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My main gripe with the original game was that it wasn't possible to create walkable or cyclable cities. The only way to build anything is to have a road (as in,

My main gripe with the original game was that it wasn't possible to create walkable or cyclable cities. The only way to build anything is to have a road (as in, a road with lots of cars). So mechanically your cities are car centric, which isn't qui the cities I'd like to build. As far as I can tell, there are no bicycles in that trailer which leaves me little hope. I'm sure someone will reply about whatever mod that might help, but no I'd like the main game to include the possibility of building other types of cities. Anyhow, I still lost 100s of hours on the original game, it's just lovely.

innocenat 3y ago
Pure walkable city is the feature of Plaza and Promenade DLC. It allow you to create a pedestrian-only district.
- input_sh 3y ago
  And dedicated bike lanes came with the first DLC (After Dark), so I wouldn't be shocked if they do the same thing again.
- alex_duf 3y ago
  Ah I had no idea about the Promenade DLC, thanks for pointing it out!
spookthesunset 3y ago
There a now a DLC that lets you have pedestrian only zones with no cars beyond some service vehicles.
r0bbbo 3y ago
Bicycles exist in the current game—they were brought in as part of a free update. Roads with dedicated cycle lanes were introduced with an official add-on, but by default pedestrians and bikes will share sidewalks. I imagine the new game will roll a lot of their official add-ons into the base game. I also heard that they hired some of the community mod creators which is exciting news.
kjkjadksj 3y ago
There was also no mixed use zoning in the old game. Population sizes and things like bus capacities were generally wrong too but mods at least corrected for that for pc users.
- input_sh 3y ago
  I believe mixed use commercial/residential is pretty much confirmed by this trailer. What's being zoned at 0:56 is green buildings (residential) with blue bottom floor (commercial). And on 0:19 the corner building next to the intersection appears to be one of those, some type of shop on the bottom floor, apartments above.
  - kjkjadksj 3y ago
    Pretty cool. If thats all they offer though, there will at least be mods that will let you dial in usage by the percent one day I bet.
spacemadness 3y ago
I never even thought about that because I was too busy trying to solve the endless road puzzles for my cities. You can add mass transit and bike lanes but it’s very much car centric as a vital piece to any of its challenges.
mikepurvis 3y ago
A related gap that I felt when playing the base game a few years ago was around ability to reclaim land and evolve a city over time [1]. CS (like SimCity) gave great tools for greenfield development, but I never felt like I could do things like what happens in a real city, where: - A street is widened to accommodate new transit or bike lanes, but by buying back people's yards rather than by demolishing and rebuilding a whole neighbourhood. - Zoning changes permit former-bungalows to have second stories built on them, or similar small-scale densifications like encouraging duplexing of existing structures. - Old factory buildings are converted into trendy lofts. - A house that burns down is converted into a pocket park. And I guess worst of all, I never felt rewarded for planning this kind of thing ahead, though maybe I just wasn't doing it right. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_House https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_House
anileated 3y ago
You can build very walkable, cyclable and in fact completely car-free cities in C:S; I do only that because cars irk me. This only requires some DLCs and a mod or two. All mods are possible to install with a mere click via Steam Workshop. DLCs: just get all of them, they are probably on sale, but public transit and likely after dark are a must. The main mod you need is TM:PE, its key features in this case are allowing to turn on realistic parking (cars do not vanish so you actually feel how horrible they are and need to plan accordingly) and to enable road restrictions (e.g., ban all vehicles except public transport, services and emergency). You may also want to install more road assets with bike lanes. Note that you can disconnect from the highway and rely just on intercity trains/ships/airplanes (another DLC) to avoid having to accommodate cars incoming via the highway, though this does not spare you from the need to put restrictions on roads because cims can spawn cars while in city. Read more: https://steamcommunity.com/app/255710/discussions/0/4731597990010603401/ https://steamcommunity.com/app/255710/discussions/0/47315979... Warning: you may find and end up installing more mods, the rabbit hole is compelling and time consuming, I have dozens by now. Caution: mods are not thoroughly reviewed and contain arbitrary code. (That said, there are many mods seemingly maintained and contributed to by CO devs.) Beware inter-mod compatibility issues and outdated mods; although the community seems to really have gotten the hang of it recently. Mature mods is also why I am cautious about the new version. It is reasonably likely that it will miss all these features and there will be no mods to fill the gaps. The community will also become fragmented as a result.
ximile 3y ago
Even beyond the aesthetic problem with the cities being car centric by default is the lack of realistic parking issues. I don't know about mods and DLC but in the original you can get by with designs that would be totally unreasonable in reality because they would require massive underground parking to look how they do.
- wry_discontent 3y ago
  I played this game extensively, and you can enable "realistic parking" in the traffic manager mod, which assigns parking requirements to buildings (visible with the traffic overlay). You can also disable the auto despawning of cars, which means you have to build parking lots for them (either with mods or the handful of vanilla parking lots). There's also DLC which provide a lot more walkability options, including bikes (and bike lanes) and the Plazas and Promenades DLC which has pedestrian only versions of the normal roads.
SkyPuncher 3y ago
This has been my frustration as well. I purchased it for Switch. I enjoy the game, but find it very hard to lay out a city since everything needed a street.
seoulmetro 3y ago
>So mechanically your cities are car centric, which isn't qui the cities I'd like to build. It's a city builder, not a fantasy sandbox. You are basically complaining that you can't build a machine gun before you build a musket in a gun making game and that you hate the smell of musket powder. It may shock you to realise just how much infrastructure goes into growing a city. Maybe put your emotion down for a little while...
- alex_duf 3y ago
  No I'm complaining that a city builder mainly restricts to one kind of city: the north American city with skyscrapers in the center, a road network (that may or may not look like a grid) and suburbs. You might respond so vehemently to my comment because you've never experienced anything else than a car centric city? In which case I can only encourage you to visit other places. What's for sure is we've both moved from constructive criticism to criticising each other, which isn't a good sign. So I'm sorry if I seem to have attacked your personal beliefs, maybe it's worth questioning why these have pushed you to respond with such disdain for something as trivial as an urbanism question and a video game.
  - seoulmetro 3y ago
    >You might respond so vehemently to my comment because you've never experienced anything else than a car centric city? No, my comment was devoid of emotion. My experiences are not in car centric cities but public transport centric cities. Not that it matters. >What's for sure is we've both moved from constructive criticism to criticising each other You have, I have not. You keep going on about personal things for some reason. Like I said, definitely put your emotion down next time... Whether you like it or not, a city is not born how you think it is born. Feel free to complain about the smell of musket powder ignition, that's not for me to tell you not to. I am just pointing out that it's quite disconnected from reality even if it is a great fuzzy feeling for you.

innocenat 3y ago

Pure walkable city is the feature of Plaza and Promenade DLC. It allow you to create a pedestrian-only district.

input_sh 3y ago
And dedicated bike lanes came with the first DLC (After Dark), so I wouldn't be shocked if they do the same thing again.
alex_duf 3y ago
Ah I had no idea about the Promenade DLC, thanks for pointing it out!

spookthesunset 3y ago

There a now a DLC that lets you have pedestrian only zones with no cars beyond some service vehicles.

r0bbbo 3y ago

Bicycles exist in the current game—they were brought in as part of a free update. Roads with dedicated cycle lanes were introduced with an official add-on, but by default pedestrians and bikes will share sidewalks. I imagine the new game will roll a lot of their official add-ons into the base game. I also heard that they hired some of the community mod creators which is exciting news.

kjkjadksj 3y ago

There was also no mixed use zoning in the old game. Population sizes and things like bus capacities were generally wrong too but mods at least corrected for that for pc users.

input_sh 3y ago
I believe mixed use commercial/residential is pretty much confirmed by this trailer. What's being zoned at 0:56 is green buildings (residential) with blue bottom floor (commercial). And on 0:19 the corner building next to the intersection appears to be one of those, some type of shop on the bottom floor, apartments above.
- kjkjadksj 3y ago
  Pretty cool. If thats all they offer though, there will at least be mods that will let you dial in usage by the percent one day I bet.

spacemadness 3y ago

I never even thought about that because I was too busy trying to solve the endless road puzzles for my cities. You can add mass transit and bike lanes but it’s very much car centric as a vital piece to any of its challenges.

mikepurvis 3y ago

A related gap that I felt when playing the base game a few years ago was around ability to reclaim land and evolve a city over time [1]. CS (like SimCity) gave great tools for greenfield development, but I never felt like I could do things like what happens in a real city, where: - A street is widened to accommodate new transit or bike lanes, but by buying back people's yards rather than by demolishing and rebuilding a whole neighbourhood. - Zoning changes permit former-bungalows to have second stories built on them, or similar small-scale densifications like encouraging duplexing of existing structures. - Old factory buildings are converted into trendy lofts. - A house that burns down is converted into a pocket park. And I guess worst of all, I never felt rewarded for planning this kind of thing ahead, though maybe I just wasn't doing it right. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_House https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_House

anileated 3y ago

You can build very walkable, cyclable and in fact completely car-free cities in C:S; I do only that because cars irk me. This only requires some DLCs and a mod or two. All mods are possible to install with a mere click via Steam Workshop. DLCs: just get all of them, they are probably on sale, but public transit and likely after dark are a must. The main mod you need is TM:PE, its key features in this case are allowing to turn on realistic parking (cars do not vanish so you actually feel how horrible they are and need to plan accordingly) and to enable road restrictions (e.g., ban all vehicles except public transport, services and emergency). You may also want to install more road assets with bike lanes. Note that you can disconnect from the highway and rely just on intercity trains/ships/airplanes (another DLC) to avoid having to accommodate cars incoming via the highway, though this does not spare you from the need to put restrictions on roads because cims can spawn cars while in city. Read more: https://steamcommunity.com/app/255710/discussions/0/4731597990010603401/ https://steamcommunity.com/app/255710/discussions/0/47315979... Warning: you may find and end up installing more mods, the rabbit hole is compelling and time consuming, I have dozens by now. Caution: mods are not thoroughly reviewed and contain arbitrary code. (That said, there are many mods seemingly maintained and contributed to by CO devs.) Beware inter-mod compatibility issues and outdated mods; although the community seems to really have gotten the hang of it recently. Mature mods is also why I am cautious about the new version. It is reasonably likely that it will miss all these features and there will be no mods to fill the gaps. The community will also become fragmented as a result.

ximile 3y ago

Even beyond the aesthetic problem with the cities being car centric by default is the lack of realistic parking issues. I don't know about mods and DLC but in the original you can get by with designs that would be totally unreasonable in reality because they would require massive underground parking to look how they do.

wry_discontent 3y ago
I played this game extensively, and you can enable "realistic parking" in the traffic manager mod, which assigns parking requirements to buildings (visible with the traffic overlay). You can also disable the auto despawning of cars, which means you have to build parking lots for them (either with mods or the handful of vanilla parking lots). There's also DLC which provide a lot more walkability options, including bikes (and bike lanes) and the Plazas and Promenades DLC which has pedestrian only versions of the normal roads.

SkyPuncher 3y ago

This has been my frustration as well. I purchased it for Switch. I enjoy the game, but find it very hard to lay out a city since everything needed a street.

seoulmetro 3y ago

>So mechanically your cities are car centric, which isn't qui the cities I'd like to build. It's a city builder, not a fantasy sandbox. You are basically complaining that you can't build a machine gun before you build a musket in a gun making game and that you hate the smell of musket powder. It may shock you to realise just how much infrastructure goes into growing a city. Maybe put your emotion down for a little while...

alex_duf 3y ago
No I'm complaining that a city builder mainly restricts to one kind of city: the north American city with skyscrapers in the center, a road network (that may or may not look like a grid) and suburbs. You might respond so vehemently to my comment because you've never experienced anything else than a car centric city? In which case I can only encourage you to visit other places. What's for sure is we've both moved from constructive criticism to criticising each other, which isn't a good sign. So I'm sorry if I seem to have attacked your personal beliefs, maybe it's worth questioning why these have pushed you to respond with such disdain for something as trivial as an urbanism question and a video game.
- seoulmetro 3y ago
  >You might respond so vehemently to my comment because you've never experienced anything else than a car centric city? No, my comment was devoid of emotion. My experiences are not in car centric cities but public transport centric cities. Not that it matters. >What's for sure is we've both moved from constructive criticism to criticising each other You have, I have not. You keep going on about personal things for some reason. Like I said, definitely put your emotion down next time... Whether you like it or not, a city is not born how you think it is born. Feel free to complain about the smell of musket powder ignition, that's not for me to tell you not to. I am just pointing out that it's quite disconnected from reality even if it is a great fuzzy feeling for you.