Two months before Cities: Skylines II launched, these were my ten favourite features: road tools that used to need mods (with one worry about the grid tool), easier ramps and deleting, more zoning options, expandable service buildings, a traffic AI that reroutes around accidents and has rush hours, internet coverage, power and water laid automatically under roads, power lines with limited capacity, a much bigger buildable area, and free-form industry area edges that make farms look real.
Roughly two months before launch, here are the ten Cities: Skylines II features I liked most, and the reasons I was so excited.
1. Road tools from the mod world
Tools we know from CS1 mods are finally built in. My one concern is the grid tool. I expect a lot of people to build grids. I use them sometimes to save space, but they could stop people getting creative with their roads.
2. Ramps and deleting
Building on and off ramps looks much easier, and so does deleting specific road pieces, compared with vanilla CS1.
3. Zoning
The zoning isn’t fundamentally different, but there are many more residential types, and more variety for the others too.
4. Expandable services
City service buildings take extensions. For someone like me, who sneaks services in wherever they’re needed, that’s a challenge: you have to plan space ahead, or there’s no room to extend your school. Some buildings can only be placed once or a few times, so no more doctor’s office on every corner.
5. Traffic AI
Congestion happens, and so do accidents. In the footage, a car sees an ambulance and a closed road ahead, turns around and takes a detour. That could mean fewer mods needed for traffic. Traffic also changes with the time of day, with real rush hours.
6. Internet
You can build internet services, and they affect commercial and tourism. Skip the towers and your city may struggle.
7 and 8. Power that follows the roads
Laying a road also lays the electricity network, with buildings stepping down from high to low voltage at street level. Those lines can’t carry unlimited power, so outages become possible, depending on the weather, too.
9. Bigger maps
About 159 km² of buildable land. That’s something I’ve wanted for a very long time, and even 81 Tiles never got close. I hope a mod pushes it further, maybe even several cities in one area.
10. Free-form industry edges
It looks minor, but you can now draw your own edges for industry areas. For farms especially, that looks far more realistic, and I love farms.
Tell me your favourite feature in the comments. If you want the earlier leaks, see the achievements, screenshots and gameplay trailer posts.
FAQ
Does Cities: Skylines II need a traffic mod like TM:PE?
The trailer showed cars turning around when they see an ambulance and a closed road ahead, plus rush-hour patterns, so I hoped the base game would need fewer traffic mods.
Can service buildings be expanded in Cities: Skylines II?
Yes. Many service buildings take extensions, which means planning space around them instead of dropping small clinics on every corner.
Are power lines automatic in Cities: Skylines II?
Low-voltage power and water follow the roads automatically, with transformers stepping down from high voltage, and lines have limited capacity, so outages become possible.