Need advice on city starts, upgrading or redeveloping my current city start to accommodate traffic and Is traffic important? or am I over complicating it and limiting my enjoyment?

[Ascarius Artemis]

Hi I've been playing Cities skylines on and off for the past years. Recently I got back to it and played until I got to at least 20k pop. I have unlocked metro, monorails and such to maintain my traffic. My primary goal is building huge cities without going lower than 90%. I have no mods and don't plan to use them but I have most DLCs including industries and I'm now starting introducing cargo trains etc.

I managed to reach and maintain 94% to 90% but my current problem is that my city doesn't look as great as the ones I see in youtube and the traffic is falling off of 90% because of all the added vans and trucks. I've been trying to learn how to build interchanges but can't wrap my head around it and don't understand how one truck from my expanded city (has its own industry area) from another island needs to go all the way to my original city (also has its own industry area) to refill my shops.

Please help! Can anyone link be a video of someone who is upgrading their initial city start to accommodate the bigger pop? or whats the best city start out there.

[OneJasonBradly]

At 20,000 with 94%-90% flow is great.
I am speaking outside of the "Industries" dlc. When generic requires deliveries, each delivery truck can deliver up to four different addresses. In which they can deliver to different industrial areas if there is the need. We as builders don't have too much control on who makes contracts with whom. I just try to make their journey better/easier. We can influence these contracts. For example, if you have generic industry then they will supply commercial with goods first and if there is leftovers then they look to off map for contracts to sell to. But there are exceptions to that too. Like if the industry is closer to the off map connection then town then the quickest route rule sends the cargo out of town.

Here I renovate a city start interchange to the town. I take the two one-ways and convert them into a bi-directional six-lane. and tweak/renovate the roads leading to and from industry. So to handle the larger volume using the area or interchange.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMNmcNj6CWM
Here i separate the in from out roads between the highway and industry to create better flow in the industries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-koc_kev40
Here too and also I play around with making a custom interchange to seperate industry and city traffic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylZpemm5dE8
In this example (@:40 in ) I use two off ramps(long ones) one off ramp goes to industry and the other goes to the town and park.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceitMLRZTFU
Personally I build my interchanges and they always star out looking like crap. I don't worry too much about that and focus on something that works firstly. Once I find that remodelling it to be eye pleasing is easier and for me an on going issue.
Like here;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faAVd88ot7A
Here's hoping I understood what you were asking.

[mbutton15]

Firstly, don't panic if traffic falls below 90%. It will!!!!!!

Staying above 80% is also a pretty decent result. Being between 70-80% is normal in my experience. But I do things to make my life easier. Like I don't zone high density residential often. When I do it's in small amounts. As (obviously) high density generates much more traffic than low density.

I also don't use mods or workshop. So most of my highway interchanges are just the base game junctions, which generally work OK. Occasionally I'll do a bit of fiddling if traffic does become an issue.

It's actually very rare that I will ever redo any development. Maybe that's just something that's come from experience. After all, I'm currently on my 35th city!! My goal is never to build big cities. The biggest I've done is slightly over 100k population. But these days I limit myself to around 45-50k as I know beyond that my PC will start to struggle.

[Challenger™]

Large cities? or Large populations? Never mind, Nothing much you can really do about game limits, one way or the other.

If you want to minimize the effects of traffic, try this.

Keep Use public transportation to keep outside traffic entering the city to a minimum. Keep Industrial traffic separated from city traffic.

Your game, Always do it your way. For what it's worth....

I start play on every new map ("game") by building an Industrial Complex and going into the export business. I keep the Industry traffic totally separated from the city traffic.

In almost every "game" by the time I have all four industries up and running a five star capacity, I have already satisfied the "game" 16k active vehicle limit. This automatically insures that when I start to lay out the actual city infrastructure city traffic is primarily restricted to only traffic that is deemed absolutely necessary. Add on an efficiently designed metro and ......

As a result my city streets often appear completely deserted.

[Clunk]

Anything much over 90% traffic flow is either a brand new empty map or despawning is turned on. I never play with despawning on (TM:PE).

I play the game to manage heavy traffic and use many, many timed traffic lights so there is always standing traffic somewhere. Everything else is just a bit of fun or irritation along the way. My current 215k pop city just blinked 76% before returning to low 70's again. I was delighted when I saw that. I often check the flow % and use that as a gauge that something somewhere has happened and traffic is getting stuck. Often a bad or confused vehicle.

I love Cities Skylines. I can barely go a day without having a play.

Long live CSI

[OneJasonBradly]

Originally posted by Clunk:

Anything much over 90% traffic flow is either a brand new empty map or despawning is turned on. I never play with despawning on (TM:PE).

I play the game to manage heavy traffic and use many, many timed traffic lights so there is always standing traffic somewhere. Everything else is just a bit of fun or irritation along the way. My current 215k pop city just blinked 76% before returning to low 70's again. I was delighted when I saw that. I often check the flow % and use that as a gauge that something somewhere has happened and traffic is getting stuck. Often a bad or confused vehicle.

I love Cities Skylines. I can barely go a day without having a play.

Long live CSI

I also play without despawning though through the stand alone "No despawn" mod. And I agree that above 90% flow for a sizeable city is hard to do but check this one as I has to screenshot it.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2540940126

[Tree]

Originally posted by OneJasonBradly:

I also play without despawning though through the stand alone "No despawn" mod. And I agree that above 90% flow for a sizeable city is hard to do but check this one as I has to screenshot it.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2540940126

nice dude; looks well organized and planned with thoughtful public service routes.

[caseyas435943]

Originally posted by OneJasonBradly:

At 20,000 with 94%-90% flow is great.
I am speaking outside of the "Industries" dlc. When generic requires deliveries, each delivery truck can deliver up to four different addresses. In which they can deliver to different industrial areas if there is the need. We as builders don't have too much control on who makes contracts with whom. I just try to make their journey better/easier. We can influence these contracts. For example, if you have generic industry then they will supply commercial with goods first and if there is leftovers then they look to off map for contracts to sell to. But there are exceptions to that too. Like if the industry is closer to the off map connection then town then the quickest route rule sends the cargo out of town.

Here I renovate a city start interchange to the town. I take the two one-ways and convert them into a bi-directional six-lane. and tweak/renovate the roads leading to and from industry. So to handle the larger volume using the area or interchange.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMNmcNj6CWM
Here i separate the in from out roads between the highway and industry to create better flow in the industries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-koc_kev40
Here too and also I play around with making a custom interchange to seperate industry and city traffic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylZpemm5dE8
In this example (@:40 in ) I use two off ramps(long ones) one off ramp goes to industry and the other goes to the town and park.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceitMLRZTFU
Personally I build my interchanges and they always star out looking like crap. I don't worry too much about that and focus on something that works firstly. Once I find that remodelling it to be eye pleasing is easier and for me an on going issue.
Like here;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faAVd88ot7A
Here's hoping I understood what you were asking.

TM fixed not broken traffic. But terrible AI coding. Yes you can work around it. You can work 5 times as hard. Or use a few features in TM and the terrible AI is fixed.

TM for the timed traffic lights and being able to change lane arrows from doing two things easily makes it worth using. The base game traffic lights are terrible in their design. Yes you can make them somewhat work but why not make them work with TM.

I have industry areas bigger than this without trains which are trash, and I have no trouble. Because you know where trucks want to go. Make it easy for them and you have no traffic.

I have huge DLC industry areas with no trains and my traffic is always 85%+ How? You know where the trucks want to go. Make it easy for them and you have no traffic. You don't need the poorly coded cargo train to try and fix it.

You are great and making horribly designed AI work. It's not broke it's poorly designed. If you say otherwise, you are spinning a... Lie.

TM helps this poorly designed AI use more lanes. Again, you can work again this brain-dead AI but why if you can use a mod that makes the AI better.

The traffic AI it the worst I've ever seen in a game with traffic. Again, it's not broken it poorly coded.

Oddly they never once went back to change any of it. A few little twinks and the traffic would be much less of a problem, but they never did and it's sad.

Work harder to make it would or use TM to make it work much easier. I choose to make the poorly coded AI better and use TM it's just easier.

[OneJasonBradly]

Originally posted by caseyas435943:

Welcome to CS which has the worst traffic AI ever designed on a game with traffic.

Compered to what? To me it is quite logical and easy to understand and predictable for the most part. And why would a traffic network management city builder not have challenges in their traffic system? The issue is the developers did not explain how the road pieces work with each other. When you know that everything is much easier to see why the single laning happens.

Who told you there is A.I. at play here? There is no A.I. they are agents with just a few rules to govern their behaviours. And as far as that goes it's the "Unity engine" that governs that. They have scripts of destinations they travel to and it is your job to help them get their better. In my opinion. And at the same time build a wonderful city to host the agents. I understand many do not play Cities: to learn the traffic system but just want to build their imagination and high populations. To those folks I say get TM: . The game in my opinion is a Network management game with a city builder added or entwined. It is not broken in any way. Limiting possibly but not broken.
I do believe you brought this argument into the wrong post but I could be wrong. You be you and use TrafficManager many do. I do not and I believe I have shown over the years how good the games traffic system is through the videos I have made.

[Challenger™]

Again, Traffic management in CS1 is only a thing if you want it to be. If you want to make traffic flow in the city an issue then go ahead. Personally I think the "game" built in 16k AV limit, does a swell job all on it's own. By the time my city has developed sufficient population to keep the international air port active, visible city traffic is nearly non existent. I see very little need to ever be concerned with the traffic flow in the city. The Industrial areas are so red they are almost purple turning to black, but the processors and terminals are all running at capacity so who gives a _ _ _ _ ?

I have to say, I totally agree with OJB about the AI in CS. I see nothing what so ever to suggest any reason what so ever to expect to find any sign what so ever of intelligence in either version of CS. Be it artificial or otherwise.

[Tsubame ⭐]

Traffic flow is not particularly important, as long as there are no localized flows that slow down or fully block cargo and service vehicles from servicing specific areas.

60%-70%+ is usually decent enough to avoid major issues.

90% is somewhat hard to do, especially in a vanilla "for profit" map, but fully unnecessary unless you want a challenge. Easier to attain that if you plan ahead, especially with mods.

[Challenger™]

I never allow cargo vehicles into the city. By the time I get around to zoning res. Service vehicles are about the only thing still spawning in the city. City traffic flow is Never an issue. Mind you Industrial traffic is deplorable, but as long as cargo moves at full capacity who cares about Indy traffic? Thanks to totally ignorant Finish Dev's trucks only enter terminals one at a time any way. Again as before, Traffic in CS is only an issue if you want it to be.

Don't just take my word for it. Test it yourself. keep Cargo out of the city. Build a efficient metro. Let Industry eat up your 16k AV limit. Watch City traffic disappear.

If you need a challenge, try finding a public restroom.