New Player - Help me decide what to buy

[scragg]

So as a new player wanting to get into this game, it's a little overwhelming to decide what to buy.

I have several questions so I'm hoping someone here can help me out.

1. Can I get away with just playing the base game?

2. I see they have a "New Player Bundle" that includes Mass Transit, Industries, and Sunset Harbor. Is this all I need? Anything else recommended?

3. What's with all these "Radio" packs? It's just music, right?

4. Do I really need to pay extra for snowfall and parks?

Thanks so much for your answers.

[Claud Runs]

Nothing at this time!!!! Just wait for Cities Skylines 2, hopefully it will work better and have larger hard limits!!!

PS... welcome to the game it is great when it works!!!

[saikyøuniverse]

1. Yes.
2. It depends on how you wish to engage the game itself. If you want to take it slowly, try out the pure vanilla of the game ( No DLC ). You said it yourself. It is overwhelming especially now where the Devs are releasing new DLCs.
3. That one is kinda new. I believe it is for immersive gameplay. It allows you to play music certain genres of music in the game I believe? Should you try it? probably later.
4. This one is related to question 2 and 3.

Lastly, this game has an overwhelming workshop/modding community. You would be surprise to see how much you could do with this game once you know how everything connects. I bought the vanilla/Mass Transit,After Dark and Sunset I think yet I feel like I'm playing over 20 DLCs because of the Workshop/Modding community.

[failsafe]

Start vanilla, look for DLC on sales. Dont buy all of them. Industries, for example, are really poor. Sunset Harbour is better, but still not must-have. Mass transit yes, rather must have. Parklife is another must have, but this may come to you after watching some vids on youtube. As long as you just try to build anything, without really trying to make a glorious city... you dont need any DLC. When you start sucking inspiration from others... suddenly you will like most of DLC if not all. Keep in mind, however, that with CCP and radio's this game has more than 30 DLC available. I myself have 24... because the grass is always greenier in every next DLC... but eventualy it is not ;-P

Radio packs are really cool - I have most of them and I love most of them. But this is not a must have. You can easily turn on music on winamp or youtube while playing. Also music from radio packs is available somewhere on youtube - you can check it. But, typically this is really small money, you can risk it.

Cities Skylines 2 is not expected in next few years and when it comes it will be lacking content. C:S has grown and has impressive content outside DLC's via workshop. You can easily get things similar to those in DLCs from workshop.

[BettyB]

Originally posted by Claud Runs Zoerb:

Nothing at this time!!!! Just wait for Cities Skylines 2, hopefully it will work better and have larger hard limits!!!

PS... welcome to the game it is great when it works!!!

+1 This is not a good time to buy anything.

[Free1]

You can absolutely play the base game without any other add-ons (DLCs, CCPs, workshop mods). In fact it's best to start with the base game as there is a steep learning curve especially when it come to managing the traffic. Once you get the hang of it, you can start looking at DLCs and just wait for them to go on sale (that happens a few times a year). There are several other sites that often have really great deals on the base game as well as bundles.
Extra tip: The workshop also has many mods to enhance gameplay but again, get the hang of the base game before subscribing to anything (and read the mod's details so that you understand how it works). Just keep in mind the hardware needs of the base game; add-ons will mean greater resources.

City Planner Plays has an excellent video reviewing all DLCs with the exception of the Plazas and Promenades that was released a few days ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf_5PrXlWWo

Imo, and, many players will agree with me, the Industries DLC is the probably the best due to the amount of money you can eventually generate. I really enjoy the management dynamic that it offers. Mass Transit and Parklife are two others that I recommend; Mass transit for the transit options and road assets, Parklife for the ability to design beautiful, money generating parks. I have these DLCs and would not play without them.
Radio packs aren't useful, just play your own music.

[dan0812]

I had around 150 hrs base game on console before I got bored with it so plenty of value for money there given the sale price.

[failsafe]

Originally posted by Free1:

Imo, and, many players will agree with me, the Industries DLC is the probably the best due to the amount of money you can eventually generate. I really enjoy the management dynamic that it offers. Mass Transit and Parklife are two others that I recommend; Mass transit for the transit options and road assets, Parklife for the ability to design beautiful, money generating parks. I have these DLCs and would not play without them.
Radio packs aren't useful, just play your own music.

I dont want to argue with you - full respect to your opinion, but Industries change focus of the game. The things introduced by this DLC are kind of far away from standard game. Not saying that this is entirely wrong, but in vanilla we are doing growable things... while Industries suddenly bring industrial chains with hand-picked buildings. And I would say that this is not that profitable unless you already know what to do. So... it might not be a good thing to new players.

[scragg]

Thanks for the feedback so far! Sounds like it's best to start with the base game plus Mass Transit, and maybe Park Life. I'm interested in building cities, not so much a "tycoon"-type game so Industries doesn't interest me as much.

Since there's no release date for Cities Skylines 2 yet, I don't mind spending a few bucks on the base game and a couple DLCs now given the 50-75% off sale.

[buda atum]

Originally posted by Technoman:

Thanks for the feedback so far! Sounds like it's best to start with the base game plus Mass Transit, and maybe Park Life. I'm interested in building cities, not so much a "tycoon"-type game so Industries doesn't interest me as much.

Since there's no release date for Cities Skylines 2 yet, I don't mind spending a few bucks on the base game and a couple DLCs now given the 50-75% off sale.

Wise choice. I played base game only for 5 years until I got a pc powerful enough to consider adding DLCs, and that made me understand the games mechanics so much better than if I'd added the overwhelming might of DLCs.

[Milok14411]

I would really recomend starting with vanilla and exploring what you like the most about the game, than deciding which DLC's you buy depending on what you like / need for mods.

To be honest, it's most likely that you won't use 99% of the features in DLC's anyways, since they are really mostly unusable together - you can't for example combine IT zones from ... uh well I don't know which dlc they are from but it doesn't matter ... and eco friendly buildings from green cities DLC, because ... well I guess they were just lazy to code it in. Not to say these are even usefull really in the first place.

The most you are gonna get from these DLC's is access to modded content based on them, access to new public transportation vehicles ( trams from snowfall are great ) and ocasionally some assets or special monuments which may come in handy. Oh and in case of some like Industries, Campus or Park Life some micromanagement options, but that's only really if you enjoy doing this sort of stuff.

[de.abacus]

Just take it slow and start with the base game, once you get the hang of it you can add some DLC's and some mods. You don't need the music packs. you can always turn on a radio or a media payer and play your own kind of music.

[joeball123]

Personally, I'd call Mass Transit fairly mediocre. The four modes of mass transit it adds are worthless (blimps), niche (ferries and cablecars), or redundant (monorail); you can obtain substitutes for the roads it adds freely from the workshop or in the asset editor; and the hub stations it adds often aren't particularly more useful than the basic stations (sure, you might want a train station with more than the two platforms of the basic station, but how often do you really need a dozen platforms for trains, or four for trains + four for monorail + two for metro, or a station with ten bus stops and either a ferry dock or a pair of monorail platforms? The hubs tend to be pretty over-built for what you'll actually end up using.). The trams from Snowfall and the higher-capacity buses from Airports or Vehicles of the World (or from the workshop) are probably more generally-useful additions to your mass transit options than anything from Mass Transit is.

Originally posted by Milok14411:

you can't for example combine IT zones from ... uh well I don't know which dlc they are from but it doesn't matter ... and eco friendly buildings from green cities DLC, because ... well I guess they were just lazy to code it in. Not to say these are even usefull really in the first place.

Bad example; district specializations are only incompatible with other district specializations on the same district if they're specializing the same type of thing. IT Cluster is an office specialization while Self-Sufficient Buildings is a residential specialization, so they can both be applied to the same district; Tourism specialization and Leisure Specialization, meanwhile, are both commercial specializations and so you can only have one or the other on a given district.

[gameblogger]

Start with the base game then buy the DLC you feel you need

[BGratz]

Start Vanilla

If its too hard use this
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=854137313&searchtext=cheat

If you dont like the unlocks of the tiles (i hate it) this https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=616078328

and this if you want more of the map available
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=403798635

If you still want archivements, this
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=407055819

and this is really helpfull
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1625704117

[WhiteKnight77]

I will echo the others who state to start with just the base game and see what you like about it and get to learn your play style, then consider adding DLC in the future. Put the ones you are interested in on your wish list and Steam will tell you when they are on sale, then buy them.