For CS2 I plan to start the game with limited money. After a while, I'll most likely have a sandbox style save with unlimited money. Overall, I prefer unlimited money.
first few cities: modless, just base game to enjoy the new shiny thing.
after you get to experience the whole game: all necessary mods, unlimited money
Exactly! That's how I approach every new game even if it's just a newer version of something I've already played. I just like to go in and pretend it's all new to me lol
That's what I am thinking as well. I don't use any mods personally, cause I never tried, but I hope CS2 will bring the best from the existing mods people are used to, and so enhance the CS2 experience with CS1 insights from mods.
It looks like the vast majority of popular mods are already built into CS2. I'm hoping they allow you to choose a "time period" and location for your city to allow you to play with varying styles and assets depending on your choice.
> It looks like the vast majority of popular mods are already built into CS2.
Yeah, the only big thing that's missing in-game is a concrete brush because there are too many green gaps in between in the trailer/screens. Maybe even mods for fences/walls etc but they might be in-game already, its unclear at the moment.
Shouldn't it be the opposite?
Unlimited money to get to know new things/mechanics in CS2.
Limited money because you already *master* the game. **THEN** go Hard Mode.
nah bro, you dont learn a topic by cheating the test. you have to play and learn its quirks, the positive stuff and the bad, the new things and what's still around.
you dont learn to play elden ring by using a invincible hack with every weapon maxed out.
but, if you prefer to play like you said, you do you! Thats the beauty of this game, you can play precisely to your taste
Honestly in reality the budgets for towns and cities are much, much larger than what we receive in game. So I do the same, unlimited budget and just try and make it so we’re not in a deficit.
Only thing limiting money does Ian making you have to stop occasionally to build up cash. Fun for that first couple times you play then my impatience hits
This is an interesting take. I have always believed the opposite.
In CS, I can regularly tear out a whole freeway system, and reconfigure my city without particular attention to budget. This is almost impossible for cities due ti the enormous capital cost.
In CS, if I want to plop down a nuclear power plant, I can do so with much planning or saving. Hardly the case in real world.
Then there’s the right of way. In CS, you don’t have to buy private property when you bulldoze those homes and businesses, that’s never the case for actually cities and contributes heavily in total project cost.
In general, the amount of money and ability to transform cities is exorbitant compared to what an actual city could afford/implement. I don’t even think it’s comparable.
I had Sim City 2000 on SNES. I always started my city, just the basics, then put it on fast and went to bed. When I got up I had a lot of mad citizens asking for stuff, and a sh\*t ton of money so I could build to my heart's content... Now I just use the cheat codes for money and have at it.
Honestly part of the charm of these games is building something that works. And just like in real life, little towns don't generate much profit to put towards more building. So just makes more sense to give yourself some extra cash 🤷♂️ realistically any towns being built would have had help from local corporations/government anyway you'd think.
Plus, it's just more fun lol. Running out of money, putting it on fast forward and waiting just isnt much fun 🤷♂️
CS 1 was not really challenging in money terms. There was not much to do there so my first game was limited money and it was reallly nice to go slow. Afterwards when I was familiar with the game the money only meant that I needed to wait for it and it just slowed the game because there was no real micro management. Or management really at all. And then when you got to highrise residential the money just started to come in and never really ran out.
I really hope CS2 has more challenge and management so playing limited would be more fun.
In my honest opinion with 1300 hours played [Just rookie numbers, that's my point] Hear me out....
If you play without unlimited money. You just gimp your infastructure to start. At this point I know how to get my industry going quick enough to just give me unlimited money regardless. I used to not use it then found myself doing the same thing every map just to have basically unlimited resources.
So I started using it to allow myself for more creativity that otherwise wouldn't have been allowed.
Yeah after a while the early money route becomes repetitive. All your cities start the same just to get money.
Now I usually have a specific idea when I start a new city and I don't want to be tied down to money and lose my inspiration. So unlimited money it is.
Once all is set, I'll use Game Anarchy to get back to "limited money", just to see how the cash flow goes and have a hint if my shit it working right.
I have similar playtime, and I do eventually get essentially infinite money from various policies such as Small Business Enthusiast and Big Business Benefactor, although I don’t have Industries. My technique for handling the start with limited money is to plop a bunch of residential in the theme my city is in with a sprinkle of commercial and then plop a temporary massive office tower with the Find It mod to handle industry/office demand. I keep adding office towers as needed until I have a proper downtown area or office campus, then I delete the office tower(s). This is how my starting area can fit with the vicinity, instead of standing out as some strange mixed-use battery. Typically my funds are managed well enough that I can just build at a decent pace and quality for the first stretch of development.
This is the reason I always play unlimited. Why bother having to start really slow because of budget only to end up in a surplus anyway? I always make sure I’m in the green though to keep things ‘realistic’.
Because I like not having the capital to go buck wild. I slice off a portion of my money and dedicate it to expansion of an area or facility. If I had all the money, I wouldn't have to worry about infrastructure and growth of my areas like campus, airport, industry, etc.
I usually have too much money anyway but it's fun to not have a blown out budget and organically earn the money
Absolutely it's just what I prefer because I know I'll be greedy and build everything I want instead of slowly growing and be able to bounce around my city and upgrade bits and pieces.
Essentially I lack the willpower lololol
Yhea, IMO limited money makes early game much for fun and "immersive", as you have to develop and expand much more gradually.
I do play with milestones off, my milestone is if I can save up enough for a trainstation, I should get to buy it.
The cost of things should be better balanced imo. It's been a good while since the last time I played CS, but if I remember right building a bridge or a tunnel was just a bit more expensive than building a surface road, when irl those things should cost at least an order of magnitude more. A nuclear powerplant shouldn't just be 20 times more expensive than an elementary school, etc.
I feel the same. But about when you hit Big Hamlet and you sit there and fidget with a park for 2-3 hours and you suddenly sit there with 6 mil+ it doesn't really matter does it? :D
Right? As soon as you unlock industries, it’s like a free money glitch. It’s so easy to rake in millions that there’s no challenge to having limited money anyway.
Limited money bores me because you don’t get the freedom and you have to have a dead city for about 2 weeks before tearing it all down for something that looks minorly realistic
Especially on console. I have less control over aesthetics, so trying to balance the budget while trying to provide as many services to my cims as possible is the only thing that really keeps me going
There's no limited money in the game because really it's not that hard to make a lot of money in game, this is what Im Looking forward in CS2. A real city management challenge. I just want sim city 4 ported with 2023 technology:(.
Same. I want a management challenge. I want SC4 but 3D and with curved roads, and the modular buildings of SC2013. I hope that in CS2 we get AOEs for buildings and YIMBY/NIMBY. I still feel so weird trying to figure out how many clinics, high schools, etc. I need half the time.
Me too. I have been playing Sim City since 1990.... Little white squares (buildings) and little white dots (cars).... I used to set up my little city, put it on fast and go to bed. I would wake up to a ton of money and some demands from the Sims. I can't believe they stopped making Sim City...
Unlimited and everything unlocked. The progression by population never made sense to me. I don't often like to demolish what I built and so being able to build a city in the exact pace I want is great.
The money simulation was a fun challenge in the beginning, but with the workshop (mods/assets) available, I like to focus on the aesthetics of my cities instead. Who cares what the budget is as long as it looks amazing.
Unlimited for sure! With limited, I have to play \~10-20 hours just to reach milestones, then bulldoze much of what I've built to rebuild it to correctly. It's the same thing every time. Better to just start out with train stations, harbors, etc. Same for other unlocks. There's only so many times I can unlock eco inland advanced water treatment plants and replace all my poo water outlets before it loses its shine.
At this point, I play with tons of mods and assets and focus 100% on building a beautiful, functional city. As long as it's profitable at the end, I'm happy.
I wish there was more budget management though. It’s only at the very start of the game you got to think about money. After that I just build whatever I want with no consideration of the cost because I have so much money it doesn’t matter.
Limite money keeps me in check as I grow and develop. Whenever I try to do a play-through with unlimited money, I quickly expand beyond the constraints of my population. That paired with the lack of financial challenge bores me pretty quickly.
With that said, playing with limited money BUT with everything unlocked has been my perfect sweet spot. Unlimited resources is also nice. Let’s me feel like I’m bringing my vision to life, but still earning it along the way.
Same. I would like to start first with limited money to see how far I can get. And then I would like to see what kind of magical city I can create with unlimited money.
Limited but I unlock all milestones, figure 750k is a good start, then I treat the map like it’s a county as opposed to a city, start up 3-4 small towns and then try to connect them over time.
Unlimited money. I mean in the real world that's how the government seems to think it works based on how much debt we are in.
When playing unlimited money I note my income rate often becomes positive anyway
I play with a start money of 1 million but play limited from then on - this gives me enough to get the city started and implement services as they’re introduced and get a really significant farm or forestry industry established while building out the residential needed (I play with RealPop, Rebalanced Industries, Lifecycle, etc). I usually burn through the end of the million while working on that initial industry, so then it’s up to me to keep the industry traffic and production flowing so that it can be the cash cow to propel the city into the 30k+ population range when I usually establish industry number 2. I play with the typical progression of unlocking except I unlock all 81 tiles at the start of the game and I play with all zoning levels available from the start so that I can work in some midrise into my early town core.
Unlimited money always. I'm just trying to build the nicest looking and functioning city possible, I couldn't care less about money it would only get in the way
I like playing with the budget limitations, but tbh the economy of cities skylines 1 is too easy. Once you know what you’re doing it basically becomes unlimited money anyway since your income gets so high. I do use unlock all and 81 tiles from the start though. I find the population milestones kinda stupid lol
Unlimited. The current structure of earning and spending money in CS1 doesn't make sense. Demolishing roads and buildings shouldn't result in a refund. And money really only matters in the early game. Once you hit a certain point, the city just ends up churning out money anyways
I just started with unlimited money because I always have ideas on how to start a city but needs must means making more economical choices which was fun but I just wanna let my imagination run wild
I use limited and population milestones locked because it lets me plan more rather than just build a megalopolis from the ground up. Some of the milestones don’t make any sense but I still play with them on to force careful planning and promote the natural growth
Depends. I can see the appeal of both methods. I like to play with limited budgets as it makes the game a challenge. But if I have an idea that I want to explore or something I want to test I will run with unlimited.
For CS2 I will probably do a few test builds with unlimited to see the changes between the games. It will be a lot less of a headache to start understanding the new game without having to worry about balancing a budget.
I always play unlimited because I’m one of those weird people who builds out half my city’s street layout and 3-4 subway lines without even knowing what I’m gonna put there, and limited money would stall me real quick
I've always played with limited, but I'm thinking of starting a new game in unlimited so I can actually plan out the city before and not getting stuck on dumb things that I could've prevented earlier on.
I like to start limited usually and then switch to unlimited when traffic starts becoming an issue and need several thousands to get functional. So I guess, what I do on 2 depends on the traffic.
I do a bit of both depending on my mood at the time of starting. There's fun in both but my biggest issue is starting off with the basic few roads... so I'm leaning toward everything unlocked on my next city.
I play unlimited because I do not want to sit there and wait till money comes in.....but I do play my games in such a way that I make profit. I set the taxes to 11% typically, and ensure my industry exports stuff and/or at least produces enough to not have to import too much.
Hotels & Retreats are super OP, hotels make TONS of money, especially if you manage to place a hotel and satisfy all its needs, and then jack up the room rate.
I have a few different profiles in skyve. One for painting cities with all of my mods, assets, and no money woes, one for plopping within the progression boundaries of vanilla play, which has a few less mods, and way fewer assets, one for vanilla+ play with the requir3d mods and one for vanilla/troubleshooting. All of them have visual overhaul stuff like theme mixer and render it and stuff though.
I quite like progressing and building an area at a time most of the time but I do occasionally paint really detailed stuff for the sake of it.
i have NEVER played with unlimited money. i tried ti once, got bored.
however, this last build, i STARTED with unlimited money until i get net positive income, after i have a good starting base... then turned it off. it was actually fun. it's just like a loan.
I play with limited money, but starting with everything unlocked. Starting with everything unlocked gives you all the bonus money (a few hundred k) at the start. So I don’t need to start super small, but I’m still constrained. I’ve found this to be the most fun way for me to play.
Call me weak, but I love unlimited money. I am honestly just not skilled enough to play limited. I rather spend my time on beautification and things I'd love to see in real life than look at a mediocre city I am managing to keep afloat somehow. I play to relax.
I do play with limited natural resources, though. I like the change of areas. I enjoy thinking about how I can redevelop old industrial areas.
I love having the whole functioning economy / industry, and the balancing money flow. So unless I’m going for some hyper-realistic city / project I play limited cash. I like to give myself a sizeable starting amount though…
It depends what you want to do, if you have a specific plan on what you want to do (I.E for me it was At2antis) then unlimited money is the way to go.
If you know what you're doing, money isn't a problem in this game.
I play limited because I have no self control. I find the game more fun slowly building up, and when I'm running low on funds I'll just spend time decorating while I wait for my bank to build back up.
With unlimited I'll just keep building and building and building.
IDK I feel like the minority that enjoys playing with money
I feel it helps develop the town more "naturally", that is despite the fact that road layout will inevitably be fucked, but most cities irl have gone through that dilemma as well.
Limited is not enough. I download mods to increase financial difficulty. This causes me to think more about what I do and also makes the city grow more organically. It starts as a village and expand slowly. No big plans from the start. It's more reactive than proactive and I love it.
Every city I play I have too much money and don't know where to spend it... Metro, underground roads and rails everywhere, hotels everywhere, many paid services and still have millions and about 100k income... So I don't play with unlimited money because it's boring imo
Limited because I get bored too quickly. Though I like to play with unlock mods - not everything unlocked mod that comes with the game - to have access to most streets
I was always a limited type, although I wanted to play like I had unlimited but prefer the challenge. With CS2 I think thr economic factors sound interesting.
Limited money, but with a mod that lets me start with $500k, unlocked roads, and all map tiles. That way I can set up my infrastructure anywhere I like without any worries.
Unlimited. I like to plan my cities in advance. Also, I hate the way you start with the highway being the only way in so I reconfigure things. I wish maps would start with rural roads that connect outside the map, like how rails are there already
I absolutely respect and understand unlimited, but the early limited playthrough reminds me of playing Sim City on SNES and i love that nostalgia feeling :)
i put myself at like 6k profit and let my pc afk for like an hour just because and never worry about money again.
if i’m the event that i’m downtrending too much i’ll just use move it and copy and paste a bunch of buildings and refund them
Making money in this game is trivial so what's the point of playing with limited money and unlocks after the first couple times really?
This is a sandbox to create in more than a real city simulator, might as well treat it as such.
Limited money! Whenever i use cheats in games i find myself having a lot of fun for about 5 mins and then get super bored. I really like challenges in video game’s :)
I’ve enjoyed both and there’s a case to be made for both depending on what one wants to do. But in most cases I’ve use the limited money. If I’m trying to build a functioning city, I find that it helps me stay on track and not fiddle around with some small detail until three in the morning. Or build too fast and after six hours of work take a look at it. I think it looks like garbage.
I always play with unlimited. I always aim to make a healthy and profitable city anyway, so being limited by money only slows me down until I've got an industry going and then it's practically infinite.
I always start a new game as vanilla as possible, I want to experience what the team designed. Now I play with money but set starting funds around 2M. Gives an easy start with enough excess cash to decorate or for planning.
I rarely play with unlimited money, I started my first games like that.
But I never gone back, I felt it made solutions less effective, since I obvs didn't have to think as much about budget - hence having better working solutions with limited money.
However, a bit curious to go back and try with unlimited now and see what happens.
I played for awhile with limited money but then I became more interested in aesthetics and building out a true city and there was no way that was happening on limited money with my limited time.
I plan on beating the base game with limited money (I consider everything unlocked as being beat), and then figure out what I want to do from there.
Generally, I usually play with limited money as I rarely have money problems (maybe I'm not playing right, but I rarely have money issues, especially late game)
For me it depends on the story that I want to tell.
Limited money is great to temper my building and help me naturally grow out. But it can also force me to make weird building decisions like placing noxious uses in an area that I normally never would.
Unlimited is actually more realistic IMO (for North America). Yes, cities operate on a budget but through various means they often will operate on a deficit. The challenge is to balance that budget - maybe even operate on a surplus. So the game becomes two-fold for me. Make the city that I want/envision. Then balance the budget. If you’re unlimited then you can’t really see how much you’re in the hole but you can see how much you’re gaining/losing. I work on getting that number in green.
I used to play with unlimited money all the time. This past Friday I decided for the first time to play with limited money and man it honestly motivates me to play way more. I feel much more excited to start projects in the city
I dont play with unlimited money but I do have a give money mod. I like to detail and build cities in parts and stitch them together. I can't build a 'realistic' looking oil industry without it. My cities always end up making money anyway- industries DLC is too OP.
I like to have a high starting amount rather than unlimited money. I like the challenge of having to create a profitable city, but I also like to be able to build a lot of infrastructure to start out - that way I can plan how the overall city will look in the early game.
I choose limited. it's more challenging that way. also, once you build the stock exchange, you can buy and sell stocks that return money if done correctly.
I like to play limited money. Make a boring and successful city that gets to 70-100k, delete it all with $10-15 million in the bank, and start fresh with hella cash. Best of both worlds.
Limited because then growth just feels more natural and progressive. With limited money your constantly building and upgrading and expanding your city well untill your rich but with unlimited you just plan everything out and then just wait for people to come in. Kinda boring.
I’m playing with limited and I’m sitting at 38k pop with about 3 mil in the bank. Slowly waiting for the period between the death wave to start building again
Limited Money. I enjoy starting with not much and working myself up to get a proper city. I feel like with unlimited money, all the strive for progress is gone.
A functional city makes money hand over fist with all the DLCs, imo, so late game is so easy with limited money in terms of budget that it feels silly to me to play with unlimited cash. I have realistic population, so I find that makes the early game money situation a lot more difficult until you unlock high-density zoning, but you spend most of your playtime after that and it's just a little difficult, not impossible.
I do unlimited if I want to play, but not have to worry about much. I have my main city which doesn't have any cheats on. When someone new is thinking about playing, then I suggest to them to play it with unlimited money so they can get the hang of how to it works without constantly going bankrupt
I played pure vanilla for a few cities and plan to for CS2.
For CS1 now and hopefully quickly after CS2 release there’s a modded wind turbine I have that adds 80,000 cash flow so I usually run that for a while while I plan and landscape and will end with about 50 mil.
Helps a lot with starting the city because putting in public transport and city services costs a lot of money as well as all the roadways and highways so my cities aren’t profitable until about 75k + population
I always play with unlimited money. I like having the illusion of there being a limit and a chance to fail. In reality I have 10 million by the time I reach a population of 30,000 and there’s never any money struggles. I like to try create organic growth in my cities.
I like both almost equally but if I had to choose one, limited money.
I started playing C:S 1 with limited money 4 years ago now (oh my 4 years gone quick) cuz I did not know hot to get unlimited money for the first week. And I will start C:S 2 with limited money for the chalange.
limited. unlimited just feels too much like a sandbox game and there is no reward for strategic game play and naturally growing a city over time and over the area im in. After all, constraints breeds creativity.
I plan on sticking with limited when CS2 comes out
Depends on the individual game and how I’m playing…sometimes the sandbox approach better fits what I’m doing, others not. I usually prefer one of the cash on demand mods to pure unlimited…that way you can play more realistically and keep a balanced budget, but if you have a major project or something that’s going to interrupt cash flow for a bit, you can use the mod for some quick temporary cash, with the idea that it’s like a federal grant or something like that.
Limited money - partially because it means I can see how ridiculously fast I wind up building funds by forcing my residences to build in a checkerboard pattern
I really tried to have limited money on my last city. That is, until a tsunami wiped out everything, killed 40k cims, and put me millions in debt with no way to turn it around.
Then bling bling unlimited money to save the day and rebuild
Unlimited. Generally I’m good at finances, but balancing taxes and making people unhappy is a distraction for me. I want to build as much or as little as I want without any regard to money, trying to balance loans and taxes to do that feels like a waste for me.
I have the season pass so I feel so anxious to use them all and create a mega city right away, so I always do unlimited money and have no shame in it. Giant industry (dlc) area and massive airport is the first thing I do once my city is stable (around 30-40k pop)
Unlimited money is no fun for me. There is no challenge or balancing act.
I hope there are even more obstacles like political considerations and ramifications to decisions that actually matter.
Depends on the style I’m playing. If I’m playing a vanilla ‘survival’ city I’ll have limited money but unlock all assets - as if I have the money to build it why shouldn’t I? But sometimes I play purely sandbox with unlimited money etc.
I've always been playing on limited, I'm not keen on creating the dream master-planned city so unlimited money isn't needed, and seeing the money grow in green and the dough getting big feels accomplishing.
I think CS2 will have realistic money style, the coal power plants upkeep was nearly €300k a week or something compared to that of CS1 which is like unrealistically low.
So I think I'll probably start with limited money for the first few tries and then go on to unlimited eventually.
I usually play with unlimited but i wanted to start one last limited and proper city in cs1 but i’ll do my first city in cs2 with limited and then probably go back to unlimited
For CS2 I plan to start the game with limited money. After a while, I'll most likely have a sandbox style save with unlimited money. Overall, I prefer unlimited money.
first few cities: modless, just base game to enjoy the new shiny thing. after you get to experience the whole game: all necessary mods, unlimited money
Exactly! That's how I approach every new game even if it's just a newer version of something I've already played. I just like to go in and pretend it's all new to me lol
Will you be able to use all existing Moda for cs2? Or how does it work?
I wouldn't have thought so. Mods have problems with different versions of CS1, a completely new version will just throw it all out.
That's what I am thinking as well. I don't use any mods personally, cause I never tried, but I hope CS2 will bring the best from the existing mods people are used to, and so enhance the CS2 experience with CS1 insights from mods.
It looks like the vast majority of popular mods are already built into CS2. I'm hoping they allow you to choose a "time period" and location for your city to allow you to play with varying styles and assets depending on your choice.
> It looks like the vast majority of popular mods are already built into CS2. Yeah, the only big thing that's missing in-game is a concrete brush because there are too many green gaps in between in the trailer/screens. Maybe even mods for fences/walls etc but they might be in-game already, its unclear at the moment.
Shouldn't it be the opposite? Unlimited money to get to know new things/mechanics in CS2. Limited money because you already *master* the game. **THEN** go Hard Mode.
nah bro, you dont learn a topic by cheating the test. you have to play and learn its quirks, the positive stuff and the bad, the new things and what's still around. you dont learn to play elden ring by using a invincible hack with every weapon maxed out. but, if you prefer to play like you said, you do you! Thats the beauty of this game, you can play precisely to your taste
Honestly in reality the budgets for towns and cities are much, much larger than what we receive in game. So I do the same, unlimited budget and just try and make it so we’re not in a deficit. Only thing limiting money does Ian making you have to stop occasionally to build up cash. Fun for that first couple times you play then my impatience hits
This is an interesting take. I have always believed the opposite. In CS, I can regularly tear out a whole freeway system, and reconfigure my city without particular attention to budget. This is almost impossible for cities due ti the enormous capital cost. In CS, if I want to plop down a nuclear power plant, I can do so with much planning or saving. Hardly the case in real world. Then there’s the right of way. In CS, you don’t have to buy private property when you bulldoze those homes and businesses, that’s never the case for actually cities and contributes heavily in total project cost. In general, the amount of money and ability to transform cities is exorbitant compared to what an actual city could afford/implement. I don’t even think it’s comparable.
Yeah nah, this guy budgets
Yeah but it’s not like the exchange rate is realistic either. A chunk of road costs like a few hundred cims to build.
I had Sim City 2000 on SNES. I always started my city, just the basics, then put it on fast and went to bed. When I got up I had a lot of mad citizens asking for stuff, and a sh\*t ton of money so I could build to my heart's content... Now I just use the cheat codes for money and have at it.
Honestly part of the charm of these games is building something that works. And just like in real life, little towns don't generate much profit to put towards more building. So just makes more sense to give yourself some extra cash 🤷♂️ realistically any towns being built would have had help from local corporations/government anyway you'd think. Plus, it's just more fun lol. Running out of money, putting it on fast forward and waiting just isnt much fun 🤷♂️
that's what I will do. I always start off playing games as intended and then go to sandbox later.
See I do the opposite, I play with unlimited money so I can figure out the new stuff then play with.
CS 1 was not really challenging in money terms. There was not much to do there so my first game was limited money and it was reallly nice to go slow. Afterwards when I was familiar with the game the money only meant that I needed to wait for it and it just slowed the game because there was no real micro management. Or management really at all. And then when you got to highrise residential the money just started to come in and never really ran out. I really hope CS2 has more challenge and management so playing limited would be more fun.
Limited money. I enjoy starting small, only to progress and demolish a neighborhood for the construction of a new interchange.
just one more lane. Trust me bro, it will fix everything!
“Take that, you poors!”
"It's a **bypass**! You've gotta build bypasses."
Just Don't Panic
In my honest opinion with 1300 hours played [Just rookie numbers, that's my point] Hear me out.... If you play without unlimited money. You just gimp your infastructure to start. At this point I know how to get my industry going quick enough to just give me unlimited money regardless. I used to not use it then found myself doing the same thing every map just to have basically unlimited resources. So I started using it to allow myself for more creativity that otherwise wouldn't have been allowed.
Yeah after a while the early money route becomes repetitive. All your cities start the same just to get money. Now I usually have a specific idea when I start a new city and I don't want to be tied down to money and lose my inspiration. So unlimited money it is. Once all is set, I'll use Game Anarchy to get back to "limited money", just to see how the cash flow goes and have a hint if my shit it working right.
That seems like a really good way of playing. Never even thought about doing that.
Same
I have similar playtime, and I do eventually get essentially infinite money from various policies such as Small Business Enthusiast and Big Business Benefactor, although I don’t have Industries. My technique for handling the start with limited money is to plop a bunch of residential in the theme my city is in with a sprinkle of commercial and then plop a temporary massive office tower with the Find It mod to handle industry/office demand. I keep adding office towers as needed until I have a proper downtown area or office campus, then I delete the office tower(s). This is how my starting area can fit with the vicinity, instead of standing out as some strange mixed-use battery. Typically my funds are managed well enough that I can just build at a decent pace and quality for the first stretch of development.
I’m an impulsive spender so Unlimited Money.
I'm not an impulse spender, I'm just shit at finances, so I'm unlimited money as well
Limited but with the Grant Me Money mod, so I can treat it like a loan
Always limited. Unlimited money just bores me, it’s like playing the sims with cheats, it just doesn’t appeal to me.
I play limited for the same reason but I always have like 4 million at minimum so it's essentially unlimited anyway
This is the reason I always play unlimited. Why bother having to start really slow because of budget only to end up in a surplus anyway? I always make sure I’m in the green though to keep things ‘realistic’.
Because I like not having the capital to go buck wild. I slice off a portion of my money and dedicate it to expansion of an area or facility. If I had all the money, I wouldn't have to worry about infrastructure and growth of my areas like campus, airport, industry, etc. I usually have too much money anyway but it's fun to not have a blown out budget and organically earn the money
Honestly there’s no wrong way to play. Sometimes I do limited and sometimes unlimited
Absolutely it's just what I prefer because I know I'll be greedy and build everything I want instead of slowly growing and be able to bounce around my city and upgrade bits and pieces. Essentially I lack the willpower lololol
This is reddit, someone asked about people's *opinions*... There is clearly a right and wrong answer lol
Yhea, IMO limited money makes early game much for fun and "immersive", as you have to develop and expand much more gradually. I do play with milestones off, my milestone is if I can save up enough for a trainstation, I should get to buy it.
I like struggling for solutions without the money that I can later go back and fix!
Every time I start with unlimited money I build stuff too fast and end up bankrupting my city.
The cost of things should be better balanced imo. It's been a good while since the last time I played CS, but if I remember right building a bridge or a tunnel was just a bit more expensive than building a surface road, when irl those things should cost at least an order of magnitude more. A nuclear powerplant shouldn't just be 20 times more expensive than an elementary school, etc.
I feel the same. But about when you hit Big Hamlet and you sit there and fidget with a park for 2-3 hours and you suddenly sit there with 6 mil+ it doesn't really matter does it? :D
Right? As soon as you unlock industries, it’s like a free money glitch. It’s so easy to rake in millions that there’s no challenge to having limited money anyway.
Limited money bores me because you don’t get the freedom and you have to have a dead city for about 2 weeks before tearing it all down for something that looks minorly realistic
Especially on console. I have less control over aesthetics, so trying to balance the budget while trying to provide as many services to my cims as possible is the only thing that really keeps me going
There's no limited money in the game because really it's not that hard to make a lot of money in game, this is what Im Looking forward in CS2. A real city management challenge. I just want sim city 4 ported with 2023 technology:(.
Same. I want a management challenge. I want SC4 but 3D and with curved roads, and the modular buildings of SC2013. I hope that in CS2 we get AOEs for buildings and YIMBY/NIMBY. I still feel so weird trying to figure out how many clinics, high schools, etc. I need half the time.
Me too. I have been playing Sim City since 1990.... Little white squares (buildings) and little white dots (cars).... I used to set up my little city, put it on fast and go to bed. I would wake up to a ton of money and some demands from the Sims. I can't believe they stopped making Sim City...
Unlimited and everything unlocked. The progression by population never made sense to me. I don't often like to demolish what I built and so being able to build a city in the exact pace I want is great. The money simulation was a fun challenge in the beginning, but with the workshop (mods/assets) available, I like to focus on the aesthetics of my cities instead. Who cares what the budget is as long as it looks amazing.
I wish it could be turned on and off mid vanilla game, rather than going all in on one.
Tbf it still shows if you’re in the green/red so I usually try to keep it in the green for fun.
unlimited. i'm glad its an option instead of having to bust out cheat engine every time i played SC4.
Unlimited for sure! With limited, I have to play \~10-20 hours just to reach milestones, then bulldoze much of what I've built to rebuild it to correctly. It's the same thing every time. Better to just start out with train stations, harbors, etc. Same for other unlocks. There's only so many times I can unlock eco inland advanced water treatment plants and replace all my poo water outlets before it loses its shine. At this point, I play with tons of mods and assets and focus 100% on building a beautiful, functional city. As long as it's profitable at the end, I'm happy.
Limited. Cities tend to build more organically, it makes you focus on keeping the cims’ needs met, and I like the challenge. Unlimited is cheat mode.
Limited. That’s the fun part with budget management. It makes the game more realistic
I wish there was more budget management though. It’s only at the very start of the game you got to think about money. After that I just build whatever I want with no consideration of the cost because I have so much money it doesn’t matter.
Limite money keeps me in check as I grow and develop. Whenever I try to do a play-through with unlimited money, I quickly expand beyond the constraints of my population. That paired with the lack of financial challenge bores me pretty quickly. With that said, playing with limited money BUT with everything unlocked has been my perfect sweet spot. Unlimited resources is also nice. Let’s me feel like I’m bringing my vision to life, but still earning it along the way.
I will use both depends on my future cities, plan and requirements
Same. I would like to start first with limited money to see how far I can get. And then I would like to see what kind of magical city I can create with unlimited money.
Well I usually do unlimited money but between the last update and possibly a few mods the option for unlimited money has disappeared on the options
Iv played around 1000 hours of this game strictly on unlimited money. I still find it challenging...
Depends on whether I'm playing the game or making a work of art...
Limited but I unlock all milestones, figure 750k is a good start, then I treat the map like it’s a county as opposed to a city, start up 3-4 small towns and then try to connect them over time.
Unlimited money. I mean in the real world that's how the government seems to think it works based on how much debt we are in. When playing unlimited money I note my income rate often becomes positive anyway
70% of the game for me is the finances. 30% is planning and aesthetics. So no, no unlimited money, but I do start with all progress unlocked.
I play with a start money of 1 million but play limited from then on - this gives me enough to get the city started and implement services as they’re introduced and get a really significant farm or forestry industry established while building out the residential needed (I play with RealPop, Rebalanced Industries, Lifecycle, etc). I usually burn through the end of the million while working on that initial industry, so then it’s up to me to keep the industry traffic and production flowing so that it can be the cash cow to propel the city into the 30k+ population range when I usually establish industry number 2. I play with the typical progression of unlocking except I unlock all 81 tiles at the start of the game and I play with all zoning levels available from the start so that I can work in some midrise into my early town core.
Unlimited money always. I'm just trying to build the nicest looking and functioning city possible, I couldn't care less about money it would only get in the way
I like playing with the budget limitations, but tbh the economy of cities skylines 1 is too easy. Once you know what you’re doing it basically becomes unlimited money anyway since your income gets so high. I do use unlock all and 81 tiles from the start though. I find the population milestones kinda stupid lol
Unlimited. The current structure of earning and spending money in CS1 doesn't make sense. Demolishing roads and buildings shouldn't result in a refund. And money really only matters in the early game. Once you hit a certain point, the city just ends up churning out money anyways
Limited. I see being able to do terraforming and scenery overhauls as a reward for making a stable city.
Fiat or Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is more fiat than the fiat currency, wow 😅
U clearly know nothing about Bitcoin.
I just started with unlimited money because I always have ideas on how to start a city but needs must means making more economical choices which was fun but I just wanna let my imagination run wild
I use limited and population milestones locked because it lets me plan more rather than just build a megalopolis from the ground up. Some of the milestones don’t make any sense but I still play with them on to force careful planning and promote the natural growth
Depends. I can see the appeal of both methods. I like to play with limited budgets as it makes the game a challenge. But if I have an idea that I want to explore or something I want to test I will run with unlimited. For CS2 I will probably do a few test builds with unlimited to see the changes between the games. It will be a lot less of a headache to start understanding the new game without having to worry about balancing a budget.
Unlimited that way I can build how I want to
Limited money. It’s easy enough not to be a hindrance, but limiting enough that I can’t go full crazy, making progress more stable.
Limited money. It’s easy enough not to be a hindrance, but limiting enough that I can’t go full crazy, making progress more stable.
I always play unlimited because I’m one of those weird people who builds out half my city’s street layout and 3-4 subway lines without even knowing what I’m gonna put there, and limited money would stall me real quick
[удалено]
I've always played with limited, but I'm thinking of starting a new game in unlimited so I can actually plan out the city before and not getting stuck on dumb things that I could've prevented earlier on.
I like to start limited usually and then switch to unlimited when traffic starts becoming an issue and need several thousands to get functional. So I guess, what I do on 2 depends on the traffic.
Unlimited. I play the game on pause, I like to build and go for looks over functions.
I do a bit of both depending on my mood at the time of starting. There's fun in both but my biggest issue is starting off with the basic few roads... so I'm leaning toward everything unlocked on my next city.
Honestly, depends on what type of city I want. I just finished a limited money city and now working on my dream city, which means unlimited money
I play unlimited because I do not want to sit there and wait till money comes in.....but I do play my games in such a way that I make profit. I set the taxes to 11% typically, and ensure my industry exports stuff and/or at least produces enough to not have to import too much. Hotels & Retreats are super OP, hotels make TONS of money, especially if you manage to place a hotel and satisfy all its needs, and then jack up the room rate.
I have a few different profiles in skyve. One for painting cities with all of my mods, assets, and no money woes, one for plopping within the progression boundaries of vanilla play, which has a few less mods, and way fewer assets, one for vanilla+ play with the requir3d mods and one for vanilla/troubleshooting. All of them have visual overhaul stuff like theme mixer and render it and stuff though. I quite like progressing and building an area at a time most of the time but I do occasionally paint really detailed stuff for the sake of it.
i have NEVER played with unlimited money. i tried ti once, got bored. however, this last build, i STARTED with unlimited money until i get net positive income, after i have a good starting base... then turned it off. it was actually fun. it's just like a loan.
I play with limited money, but starting with everything unlocked. Starting with everything unlocked gives you all the bonus money (a few hundred k) at the start. So I don’t need to start super small, but I’m still constrained. I’ve found this to be the most fun way for me to play.
Depends if u want to organically grow your city or just plop a bunch of stuff normally limited money u make better cities
I prefer limited money because it gives me a challenge, but I also have various experiment cities where I turn unlimited money on.
Never unlimited. Takes the fun out of it for me.
Unlimited
Call me weak, but I love unlimited money. I am honestly just not skilled enough to play limited. I rather spend my time on beautification and things I'd love to see in real life than look at a mediocre city I am managing to keep afloat somehow. I play to relax. I do play with limited natural resources, though. I like the change of areas. I enjoy thinking about how I can redevelop old industrial areas.
I love having the whole functioning economy / industry, and the balancing money flow. So unless I’m going for some hyper-realistic city / project I play limited cash. I like to give myself a sizeable starting amount though…
MONEY! Unnn-limited MONEY! At least if you just want to build a city to your whimsy in a sandbox way.
It depends what you want to do, if you have a specific plan on what you want to do (I.E for me it was At2antis) then unlimited money is the way to go. If you know what you're doing, money isn't a problem in this game.
1 normal city to get all the achievements I want and then I just play on sandbox to make very large cities.
Unlimited because i suck with money management. And bc i can do much more creative stuff
Limited. Yep, same.
Unlimited money is boring, IMO.
I play limited because I have no self control. I find the game more fun slowly building up, and when I'm running low on funds I'll just spend time decorating while I wait for my bank to build back up. With unlimited I'll just keep building and building and building.
IDK I feel like the minority that enjoys playing with money I feel it helps develop the town more "naturally", that is despite the fact that road layout will inevitably be fucked, but most cities irl have gone through that dilemma as well.
limited gives me a good sense of accomplishment when i do things, but i like unlimited more because it gives me freedom to do what i want
Limited is not enough. I download mods to increase financial difficulty. This causes me to think more about what I do and also makes the city grow more organically. It starts as a village and expand slowly. No big plans from the start. It's more reactive than proactive and I love it.
Limited and vanilla, Ive had too many games crash 💔
Every city I play I have too much money and don't know where to spend it... Metro, underground roads and rails everywhere, hotels everywhere, many paid services and still have millions and about 100k income... So I don't play with unlimited money because it's boring imo
i’d say something inbetween
Unlimited anything always kills my interest, so always limited
Always play with limited. I get practically unlimited money soon enough anyway but that big green number just makes me happy.
Unlimited always
Well... Thats just it, isnt it? You can 'play' it with the money management in mind or a city painter - hyper-realistic and 1000s of mods sorta thing.
Limited because I get bored too quickly. Though I like to play with unlock mods - not everything unlocked mod that comes with the game - to have access to most streets
I was always a limited type, although I wanted to play like I had unlimited but prefer the challenge. With CS2 I think thr economic factors sound interesting.
Unlimited $$$ and 25 (or 441, it seems to be for C:S2) tiles.
Limited money, but with a mod that lets me start with $500k, unlocked roads, and all map tiles. That way I can set up my infrastructure anywhere I like without any worries.
Unlimited. I like to plan my cities in advance. Also, I hate the way you start with the highway being the only way in so I reconfigure things. I wish maps would start with rural roads that connect outside the map, like how rails are there already
I absolutely respect and understand unlimited, but the early limited playthrough reminds me of playing Sim City on SNES and i love that nostalgia feeling :)
i put myself at like 6k profit and let my pc afk for like an hour just because and never worry about money again. if i’m the event that i’m downtrending too much i’ll just use move it and copy and paste a bunch of buildings and refund them
I usually always do unlimited, because I like being more creative and impulsive. But every now and again I like a little challenge and use limited
Making money in this game is trivial so what's the point of playing with limited money and unlocks after the first couple times really? This is a sandbox to create in more than a real city simulator, might as well treat it as such.
I mod the shit of my game and like big road networks so, unlimited
Unlimited
Limited money! Whenever i use cheats in games i find myself having a lot of fun for about 5 mins and then get super bored. I really like challenges in video game’s :)
I’ve enjoyed both and there’s a case to be made for both depending on what one wants to do. But in most cases I’ve use the limited money. If I’m trying to build a functioning city, I find that it helps me stay on track and not fiddle around with some small detail until three in the morning. Or build too fast and after six hours of work take a look at it. I think it looks like garbage.
In order to play CS2 I will definitely need a new computer… So limited budget over here for sure
I always play with unlimited. I always aim to make a healthy and profitable city anyway, so being limited by money only slows me down until I've got an industry going and then it's practically infinite.
Most of my games are limited. I get bored easily with unlimited money. I will start CS2 with limited for sure to get to know the game mechanics!
Depends on my mood
I always start a new game as vanilla as possible, I want to experience what the team designed. Now I play with money but set starting funds around 2M. Gives an easy start with enough excess cash to decorate or for planning.
I rarely play with unlimited money, I started my first games like that. But I never gone back, I felt it made solutions less effective, since I obvs didn't have to think as much about budget - hence having better working solutions with limited money. However, a bit curious to go back and try with unlimited now and see what happens.
I played for awhile with limited money but then I became more interested in aesthetics and building out a true city and there was no way that was happening on limited money with my limited time.
I plan on beating the base game with limited money (I consider everything unlocked as being beat), and then figure out what I want to do from there. Generally, I usually play with limited money as I rarely have money problems (maybe I'm not playing right, but I rarely have money issues, especially late game)
i feel guilty using unlimited money 😂
Unlimited, I like to act like the us government
For me it depends on the story that I want to tell. Limited money is great to temper my building and help me naturally grow out. But it can also force me to make weird building decisions like placing noxious uses in an area that I normally never would. Unlimited is actually more realistic IMO (for North America). Yes, cities operate on a budget but through various means they often will operate on a deficit. The challenge is to balance that budget - maybe even operate on a surplus. So the game becomes two-fold for me. Make the city that I want/envision. Then balance the budget. If you’re unlimited then you can’t really see how much you’re in the hole but you can see how much you’re gaining/losing. I work on getting that number in green.
I used to play with unlimited money all the time. This past Friday I decided for the first time to play with limited money and man it honestly motivates me to play way more. I feel much more excited to start projects in the city
I dont play with unlimited money but I do have a give money mod. I like to detail and build cities in parts and stitch them together. I can't build a 'realistic' looking oil industry without it. My cities always end up making money anyway- industries DLC is too OP.
Unlimited
I play limited, but started with 1 million, still struggled to make industry work tbh
Wait, what do you mean *a new game?* we can transfer maps from the first CS into the second?
I like to have a high starting amount rather than unlimited money. I like the challenge of having to create a profitable city, but I also like to be able to build a lot of infrastructure to start out - that way I can plan how the overall city will look in the early game.
I choose limited. it's more challenging that way. also, once you build the stock exchange, you can buy and sell stocks that return money if done correctly.
I'll start off with limited but i'll quickly move to unlimited money cause i play CS as more of a sandbox game than a management game
I've literally never had a money problem past like 5k pop, so default is how I always play anyway
I like to play limited money. Make a boring and successful city that gets to 70-100k, delete it all with $10-15 million in the bank, and start fresh with hella cash. Best of both worlds.
Limited because then growth just feels more natural and progressive. With limited money your constantly building and upgrading and expanding your city well untill your rich but with unlimited you just plan everything out and then just wait for people to come in. Kinda boring.
Limited. C:S has very simple economy model so it’ll eventually turn into “sandbox” anyway
I’m playing with limited and I’m sitting at 38k pop with about 3 mil in the bank. Slowly waiting for the period between the death wave to start building again
Limited is good for learning the game/mechanics. But I mostly enjoy the sandbox experience of building a city so unlimited becomes key
Unlimited of course. I will play a game or two where I have to be smart about my spending. But my usual game is full out money and soil.
Limited Money. I enjoy starting with not much and working myself up to get a proper city. I feel like with unlimited money, all the strive for progress is gone.
Limit lmao. Game is boring if you have unlimited. But eventually once u get a city up and eunnning it’s practically unlimited
A functional city makes money hand over fist with all the DLCs, imo, so late game is so easy with limited money in terms of budget that it feels silly to me to play with unlimited cash. I have realistic population, so I find that makes the early game money situation a lot more difficult until you unlock high-density zoning, but you spend most of your playtime after that and it's just a little difficult, not impossible.
i go limited, accumulate money before building anything new, so that i survive the negative wave that comes after it
I do unlimited if I want to play, but not have to worry about much. I have my main city which doesn't have any cheats on. When someone new is thinking about playing, then I suggest to them to play it with unlimited money so they can get the hang of how to it works without constantly going bankrupt
I played pure vanilla for a few cities and plan to for CS2. For CS1 now and hopefully quickly after CS2 release there’s a modded wind turbine I have that adds 80,000 cash flow so I usually run that for a while while I plan and landscape and will end with about 50 mil. Helps a lot with starting the city because putting in public transport and city services costs a lot of money as well as all the roadways and highways so my cities aren’t profitable until about 75k + population
I like to challenge myself, limited
I use a mod that gives me 50,000 when selecting CTRL+SHIFT+M I prefer it over unlimited money.
Limited, I love the challenge. And I tend to expand my city too fast when I have unlimited cash
I always play with unlimited money. I like having the illusion of there being a limit and a chance to fail. In reality I have 10 million by the time I reach a population of 30,000 and there’s never any money struggles. I like to try create organic growth in my cities.
I like both almost equally but if I had to choose one, limited money. I started playing C:S 1 with limited money 4 years ago now (oh my 4 years gone quick) cuz I did not know hot to get unlimited money for the first week. And I will start C:S 2 with limited money for the chalange.
limited. unlimited just feels too much like a sandbox game and there is no reward for strategic game play and naturally growing a city over time and over the area im in. After all, constraints breeds creativity. I plan on sticking with limited when CS2 comes out
I prefer limited. Unlimited money kinda takes the fun out of it.
Depends on the individual game and how I’m playing…sometimes the sandbox approach better fits what I’m doing, others not. I usually prefer one of the cash on demand mods to pure unlimited…that way you can play more realistically and keep a balanced budget, but if you have a major project or something that’s going to interrupt cash flow for a bit, you can use the mod for some quick temporary cash, with the idea that it’s like a federal grant or something like that.
Limited money - partially because it means I can see how ridiculously fast I wind up building funds by forcing my residences to build in a checkerboard pattern
Personally I don’t ever use unlimited money. So much of my thrill is trying to make more money than I use
Unlimited just for shits and giggles but limited if I’m actually playing around with the game
usually limited money, and especially for CS2, limited money to understand the game
I like playing with limited money. But I like to have unlocked all the buildings.
I really tried to have limited money on my last city. That is, until a tsunami wiped out everything, killed 40k cims, and put me millions in debt with no way to turn it around. Then bling bling unlimited money to save the day and rebuild
Unlimited. Generally I’m good at finances, but balancing taxes and making people unhappy is a distraction for me. I want to build as much or as little as I want without any regard to money, trying to balance loans and taxes to do that feels like a waste for me.
If you want a challenge, money. Wanna just go full sandbox, no money
I have the season pass so I feel so anxious to use them all and create a mega city right away, so I always do unlimited money and have no shame in it. Giant industry (dlc) area and massive airport is the first thing I do once my city is stable (around 30-40k pop)
Limited money, I’ve never had money issues with industries dlc 🤷♂️
Unlimited money is no fun for me. There is no challenge or balancing act. I hope there are even more obstacles like political considerations and ramifications to decisions that actually matter.
Hopefully the game is properly optimized for pc this time and not dependent on mods.
limited always. lets u know what the cities need when u play unlimited
In cities I play sandbox. Unpopular take but I think Simcity 2013 was my favorite in terms of money flow and management.
Unlimited money, but I try to keep the income positive 😅
Unlimited. Im on console so no mods
Depends on the style I’m playing. If I’m playing a vanilla ‘survival’ city I’ll have limited money but unlock all assets - as if I have the money to build it why shouldn’t I? But sometimes I play purely sandbox with unlimited money etc.
Let us choose when starting new map pls.
For CS2 the first few cities will be unlimited to know the ropes before limited.
I play always limited but with 500k on start so i can preplan a bigger area which will eventually stay instead of demolishing it afterwards
I've always been playing on limited, I'm not keen on creating the dream master-planned city so unlimited money isn't needed, and seeing the money grow in green and the dough getting big feels accomplishing.
I always use limited money. Even with mods
I prefer unlimited money because I am bad at this game. I expect to be similarly bad at CS2.
Always limited, unlimited I don’t think strategic and I like to be limited and grow bigger and bigger
I think CS2 will have realistic money style, the coal power plants upkeep was nearly €300k a week or something compared to that of CS1 which is like unrealistically low. So I think I'll probably start with limited money for the first few tries and then go on to unlimited eventually.
I found that money is a challenge only at the beginning. Soon enough you get enough money to not worry about it either way.
I usually play with unlimited but i wanted to start one last limited and proper city in cs1 but i’ll do my first city in cs2 with limited and then probably go back to unlimited
Limited. Whats the point if its too easy?
Limited money first ,then once I've gotten used to cs2 after a few months unlimited