The developers behind Cities: Skylines 2 are continuing to set the hearts of city-builder fans ablaze with each new dev diary, and this week's breakdown of city policies and services is no exception.
In Cities: Skylines 2, you'll be able to divide your city into districts by simply drawing a border around a region of your choice, which you can then use to determine which areas are serviced by particular schools or other public works. You can also apply policies - like, say, limiting heavy traffic - in particular districts, and you'll also have access to a separate set of policies affecting the entire city.
City policies will let you do things like removing the speed limits from highways, which is just about the only thing that could make an urban American highway system more terrifying than it already is. As developer Colossal Order explains in a blog post, "this policy can make traffic flow faster but it also increases the likelihood of traffic accidents." Some policies will similarly force you to weigh positive and negative effects, while others "are more neutral."
Cities: Skylines 2 will feature five different city policies at launch, including high-speed highways, advanced pollution management, city promotion, pre-release programs, and a slider to set minimum taxi fare. There will also be seven district policies, including heavy traffic bans, recycling, combustion engine bans, energy consumption awareness, gated communities, speed bumps, and roadside parking fees.
The rest of the blog and dev diary is largely focused on city services, which are getting a major upgrade from C:S1 - literally. Just about every service building appears to now be upgradeable, so you can build expansions to things like fire stations or schools to expand their ability to meet your city's needs, rather than simply plopping down dozens of identical buildings as you would in the original game.
Previous dev diaries have confirmed features like utilities being attached to roads and a removal of the original game's frustrating agent limit. So far, Cities: Skylines 2 is looking like a massive improvement for what's now the biggest city-building series out there, though we'll have to wait until October 24 to see how all this promise pays off in practice.
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