Is the Day/Night cycle in the options visual only?

[Strategikal]

I know that different things happen at different times of day, people going to work and back, night life, different demand for electricity, solar power dropping etc.

But when I switch day/night off, does that day/night activity cycle continue, in spite of it looking like daylight all the time?

Thing is, I want the day/night activity cycle to continue, but I can't build properly when it's dark. When it looks like day all the time, do the city's activities function as if it's constant daytime too (with no night life)?

[Mr. Monday]

Originally posted by Strategikal:

Thing is, I want the day/night activity cycle to continue, but I can't build properly when it's dark. When it looks like day all the time, do the city's activities function as if it's constant daytime too (with no night life)?

I feel the same way. I either wait for day to come back, or use the different views (fire/police/health coverage, etc) to see more clearly.

As for how the city will behave, I'm not really sure. I think it'll act as if it were day still, but I haven't really messed with the time setting that much, and the few times I have I paused the game to build something, and then returned the time before unpausing.

[leftbehind]

If you have After Dark DLC, then you get the leisure specialisations - leisure areas are more active at night, there are also some changes to crime rate, etc. Read the After Dark release notes for full details.

However, it's still very basic. If you want to make night time much more distinct from day time, I recommend the Real Time mod that adds much more distinctive patterns to the daily cycle:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1420955187

[Strategikal]

Thanks, but I'm wary of using a mod like that, it might upset the current balance too much.

You bring up a good point though, the leisure specialisations in After Dark, this is what I'm really curious about. Are those areas more active at night only when Day/Night is enabled, or are they also more active during the appropriate time in the cycle even when Daylight is permanently set?

Night is great for screenshots, but useless for playing the game IMO (unless someone could implement a "bright night" option so that I could build easily when it's dark).

[SteelRodent]

I believe you need After Dark to make the day/night cycle more than just a visual. At least with After Dark schools and industry close at night (you can see it by traffic clearing out) and commercial and tourist places gets busier, especially if you use the Leisure districts like aubergine18 said.

But you can set the budget and change public transit so the cycle makes more of a difference, i.e. drop the school budget at night, have certain bus routes that only run during the day or night, a.s.o. In cities with traffic issues, the night cycle can also help clearing it up because there's less traffic generated in the most troublesome areas. In some cases you can also use this to make stuff like the garbage collection run at night when there's less traffic.

[Strategikal]

I'm not sure but I think they patched the game when After Dark came out so that everyone has the day/night cycle even if they didn't buy the DLC.

Good tips with the budget, which I've never bothered with to be honest, but makes a lot of sense.