Make a city organic and natural looking?

[Knightmage Bael]

I have the basics down, and have a general understanding of how everything works - I'm still have issues on building an efficient metro though. Where to place the stations and building it line by line takes me a while, but anyway...

Anyone have a good guide or advice on how to make a city look organic, natural, or artistic?

A way to build it to look more interesting than "lolgridsquares"? I'd rather avoid haphazardly curving streets without any thought. I'd like to know what to keep in mind while making curved and angled roads, and how to do it that'll keep things efficient.

[rajwarrior]

Google maps/Google Earth is your friend. Have an idea of what you'd like to build (major city, small town, sprawling town, farm town, etc) and check out what some real towns/cities look like from above via maps.

Research how old towns started up. Usually around something important to trade/income; a river, a mine, a train, etc. Even if you're not in the part of the map where the "original" town grew up, having that location in mind and how it went up helps with the layout.

Follow the terrain. Curvy streets usually happened because of terrain.

Think about the larger city layout; downtown, the docks, the mines, the farms, the suburbs, etc. Everything doesn't have to be jammed together like peanut butter and jelly.

[n00B]

Litterally start small and find your path, just how a real city developed. I noticed a few years back that cities have far more sidestreets, that also helped

[Avanya]

There's a bunch of great tutorials on this playlist, that I have found really helpful. That and Google maps to see how real cities are made.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6kotTknxXVSTMkW-Zv99QxrolgfEQvEL

[Catratio]

I just try to make curvy shapes with my roads. Adhering to terrain is great advice, but even on flat land you can just stick a cul-de-sac into space where it would fit, and just add a slight curve to it to make it more visually interesting. Here's my last city, all the suburbs are curvy and the only grid is the central downtown center. It's more or less how suburbs are in my area by looking at Google maps, just not as densely packed.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2114165334

[DaddyJokee]

I'll go against the wind and say this. I find that organic cities don't really work the same way in C:S. Cities are old. They develop over hundreds of years and through iteration look what they do today.

In all my time (and I'm not the greatest at this) the best way I found how is find a good map. Then zoom out to see it all and mentally plot out where you want your city, where is the downtown, where is the uptown, where is the harbor, the airport, the plethora of subdivisons, all that kind of stuff. Then map out where are some outlaying small towns, and start there.

Every time I start with my first tile and try to build a city from there, it looks dumb, because the game's progress is a limitation on creativity. But when I start with a small town, I only expect to worry about it until I reach a few milestones, then leave it for a new area. Start a new small town, and eventually, finally, I start working my way outside in.

In my current build, I have two small towns up and running, and working on a subdivision to climb up to 8K pop.

Another advice I have, and this is more specific, build one of each industries, hodge podge, to level it up to 5*. Once you have reached 5 stars once, you have all the buildings unlocked for each subsequent zone of the same kind, and FINALLY can make your farms look farmy, etc.

The other specific advice is mods. Mods are an absolute must if you want your city to look neat. The way zoning works on curved roads, cancer. Fixed easily by plopping houses where you want them. Want to build a poor, port side neighborhood? Assets are available. Looking for something specific? Ask in the forums. There are people (Looking at Avanya) there, who are incredibly helpful and have been playing this and modding this and creating assets and things for this for years, and they are often willing to help you find something. And along with that, don't hesitate to download cheaty mods. For example in the pic bellow, I um using a mod that places a 1x1 police station that has no upkeep and I placed it inside a small town hall building in both my small towns. Small towns don't always have a dedicated police building, and the town hall itself has a over a 1k upkeep. So its not like the 5-0 isn't being paid for. It's just used to make my stuff look the way I want it to.

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1645467095456433587/0BD77742F8307FB7347DD17BFFEA9794848AA5CD/

EDIT: Added the screenshot link (apparently not as well as Cutratio, but still. Its WiP, obviously, but ya, the two towns on the right side of the map were around 4000 people, then started one subdivision the Acres one, which poped 5K and then the rest to get to 8k.

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by Archmage_Bael:

I have the basics down, and have a general understanding of how everything works - I'm still have issues on building an efficient metro though. Where to place the stations and building it line by line takes me a while, but anyway...

Anyone have a good guide or advice on how to make a city look organic, natural, or artistic?

A way to build it to look more interesting than "lolgridsquares"? I'd rather avoid haphazardly curving streets without any thought. I'd like to know what to keep in mind while making curved and angled roads, and how to do it that'll keep things efficient.

My cities follow curves of rivers and hills only. Grid FTW!

Here's a city in collapse from Sunset harbor: no workshop or DLC needed:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=723204559

I think the smaller the city, the worse grids look.