Welcome to Cities: Skylines The Dev Diaries
These videos take a closer look the official Dev Diaries that can be found
at the Paradox Interactive forum and I'll include a link to them in
the video description
In this episode we'll be looking at Outside Connections
In Cities: Skylines, every city needs to be connected to the outside world
and Outside Connections provide you with two significant benefits
The first is the ability to Import and Export goods and the second is
Tourism
We're going to take a closer look at both of these topics
starting with Importing and Exporting
When you're talking in terms of tax revenues
The most efficient city possible would not only produce all it's own
natural resources and goods but also consume them
So if that's true then why would we want to Import and Export?
All industry buildings need at least a small amount of natural resources
in order to produce goods The goods are then sold in commercial areas
Now Natural resources can be produced by your city, but only by specialized
industry which isn't unlocked when you first start a city
So to get your industry up and running you're going to need to import resources
and that means you need to be connected to a highway
The same is also true for Power Plants
Power plants prefer to get resources like oil and coal from inside the city
but if you're not producing a particular resource or not enough of it
the plant will just order what it needs from outside the city
Now although it's true that you get the most efficient tax income from a city
that supplies and consumes all resources locally
there are other factors to consider
So, for example, do you really want to deal with the pollution caused by
a local Oil Industry?
The thing I like is .. it's your choice You can play your city however you like
Maps will usually have several highway connections available
and the starting tile will always offer at least one
Some starting tiles have the highway running right through then through them
while others just have stubs that you can connect to
and it's worth mentioning that all the highways, intersections and stubs
can be bulldozed so that you can have them exactly where and how you want
One quick tip Industrial areas will get the heaviest traffic
so make sure you give them good highway connections
As well as importing resources, highways allow you to export excess goods
but all those delivery trucks will eventually put a strain on your road systems
so you'll want to take advantage of trains and
ships when they become available to you
Once you have a harbor or a train connection you can have the trucks only operate
between the industry buildings and the harbor or train station
allowing you to control exactly where your heavy traffic is going
and I don't know about you guys but this is ticking a lot of boxes for me
Supplying Commercial buildings inside the city is always the first priority
Your Commercial buildings will order goods and industry always ships to them first
but if their stockpiles are full, goods will automatically be exported to
the outside world
The other big user of your outside connections are tourists
Tourists can use a variety of transportation options but in a new city
the only option will be the highways
You'll always have tourists coming to your city but just how many
depends on how attractive your city is
Attractiveness can be raised by having high land values and also by having Monuments
Now Monuments are something the devs seem pretty excited about
Monuments can be buildings, parks, plazas, statues
and you earn them by reaching various goals in the game
For example, when your city has produced 1,000 units of goods you'll gain access to
the Stadium of Many Things
Once available, you'll be free to place the building anywhere in you city
and as well as making local citizens happy it also draws in Tourists
and Monuments will obviously need to be well serviced by public transport
to prevent your roads from getting too busy
Tourists come to your city to see sights and to shop
They they can be a great source of tax income because tax is paid for every unit of goods
sold
That means you'll want to make it easy for tourists to get to your
commercial areas so they can spend, spend, spend
Tourists can arrive by ship, airplane, train or by car
and for tourists who and not coming by car public transport will be very important
The better they can get around the more money they tend to spend
which means more tax revenue
Building monuments and providing good public transportation is the key
to a successful Tourism industry
OK so you're probably thinking "Yeah Monuments are cool but they're nothing
new"
Ah!
Well there's more
Monuments are grouped into five "skill trees"
and these skill trees are pathways to gaining the ultimate buildings: Wonders
Wonders are massive buildings that completely remove one need from the city, but we'll be
talking more about on those in another dev diary!
Now the devs have said that different monuments are suited for different playing styles
so you can pick your favorites play in that style and eventually
gain the coveted Wonder
and I have to say .. I'm pretty excited to hear more about that whole topic
of Monuments and Wonders
Well that's it for Outside Connections
I'd like to thank Karoliina for putting together the original Dev Diary
I'd like to thank you for watching
and you enjoyed this vid hit the like button or better still, leave me a comment
I'll see you for episode 6 where we'll be looking at
The Map Editor