Review of the game Cities: Skylines. Build your dream city

City planning simulators are popular with a certain audience. The recently released SimCity disappointed true fans of the genre, so the place of the most successful game among city planning strategies is completely vacant. Let's look at the gameplay of one of the contenders, namely Cities Skylines.

City construction

To successfully build a full-fledged city, you need to be focused and take your time. The first step is to gradually rebuild residential areas and create jobs to reduce the risk of crime and the formation of crime-ridden areas. Already in the first stages of the game, difficulties may arise, especially for beginners in this genre.

If you decide to save on water purification, then there will be a shortage of drinking water. To solve this problem, water towers should be installed. However, this will create other difficulties, as people will be unhappy with the quality of your water supply and the standard of living in this place will sharply decrease, which will also reduce the influx of new residents.

Population growth

One of the first tasks of the player is to attract a new population. You need to constantly build new houses, as well as create jobs to keep the population busy. To do this, it will be enough to build factories, commercial buildings and other places where people can earn money. You can use almost any number of squares to build buildings; there are no restrictions. The shape and appearance of the building depends on the chosen area.

Example: if you take a small number of squares for the construction of buildings, you will get a small store, and if it is large, then a whole hypermarket with a parking lot and office space.

What is population needed for? As he grows, the player's opportunities increase, but certain worries and difficulties also appear. First of all, you should provide your population with fire safety, as well as establish medical facilities and a police station so that the city has a controlled crime situation. All these buildings cost a lot of money, so sometimes something has to be sacrificed so that people support the mayor’s decisions.

Factors of influence

Gradually, the player begins to pay more attention to various little things, since they have a strong impact on the population of the city. This includes noise from factories, pollution levels, crime rates in the area, and much more. If the negative indicators exceed the positive ones, then the residents of the city or neighborhood will be very dissatisfied.

IMPORTANT! Population growth in the region will be greatly reduced, leading to a significant outflow of money. If this happens very often, then most likely the mayor will not stay in office for long.

In some situations, cash loans can save a player. But if the areas are poorly designed, then it will be easier to start the game session again than to continue to get out of a previously losing situation.

Features of the local economy

If you have never played such games, then it will be very difficult for you to understand the system of earning money, since the nuances of the economy are not described anywhere. There is no learning in the game as a phenomenon. You learn everything in the game yourself, by trial and error. For example, it is not always clear why people do not go to a particular store. Or why in one area everything is in order, but in another there is an acute shortage of labor at the plant, despite the fact that there are many people nearby who need work. It is difficult for a newcomer to realize that in fact the region has very good education, so no one with a diploma wants to work at a factory.

Such a challenge does not harm the game, in some cases even the opposite. The game challenges you and once you solve a difficult problem, you will feel satisfied.

Over time, when individual sections of the city become completely self-sufficient, they can be organized into districts. Now you can set your own rules in them:

1. Legalize drugs in a certain area of ​​the city.
2. Turn on the water saving system.
3. Establish rules for waste recycling.
4. Prohibit drinking alcohol or cigarettes.

The quarter, which is under manual control, will immediately begin to change. If the player monitored cleanliness and compliance with environmental rules, then the houses will become environmentally friendly. You can ban smoking and install free smoke detectors for everyone. Then reduce taxes. From such manipulations, the area will become prestigious and the population will begin to grow rapidly, because everyone will want to buy real estate there. Prices will rise, and with them the city's income will increase.

Houses in an area that has received elite status will begin to become more elaborate - cottages in a modern style will appear. It looks good, but has no practical meaning. If you don’t do landscaping, income won’t fall—only population growth will change. The player will not even notice the arrival of funds from such quarters. However, the game itself does not set specific goals; we simply develop our city.

Buying new land

As soon as the city's population exceeds 10 thousand, the mayor should think about buying new land. The maps in Cities Skylines are not very large, so this aspect of the game is very relevant. Gradually, the main city is turning into a metropolis with a complex system of interactions between districts and various services, so certain changes will have to be made. For example, evict people from their homes, expand roads and highways, and also liquidate unnecessary or harmful factories in order to build parks, etc.

The game constantly provides new tools that significantly expand the player's capabilities. At a certain stage of the game, you can manually set up taxes for any services. In the end, a large hydroelectric power station should be built. The construction itself is very similar to the construction of the cathedral in the game ANNO 1408.

Pollution and garbage

We often encounter this problem in real life, so it simply had to be implemented in the game. Unlike other city planning simulators, in Cities Skylines, garbage and pollution play a very important role. Since there is no training in the game, every novice player faces the problem of pollution.

IMPORTANT! Complexes that remove garbage and clean city streets should be built in advance. Their location should also be planned before the construction of the area. Noise pollution also plays a big role. Highways and noisy highways should be located as far as possible from residential buildings to reduce noise levels.

If it is not possible to place houses further than roads, you need to install noise barriers. Industrial or production buildings should be placed away from areas where people live. Trucks that remove waste are very necessary for a normal life, but they create certain problems on the road.

Water

Managing water resources at the initial stage is quite difficult, especially for beginners. The supply of clean water should be taken care of from the very beginning and as quickly as possible. When laying pipes in a city, two lines should be created: one to supply the city, the other for wastewater.

We are building a water pumping station for the city, which will pump water from local rivers. It should be installed away from the main city so that noise does not disturb residents from relaxing after a long working day.

The second line also goes into the river and nothing depends on us. You pour all the sewage into the river, from which you then take clean water for the city. Therefore, you need to place the pipes correctly here.

IMPORTANT! The drain should be placed downstream, otherwise dirty water will flow back into the city and an epidemic will begin: people will start to leave and complain, which could turn into a real disaster.

Having achieved certain success in the game, you will be able to build a water treatment plant and reduce the level of pollution. If you build only water pumps, you can provide the city with a large amount of water, but the line will be much longer and, accordingly, it will cost more, which is not desirable at an early stage.

At any time, the player can start monitoring his residents. You can bring the camera closer and watch how the little man walks through the park, enters the cinema or goes to work. All people have their own original names, as do factories, shops and gas stations. It is very interesting to observe the functioning of even one small store, because the developers have thought through everything to the smallest detail.

The graphics are not particularly impressive. From a technical point of view, the game does not offer us anything new. Despite this, stylistically the game is very pleasant and looks good. Now, if the developers added modern anti-aliasing, it would be even better. Likewise, the musical accompaniment is not the project’s strong point. The meager list of symphonic melodies begins to get boring already in the first hours of the game. However, you can turn off songs at any time to play your own.

Don't forget that the game is open to user modifications. Craftsmen instantly came up with a bunch of different improvements and useful features that, in their humble opinion, the game lacked.

Advantages of Cities Skylines:

• You can play on a really huge and beautiful map.
• The districts may have different political life and atmosphere that the player has to reckon with.
• The gameplay is balanced: during the game you will not feel discomfort due to unreasonable complexity.
• Anyone can create a modification and share it with other players.
• The complex economic model will appeal to all lovers of smart strategies.

If the player still has free space on the map, then it is better to leave it for additional entrances to the metropolis, as well as attractions and monuments. The main thing is not to install traffic lights in this area. A two-lane road grid is better than a six-lane road with traffic lights. In the second option, traffic jams are simply guaranteed.

Bottom line

The game is a complete success as a city planning simulator. It’s quite easy to build the city of your dreams, but managing it is much more difficult. Cities Skylines boasts original gameplay ideas, such as division into districts. This innovation makes the game more interesting and varied. The player can even build their own hydroelectric power station, something that was previously impossible to do.

Cities Skylines will be relevant for a long time, including thanks to user mods that will prolong audience interest for another six months/year. Despite the fact that the game has a very meager number of interesting and catchy musical compositions, Cities Skylines is one of the best strategy simulations for building and managing a city.

Cities: Skylines aims to transform its initially miniature city into a vibrant, thriving metropolis. Naturally, for this you will need money. But what is the best way to make money? There are several options to do this, from balancing your zoning to properly adjusting your taxes. If you follow the steps mentioned in this guide, you will soon have more money than you ever imagined.

Balance your zoning

Correct zoning is one of the most important things to do at an early stage. Balancing your commercial and residential zoning is key. Residential areas don't need to be filled with businesses or industry, and your business areas need to have enough space for trucks to deliver goods. As with any busy city center, it's a good idea to have residential areas at the center of your commerce. And in residential areas, install essential items such as groceries and shopping. They can help increase profits and keep people happy.

One of the ways to ensure the ease of movement necessary to keep the roads clear and your residents happy is to build bridges and properly operate public transport. Therefore, citizens from your residential areas can easily travel around the city center and the roads are open for delivery trucks.

Don't expand too much at first

As tempting as it may be, there is no need to quickly expand your city, even when you start making more profit. First, roads cost money to build and maintain. Additionally, you need to be sure that you have enough resources to handle things like law enforcement and necessary services. This gets a lot more difficult as your city gets bigger. It sounds counterintuitive, but a smaller city will attract more residents and keep them there longer.

Investment minimalism

However, this does not mean that you should focus all your resources on creating top-notch infrastructure and services for your residents. Just like in real life, a useful way to make more money for your city is to practice shadow governance at the expense of your citizens.

Check how much money you invest in things like utilities or law enforcement. Once you find the lowest level for investment, stick with it for a while. This brings in a lot of money, so continue to practice the technique as you expand your settlement.

A well-balanced city will also help you take care of some related issues. For example, many job opportunities that provide good commercial and residential zoning result in lower crime rates. This reduces the contribution of money to policing. Also helps boost the city's economy and ultimately provide you with a greater variety of high-paying jobs for residents.

Tax income

Taxes can provide you with significant, long-term income. When you first start the game, the tax level remains quite low. Keep it at this level until you start attracting more and more citizens. Then gradually increase taxes. The happy zone where you can maximize profit without having to survive your residents is between 11% and 13% depending on population.

Speed ​​up

This may seem obvious, but it's worth clarifying anyway. Speed ​​up time. Once you find a happy environment of zoning, industry, taxes and investments, speed up the in-game clock. Time will pass faster and you won't have to wait for long periods to take advantage of the controls.

Cities: Skylines is an economic strategy developed by Colossal Order, the creators of Cities in Motion and Cities in Motion 2. This time, the developers decided not to limit themselves solely to urban transport and challenged such hits as SimCity. The main goal in Cities: Skylines is to build the city of your dreams, although you also need to look after the well-being of your citizens and keep money moving to secure future investments.

Continuing our column of computer game reviews, our attention was directed to the urban planning simulator Cities: Skylines. I would like to immediately note that the game can be purchased through Steam. Today we will tell you about all the pros and cons of the game that we managed to find. I would also like to note that we recommend that you first get acquainted with the video material, which is located just below. So let's get started with the review of Cities: Skylines.

Video review of Cities: Skylines

Cities: Skylines

The game Cities Skylines, at first glance, is somewhat reminiscent of SImCity, which once enjoyed incredible popularity among many gamers. The same system of water supply, electricity, the use of various solutions in order for the city to prosper and generate profit, taxes, discontent among the population and much more. However, this is only at first glance.

If you have not encountered city-planning simulators before, then Cities Skylines will completely immerse you in its incredible world, where time flows quite quickly and sometimes you become so immersed in the construction and development of your city that you don’t even notice that 3 or more years have passed. then more hours.

Gameplay

So first, let's start with the gameplay itself. The main highlight of such games has always been that you can control traffic flows. We develop the city by building communications, after which we build houses and other objects. But it can hardly be said that all this is very simple and banal.

The game Cities: Skylines has many useful construction tools that, in principle, are clear without prompts, but with the help of them you can open up an incredible number of possibilities and it is better to use these solutions and try not to avoid them.
It's very simple, first you need to build a road. If you want to create a crossroads, please just draw one road over the other. They built a road over the river, a bridge appears, if only there was money. All this makes it possible to create many intersections, transport interchanges, and overpasses.

Why do we need to build roads? For many, this question will seem stupid, but in the game Cities: Skylines, as it seemed to us, from the very beginning, a well-thought-out road system is the key to a successful city, where traffic will not be hampered by traffic jams and a lot of trucks. And what’s most interesting is that you can only build here along roads, that is, after you have drawn the road, special areas in the form of squares will appear on the side of the road, on which industrial, commercial and residential zones will actually need to be placed.

There are special brushes that allow you to build up your area wisely, for example, build up residential buildings, and between them you need to put several shops, please. It's very easy to do. You can define zones in several ways, either by “filling” the entire area, or by selecting another brush, only a certain part, thereby leaving space for a business center or hypermarket.
As you progress through the game, and to be more precise, as your city develops, you will discover unique structures that will give the city a new look, attract tourists and thereby increase your budget.

As much as 36 square kilometers are allocated for the development of the city, but there is one thing, space for development will open up as the population increases. In other words, the gameplay of the game will please many players. Personally, we liked everything. You can see everything in more detail in the video review of the game.

Possibilities

So let's talk about the main features of the game. Players are given the opportunity not only to build up various areas and even several cities that will be adjacent to each other, in addition, the game presents many different solutions that give Cities: Skylines a twist.

First, you are given the opportunity to divide your city into several sectors, marking the zones and their boundaries. What is it for? In order to control the return to the city. All this makes it possible, for example, in the central part of the city, which is built up with skyscrapers, to increase taxes, and in other areas, on the contrary, to reduce them, etc. In principle, all this can be seen in the presented video review, where we showed everything in detail.

City development

You need to develop your city quite carefully and the main thing in this matter is to do everything wisely and not rush. It is better to build industrial zones away from the city, as they are harmful to the environment.

It is advisable to initially build near water, since the city needs a water supply and still needs to dump waste somewhere, but do not forget about treatment plants, power plants, and it is better to think in advance about the places where you will place them, because in the middle of the city you will be building an industrial zone or the same nuclear power plant would not be entirely correct.

Your main task is to increase the population and control your expenses and profits. Sometimes it is better to turn to banks that are ready to issue loans, but only 3 at a time, but in order to repay them you will again have to increase your income. Before taking out a loan from a bank, think about whether you will be able to receive the “N” amount of money so that your income does not go into the negative.

Where does the money come from? The question is simple, about taxes. However, you should not immediately raise the rate, because residents simply will not move into your city. Therefore, it is better to increase taxes in the central part of the city, and it is better not to bother the ordinary middle class. It is also better not to touch shops and industrial zones and leave the tax level at 9%.

In addition to ordinary enterprises, the city also needs various services: hospitals, schools, firefighters, police officers and even garbage collectors. Here, everything should also be planned in advance, so that, for example, by building the “University”, it provides most of your city with its services, also with other services. Before placing the building, you can see a green stripe on your roads, which shows the area of ​​​​operation of one or another services. But do not forget that having built many public services, you will need to provide their employees with wages, that is, you yourself can control your investments in them. The more you invest, the higher the return and vice versa.

Transport routes

I would like to pay special attention to transport routes. At first, when your city is not very developed, the city requires a minimum number of industrial zones that provide the city with food and various goods, but when the population already exceeds 60 thousand, and there are a huge number of shops, you need to figure out how to ensure that transport routes are not clogged, or provide the city with new industrial zones.

It’s good if your city is close to water; in this case, this problem can be solved with the help of ports. However, you should take good care of the roads and try to build transport routes on roads with at least 4 lanes, because there are traffic jams in the game, because of this, your vehicles will simply take a long time to get to their destination. In other words, it all comes down to the fact that before you start building your city, you need to have a clear idea of ​​exactly how all your buildings, roads, bridges, services, private houses, etc. will be located.

Multiplayer

It seemed to us that the game really lacks online play, will it appear at all? We don't know about this. But at this stage, it’s quite interesting to play even without multiplayer, but after you have reached a high level of development, you begin to lack neighbors with whom you could, for example, trade or even impose some kind of economic sanctions on them, etc. d. Let's hope that such a system will appear in the future.

Graphic component

As for the graphics, I think they are excellent. I liked everything, you can even look at small objects, people going shopping, look at the seething streams of the river, etc.

In this regard, the developers really did their best. Of course, there are small moments, for example when the planes turn right on the spot, and their wings pass through buildings, but it seems to me that these are all small things and you shouldn’t pay too much attention to them.

Sound component

If you don't like to play including your favorite musical compositions, then you will undoubtedly like the sound in the game Cities Skylines. Various sirens, the noise of the huge city bustle, all this was thought out to the smallest detail and, as it seemed to us, there was nothing to complain about.

Cities Skylines Summary

So, let's summarize the city planning simulator Cities Skylines. The game turned out to be quite interesting and exciting. It will undoubtedly take a leading place among similar solutions and, most likely, will gain quite a high popularity, since today we can already observe the growth of interest among gamers in this game. Excellent gameplay, graphics, opportunities and a huge territory for building your million-plus city, all this can be found in the game Cities Skylines. You can find it on Steam. Cities Skylines receives an award from our Internet resource - "Gold..

A real threat to all competitors in the field of city building simulators. Was the newcomer able to outpace the masters of the genre? Hurry up to find out in our review!

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In recent years, the city-planning simulator genre has experienced a noticeable decline. The majestic one has long since lost its status, and the recent one was, it seems, not bad, but absolutely secondary compared to its predecessor -. However, fans of the genre had one hope: the developers ColossalOrder, known to the public for their public transport simulator, have long promised to release their “killer”. And they released me. The game truly surpasses the former icon of the genre in almost all respects, and the lack of a natural disaster system turns it into construction for the sake of construction - a kind of urban planning simulator in a vacuum.

As usual, the player is again free to take the place of the mayor and patron god of the city in one person, receiving literally supernatural abilities: instantly and without consulting the residents, demolish houses, with a couple of mouse movements, delimit the city into residential or industrial areas and conduct transport to them communications, lay roads and build dams. All this will have to be done on a fairly small area of ​​the map of only four square kilometers, but as you master the game you will be able to buy a neighboring area of ​​the same size. And then another one, and another one. In total, the player will have a square of six by six kilometers at his disposal - a total of 36 km of area, and this is really a lot of space.

An important plus is the ability to simulate the map yourself in the editor before starting the campaign (or use the works of other enthusiasts). It is in the later stages of the game, when the user has a lot of space at his disposal, that the trick of delineating the city into specific areas will reveal its potential: we will prohibit the construction of buildings above a certain height in one location - we will designate a suburb, we will allocate the business part of the city for business, we will make the industrial part closer to nature to pump oil or obtain energy from hydroelectric power plants. Look, the metropolis of your dreams has already emerged. And when the player gets his hands on many other small opportunities, such as legalizing soft drugs or pursuing a separate tax policy for each district, he will leave his competitors a couple more points behind.

Other subtleties of the game are sometimes learned through very bitter experience and are not immediately apparent. Everything in the city is interconnected, but this very connection has to be calculated by trial and error. If they set up universities, the townspeople will become too “smart” and over time, neighboring factories will begin to experience an acute shortage of personnel, and industry will stop. Connected the industrial and residential zones with one “two-lane”? Local workers will appreciate the player’s efforts by blocking the entire road with columns of loaded trucks. And such examples pop up in dozens for every hour of play.

As you can already understand, the key to success is the successful establishment of transport communications. The game provides a lot of tools for this, and making complex junctions and forks is much easier than it seems at first glance. But the second task is to do them correctly. The game's primary problem is the congestion of poorly constructed roads, especially when it comes to intersections. Building them on highways is an idea doomed to failure. But if you cleverly turn around a couple of junctions, you can avoid traffic jams altogether.

Another aspect that needs to be taken apart is the energy supply of the city. It is extremely economically unprofitable to take the path of the peaceful atom here, and the wind generators make so much noise that they will give rise to unrest in the local equivalent of Twitter in a couple of nearby residential areas. The third way is the construction of a hydroelectric power station, the most difficult, but also the most profitable option. By the way, in urban planning simulators, hydroelectric power stations are a new product that was invented ColossalOrder. Using the physics of flowing water, they literally created a game within a game - you can tinker with the construction of a dam for an hour to completely drain a river bed or even flood a city, and then redo everything for another hour. Thanks to the same water physics, floods, by the way, are also absolutely real in the game.

And at this time, the city will be in full swing with its own, unlike anything else, and unique life. Citizens will rush to work or home, to a bar or to see friends, go on business trips by train, even walk their pets and criticize the player’s actions on an analogue of Twitter. The most important thing is not to ruin the picture by watching one particular city dweller, otherwise you may stumble upon unpleasant paradoxes. For example, given that a day in the game lasts from three to ten seconds, citizens can commute from a day to a week. This is not to mention the habit of residents simply disappearing into nowhere. But “getting to the bottom” of such little things in a huge and working city simulator is at least tactless, so let’s pretend that we didn’t notice it.

Unfortunately, the game is not without its drawbacks. One of them is the often opaque causes of problems in the town. In a matter of days, hundreds of buildings can be empty, factories can shut down, and the player will never understand why this happened. For example, if you dump waste from a sewer into a river, and even in a place where drinking water is collected, it is immediately clear where the error was hidden, but sometimes it is almost impossible to trace the cause-and-effect relationship. Another ambiguous side lies in the fact that here Nothing happens. There are no tsunamis, floods (except those provoked by the player), earthquakes - nothing that would cause an urgent need for crisis management. However, the game itself leaves the player a chance to cause a commotion in the city - this is proven by achievements like reaching an unemployment rate above 50%, and unique buildings are also unlocked for this! Here the game obviously invites players to entertain themselves on their own: if you get bored with building the metropolis of your dreams, you can deliberately bring it to ruin and desolation.

It's quite rare to see this: a young developer threatens to make a killer of a gaming industry icon, and he succeeds. Cities: Skylines really came out much better, more convenient and more enjoyable in gameplay than the latest parts of SimCity, and its closest competitor in the form of Cities XXL is left far behind. Honor and praise, Colossal Order!

• A highway, which will be the "backbone" of your city, can help traffic flow; however, you will need to build the right mechanism that will maintain the flow of traffic in the city and on the highway.
• Sometimes you will have to relieve traffic from the highway; use and .
• The fewer intersections, the better. Try to avoid using traffic lights as they interfere with traffic. Often you can convert a road into a highway.
• Roundabouts should not be small. The smaller the circle, the more cars must slow down, which will reduce the speed of traffic.
• Use one-way roads whenever possible, especially in industrial areas, as they tend to be filled with trucks. However, remember that company vehicles must be able to easily reach buildings. Sometimes service vehicles cannot reach the building across the street due to poor road systems.
• Don't forget to connect the two directions of the highway so that people can travel in the opposite direction without entering the city.
• Too many road connections are bad for traffic flow.
• Try to separate trucks from passenger vehicles. Together, these types of traffic can clog even a well-designed road system. Create a truck ban area to avoid this.
• Build a station for freight trains only in an industrial zone - this will increase the development of the region and save you from some of the traffic. Remember that a good road system should help the infrastructure around the station, so that every time a train arrives, the trucks will head with the cargo to their destination. (One way roads should help here)
• Railways can also be overloaded. To avoid this, separate passenger lines from freight lines. In addition, non-stop trains can use the road around the station. When creating intersections, try to create enough space so that a whole train can continue moving without stopping.
• Good ideas for intersections can be found in the Steam Workshop. If you still have problems, take a piece of paper and draw the intersection that seems most suitable to you. If you live near a highway or in/near a city, look at the intersections there in person, or using maps online. They will most likely help you

Public transport

The main goal of public transport is to reduce the number of cars by offering an alternative to driving. This is the basis of an effective city.

• Start using public transport in your city as early as possible, but keep it simple.
• Buses can be a fairly cheap and efficient option, but too many buses on the same route can cause traffic jams.
• The metro is the most efficient transport system, but it is also quite expensive. A good mix of bus routes that complement the subway lines will be the most effective solution.
• Passenger trains are not particularly useful within the city, but will help increase the flow of tourists into the city. They become effective in large, sprawling cities. But using separate railways for passenger lines can help avoid congestion.
• By increasing the budget of a certain transport system, you increase the number of vehicles on each route of this system.
• Long routes with more stops will create more traffic.
• Stops can be used to increase the happiness level and level of buildings in the city.
• Routes will be most effective if they pass through all zoning types except office buildings, as they do not require much traffic.
• Passenger traffic is usually directed to the commercial zone, and cargo traffic to the industrial zone and sometimes between industrial and commercial.
• Public transport is in high demand in commercial areas, especially in commercial areas.

• Note that no service has an infinite range, so you will have to distribute services throughout the city. The information tab (top left corner) will show you which areas of the city are within reach.
• Not only do services have a range, but they also rely on roads to get to their destination. Congested roads or poor road systems can reduce the efficiency of services.
• Certain buildings, such as landfills and cemeteries, must be completely cleared before being moved or demolished. Garbage or dead bodies should be sent to other places (recycling plant, crematorium, other landfills/cemeteries).
• Do not place downstream intakes or a water tower on contaminated land.
• Parks and services increase land value by increasing the popularity of the land as well as increasing development in the area.
• The optimal cost of covering land with water supply is $440 between two parallel pipes, the coverage areas of which almost do not intersect, guaranteeing water supply to all residents in the area.
• Power lines do not need to be built right next to buildings. It is enough to install it in the blue zone, where there is already access to electricity.

Layout

• Take advantage of districts and different policies.
• Try to separate polluting buildings from residential areas.
• The agriculture and forestry industries do not pollute the environment, and you can even use them where there are no natural resources of their type (they just import what they need). You can use them as buffer zones between your industrial and commercial areas. These areas still produce a lot of noise (as do all industrial areas), but a commercial area will be able to survive noise pollution, unlike a residential area.
• Walking and Biking Paths: Just because they're in the scenery tab doesn't mean you shouldn't use them. They are actually useful to reduce the amount of traffic. A city dweller who uses walking or cycling to get around has one less car. You can even use elevated walkways just like regular walkways. But unlike regular roads, these can be built at a greater angle than even the smallest road for cars.
• Tip for building orientation: Orientation between two perpendicular roads is carried out with the mouse cursor - whichever road the cursor is on, the building will be directed in that direction. For example, if you want to build a shopping center on the corner between a narrow and a wide street facing the wide street, point your mouse at the spot where you want to place the center, and then move the mouse a little towards the wide road.
• Roads with trees or sound barriers will reduce noise pollution.
• Offices can be used as barriers between commercial and residential areas to reduce noise pollution in residential areas.
• Zoning plays an important role in traffic flow. To separate passenger traffic from freight traffic, place the commercial zone in the middle, and residential and industrial on each side of the commercial zone. One can use offices anywhere as they simply create jobs.

• DO NOT expand your city too quickly at the beginning, as your budget will run out faster than you know it. It is enough to start with a residential area, electricity, water supply and sewerage.
• Save before building the dam, as the result may differ from your expectations. Dams are some of the most expensive objects in the game.
• Use the Steam Workshop to find useful mods or read the guide about useful mods.
• English speaking forum -
• Use to create maps of cities of your choice. Instructions are available online and in Steam guides.
• Don't buy anything you don't need yet - most things cost a pretty penny. If you can do without something, you will save more money for when you need it.