Cities Skylines II was ambitious, to say the least. When it launched, it definitely fell flat on its face. But after a year, I can honestly say that I prefer it, significantly, over the first game. Let me say why:

First, let me address the elephant in the room: the simulation isn't as complex as it could be. It's almost like CO created a modern SimCity 4 with Cities Skylines I, and then toned it down in Cities Skylines II (much as Maxis planned to do after deciding SC4 was too complex). But in doing so, they seem to have lost their way, creating a very detailed simulator that is also remarkably simple whilst also being a bit broken. Many aspects work great, whilst others seem totally broken or missing. These things need to be fixed or overhauled, and not through DLC. If they can provide a working base-game simulation, that will hugely improve feedback.

Second, let me address performance. When the game launched, it wasn't great. Framerate left a lot to be desired, at least. I never built a huge city (I build *very* slowly), but it wasn't great when I was hitting 200,000 people. Not terrible, but not great. My rig is an RTX 4070, 32GB of RAM, Intel 13700K ... pretty good machine. After some updates, it runs great. The game slows down after a few hundred thousand people, but so did the first game, and so will most simulator games. Framerate is very good now. But this big of an improvement after a year lays the foundation for potentially huge improvements over the coming years. Plus, the improvements that we have seen, and will likely continue to see, simply would not have been possible in the first game. The code for the first game was last-gen to say the least, it was not designed for modern computers -- single-core processing, folks. CS II isn't perfect right now, but in my experience, it already exceeds the performance of the first game, while also laying the groundwork for much better handling of large cities long-term.

Third, I want to talk about mods: Cities Skylines I had tons of mods, and that was cool, but I have to remind many people that those mods largely fixed aspects of the game that didn't work well, like aspects of the simulation, traffic, movement of objects and roads, placement of buildings, and so on. Most of these mods have made their way to CS:2, but mostly to fine-tune the [overall] better detailing tools. There is room for improvement to them, sure. But also consider the potential: the code for this game is far more accessible than the first game. That's how we can get amazing mods like Road Builder, or Water Features, or Write Anywhere. These three mods were released within a year of first release, and none would have been as easy to create for CS I, if possible at all. My point being here, there is huge potential for mods. CS I might have the better mod lineup right now (debatable--key mods I like are already in CS II), but in-time, CS II will certainly have the better catalog, or at least the potential for it.

Fourth, let's talk assets: Assets were amazing in CS I, but they were not perfect: every asset you downloaded slowed the game down more and more, to the point where you needed, realistically, at least 24 to 32 GB of RAM to actually load the game (which required its own mod, mind you...), and even then, the game ran awful with thousands of assets subscribed. Sure, the game had tons of options for assets, but you couldn't realistically subscribe to anywhere close to all of them without a super-computer. CS II, at least from my understanding, should be able to handle custom assets far better than CS I, because it was designed to support that function from the outset, unlike CS I. It remains to be seen if that is true, but I would bet that 1000 subscribed assets on CS II will run far better than 1000 on CS I. I'm hoping that CO/Paradox taking their time with assets is them simply perfecting this whole part of the game...I hope I'm not wrong. In the mean time, I can report that subscribing to all available assets (France, Germany, UK, Japan, Promenades, Modern Cities) has made zero impact on my performance. Given how many individual assets have been added through these add-ons, I feel that's a great sign for the future of asset modding.

Fifth, I want to address animations. There is not enough people doing "stuff". This is probably my biggest sore-point right now. Cities don't feel particularly alive. I want to see people do stuff: playing sports, using playgrounds, swimming in pools. and so on. Hopefully we can see a DLC that adds significant detail for parks, with a base-game update to add new simulations for basic/still animations. Right now, we do at least see people going places, it's just that we don't see enough of what they do when they get where they are going.

Sixth, I want to address traffic: the traffic simulation in CS II is far better than CS I. Traffic uses all available lanes; traffic turning almost always yields correctly (sometimes not...kind of like real life); and, traffic mostly sticks to roads with higher speed limits first, even if the route is longer. Overall, I have much less difficulty handling traffic. The car crashes are a bit stupid and I don't understand why road maintenance vehicles constantly come to a full stop, but those issues are easily fixed if CO wants to fix them. The basic traffic AI in CS I was forever borked and TM:PE could not keep up. Many disagree with me, I'm sure, but frankly I think issues that most experience come more down to user error than actual broken simulation. The oft-cited example of poor simulation is everyone merging last second. This will happen in two instances: (1) two nodes very close together (fix this and you will fix 80% of the issue); or (2) the turn-off is exceptionally popular; this can be fixed by widening that road, just like in real life. If 75% of your traffic needs to go from four lanes to one, are they supposed to only use one lane for the whole length of the first road, like in CS I, or would you rather they use the whole road until the last possible second, and then zipper-merge? I know what I prefer, but others may disagree. In any case, I feel like CS II more closely resembles real-life traffic flow, for better or worse.

Seventh, I want to address detailing: CS II has amazing detailing features. There aren't enough assets yet to create truly unique areas, but we have a lot of ways to detail now. You can use a mod to plop individual buildings, use better bulldozer to delete unwanted details of the lot, and then use the surface tool to adjust the lot size and shape, and then detail as needed from there (including adding custom paths and gathering spaces [where people gather around and stare at each other...not really exciting but better than nothing I suppose]). Very little of that was possible in CS I. For this reason, it is my opinion that CS II is the better city-detailer ("city painter" if you will), and I suspect it will only get better from here.

This review is getting very long, so I will end it here. Overall, I give the game a B. Fix large swaths of the simulation, add more details to make the city feel alive, continue to improve performance, release assets, and the game will only get better and better. The amount of improvement we've seen, through fixes and mods, is actually remarkable, and not enough credit is given in my opinion. I hope the developers continue to stay committed, and bring in outside help to refine the game as needed. At the end of the day, CS I is the closest thing we have to CS II (other city simulators are nowhere near the scale of CS II), so we really need this to succeed. Especially among those like me who honestly play these types of games far more than any other (just look at my hours in-game ... in fairness a lot of that was idling ...). CO has laid the foundation (code-wise) for an excellent game.

Thanks for reading!

Cities Skylines II was ambitious, to say the least. When it launched, it definitely fell flat on its face. But after a year, I can honestly say that I prefer it, significantly, over the first game. Let me say why: First, let me address the elephant in the room: the simulation isn't as complex as it could be. It's almost like CO created a modern SimCity 4 with Cities Skylines I, and then toned it down in Cities Skylines II (much as Maxis planned to do after deciding SC4 was too complex). But in doing so, they seem to have lost their way, creating a very detailed simulator that is also remarkably simple whilst also being a bit broken. Many aspects work great, whilst others seem totally broken or missing. These things need to be fixed or overhauled, and not through DLC. If they can provide a working base-game simulation, that will hugely improve feedback. Second, let me address performance. When the game launched, it wasn't great. Framerate left a lot to be desired, at least. I never built a huge city (I build *very* slowly), but it wasn't great when I was hitting 200,000 people. Not terrible, but not great. My rig is an RTX 4070, 32GB of RAM, Intel 13700K ... pretty good machine. After some updates, it runs great. The game slows down after a few hundred thousand people, but so did the first game, and so will most simulator games. Framerate is very good now. But this big of an improvement after a year lays the foundation for potentially huge improvements over the coming years. Plus, the improvements that we have seen, and will likely continue to see, simply would not have been possible in the first game. The code for the first game was last-gen to say the least, it was not designed for modern computers -- single-core processing, folks. CS II isn't perfect right now, but in my experience, it already exceeds the performance of the first game, while also laying the groundwork for much better handling of large cities long-term. Third, I want to talk about mods: Cities Skylines I had tons of mods, and that was cool, but I have to remind many people that those mods largely fixed aspects of the game that didn't work well, like aspects of the simulation, traffic, movement of objects and roads, placement of buildings, and so on. Most of these mods have made their way to CS:2, but mostly to fine-tune the [overall] better detailing tools. There is room for improvement to them, sure. But also consider the potential: the code for this game is far more accessible than the first game. That's how we can get amazing mods like Road Builder, or Water Features, or Write Anywhere. These three mods were released within a year of first release, and none would have been as easy to create for CS I, if possible at all. My point being here, there is huge potential for mods. CS I might have the better mod lineup right now (debatable--key mods I like are already in CS II), but in-time, CS II will certainly have the better catalog, or at least the potential for it. Fourth, let's talk assets: Assets were amazing in CS I, but they were not perfect: every asset you downloaded slowed the game down more and more, to the point where you needed, realistically, at least 24 to 32 GB of RAM to actually load the game (which required its own mod, mind you...), and even then, the game ran awful with thousands of assets subscribed. Sure, the game had tons of options for assets, but you couldn't realistically subscribe to anywhere close to all of them without a super-computer. CS II, at least from my understanding, should be able to handle custom assets far better than CS I, because it was designed to support that function from the outset, unlike CS I. It remains to be seen if that is true, but I would bet that 1000 subscribed assets on CS II will run far better than 1000 on CS I. I'm hoping that CO/Paradox taking their time with assets is them simply perfecting this whole part of the game...I hope I'm not wrong. In the mean time, I can report that subscribing to all available assets (France, Germany, UK, Japan, Promenades, Modern Cities) has made zero impact on my performance. Given how many individual assets have been added through these add-ons, I feel that's a great sign for the future of asset modding. Fifth, I want to address animations. There is not enough people doing "stuff". This is probably my biggest sore-point right now. Cities don't feel particularly alive. I want to see people do stuff: playing sports, using playgrounds, swimming in pools. and so on. Hopefully we can see a DLC that adds significant detail for parks, with a base-game update to add new simulations for basic/still animations. Right now, we do at least see people going places, it's just that we don't see enough of what they do when they get where they are going. Sixth, I want to address traffic: the traffic simulation in CS II is far better than CS I. Traffic uses all available lanes; traffic turning almost always yields correctly (sometimes not...kind of like real life); and, traffic mostly sticks to roads with higher speed limits first, even if the route is longer. Overall, I have much less difficulty handling traffic. The car crashes are a bit stupid and I don't understand why road maintenance vehicles constantly come to a full stop, but those issues are easily fixed if CO wants to fix them. The basic traffic AI in CS I was forever borked and TM:PE could not keep up. Many disagree with me, I'm sure, but frankly I think issues that most experience come more down to user error than actual broken simulation. The oft-cited example of poor simulation is everyone merging last second. This will happen in two instances: (1) two nodes very close together (fix this and you will fix 80% of the issue); or (2) the turn-off is exceptionally popular; this can be fixed by widening that road, just like in real life. If 75% of your traffic needs to go from four lanes to one, are they supposed to only use one lane for the whole length of the first road, like in CS I, or would you rather they use the whole road until the last possible second, and then zipper-merge? I know what I prefer, but others may disagree. In any case, I feel like CS II more closely resembles real-life traffic flow, for better or worse. Seventh, I want to address detailing: CS II has amazing detailing features. There aren't enough assets yet to create truly unique areas, but we have a lot of ways to detail now. You can use a mod to plop individual buildings, use better bulldozer to delete unwanted details of the lot, and then use the surface tool to adjust the lot size and shape, and then detail as needed from there (including adding custom paths and gathering spaces [where people gather around and stare at each other...not really exciting but better than nothing I suppose]). Very little of that was possible in CS I. For this reason, it is my opinion that CS II is the better city-detailer ("city painter" if you will), and I suspect it will only get better from here. This review is getting very long, so I will end it here. Overall, I give the game a B. Fix large swaths of the simulation, add more details to make the city feel alive, continue to improve performance, release assets, and the game will only get better and better. The amount of improvement we've seen, through fixes and mods, is actually remarkable, and not enough credit is given in my opinion. I hope the developers continue to stay committed, and bring in outside help to refine the game as needed. At the end of the day, CS I is the closest thing we have to CS II (other city simulators are nowhere near the scale of CS II), so we really need this to succeed. Especially among those like me who honestly play these types of games far more than any other (just look at my hours in-game ... in fairness a lot of that was idling ...). CO has laid the foundation (code-wise) for an excellent game. Thanks for reading!