Overwhelming For A Newb!!

[AfxTwn]

Hi everyone,

I've been playing this game for a little over a week now and have put in a fair few hours but still find myself to get massively overwhelmed (especially when reading the various guides and bits of advice on here and elsewhere).

It seems that traffic can be a major issue and has been for me, I got to around 40,000 people and thought I was doing well but a lot of my industry and commercial zones were constantly becoming abandoned with reasons suchs as "no-one buying goods" and "not enough materials" (of course I'm paraphrasing here).

Initially I thought this might be an education problem where because I had lots of schools etc, then my residents were too well educated and weren't going working in the factories and so on and so I pruposely zoned an area of residential on the island where my oil industry was and didn't build any schools but this still didn't solve the problem. Then I took a look at my traffic problems and could see some issues with congestion and so began building more roads which helped a little but still didn't really improve the abandoned buildings rate. I even build train stations and subways but still not much difference.

So, I looked online and began to read more and more that traffic is a big problem and the proper management of it and correcty road layout helps a lot. I then realised that the only highway connection I had was the initial one you start with in the game. I also didn't have any one-way roads and all my roads were two-lane-two-way roads.

Anyway, I have always had a problem knowing what to do first and have no idea how to design my road layout. My knowledge of city design is pretty basic and boils down to "keep your industry away from your residential" and that's about it. I don't really understand how best to lay everything out although I do understand the principle of one-way roads and wanting to connect to highways etc for the trucks and cargo.

What I want to know (after this long-winded post) is what do you do right from the start when you're first presented with those two, sole highway connections in and out of the city and your only option is to build a single two-lane road? And when do you start to change the layout?

I know this is probably difficult to answer and your road-design and general building is always in a constant state of flux and evolution but if I could get a general idea of road layout then that would be great.

Normally I always start by connecting a two-lane road to each of the highway roads and then checking which way the water is flowing and placing my water and sewage pumps in that area and my industrial zone in the same place and then my initial residential on the opposite side of those.

Sorry for this very long post but as much as I love this game, I'm becoming a bit stuck as I'm faced with more and more problems and realising when I get to a certain point that I ahve completely shot myself in the foot with my road layout etc.

[Greygor]

I think the main thing is, have fun, don't worry if everything goes wrong. It's part of learning.

We're only in the first dew weeks of release and everybody is trying to find their way with the game, what works, what doesn't, what's the best road usage, etc.

On YouTube, SkyStorme and Quill18 have some good little tutorials and recommendations on the best approaches.


In general, for me at least. 2-Way roads are the best thing since sliced bread up to about a 40 - 50 K population if your gridding your city. They don't create Traffic Lights at junctions which helps traffic flow.

My Industry is generally in it's own area and I connect it to my city with Highways, because when they join to a 2-Way road there are no Traffic Lights Either.

I normally connect them to a central part of my main City block so that traffic is more likely to use all lanes, but that's just me and I'm still learning.

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/537391514522254528/E08C3FC42E06247BF0966F76F8FB2C85419F60BD/

[sierra_one_]

A tip I saw somewhere else is to try and minimise left-hand turns as much as possible, because LHTs result in traffic crossing in front of oncoming traffic, leading to congestion. Same applies to four-way junctions, since these will definitely slow traffic down as well.

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by AfxTwn:

What I want to know (after this long-winded post) is what do you do right from the start when you're first presented with those two, sole highway connections in and out of the city and your only option is to build a single two-lane road? And when do you start to change the layout?

I know this is probably difficult to answer and your road-design and general building is always in a constant state of flux and evolution but if I could get a general idea of road layout then that would be great.

In the beginning of a new city, it is important to pause and take stock of the map you are going to use and imagine how you wish your future city to look and become a part of the landscape. With that in mind you can start to plan ahead.
But at the start of your build, you won't have to worry too much since traffic will be small and won't become a problem for a long time so all you have to do is focus on making a viable economy with a generous income and save up a few million bucks for any extensive remodelling you wish to do.
That said, how you want your city to look and work is competely up to you Mr Mayor ;)
For a good advice on the issues you've experienced regarding traffic of all kinds, these guides I've found to be the best and most informative:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=410236188
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=408643569
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=410909802
And I second Greygor's suggestion of recommending Skye Storm's You Tube series, subscribe to it and follow every episode. He's very entertaining too ;)
"Cities: Skylines Lets Play Part 1 ► Building Manhattan ◀ Gameplay / Tips [PC]"
Good luck with it and have fun!

[AfxTwn]

Thanks very much Greygor and I will try the tip on minimising left-truns.

Here are some links to screenshots of one of my cities:
http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/27359947868205300/325588994B553E8E0FD3255E795A4D65A49B74BF/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/27359947868205523/51048D28B02CD1353AB550BF3C40708C4204073A/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/27359947868205696/F26A6356506F8449A75347D19717FE7236B2FF92/

http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/27359947868205851/6FF2D260ED24C25A9A163030B25FE98652E9D7B0/

As you can see, I'm mainly using two-lane roads and while the amount of abandoned buildings isn't as bad, it's still there. I only have one real connection to the highway and that is to the first highway you start with. I have recently made a connection to another highway on the island where the oil industry zone is but I didn't know you had to create off ramps and so made a direct connection to it.

I have a few bridges running across to the mainland where most of my residential and commercial zones are as I thought this would help with traffic but these can become clogged.

I'm thinking of pausing the game and just completely redesigning the road system.

Also Greygor, it's funny you mention Skye Storme's videos as I'm a big fan of them and have been watching them a lot. I love how he gets really excited about what he can do next and when he get's a sudden idea for something. Like you said, it's about having fun mainly.

[AfxTwn]

Thanks for the links Grapple, I'll have a read of them. I did want to create a map of where I live and posted a thread about it, someone advised me to take a look at Terrain Party which allows you to search for a place and create a grid over the area you want and then download that as a series of PNG files to then import into the game. The only trouble with this is that it doesn't automatically create any bodies of water and looking at the map created on where I live, it's quite hilly and when trying to compare it to a Google Maps view, I found that it would be very difficult to create an accurate (or semi-accurate) recreation of the map.

This is mainly because there isn't really a highway that's close to where I live and the one that is close-ish doesn't really fit in with the type you can build in the game. Plus there are a few areas between the highway and where my zones would be of nothing as it's basically moorland.

Anyway, I think that whole project while tempting would be too time-consuming and difficult to master so I'll just focus on getting basic cities right first.

[grapplehoeker]

Originally posted by AfxTwn:

Thanks for the links Grapple, I'll have a read of them. I did want to create a map of where I live and posted a thread about it, someone advised me to take a look at Terrain Party which allows you to search for a place and create a grid over the area you want and then download that as a series of PNG files to then import into the game. The only trouble with this is that it doesn't automatically create any bodies of water and looking at the map created on where I live, it's quite hilly and when trying to compare it to a Google Maps view, I found that it would be very difficult to create an accurate (or semi-accurate) recreation of the map.

This is mainly because there isn't really a highway that's close to where I live and the one that is close-ish doesn't really fit in with the type you can build in the game. Plus there are a few areas between the highway and where my zones would be of nothing as it's basically moorland.

Anyway, I think that whole project while tempting would be too time-consuming and difficult to master so I'll just focus on getting basic cities right first.

Ha ha! Yes , the map editor is another game in itself! I spent most of my 2nd day of play trying to learn and master that. But that is another topic completely and would be best answered in a different thread. So ask away and I'll come back later and answer it ;)

[Mansen]

Overwhelming? I've introduced the game to people with no former experience with city builders to Skylines. They didn't need any help reaching an easy 20k or more.

[AfxTwn]

It's not so much help achieving a high population that I need, it's more to do witrh general city management and in particular traffic management. I meant the game is overwhelming in that as you progress you start to encounter more and more problems without any real indication of why or how to solve them, so then you have to come out of the game and look for online resources (which is no bad thing). It's then when you start to read the particularly in-depth guides to traffic etc that you start to become a little overwhelmed.

[Mansen]

You don't reach cities of that size without basic reasoning - Something wrong? click icon - get explanation.

[AfxTwn]

@Grapple Here is a link to my other thread about map editing: http://steamcommunity.com/app/255710/discussions/0/611701360841488365/

@Mansen Perhaps I'm worrying too much and I must be doing something right to achieve a population of some 45,000. I will definitely take a look at the traffic guides suggested in other posts and perhaps it's a case of waiting till you get enough cash and road tools before embarking on improvements and better layouts and even then, doing it a little bit at a time.

[Greygor]

Originally posted by Mansen:

Overwhelming? I've introduced the game to people with no former experience with city builders to Skylines. They didn't need any help reaching an easy 20k or more.

Everybody has different skill sets.

If you look around you'll see post's saying this game is too easy or too hard a plenty.

Reaching 40k/50k like the OP may be easy and then after that it can get tough for some people.

I think the OP is sort of right, looking for best early game approaches to ease your cities development mid-game.

[AfxTwn]

I've started yet another new city while this thread has been active and have this time taken a much more slow and methodical approach. So far my population is a small but manageable 2,700 and I have nicely sectioned off an area to the right of the main highway for residential and the area to the left for industrial and commercial. I have made sure to only introduce small sections of each zone, as and when the need arises. Residential generally is always quite high but I'm glad as this means there's always a demand for housing and I can zone my industry and commercial accordingly and know there'll be enough people to fill the jobs.

I have just over $218,000 now and have just achieved Boom Town status which has unlocked a lot more roads for me and the ability to build highways etc so I think now is the time to start addressing some traffic issues that while are small now, will probably come back to haunt me later.

Luckily as well as my initial highway to the North (although this game doesn't seem to use any kind of compass system, but would be handy if it did), I also have a highway to the West on another tile which I have just bought. As most of my industrial and commercial zones are to the West of my residential then I am going to create some off-ramps and come down off the hgihway to the West and link to those zones. I'll also create some access points to the North highway and also allow the residents to connect to that too.

All of my roads at the moment are two-lane/two-way roads but I might leave the residential zone with those and change the industrial and commercial roads to two-lane roads to give more capacity and better access to the highways.

Here is a screenshot so you can see what I mean:
http://cloud-4.steamusercontent.com/ugc/27359947868487406/FB7A35774D42ABE29CC89DF2F7D8AB590BF46572/