Cities: Skylines 2

[S13_Alan]

I played for 5 hours last night and off to play again shortly (just via Gamepass, so I haven't paid for it so to speak).

Think I got to about 10k population in the city.

Did feel a bit laggy by default when I first started, but tweaked graphic settings as recommended and no issues yet.

Looks good enough for me, and just enjoying it and seeing how it differs - maybe it would have been better as an early access thing. There is a few things I wish it had or I noticed didn't quite work as I wanted, but those will come in time. Had been used to playing a fairly modded CS1, but not for a good while now.

My machine isn't exactly near min, it's a 12600k and a 3080, but playing at 3440x1440.

No idea on FPS, but it's smooth.

Reddits got a thread with loads of people who are happy, even if they recognise it needs more work. Steam reviews seem 50/50 but with similar comments.

Only slow downs I noticed were due to auto saves I believe.

[TREMAiNE]

captain_cynic said:

The 64 million squid question is... Would you go back to C:S1?

It’s a very difficult question to answer. I only have 5.5 hours playtime so far vs. 1,000 on CS:1 – plus CS:1 has had 8 years of development, support, and mods, so its not fair to directly compare them so soon, but so far, my thoughts are:

I do “miss” how CS:1 plays – but that’s more because I’ve not learnt the game and mechanics but even something as basic as making a grid from roads feels new. Because the measurements are different, the way amount the roads increase in size and the fact that zoning is now 6 cells deep instead of 4 means you need to learn the right lengths/widths all over again. My standard 22x11 cell grids don’t apply anymore!

The much more flexible road creation suite is fantastic, though it does also make creating roads harder in some ways – you have to be more precise with where you are snapping onto existing geometry.

Even the bulldozer has changed and become fiddlier and more complex.

Everything feels different, new, and deeper – and its all very confusing BUT it’s just one of those things where you know you’ll love it and you know its better, you just need to get used to it.

I am not a massive fan of the maps though – they’re very hilly, and modifying the terrain is more important now than ever before. I was never great on hilly terrain so that is a learning curve.

The actual simulation runs so much slower, too. Max speed feels slower than 1x speed on the first game.
This has pros and cons. It does encourage a more relaxed and casual playstyle and means that if you have issues that need fixing, you don’t have to jump on them right away, you can wait a while before they cause a serious affect but equally, its not a game where you can rush expansion and go from 0 to 10,000 citizens in 30 minutes real-time.

I’d watched all the content creator stuff over the last few weeks so thought I knew what to expect and thought I would know how it feels and plays – but I was so wrong. It’s also worth noting they all have 150-200 hours playtime, so you don’t notice how different it is because they’ve already learnt how to play.

If someone said to me that it was made by a different developer and called “City Builder 2023” with no affiliation to CS:1, I’d believe them.
It’s not CS:1 with better graphics and new mechanics.

If it gets the same support, DLC and mod support, this will undoubtedly surpass the first game… We just need to all get used to playing it - so no, I wouldn't go back - although my rose tinted glasses that know what to do makes me miss CS:1 a little!

[Mastodon2]

Steam reviews and other reviews sources I've seen are painting the picture of a disaster launch.

[TREMAiNE]

Mastodon2 said:

Steam reviews and other reviews sources I've seen are painting the picture of a disaster launch.

Part of the problem (and I've seen a lot in the Cities groups I'm part of) is despite the KNOWN performance issues and the devs recommending certain specs (1080p res being crucial), people have still tried to run at max settings, and moaned that they're getting single digit frame rate. I appreciate it shouldn't have been released in such a poor state, but even if you have a 4090 and can play everything else at max settings 4K, how can you possibly get annoyed and post online how you're getting 8fps when weeks ago we were given a heads up it was poorly optimised.

A friend is running a 1070 and he's getting 30fps at medium settings 1080p. That's an 8-year-old card.

Again, whilst it should not have been released in that state, I think people are being a little entitled/precious and of the belief that if they can't play at absolutely max settings then the game is unplayable.


A patch came out today - I'm now getting 120fps @ 1080p or 80fps @1440p - all settings on high. Still have V-Sync off as well as things like depth of field etc. It is a little buggy albeit no more than a lot of releases.

The fact a 500kb patch with such a massive effect on performance came just 3 days after release does make me wonder how they couldn't squeeze it in on/before release?

Remember 20 years ago playing PS2 games that would sometimes dip to FPS in the teens when a lot happened on screen - with patches being non-existent - nobody really gave a crap then, it was just how things were...

[MBBlat]

It’s a city simulator, not a FPS shooter, so an ultra high frame rate shouldn’t be necessary.

My mid-range machine from last year runs fine, got some odd graphical glitches here or there but nothing game destroying. One even gave me a nice semicircular lake at the end of my first medium density block.

First city, so going for learning the mechanics rather than the ultimate city.

[S13_Alan]

Been playing a good bit more, still enjoying it, and my city is now nearing 100k people.

Game is still running well, and from what I've seen online the performance penalty falls off a bit once you get to higher numbers.

Spotted these posts about what's being simulated from a guy who must develop mods for CS1 and is looking at the CS2 code in preparation, found them interesting and hope he continues it:

Code Deep Dive: Residential Rents

https://www.reddit.com/r/CitiesSkylines/comments/1...

Code Deep Dive: Industrial Rents

https://www.reddit.com/r/CitiesSkylines/comments/1...

[budgie smuggler]

S13_Alan said:

Been playing a good bit more, still enjoying it, and my city is now nearing 100k people.

Game is still running well, and from what I've seen online the performance penalty falls off a bit once you get to higher numbers.

Spotted these posts about what's being simulated from a guy who must develop mods for CS1 and is looking at the CS2 code in preparation, found them interesting and hope he continues it:

Code Deep Dive: Residential Rents

https://www.reddit.com/r/CitiesSkylines/comments/1...

Code Deep Dive: Industrial Rents

https://www.reddit.com/r/CitiesSkylines/comments/1...

Reading this it sounds like they've made a huge step with the realism on this one. Bravo.

I'm still waiting for it to settle down before jumping in though.

[captain_cynic]

Welp, I've gone and bought it.

I haven't really had time for a time sink in the last month for various reasons but I'll be on holidays soon. I guess I'll see if it'll do 1080p on a Ryzen 5/RTX 3050 (mobile).

[Griffith4ever]

TREMAiNE said:

stuff about resolution

What you say is true, but... I want to play at the resolution of my monitor, and 1080p just isn't going to work - ultrawide monitor 3440 x 1440.

I'll wait a little. I've a 3070 and a last year gen i5 so fairly sure it'll be ok, but no rush.

[TREMAiNE]

Griffith4ever said:

TREMAiNE said:

stuff about resolution

What you say is true, but... I want to play at the resolution of my monitor, and 1080p just isn't going to work - ultrawide monitor 3440 x 1440.

I'll wait a little. I've a 3070 and a last year gen i5 so fairly sure it'll be ok, but no rush.

Since that patch, you'll be fine with a 3070.

Unlike the last game, this is not overly CPU-intensive.
Also, the performance penalty for increased population actually decreases as the pop. goes up.
For me, the drop in FPS from 0 to 10k citizens is bigger than the drop from 10k to 50k.

1440p and 4k now viable options to play since the first patch, too.

[S13_Alan]

Decided to go decompile the dll files and have a little look... I am a programmer after all.

It's pretty interesting!

Men can't give birth (you'll be glad to hear) and they've even modelled people getting divorced.

New patch should be out on Steam today btw if you've missed that, has a few more changes - https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/patch...

Edit:

Two more the guy's done:

Struggling Businesses That Never Seem to Go Bankrupt

https://www.reddit.com/r/CitiesSkylines/comments/1...

The Education System

https://www.reddit.com/r/CitiesSkylines/comments/1...

Edited by S13_Alan on Friday 3rd November 12:22

[S13_Alan]

This is an interesting read about why we see such poor graphics performance.

https://blog.paavo.me/cities-skylines-2-performanc...

Sounds as though there's plenty opportunity for improvement and it's potentially partly been down to the slow progress on some of Unity's new shiny technology features being completed and ready for real use, leading them to having to build their own.

[Zetec-S]

Anyone playing this? I was holding off on a new PC until this had a chance to get established and iron out the teething issues, but a brief look at some reviews / discussion online suggests it still has some significant flaws?

[TREMAiNE]

The game has the foundations to be truly incredible.
Unfortunately it's just not ready yet. Bugs ans certain simulation systems not working correctly yet aren't actually my main gripe but the lack of content is what's put me off playing.

While not a fair comparison, years and years of DLC made CS:1 so deep with so much to do. The sequel is so bare by comparison. Also, whilst the scale of CS:2 is amazing, the downside is that it makes making smaller towns look a bit silly - even an elementary school is massive. So the scale, one of the games biggest strengths, ends up being one of its biggest weaknesses too.

Also, zoning breaks so easily and it drives me OCD mad.
It's 1 million times worse than the first game. The road tools are amazing- near perfect - but that flexibility is ruined when I'm placing the same road 10 times until the zoning doesn't break (and yes, I do toggle the relevant snap tools etc).

Lastly, no detailing is horrendous. Every city looks the same.
Tree growth is a pain.
With mods, these issues are all resolved which is good but too much is still wrong.

I went back to CS:1 recently - but now I'm stuck - I miss some of the features of CS:2 when I play CS:1 but I miss all of the content of CS:1 when I play 2.

[Zetec-S]

Thank you, that confirms some of what I've seen online, think I'll be holding off on a new PC for a bit longer and hope they get it sorted. Maybe they'll reverse their decision to ditch the Steam Workshop, which might help with generating more content?

It's a shame because C.O. built up a lot of credit with how they went about CS1, I hope they manage to get back on track.

[Griffith4ever]

TREMAiNE said:

Griffith4ever said:

TREMAiNE said:

stuff about resolution

What you say is true, but... I want to play at the resolution of my monitor, and 1080p just isn't going to work - ultrawide monitor 3440 x 1440.

I'll wait a little. I've a 3070 and a last year gen i5 so fairly sure it'll be ok, but no rush.

Since that patch, you'll be fine with a 3070.

Unlike the last game, this is not overly CPU-intensive.
Also, the performance penalty for increased population actually decreases as the pop. goes up.
For me, the drop in FPS from 0 to 10k citizens is bigger than the drop from 10k to 50k.

1440p and 4k now viable options to play since the first patch, too.

Im playing it now with my 3070 and it's fine. 3440x1440 with no issues. It slowed a fair bit at around 6k residents but then I followed a graphics setting optimisation guide and it runs without a glitch - I'm at around 19k pop at the moment.

Was horribly jaggy until I enabled TAA. Just horrible.

General feeling is its just "gloomy" - it seems to rain all the bloody time. Buildings are gloomy, shadows are gloomy (under the canopy at the train station it's dark as hell). It all just needs a major brightening, with some bloody COLOUR! it all just feels dead. I'm enjoying it so far mind you.

V disappointed when I saw my 1st fire engine turn up and..... nothing. Fire goes out. No firemen, no waster, no hoses. Just feels lazy / lack of care.

[u6dw4]

without mod support and a lot of dlc content missing it's not much fun to play.

I spent time thinking where is that feature...but it's not there. For example the park mod.

It's got potential but just appears unfinished.

some basic features like buildings are still 'blocks' with gaps in-between. it dosn't affect how the game plays but it looks really unnatural. even if the houses sat on blocks the gardens and boundaries should blend to roads. because it's coded into the game it might be difficult to mod (there was never a fix for cs1 i know of). missed chance.

Buildings are sort of upgradable but not properly modular either. was expecting to be able to mod a train station for example like tf2. I know it's not a transport game but it would look so much better even with a simplified modding tool.

[Griffith4ever]

u6dw4 said:

without mod support and a lot of dlc content missing it's not much fun to play.

I spent time thinking where is that feature...but it's not there. For example the park mod.

It's got potential but just appears unfinished.

some basic features like buildings are still 'blocks' with gaps in-between. it dosn't affect how the game plays but it looks really unnatural. even if the houses sat on blocks the gardens and boundaries should blend to roads. because it's coded into the game it might be difficult to mod (there was never a fix for cs1 i know of). missed chance.

Buildings are sort of upgradable but not properly modular either. was expecting to be able to mod a train station for example like tf2. I know it's not a transport game but it would look so much better even with a simplified modding tool.

Taking About transparent, have you tried watching your subway network trains and passengers? Or modifying routes? God alive its a nightmare. They need a proper underground transit View, or the ability to turn off bus line visibility. Pressing page down twice isn't enough. It really feels unpolished in a lot of ways.

There is very little info out on the Web either. I put down by first police HQ (the big one) and it just sends one car out and has zero prisoners, even after deleting local police stations. Just can't find any info out on the Web.

[MBBlat]

It’s a pity as somethings are so much better, road tools in particular, but a lot of little things such as firemen are missing. Some of the simulation features are a bit opaque, lots of high rent complaints but no way to find out what’s causing it, let alone solve the problem. Then in the end of the day it doesn’t seem to matter, the city keeps growing and the money rolls in.

As mods were such a big part of the original game, the launch of the sequel should have been held until they were ready, not wait for some future patch, especially as hacks to get mods to work are already out there.

[u6dw4]

Griffith4ever said:

Taking About transparent, have you tried watching your subway network trains and passengers? Or modifying routes? God alive its a nightmare. They need a proper underground transit View, or the ability to turn off bus line visibility. Pressing page down twice isn't enough. It really feels unpolished in a lot of ways.

There is very little info out on the Web either. I put down by first police HQ (the big one) and it just sends one car out and has zero prisoners, even after deleting local police stations. Just can't find any info out on the Web.

only got as as buses so far but found modifiying the routes really difficult if not impossible. But I need to have another go at it. it's this stuff i hate, it takes all the fun out (planet coaster and just creating paths is another one). I spent 2 hours trying to modify bus routes then just turned it all off to do something else.

another missed chance just appears to be a transport hub. No bus / train tram. Just modular transport hub (which could just be a train if you want).

I found it difficult to connect electric to the power station too. sub stations are a detail too far me, just not interested in water / power pipes. It's like a utilty sim.