Here are our Cities Skylines 2 Tips and Tricks to get you started.
Cities Skylines 2 is finally out and it makes a new beginning for Colossal Orders iconic city builder. While the game suffers from some performance woes, it is still a worthy successor to the first release. Mechanics have been simplified, DLC from the first game has been added by default and there is much more to come.
If you’re new or a returning player, these times will set you up for a successful city in no time.
Cities Skylines 2 Tips
Take it slow
this is the best advice you’ll ever get in Cities Skylines 2. Too often cities will fail because players only think about the rampant expansion of their cities without considering revenue streams and the economy. These things take time to get rolling. If you aggressively expand and try to keep up with every demand of your citizens you’ll go bankrupt in no time.
Take it slow, take it steady, and maybe set the speed option to normal so you’re not overwhelmed with all the different pop-ups and notifications.
Always build Scaleable
One of the worst things to happen to you in Cities Skylines is the creeping realization that your carefully laid out street network isn’t working out and adding new districts is becoming increasingly difficult. The easiest way to get around that is simply by organizing your streets in grids that branch off the big highways.
And don’t make the mistake of building everything close together either. Your initial area is more than enough to separate industry from housing while still keeping enough space for your commercial buildings.
Watch the Wind
Considering where you put your industrial district is a choice with dire consequences. You need to watch the wind, see where all that unhealthy pollution is going, and build your residential districts as far away from it as possible. This is an important choice to make early on since this will determine how much space you have available.
Traffic on the Mind
Traffic is going to be a huge deal in the later parts of the game. Building your streets with that in mind will spare you a lot of grief later on. Having a main street that branches off into smaller ones will help you keep traffic manageable. You could rely on your trusty grid design but that’ll also make your city look rather ugly.
Connect streets to each other in blocks, make sure that there are no dead ends and one-way streets can be really useful in industrial areas.
Flatten your Space
Cities Skylines 2 has a weird relationship to the different levels of elevation. Some buildings will manage just fine on slight inclines, while others will stomp ugly cliffs into your beautiful city. This is easy to remedy though by simply using the landscaping tool to flatten the entire space you build in.
Watch your Income and Spending
It is very important in Cities Skylines 2 that you build your city to scale. There is no use in spending money on expensive buildings and upgrades if you can’t cover the upkeep. Many beginners make the mistake of betting on those huge bonuses you get each time you level up but that isn’t sustainable.
Only build facilities you can afford and make sure you actually make money off your city instead of losing thousands every day.
Tax Them
If you’re struggling to break even with your spending, raising the taxes is usually a great idea. Your citizens may not like it but as long as you provide them with alternative means of happiness they won’t care too much about this. Later on, you can tax different income classes individually. Eat the rich and so on.
Use Public Transport
Public Transport is a godsend in Cities Skylines 2, you can elevate a lot of your traffic by setting down a few bus lines. Place them generously, make sure that they service different sections of the city separately, and between those sections you can keep pollution and noise complaints down to a minimum.
And that sums up our tips and tricks to get you started in the new Cities Skylines 2. We’ll have more guides for you very soon here on ESTNN