With New Zealand going into lock down as of tonight due to Convid-19 I have decided to up my Cities Skylines and Stellaris Federations streams to 6-nights a week at 7pm. The purpose of the Streams is to give people an outlet to talk, maybe meet others (online) and watch me Derp Cities Skylines as I did earlier this week with the Forestry Industry.
I will continue with Valhalla City even with Sunset Harbour coming out this Friday although given how the Mods always break with a new DLC I might start a new City and run it concurrently with Valhalla.
DERPS
If you are thinking it is 90 minutes of me building a City you might be in for a surprise when the Derps do roll and they do roll in. Such as I spend 90 minutes building a Forestry Industry and wonder why the Furniture Factory was not working. The answer will have you going DERP!
Traffic Jank
If I am not building then I am trying to un-jank my traffic as seen below:
It was fixed in the following stream which I will post next blog post.
So come join me at 7 for the Derps, the Janks, the massive battles and all things traffic in Cities Skylines and Stellaris Federations!
Urban Development in full flight in Grand Manukau/Layton Cities
After some path finding issues with the transit system and realising you can not start a Metro Line at a “deactivated” station (a station that has been built but not online to receive passengers) I got some good old fashioned urban development underway in Grand Manukau/Layton Cities.
The objective this week was two-fold:
Establishment of the Ore Industry
Continued residential expansion to support a City Centre and the new Industry
So the Ore Industry has been established and is functioning well while Parnell and Franklin District have both come on-stream.
At the moment I am in Expansion Mode – that is pretty much cookie-cutter standardised urban development through the Twin Cities and Urban Islands Urban Geography concepts. This is because the major infrastructure is already laid down from the earlier Planning and Building Mode thus all that is happening is existing infrastructure is simply being extended rather than adding entirely new Lines and so on. The other mode is Consolidation/Mature Mode where I have stopped expanding the City and am going through the existing urban area either upzoning or optimising the infrastructure for efficient operations.
Let’s Ride the Metro
So to start the videos off today we get to ride the newly expanded Metro Line 1:
Let’s ride Metro Line 1Transport Line Manager in use
Checking Out the Ore Industry
I built some Ore Industry – this is how it went:
Ore Industry – after a quick ride on the Metro
And finally a look at the new urban areas of Parnell and Franklin District. Also a final drop down to First Person mode to see the Downtown and LOTS OF TREES!
Bus lane woes, logistics and a new urban area
Next week we are traffic problem finding and bringing online another heavy rail line to help remove some of the road congestion. Also more urban expansion and the placement of the Lemonade Factory in time for Christmas!
So how does the Campus DLC for Cities Skylines rate?
TL:DR version: I give it a B+
Right now that those with extremely short attention spans are satisfied I’ll move to the long version of what I think of the Campus DLC for Cities Skylines.
Cities Skylines Campus DLC and the Campus Content Pack by King Leno came out around 36 hours ago as of this post (so overnight in New Zealand time). This time around I did not have the usual two week wait for Mod’s to catch up as the main two Mod’s that would be impacted by Campus DLC (Real Time and Transport Lines Manager) were either updated very quickly or only had User Interface glitches and are to be updated very soon. So yesterday I fired up the game and load the City of Manukau which earlier in the month I had prepared for the new DLC. See #CitiesSkylines Introduces the big Campus for more there.
Straight away the first bugbear would come up: RAM. This DLC and the new Content Pack are chewing even my 20GB of RAM (so I’ll have to take it to 30GB now) which is very unusual when a new DLC has come out for the game. In the past with previous DLC’s and even Content Packs the usage of memory will increase that is a given but not the large jump seen with the Campus DLC. Paradox and CO have been told to optimise the game and make it able to utilise 64bit systems better, if they want to release more DLC’s then they will need to do this sooner rather than later.
Once Manukau loaded it was straight in to building the University campus (you have three to choose from: University, Trade School and Liberal Arts (simply Arts in the Commonwealth). I would also build an Aquatics Centre for my University sports team as well.
Manukau pre Campus DLC
The above picture shows the land between the Airport, Papakura and Manukau Technology Park in which the University of Manukau will sit. At this point in time there is only one road in and out until I connect up Manukau University Town to the new bypass at the left of the map. Transit-wise there is:
One bus station connected to a Monorail Station
One heavy rail station connected to another Monorail Station
One Metro Station (trains run underground)
A Manukau University Town circuit bus
Cycle lanes and cycleways
Before I could start building the University I had an 800KV and a 400KV transmission line running through the proposed campus.
Transmission Lines from Nuclear City
Time to bury the 800KV line and reroute slightly the 400KV line:
With the lines either buried or diverted the building of the Campus can now continue (both Lines came from Nuclear City and deliver power to: the Airport, University, Papakura and City Centre, and the Papatoetoe-Tamaki urban area).
Laying down the University
Time to build the University of Manukau starting with the Administration Building then working from there with support buildings, Faculties (Science, Medicine and Law), dormitories and various other structures:
Arts and Engineering Faculties are in separate institutions such as Trade School and the Liberal Arts.
Next up the University Aquatic Centre:
University of Manukau Aquatic Centre
Now for some University policies:
FEE FREE!
Yep the University of Manukau is entirely FEES FREE with the City of Manukau adopting Universal Education (being paid for with Residential and Commercial Taxes increased 1% each respectively). However, no Free Lunches folks – that one is on you. The University also provides Student Healthcare, will have Visiting Scholars and of course fund Academic Works.
With a bit of tinkering the Aquatic Centre and team is all set up and yes I have not activated the Free Transit on event day. Go pay your flat fare of $2 to catch the train, Metro or Monorail the Centre
Oh did I mention FEES FREE!
Getting the University going:
Once I had completed the University and some surrounding residential and commercial using the Always University City Districts (to best enable the King Leno University Content Pack) time to let it rip:
As Manukau has the previous vanilla universities and the Hadron Collider (which negates the need for schools) operating it will take a while for the new UoManukau to come to full power (as we wait on the new generation of residents to come through).
Once the University has settled in I will look at the Trade School and Liberal Arts Campuses given Manukau is deemed a large mature City game wise.
Thoughts?
Apart from the RAM issue and with the addition of the University District mod mentioned earlier the Campus DLC and Content Pack definitely give a bit of spice to your City no matter size or stage of game play.
No doubt debate will rage on Universal Education or Education for Profit (I use Universal Education) and should be plenty of YouTube videos on that one.
I will take Manukau some time to readjust as the effects from the Hadron wear off as Citizens die, new ones are born or move into the City. However, even with Universal Education I can still keep the City running in the Black – with Residential and Commercial Taxes at 10%.
To get best bang for buck from the DLC a new City will be needed and with the beautiful maps that came with the DLC I am sure my Urban Geography skills will be tested again.
Should you go out right away and purchase the DLC and Content pack? If you have nudged over 1,000 game hours as I have then yes? Otherwise wait for the Steam sales.
NOTE: DO NOT OPEN WITH MOBILE DEVICE OR ON MOBILE DATA. DESKTOP RECOMMENDED
Part Two covers the Trans-Manukau Link in the day time, it also covers some of the urban geometries I am using in Manukau via Cities Skylines
The map I am playing to build Manukau on (this my first city with the Industries DLC) has a major transport weakness where there is no east-west connection between two sets of inter-city motorways along the coastal area. As a result and also how Manukau has developed a new east-west link was built and called the Trans-Manukau Link
The Link can be seen and annotated by the black arrows I quickly scribbled on:
Manukau with Trans-Manukau Link annotated
The link is either a 4 or 6-lane toll road that links one of two inter-city motorways and forms an expressway for freight and people to move across the coastal part of the city away from urban roads. It is not a motorway however there is no urban development flanking the Link. The Trans-Manukau links up several urban roads although it does not link with a separate 2-lane expressway that runs north-south from Manukau Shores through Wiri and Wiri East on its way to an inter-city motorway.
Free from urban clutter and an average speed limit of 70km/h going through multiple urban forms the Link has become a bit of a tourist trap for travellers either passing through or stopping Manukau for a holiday.
I have two sets of albums of the Trans-Manukau Link, one at night and the other in the day with a few aerial shots of the surrounding urban geography. This is done using the free camera mode that allows the camera to come down to first person level inside a City which is great for checking out all the nooks and hot spots a city has.
Manukau with 69,000 people in it
Trans-Manukau Link – Daytime
City Geometries
I had a comment on the geometry of the City so I am going to post a few pictures that help capture that:
Given Manurewa is under development at the moment I will have to get more Geometry pictures soon.
NOTE: DO NOT OPEN WITH MOBILE DEVICE OR ON MOBILE DATA. DESKTOP RECOMMENDED
The map I am playing to build Manukau on (this my first city with the Industries DLC) has a major transport weakness where there is no east-west connection between two sets of inter-city motorways along the coastal area. As a result and also how Manukau has developed a new east-west link was built and called the Trans-Manukau Link
The Link can be seen and annotated by the black arrows I quickly scribbled on:
Manukau with Trans-Manukau Link annotated
The link is either a 4 or 6-lane toll road that links one of two inter-city motorways and forms an expressway for freight and people to move across the coastal part of the city away from urban roads. It is not a motorway however there is no urban development flanking the Link. The Trans-Manukau links up several urban roads although it does not link with a separate 2-lane expressway that runs north-south from Manukau Shores through Wiri and Wiri East on its way to an inter-city motorway.
Free from urban clutter and an average speed limit of 70km/h going through multiple urban forms the Link has become a bit of a tourist trap for travellers either passing through or stopping Manukau for a holiday.
I have two sets of albums of the Trans-Manukau Link, one at night and the other in the day with a few aerial shots of the surrounding urban geography. This is done using the free camera mode that allows the camera to come down to first person level inside a City which is great for checking out all the nooks and hot spots a city has.
With the Cities Skylines Industries DLC also came establishing a post service for the first time ever in your cities. That is build post shops to handle the local mail while the big central mail sorting centres do that sort the mail city-wide (including receiving/sending mail in/out of the City).
Running the post service is the same as other non-transit city services in Cities Skylines: place down your local post offices followed by central depots/centres in strategic locations (usually next to rail terminals). Rather interestingly your post van will use bus lanes just as any other city service vehicle does (unless banned by the Transport Manager President Edition) but the post truck will not (treated as a freight vehicle).
The Post Offices and Sorting Centre
As well as the standard post office and sorting centre I also got a Parisian version of a post office that fights into tight spaces better than the vanilla game version:
French Post Office
Of course here are the standard versions:
Standard post office
Mail sorting centre
Post delivery run
Zeroing in on a post shop in Prospect District I decided to follow a post van around to watch its mail run. This is what we got:
French Post Office
Standard post office
Okay that did not go very far as the van dumped a pile of parcels at a retail store before returning to the post shop. Let’s try this again:
French Post Office
The van was delivering across Prospect District, Wiri East and Wiri (industrial complex) so good way of seeing the urban form.
I need to place another sorting centre next to Papatoetoe to handle mail over in that part of the city. Otherwise here comes your deliveries by van, truck, rail, sea and air!
I got the new Industries DLC for Cities Skylines as soon as it came out earlier this week. For a teaser on what this new DLC you can see the trailer below:
As with any new DLC the mods that I use always break and we have to wait for updates. Rather surprisingly the only mod that did break was the Transport Manager – President Edition and even then that was minor (the toll booths wouldn’t charge the traffic going through them). So I was able to load the game up straight away with a new map and start delving into this new content and the resulting game play style.
For those wondering where San Layton City is, I have put the City on hold until the Transport Manager is fixed as the City is very reliant on it. Once the mod is fixed I will be retrofitting the City to incorporate the Industries.
In the meantime it is time to create a new city with one of the new maps.
Introducing Manukau
I loaded up one of the new maps from the Industries DLC and named it Manukau (named after the core urban area for Southern Auckland the place where I reside).
Let’s take a look at the new map:
The map Manukau is on is one with a major river and several secondary river with major hill ranges at the back end of the map and the ocean at the front. The buildable area is low at 60% but it was also very rich in natural resources needed for industry. And of course motorway and rail connects are plentiful.
Without further-ado lets get building:
One motorway connection, a roundabout with spurs for latter development, and a 6 lane avenue heading into the area where the city will start its life. Looking at that picture above the farming and ore industry will be to the right and the first residential and commercial areas to the left. The rail line is at the top of the picture allowing me to get inter-city connections straight away.
Now for some Industries road/engineering porn with one of the new features in the DLC: concrete roads:
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Of course one of the new features that came in the (free) update was TOLL ROADS! Yes sir I can now charge my cims and freight traffic a toll to use my roads. So that is what I did on the two entrances leading in Manukau River Town and Wiri:
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At the moment the toll is $1 for cars and $2 for trucks.
INDUSTRY!
To start with I began with farming and ore. The reason being that your starting City needs food and the coal fired power station needs ore (I won’t build the nuclear station just yet as that would be overkill). The forestry (wood) is on the other side of the map so unless I plant trees en-mass this early on for now we will be importing wood for the beginning stages of the Manukau.
Let’s check out the beginning of the ore industry and the rail terminal:
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As I said earlier I am using a 420MW coal fired station until the City is big enough to handle a nuclear power station. As for the mine? It is an underground mine so the foot print is small.
Farming!
The particular area where Manukau was founded is rich in natural resource for farming so what do we do? We build farms consisting of: cows, sheep, pigs, fruit trees, wheat, corn, cotton and whatever they grow in the glass house.
Of course this is where supply management comes into play. I have a bakery that produces pastries for the initial stages of the City. For the bakery to work I need Animal Products and Flour. To get Animal Products I need animal farms which need crops for them to feed on. For flour I also need crops as well. Just to make it more fun you need silos and warehouses to store raw products, intermediary products or the finished product ready for distribution. In times of shortages those same storage facilities are needed to store the imported materials.
The good news is my bakery is able to produce those pastries, the bad news? Flour is constantly short but that is owing to not enough workers or workers barracks to house the workers. So next time I load the game I will be building more residential areas.
Let’s take a look at the farms and bakery:
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The Real Time mod means Industry does not work at night (at this point in time) so it makes logistics just that more interesting. And yes your value-added products do make the City money!
As for where the industry is:
And now for some logistics stuff:
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Some extra transport pictures including TRAFFIC JAM at the toll road:
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At the moment there is only one junction to the motorway. But I have laid down three more spur roads that will also connect up to the motorways as well giving more connection options. And yes they will be tolled!
Finally some urban shots of Manukau River Town:
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If you are up to handle ever more complex supply management chains from raw materials to unique factories including ship yards and food factories then I do recommend the Industries DLC.
If not then the free update that included Toll Roads will even have the most urban of urbanists rubbing their hands at the toll booths going CHING with all the traffic passing through them.
Hopefully will squeeze some game time in this weekend to allow further work on the farming industry.
The latest DLC for Cities Skylines comes out on October 23 (October 24 for New Zealand and Australia – time zones) and it focuses on industry. It also focuses on toll roads too so what is this new DLC?
Let’s go to resident Cities Skylines player Biffa for a full breakdown of what the new DLC offers and how it will extend those Urban Geography skills:
I have currently paused San Solaria and San Layton cities as I wait for the DLC to come out and then for the respective mods to be updated. Given industry does play a large roll in my Cities Skylines cities it will be interesting to see how this new DLC will impact the existing cities and my Urban Geography skills with any new upcoming cities as well.
With so much focus on Paradox’s other game Stellaris at the moment the announcement of a new DLC (expansion) for Cities Skylines came absolutely out of nowhere.
Not that I mind nor do I mind it is on the one thing I like tinkering with and the very thing urban designers like Ludo Campbell-Reid tend to avoid đ – INDUSTRY
From Paradox:
Mind your business! We’re thrilled to announce our next major expansion, Cities: Skylines – Industries
Cities: Skylines – Industries Inbound on October 23, Along with Synthetic Dawn Radio and New Free Update
Captain your own industry in the newest update for the best selling city-builder from Paradox and Colossal Order
STOCKHOLM – Oct. 11, 2018 – We’re thrilled to announce the next industrial update for Cities: Skylines on PC, Mac and Linux. Industries, launching October 23rd will put one of the gameâs three zones in the spotlight for the first time.
To help you get a grip on your industry sector we’re launching a new tutorial series on YouTube with new videos everyday until launch! https://www.youtube.com/user/Paradoxplaza
âWith this expansion, players can make more meaningful choices in their citiesâ industry by managing their production chains from grain to bread.â said Sandra Neudinger, Product Manager from Paradox Interactive. âThe players have been asking for an industrial expansion for a while, so weâre excited to finally offer a full featured approach.â
In one of the most in-depth expansions in Cities: Skylines history, Industry becomes a larger and more meaningful part of the game with this DLC. Players can build unique factories and customize their industrial areas with supply chains for the four different resource types. Well managed industry areas will level up and become more efficient. Aside from production chains, there is a new city service for handling mail and the cargo airport eases import and export of factory goods. There are FIVE new maps, new policies, new city services, new buildings (including resource extractors, manufacturers, warehouses and unique factories) and more.
Key Features:
Make It Happen – Follow your products from harvesting to processing, storage and production, then transport them to commercial zones or export to other cities.
Captain Your Own Industry – Define an area with the industry area tool and place highly specialized industrial buildings to build and manage the production chain from raw material extraction up to final end product. Industry Areas are divided into four types based on the natural resource they are processing: Farming, Forest, Ore and Oil. These areas can level up upon reaching productions goals and staffing requirements.
Build it up, Buttercup – New industrial buildings include Extractors, Warehouse Facilities, Processing and Auxiliary Buildings, Industrial Props and Roads. Unique Factories, such as Food, Toy, Furniture, Car and Electronics produce luxury products, and require a large quantity of workers, water and electricity as well as input from your industries.
Ship It – Manage traffic and logistics with industry warehouses and the use of the new Cargo Services including a cargo airport.
Go Postal – Boost your citizensâ well-being with mail delivery and collection services. Post sorting facilities handle mail between outside connections and the post offices, and new Post Van and Truck vehicles enable the carriage.
Wonk Hard – Three new Industry Policies and four City-wide Policies, including Workersâ Union, Sorting, Tolls, Wi-Fi, Logistics, Work Safety and Automation.
Five New Maps – Rich in natural resources, transportation options and industrial opportunities, these new maps have all the right stuff.
Four new hats for Chirper!
But wait! Thereâs more! Coinciding with the Industries expansion, Cities: Skylines is getting a new radio channel and a free content update.
….
The free update coming alongside Industries will introduce toll booths (and road tolls, naturally), which will slow trafficâs roll a bit, but generate extra income for the city. Players will also get the option to mark zoned buildings as historical, preserving their style, and the ability to create custom name lists for citizens, districts and spawned buildings.
Okay you had me at toll roads (finally)! KIDDING, toll roads and more expansive industry no doubt will already keep me ticking along this time with freight (as well as passenger as normal)
Of course there will be run through of the new DLC before it released in just over a week
Ben's Cities 