After Dark

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Last time we took a look at Cities Skylines in 2018. Today I want to discuss a few mod’s (modifications) I enjoy which serve to make Cities Skylines better and also we will look at some essential upgrades I think Cities Skylines needs “out of the box”.

Let’s first look at making Cities Skylines better with mods. I use a few basic mods but am limited by what my computer can handle. This is also true when downloading assets (buildings, vehicles, trees, etc) that have been created by the modding community found in the Steam workshop. The more assets one downloads for the game the slower your game will run. (my system specs are located at the bottom of this post for your reference)

Mods to enhance your game

Loading Screen Mod – One way to help speed up the loading times for Cities Skylines is by using a great mod called Loading Screen Mod by thale5. Thank you thale5 for this great addition to Cities Skylines.

Find It! – If you are going to be using assets in Cities Skylines, The Find It! mod by SamsamTS is an essential addition to help you quickly locate assets while in-game. Very useful. Thank you SamsamTS for this great addition.

Move It! – Move It! a mod also by SamsamTS allows for the quick-moving and copying of assets while in-game.

Fine Road Tool and Fine Road Anarchy – Two great mods that work together for allowing the manipulation of roads! Thank you SamsamTS for these essential mods.

Ambient Sounds Tuner 2.0 by BloodyPenguin – Want to turn off or control individual volumes of sounds in-game? This mod will help you do that. Thank you BloodyPenguin for this fantastic addition to Cities Skylines

Kra’s Realistic Ambience Sound Pack by KraIstGerecht – And better sound pack to remove and change some annoying default sounds from Cities Skylines. (Ambient Sounds Tuner by BloodyPenguin list above is needed to use this pack) Thank you KraIstGerecht for this great addition to Cities Skylines.

Chirpy Exterminator by simssi – Essential mod if you want to remove the Chirpy from Cities Skylines. Thank you simssi for this great mod.

Slow Speed by Scott – Don’t like unrealistic speed of the vehicles AND people in Cities Skylines? Other mods may allow control over the speed of vehicles but this mod slows the speed of the people too! Thank you Scott for this essential mod.

Emergency Light Changer by boformer – Necessary mod if you want control over the color of lights on emergency vehicles from blue only to red and blue (American style). Thank you boformer for this essential addition to Cities Skylines.

American Road Signs 2.2.0 by Judazzz– Want the American green looking signs in your game? This mod does just that. Thank you Judazzz for this amazing mod.

Daylight Classic by BloodyPenguin – Essential mod for removing the default yellow color from default Cities Skylines and giving the game a more realistic sunlight look. Thank BloodyPenguin for this great mod.

Automatic Bulldoze v2 by mexahuk – Makes bulldoze management easier and automatic in Cites Skylines. Thank you mexahuk for this great mod.

Road Options a.k.a Crosswalks Remover / Road Colors Changer ++ by TPB – Essential mod if you want to be able to quickly have control over your road colors and more. Thank you TPB for this great mod.

Advanced Vehicle Options (AVO) by SamsamTS – Essential mod to allow some control over your vehicles in Cities Skylines. Thank you SamsamTS for this great mod.

Improved Public Transport 2 by BloodyPenguin – Great mod for allowing more and easier control over your transit system. Thank you BloodyPenguin for this great mod.

Traffic Manager: President Edition by LinuxFan – Necessary mod if you want control over intersections, roads and more. Thank you LinuxFan for this fantastic addition to Cities Skylines.

Building Themes (Green Cities) by BloodyPenguin, boformer, SamsamTS – Great mod for controlling your district styles in Cities Skylines. Thank you BloodyPenguin, boformer, and SamsamTS for this great mod.

These mods are some of the best mods that simply help Cities Skylines be more accessible to the average user without adding the need for dependencies (except the sound packs) into your game. These mods play nicely with each other too (no conflicts as far as I know) and are easy to install/uninstall through the Steam workshop.

If you are interested, here’s a complete list of mods and assets I have subscribed to in Cities Skylines

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A Better Vanilla/default Cities Skylines

It is my opinion Cities Skylines could be an even better game by doing a few simple things.

Seasons. The game needs Seasons by default or at least a Winter/Summer change (snow/no snow).

District Names Overlay On/Off Toggle. The District Styles feature is lacking already in Cities Skylines but it really needs a simple ON/OFF name toggle to allow hiding/unhiding of districts name overlays that appear directly on your city while in-game.

Better default Anti-aliasing and Optimization. This game seems to have memory problems and doesn’t graphically look that clean by default. The edges on buildings, roads and well just about everything are jagged even on high settings without a mod. In my experience any mod (such as Dynamic Resolution to counter the anti-aliasing problem only slows down older computers and seems to make my game look worse).

An American Overhaul. This is more of wish than anything but without mods, Cities Skylines doesn’t look American as SimCity accomplished quite well. Semi Trucks with 3 trailer wheels? Railroads with catenary lines everywhere? Of course the emergency vehicles sirens are not American either and the overall look of buildings and houses don’t look anything like the kind we see in the United States.

Better Road Building Tools. At least one that allows for sharp junctions and more control over where they can be placed. Mod’s fix this but why not the vanilla game?

Conclusion

While Cities Skylines has weaknesses, it is still a great city builder and simulator especially with mods.

Do you play Cities Skylines? What do you enjoy about Cities Skylines? Let me know in the comments!

My System specs

Heres a quick look at my computer system. Yes I told you it was old but surprising Cities Skylines still runs okay (without many assets). Microsoft Windows 10 Pro System Type: 64 bit AMD Phenom(tm) II X4 945 Processor x4 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 4gb ram)

Cities Skylines

Cities Skylines Disasters expansion on Steam

Paradox Interactive

Cities Skylines on Steam

Image source from my in-game screenshots

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Today we revisit Cities Skylines, the city builder simulator/game (for computer and now consoles). Remember? It’s that game that tried to replace SimCity 2013 and for many of us, was successful for the most part. I have reviewed Cities Skylines in the past but there have been quite a few expansion packs and mods released since then so I figured it’s a great time to get a fresh look at the game and what I think about it in 2018.

Criticisms and Recommendation

While I do not hesitate to recommend this game especially for you who enjoy computer city builders like SimCity, I haven’t shied away from noting some frustrations with the game as well. And at that time, the primary feature I have needed to force myself to overlook is the non-American influence and look of the in-game building models, vehicles, signage, road and track styles (Cantenary lines), etc no option to change them without mods. Of course, since this game was made in Europe I can kind of understand the European influence but this isn’t always the case with games no matter who makes them. (Police 10-13 for example is being made in Australia and as far as I can tell, appears to be quite American.)

Expansion Packs

Now it’s 2018 and Cities Skylines remains the only city builder for computer that has withstood the test of time and in my opinion has only gotten better. There are expansion packs and DLC which enhance the game. I will only be commenting on the expansion packs I have installed.

There is After Dark, which brings a few night related policies and styles to the game. Snowfall, which brought snow-covered maps to the game, including trams for any map but did not bring us seasons, more on that later. Match Day adds a Futball/Football stadium, which in America we refer to as Soccer. There is the Mass Transit expansion which notably adds some more transportation options, such as Blimps, Large Airport, Taxi, Monorails, Cable Cars suspended from a cable (not to be confused with San Francisco cable cars) and ferries. The final expansion pack I have installed as of this post is Natural Disasters. The Natural Disasters Expansion features as you might assume naturally occurring ways to destroy your city (then rebuild it), such as flaming Meteor, Earthquake, Tsunami, Forest Fire, Building Collapse, Sinkhole, Lightning strike and Tornado. In addition to some disaster related buildings and options, this expansion also adds helicopter air support including police patrol, fire, search and rescue and medical choppers to the game. Green Cities is the most recent expansion pack to be released which I can’t comment on since I don’t have that one, yet.

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What Do I Really Think of the Expansion Packs?

SnowFall

In my opinion, all of the expansion packs offer something important to enhance the overall game-play of Cities Skylines. For example, in the Snowfall expansion pack the included trams are a necessity if you want to build a proper city. SimCity 2013 included trams by default so SimCity fans will love having trams from the Snowfall expansion. Mods will let your download custom trams (such as this awesome cable car from San Francisco by stockjr97) which enhanced the city experience. I recommend picking the Snowfall expansion pack up on a sale (either Steam or the Paradox website). Also as the title suggests, snow is included but not as a season. (boo hoo)

Neglecting seasons or at least Winter/Summer city building on the SAME map is a mistake because even the Sims 3 has snow and summer on the same map. Right now, with Snowfall, (without mods in the game) a Winter map must be chosen in order to see snow and to enjoy some included winter parks such as an ice rink, ice sculpture park snowman park, sky lodge, curling, snowboarding, Christmas tree and more. Water line heating has also been introduced with this expansion but I have not experienced it as a necessity on a non Winter map.

Mass Transit

Mass Transit expansion is a must for the added transportation options it brings to the game even if you don’t want to use them all at the same in your cities (but we try, right?). Why wasn’t trams included with this pack? I’ll try to understand, it’s about marketing.

Natural Disasters

In my opinion, the Natural Disasters expansion is fantastic simply for the helicopters which get added to the game! Random disasters can be turned off in the options menu and just as in SimCity, any disaster can be summoned at will whenever—if you so choose. (Although I have noticed a curious increase in tree fires in my city since I have installed this pack). However if you do unleash a disaster or two, remember you might want to save your city first. (by the way Paradox, we want Alien UFO’s and a large monster to eat the buildings)

In the After Dark expansion, I am not totally sure all that it does but it will include a prison, prisoner transport van, nice hotel, casino, and some policies as they relate to tourism and leisure especially after dark. Oh I get it, After Dark! (by the way, the day/night cycle was already included in the game for free in an update.)