Cities Skylines II

[Stokowski]

I enjoyed C:S enough I thought I'd give the sequel a try. Big mistake. It's a steaming pile of shit. Everything about it is half-assed. Plus it's ugly as sin, and runs like a paraplegic.

Good work, Paradox.

 

[Alienman]

Man, what a disappointment to read all this. How bad it is.

 

[Axioms]

Imagine having faith in a major Paradox title to turn out well, especially on release. Everyone burned by this deserves it for being so damn dumb. Charlie Brown with the football ass bitches.

I should say that there is an argument that if only CO weren't morons and turned off all the fancy graphics stuff by default they would have had a fantastic launch. Just totally screwing themselves over by being greedy. Better to get smacked a bit about the low quality graphics by turning on more reasonable default settings than get absolutely roasted by reviews saying the game was unplayable.

 

[Stokowski]

Everyone burned by this deserves it for being so damn dumb.

Well that's ... fair.

I should say that there is an argument that if only CO weren't morons and turned off all the fancy graphics stuff by default they would have had a fantastic launch. Just totally screwing themselves over by being greedy. Better to get smacked a bit about the low quality graphics by turning on more reasonable default settings than get absolutely roasted by reviews saying the game was unplayable.

Not sure it would've helped much. I cannot stress how fucking hideous the game looks. All those graphical bells and whistles had to be cranked up by default just to put enough lipstick on this pig.

And the performance issues aren't entirely about graphics either. Some have pointed out that whatever performance you can achieve by downgrading the graphics will only get you so far because the sim will completely tank anyway once the city population hits 10,000. For me it was around 4,000. It's just a pile of garbage through and through.

(But, hey, it might be good - perhaps even great - in a year or two, though, right?

)

 

[Joggerino]

Imagine having faith in a major Paradox title to turn out well, especially on release. Everyone burned by this deserves it for being so damn dumb. Charlie Brown with the football ass bitches.

I should say that there is an argument that if only CO weren't morons and turned off all the fancy graphics stuff by default they would have had a fantastic launch. Just totally screwing themselves over by being greedy. Better to get smacked a bit about the low quality graphics by turning on more reasonable default settings than get absolutely roasted by reviews saying the game was unplayable.

What are you talking about, it wasn't even developed by paradox. And the first cities skylines was good on release.

 

[Fedora Master]

I just fail to comprehend how a team that made a decent city builder with CS1 and its DLC somehow managed to fuck it ALL up on the next iteration. And they aren't the first to do this.

 

[Axioms]

Imagine having faith in a major Paradox title to turn out well, especially on release. Everyone burned by this deserves it for being so damn dumb. Charlie Brown with the football ass bitches.

I should say that there is an argument that if only CO weren't morons and turned off all the fancy graphics stuff by default they would have had a fantastic launch. Just totally screwing themselves over by being greedy. Better to get smacked a bit about the low quality graphics by turning on more reasonable default settings than get absolutely roasted by reviews saying the game was unplayable.

What are you talking about, it wasn't even developed by paradox. And the first cities skylines was good on release.

The first Cities had *plenty* of problems on release. And also it is important to note that CO is owned by PI which determines important things like release dates. So it isn't a PDS game sure but you'll notice that multiple recent PI games have released early in bad shape.

PI needed Skylines 2 to release now, regardless of whether it was ready in order to buoy their yearly sales numbers because they've been in a big slump.

 

[Axioms]

Everyone burned by this deserves it for being so damn dumb.

Well that's ... fair.

I should say that there is an argument that if only CO weren't morons and turned off all the fancy graphics stuff by default they would have had a fantastic launch. Just totally screwing themselves over by being greedy. Better to get smacked a bit about the low quality graphics by turning on more reasonable default settings than get absolutely roasted by reviews saying the game was unplayable.

Not sure it would've helped much. I cannot stress how fucking hideous the game looks. All those graphical bells and whistles had to be cranked up by default just to put enough lipstick on this pig.

And the performance issues aren't entirely about graphics either. Some have pointed out that whatever performance you can achieve by downgrading the graphics will only get you so far because the sim will completely tank anyway once the city population hits 10,000. For me it was around 4,000. It's just a pile of garbage through and through.

(But, hey, it might be good - perhaps even great - in a year or two, though, right?

)

My understanding from reviews and Reddit is that if you follow the player made performance guides properly as far as what to turn off that you can easily hit 6 digit populations while getting 30-90 FPS, depending on your specific specs.

 

[Mortmal]

Remember the 2 hour refund. I used that countless of times. My point is that I think those counts into the sales.

Yes but many likely got a key on the grey market and no refund there.

 

[Dr1f7]

That makes me think given that the most fun of these games is abusing them: Someone should make a dystopian city builder game. Basically, you're a 40k planetary governor given a world and it's up to you how you'll make it a functional nightmare. You could make cities from gouging out and hollowing mountain ranges or build towns by acid swamps and reap the economic benefits as reproduction keeps above the morality rate, etc.

Me buying Cities Skylines 2 hinges entirely on whether you can build another poop volcano.

lol i like the idea of making a hell on earth city sounds fun

 

[Perkel]

tested it out. Performance isn't as bad as i thought it will be. 5800X3D + 3090 + 32GB ram

switching of GI, Depth of Field, volumetric something and switching res to 1440p leads to 50ish fps and @ 1080p close to 80-90fps. There is something wrong going on with res scaling. Some effects in game has to be scaling off resolution which leads to this mess which leads to this mess probably fixable. Another thing is that even with AA their antialiasing solution is shit. Level of Detail management is all sort of fucked up too that leads to very shimery and weird image.

As for the game.

Regions are back people. Finally SimCity4 guys can play something. Compared to CS1 it seems to be a lot more interesting with much harder curve when it comes to money. It is still a shame that low level villages etc. NEED waste management, healthcare etc. I loved creating small rural cities/villages in sim city 4:



Either way it seems to have room for improvement. Shame it was released in such state and probably PARADOX is already preparing 1000000DLCs.

 

[Joggerino]

Imagine having faith in a major Paradox title to turn out well, especially on release. Everyone burned by this deserves it for being so damn dumb. Charlie Brown with the football ass bitches.

I should say that there is an argument that if only CO weren't morons and turned off all the fancy graphics stuff by default they would have had a fantastic launch. Just totally screwing themselves over by being greedy. Better to get smacked a bit about the low quality graphics by turning on more reasonable default settings than get absolutely roasted by reviews saying the game was unplayable.

What are you talking about, it wasn't even developed by paradox. And the first cities skylines was good on release.

The first Cities had *plenty* of problems on release. And also it is important to note that CO is owned by PI which determines important things like release dates. So it isn't a PDS game sure but you'll notice that multiple recent PI games have released early in bad shape.

PI needed Skylines 2 to release now, regardless of whether it was ready in order to buoy their yearly sales numbers because they've been in a big slump.

Oh okay, I forgot PI acquired CO.

 

[Fedora Master]

6 digit populations while getting 30-90 FPS,

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Level of Detail management is all sort of fucked up too that leads to very shimery and weird image.

Yeah I noticed that shimmering on some of the reviews. URP naturally does this for some annoying reason, you can try it out by opening up Unity and just adding a texture in with lots of repetition you'll get the same shimmer. Looking at it, yeah something horrific is going on with the AA as well. Its just a mess.
Standard Renderer never had this problem, I know my team built a city builder before City Skylines 1 came out using it and it looked great (shame it was just a visual concept and not an actual game). We gave up on it because I didn't feel that our team was dedicated enough to work on this and ship it despite the positive response we got.


Unity back then was a fine engine to use for a City Builder which Cities 1 proved. It sure as hell ain't anymore and that's even despite DOTS being a thing.
On the plus side though, Market appears open for a Sim City successor again.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Market appears open for a Sim City successor again.

ea is going to find surprising new ways to rape its corpse.

 

[RobotSquirrel]

ea is going to find surprising new ways to rape its corpse.

yeah but an indie can easily beat the shit out of them if they did a good job.

 

[flyingjohn]

Either way it seems to have room for improvement

Yeah, it actually might be able to reach a stable 60 fps like in the simcity 4 video, after 10 years of patching.

 

[Zarniwoop]

"Mixed" on Steam?

That's like a 3/10 max.

Wait, is this shit Unity based again? Because if so, it's a non starter. Hurrrrr you can only build 2 hostipulz dur plz no hurt engine.

 

[Caim]

"Mixed" on Steam?

That's like a 3/10 max.

Wait, is this shit Unity based again? Because if so, it's a non starter. Hurrrrr you can only build 2 hostipulz dur plz no hurt engine.

52% as of right now.

What surprised me is that the base game is only $50, but what didn't surprise me is that the full game is $90. The only thing that's currently in the full version on top of the base game is stuff to make your cities look more like San Francisco, aka make it look worse. The rest is the first expansion about bridges and ports, some beachfront houses, two community packs (so they're not even making the contents of their own season pass, kek) and three radio stations.

So in short, lol. Lmao, even.

 

[JarlFrank]

lol
lmao

 

[Fedora Master]

 

[axx]

Looking forward to LGR's review.

 

[flyingjohn]

"Interesting" decision to make any resource management a thing in the past:
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...anagement-in-the-game-is-a-deception.1604434/
TLDR:
-Shops and factories don't need goods/resources to generate income.
-You can't import goods by trains or ships to be used by shops or factories. They will stay in the terminal storage indefinitely.
-You can't export anything.

Of course, none of this ever mentioned by reviewers. LGR will probably just say performance is fixed and it is a great game.

 

[Fedora Master]

So whats the point of regions then?

 

[Hace El Oso]

As someone said on the paradox forums, “There is no economy, traffic exists only to populate the roads. This isn’t a game, its only purpose is for people to make pretty ‘cities’”.

Of course, it isn’t fundamentally different from CS1 in that regard. What astounding decline, Sim City is quite literally lost technology.