Introduction

We are all unique when it comes to the type of games we enjoy. I personally never been so hot on first person shooters or sport related games. But since I am 8 years old, SimCity has been my favorite game. From the SNES version of it, all the way to Simcity 5 (Gosh...I must have played thousands of hours of SimCity 2000), this is the time of game I enjoy the most. Anybody else can relate?

When I discovered Cities Skylines...I was hooked. In my humble opinion, this is most interesting and fun game of the genre. When it comes to building a city, this game allow you so much creativity with just enough real life challenge to make it a joy to play again and again.

350 hours later, I'm compiling here what I've learned in hope that it can shorten your learning curve.

Getting Started Right

Get Yourself Good Mods

Mods enhance the game and allow you to do more. Below are my personal selection that I use:

1. Precision Engineering
2. Automatic Bulldoze (To get rid of abandoned building automatically
3. Mod Achievement Enabler
4. All 25 Areas purchasable

With those in place, you are good to go.

Understand How Traffic Works

Traffic is the #1 challenge of this game. If you don't think ahead, later on, you'll face serious challenge and may have to completely rethink after the fact...and that can be costly.

Factor #1 Road Hierachy

If you want a complete guide of how traffic works, I would suggest The Beginner's Guide to Traffic By brendan.rnp

Basically, the idea is whether you create a grid or a more fluid grid patter, you need to have multiple tier of roads. It goes like this:

Highway --> Arterial Road(Red) --> Collector Road(Blue) --> Local Roads(Green)

This is an idea that you can play with and that is very useful as you learn how to play with it.

Factor #2 - Zoning

Understanding how traffic works in relation to your zoning is crucial. The flow of traffic goes like this:

• Residents travel to work to the Commercial and Industrial area
• Raw Material comes in via the highway system to feed your industrial area.
• Finished Goods travel from the industrial to the commercial area AND to the highway.

Now balance out the zoning and the road hierarchy and you've got a good foundation to lay out your future city.

Conclusion

Did you like this little tutorial? Would you want more guides like this or should I stick to playing the game for you on Dlive or Dtube? Please let me know in the comment box below.