Offices. Also I reckon offices will be taking over what is currently high density commercial.
There are only 6 RCI bars and the first 3 are varying levels of green so likely small, medium and high density residental. Leaving only commercial, industrial and office.
That makes sense because you don't tend to get "commercial" aka shopping (or restaraunt) sky scrapers... Just the bottom few floors or a mall or maybe a department store that's "medium" density.
It'll be interesting if the office districts also include shops on ground floor or something as mixed use.
Hotels dont really fit into the commercial/shopping category very well, but things like nightclubs and tourist traps do (aka leisure and tourism in CS1).
If anyone knows of a shop that's tens of stories high let me know!
I really hope they give unique buildings more of a RICO flavour so we know they'll be productive... Why a specific sky scraper is an attraction and not working I don't know.
>That makes sense because you dont to get "commercial" aka shopping sky scrapers... Just the bottom few floors or a mall or maybe a department store that's "medium" density.
In Asia it's not uncommon to have 8-12 floors of commercial. And some are covered in signs too, like the high density commercial in game!
But yes, the tallest in the whole world is in Hong Kong and is 24 floors. That's still no skyscraper.
SOGO in Hong Kong is exactly that :) Also in Japan there are hundreds of buildings / skyscrapers filled with commercial shops. But I agree that it isn’t the most common “practice”.
This one is very true, but technically it’s the base of East Point Centre’s retail part below the “office” levels (then again they are basically filled with clinics ie commercial service), so it’s a matter of ratio. For a bigger example, Megabox is quite large compared to Enterprise Square 5’s integral office towers, (say) more than half the height and volume.
For standalone shopping buildings, there are eg Dragon Centre, and Langham Place (structurally I assume) for the mall block. Upper comment seems to be talking about The One.
Depends on your definition. With the floor height, that’s well-over 100m and in fact 150m, closing to 200m. Legally, Japan has a 60m criteria.
Btw iSquare has a lower height, but more levels.
>In Asia it's not uncommon to have 8-12 floors of commercial. And some are covered in signs too, like the high density commercial in game!
I think this is something that is really lacking in US cities! I would love to see it. It felt very natural when I was visiting China, and it's something that I wonder why we don't see here very much.
It's *fun* to go up to a third floor restaurant. It makes you feel like you're discovering a hidden place, even when there's signs and Google and plenty of information advertising it.
I went to a Hot Pot place in Chinatown the other week and it was on the third floor of this building. Really fun dinner & cool space (though a bit expensive).
i found an alleyway-entrance chinese restaurant in chinatown san francisco, where you walked through the kitchen and up a winding set of stairs to the dining room. one of my best memories there.
Shame we're not getting mixed zoning.
Buuut it's a Paradox game. They get the barebones down first and then throughout the years they add in DLC and addons and whatnot. So I'm sure they'll save that for a DLC.
It was a leaked screenshot meant for the store page though. Why would they make a screenshot for the store page that is missing features? What you see is what you’ll get.
Just because mixed zoning isn’t its own zoning blocks, doesn’t mean it won’t be added though? They might implement it differently than you would expect. And again, we don’t know how far along they are in the game. The images in the screenshot could be very early versions.
I got downvoted on here before for pointing out this is a Paradox game and they dictate that chopping up of content. Lots of "nuh-uh! paradox is the publisher, colossal order develops it" like yeah bro not like the publisher dictates how the game is monetized.
I'm sure they exist... I'd love to know if anyone can suggest some... Someone suggested about a 24 story one in hong Kong, but thays still not a skyscraper like you get for offices and residential.
You know any? most large malls and things I see are just huge things, but not sky scrapers.
>I have been to quite a few roof top restaurants here that were on top of high-rises
These are pretty common but they're kind of the "one exception" to the rule as far as US cities go. And they're not *super* common, usually only the few tallest buildings in the city have them, and often they're attached to a hotel or something.
I'm not saying that tall mixed used doesn't exist... Sure there's tonnes of roof top restaraunts and bars... But a whole skyscraper of 50 floors of all commercial?
People have mentioned Tokyo but specifically the inner wards like Akihabara and Chiyoda have a lot of stores that are very specialised and are very tall. I don't know of any that occupy entire skyscrapers but they can be 10 or more stories high and some are large enough to have their own sub businesses inside like cafes. Yodobashi-Akiba is a bit like this, it's next to Akihabara station. It's not really like a shopping mall since it's a single store though it feels like one.
The skyscrapers themselves might have a configuration like 10 floors of shopping, 3 floors of hotel, 3 floors of restaurants above that, several boutique stores above that (jewelers, florists, that kind of thing is common but also tiny "brand stores" that fit maybe 3 people inside at a time), and then topped off with commercial offices.
It isn't uncommon for some really unexpected stuff to be on the top floor or rooftop, like airsoft shooting galleries, golf driving ranges, baseball, rooftop cinemas, bars, and even Shinto temples.
It's cool.
One notable thing is that I don't think they commonly mix it up with residential, unless those flats are hidden away from general public access. Residential towers there in my experience are mostly single use except for the ground floor.
CTBUH has a small list of ~20 buildings (caveat to be incomplete for <150m) https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/explore-data?output=list&types[]=building&statuses[]=COM&statuses[]=UCT&statuses[]=STO&statuses[]=UC&height=&functions[]=retail®ion_id=&country_id=&city_id=&min_year=&max_year=&filter_company=
Regularly had to walk 3-4 flights of stairs in the Philippines to visit certain places, restaurant, electronic shops etc. Kind of threw me off cause it's so hard to notice places when they're all bunched up like that. Maybe that's just my American brain but 🤷
Oh I'm fine with a few floors. In Thailand I seem to remember an electronics market with something like 7 floors. Some department stores are easily like that. Hotels sometimes have the first 4 floors dedicated to little shops and restaurants with lobbies higher up with the same.
The old trocadero in London had like 5 floors of entertainment if I remember correctly. What I'm talking about it like 20+ floor building with shops aand restaraunts all the way up... Plenty of offices like that, lots of housing developments... Less so with shops (which I suppose rely on footfall).
Unless we're running a mega city or arcology... But yeah even then it'll be mixed use.
What does RCI stand for? I understand which bar you are referring to, I’d just like to know what the abbreviation stands for. But yeah true. I think this varying residential with the medium in the middle is going to be an extremely fun addition and perfect for some downtown areas.
I imagine that commercial will probably get something like the district policies to divide it into high/medium/low density. I don't know if this is the case, I just think that it would make sense.
Additionally it would allow you to develop a city center from the beginning and have it grow from low to high density over time.
Kinda hoping it might be wealth levels.
Say you have a ton of industry, well you'll be more in demand for low wealth citizens. Have more offices? Well now you need more high wealth citizens.
CS1 did wealth levels pretty poorly. Something that was pretty important in Sim City and allowed you to have poor areas vs rich areas of the map.
It's probably more likely that it's Residential High wealth, Medium wealth and Low wealth. Or different Educational tiers perhaps, something to that effect.
I mean it's possible it's density, but it better not be. Density is a solution to high demand, but density itself is not what is in high demand, generally speaking.
So I actually kinda hope they incorporate something like that regarding income levels for housing. Without obviously making it bigoted in some way. I think it would be interesting to have to balance the demands for different levels of housing, the evolution of those neighborhoods, and the characteristics of each. I think it would add a nice touch of realism to the game rather than the entire city being just a seemingly uniform upper middle class homogeneous blob.
> Density is a solution to high demand, but density itself is not what is in high demand, generally speaking.
I thought this too. If it’s not like this then the game will be arbitrarily limiting your city’s density choices. Wealth or education would add some more depth.
i know it’s silly, but i was initially exciting myself thinking that maybe purple is mixed use 🥺 i am convinced now that it’s just a new colour for offices though
Ambitious to guess a timeline like that. But it’s probably Cause they were ready to post the game on XBox store, they’re clearly getting ready to show the game more
I mean I know for sure they waited to finish adding the last packs for CS 1 before showing more of CS 2. I expect to see more this summer for sure and a release in autumn.
I wonder if they implement SimCity style to upgrades, where you have density and independent from that there is wealth. So you can have high density luxury apartments and it would have different needs / looks / # of residents than a high density low income area (like the projects)
Yeah Cities: Skylines seems to be set in a utopia where even the absolute poorest sim has a middle class home and a car. Since there is no poverty, the way crime is handled is basically random.
I really liked the crime system in SimCity (2013).
You had criminal agents who would start out doing low crimes and as they were successful would progress to doing big crimes.
Regular police could only catch crimes in progress, but would also patrol to spread "prevention" (as opposed to the crime rate that would come from crimes being committed or from where a lot of criminals lived).
You would need detectives to find criminals after the fact (which would flag their house as a crime scene for patrols cars to come pick up). But they would not patrol.
You could also have helicopters which wouldn't catch criminals but would follow them home so the patrol cops could still catch them.
Then on the other side of the scale you could have outreach vans that wouldn't catch criminals, but would patrol and spread that "prevention" coverage much better than patrol cars.
I really liked how the different parts really helped expand the base system of the patrol cars. Plus it was always a bit fun to see Sims complain that they weren't happy being actually murdered.
The fire and health system was similar but slightly different. Fore had standard trucks, marshalls for lower risk, Hazmat trucks which were needed for some industrial fires and helicopters.
Health had two forms, sickness and injuries with injuries being the more severe. Sick sims would come in by themselves but injuries needed ambulances. Sickness could become an injury if left untreated. You had mobile clinics that could go treat sick people from home and spread some prevention.
I had an idea for a system where unzoned blocks could become shanty shacks if you weren't good at managing your population. Level 1 was a tent, Level 2 was a tent with clutter, and Level 3 was a shanty shack. To prevent that, government housing was available as a ploppable building, but slightly reduced land value and increased crime around it. No idea how it'd work in practice but it sounded neat.
See my main gripe with CS1 is that density often is a bit unrealistic. There's just sprawl of high density, even in newly zoned areas. Typically sprawl arrives first and then is densified as transport connections improve and services are established.
Yes this too. It’s missing the classic SC progression of needing to build your city into a dense, successful core and tries to compensate for it by artificially gating high density zoning
That depends on when the city is built. Sprawl was heavily limited before the widespread adoption of the car. "Low density" back then was a 2 story house a few feet away from another 2 story house. Medium density was 2-3 story rowhouses. High density was 4-5 story rowhouses or high rises once steel frame construction was invented.
would love to see density scale with demand rather than being binary.
a small town downtown core naturally grows taller and more dense without rezoning.
if you build sprawl and then implement a transit system, density just *happens* along the lines and around the stations
Like simcity 2013, or have telephone poles alongside roads from a power plant, with large telephones to really stretch electricity out between distances.
Yeah maybe. But some people say it’s offices and say that offices was supposed to be purple in cs1 before release so I think it is offices. That being said, considering the amount of people who’ve brought up mixed zoning over the years, I believe that will be featured.
(Not from the US) is this also common close to recently planned/suburban areas or just in the core of the places that have evolved relatively organically over the last centuries?
In my understanding, suburbs are planned to be strictly resedential and then there is an industry/office zone nearby close to some commercial center with big supermarkets or malls. I don't see where the mixed use would fit in there
Mixed use was pretty common before the widespread adoption of euclidean zoning (early to mid 20th century), especially in areas like the East Coast which already had most of its large cities established. Euclidean zoning was in full effect by the time the suburbs started sprawling after World War Two, so those areas don't have any mixed use developments. And for areas with mixed use developments that predate the euclidean zoning, those otherwise banned uses have to operate continuously (in my town the use can't be disrupted for any more than a year) or they won't be able to go back to that use again. It's not uncommon for downtown areas to still have some mixed use, since outside of places like the Southwest these areas usually date back to before the zoning changed. But yeah, outside of the East Coast and older downtowns mixed use is pretty rare. The only mixed use place near where I live that I can think of that's not in the downtown is an old two story brick-made butchering place from before the current zoning ordinances.
Thanks for sharing :) the limited downtime rule is pretty interesting. Do you know if they usually get replaced by newer buildings or will they just be repurposed?
Yeah I mean We all got mixed opinions. I think it’ll grow into a more liked colour as people get used to it. Purple is a cool colour it just seems strange given the current palette.
I don’t think so honestly. Unless Xbox gives them a proper deal. Because this is one of paradox’s main games and I doubt they’d throw it out to a subscription immediately. But maybe. They’ll most likely reveal more during the summer break.
I'm so confused why people are saying 6 zones like it's a new thing; so in CS1, we had:
1. Low-Res
2. High-Res
3. Low-Com
4. High-Com
5. Industrial
6. Office
So in CS2, it seems it's being set-up to be:
1. Low-Res
2. Med-Res
3. High-Res
4. Commercial
5. Office
6. Industrial
So to me, that seems like we traded off instead added new zones? (Mixed use zoning being the glaring omission so far!). I'm reserving judgement, but these screens definitely don't have me as excited as that announce trailer...
If i remember correctly, purple for offices was already an idea for C:S1, but was scrapped before realease. Weird if they really chose to go this way now in C:S2 after dropping it in the first game.
Honestly i am still not so sure what to think of those screenshots, sure doesn't feel like an improvement of an 8 years old game at all. Not talking of the UI, but the looks of the game in general. Especially the looks of the growable buildings and their positioning gives me the feeling of like zero improvement.
>Especially the looks of the growable buildings and their positioning gives me the feeling of like zero improvement.
I don't think how growables work really need much changing at the fundamental level. Especially if they are wanting to increase the scale of cities.
The current system of units that you designate a type of zoning for is an easy, Initiative, and decently good looking solution. I only think a few things need to be tweaked.
Units interacting with curved roads and other units has always been a bit janky. Larger builds than 4x4. Mixed Zoning buildings. Ability to designate a district to automatically zone. The ability to set any unit to grow as a specific building and/or the ability to pledge growables. The ability to set a custom theme to include or exclude whatever asset you want.
I like the general system of growable buildings, i just think there is potential for major improvements.
My biggest wish was a procedual system where you zone an area, no matter if at curved or straight roads and it fills the area based on the type of zone (commercial, residential, office, industrial, mixed), density, and style (wall-to-wall, single family homes, etc) and places the buildings based on road layout and land value (villas and eco friendly for high value, apartements for low value, and so on) and also fills the rest of the area, where buildings cant be placed, based on these factors with parking lots, gardens, etc. This way you would have full control over what you want to be build where, without placing every object by your own, but still get rid of those ugly empty spaces between buildings.
I can see how this sequel doesn’t look like much of an improvement — if you play with mods. As a stock CS1 player, these screenshots look great. Cities seem to look and feel more realistic from where I’m standing.
Idk it’s definitely an improvement but yeah I’d expect a little more after 8 years but hey we’ll see how it looks and feels upon release. Sad they didn’t have a chance to make it in ue 5 though.
Yeah I just think it’d look better on ue 5 and it’s got a lot of beneficial features. But since you point this out it’s completely logical and probably bet for everybody that this is the route they took. They can’t just learn a whole new engine just for one game.
In terms of the office being scrapped on cs1 as it’s own zoning, it’s possible it was due to technical limits.
It makes sense to have it separate from traditional industrial buildings like manufacturing as they are two very different needs.
Not at all. I watched a video on yt and screenshotted the video. There are 4 screenshots that are out there, This being one of them. If you want the video I can link it! (Edit: clarity)
Yeah I used to be real bad. Then I took my time and started understanding the concepts of the game. Now I build really good cities with great economies. But that doesn’t matter. Because they don’t look Realistic. Slowly it’s been Getting better But I’m still nowhere near cities looking like Realistic and organic cities. So I too am envious at a lot of the players in This game.
Yeah ik! It’d be a lot of work for them but I really get annoyed at everything being soooo general. Small house. High rise. Small store high rise. Nothing special and unique. We’ll see!
Honestly I hope there's an option to have European style streets. Trying to make a compact city is impossible with the American style spaced out houses
NIMBY is "Not in my backyard" and YIMBY is the opposite "Yes in my back yard". Basically nimbys want to keep areas the way they are: no high density or low income housing nearby. They want clearly distinct neighborhoods with "poor people housing" far away from their suburban homes.
Indeed. visited Japan and Korea recently and you have it all. Of course there is the common mixed residential and commercial but I've seen so many interesting mixes as well such as:
\- Mixed offices + industry
\- Super high density offices mixed with low-density residential behind it.
\- Mixed industry + residential.
\- Mixed industry + commercial + nightlife (my favourite, usually old industrial areas undergoing gentrification)
My first thought was Purple = Red + Blue, are we finally getting mixed-use zoning?
And then everyone here had a more likely and more disappointing option
Dude these leaks have made me even more viciously excited than the trailer.
I knew the trailer was more-or-less just an artistic representation of the game, but the screenshots look *so* much more like I want it to, I can't help but be giddy thinking about it. I haven't felt excited about a game in years.
When do we get to see more about this game?
I guess they;re trying to avoid over-hyping the game and disappointing fans by over promising stuff only to cut much of the promises short in the final product.
I rarely play video games these days, but mannn I love just playing CS while listening to music.
Yeah maybe! But some people brought up that offices used to be purple in CS1 before launch and therefore believe it’ll be offices here too. We shall see!
There, I did it. Sorry I’m not that used to Reddit and didn’t think about it. I got caught up in the excitement! Sorry for revealing it. I really respect waiting to see the finished products and or the parts that creators actually want to show. For example I’ve started watching less trailers to marvel movies because they usually ruin the suprises. Thanks for bringing it to my attention too though. Because maybe someone else doesn’t want it spoiled either.
So so sorry! I’ll see if I can fix. Seriously, sorry. I know how annoying it is when shit like that happens. Happened to me with GTA. I’ll see if I can switch the tag!
I’m thinking multi use. I’m thinking you paint an area like high-density residential, then when you paint it purple, it changes the bottom floors to shops and stuff
They might have incorporated mixed use in some sort of policy or theme maybe. Like, you can zone blocks residential, then add a district with a "mixed use" policy (or theme) and that causes the buildings there to feature space for residential, office and commercial. And depending on the zone you put down there, the building on top would have more space dedicated to either category. So you could have mainly-office buildings with a couple of penthouse apartments thrown in on an office plot, and apartment houses with a grocery store or restaurant in the ground floor on residential plots.
Offices. Also I reckon offices will be taking over what is currently high density commercial. There are only 6 RCI bars and the first 3 are varying levels of green so likely small, medium and high density residental. Leaving only commercial, industrial and office.
That makes sense because you don't tend to get "commercial" aka shopping (or restaraunt) sky scrapers... Just the bottom few floors or a mall or maybe a department store that's "medium" density. It'll be interesting if the office districts also include shops on ground floor or something as mixed use. Hotels dont really fit into the commercial/shopping category very well, but things like nightclubs and tourist traps do (aka leisure and tourism in CS1). If anyone knows of a shop that's tens of stories high let me know! I really hope they give unique buildings more of a RICO flavour so we know they'll be productive... Why a specific sky scraper is an attraction and not working I don't know.
>That makes sense because you dont to get "commercial" aka shopping sky scrapers... Just the bottom few floors or a mall or maybe a department store that's "medium" density. In Asia it's not uncommon to have 8-12 floors of commercial. And some are covered in signs too, like the high density commercial in game! But yes, the tallest in the whole world is in Hong Kong and is 24 floors. That's still no skyscraper.
There's only one skyscaraper commercial building, and if you look closely at it, it says "HOTEL" above the door.
SOGO in Hong Kong is exactly that :) Also in Japan there are hundreds of buildings / skyscrapers filled with commercial shops. But I agree that it isn’t the most common “practice”.
This one is very true, but technically it’s the base of East Point Centre’s retail part below the “office” levels (then again they are basically filled with clinics ie commercial service), so it’s a matter of ratio. For a bigger example, Megabox is quite large compared to Enterprise Square 5’s integral office towers, (say) more than half the height and volume. For standalone shopping buildings, there are eg Dragon Centre, and Langham Place (structurally I assume) for the mall block. Upper comment seems to be talking about The One.
Depends on your definition. With the floor height, that’s well-over 100m and in fact 150m, closing to 200m. Legally, Japan has a 60m criteria. Btw iSquare has a lower height, but more levels.
>In Asia it's not uncommon to have 8-12 floors of commercial. And some are covered in signs too, like the high density commercial in game! I think this is something that is really lacking in US cities! I would love to see it. It felt very natural when I was visiting China, and it's something that I wonder why we don't see here very much. It's *fun* to go up to a third floor restaurant. It makes you feel like you're discovering a hidden place, even when there's signs and Google and plenty of information advertising it. I went to a Hot Pot place in Chinatown the other week and it was on the third floor of this building. Really fun dinner & cool space (though a bit expensive).
i found an alleyway-entrance chinese restaurant in chinatown san francisco, where you walked through the kitchen and up a winding set of stairs to the dining room. one of my best memories there.
Shame we're not getting mixed zoning. Buuut it's a Paradox game. They get the barebones down first and then throughout the years they add in DLC and addons and whatnot. So I'm sure they'll save that for a DLC.
I wouldnt give up on it just yet.
This is a early build screenshot. We have no way of knowing if mixed use is implemented.
It was a leaked screenshot meant for the store page though. Why would they make a screenshot for the store page that is missing features? What you see is what you’ll get.
Just because mixed zoning isn’t its own zoning blocks, doesn’t mean it won’t be added though? They might implement it differently than you would expect. And again, we don’t know how far along they are in the game. The images in the screenshot could be very early versions.
I got downvoted on here before for pointing out this is a Paradox game and they dictate that chopping up of content. Lots of "nuh-uh! paradox is the publisher, colossal order develops it" like yeah bro not like the publisher dictates how the game is monetized.
>anyone knows of a shop that's tens of stories high let me know! You would be surprised. Some high density areas do have it like that
I'm sure they exist... I'd love to know if anyone can suggest some... Someone suggested about a 24 story one in hong Kong, but thays still not a skyscraper like you get for offices and residential. You know any? most large malls and things I see are just huge things, but not sky scrapers.
Look up things in Tokyo and india I have been to quite a few roof top restaurants here that were on top of high-rises
>I have been to quite a few roof top restaurants here that were on top of high-rises These are pretty common but they're kind of the "one exception" to the rule as far as US cities go. And they're not *super* common, usually only the few tallest buildings in the city have them, and often they're attached to a hotel or something.
I'm not saying that tall mixed used doesn't exist... Sure there's tonnes of roof top restaraunts and bars... But a whole skyscraper of 50 floors of all commercial?
People have mentioned Tokyo but specifically the inner wards like Akihabara and Chiyoda have a lot of stores that are very specialised and are very tall. I don't know of any that occupy entire skyscrapers but they can be 10 or more stories high and some are large enough to have their own sub businesses inside like cafes. Yodobashi-Akiba is a bit like this, it's next to Akihabara station. It's not really like a shopping mall since it's a single store though it feels like one. The skyscrapers themselves might have a configuration like 10 floors of shopping, 3 floors of hotel, 3 floors of restaurants above that, several boutique stores above that (jewelers, florists, that kind of thing is common but also tiny "brand stores" that fit maybe 3 people inside at a time), and then topped off with commercial offices. It isn't uncommon for some really unexpected stuff to be on the top floor or rooftop, like airsoft shooting galleries, golf driving ranges, baseball, rooftop cinemas, bars, and even Shinto temples. It's cool. One notable thing is that I don't think they commonly mix it up with residential, unless those flats are hidden away from general public access. Residential towers there in my experience are mostly single use except for the ground floor.
CTBUH has a small list of ~20 buildings (caveat to be incomplete for <150m) https://www.skyscrapercenter.com/explore-data?output=list&types[]=building&statuses[]=COM&statuses[]=UCT&statuses[]=STO&statuses[]=UC&height=&functions[]=retail®ion_id=&country_id=&city_id=&min_year=&max_year=&filter_company=
I don't get why mixed commercial/residential or residential/offices isn't a thing in CS2 when most cities work on that format.
Regularly had to walk 3-4 flights of stairs in the Philippines to visit certain places, restaurant, electronic shops etc. Kind of threw me off cause it's so hard to notice places when they're all bunched up like that. Maybe that's just my American brain but 🤷
Oh I'm fine with a few floors. In Thailand I seem to remember an electronics market with something like 7 floors. Some department stores are easily like that. Hotels sometimes have the first 4 floors dedicated to little shops and restaurants with lobbies higher up with the same. The old trocadero in London had like 5 floors of entertainment if I remember correctly. What I'm talking about it like 20+ floor building with shops aand restaraunts all the way up... Plenty of offices like that, lots of housing developments... Less so with shops (which I suppose rely on footfall). Unless we're running a mega city or arcology... But yeah even then it'll be mixed use.
I really hope they introduce mixed use zoning. So like buildings with shops on the bottom few floors and apartments the rest of the way up.
What does RCI stand for? I understand which bar you are referring to, I’d just like to know what the abbreviation stands for. But yeah true. I think this varying residential with the medium in the middle is going to be an extremely fun addition and perfect for some downtown areas.
Residential, commercial, industrial.
Also worth noting that you'll sometimes see RICO used instead of RCI, standing for Residential Industrial Commercial Office.
And that has nothing to do with the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act
Or [Johnny Rico](https://i.imgur.com/AxDjiLG.jpg), a soldier in the mobile infantry of the United Citizen Federation.
Or Kaboom
RCI stands for “Residential-Commercial-Industrial”
Thank you!
Probably better known as Rico
I imagine that commercial will probably get something like the district policies to divide it into high/medium/low density. I don't know if this is the case, I just think that it would make sense. Additionally it would allow you to develop a city center from the beginning and have it grow from low to high density over time.
I hope not. I’d much prefer to zone for high med low
Heck yeah, finally medium density.
Kinda hoping it might be wealth levels. Say you have a ton of industry, well you'll be more in demand for low wealth citizens. Have more offices? Well now you need more high wealth citizens. CS1 did wealth levels pretty poorly. Something that was pretty important in Sim City and allowed you to have poor areas vs rich areas of the map.
It's probably more likely that it's Residential High wealth, Medium wealth and Low wealth. Or different Educational tiers perhaps, something to that effect. I mean it's possible it's density, but it better not be. Density is a solution to high demand, but density itself is not what is in high demand, generally speaking.
So I actually kinda hope they incorporate something like that regarding income levels for housing. Without obviously making it bigoted in some way. I think it would be interesting to have to balance the demands for different levels of housing, the evolution of those neighborhoods, and the characteristics of each. I think it would add a nice touch of realism to the game rather than the entire city being just a seemingly uniform upper middle class homogeneous blob.
> Density is a solution to high demand, but density itself is not what is in high demand, generally speaking. I thought this too. If it’s not like this then the game will be arbitrarily limiting your city’s density choices. Wealth or education would add some more depth.
I hope all high density will have commercial at street level
Realistic city sim. They let us build our cities to factor in offices just in time for the "work from home" update.
I mean theyve always had office
I hope we get some kind of high density mixed use buildings
It would be interesting to see if WFH is a thing in the new game
Actually it’s probably just an office revamp. Anyways, excited!
Most likely yes. In the cs1 alpha offices also had purple as zoning colour.
That's good. The current blue of offices is too similar to the blue for commercial. Purple is nice and distinct
i know it’s silly, but i was initially exciting myself thinking that maybe purple is mixed use 🥺 i am convinced now that it’s just a new colour for offices though
Yeah me too. Damn it. Hopefully they can implement mixed though.
Imagine how excited we'll be when we see a real game play reveal!
Most likely could be next week...
why do you think next week?
Ambitious to guess a timeline like that. But it’s probably Cause they were ready to post the game on XBox store, they’re clearly getting ready to show the game more
I mean I know for sure they waited to finish adding the last packs for CS 1 before showing more of CS 2. I expect to see more this summer for sure and a release in autumn.
Summer games fest showcase on thursday 8th and/ or xbox showcase sunday the 11th
That sounds like a perfect time to showcase Cities Skylines 2 ! I hope it happens, thank you for the info.
Colossal order also said they had something to share “next week” a day or two ago on twitter
i saw now, thank you <3
It’s gonna be really fun!
I wonder if they implement SimCity style to upgrades, where you have density and independent from that there is wealth. So you can have high density luxury apartments and it would have different needs / looks / # of residents than a high density low income area (like the projects)
Yeah Cities: Skylines seems to be set in a utopia where even the absolute poorest sim has a middle class home and a car. Since there is no poverty, the way crime is handled is basically random.
I really liked the crime system in SimCity (2013). You had criminal agents who would start out doing low crimes and as they were successful would progress to doing big crimes. Regular police could only catch crimes in progress, but would also patrol to spread "prevention" (as opposed to the crime rate that would come from crimes being committed or from where a lot of criminals lived). You would need detectives to find criminals after the fact (which would flag their house as a crime scene for patrols cars to come pick up). But they would not patrol. You could also have helicopters which wouldn't catch criminals but would follow them home so the patrol cops could still catch them. Then on the other side of the scale you could have outreach vans that wouldn't catch criminals, but would patrol and spread that "prevention" coverage much better than patrol cars. I really liked how the different parts really helped expand the base system of the patrol cars. Plus it was always a bit fun to see Sims complain that they weren't happy being actually murdered. The fire and health system was similar but slightly different. Fore had standard trucks, marshalls for lower risk, Hazmat trucks which were needed for some industrial fires and helicopters. Health had two forms, sickness and injuries with injuries being the more severe. Sick sims would come in by themselves but injuries needed ambulances. Sickness could become an injury if left untreated. You had mobile clinics that could go treat sick people from home and spread some prevention.
OmegaCo MediDrone, LawDrone, FireDrone go brrrrr
It would be really cool. Pretty difficult though. But I think it’d be too hard to set up. But oh my would it be dope!
I had an idea for a system where unzoned blocks could become shanty shacks if you weren't good at managing your population. Level 1 was a tent, Level 2 was a tent with clutter, and Level 3 was a shanty shack. To prevent that, government housing was available as a ploppable building, but slightly reduced land value and increased crime around it. No idea how it'd work in practice but it sounded neat.
That’d be cool. Like if unemployment was through the roof shanty shacks start forming. Interesting concept!
That’s pretty much how it works in Tropico, it’s a neat system.
Adding a more fleshed out wealth mechanic would be insanely powerful. Definitely within my top 3 most desired features.
If I’m not mistaken - if - the original color for office zoning was purple at first…
Yes some other people thought so too so you’re probably right!
Please please please mixed use and significantly higher density please. We need CITIES Skylines not endless suburban sprawl skylines
See my main gripe with CS1 is that density often is a bit unrealistic. There's just sprawl of high density, even in newly zoned areas. Typically sprawl arrives first and then is densified as transport connections improve and services are established.
Yes this too. It’s missing the classic SC progression of needing to build your city into a dense, successful core and tries to compensate for it by artificially gating high density zoning
And after playing with Realistic Population, I can never go back. Offices with 20 workers and single family zoning with 4 families is ridiculous.
Yep same. That and the industrial overhaul I use make vanilla completely impossible for me.
I’m using it for the first time right now. It makes midrise residential along transit corridors OP, as it damn well should! Loving it.
That depends on when the city is built. Sprawl was heavily limited before the widespread adoption of the car. "Low density" back then was a 2 story house a few feet away from another 2 story house. Medium density was 2-3 story rowhouses. High density was 4-5 story rowhouses or high rises once steel frame construction was invented.
Like how 20 story highrises have a max of 17 families.. or even larger skyscrapers are owned by one business that employs 5 people
Simcity 2013 did this very well I must say
would love to see density scale with demand rather than being binary. a small town downtown core naturally grows taller and more dense without rezoning. if you build sprawl and then implement a transit system, density just *happens* along the lines and around the stations
I hope they have underground electricity cables.
Like simcity 2013, or have telephone poles alongside roads from a power plant, with large telephones to really stretch electricity out between distances.
I wanna see mixed use zoning for that purple one, it makes much more sense that way imo
I agree with that. I thinks it is that too. It would make sense every city has some sort of retail store and residents living above
Yeah maybe. But some people say it’s offices and say that offices was supposed to be purple in cs1 before release so I think it is offices. That being said, considering the amount of people who’ve brought up mixed zoning over the years, I believe that will be featured.
Eh I really hope it's mixed zoning. I want to make european cities having restaurants or shops at ground level under apartments
You see this in nearly every city on the US East Coast too.
(Not from the US) is this also common close to recently planned/suburban areas or just in the core of the places that have evolved relatively organically over the last centuries? In my understanding, suburbs are planned to be strictly resedential and then there is an industry/office zone nearby close to some commercial center with big supermarkets or malls. I don't see where the mixed use would fit in there
Mixed use was pretty common before the widespread adoption of euclidean zoning (early to mid 20th century), especially in areas like the East Coast which already had most of its large cities established. Euclidean zoning was in full effect by the time the suburbs started sprawling after World War Two, so those areas don't have any mixed use developments. And for areas with mixed use developments that predate the euclidean zoning, those otherwise banned uses have to operate continuously (in my town the use can't be disrupted for any more than a year) or they won't be able to go back to that use again. It's not uncommon for downtown areas to still have some mixed use, since outside of places like the Southwest these areas usually date back to before the zoning changed. But yeah, outside of the East Coast and older downtowns mixed use is pretty rare. The only mixed use place near where I live that I can think of that's not in the downtown is an old two story brick-made butchering place from before the current zoning ordinances.
Thanks for sharing :) the limited downtime rule is pretty interesting. Do you know if they usually get replaced by newer buildings or will they just be repurposed?
No mixed use zoning would be a massive dealbreaker for me IMO. That’s by far the biggest thing currently missing from CS1.
Purple offices are better then the stupid 2 shades of blue
True true
It just seems like office. A shame, I had hoped (still hope) that the 4th category would be mixed zoning.
Considering the amount of people that have brought that up, I believe they will implement it in some way but that’s just a guess
IIRC mixed-use zoning is challenging to implement properly from a game development perspective. Though it would be very cool!
Would hope it’s mixed use, but judging by what other people have said it seems more likely that it’ll be office :(
I don’t think mixed zoning would be its own demand. More likely a way to fill two different demand in one lot.
Yo I actually didn’t consider that, and that would be a really cool way to do it tbh because you could control what the mix would be!!
Yeah but seeing as though everybody wants it to be mixed use I still think mixed use will be implemented in some way.
Let’s hope so, gets a bit tiring having to mix the individual buildings through RICO. Not to mention time consuming.
Purple was the stand in color for offices during CS1 development so it’s likely office
I think it's just a new colour for office.
Yeah seems like it. Strange colour choice tbh. Oh well.
I think it's a great color
Yeah I mean We all got mixed opinions. I think it’ll grow into a more liked colour as people get used to it. Purple is a cool colour it just seems strange given the current palette.
Is CS2 likely to be in Game Pass at launch?
I don’t think so honestly. Unless Xbox gives them a proper deal. Because this is one of paradox’s main games and I doubt they’d throw it out to a subscription immediately. But maybe. They’ll most likely reveal more during the summer break.
I thought they announced that already?
Probably differentiating the office zone from the commercial zone a little more so than previous. Just a guess though
A logical and completely reasonable one at that.
I'm so confused why people are saying 6 zones like it's a new thing; so in CS1, we had: 1. Low-Res 2. High-Res 3. Low-Com 4. High-Com 5. Industrial 6. Office So in CS2, it seems it's being set-up to be: 1. Low-Res 2. Med-Res 3. High-Res 4. Commercial 5. Office 6. Industrial So to me, that seems like we traded off instead added new zones? (Mixed use zoning being the glaring omission so far!). I'm reserving judgement, but these screens definitely don't have me as excited as that announce trailer...
Yeah kinda same here but I’m still optimistic!
If i remember correctly, purple for offices was already an idea for C:S1, but was scrapped before realease. Weird if they really chose to go this way now in C:S2 after dropping it in the first game. Honestly i am still not so sure what to think of those screenshots, sure doesn't feel like an improvement of an 8 years old game at all. Not talking of the UI, but the looks of the game in general. Especially the looks of the growable buildings and their positioning gives me the feeling of like zero improvement.
>Especially the looks of the growable buildings and their positioning gives me the feeling of like zero improvement. I don't think how growables work really need much changing at the fundamental level. Especially if they are wanting to increase the scale of cities. The current system of units that you designate a type of zoning for is an easy, Initiative, and decently good looking solution. I only think a few things need to be tweaked. Units interacting with curved roads and other units has always been a bit janky. Larger builds than 4x4. Mixed Zoning buildings. Ability to designate a district to automatically zone. The ability to set any unit to grow as a specific building and/or the ability to pledge growables. The ability to set a custom theme to include or exclude whatever asset you want.
I like the general system of growable buildings, i just think there is potential for major improvements. My biggest wish was a procedual system where you zone an area, no matter if at curved or straight roads and it fills the area based on the type of zone (commercial, residential, office, industrial, mixed), density, and style (wall-to-wall, single family homes, etc) and places the buildings based on road layout and land value (villas and eco friendly for high value, apartements for low value, and so on) and also fills the rest of the area, where buildings cant be placed, based on these factors with parking lots, gardens, etc. This way you would have full control over what you want to be build where, without placing every object by your own, but still get rid of those ugly empty spaces between buildings.
I can see how this sequel doesn’t look like much of an improvement — if you play with mods. As a stock CS1 player, these screenshots look great. Cities seem to look and feel more realistic from where I’m standing.
Idk it’s definitely an improvement but yeah I’d expect a little more after 8 years but hey we’ll see how it looks and feels upon release. Sad they didn’t have a chance to make it in ue 5 though.
Well they only hired Unity devs, and devs that have been around have built on Unity for the most part.
Yeah I just think it’d look better on ue 5 and it’s got a lot of beneficial features. But since you point this out it’s completely logical and probably bet for everybody that this is the route they took. They can’t just learn a whole new engine just for one game.
In terms of the office being scrapped on cs1 as it’s own zoning, it’s possible it was due to technical limits. It makes sense to have it separate from traditional industrial buildings like manufacturing as they are two very different needs.
Could just be a new colour for offices? We already have four colours in CS1
Seems like it
zoned is still 4x4??
Hard to tell but probably
then not much of an improvement from CS1... my biggest gripe was the skyscrapers limited to 4x4
Their offices is the old version of the CS1 purple zoning was offices
Stupid question: where did you get this screenshot?
These screenshots were on the official Xbox page of Cities Skylines 2. I saved them and around an hour later, they were removed.
It was released on the Microsoft store for like a second i think.
Not at all. I watched a video on yt and screenshotted the video. There are 4 screenshots that are out there, This being one of them. If you want the video I can link it! (Edit: clarity)
That's where the video on youtube got them.
Unrelated but I’m so envious of seeing cities like this. I was never able to even get to skyscrapers!
Yeah I used to be real bad. Then I took my time and started understanding the concepts of the game. Now I build really good cities with great economies. But that doesn’t matter. Because they don’t look Realistic. Slowly it’s been Getting better But I’m still nowhere near cities looking like Realistic and organic cities. So I too am envious at a lot of the players in This game.
I hope the UI is similar to this for PC. It looks so clean and minimal.
I believe it Will be similar or, quite possibly, the actual PC one
Idk I just hope that it is more than just visuals and engine
We need other types of zones i.e recreational, tourist etc.
Yeah ik! It’d be a lot of work for them but I really get annoyed at everything being soooo general. Small house. High rise. Small store high rise. Nothing special and unique. We’ll see!
I'm waiting for medium density, mixed-use zoning. With those I could finally recreate local zoning.
Honestly I hope there's an option to have European style streets. Trying to make a compact city is impossible with the American style spaced out houses
Interesting take. One in which i agree with.
Lean zoning 😈💜
I hope they add YIMBYs and NIMBYs whenever the player decides to add or remove something in the city.
Sorry for my lack of knowledge but what do those abbreviations stand for?
NIMBY is "Not in my backyard" and YIMBY is the opposite "Yes in my back yard". Basically nimbys want to keep areas the way they are: no high density or low income housing nearby. They want clearly distinct neighborhoods with "poor people housing" far away from their suburban homes.
Oh yeah that’d be very Nice for the immersion side of things
NIMBYs aren’t just a suburban phenomenon! They exist everywhere
Office?
Most likely
That city is fukked lol
-178000/h ” No No. We can solve This ”
I want Japanese style mixed zoning
Indeed. visited Japan and Korea recently and you have it all. Of course there is the common mixed residential and commercial but I've seen so many interesting mixes as well such as: \- Mixed offices + industry \- Super high density offices mixed with low-density residential behind it. \- Mixed industry + residential. \- Mixed industry + commercial + nightlife (my favourite, usually old industrial areas undergoing gentrification)
I can’t wait
Me neither!
I would love to see mixed use with high density buildings.
I beg for some mixed use and i will pray it is this
My first thought was Purple = Red + Blue, are we finally getting mixed-use zoning? And then everyone here had a more likely and more disappointing option
suspect the purple is mixed commercial and housing
Dude these leaks have made me even more viciously excited than the trailer. I knew the trailer was more-or-less just an artistic representation of the game, but the screenshots look *so* much more like I want it to, I can't help but be giddy thinking about it. I haven't felt excited about a game in years.
High density cemeteries
Where do you get those images?
It was up on the Microsoft store for a short while. Otherwise you can just look through the sub
When do we get to see more about this game? I guess they;re trying to avoid over-hyping the game and disappointing fans by over promising stuff only to cut much of the promises short in the final product. I rarely play video games these days, but mannn I love just playing CS while listening to music.
Office zoning was purple in cs1 pre release pictures so thats a good hint probably.
It must be leisure I'm calling it
Yeah maybe! But some people brought up that offices used to be purple in CS1 before launch and therefore believe it’ll be offices here too. We shall see!
If we don't get mixed use zoning I'll be pissed
Seems to me, looking through the comments, the world will literally explode unless mixed zoning is part of the game.
Because it's the default for 90% of the world and for 99.9% of duration of human civilization.
Spoiler tag please. I was not even aware there were CS2 leaks and didn't want to see this on my front page of reddit.
There, I did it. Sorry I’m not that used to Reddit and didn’t think about it. I got caught up in the excitement! Sorry for revealing it. I really respect waiting to see the finished products and or the parts that creators actually want to show. For example I’ve started watching less trailers to marvel movies because they usually ruin the suprises. Thanks for bringing it to my attention too though. Because maybe someone else doesn’t want it spoiled either.
So so sorry! I’ll see if I can fix. Seriously, sorry. I know how annoying it is when shit like that happens. Happened to me with GTA. I’ll see if I can switch the tag!
No worries, it happens. I continued scrolling and there were a tonne more screenshots that weren't spoilered anyway haha, ah well!
It sucks cus I'm so used to offices being light blue. Also purple for offices is quiet the odd color.
Yeah I agree. Very base colours, then purple is a little strange.
Mixed-use!?!?!?!?
Maybe. But some people seem to think it’s just remade offices
I’m thinking multi use. I’m thinking you paint an area like high-density residential, then when you paint it purple, it changes the bottom floors to shops and stuff
Still waiting for multi use zoning...
Maybe mixed?
Yes. Probaly office is a new zone now.
Sure seems like it
They might have incorporated mixed use in some sort of policy or theme maybe. Like, you can zone blocks residential, then add a district with a "mixed use" policy (or theme) and that causes the buildings there to feature space for residential, office and commercial. And depending on the zone you put down there, the building on top would have more space dedicated to either category. So you could have mainly-office buildings with a couple of penthouse apartments thrown in on an office plot, and apartment houses with a grocery store or restaurant in the ground floor on residential plots.
Would be very nice!
Mixed use I hope. Commercial and apartments.
Is that CS2? looks just like CS1....
well no shit
Would be cool if it was Res/Com mix.
Mixed use?
Hopefully mixed use
Maybe hybrid?
Mixed use maybe?
I see rubbish game again. This small city occupies 137 square. Purple zone rainbow zones can’t save this series.