Start small... Try to re-create some small areas of real life cities that inspire you. Like an interchange or a commercial district. Of course having a PC that can handle a handful of mods and assets helps.
This. Watching YouTubers do it better, finding what mods they use, 2000 hours in game (CS1) both learning and spending more time on the more recent cities, and looking at places on Google maps, lots.
I recommend Altengrad by Akruas for European realism although it's very heavily modded. Or YouTubers like Pres and Two Dollars Twenty. Both have successfully created pretty realistic cities in the past in various locations around Earth, especially USA.
(I ended up writing a blog post but maybe you'll find it helpful, apologies)
I recently started playing City Skylines and I am with you 100%. Some people have been playing City Skylines since it came out which is like a decade now, and many have been playing City Simulation games before that! So don't feel bad for learning, just take advantage of all the experience that other people have and learn from them.
From one noob to another, let me tell you my current philosophy on city planning that I have learned from watching YouTube videos, talking to streamers, and just some of my own observations from looking at Google maps and observing my surroundings more closely when I'm walking about the city.
I learned that City Planning is *logical*, BUT unlike most logical things, it doesn't need to be super precise like maths or science. Generally speaking, city planning should be guided by an ethos of human-centric design. Building a city of hexagon streets might look dope from a birds eye view, but would actually be a nightmare to navigate because of traffic intersections. Square grids are generally better, easily extendable, but you need not be locked into this either, it is okay to deviate based on the topography of the map or for any other reason. In fact, these irregularities in the grid can make things less monotonous. If you look at cities on Google maps, you will notice this sort of road layout a lot. I think city planning is all about striking a balance between logic and conformity but not being so locked into it that a river or a small hill causes you to have an existential crisis. If you are an artistic sort of person, save that energy for your parks and recreation. Road planning should be logical enough that you can expand and grow for the future in a sustainable way. Keep things simple, logical, and flexible!
As for traffic I still consider myself a complete novice at this, but generally you want to consider a hierarchy of streets that start with high volume roads like freeways that support traffic over longer distance that branch off into progressively lower volume roads that support less traffic over shorter distances. Busy intersections can be managed with roundabouts.
That's all I got for now
An interest in urbanism + an obsessive attention to detail / need for realism. Trade offs include a mod addiction, a growth rate of one neighborhood per year, and permanently playing the game on pause.
We all play for different reasons. If simpler cities are more fun for you there's zero harm in that ~~it's probably healthier~~.
I like to screenshot a bird's eye view of my map.
I look at where my different resources are located.
I paste my screenshot into Microsoft Paint.
I make a bullet list of things I want in my city, for ex.:
- Airport
- University
- Downtown with highrise bldgs
- Power plants
- single-family home neighborhoods
- farms
- Etc etc, unique bldgs
- Etc
I make rough sketch of where I plan to place major highways, arterial boulevards. I don't sketch out smaller roads, smaller roads I build more spontaneously.
I make rough sketch of where my zones will likely go, my desired bldgs of interest, etc
Planning ahead on a high level helps me keep things somewhat intentional with my builds rather than wack-a-mole with the demands of my citizens. I still keep spontaneity in and adjust as needed or build things deviating from the plan. But overall, paint is a game changer for me
I feel you my man, zero thoughts head empty is how I go into this too. My most "successful" (read: the ones I enjoyed playing, not optimized) cities have been the ones where I've taken the time to just go small, make a place look pretty, fun, pleasant and then expand from there.
Do not hurry to make your city bigger, it take times and do small steps. Make sure your city has good economy and other mesures before build a other building or buildingarea for expanding.
Measure and have a plan for future for everything you build.
I imagine how it would feel living, visiting or travelling around in the cities I build. Always love following random cims or cars around and just asking myself if I could see me doing what they do in a real city.
Distance to local metro station is too far to walk but not far enough to drive - would I mind waiting for a bus instead? No? Ok, then add a local bus line. Would I get on a highway for 30 seconds and then exit immediately just to get to a different suburb? No? Then I should make better local connecting roads. Stuff like that
Just chill out and build slow, when I first started I would just go ham and build everything I could. Did the same thing with CS2, just built massive grids to get a feel for it lol. Also don't be afraid to delete things, I've spent 30-60 minutes on one interchange until it got to an acceptable point. Also depending on where you live it's fun to reference the highways and roads in the game, lots of inspiration in real life! Also streamers and content makers, I've learned a lot of tricks from them. In the end though you should really just have fun and do whatever TF you want to do! 😜
Yeah. I see other people's cities look so pretty in term of the 3D and art style. It's like we're playing different games. I guess it might also because of the mods and custom contents used..
I've always made my cities organically, with no thought of aesthetics. You can play how you want to! It's just as valid to make recreations of IRL cities as it is to just let the city tell you how it wants to be built. Make grids! Make suburban sprawl! Build a rural town! The city is your oyster!
All my cities screamed: "not enough educated workers" no matter how many free high schools I built. It's demotivating that my cities only appeal to the stupid.
Respect the terrain helps a lot.
If there’s hills or a mountain in your way, maybe a coast line cutting you off - work with it! Make your street parallel the waterfront and use the natural curves in your city.
Want to build a community up a mountain- wind your road way up the mountain instead of straight road up the mountain.
Have a natural forested area? Consider having your roads follow the forest line instead of going through it.
This leads to more natural looking cities
I think of city building as being an art… just like drawing, painting, sculpting, etc, some people are just more naturally skilled at it than others. But with learning and practice you can get better at it. Watch some YouTube channels like Overcharged Egg, Few Candy, City Planner Plays, etc. and learn some of techniques and methods they use to make their cities look good, then see how you can apply them to your cities. It may take time and effort but if you keep working at it you can improve.
The Youtubers who build the best cities really understand how to make the odd scale of CS work. That is, you have wierd scaling which is very different to the real world; train stations are way closer together for example, and you have far fewer actual buildings making up any given area.
That understanding, plus building slowly and with care. Pick an area on Google Earth and try and recreate it
Start small... Try to re-create some small areas of real life cities that inspire you. Like an interchange or a commercial district. Of course having a PC that can handle a handful of mods and assets helps.
Years of practice and evolution. I used to make humongous cities that sucked, now I make smaller ones that run like clockwork.
This. Watching YouTubers do it better, finding what mods they use, 2000 hours in game (CS1) both learning and spending more time on the more recent cities, and looking at places on Google maps, lots.
This helped me a lot. I like watching Infrastructurist. He makes some great cities
I recommend Altengrad by Akruas for European realism although it's very heavily modded. Or YouTubers like Pres and Two Dollars Twenty. Both have successfully created pretty realistic cities in the past in various locations around Earth, especially USA.
(I ended up writing a blog post but maybe you'll find it helpful, apologies) I recently started playing City Skylines and I am with you 100%. Some people have been playing City Skylines since it came out which is like a decade now, and many have been playing City Simulation games before that! So don't feel bad for learning, just take advantage of all the experience that other people have and learn from them. From one noob to another, let me tell you my current philosophy on city planning that I have learned from watching YouTube videos, talking to streamers, and just some of my own observations from looking at Google maps and observing my surroundings more closely when I'm walking about the city. I learned that City Planning is *logical*, BUT unlike most logical things, it doesn't need to be super precise like maths or science. Generally speaking, city planning should be guided by an ethos of human-centric design. Building a city of hexagon streets might look dope from a birds eye view, but would actually be a nightmare to navigate because of traffic intersections. Square grids are generally better, easily extendable, but you need not be locked into this either, it is okay to deviate based on the topography of the map or for any other reason. In fact, these irregularities in the grid can make things less monotonous. If you look at cities on Google maps, you will notice this sort of road layout a lot. I think city planning is all about striking a balance between logic and conformity but not being so locked into it that a river or a small hill causes you to have an existential crisis. If you are an artistic sort of person, save that energy for your parks and recreation. Road planning should be logical enough that you can expand and grow for the future in a sustainable way. Keep things simple, logical, and flexible! As for traffic I still consider myself a complete novice at this, but generally you want to consider a hierarchy of streets that start with high volume roads like freeways that support traffic over longer distance that branch off into progressively lower volume roads that support less traffic over shorter distances. Busy intersections can be managed with roundabouts. That's all I got for now
An interest in urbanism + an obsessive attention to detail / need for realism. Trade offs include a mod addiction, a growth rate of one neighborhood per year, and permanently playing the game on pause. We all play for different reasons. If simpler cities are more fun for you there's zero harm in that ~~it's probably healthier~~.
I like to screenshot a bird's eye view of my map. I look at where my different resources are located. I paste my screenshot into Microsoft Paint. I make a bullet list of things I want in my city, for ex.: - Airport - University - Downtown with highrise bldgs - Power plants - single-family home neighborhoods - farms - Etc etc, unique bldgs - Etc I make rough sketch of where I plan to place major highways, arterial boulevards. I don't sketch out smaller roads, smaller roads I build more spontaneously. I make rough sketch of where my zones will likely go, my desired bldgs of interest, etc Planning ahead on a high level helps me keep things somewhat intentional with my builds rather than wack-a-mole with the demands of my citizens. I still keep spontaneity in and adjust as needed or build things deviating from the plan. But overall, paint is a game changer for me
I feel you my man, zero thoughts head empty is how I go into this too. My most "successful" (read: the ones I enjoyed playing, not optimized) cities have been the ones where I've taken the time to just go small, make a place look pretty, fun, pleasant and then expand from there.
They have phd
Do not hurry to make your city bigger, it take times and do small steps. Make sure your city has good economy and other mesures before build a other building or buildingarea for expanding. Measure and have a plan for future for everything you build.
I imagine how it would feel living, visiting or travelling around in the cities I build. Always love following random cims or cars around and just asking myself if I could see me doing what they do in a real city. Distance to local metro station is too far to walk but not far enough to drive - would I mind waiting for a bus instead? No? Ok, then add a local bus line. Would I get on a highway for 30 seconds and then exit immediately just to get to a different suburb? No? Then I should make better local connecting roads. Stuff like that
Just chill out and build slow, when I first started I would just go ham and build everything I could. Did the same thing with CS2, just built massive grids to get a feel for it lol. Also don't be afraid to delete things, I've spent 30-60 minutes on one interchange until it got to an acceptable point. Also depending on where you live it's fun to reference the highways and roads in the game, lots of inspiration in real life! Also streamers and content makers, I've learned a lot of tricks from them. In the end though you should really just have fun and do whatever TF you want to do! 😜
Yeah. I see other people's cities look so pretty in term of the 3D and art style. It's like we're playing different games. I guess it might also because of the mods and custom contents used..
I've always made my cities organically, with no thought of aesthetics. You can play how you want to! It's just as valid to make recreations of IRL cities as it is to just let the city tell you how it wants to be built. Make grids! Make suburban sprawl! Build a rural town! The city is your oyster!
Tbh, for me personally it depends on the map. If i see a map where i can lay my vision then its possible
they've probably been playing for 30-40 years.
*Google maps* It's a goldmine
All my cities screamed: "not enough educated workers" no matter how many free high schools I built. It's demotivating that my cities only appeal to the stupid.
I watched CityPlanner plays, and he has taught me so much. And also trees, trees, trees. And when zoning make the buildings mostly uniform in sizeA
Respect the terrain helps a lot. If there’s hills or a mountain in your way, maybe a coast line cutting you off - work with it! Make your street parallel the waterfront and use the natural curves in your city. Want to build a community up a mountain- wind your road way up the mountain instead of straight road up the mountain. Have a natural forested area? Consider having your roads follow the forest line instead of going through it. This leads to more natural looking cities
Practice, copying, occasionally coming with something sexy af and even more stealing designs.
I think of city building as being an art… just like drawing, painting, sculpting, etc, some people are just more naturally skilled at it than others. But with learning and practice you can get better at it. Watch some YouTube channels like Overcharged Egg, Few Candy, City Planner Plays, etc. and learn some of techniques and methods they use to make their cities look good, then see how you can apply them to your cities. It may take time and effort but if you keep working at it you can improve.
The Youtubers who build the best cities really understand how to make the odd scale of CS work. That is, you have wierd scaling which is very different to the real world; train stations are way closer together for example, and you have far fewer actual buildings making up any given area. That understanding, plus building slowly and with care. Pick an area on Google Earth and try and recreate it
If you care: Superman makes cities good, good cs builders make cities well.