Urban planning simulators – the genre is small, but proud. If you do not take into account an infinite number of business strategies from the series Tycoon, close, but not identical to the “city affiliation” on “species belonging”, only a few names of such games on the basis of modern setting come to the mind, who left at least some trace in the history of the industry. It is impossible to call Simcity – Where without her! – Tropico, CITies XL.
More? Then all sorts of “related” projects begin: either we are talking about standard strategies with some bias in peaceful development, or about games affecting the affairs of the long -past days. People who like to build full -fledged megalopolites with virtuality with the infrastructure “in the latest fashion” are forced to be content with Simcity 4. As an option – to spit, purchasing another copy CITies XL With additional “X” in the name, but without any noticeable changes in gameplay compared to the 2009 version. Will anyone be able to change this situation and support the genre, to save him, one might say, from untimely death?
Such a hero was found! Finns from Colossal Order, which many remember by CITIES in Motion – The successful simulator of the transport system – now released a real urban planning CITIES: SkyLines. Let’s try to find out what happened in the end: another barren attempt to surpass Simcity or a real revolution in the genre.
The city begins with the road
So, we have to try ourselves in the traditional role of the ordered mayor, whose task is to “grow” the city and lead it to prosperity. The land that we will master is represented by several types of cards to choose from. There are not too many of them yet, but if you wish, we can draw our own, as well as our own objects: for this, the developers have provided a built -in editor and support for Steam Workshop.
But the size of the site for construction is quite worthy: the initially available area is small, but in the process of development we can buy more and more new cells, constantly expanding the territory of our city.
Everything begins traditionally – with the laying of roads, next to which we are allowed to place residential, commercial, industrial, and later office zones. There is no tutor “tutorial” here, but there is a system of tips, right during the game of teaching us to interact with certain mayor’s tools. Such a concern for the player is not superfluous at all: the game has many subtleties, without which everything will begin to fall apart very quickly.
Because without water and not tudus, and no soda
If we think that it is enough to draw the road and draw a roadside space into the zones, so that then calmly resting on the laurels, watching how our city grows, we will be very mistaken. Residents begin to settled – and immediately it turns out that they have nowhere to wash their hands, and e -mail without electricity refuses to work.
Communication laying is a very important part of the gameplay CITIES: SkyLines. Unsuccessful engineering solution can easily ditch the entire population. For example, if we do not notice that in the river from which the city takes water, there is a flow, and put a water intake building below the drain, the inhabitants will quickly begin to get sick and die. No hospitals will help them if you do not solve the main problem.
However, this is not all. Suppose we did everything correctly, took into account the direction of the current, began to grow and develop. Why, after some time, the water in the dwellings still begins to stink, and the inhabitants of the settlement – to get sick? The fact is that the river in which we dump the waste is gradually polluted. The water intake station may well be in the “bad water” zone not immediately, but a few years after the construction.
Such details in CITIES: SkyLines Full. Take, say, noise level. The silence is violated not only by windmills that provide the city with energy, but also by shops and car scurrying along the roads. Therefore, residents do not really like to live at intersections, and the construction of a new highway near the residential quarter may well force citizens to get out of their places and leave in search of a better life. News will come in their place, of course, but for some time after such an inept expansion the population will decrease, and not to grow, as well as the income.
Credit bubble and its consequences
In fact, questions related to income require the mayor of the rubber nerves and steel … jaws. The amount that we are given for construction initially is not as large as we would like, and the content of all the necessary communications even in a very small district center is not cheap. The city is not at all instantly settled: albeit at a multiple accelerated pace, we still observe how the foundation grows, forests are exhibited, the building is created – and only then the first inhabitants will enter the house. No, this does not mean that all the buildings in the areas that we have distinguished are being erected at the same time. In turn, Mr. Mayor, in turn.
What happens? We painted a few roads, outlined the boundaries of the first quarters, paved communications. And then it remains only with increasing despair to observe how our meager savings are melting before our eyes?
Chisburger advertising comes across facades especially often.
Is there a hidden evil intent here? Impact on the subconscious, the twenty -fifth frame … It is no coincidence that our citizens sing hymns of a hypnopers every now and then!
Okay, of course, in fact, not everything is so bad: when people, shops and enterprises will still appear on the territory entrusted to us, the loss will turn into an income that over time may not become so small at all. If we do not make mistakes. If we make it, you have to blame yourself. The financial system is very sensitive to the outflow of the population, so we should find that people die or leave, like green numbers in the “Profit” column are very quickly replaced by red, symbolizing ruin.
What to do? Take a loan, raise taxes and solve problems. For requisitions, however, it is not worth hoping especially: both the population and business are ready to endure the increase in the “dachshund” only to a certain limit. Our “subjects” begin to moan at fourteen percent of the tax, despite the maximum – twenty. The loan helps to stay afloat for some time, but then, of course, it must be given. In general, financial management in CITIES: SkyLines – not a fiction, as in the recently considered CITies XXL, but really a non -trivial task that needs to be approached wisely.
Learning is light
The more people come and are born, the more buildings become available to us. The set as a whole is quite familiar to the genre: the central place is occupied by the clinics of the gospitals, the police, the fire station, the parks, the schools and playgrounds. Residential, commercial, industrial and office buildings “pump” over time: they become higher than the level, begin to bring a little more income. Workers without education who come to us initially, send their children to school-and now the following, educated generation is growing up, which is very useful, because evolving factories and shops just at this point find the need for people who already know how to do something. Note that this whole story with training takes place almost without our participation. Our business is to build a school in time or there is a university.
It is clear that the value of each developed building increases significantly. After all, we cannot just set up new houses and invite an intelligentsia or elite there immediately – these classes “grow up” over time if you create the appropriate conditions for them. A very reasonable approach. Just a warm feeling is born in the chest when we look at some cute villa, in which there was only a couple of low-skilled workers, and now a whole large family lives with children, adolescents and educated adults!
Roads do not have to be straight, and development – square. You can use an arbitrarily crooked routes – there is still a place for houses.
Visibility – our everything
Looking at the information panel, you might think that in CITIES: SkyLines Literally all aspects of the life of a modern city are modeled. At any time, we can view information about the satisfaction of the inhabitants as a whole, determine the level of enclosure of the population with educational institutions, provision of healthcare, get acquainted with the data on crime in the city and even request a demographic summary. We will be shown how many people are born a year, and how many people die. They will help you get acquainted with the cost of housing – its price, by the way, also depends on the pollution, the noise level and location. In general, the developers approached the matter thoroughly and really – the interface makes a solid impression.
In order to dilute this solidity of funny, the creators added a system of notifications about the needs of the population presented in a characteristic “twitter” format. That is, when, for example, the amount of housing becomes clearly insufficient, this is reported not by a boring adviser or a faceless pop -up hint, but a message: “I will buy an apartment in the city, I will consider any options #expensive_ Zhille”. If everything is fine, in this very “Twitter” all sorts of records about television programs, the latest scientific discoveries and requests to sit with the cat are not related to the case during the departure of the hosts. Looks very nice and atmospheric.
IN CITIES: SkyLines Really a lot of content. There is also a city policy that allows you to decide whether we will, say, process garbage for the sake of ecology or forbid residents to keep pets, sacrificing them with happiness for the sake of greater purity. Moreover, all these rules can be established not only for everyone at once, but also for the inhabitants of individual areas, the boundaries of which we also determine ourselves. There are natural resources that can and should be mastered. There are unique buildings that attract tourists, and, of course, the transport system on which the developers at one time ate a dog.
Perhaps the only noticeable drawback of the game is the impossibility of “inside the gameplay” to change the appearance of the buildings. No, we can, of course, work on each house in the editor, but this is still entertainment for especially persistent. To choose the style of development at the stage, in fact, buildings, unfortunately, cannot. So it is unlikely to build a copy of some London.
U Colossal Order It turned out, undoubtedly, a worthy urban planning simulator. The city is constantly developing, moving, changing, and, despite the apparent simplicity of the gameplay, does not forgive its mayor of any mistakes. Due to the abundance of parameters, rules, sliders and options for choosing a game, the game does not seem boring and monotonous at all. But it was precisely the main disease of the genre, which the Finns suddenly managed to quite successfully overcome. Well, hold on, Simcity: Looks like your throne has shook!
Pros: an abundance of diverse content;alive, changing city;difficult financial management;Reasonable system of “pumping” of buildings;cute city “Twitter”;Interesting built communication system;The gameplay is not boring.
Cons: There are not too many cards in the basic version;There is no influence on the visual style of the city.