How to build a good and REALISTIC city.

[Eli1220]

Hi,

I've played C:S for about 560 hours now, and I know one thing from that. I still can't build a good and realistic city. I know that you should use a picture or map for inspiration, and for realism, you should use mods. About mods. I have 6300 assets and 113 mods. I want to say that about 13 or 12 of those mods are realism/visual mods.

Okay, the base thing I'm asking for is just how to build a good city! I would love any tips that you might have.

Thank you,
~ Cole

[MessengerOfRage]

you might want to look into some mods
like Plop The Growables and Find it 2 together make it possible to hand place buildings.
it's way slower than zoning but you get the look you want
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=924884948
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2133885971

then there are anarchy mods that disable certain game restrictions like road anarchy lets you build steeper angles or tree anarchy lets you place trees in building lots or the middle of the street.

move it to be able to move stuff where you want it to be like combining a couple small buildings into a bigger one. or adjusting a road.

the list is way longer, what do you do allready?
do you use mods? which ones?

[Imhotep]

Have a look at the theoretical models of urban structure too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_structure

[John]

The short answer is....You Can't.
The number of unrealistic procedures and the ratios hardwired into the game make it impossible to build a realistic city.

If you are willing to use mods, and ignore some major inefficiencies however you can with practice come pretty close. Close enough at least to keep those who view your creations from immediately noticing the discrepancies.

You should be aware going in that this is not a popular or widely accepted view of the way most players say one should "play the game". So I shouldn't expect a huge amount of support.

On the other hand there are a few here who may surprise you. So hang in there and I for one wish you all the luck and success in the world.

While we don't always see eye to eye.
"Coookyman" (above) usually has a rather unique way of looking at things that I find very helpful.
"WhiteKnght77" is another who has a lot of good ideas and information to share.

you can usually take their suggestions to the bank.


Beyond those two I tend to listen more to what others Don't say than what they do.

[Eli1220]

Originally posted by Coookyman:

you might want to look into some mods
like Plop The Growables and Find it 2 together make it possible to hand place buildings.
it's way slower than zoning but you get the look you want
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=924884948
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2133885971

then there are anarchy mods that disable certain game restrictions like road anarchy lets you build steeper angles or tree anarchy lets you place trees in building lots or the middle of the street.

move it to be able to move stuff where you want it to be like combining a couple small buildings into a bigger one. or adjusting a road.

the list is way longer, what do you do allready?
do you use mods? which ones?

I certainly do use those mods. It's for sure slower than zoning but it gives a decent look. The problem I have with just plopping them down is I feel like for me, it makes it looks... I don't know, off I guess.

Originally posted by Imhotep:

Have a look at the theoretical models of urban structure too:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_structure

Thank you for this link, I hope to use that in the future.

Originally posted by doc mod:

The short answer is....You Can't.
The number of unrealistic procedures and the ratios hardwired into the game make it impossible to build a realistic city.

If you are willing to use mods, and ignore some major inefficiencies however you can with practice come pretty close. Close enough at least to keep those who view your creations from immediately noticing the discrepancies.

You should be aware going in that this is not a popular or widely accepted view of the way most players say one should "play the game". So I shouldn't expect a huge amount of support.

On the other hand there are a few here who may surprise you. So hang in there and I for one wish you all the luck and success in the world.

While we don't always see eye to eye.
"Coookyman" (above) usually has a rather unique way of looking at things that I find very helpful.
"WhiteKnght77" is another who has a lot of good ideas and information to share.

you can usually take their suggestions to the bank.


Beyond those two I tend to listen more to what others Don't say than what they do.

That's what I was worried about. I am 100 % willing to use mods and assets and stuff. Anything that I can do to get as close as I can to realistic, even if it means cutting some corners. Thank you for the suggestion of WhiteKnght77 and Cookyman , I will for sure look into them.



I'll grab a mod list real quick for ya, Cookyman. Oh crap, I just realized that you replied to this too lol.

[Eli1220]

Improved Public Transport 2
Ship Converter
Any Road Outside Connections
Spawn Points Fix
Ticket Price Customizer
Advanced Stop Selection (ex MTSE)
Industries Vehicle Converter
Metro Station Converter
Intercity Bus Control
Fish Warehousing
Advanced Building Editor
Train Converter
One-Way Train Tracks
Transport Line Rendering Fix
Ship Path Anarchy
Spawn/Unspawn Positions Swapper
Tram Station Track
Unlimited Outside Connections
Map Editor Tunnels Enabler
More Network Stuff
Extra Train Station Tracks ( ETST )
Elevated Stops Enabler
Cross The Line
Barges (Cargo Ferries)
Node Spacer
Decal Prop Fix
Theme Decals
ParkingLotSnapping
Service Vehicle Selector 2
Emergency Lights Manager V2
Loading Screen Mod
Building Themes
Softer Shadows
Environment Changer (+ Improved Theme Selection )
Extended Error Reporting
Extended Game Options
Patch Loader Mod
Chirpy Exterminator
0xyl0nSoundPackUSA
Ambient Sounds Tuner: Kra's GTA V sirens
Ambient Sounds Tuner: KRA - Kra's Realistic Ambience Sound Pack
Realistic Population Revisited 1.4.3
Precision Engineering
Terraform tool 0.9
NoPillars ( v1.1+ compatible )
Adaptive Roads (AR) V2.4.3 [Stable]
Harmony 2.0.4-4 (Mod Dependency)
Other Rail Track Speed Increaser
Railway Replacer
Network Tiling
SingleTrainTrackAI
PropRotating Params
Demand Master
HDRI Haven Cubemap Pack 2
HDRI Haven Cubemap Pack
PostProcessFX v1.9.0
Daylight Classic
Shadow Strength Adjuster
HDRI Haven Cubemap Pack 3
Bee's North America Sound Pack
Infinite Oil And Ore Redux [DEPRECATED]
Pollution Solution
MoreTrainTracks v0.4.1 (1.4 and more)
Cubemap Replacer (Read description!)
Prop Remover
Prop it Up! 1.4.4
Zoning Adjuster 1.3.2
Ambient Sounds Tuner 2.0
Sun Shafts
Undo It!
Ploppable Asphalt +
Theme Mixer 2
Remove Need For Power Lines
First Person Camera: Updated
More Beautification
Instant Return To Desktop
Procedural Objects
FPS Booster
Less Steam
Surface Painter
Relight
Clouds & Fog Toggler
Prefab Hook (Mod Dependency)
Picker
Ultimate Level Of Detail (ULOD)
Forest Brush v1.3
Dynamic Resolution (Fixed for 1.9!)
Ploppable RICO Revisited 2.4.10
Plop the Growables
Real Time
Parallel Road Tool
Ultimate Eyecandy v1.5.2
Find It! 2
81 Tiles (Fixed for 1.2+)
Mini FPS Booster
Random Tree Rotation
Achieve It!
Prop Line Tool [PLT] (vAlpha)
Fine Road Tool 2.0.4
Fine Road Anarchy 2.0.2
Prop & Tree Anarchy
Quay Anarchy
All 25 Areas purchasable
Extra Landscaping Tools
TM:PE V11 STABLE (Traffic Manager: President Edition)
Intersection Marking Tool 1.8.2
Move It


I'm pretty sure that's everything. There's no way I'm listing the assets I have lol.

[WhiteKnight77]

Watch videos by Overcharged Egg, Biffa, BonBonB and CityPlannerPlays.

When I first started playing CSL, my cities were garbage. I had traffic issue and access issues. Several years down the road, I started watching videos and learned some things such as lane mathematics, road hierarchy and a few other things and after buying a new DLC, I went back and reworked my earlier cities, to help with the traffic issue and such.

One thing that helped me was this video by Overcharged Egg.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdd9wd6svqc

He made a second one and commented about it that those who watched the above moaned about not having that particular map and comments about it in this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUEdgWyzF80

Everyone will tell you to learn the base game before adding DLC and mods. Assets can be OK, but do not go overboard.

[YoongZY]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2552109137
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2625065832
Shameless self-promoting

[John]

@ Eli1220 FPE 7-SQ7

You certainty have a lot more mods than I do. If I may I might suggest you at least consider revising your list just a bit.

First off I would start by un enabling Fine Road Tools & Fine Road Anarchy. Don't unsubscribe from them as they can be very useful. Left enabled full time however they often can and do produce some very unusual and unwanted effects on your maps, roads and landscapes.

Demand Master is imo essentially useless. Unless they've recently fixed it it continues to drop out and you will need to reset it over and over. And the Demand Bar is really little more than a distraction anyway.

Then as you know or should know having competing or redundant mods on your system can often lead to some serious issues. There's really no need to have All 25 Areas Purchasable and 81 Tiles both on your system. With the limits that come hardwired into CS I prefer to go with 25 tiles over the 81. The game won't let you fill all 81 anyway and with 25 the game will leave you more memory to use for detail.

Then there's a few mods that I find very useful that I didn't see on your list. You may or may not find these of some interest.

AdvancedOutsideConnection (ID=2053500739)
Airport Roads 1.3.7 (ID=465127441)
Compass Mod (ID=420469721)
While listed as broken it works for me and is very useful when sharing gamesaves or screenshots.

CSL Show More Limits (ID=531738447)
Farther Zoom (ID=410227672)
First Person Camera (ID=650805785)
First-person Auto-walking 1.3.1 (ID=659877005)
Infinite Goods (ID=725555912)
A Must Have imo

Instant Return To Desktop (ID=2037888659)
Network Extensions 2 (ID=812125426)
Optimised Outside Connections (ID=1721492498)
Remove Need For Pipes (ID=576997275)
Can't imagine why you'd have Remove Need for Power Lines and not have this. :)

SetStartMoney (ID=855704599)
Another Must Have I would not want to play without.

Unlock All (ID=18446744073709551615)
Unlock All + Wonders & Landmarks (ID=458519223)
Zoom It! (ID=1756089251)

All these play well with others on my system

[MessengerOfRage]

I had a look at your screenshots and you are allready doing great stuff!
I especially like the construction site stuff like te construction site is great to break up dense areas.
And the fishing scene at Lake Harner, looks very american to my euro eye, big pickups parking somewhere in the landscape.

Your mod list is quite extensive, a bit to big for me to fully digest.
I agree with Doc above, avoid having mods that do the same, they will eventually conflict.
better unsub one of them.
I have seen the mini FPS Booster, there is a new non-mini FPS Booster out.

I see you have theme mixer and cubemap replacer, you can do fantastic stuff with those for your background.
I downloaded alot of different themes and had a look at every texture. I now have a grass texture that looks like blades of grass, some cloverleaves and some dry leaves, way better than the original green blob. I got myself a cliff texture that plays well with my favorite rocks from a distance.
I am playing an alpine map right now so I got myself some gravel instead of sand texture, looks great for mountain creeks.
I found a white oil texture, I use it to paint snowy mountaintops, con: I can't use oil extractors, they would look stupid on the mountaintop...

you can achive interesting city blocks by shoving buildings into each other, like a flat one and a tower, if it gets to dense you can turn some of those buildings into POs so you don't have 3 high density buildings in the same spot generating to much traffic.
create L or U shapes that way and decorate the rest of the block as park / market square.

also works with industries:
I like to do "factories":
build a T shaped small road, find an industry building that is only one hall, copy it a couple times and arrange those buildings as one long continous hall, arrange a couple long halls around the T shaped road, put a building with a big chimney in there too, maybe an office tower and some free space to be decorated with goods like wooden boards, pipes. maybe parking.
fence or wall all that in, use surfaces to cover the ground inside to give it one coninous look.
that's an older screenshot before I got theme mixer but it nicely show the "factory" I was talking about
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2178315767
that's a newer one with theme mixer
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2649572503

don't flatten every pice of terreign, use retaining walls and surfaces to create terraces, connect them with stairs and use invisible paths to make cims use the stairs.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2549215531
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2539194239

oh and decals, put decals everywhere,

[Clunk]

I also prefer playing what I consider to be a more realistic cities, which often means vanilla gameplay goes straight out the window and some methods and practices are often considered 'cheating'. Who cares? .. I don't. I'm not cheating them, I'm just playing the game the way I prefer, enjoy, and like.

One thing I use extensively within all my cities are 'block services'. Block services allow the game to continue to function without the need to place extremely unrealistic numbers of service buildings everywhere. Be they schools, utilities, garbage, and emergency services etc. everything and more is available in block services form. I still place 'real' buildings of these types, but in numbers I consider realistic.

Move It! is required to position these blocks inside other buildings, out of sight.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1691825933

Coookyman has already mentioned my other staple, which is Plop The Growables and Find It! .. With Find It! it's worth searching categories for 2x2, 2x3, 2x4 etc. Some of the game's and DLC building are very nice and useable. I RICO the ones I like and place individually.

[dev]

You can't. The game is not realistic. Just try to have fun managing the traffic flow.

[Gregomoto]

As i‘m currently also trying to rebuilt the city i live in as realistic as possible i can tell that a lot work is involved. I looked through your list of mods and i did not see procedural objects, this is for me a highly used mod if i need to optically adjust certain parts of the city, maybe you try that out.