Which Cities Skylines Dlc Are Worth It

Which Cities Skylines Dlc Are Worth It

There are enough of means to expand Cities: Skylines, but which expansions are truly worth the money?

The newest DLC, Industries, just released for Colossal Society's genre gold standard Cities: Skylines, and to gloat, the game and all of its DLC except for the new ane just went on sale on Steam through Thursday, November 1.

And while you may be tempted to just buy the complete game-and-DLC bundle (a more than $150 value for about 56 bucks), and y'all'd get a fantastic experience out of so doing, maybe you don't quite desire to become whole grunter correct out of the box.

Maybe, instead, you're looking to proceed your purchases down to the toll of a fast-food meal, but you lot really desire to make the money count. For that, here's your guide to every Skylines DLC, from "not worth it at any price" to "buy information technology even if it isn't on sale, information technology's that good."

Special note: I'thousand not including minor packs that don't make major gameplay changes. Stuff like Content Creator packs and radio stations add nice flavor to the game, but to exist frankly honest, they're really not worth spending your own money on, non when so much of that stuff is bachelor in the Steam Workshop for free. Never send a paid content-only DLC to do a mod's job, I say.

Must-have Cities: Skylines DLCs

After Dark

After Night isn't a mandatory because of the day/night bicycle (which came with the free patch that accompanied the expansion anyway). Nor is it a mandatory because of the leisure and tourist buildings (which yous may end up not using at all).

No, what makes After Dark a must-have is the overhaul of metropolis services that it brings.

The Jitney Last is absolutely essential to creating a large, integrated public transportation system that can serve a large metropolis. Much like in any other urban center in the real earth, the ability for omnibus lines to seamlessly converge on a key indicate is what makes it actually useful to the citizenry.

Afterwards Nighttime also introduced cargo hubs, which provide massive boosts to the city'southward industrial economy, especially with the Industries DLC. Even if you're non a huge fan of those xanthous blocks on the map where the muddy jobs of the city get washed, having them be assisting means they're non just eating infinite to keep demand for labor upward.

It too comes with the International Airdrome, and if you've had a city big enough to where air chapters has become a concern, y'all'll know exactly what a precious stone this building is in the lategame.

Throw in taxi service on the roads to relieve congestion, and y'all see why Afterwards Dark was a complete and essential expansion that offered something for everyone. This is generally $vii.49 on sale and $14.99 at full cost and is the first DLC on this list well worth shelling out the complete cost of access for.

Get it if:

You want your roads to be more than efficient and you lot want a fashion to generate additional revenue streams to provide diversity to your urban center's economy through leisure and tourism.

Miss it if:

For some bizarre reason (seriously, this DLC is absolutely essential), trying to run bigger cities with inefficient road networks somehow appeals more having major gameplay improvements.

Industries

Every bit the game's promotional materials put it, "mind your business" with Industries, a DLC that manages to layer a resource- and production-management RTS on superlative of a urban center architect without losing the plot in either instance.

This is the DLC that actually makes the natural resource on the map useful. Information technology cannot be overstated just how much this utterly revolutionizes gameplay.

Peculiarly when combined with the carte du jour setting that gives unlimited oil and ore resources rather than ones that deplete in most 10 minutes of gameplay, this is the DLC that turns industrial zones from earlygame stopgaps into true profit drivers of their own.

Even better, Colossal Lodge made the creation of these new-style industrial zones super easy for anyone who's played the base game, and double-particularly for anyone who's played Parklife. They repurposed the existing system for drawing districts to let you lot build out the industrial zone exactly where and in what size you want it.

The system is non without its weaknesses, but they're awfully modest.

For one thing, there is still that great big "but what about your playstyle" question that looms over every unmarried DLC, even the mandatories; if you're only not into having manufacturing cities and you're going to devote that real estate to building powerhouse office zones, there is nothing in Industries that demands you not do that, and there are nonetheless just and so many citizens to get around in the labor pool.

For another, perchance you don't take $14.99 to burn, and this one'due south still make-new then information technology's non getting its first auction until probably Christmas at the earliest.

But if the money won't break you, and you have any interest at all in stirring a little tycoon game peanut butter into your chocolate city architect, this is absolutely essential. Check out our review here .

Get it if:

You lot have whatsoever real interest in making your industrial zones into something special in terms of their value to your city's economy.

Miss it if:

Your playstyle just really, really doesn't swing toward industrial zones.

Mass Transit

Here nosotros have the DLC that makes large cities possible and expands in every way upon the vanilla game's bachelor tools to get cars off the road and, with another nod toward the developers' body of piece of work, really gets your cities in motion.

From the fantastical (blimps!) to the more familiar (ferries, cable cars, and the monorail that put North Haverbrook on the map), and featuring intermodal transit hubs that let you build things similar Boston's multi-transit South Station, this is the DLC that turns public transportation from a curiosity that lacks a bit in depth to a fully integrated system that gives your cities the ability to handle fifty-fifty Tokyo-sized traffic volumes.

There are even ropeways that can get upwards the sides of mountains and unlock the possibilities of spaces that used to be obstacles to development.

And it'southward on sale for $6.49, but the regular price of $12.99 is a deal.

This does for Skylines what the Rush Hour pack did for SimCity four way dorsum in the mean solar day. Information technology takes a good-but-non-slap-up role of the base game and simply elevates information technology to levels that volition make you seriously wonder how on earth y'all ever got along without it.

When combined with Industries and Later on Nighttime, this is the essential Cities: Skylines starter kit. The xxx bucks or and so it will set you back to buy the residue of the major DLC is entirely optional, simply if you haven't already looked at your wallet to see if you lot've got another thirty for Mass Transit, yous should.

If you're still on the fence, read our review for more info on this one.

Get information technology if:

Yous have whatever sense in your head at all and want your public transportation to work the best that information technology tin.

Miss it if:

You don't have the money. That's the only plausible reason.

Depends on your Playstyle

Parklife

I accept mixed feelings virtually Parklife that showed themselves in my review of the DLC when it came out.

Specifically, building a great zoo or nature preserve or city park or Nuka-World is a not bad way to add together a lot of visual flavor to your cities. Also, when information technology's done correct, the park districts are a great revenue stream for the metropolis, pulling a profit that you can then put into improving the rest of your borough infrastructure and whatnot to power a more prosperous city.

That's the real strength of Parklife: the game-within-a-game of creating the perfect park while simultaneously balancing all the other spinning plates that come with a well-balanced city.

The biggest weakness is that the park mechanics don't contribute enough to the urban center in terms of land value per unit cost to justify their existence unless you're edifice them as a profit commuter. The already-existing parks-and-recreation organisation in the base game is meliorate for your citizens on the whole if your sole goal is to grow your taxation base of operations, and as such there'south an opportunity cost that comes in the box and wipes out a lot of the benefit.

Everything else in the DLC is in service of the parks system; at that place's null here for base of operations game players to have whatever fun with the way, for case, Snowfall gave that neat-o tram arrangement (fifty-fifty if it was the just matter in the DLC and largely rendered obsolete by Mass Transit—more than on that later). The sightseeing buses and new reward buildings all tie back into the park system.

The DLC will run y'all $fourteen.99, or $10.04 during the 33 percent off sale, and the but real style to recommend it is if you're the type of person for whom beautification and screenshot value is where you lot get the joy from your item playstyle.

Go it if:

You want to create a unique look for your cities, or yous bask having a more than hands-on role in the creation of your leisure areas.

Miss it if:

Yous're more efficiency-oriented or don't desire to add together complexity to one of your city's systems without a meaningful tangible reward.

Green Cities

This 1 falls short of mandatory status thanks largely to the fact that it's non strictly necessary to use green building options in gild to accept a perfectly functional and relatively clean metropolis. By the fourth dimension y'all're in role-zone territory, that problem usually takes care of itself, or at worst cordons itself into "the bad role of town".

But however, if you're playing the kind of playstyle where you want to create beautiful, ultra-modern, clean cities of the future, this scratches that itch in ideal fashion. For a utopian player, new edifice specializations, electric cars, green parks, and power to utilize eco-friendly policies to districts means at that place'southward a ton of keen stuff hither to be explored.

When you've got those geothermal power plants firing and the yoga gardens built, you can so gear your city toward getting the Ultimate Recycling Plant, ane of the game's "monument" super-buildings, and that'southward the other strength of this DLC, the fact that the reward at the end is extremely useful.

The downside, as with about Skylines DLC, is that if your playstyle doesn't lean toward what the DLC is trying to offer, it'due south just a bunch of stuff yous'll never use but that you paid $6.49 for on sale or $12.99 for at total cost.

Simply this is where you're actually starting to get into the "almost playstyles can find a manner to use this stuff" territory that makes DLC, particularly on auction, a must-have.

Become information technology if:

Reducing pollution while still running an economically viable city appeals to you.

Miss it if:

Yous're less concerned with "light-green" city design and your playstyle doesn't super-prioritize reducing pollution beyond the simple maintenance levels you tin achieve with basegame tools.

Don't Carp

Snowfall

Snow makes everything expect pretty, and there is plenty to be said in favor of the challenge that adapting your city to wintry conditions offers.

The problem is that this DLC is extremely poorly executed.

For one thing, the snowfall is an all-or-null matter. Either caryatid yourself and prepare for the frozen tundra of an icy waste matter like the northernmost parts of Jumbo Order'southward home nation of Finland, or else use a map that isn't Snowfall-enabled and get absolutely no value out of the DLC at all.

Certain, existing maps get rain and fog, and the Streetcar system is a dainty addition to the multitude of transit options we've come up to await from a studio that made its name on the onetime Cities In Motion serial, but you'd really need money to be called-for a hole in your pocket earlier you dropped fifty-fifty the $six.49 sale toll on information technology.

Plus, every bit several Steam reviewers have pointed out, the consummate lack of dissimilarity inherent in having a city covered in snow takes away a lot of the visual appeal that the game's landscapes usually have. Snow is beautiful, as anyone who loves living in cold climates knows, merely information technology'southward non visually interesting the way nature tends to be during the rest of the year. You'll grow tired of information technology rapidly.

Get it if:

You lot really beloved winter wonderlands and yous have money to burn.

Miss it if:

You'd rather just go out for a burger and fries; you're not missing anything past not having this DLC installed.

Natural Disasters

Remember how in SimCity 4 (and its earlier brothers), half the fun of building a city was unleashing the wrath of Judgment Mean solar day upon it like some kind of cruel cross between the God of the Old Testament and Kefka from Final Fantasy VI?

This is the experience Natural Disasters is out to create, and if that'southward what floats your boat, then you'll get everything you ever wanted hither.

The problem is twofold and why this DLC is just way likewise hard for me to recommend even for people who have a fetish for breaking stuff in a metropolis-edifice game.

One, that'due south way as well much of a 1-note song fifty-fifty for $vii.49, much less the $xiv.99 regular enquire.

And ii, as anyone who'southward played SimCity knows, breaking stuff is cathartic and all, only what practice we all practise when we become information technology out of our system?

Nosotros reload the save and play with the hope that the game won't suspension our stuff on its own will, that's what.

And this DLC, fifty-fifty though it adds lovely early-alarm systems and all kinds of major mechanical anti-frustration features for dealing with a disaster, is still going to throw a disaster at you lot unless you toggle the choice off in the menu, at which point you just spent $vii.49 for "I wanted to destroy something cute manner."

Get it if:

You really dear to destroy stuff and triggering disasters never got old for yous in the one-time SimCity games.

Miss it if:

You'd rather build cities than destroy them.

Hopefully my experiences with Cities: Skylines and its DLCs and expansions will assist y'all decide which yous'd similar to throw coin at.

Published Oct. 26th 2018

Which Cities Skylines Dlc Are Worth It

Posted by: haroldhonant.blogspot.com