Hello again city-builders! Plazas and Promenades is almost here, and I’m so excited that you will soon be able to enjoy it. As with every major expansion, we have a little something for all players who own the base game, and today’s Dev Diary is all about the free content!

Let’s start with a convenient new feature, Quit After Saving, which can be enabled when saving your city. As you may have guessed from the name, it will quit the game once it finishes saving, allowing you to skip the process of saving, waiting for it to finish just to select exit and get a warning about losing progress if you haven’t saved. Very handy when you’re done playing and just need to save and quit the game.


Check the box before saving to quit automatically

As roads are a central part of any city, we are expanding the options even further with 18 new roads. We had a look through the road types you have wished for over the years and added as many of them as we could in this patch. This includes a series of roads with bus-priority lanes, which can be used by other vehicles if they need to turn, and for the first time ever bus-only lanes and roads!

In the Small Roads category, you can soon find the new small road with wide sidewalks and small one-way road with wide sidewalks, as well as small roads with a concrete median, grass median, and tree median. For the busier parts of the city, you can grab the small 4-lane road or the 4-lane road with bus lanes, or expand your one-way road system with the 3-lane one-way and 4-lane one-way roads.


Stylish and practical selection of new roads

New in the Large Roads category are the new large roads with medians, featuring 6 lanes in two directions separated by either a concrete median, grass median, or tree-lined median - the latter of which comes in both a regular version and a bus-priority lane version.


Expand your busy roads using these new options

Lastly, we have a handful of new Highways for you using the all-new bus-only lanes. Create a high-speed bus network with the two-way bus-only expressway which comes both with or without sound barriers, or integrate bus-only lanes into your existing highways with the highway with bus-only lanes, both with or without sound barriers. And to connect them all you can use the bus-only expressway ramp.


Build a bus rapid transit system using the new highways

We look forward to seeing how your cities will benefit from these new options and which ones will be your favorites. And while it isn’t a road we do have another network for you, namely the new one-way metro tracks, allowing you more control and customizability over your metro network.

Now, all there’s left to do is check out the tutorial video by Overcharged Egg, have a look at the patch notes below, and wait for Plazas and Promenades to release. We hope you’ll enjoy the new content!





Paid content Plazas & Promenades expansion

• Pedestrian Area
  
  • Service Points
    
    • Pedestrian Area Service Point
      
    • Large Pedestrian Area Service Point
      
    • Garbage Service Point
      
    • Large Garbage Service Point
      
    • Cargo Service Point
      
    • Large Cargo Service Point
  • Pedestrian Streets
    
    • 5 Small Sandstone Pedestrian Streets
      
    • 5 Small Bluestone Pedestrian Streets
      
    • 5 Small Cobblestone Pedestrian Streets
      
    • 5 Large Sandstone Pedestrian Streets
      
    • 5 Large Bluestone Pedestrian Streets
      
    • 5 Large Cobblestone Pedestrian Streets
  • 10 Pedestrian Area Plazas
    
  • 4 Policies
• New City Service Buildings
  
  • High-Capacity High School
    
  • High-Capacity Elementary School
    
  • High-Capacity University
    
  • High-Capacity Hospital
    
  • High-Capacity Police Headquarters
    
  • High-Capacity Fire Station
• New Public Transport Stations
  
  • Elevated Train Station
    
  • Elevated Metro Station With Shops
    
  • Parallel Underground Metro Station
    
  • Large Underground Metro Station
    
  • Compact Bus Station
• 6 New Unique Buildings
  
  • Pedestrian Street Market Hall
    
  • Museum of Post-Modern Art
    
  • Sunken Plaza Shopping Mall
    
  • Residential Zone Landmark
    
  • Commercial Zone Landmark
    
  • Office Zone Landmark
• District specializations
  
  • 48 Residential Wall-to-wall Buildings
    
  • 48 Commercial Wall-to-wall Buildings
    
  • 48 Office Wall-to-wall Buildings
• 5 New Maps
  
• 2 New Chirper hats
  
• 3 New Steam achievements
  
• New Chirps

Paid content Shoreline Radio Station

• Shoreline Radio DLC
  
• 16 New Songs
  
• DJ Content

Paid content Paradise Radio Station

• Paradise Radio DLC
  
• 16 New Songs
  
• DJ Content

Paid content Content Creator Pack: Mid-Century Modern

• Content Creator Pack: Mid-Century Modern DLC
  
• 147 Residential Buildings, 5 Park Buildings, and 32 Props
  
• New residential district style

Paid content Content Creator Pack: Seaside Resorts
Content Creator Pack: Seaside Resorts DLC
29 Service and Unique Buildings

Free update for all players and DLCs owners

• New Roads added
  
  • 9 New Small Roads
    
  • 4 New Large Roads
    
  • 5 New Highway Roads
• One-Way Metro Tracks added
  
• Quit After Saving option added
  
• Fixed: "Allow Intercity Trains" and "Disable University Boost" buttons cannot be disabled
  
• Fixed: Airplane models are not displayed properly in the Asset Importer
  
• Fixed: Incorrect display of burned-down Terminals
  
• Fixed: Collapse flag does not work on bend network segments
  
• Fixed: Crime rate icons don't appear on Airport Terminals
  
• Fixed: Chirper Balloon icon is missing in the Asset Importer
  
• Fixed: Fields, pastures & tree plantations no longer randomize their type/submesh
  
• Fixed: Some spelling mistakes
  
• Fixed: Names in Simplified Chinese do not display correctly
  
• Fixed: "Allow Intercity Trains" is missing or hidden when Simplified Chinese is selected
  
• Fixed: Incorrect seating position for Modern Table Set
  
• Fixed: Highway bridge towers are missing light props
  
• Fixed: Duplicates RequestItemDetails sometimes causes the game to crash
  
• Fixed: Vehicles are not highlighted in vehicle selection UI
  
• Fixed: Citizens get stuck on large nodes

Greetings city-builders, and welcome to the fourth Dev Diary covering Plazas and Promenades. Today’s dev diary is all about the new district specializations and new maps, so let’s check them out.

First up we have the three new Wall-to-wall specializations that can be used for residential, commercial, and office zones. They unlock at Milestone 6 - Big Town, along with high-density zoning. Each specialization features 48 new modern low-rise buildings to create a unique area in your city. As a new feature to the game, these buildings have murals, which are randomly selected each time a building spawns to create additional variation and color in the neighborhoods.


A sprawling wall-to-wall neighborhood

The new wall-to-wall specializations don’t just look cool, but as a specialization, they also work slightly differently from regular zone types. To reflect their modern construction, these buildings have a lower risk of catching fire, but as they’re built close together, fires spread more easily between them. So make sure to keep a few fire stations nearby just in case they do catch fire.

Like previous specializations, they can be found in the Districts and Areas menu under each zone tab and are applied to a district by selecting the specialization and clicking on a district. For pedestrian areas, however, there is no need to create a district, as specializations can be applied directly to the area. If a district and a pedestrian area overlap and have different specializations applied for a specific zone, like commercial, the pedestrian area specialization will be the one used.

Now we can’t have an expansion without new maps for you to build on! For Plazas and Promenades, we have 5 maps for you to choose from, featuring different landscapes and themes.

First is the temperate map of Cape Apple. You start centered on a long peninsula with easy access to the surrounding landmasses, creating an excellent environment for a thriving metropolis. Take advantage of the ship connections to bring in tourists or set up a bustling industry along the coast as you build your new city.


Cape Apple offers wide open spaces ready to be developed

Next, we journey to the tropics with Coastal Gem. It features long wide beaches and lots of open space to build a city on. You can expand inland to reach some of the area's many ore deposits or claim the coastline and benefit from the added land value of waterfront property.


Coastal Gem lives up to its name with its beautiful beaches

Gondola Islands is the first of our two new European maps. It is made up of a cluster of islands of varying sizes only connected to the mainland by a bridge. Whether you create island communities focused on walkability using pedestrian areas or connect the many islands using the new roads, Gondola Islands will shape any city built here.


The island cluster of Gondola Islands have much to offer

The boreal map of Oracle Lake offers a large valley filled with forests and lakes for you to build your city on. Base the city’s industry on the large forests, extract the abundant ore in the area, or focus on creating a vibrant tourist destination. The choice is yours.


Oracle Lake features many scenic views

Last but not least is our second European map, Splitz Tributary. Build your city at the foot of the mountains or along the banks of the rivers meeting here. With lots of buildable land, your city can take many forms.


Splitz Tributary is an ideal location for a new city

This concludes our Dev Diaries for the new content coming in Plazas and Promenades. On Tuesday, we’ll have a look at the free update that adds something new for everyone, as well as the patch notes so you’re completely up to date before release. Below Overcharged Egg has another tutorial for you, showing off the new content. Enjoy!

Alright mayors, it’s time for another Dev Diary as we count down to the release of Plazas and Promenades. Today is all about the new plazas & high capacity service buildings coming in this expansion, so let’s get to it.

Plazas and Promenades adds 10 new plazas, which can be found in the Pedestrian Areas menu under Parks & Plazas. Some of these are available as soon as you create your first pedestrian area, while others require you to reach certain goals before unlocking. They provide your citizens and tourists with entertainment, whether used inside a pedestrian area or anywhere else in the city.


Plazas and Promenades offer lots of variation to beautify your city

As the plazas were designed with pedestrian streets in mind, several of them are placed across the road, providing decoration on both sides. These can be used with small or large roads, and are placeable on both pedestrian streets and regular roads.

But plazas aren’t the only way to decorate an area! We’ve also included 23 new props and 20 new decals. These can be found in the Pedestrian Area Plazas tab. They provide a colorful modern look to your city and allow you to put a personal touch on your pedestrian areas.


The new props can be used to decorate corners of your city

Besides decorative buildings, we have a selection of new service buildings in the form of 6 new service buildings and 5 new public transportation buildings. All of these have a modern style and high capacity, offering both practical and stylish new options.

The High-Capacity Elementary School is quite a bit larger than the other schools we have, and it’s able to accommodate up to 800 students, making it ideal for neighborhoods with many families. In a similar fashion, the High-Capacity High School can educate more than twice as many students as the existing ones, with a capacity of 2400. And last, in the education menu, you will find the High-Capacity University, which can accept up to 10,000 students at a time.


Educate even more citizens using the new high-capacity options

Moving on to health and safety, we have the High-Capacity Hospital, able to handle a substantial number of patients, and the High-Capacity Police Headquarters and High-Capacity Fire Station, both of which have a significant number of vehicles available to allow them to respond to more emergencies at once.


New high-capacity services to keep your citizens healthy and safe

There are also new buildings in the Public Transportation menu. The new Compact Bus Station only takes up a little space but has 4 bus stops, which makes it easy for passengers to transfer between multiple lines. The new Elevated Train Station moves tracks off the ground to allow for zoning between the building and the street.


Modern and compact new options for buses and trains

In the Metro department, we have 3 new options to choose from. For the elevated metro system, there is the new Elevated Metro Station with Shops in a style similar to the new train station. For the underground metro, we have the Parallel Underground Metro Station, which has 4 parallel tracks for areas where one line isn’t enough, and the Large Underground Metro Station, which features two sets of tracks crossing at different heights.


Take your metro system to the next level with these new options

And with that, we’ve come to the end of this Dev Diary. I hope you enjoyed this look at all the new service buildings and parks in Plazas and Promenades. Do you have any favorites already? The next Dev Diary is on Wednesday at 4PM CEST / 7AM PDT and looks at the new specializations and maps! Hope to see you then!

Welcome back mayors, to the second Plazas and Promenades Dev Diary! Today we explore the details of how to manage pedestrian areas, what progression looks like for them, and what an area focus is. So get comfortable and let’s get started.

The key to a successful pedestrian area is managing the service points and keeping citizens happy and entertained. As mentioned in the previous Dev Diary, service points have a maximum capacity. This is the number of trucks that can visit them per week. It can be seen both on the tooltip of each building as well as when selecting it.

If a service point nears its capacity for either cargo or garbage, it will notify you of high traffic but will continue to function. If it reaches its capacity for one or both types of trucks, it will be unable to service all buildings. This will lead to garbage piling up or goods not being delivered. Make sure your pedestrian area has enough service points and that these are spread out to avoid traffic congestion.


Add more service points when you reach maximum capacity

To see how well your area is doing, select the name of the pedestrian area or use the button on any service point to open the Pedestrian Area Info Panel. The panel displays the average happiness of all buildings in an area, and the entertainment provided by parks and plazas divided by the size of the area. These are combined into a land value bonus, which is applied to the entire area, just like the entertainment is, making pedestrian areas more desirable for citizens and businesses.

The Area Panel also shows a breakdown of the different zone types in an area, as well as the area focus, which is determined by the most prevalent zone type in an area. The focus can be either residential, commercial, workplaces (industry and offices combined), or mixed. Only the zones on pedestrian streets in an area count towards the area focus.

Last but not least, the info tab contains a handy overview of the area’s service points and their capacity for both cargo and garbage, as well as information about the area’s size and maintenance cost.


The Pedestrian Area Info Panel provides an overview of your pedestrian area

Pedestrian areas do not have levels like other area types, but instead have different categories of buildings that get unlocked simultaneously. Some of these are universal and can be unlocked by any pedestrian area, while others are tied to a specific zone type. The Unlocking tab on the Pedestrian Area Panel shows you what is required to unlock each building and how close you are to unlocking them.

Additional Service Points can be unlocked by any area as it grows and as service points are visited by more trucks. New service points in turn help you better handle the demands of the area as it grows. Like service points, Plazas can be unlocked by any area. As their unlocking depends on the land value bonus the area provides, make sure to have plenty of services, education, as well as parks and plazas in place.


Unlock more service points, plazas, and unique buildings as your pedestrian area grows

Next up we have the 6 new unique buildings, which come in two categories and can be found in the Unique Buildings menu. Pedestrian Area Landmarks tie into the area focus for an area and require either a number of residents, goods sold, or workplaces in an area to unlock.

Meanwhile, the Tourism Buildings are unlocked by reaching certain levels of weekly tourists visiting a pedestrian area. While these are not tied to a zone focus, you will need to provide attractions for tourists to visit in the form of parks and plazas, unique buildings, or commercial buildings.


Increase the attractiveness of your city using the new plazas and unique buildings

The one tab on the Pedestrian Area Panel we haven’t talked about yet is the Policies tab. On this tab, you can apply four different policies to your area to customize how it works. The policies are free to use, but each has downsides to consider.

Slow Driving affects all roads in the area, forcing a speed limit of 20 everywhere and, as a result, decreasing noise pollution. Sugar Ban deals with the health of your citizens, increasing the lifespan of citizens, but with an increased crime rate as citizens start smuggling illegal candy bars into the area.

You can also allow Street Music, which boosts the happiness of commercial buildings in an area but also increases the noise pollution slightly. And lastly, Deliver Everything routes all cargo and garbage through service points for all buildings in a pedestrian area. So in addition to handling the cargo and garbage needs for buildings on pedestrian streets, the service points need to handle cargo and garbage for buildings on regular roads too. I hope your service points are ready for the extra traffic!

That concludes this Dev Diary. I hope you now have a good idea of how pedestrian areas work and if not, don’t hesitate to ask! In the next Dev Diary coming Friday at 4PM CEST / 7AM PDT, we’ll cover the new plazas & service buildings, which can be used on their own or as a part of pedestrian areas. For now, I will leave you in the hands of Overcharged Egg with this video tutorial:

Greetings mayors, and welcome to another set of Dev Diaries! Are you excited about Cities: Skylines Plazas and Promenades? Over the course of the next two weeks, I will walk you through all the new content from pedestrian areas and streets to new specializations and service buildings - and plazas of course! And without further ado, let’s have a look at the announcement video:



At the center of Cities: Skylines Plazas and Promenades we have pedestrian areas and streets, which give you the tools to create neighborhoods focused on walkability. These will work to reduce traffic as well as noise pollution. To ensure you are able to create areas suited for your specific city, the pedestrian areas work with all existing zoned buildings!

Pedestrian areas take advantage of the Area Tool, which you may be familiar with already. It can be found in the Districts and Areas menu and becomes available when you reach Milestone 3 - Tiny Town. Paint over empty land if you want to create a new pedestrian neighborhood, or over an existing part of your city if you wish to turn it into a pedestrian area. Like other areas and districts, it can be adjusted later as needed.


Paint a pedestrian area to unlock service points

Once you are satisfied with the area, it’s time to place a Service Point, which can be found in the Pedestrian Areas menu under Parks & Plazas. Service points are essential to pedestrian areas as most vehicles, including garbage and delivery trucks, are not allowed on pedestrian streets. Instead, garbage is automatically collected from buildings on pedestrian streets to be picked up at the service point. Similarly, resources, goods, and mail are all routed through the service point, so make sure it’s placed on a road that can handle increased truck traffic!

Service points come in two different sizes and three different types: The general Service Points, which cover all the listed needs, Garbage Service Points, which focus on waste management, and Cargo Service Points, which handle resources, goods, and mail.


Service points are vital for your pedestrian areas

The different service points are important as they each have a capacity and if the area exceeds this, some buildings on pedestrian streets will not have their needs taken care of. Large pedestrian areas will need more service points to provide for the buildings on pedestrian streets, and depending on the mix of buildings in an area, you may need a higher capacity for garbage collection or cargo delivery.

With the pedestrian area created and a service point placed, it’s time to place pedestrian streets! These paved roads can only be used by walking or biking citizens and, when necessary, emergency vehicles like ambulances, hearses, police cars, and fire trucks. As citizens are the main users of the pedestrian streets, vehicles have to obey slow speed limits unless responding to an emergency.

We have included a lot of variation in the pedestrian streets so that you can customize the look and feel of your areas. There are 3 styles: Sandstone, Bluestone, and Cobblestone, which come in two different widths. Each street also comes with 5 different variations with things like added grass, trees, and bus-only lanes. That’s a total of 30 different pedestrian streets for you to choose from!


Bluestone on the left, Sandstone in the middle, and Cobblestone on the right

As you’re building your pedestrian streets, you may go outside the pedestrian area you defined earlier. If that happens, the streets will automatically extend the area to follow them. This option can be enabled or disabled when placing the streets. Pedestrian streets can also be placed outside pedestrian areas, but keep in mind that any buildings placed on these streets will need a pedestrian area and a service point to function.

Lastly, pedestrian streets come with a cool new little feature: Bollards automatically appear at the entrance to pedestrian streets to discourage vehicles from entering. When a vehicle needs to enter or exit the pedestrian street, they will stop and wait for the bollards to retract into the street before driving past. Isn’t that cool?


Bollards retracting for a waiting police car

That’s all we have for you this time! In the next Dev Diary, we’ll cover the management and progression of pedestrian areas, so stay tuned for more information on Monday at 4PM CEST / 7AM PDT! And don’t forget to check out the video tutorial by Overcharged Egg below:

Coming soon to PC & Console - Cities: Skylines newest expansion, Plazas & Promenades introduces Pedestrian Zones, Specialized Districts & Service Buildings. Say hello to pedestrian streets, car-free areas, and modern plazas and let your citizens walk freely on pedestrian-only streets while you build brand new city-service buildings and 3 new special districts.🌆

City Builders,
Global Build-Off is back and ready for take-off!
With two rounds of the competition, we invite you all to share with us your best work in Cities: Skylines to secure your place in the main competition where you will be pitted against some of our favourite content creators!

Submit your creation before March 23rd, 2021, 10pm CET for a chance to enter the Global Build Off-Airports Edition.

Read for more info👇
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/threads/global-build-off-airports-edition-pre-qualifiers.1514948/

7 years ago Cities: Skylines was released and to celebrate we have a little something for you! Check out what's included below.

Cities: Skylines base game:

• New Chirper Balloon Tours building
  
• New Chirper Hot Air Balloon
  
• New birthday-related Chirper hat
  
• New birthday-related chirps

Airports expansion:

• Fixed: Blimp & Helicopter stops "jitter" when attempting to place them
  
• Fixed: Wrong trucks spawning from garbage facilities & prisons
  
• Fixed: Medical Laboratory has vehicle selector
  
• Fixed: Large Cargo Airport Road railway crossing sign facing the wrong way
  
• Fixed: Large Cargo Airport Road missing 6th lane
  
• Fixed: Airports achievements unlock with mods enabled
  
• Fixed: Wrong asset names in multiple languages
  
• Fixed: Overflowing text in multiple languages
  
• Fixed: Incorrect Attractiveness value and cost for "Hotel Discounts" policy in multiple languages
  
• Fixed: Simplified Chinese Steam achievement has an extra 0 in the description

An important message from the Cities: Skylines team,

We have an amazing modding community and greatly appreciate the dedication and helpful nature that’s been at the center of it for 7 years. Recently, there have been concerns in the community about reports of malware on the Steam workshop, which we want to address.

We recently banned a few mods from the Cities: Skylines Workshop and want to clear up some of the misinformation surrounding these mods. The mods in question, which have been banned, are “Network Extensions 3” and “Update from Github.”

No keyloggers, viruses, bitcoin mining software, or similar has been found in mods on the Steam Workshop.

“Network Extensions 3”, the mod alleged to contain malware, was banned due to discriminating against specific Steam users. First, it blocked a short list of Steam users from using the mod, but this was later changed to cause what appeared to be buggy gameplay. Blocking users or creating specific restrictions for them violates the Steam Subscriber Agreement and such resulted in the mod being banned.

The mod “Update from Github” was removed shortly after appearing on the Workshop. This mod was designed to check for and install updates to mods directly from Github, making changes to existing Workshop subscriptions without the user's knowledge. This bypasses the Workshop entirely, and to avoid potential abuse (such as downloading malicious software) the mod has been removed.

“Harmony (Redesigned)” has been mentioned in this context, however, the mod has not been updated since March 15th, 2021. Further updates to this workshop item are not possible as the account is banned and contributors are unable to update workshop items.

In short:

• No keyloggers, viruses, bitcoin mining software, or similar has been found in mods on the Steam Workshop.
  
• The mod “Network Extensions 3” was banned due to a violation of the Steam Subscriber Agreement.
  
• The mod “Update from Github” was removed as a potential risk, and only affected ~50 users.
  
• The “Harmony (Redesigned)” mod available on the Steam Workshop has not been found to contain the code to automatically update mods outside the Workshop.

If you come across any concerning mods, reuploads of banned mods, or mods containing the same/similar code, please report them using the report button on their workshop page.

Hey there everyone!

Thank you for the reports on the random Service Vehicle Selection tool causing an error. We're currently working on a fix and aim for a hotfix patch next week.

We appreciate your patience while we work on fixing this and thank you so much for your understanding!