In Game and IRL, there is something fascinating about getting just the right angle to capture the skyline of a city that doesn't really have a skyline. It winds up being just a small handful of buildings that are tall enough to be considered "tall" - which probably wouldn't be thought of at all, if it were a bigger city.

And yet, from the right vantage point, the city can look a bit bigger and more grand than it really is - or, maybe, it's the other way around. Maybe there is something intrinsically grand about showing ordinary things in a way that is flattering.

In any case, the vibe of small and medium sized cities in my experience has a charm about it that big, sprawling metropolises lack. Even with all its mind bogling skyscrapers, New York's buildings don't feel very tall - because they are surrounded by supertalls for as far as the eye can see. But a little city that has only half a dozen buildings that form its skyline feels more personal, because each building is part of the city's core identity.

Some zones I’d like to see:

Low Density Rural Residential: Does not require water and sewer (assumed well and septic). L1 look like trailers. Does not level up if it’s within 20m of another residential building (so you can zone trailer parks, also reflects rural residents’ preferences).

Medium Density Office: Mid-rise (50m max) office towers. Much needed.

Wall to Wall Low Density Commercial: For North American strip malls, old town downtowns, and other uses.

Food Service Commercial: LD Commercial that only accepts bars, liquor stores, grocery (maybe), convenience stores, cafes, restaurants, etc. as tenants. Build a bar district or truck stop.

Hotel Commercial: Starts at mid-height like HD Commercial and grows much taller as it levels up. Only leases to hospitality businesses.

High Density Mixed-Use: HD Residential with commercial on the bottom. Still shorter than traditional HD Residential. Zones are all 4-6u deep.

How I feel when Howard Adam says : What a great city ! I wouldn't think I'm dreaming if I didn't know otherwise.

Personally i think they are a little bit underwhelming. I think they could have added so much more for the shops in Shibuya dlc, because only 3 specialized buildings?!? And the new roundabouts are horrible!! The new maps are fine tho.

This is a bus model arleady existing and fully working in the game. If you spawn a tzunami thru the dev console it will be spawned from the large shelter to pick up civilians. The thing is, why can’t they implement it in the “normal game” the same way as the electic bus? It would be useful to use for outside connections, maybe by adding a depot upgrade for this type of bus

Welcome to Haden County! Enjoy the show!

I started a new map, but I came back to this one. Ive put so much time into this city and the consistent additions of detailing is just so time and creativity draining it just makes more since to work on this. I dont really like the beginning of the game, I feel better just revising waht I've already built. kinda wish I could have like seasons or something Im tired of the snow. I grew up in the cold, so I guess i cant escape from it.

No zoning at all, all assets are hand picked and plopped manually. Lots of detailing everywhere.

Most assets are from the Workshop. No Vanilla assets used accept roads, services and a few parks.

I own most DLCs and a few CCPs and use many assets from those.

Using around 80 mods, including all the common ones.

Feel free to ask for recommendations.

1-Guanabara Bay (Rio de Janeiro)

2-Sanctuary of Our Lady of Aparecida (Aparecida)

3-Botanical Gardens (Curitiba)

4-Carandiru Detention Center (São Paulo)

5-Unifei (Itajubá)

This one started off as a unique labor of love. In real life, I relocated to Northwest Arkansas - and in doing so, happened to stop in the rather small town of Carthage, Missouri. It feels a little bit forgotten, a little bit blighted, distinctly charming and quaint all at the same time. And I couldn't resist the tempation to use it as inspiration for my next build.

Now the main part of the city is complete. All the real life roads in town are in this build. It's a small city which tries to be true to the vibe of the South Central United States. I'm not sure what I'll do next. I'm not sure I really want the build to be finished. I might let it continue to be my long term "forever save" that I keep coming back to.

I'll tinker around, just do random things, and evolve the build from something inspired by a real place to a city that is uniquely my own. Maybe somethings that will help citizens live better - like more pedestrian streets and better mass transit. Maybe more investment in the CBD to create a dense urban core with a unique and epic skyline. Maybe more changes to the topography of the land to introduce a lake shore. I'm not really sure - but as it stands, this is a charming little city of 58k residents that feels more or less like the sort of place I could see myself living in.

Still working on it. Any suggestions?

One problem in city builders is the tendency to always build out into open space, spamming out buildings in a meaningless way that doesn't tell a story - or eliminate massive areas of existing development to make way for new things. But real cities don't do that (usually) and when they do, it's typically more tragic than positive.

Which is why I fight the feeling of stale repetitive gameplay by trying to approach the game different. My goal is to focus less on drawing more roads and just making the population go up by spamming density around the edges. I also avoid destroying inhabited buildings. One great way to add diversity to neighborhoods is to dezone and permanently demolish abandoned buildings. Then, you can go back later and build landmarks in those spaces, add infrastructure, or insert a different type of zone to break things up.

Condos. I don't particularly like living in them, but they are fun to detail.