This is going to be a strange review, because it's really not about Cities: Skylines but what it could be.

As a city sim, this game is good. It's SimCity with better traffic and citizen simulation. Every citizen is simulated and has their own job, and the traffic is complicated enough to require advanced planning to make sure people can go to places. I also like constructing free-form roads, which is something that was missing from the original grid like SimCity 2000, the last game I played in this sub-genre. The power/water simulation is fairly simple, but it does an ok job with simulating waste and consumption. The needs of the citizen and the overall economy are all pretty basic, nothing too complicated. The meat of the game is the traffic, which you can definitely spend hours optimizing. If you like building complicated metropolises in a large environment, I think you are going to have a damn good time. I certainly did.

And I do mean large environments. Because what I really dug about this game is the MAP. At 36 sq. KM on default settings, this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ thing is MASSIVE and it easily goes up to 100 sq. KM with a simple mod. This is really the first time I would really consider a city-simulator simulating a CITY. Paris is 100 sq. KM and London, New York and Chicago are much, much larger. SimCity 5 was limited to 4 sq. KM lol. Here, it’s difficult to see the boundary when you are zooming out, finally crossing the immersion breaking limits of the previous kings: R.U.S.E. and Supreme Commander (80x80). Has there been a game in this sub-gene to go this big? Supreme Commander actually came close, but the “slice” map concept limited it’s immersion, and it definitely could not simulate everything to the detail this does. Hell, even if you open up the competition to it’s parent genre, the RTS, there are barely any competitions. Definitely not in 2013, and definitely not with a flat map. Planetary Annihilation tried, but to be honest, it was more like asteroid annihilation. None of the planets were big enough to feel flat when you zoomed in, and you never needed to in the first place. It’s hard for me to describe how excited this made me feel to look at a map as if I was flying on a Cessna.

The map size is important for more than just aesthetics. Modern warfare/economy is huge, and to really push it to the limit, you need to make it massive. And I don’t mean just in terms of raw numbers, which is a relative concept (think Pikmin), but in terms of LOGISTICS. Think about the scale of warfare in reality: it requires ships, trains, planes, and transport vehicles to get your army and supply from one place to the next. But most RTS barely require your units go in a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ van to go to the next conflict, never mind requiring actual supply of any kind. Maybe you will have some units that can pick up a couple of units to airdrop into an enemy boss, but transportation is not a fundamental requirement of most RTS. Hell, there are only a few games that require you to move your materials to construct your units and buildings (Dwarf Fortress, Rimworld, Kingdoms and Castles, Factorio, Factory Town), and almost none of them at the scale I am talking about. Most RTS will simplify this aspect by keeping the storage abstract which can then be consumed anywhere, nevermind that most games only keep track of two resources at any point. All of these shortcuts were built around the 1990s technology where you HAD to simplify all of these concepts because we were working with 16 Megs of RAM. This hasn’t been a limitations for years now, and it’s patently obvious when playing Cities: Skylines.

And THE SETTING. This game is focused around modern buildings with modern people. Why not have a RTS that focuses around warfare in a modern setting with skyscrapers and highway systems? Maybe human vs. human conflict is not exciting enough, but could you imagine fighting against an alien horde?! Think about flamethrowers lining down main street as they torch a horde of aliens! Think about aliens flying into buildings into skyscrapers to take down turrets and snipers! And the amount of mechanics that could open up! RTS games have been fairly limited in terms of verticality and buildings, you would have to use completely new mechanics to try to control these 100 floor towers and wide intersections, alleyways and subways. Perhaps, the reason this has never really happened is because of the limitation of the overhead view of most RTS, but does RTS have to be limited to this camera angle? Add a team dynamic, and you could easily have multiple perspectives in the battlefield and allow people to really hook into the multiple tiers of battles that can happen in a modern environment.

Anyway, as you can tell, I am more excited about the potential RTS aspect of this than the City sim. If you are looking for a city sim, this will suffice. It’s not overly difficult, but the sheer magnitude of it is enjoyable. That, along with the tiny citizens filling my metropolis with life makes it fun. There are many things that could make it more intricate, including much more complicated terrain manipulation, figuring out resources/economy etc. But for me, there is only so much I can care about the accounting and looking at cars piling up on the roads. Turn this into a multiplayer WAR, and I am freaking in.

This is going to be a strange review, because it's really not about Cities: Skylines but what it could be. As a city sim, this game is good. It's [i]SimCity[/i] with better traffic and citizen simulation. Every citizen is simulated and has their own job, and the traffic is complicated enough to require advanced planning to make sure people can go to places. I also like constructing free-form roads, which is something that was missing from the original grid like [i]SimCity 2000[/i], the last game I played in this sub-genre. The power/water simulation is fairly simple, but it does an ok job with simulating waste and consumption. The needs of the citizen and the overall economy are all pretty basic, nothing too complicated. The meat of the game is the traffic, which you can definitely spend hours optimizing. If you like building complicated metropolises in a large environment, I think you are going to have a damn good time. I certainly did. And I do mean large environments. Because what I really dug about this game is the MAP. At 36 sq. KM on default settings, this fucking thing is MASSIVE and it easily goes up to 100 sq. KM with a simple mod. This is really the first time I would really consider a city-simulator simulating a CITY. Paris is 100 sq. KM and London, New York and Chicago are much, much larger. SimCity 5 was limited to 4 sq. KM lol. Here, it’s difficult to see the boundary when you are zooming out, finally crossing the immersion breaking limits of the previous kings: R.U.S.E. and Supreme Commander (80x80). Has there been a game in this sub-gene to go this big? Supreme Commander actually came close, but the “slice” map concept limited it’s immersion, and it definitely could not simulate everything to the detail this does. Hell, even if you open up the competition to it’s parent genre, the RTS, there are barely any competitions. Definitely not in 2013, and definitely not with a flat map. Planetary Annihilation tried, but to be honest, it was more like asteroid annihilation. None of the planets were big enough to feel flat when you zoomed in, and you never needed to in the first place. It’s hard for me to describe how excited this made me feel to look at a map as if I was flying on a Cessna. The map size is important for more than just aesthetics. Modern warfare/economy is huge, and to really push it to the limit, you need to make it massive. And I don’t mean just in terms of raw numbers, which is a relative concept (think [i]Pikmin[/i]), but in terms of LOGISTICS. Think about the scale of warfare in reality: it requires ships, trains, planes, and transport vehicles to get your army and supply from one place to the next. But most RTS barely require your units go in a fucking van to go to the next conflict, never mind requiring actual supply of any kind. Maybe you will have some units that can pick up a couple of units to airdrop into an enemy boss, but transportation is not a fundamental requirement of most RTS. Hell, there are only a few games that require you to move your materials to construct your units and buildings ([i]Dwarf Fortress[/i], [i]Rimworld[/i], [i]Kingdoms and Castles[/i], [i]Factorio[/i], [i]Factory Town[/i]), and almost none of them at the scale I am talking about. Most RTS will simplify this aspect by keeping the storage abstract which can then be consumed anywhere, nevermind that most games only keep track of two resources at any point. All of these shortcuts were built around the 1990s technology where you HAD to simplify all of these concepts because we were working with 16 Megs of RAM. This hasn’t been a limitations for years now, and it’s patently obvious when playing [i]Cities: Skylines[/i]. And THE SETTING. This game is focused around modern buildings with modern people. Why not have a RTS that focuses around warfare in a modern setting with skyscrapers and highway systems? Maybe human vs. human conflict is not exciting enough, but could you imagine fighting against an alien horde?! Think about flamethrowers lining down main street as they torch a horde of aliens! Think about aliens flying into buildings into skyscrapers to take down turrets and snipers! And the amount of mechanics that could open up! RTS games have been fairly limited in terms of verticality and buildings, you would have to use completely new mechanics to try to control these 100 floor towers and wide intersections, alleyways and subways. Perhaps, the reason this has never really happened is because of the limitation of the overhead view of most RTS, but does RTS have to be limited to this camera angle? Add a team dynamic, and you could easily have multiple perspectives in the battlefield and allow people to really hook into the multiple tiers of battles that can happen in a modern environment. Anyway, as you can tell, I am more excited about the potential RTS aspect of this than the City sim. If you are looking for a city sim, this will suffice. It’s not overly difficult, but the sheer magnitude of it is enjoyable. That, along with the tiny citizens filling my metropolis with life makes it fun. There are many things that could make it more intricate, including much more complicated terrain manipulation, figuring out resources/economy etc. But for me, there is only so much I can care about the accounting and looking at cars piling up on the roads. Turn this into a multiplayer WAR, and I am freaking in.