12 hours played. What's the point?

[What a save!]

Hi. As per the title, I've played 12 hours so far and I've been having fun, however I am now starting to feel a bit bored since the game is becoming more and more repetitive.

Don't get me wrong, I know this game is about building and managing a city, but once you succeed, what else do you have to do?

My first city is growing, making money and my citizens are happy. Even if I brought the game and the Disasters DLC altogether and I have had tornadoes, tsunamis, etc, it is always easy to recover. They are far from being a challenge.

The only thing I am doing is to expand my city, create roads, make sure new areas are well covered in water, hospitals, education etc and start over again in another area.

Over and over again.

I hope that increasing the difficulty will keep me busy for another 10-15 hours, but still it's all about the same mechanics.

Prison Architect is a game where you have to build and manage a prison. What is makes it so funny is the huge amount of variables that can happen and can make you fail. It's a game where making beautiful prisons represents 20% of the game and playing it is 80%.

Rimworld is even better. I'd say aiming to escape the planet and keeping your colony alive and healthy is 90% of the game while making fancy beautiful houses is 10%

I think a game like Cities:Skylines relies too much on keeping the player busy by doing 'beautiful cities' rather than making the player to play. Is that what the game is about?

[annaliseh]

So 12 hours hey!

How big are your cities? How much are your POPs? Have you achieved all the achievements? Have you got all the special buildings? You have no traffic jams? Haven't had the infamous DEATHWAVE and its repeats?

If you have gained all these in 12 hours - which I say is impossible - then you must be the guru/master builder. Your cities must be perfect. How about posting one of your cities so we, the CS community can marvel and wonder at your wisdom?

I have played more than 460 hours while online and 500 offline and I'm still learning. Many other have played over 1000 hours, and some +4000 hours, and they still learning - AND YOU ONLY PLAYED A MEASLY 12 hours and you know it all.

By the way it is a city builder and as the saying goes "Rome was not built in a day."

Just go back to Rimworld!

[What a save!]

Thanks for your advise and yes, I'll probably go back to Rimworld as it's more entertaining IMO.

I didn't say my city was perfect: I said I succeded on making a profitable city where citizens are happy.
Every big city has traffic jams and crime, not a big deal. If my citizens are happy means I've somehow managed to keep these low. I know for sure the game algorythms won't allow me to make a 0% traffic jams no matter how guru/master I become. These are particle systems designed to emit more instances each time you fix a long queue so they find another place to get stuck, but if I'm speaking too technical for you please rest and keep reading after 5 minutes.

I'm glad you've expent so many hours unlocking archievements and placing special buildings. Please do mention in your CV, but as I said, I think this game is more about layouting and populating beautiful - self managed cities rather than facing challenges aiming for a final goal.
At least Cities In Motion had a storyline. Goals to reach. Direction to follow.

This one doesn't seems to be a game for me despite I do understand some people may love games like these (can I recommend Planet Coaster)

Not opening this thread to make people like you angry because I am questioning this game. Also, you don't need to be ironic if you want to reply.
I just asked the question if Cities: Skyline is a game based on expending long hours making a beautiful and well managed city or if it is something else.

[kiOmen]

you asked .. "Is that what the game is about?"

you answered .. "I think this game is more about layouting and populating beautiful - self managed cities rather than facing challenges aiming for a final goal."

why bother asking, you know it all. pun intended.

[Pops]

There are other things to consider, happines in CS is easy and if a cim goes unhappy all that happens is the cim leaves the city which you are completely unaware of as the game doesnt alert you to it. There are also scenerios you could try, the flood one is rather challenging or better make some hard ones for us.

The game is mainly aimed at traffic management, which can be very challenging. Alas, most get the "youknowwhats" with it and do become bored and tired of their failures in getting it right. To all, everyone has an opinion and I enjoy city builders the most. This is also a sandbox game so there are very few goals, however you can set your own goals to make it a little more interesting for your gameplay. Thats where the scenerios come in.

[Elegant Caveman]

Guess city builders aren't for you, OP. Sorry to hear.

Originally posted by Dani:

The only thing I am doing is to expand my city, create roads, make sure new areas are well covered in water, hospitals, education etc and start over again in another area.

Over and over again.

That's the game. You're not "missing" anything. It's not about challenge or goals (beyond what you set for yourself, if you want to do that), it's just about... building cities.

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by Dani:

Thanks for your advise and yes, I'll probably go back to Rimworld as it's more entertaining IMO.

I just asked the question if Cities: Skyline is a game based on expending long hours making a beautiful and well managed city or if it is something else.

It's a way to build cities however you like. Beautiful or ugly, that's up to you. As for managing, there isn't much managing at all to be honest, apart from traffic. For me, it's a form of artistic expression.
However if you want to make a game of it, then make use of the Scenario editor and set your own goals, conditions or penalties. Or make use of the Workshop and subscribe toa scenario somebody else has made.
As for Rimworld, that's another thing entirely. Just remember that it's not a game either ;)
It's story generator.
Have fun playing both!

[ancienthighway]

Excellent question. It's the same "point" as every other game ever made. To help the gamer relax and have fun, although watching a few twitch feeds, I'm beginning to wonder about whether those gamers forgot about the fun aspect.
There's a large genre of city builder games available today. But if you are more into RTS, RPG, FPS, or multiplayer competition games, you're looking in the wrong place.

Twelve hours in ANY game is just enough to learn the basics and find out when the game or your opponent kicks your bum, that you don't know anything yet. Of course you may be a genius or savant that has not problem learning and understanding the complexities by intuition.

But the point of this game, and any other game is to have fun and relax. Ranting about how bad or dumb a game is simply because it's not your thing is stressful! Go find a game that will relax you.

[BLÀde]

what do you do? start again on a new map, use mods, build differently.

[Summer]

This Game isnt about having a profitable City it is about building and managing. Yes that it is profitable is Essential die other things like: get you Traffic without Problems even if you Build on the whole Map. And when you Build on all 9 Tiles Add the 25 Tiles Mod to get even More Space to Build on. Only when you have built up any free space and have no problems with fire, burglar, sick, dead as well as garbage, pollution, water and electricity you can say that you are finished with this city. But then there is not only one map only from the game directly there are about 15-20 maps and then there is still the workshop with I believe now almost 18,000 maps
So dont say it is Boring. You just didnt .have the patience to do what you can do

[B_Wald]

It's a game/activity you have to enjoy for it's own sake, like Minecraft or tending a garden.

[Toma]

If u think its very easy then try Hard mode (Content Manager > mods).

[Ëvïlnïck8 ゴゴゴ]

Its a city-building sandbox game.

But judging from your comparisons maby a pure sandbox is not for you.
This game is not realy about challange or difficulty or having an end goal.
You could play the senario's since they do have a goal with a time limit in mind.

[Caleidian]

Beat all the scenarios. And then getting bored.

[What a save!]

Thanks for your answers. Most of them are more than useful to have an idea about my future expectations about the game.

I've now activated the Hard mode under Mods and suddently my citizens started to leave the city due to low value lands. For the very first time I saw red numbers and the overall game is becoming more challenging when trying to revert the situation.
To figure out what's causing my citizens to leave keeps me away from building, and this is making the game to go to another level.

Hopefully now I will play more hours of fun!

[Kitsune]

I played both Rimworld and Prison Architect, and I think C:S is more like a cool, beautiful diorama in comparison to roguelike, dwarvish flavour of the first two. Call me crazy, but I love developing a city from the start over and over again, naming the districts, watching single people, and C:S is so great and natural in this that pure watching is part of playing for me.

If you want to spice things a bit, there are so many official DLCs and also tons of mods, but the basic principle stays the same, so yeah, can't run away from that. :) It is a city builder.