Cities: Skylines is a game that has taken the world by storm. The announcement of Cities: Skylines 2 was therefore quite a momentous moment for many players. I’ve had the opportunity to spend countless hours in this title in the past few days, which is why we now bring you a review focused on how this building strategy actually fares.
Platform: PC (reviewed version), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
Date of publication: 24. 10. 2023
Developer: Colossal Order Ltd.
Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Genre: Building strategy
Czech localization: Yes
Multiplayer: Yes
Data to download: 57 GB
Game time: 30 to 100 hours
Cena: 1225 CZK (Steam)
Cities: Skylines 2 gave me a choice right from the start
With strategies, creators choose different ways to introduce players to the game world they have created. In the case of Cities: Skylines 2, the studio decided to avoid any form of campaign and instead bet on offering you a map and immediately putting you in the chair of the person in charge of the newly created city. The basic palette of locations contains a total of ten destinations. They differ from each other in terms of climatic conditions, space for building and also the raw materials that you can find on them and then work with them, for example, within the functioning of your economy. I placed my first town in a valley between two mountains cut in half by a wild river. And I must say that I did well because it offered me everything I needed.
The very beginning of building in Cities: Skylines 2 was surprisingly fast and actually also accessible. The construction of city districts was quite intuitive, so after a while a smaller town spread out in front of me consisting of residential plots, commercial buildings and also industrial buildings. Although for a while I managed to discharge the waste directly between the houses, but I soon realized that the waste pipes belong in the river and not in the building. On the other hand, I covered it completely with a water network from a waterworks pumping water directly from the depths of the earth, so that my town was not exposed to potential pollution from the mass flowing through the local stream.
But I managed to get it efficiently enough by myself through a small coal-fired power plant, which my people didn’t like very much, so I ended up buying a big power plant consuming the same raw material, but generating many times more energy than its smaller predecessor. Thanks to this, I was given the opportunity to embark on the next stage of construction associated with an expanded range of options within the construction of plots. Not every potential resident of my town could afford to buy their own house, so a certain percentage started moving to bigger buildings. Although at first glance the citizens of Cities: Skylines 2 look like they don’t need that much. But the opposite is true.
Their needs are different. Basically, it is good to build an infrastructure capable of meeting all elementary requirements in the vicinity of the residences owned by them. Without firefighters, police, education, transport and some kind of relaxation, life is difficult for people. Everything can be built for them at the start in a relatively limited form. If you want to give your people something better, you need to work on your city. The expansion of its population is in Cities: Skylines 2 one of the ways to get to new buildings across a decent spectrum of specifications containing structures oriented towards water supply, electricity, education, recycling, transport or communication. There is therefore plenty of space to move during the game, so as soon as you reach a better power plant, a nuclear colossus or a solar complex is waiting for you.
The bigger the city, the more fundamental the problems
As already mentioned above, the start is actually incredibly simple in Cities: Skylines 2. A small town is not such a big burden on your attention. You sort of throw it around in it and then just watch how nicely it treads in it. But the goal of the game is not to follow a village made up of a few thousand people, but to build something really spectacular, and as soon as you start to really expand, there will also be problems associated with countless game factors that you have to take care of, but you don’t always get it right.
The pressure is on you from virtually all sides while playing Cities: Skylines 2. People need better health care here. There is a lack of education again, and I’m not talking about roads bursting at the seams. Of course, something can be done with everything, but the problem is that you usually have to think about everything in advance: Make enough space for future residential buildings, roads or also public administration structures. It is also impossible to neglect the supply of factories and the city as a whole, which requires certain raw materials. These can be imported, but if you start producing them yourself, it will work out many times better than if you import them.
The extraction of raw materials and the industry as a whole are good for the city’s finances, but definitely not for the residents. They don’t like factories very much, which is why, like coal-fired power plants, they need to be built out of reach of homes. When they are somewhere in a building, they will actively pollute the air and thus reduce overall satisfaction. They can also have a negative effect on groundwater. In short, industry has nothing to do in the city. However, it is undoubtedly needed as a source of work, or at least in the initial stages. As the population grows in education, it has access to better jobs in Cities: Skylines 2, which can lead you to reduce industrial zones. But it’s definitely not right away, and the excavators often keep going for a really long time after you promise your people to stop them. Sometimes your plans are foiled by natural disasters, while other times by money.
Building in Cities: Skylines 2 is not the only element you have to deal with. Another is the city treasury. After all, you are the one who distributes the money obtained from taxes and subsequently tries to draw up a sustainable budget with their help, which is more difficult than it might seem at first glance. People want a lot of things, but they don’t want to pay much, so you sometimes struggle a lot with optimizing income and expenses. A certain form of last resort is the possibility of borrowing money, but as it happens, it is more of a step into the abyss than a real rescue, because the debt will burden you more and you will have a hard time fighting it. However, active resource management is a great thing, as it often forces you to choose between populism and responsible management.
Construction is picking up steam here
Cities: Skylines 2 is simply an excellent strategy full of stories. Personally, I had a lot of plans as part of the first pass. The town was chugging along and slowly approaching positive numbers, which led me to experiment with the budget. Here I took away somewhere, there I added again. But somehow, during my games, I forgot that the reduction of finances will automatically reduce the quality of the given services, which backfired on me badly. Because I also reached for the salaries of the firemen, which was not a good idea, and then my train was going very fast down the hill straight into the abyss. A game full of interesting moments, this piece is precisely because of the fact that it is not afraid to present different moments and throw sticks under your feet.
Building here is extremely intuitive and addictive, so you can build small cities that look nice even with your eyes closed. But if you want to build a big metropolis, you will have to properly understand the individual principles, learn to work with a budget and make the most of the building possibilities of your city. I have to say for myself that I miss some elements from the first part connected to the DLC. For beginners, the later stages can be a problem, along with minor bugs and the currently annoying technical side, but in the long term, Cities: Skylines 2 has huge potential thanks to the support of the community. I can’t wait to see what I will see in the next few days and weeks.
Review
Cities: Skylines 2
We like
High level of accessibility Wide range of options Huge addiction The later stages of the game will take a lot of work Every time a different story The transformation of small towns in the metropolis will take your breath away
It bothers us
The technical side is not in the best shape Absence of some elements from the first volume (greater degree of customization) The final stages can be difficult for beginners The absence of campaigns for some
2023-10-19 16:01:32
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