bored of it relatively quickly.

[Boydy]

Have you tried Tropico?

[Disco]

The Anno games have a mix of building and trade. If it's just the transit you're after then Open TTD is completely free these days.

Surprised you didn't like Skylines, not played it myself but solving the road/rail/air for larger and larger cities always looked like one of the more important aspects.

[Trancemeister]

I love Cities Skylines. With all the mods and assets you can download on the steam workshop, I'm so addicted to it. Although the game practiacally uses all my ram when I play it.
It's now 75% discount on Steam.

[John Arne]

Thanks for the feedback, gents. Going to give OpenTTD a gander.

[Clunge]

Cities Skylines 2 announced/trailed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX9YWu5wkGg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lt_sE16yZk

S'il-vous-plait.

[Gray Fox]

I remember very much wanting the SimCity remake that came out, but it fell absolutely flat on its face. The potential for Cities running alongside your friends etc was a great idea, but demanding it be always online and then not having the server space to actually accommodate people, lead to a very lol time of having to queue to get onto a server to essentially play a single player game.

Cities: Skylines did well after considering. Though I've now seen it came out in 2015 and I'm wondering where the 8 years went.

[wullie]

I enjoyed Cities Skylines, I'm never good/interested enough to go into the depth that these games allow but I'll definitely have a look at the sequel. At one point on the first I made a pretty accurate road layout of Cov including street names and traffic flow, just in case you ever think you've been bored there's a new sheriff in town.

[Gray Fox]

I've just found that I have Cities:Skylines sat in my Epic library. So it must have been free at some point and I've claimed it and forgotten. I'll have to give it a go and see how it holds up.

[Pepe]

Cities:Skylines is good, but the never-ending add-ons annoy me in games. I always feel like I do not have the complete version, and it sucks.

[Trancemeister]

Love Cities Skylines but you need a shit ton of mods and assets to make it look good. I've stopped playing it and instead just watch the pros on Youtube like DirtyH's Venice 1:1 serie. This guy is raising the bar on what you can do in this game with every serie he makes.

[Shindig]

I've got Skylines in my PS Plus library but haven't played it yet. I should but I'll probably fall off it real sharpish.

[Baz]

I imagine it’s tedious on a console.

[Raoul Duke]

The interface is actually really nice on a console

[Gray Fox]

Found that it's just the Cities:Skylines base game I have in my Epic games, none of the add ons. Can't complain as it must have been free at some point, but on seeing some youtube vids on it, I'll be lacking a fair bit.

I was horribly bad at Sim City back in the day so I can't wait to see the disaster that unfolds around me on this.

[Clunge]

Next vid out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgjpo2lKt7I

Traffic AI++.

[John Arne]

Yeah, really looking forward to this. Good to see that they have included most of the playability mods people had built for CS1, though I wonder whether those people receive any benefit.

[phonics]

Yeah, really looking forward to this. Good to see that they have included most of the playability mods people had built for CS1, though I wonder whether those people receive any benefit.

That dev/publisher has a habit of hiring modders. A few of them have gone from random guy on a forum to lead devs of a seperate game.

[John Arne]

That dev/publisher has a habit of hiring modders. A few of them have gone from random guy on a forum to lead devs of a seperate game.

That's good to hear, and kinda makes sense for the developers to hire people who actually want to do stuff for the game.

[Clunge]

And inevitably, no matter how many mods they integrate into the core game, there will be calls/need for more. I just hope the base game is more user-friendly/polished this time, as I can't really be arsed with mods.

[Gray Fox]

There's a guy on YouTube who was asked to play the new game and create the map that was used so far in the trailers and he reckons they've added loads of the mods from the first game, into the base game for the upcoming one.

Making bigger buildings modular, so you dont have to bulldoze the original to upgrade it now is a good touch too. It'll be interesting to see what difference 8 years can make(and likely a bigger budget).

[John Arne]

The new skills tree /progress unlocks looks way more interesting and challenging in CS2.


https://youtu.be/Cwyyv_Oyndk

[John Arne]

This is worrying. Skylines 2 out in a few days, and following CO announcing that they aren't happy with the performance of the game, the recommended specs are easy higher than most people have.


https://youtu.be/ShEQp_VKD1I?si=buxxZczXK1ofwS5L

[Gray Fox]

I have an RX 6750XT, which is basically in the middle between a 3070 and a 3070ti. That cost me £480 to buy last August and even that is apparently below the recommended spec. It either just needs optimising better or they've crammed too much into it.

[John Arne]

Woke up this morning and thought I'll get the game downloading, then head off to work and now get home and give it a go. However, it turns out that release date of 24th means... 6pm CET on the 24th :/

[John Arne]

So, this is getting absolutely smashed by a lot of Youtubers due to the performance issues. I haven't tried it yet, but given my set up is 4 years old, I'm not expecting much.

Other Youtubers, such as Keralis, I don't think have even mentioned the issues and seem to be getting on with it.

[Trancemeister]

Loaded up a game last night and just dicked around placing some monuments buildings and stuff just to have a look. Didn't experience any lags and stuff but then I had no population in the city som maybe thats why. Will probably wait for some assets before getting into it.

[Gray Fox]

After the disaster of a launch for this I went to check how it was getting on after some patches and it seems that while performance seems a lot better, there are a lot of bugs with the simulation itself. It's so bad right now that a lot of the youtubers/streamers of the game have gone back to C:S1.

[Clunge]

Just the look of the game is putting me off. It looks so grey and flat. Nothing pops. Surprised they fudged it so badly.

[Gray Fox]

The seasons they introduced also do nothing too. Unsure if thats intentional or not, but things like farming should take a hit in winter months but dont.

As with most games these days it's likely a case of being pushed to release it before they were ready to.

[John Arne]

Not having the mod store ready at launch is also laughable.

They really screwed this up.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I've got it, the sort of thing I like to spend a couple of hours on to dull the brain every now and again. The base mechanics are pretty good and I personally haven't had any issues with bugs or anything, but it's a lot blander than it should be. I just feel like a Tory minister in the 1950s just putting housing up ad infinitum and not being rewarded for the creative solutions around everything else. Feels like it was released at least a year too soon.

[Giggles]

I've got it, the sort of thing I like to spend a couple of hours on to dull the brain every now and again. The base mechanics are pretty good and I personally haven't had any issues with bugs or anything, but it's a lot blander than it should be. I just feel like a Tory minister in the 1950s just putting housing up ad infinitum and not being rewarded for the creative solutions around everything else. Feels like it was released at least a year too soon.

Do you have a mammoth of a PC or are they a bit high on their system requirements? I think the closest computer I have for it comes back at only about 40% on those test sites.

[Jimmy Floyd]

I have a reasonable PC (bought for driving sims in the lockdown, not sure if they've improved since then). Haven't had issues with the requirements.

[John Arne]

Paradox have finally release their mod shop for CSII. I can't be arsed with it, a lower setting (which I need) it looks shite, flat and grey.

[Giggles]

I think I'll just buy the whole hog of CS1 and forget CS2 altogether. I notice a lot of the YouTubers have even gone back.

[Shindig]

Crusader Kings II is free to play? Okay, will that get me enough of a game to get whatever shits and giggles I need out of my system?

[John Arne]

I've been playing a lot of Transport Fever 2 recently, having given up on Skylines II. TF2 is so much fun.