this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2024
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I was so excited for Cities: Skylines II, and it is a shell of the former game. So many systems seem to fake the economy, and it also feels impossible to make your city fail.
Waiting until I see evidence of a good game post-release before I board any kind of hype train.
Heh, that's what I felt about city skylines. Maybe that's just the game
It was definitely possible to tank a city in Skylines 1. That said, it's also not the most challenging game.
But with Skylines II, I can't even tank one when I try. Hundreds of thousands in the red? The game throws free money at you in the form of "government subsidies" to compensate. And they cannot be disabled. Absolute shit show.
The subsidies have never saved me from failing before, they only make me fail slower (if that makes sense). It might just be something I'm experiencing though.
Yeah, I've heard of people having a different experience (the economy just never picking up enough to succeed) -- I think both are indicative of a borked simulation.
For me, I can even be completely in the black, with 100k+ income, and I'll still be getting hundreds of grand in subsidies. Ruins any challenge.
I have a pretty large city, but something is wrong with my tax calculations? I have one industry pumping out 150x the taxes of everything else combine. Just a blanket of $5m from lumber an in-game hour, next best is Metals at $45k a day.
Doesn't surprise me, if you read their forums there are a ton of folks reporting issues either being outright ignored or told that the game-breaking bug they found is "as designed".
What if you treat receiving subsidies as a failure condition?
I mean, usually they're already active as soon as the game starts, so I don't really think it could be considered that way. Ideally I'd just like to be able to turn them off, which I think would provide some challenge to the budget.
In CS 1 I purposely poisoned the entire city and it took a remarkably long time for that to have any real repercussions and can be immediately and cheaply fixed. Like you can tank a city, but it takes a concerted effort. If you just keep building roads and painting RCI the game just kinda plays itself.
I feel like whenever i "tanked" a city in cities skylines, it was because of some awkwardness in the traffic system that comes about from chaos theory rather than anything city builderey, just not really about that.
I still haven't bought that, and looks like I won't be for a while at least, maybe never if it doesn't pan out. I was so excited for Victoria 3 but reading the reviews they indicate that it's also a shell of the former game. Waiting until the game is fully released before letting in any hype has served me well lately.
Vic3 certainly isn't a shell of Vic2. It's a considerably more complex and interesting game.
There are however some frustrating and obtuse mechanics, particularly related to warfare. It's not even that bad once you get into it properly, but as a new player it's definitely a bit frustrating and it's definitely different from what players were used to from Vic2.
Ah, that's good to hear! I myself haven't played Victoria 2, I've played EU4, CK2 and CK3 a lot and was really excited about focusing on economy and population rather than map painting in Vic3. I saw the lackluster reviews on release and beyond and assumed it just missed the mark like so many sequels do. I'll check it out some more. Thanks for your input!
I recommend watching some YouTubers playing the game (not reviewing them). One Proud Bavarian has some fun playthroughs, and Laith is one I quite like too. Those videos give good impressions of what the game is like I think.
I checked out one proud bavarian and some beginner's guide videos to see what the gameplay is actually about and ended up buying it. Thanks for taking the time to respond, I might've slept on this title otherwise.
Hope you have fun with it!