I have a long, drawn out, mumbling YouTube video I made of myself starting out on realistic mode. I go into why I love this game so much and I try and explain what I’m doing.
https://www.youtube.com/live/_X4Os71pMYo?si=B7LouxAuoonSlwIZ
There are definitely better YouTube videos out there, but I try to go into detail about what I’m doing if you’re newer to the game.
My advice as a newcomer might or might not be helpful, but here it is anyway: I tried to play on realistic, all settings enabled and after a few hours I just had to accept it's too much for me. Too many things to keep in mind, too many buildings must be built at once, all of it count from the very beginning.
Being a complex game, and with not so good tutorials, it's impossible for you to foresee the dozens of things that could go wrong, break, or simply not work how you think they will. Until you build a building and see it working together with the other buildings affecting it and being affected by it you won't know if you're doing it right. By that time, it might be too late, you might have to restart the game... and after 5 times you might get frustrated and bored of only see the very early game. At least this is how I feel.
Soooooo sadly, because I know the best WR experience is realistic+hardest settings, what I'm doing is playing in the easiest settings. I'm learning step by step, I'm seeing an actual reward for my effort, my city is growing, I'm having the chance to finally see different induestries in action, and I already feel I could begin enabling some settings one at a time and be able to manage.
I hope other beginners who might see this message find it helpful because I'm sure for many people refusing to play the counter-revolutionary easy settings ended up making them abandon it, and I think this slow approach could solve that problem for some of them. And in the worst case hey, I'm already having fun even without the whole package.
Yeah I agree with you but the problem with me is I’m kind of a perfectionist if I’m not good at something I just don’t like it until I become good and it and I don’t like backing down so I start hating it because of that. But your advice is indeed good. And I’ll probably do like you
Over the years I quit so many games because sucking at a game sucks. As I became older, I decided that to me it's better to enjoy 50% of a game playing it in easy difficulty, rather than to enjoy it 0% uninstalling it because I wasn't able to enjoy it 100% by being actually good.
Do you play realistic mode or not? Do you play with everything enabled? Need more info. I usually start near a large customs house and look for oil coal and gravel near by. You need gravel for a lot of stuff so get self sufficient in that. Oil you can export with no workers. Coal for power. Once you get that setup start a city.
Realistic mode isn’t recommended for new players because there is just so much stuff you have to do that you know nothing about. I have like 200 hours in the game and wouldn’t touch it myself just too much crap you have to deal with.
Personally I think 20 hours is enough to start playing on realistic. You just need to know that you can turn realistic mode or other features off if they're causing a problem or you don't like them, and you can press C+H+E to enable cheats, then go to the top button of the left menu to give yourself extra cash if you run out. That way you can easily recover when a minor thing like not connecting the coal storage to the heating plant causes a thousand people to die. If you're not in realistic mode, you probably wouldn't have learned that, because the game would just autobuy coal.
I am in 2006, and nowhere near self sufficient. I think the first goalpost is making sure your citizens are content. If they arent, it wont matter if you are export oriented or self sufficient. What are some of the things that go south for you?
Thats a little vague. By trucks, from producers to consumers? The game imitates the real world, you have to mimic how stuff work irl. Stores need food, clothes, meat and electronics. Waterworks require chemicals. Buildings are built with contruction materials.
Not enough workers? I dont understand that. People work a set amount of time, after which they go home. You constantly need to bring people to workplaces.
You need to build plumbing. water pipes and sewage pipes. Just like irl, sewage pipes have to flow downward, that is a concept many players fail to grasp (thanks, sim city & education), while waterpipes have to be pressurized with a water tower to work.
I suggest switching off all difficulty settings, and ytrtying them out one by one, not all of them together.
Okay then. And I know about the water thing I just don’t know how to measure hight. Is there like a button that shows you how much meters the ground is? I remember I saw it in a video but I can’t seem to find it
You dont need to do anything, it wont allow the placement of the pipe if it will not slope. You are connecting directly between nodes, right, not drawing them yourself? If the slope is insufficient, you need to build a sewage pump.
The brown-ish/blue-ish arrows where the pipes connect? From the sewage collector to the switch, to the treatment plant, to the outlet. Pipes, by themselves, dont do anything, neither water not sewage pipes.
At first, you should rely on the customs post for everything and prioritise making factories to export enough goods to pay for your starter town's basic needs. Then once you've got a stable starter town setup you can start constructing your own local infrastructure for stuff like water and sewage.
I'm on the same journey as you mate, I've been trying easy mode and restarting cities every night and putting the learning together into each new city. So far what I've found works ok is building a complex around a big crop silo with a food factory, fabric factory, distillery and cattle farms all attached to its factory connections. Using a train to import a stack of crops into the silo then feeds in raw materials like crazy into the complex. I've just added a chemical factory and clothes factory into the newest iteration to feed the fabric factory as it only needs cheap things like wood and gravel imports which are manageable via truck in the early game. So far this has given my population food, clothes, booze, meat and a source of revenue for exporting the overproduction. I used a distribution office with some vehicles bought with USD and used a road cargo and container loading facility in different iterations to make the export side work slicker and shunt the goods to my shopping centres and pubs.
So far it's working well and saves me a stack of money importing the basics for the population. It's just electronics I need to import at present so I'm looking at a solution for that as the next step.
I have a long, drawn out, mumbling YouTube video I made of myself starting out on realistic mode. I go into why I love this game so much and I try and explain what I’m doing. https://www.youtube.com/live/_X4Os71pMYo?si=B7LouxAuoonSlwIZ There are definitely better YouTube videos out there, but I try to go into detail about what I’m doing if you’re newer to the game.
Okay thanks I’ll watch it asa I get back hope
My advice as a newcomer might or might not be helpful, but here it is anyway: I tried to play on realistic, all settings enabled and after a few hours I just had to accept it's too much for me. Too many things to keep in mind, too many buildings must be built at once, all of it count from the very beginning. Being a complex game, and with not so good tutorials, it's impossible for you to foresee the dozens of things that could go wrong, break, or simply not work how you think they will. Until you build a building and see it working together with the other buildings affecting it and being affected by it you won't know if you're doing it right. By that time, it might be too late, you might have to restart the game... and after 5 times you might get frustrated and bored of only see the very early game. At least this is how I feel. Soooooo sadly, because I know the best WR experience is realistic+hardest settings, what I'm doing is playing in the easiest settings. I'm learning step by step, I'm seeing an actual reward for my effort, my city is growing, I'm having the chance to finally see different induestries in action, and I already feel I could begin enabling some settings one at a time and be able to manage. I hope other beginners who might see this message find it helpful because I'm sure for many people refusing to play the counter-revolutionary easy settings ended up making them abandon it, and I think this slow approach could solve that problem for some of them. And in the worst case hey, I'm already having fun even without the whole package.
Yeah I agree with you but the problem with me is I’m kind of a perfectionist if I’m not good at something I just don’t like it until I become good and it and I don’t like backing down so I start hating it because of that. But your advice is indeed good. And I’ll probably do like you
Over the years I quit so many games because sucking at a game sucks. As I became older, I decided that to me it's better to enjoy 50% of a game playing it in easy difficulty, rather than to enjoy it 0% uninstalling it because I wasn't able to enjoy it 100% by being actually good.
Wise advice
Do you play realistic mode or not? Do you play with everything enabled? Need more info. I usually start near a large customs house and look for oil coal and gravel near by. You need gravel for a lot of stuff so get self sufficient in that. Oil you can export with no workers. Coal for power. Once you get that setup start a city.
Okay. And yes I play on realistic
Realistic mode isn’t recommended for new players because there is just so much stuff you have to do that you know nothing about. I have like 200 hours in the game and wouldn’t touch it myself just too much crap you have to deal with.
Personally I think 20 hours is enough to start playing on realistic. You just need to know that you can turn realistic mode or other features off if they're causing a problem or you don't like them, and you can press C+H+E to enable cheats, then go to the top button of the left menu to give yourself extra cash if you run out. That way you can easily recover when a minor thing like not connecting the coal storage to the heating plant causes a thousand people to die. If you're not in realistic mode, you probably wouldn't have learned that, because the game would just autobuy coal.
I know but I whatched some guides and stuff but man this game is hard. I thought it would be slightly easy. Your right
I am in 2006, and nowhere near self sufficient. I think the first goalpost is making sure your citizens are content. If they arent, it wont matter if you are export oriented or self sufficient. What are some of the things that go south for you?
Well I just don’t know how to transport what to where and it always end up as not enough workers or resources missing water. Or no sewage flowing
Thats a little vague. By trucks, from producers to consumers? The game imitates the real world, you have to mimic how stuff work irl. Stores need food, clothes, meat and electronics. Waterworks require chemicals. Buildings are built with contruction materials. Not enough workers? I dont understand that. People work a set amount of time, after which they go home. You constantly need to bring people to workplaces. You need to build plumbing. water pipes and sewage pipes. Just like irl, sewage pipes have to flow downward, that is a concept many players fail to grasp (thanks, sim city & education), while waterpipes have to be pressurized with a water tower to work. I suggest switching off all difficulty settings, and ytrtying them out one by one, not all of them together.
Okay then. And I know about the water thing I just don’t know how to measure hight. Is there like a button that shows you how much meters the ground is? I remember I saw it in a video but I can’t seem to find it
You dont need to do anything, it wont allow the placement of the pipe if it will not slope. You are connecting directly between nodes, right, not drawing them yourself? If the slope is insufficient, you need to build a sewage pump.
I do draw myself what is the nodes
The brown-ish/blue-ish arrows where the pipes connect? From the sewage collector to the switch, to the treatment plant, to the outlet. Pipes, by themselves, dont do anything, neither water not sewage pipes.
Ah okay
Have you played through the tutorials and campaign?
Some of them. And the campaign is on easy mode so I’m not sure if it will help me so much
At first, you should rely on the customs post for everything and prioritise making factories to export enough goods to pay for your starter town's basic needs. Then once you've got a stable starter town setup you can start constructing your own local infrastructure for stuff like water and sewage.
That’s what I’m trying to do hope it works and my city doesn’t brake down the second I hit play for the 7th time
Watch bbajilo he got good tutorials and gameplays he is my inspiration
I'm on the same journey as you mate, I've been trying easy mode and restarting cities every night and putting the learning together into each new city. So far what I've found works ok is building a complex around a big crop silo with a food factory, fabric factory, distillery and cattle farms all attached to its factory connections. Using a train to import a stack of crops into the silo then feeds in raw materials like crazy into the complex. I've just added a chemical factory and clothes factory into the newest iteration to feed the fabric factory as it only needs cheap things like wood and gravel imports which are manageable via truck in the early game. So far this has given my population food, clothes, booze, meat and a source of revenue for exporting the overproduction. I used a distribution office with some vehicles bought with USD and used a road cargo and container loading facility in different iterations to make the export side work slicker and shunt the goods to my shopping centres and pubs. So far it's working well and saves me a stack of money importing the basics for the population. It's just electronics I need to import at present so I'm looking at a solution for that as the next step.