As a long-time fan who has sunk over 2000 hours across multiple cities in the original Cities Skylines and DLCs, I‘ve eagerly awaited Cities Skylines II to see how this beloved city-building franchise has evolved. After over 50 hours playing the new game during early access, I‘d like to provide my take on the key question facing fans – should you buy Cities Skylines II now or wait a few months?
What‘s New in Cities Skylines II
Released on February 28th, 2023, Cities Skylines II brings a host of new features, visual improvements, and simulation changes:
- More impressive graphical fidelity, scale, and level of detail – buildings can now support up to 406 residents and office towers accommodate 160 workers
- Improved mechanics around managing services like healthcare, education, police coverage powered by new systems to track maintenance needs and capacity constraints
- Introduction of modular building extensions to boost capacities of schools, hospitals, cemeteries and more
- Overhauled power, water and waste management supply chains featuring dozens of new eco-friendly buildings
- New district specialization frameworks focused around tourism, local produce, education and more
- New transport options including cable cars, hot air balloons, and monorails
However, long-time Skylines fans have noticed that some beloved areas of content feel pared back compared to all the mechanics and buildings accumulated via expansions and DLCs across 6+ years of active development on the original Cities Skylines. For example, there is currently:
- No day/night cycle or dynamic weather effects
- A limited catalog of ~50 European/North American architectural building themes
- No terraforming tools or custom map editing features
- Less flexibility around policies to shape local ordinances and laws
The table below summarizes some of the key differentiation points across major features:
| Feature | Cities Skylines (Original) | Cities Skylines II |
|---|---|---|
| Building Count and Variety | 1900+ buildings across European, Asian and North American architectural styles | ~50 distinct building models drawing primarily from European influences |
| Map Customization and Terraforming | Extensive terraforming tools and map customization presets like rivers, lakes, mountains with fine-grained control | No custom map editing tools available yet but likely coming post-release |
| Transport Options | Wide array covering planes, trains, boats, cable cars, blimps, monorails | More limited initial selection focused on road vehicles, metro lines, passenger ships and some new options like hot air balloons |
| Power Supply Chain | Manage between coal, oil, wind, solar, hydro and geothermal power plants | Improved power mechanics with electricity and water flow simulated similar to supply chains for services |
| Policies and Laws | 40+ policies across areas like education, health, industry and more | Currently ~12 unlockable city ordinances focused on utilities access, commerce regulations and safety |
(Table summarizing differences in features between Cities Skylines games)
So while long-time fans notice some areas of scaled back flexibility or customization potential based on remembers fondly from Cities Skylines eldership, Cities Skylines II equally demonstrates meaningful leaps forward in scale, simulation depth, and graphical beauty.
It‘s also worth noting that the modding community was instrumental in pushing the original game far beyond it‘s initial scope through a continual stream of user-generated buildings, maps assets and game mechanics. We can likely expect a similar trend here with Cities Skylines II over months and years of active development by the player community.
Technical Performance and Hardware Requirements
Cities Skylines II places more demanding requirements on CPU and GPU hardware for smooth performance compared to it‘s predecessor. The table below summarizes the official specs:
| Spec | Cities Skylines (Original) | Cities Skylines II |
|---|---|---|
| OS | Windows 7+ | Windows 10 64-bit |
| CPU | Intel i5-3470 / AMD FX-6300 | Intel i7-6700k / AMD Ryzen 5 3600 |
| RAM | 6GB | 16GB |
| GPU | nVidia GTX 660 2GB / AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB | nVidia RTX 3070 / AMD Radeon RX 6800 XT |
| Storage | 4GB | 16GB+ |
(Table comparing published system requirements between games)
In practice many players have run into crashes, lag, long loading times and visual glitches even on modern gaming rigs during Cities Skylines II early access. The game engine itself seems to struggle with larger city sizes depsite meeting on-paper hardware requirements.
These performance constraints will hopefully smooth over via patches, updates and GPU driver tuning, but are worth setting expectations around in the game‘s initial months. You may need high-end gear for fluid frame rates until optimizations kick in.
Based on early player feedback across Reddit and Steam discussion forums, here is a sample of comments highlighting some current technical issues needing attention:
"Game crashed 3 times in the last hour while playing…unsure why"
"The loading times are pretty long for me, like 1-2 minutes between switching between build and map modes"
"I have a RTX 3090 but get major lag whenever I zoom in on crowded areas of my city in 4K resolution"
So those prioritizing buttery-smooth performance may want to wait a few months for improvements to arrive.
Content Depth and Mechanics – A Work in Progress
While Cities Skylines II sets a new high watermark for visually immersive metropolitan design, fans of past games enjoyed finely tuning intricate details across sprawling cities. And there is a sense that some signature mechanics feel stripped down or simplified relative to all the accumulated DLCs and expansions.
For example long-time players notice significant changes around education mechanics. Instead of designing school bus routes and curriculum policies to manage generational attendance, students are now represented as abstract figures. Universities and high tech industrial zones play a reduced role without simulated research grants driving wider progress.
On the bright side, new systems around managing healthcare infrastructures or setting up emergency response units offer fresh city planning and simulation opportunities. As your city grows, ensuring adequate police and cemetery capacity becomes paramount. And the overhauled power, water and waste transfer mechanics present renewed challenges around balancing eco-friendly facilities versus budgets and pollution.
The supply chain model for industry and commerce zones equally shows major steps forward. You manage entire production pipelines spanning Extraction > Processing > Manufacturing > Distribution tails for forestry, crops, oil reserves and more. Commercial zones track dynamically changing goods inventories based on simulated customer demand profiles rather than simplified truck counts.
So in some areas Cities Skylines II represents progress while regressing or simplifying other beloved features. However past games enjoyed years of post-launch support, content and tuning. What we have today likely shows only a fraction of the ultimate vision once modder communities and developers alike expand capabilities over time.
Key Gameplay Enhancements
Now that we‘ve covered how Cities Skylines II iterates in some areas while streamlining others relative to past franchise entries, let‘s dive deeper into some of the most notable gameplay enhancements:
Supply Chain Management
The everyday experiences of your citizens now hinges upon dynamic supply and demand forces across interdependent production pipelines. For example to setup a bustling forestry industry you‘ll need to:
- Zone spaces for raw lumber harvesting from forests
- Build sawmills and production facilities to process raw wood
- Design distributing centers to ship goods to commercial zones
- Adjust budgets and policies to balance profits, efficiency and land impacts
If any link in this supply chain falters, downtstream centers stall as inventories dry up. Similarly for farm-to-table produce you‘ll need fertile agriculture zones, well-connected routes for crop transport to factories for goods production, then getting packaged food stuffs to grocery stores where citizens shop.
Tuning these interlocked city sub-systems presents exciting new challenges!
District Specialization
You now have more flexibility around customizing focused neighborhood blocks pursuing specific goals. For example create a tourism hotspot leveraging new landmarks like Grand Ferris Wheels or the ornate Opera House to attract visiting Sims:
Or designate zones as local produce hubs with community gardens, farmers markets and farm-to-table infrastructure:
Areas can also focus on education with universities, schools and libraries as central pillars. And the modular city center buildings enable creatively stacking expansions dedicating extra space for police departments, tax offices and more.
Combined these district-based tools enable impressively specialized cities!
Transport and Infrastructure
Cities Skylines II introduces new mass transit options like the monorail for efficient intra-city travel:
Cable cars offer picturesque views:
And hot air balloons floating through the skies help move tourists in style:
For utilities you can now build waste processing centers to support neighborhoods or tap geothermal heat sources as eco-friendly power alternatives.
Policies and Tax Rates
As mayor you shape the rules and regulations around commerce, public services, recreational zones and more. Want to permit certain industrial vehicles while banning passenger variants that increase noise and pollution? Draft local policies to prohibit trucks or enable automated waste collection.
Tools around setting tax rates also improved – you specify separate buckets for citizens, commercial industries, offices and visitors. So subsidize public transit for commuters while cranking up hotel taxes on tourists. And the impacts cascade through the simulated economy allowing new experiments!
What‘s on the Horizon?
Let‘s now shift gears and speculate around what long-time franchise fans likely hope arrive in future DLC expansions or content packs after seeing baseline capabilities in Cities Skylines II today.
Personally near the top of my wishlist are:
-
Map Editor Tools: I sorely miss being able to customize terrain with rivers, lakes and mountain ridges as the starting foundation when kicking off a new city. The community created incredible custom map environments we‘d love to see return.
-
Policy Expansions: While Cities Skylines II introduces welcome policy changes like vehicle prohibitions, the original game offered significantly more customization around education, healthcare, public safety, commerce, leisure and environmental ordinances unique to your city.
-
Tourism Overhaul: There‘s exciting progress around new landmarks to attract tourists, but past titles supported detailed tracking around visitor demographics and integrated attractions like amusement parks, nature preserves and stadium events drawing different crowds.
-
Weather Systems: Having dynamic seasons, rainfall patterns and day/night cycles remains top of mind. Seeing your city blanketed in snow or buffeted by storms added magic!
No doubt we‘ll debate and advocate around desired features for years – that passionate engagement remains hallmark of the Cities Skylines community!
Should You Buy Now or Wait?
We‘ve covered a lot of ground when it comes to additions, improvements and changes introduced in Cities Skylines II relative to past franchise titles. Let‘s now return to the key question – should you buy the game today or wait a few months?
For more casual players on a budget or concerned by current performance issues, I‘d likely wait for a couple patches and fixes. See what new mods emerge to expand available buildings. And give the developers time to stabilize simulation and hardware optimization. Going the patient route, you‘ll miss some initial excitement but benefit from discounts or bundle deals down the road getting a polished product.
However for hardcore fans who meet the steep minimum system requirements and crave new challenges, Cities Skylines II already delivers hours of engaging city planning and problem solving. If you pushed past titles to their limits, the new supply chain mechanics offer next-level complexity sure to puzzle even seasoned mayors. Yes you‘ll encounter occasional crashes or bugs initially, but can revel in shaping dynamically evolving neighborhoods, infrastructure and policies.
Personally I‘d recommend the following based on budget and excitement levels:
- Casual Players: Wait 3-6 months for more polish, mods and potential sales
- Budget Conscious: Grab during a seasonal promotion like Summer/Holiday sales for additional discounts
- Performance Focused: Delay until GPU utilization and multi-core scaling improves
- Hardcore Fans: Buy now to enjoy new simulation depth accepting early roughness
No matter your preferred path, the future looks bright for Cities Skylines II building upon strong foundations where modders and developers can pivot the franchise to even greater heights! This passionate community has demonstrated amazing creativity in the past, and likely propel the latest chapter to new levels in exciting ways.
Let me know which route you plan to take or if any questions arise around what to expect from the game today vs what may come with time. Happy city building!