Last week it was cake and sparkling wine but this week it's all business here at Colossal Order. For Chirpy turning 1 year last Thursday Paradox announced an upcoming free update and I'm so happy I get to finally talk about it. I asked Cities: Skylines lead artist Janne to help me out with this one for some pro tips so read below what Landscaping is all about!
Modifying terrain ingame has never been part of the grand vision of Colossal Order. We clearly wanted to have editor features and the gameplay separated, so that the maps are made in the editor and the city built ingame. However there are cases when modifying the terrain makes sense while building the city. Therefore we have been working on tools that allow slight modification, or landscaping, to be added to the game: Shift, Level, Soften and Slope tool. All of these have three brush sizes and strengths available that allow small changes to the terrain. Just remember that the dirt is not simply added or removed like in the map editor, but will actually have to be moved from one place to another.
Janne wanted to share his experience with the landscaping tools:
“I've been playing the game and testing our new landscaping tools a lot lately and I think you can do really cool stuff with them. For me, it might be the biggest time consumer in the game to date. I've noticed some stuff along the way and I thought I should share some tips with you guys, just to make things a little bit smoother when you start shoveling that soil. Landscaping tools are great! You can do lots of stuff with these (but not without a cost you know). You also have to make sure you keep an eye on soil availability.
I've found it handy (and pretty cool too) to have a sort of mining area in some remote spot on the map, where I can get more soil if needed and dump the extra if it's causing me problems. That's how I don't get holes everywhere in the map if I suddenly need more soil to fill my shoreline or something like that. I usually create some gravel roads and maybe zone few ore industrial buildings around the mining area too to make it look prettier.”
On top of the landscaping tools to adjust the terrain in game the update will bring canals, quays and flood walls. The water structures will give more flexibility and options for forming different looking cities. The canals will make it possible to guide the water around the map and having the water intakes and outlets placed closer the city. There are some limitations to the canals, like the fixed width which has been chosen so that the water intake and outlet fit there, but is not too wide for the canals to flood easily. The depth can be build in three different levels and is upgradeable later on. The quays will make the shores look more neat and also make it easier to place the beach assets introduced in After Dark expansion. Water structures therefore have two purposes in the game: to allow more control over the water in the maps and making visually interesting choices for the city. I personally think this is one of the best features for Cities: Skylines, because what is more fun than to guide poop water around the city (and after a massive error in design having the flood walls is a benefit)!
Janne on the other hand is using the canals to avoid poop water:
“I use canals a lot to make sure my citizens are getting fresh water from their taps and the sewage water is going as far as it possibly can. I also like to reroute water and get myself in deep trouble. Like with quays, I use landscaping tools to level the terrain little bit in the areas where I want canal to be. It will take time to water find it's direction when you place canal so be patient. Three different canal depths will help you to get water level where you want it. In case of flooding, flood wall snaps charmingly right on the edge of canals and I sometimes also use water pumps to get rid of the overflowing water. When you are playing around with landscaping tools and canals, you might notice (the hard way) that water have to have a place to go. And I'm pretty sure the place where it goes is not the right one for the player. Luckily we have flood walls now, so your city doesn't go all Venice if you shovel the soil too much. With combination of landscaping tools and flood walls, you can make pretty cool wave breakers too.
You can create very nice and tidy shorelines with quays. You can place harbors and piers on quays and snap the road to be perfectly aligned with them. I've noticed I use landscaping tools a lot with quays. First I straighten and level the shoreline roughly, and only after it's relatively straight, I select quay and place it. If you have problem getting it exactly where you want, try to turn snapping off and see if that helps.
If you are landscaping with simulation paused, you might get “cannot build on water” message when placing quays. That's because you have moved the terrain, but water is still where it was before soil was moved. Just let the simulation run a bit so the water can settle in its new surroundings and you should be fine. After you've placed a quay you can again use landscaping tools to clean-up terrain if there's any visible problem areas.”
All the new tools are found under landscaping button in the main panel alongside paths, trees and rocks. The old decoration service will be called Parks and Plazas and will include only those. There's also a new infoview for the different terrain heights.
Wait, did I say ROCKS?! Let Janne explain:
“Map editor now has lots of terrain props. We've added all kinds of cool stuff from castle ruins to abandoned cars and fallen trees. There is some Stonehenge-type standing stones and pier ruins and then there's rocks. There's rocks that vary from quite small (car sized) to a bit larger boulders all the way to bedrock areas and large rock formations. Some of these you can paint with brush, some are placeable and then there's some that are created like roads. With all these different types of props, we've tried to create a good collection of assets that feeds the imagination of players and modders when they get their hands on the update. There's already lots of stuff in the workshop that I think will get converted to terrain props fairly quickly and new ones will follow for sure. Amount of items there is insane! I still hope that at some point, we have some time in our schedule when we can go trough our own wishlist and make some new great stuff such as ancient statues and ground covering vegetation for you guys to play with.
Like mentioned before, there's three types of terrain props in the update: Props, buildings and net. All of them are mainly done to be used in map editor but the props and buildings are exposed in the asset editor too. In the game-side you only have rocks available. We wanted these terrain props to be something you discover in the game rather than being something you just “build”. You might suddenly find medieval castle that is blocking your new highway route and at that point, you have to make a decision to either bulldoze it and lose it forever or find a way to build your road around it. There might even be some weird ancient stone pillars standing in the bottom of the lake, you never know.”
So there you go, plenty of new things available soon! We're working hard to getting the update ready for you during March. So get ready to get your hands dirty landscaping!
Cheers,
Mariina & Janne
Modifying terrain ingame has never been part of the grand vision of Colossal Order. We clearly wanted to have editor features and the gameplay separated, so that the maps are made in the editor and the city built ingame. However there are cases when modifying the terrain makes sense while building the city. Therefore we have been working on tools that allow slight modification, or landscaping, to be added to the game: Shift, Level, Soften and Slope tool. All of these have three brush sizes and strengths available that allow small changes to the terrain. Just remember that the dirt is not simply added or removed like in the map editor, but will actually have to be moved from one place to another.
Janne wanted to share his experience with the landscaping tools:
“I've been playing the game and testing our new landscaping tools a lot lately and I think you can do really cool stuff with them. For me, it might be the biggest time consumer in the game to date. I've noticed some stuff along the way and I thought I should share some tips with you guys, just to make things a little bit smoother when you start shoveling that soil. Landscaping tools are great! You can do lots of stuff with these (but not without a cost you know). You also have to make sure you keep an eye on soil availability.
I've found it handy (and pretty cool too) to have a sort of mining area in some remote spot on the map, where I can get more soil if needed and dump the extra if it's causing me problems. That's how I don't get holes everywhere in the map if I suddenly need more soil to fill my shoreline or something like that. I usually create some gravel roads and maybe zone few ore industrial buildings around the mining area too to make it look prettier.”
On top of the landscaping tools to adjust the terrain in game the update will bring canals, quays and flood walls. The water structures will give more flexibility and options for forming different looking cities. The canals will make it possible to guide the water around the map and having the water intakes and outlets placed closer the city. There are some limitations to the canals, like the fixed width which has been chosen so that the water intake and outlet fit there, but is not too wide for the canals to flood easily. The depth can be build in three different levels and is upgradeable later on. The quays will make the shores look more neat and also make it easier to place the beach assets introduced in After Dark expansion. Water structures therefore have two purposes in the game: to allow more control over the water in the maps and making visually interesting choices for the city. I personally think this is one of the best features for Cities: Skylines, because what is more fun than to guide poop water around the city (and after a massive error in design having the flood walls is a benefit)!
Janne on the other hand is using the canals to avoid poop water:
“I use canals a lot to make sure my citizens are getting fresh water from their taps and the sewage water is going as far as it possibly can. I also like to reroute water and get myself in deep trouble. Like with quays, I use landscaping tools to level the terrain little bit in the areas where I want canal to be. It will take time to water find it's direction when you place canal so be patient. Three different canal depths will help you to get water level where you want it. In case of flooding, flood wall snaps charmingly right on the edge of canals and I sometimes also use water pumps to get rid of the overflowing water. When you are playing around with landscaping tools and canals, you might notice (the hard way) that water have to have a place to go. And I'm pretty sure the place where it goes is not the right one for the player. Luckily we have flood walls now, so your city doesn't go all Venice if you shovel the soil too much. With combination of landscaping tools and flood walls, you can make pretty cool wave breakers too.
You can create very nice and tidy shorelines with quays. You can place harbors and piers on quays and snap the road to be perfectly aligned with them. I've noticed I use landscaping tools a lot with quays. First I straighten and level the shoreline roughly, and only after it's relatively straight, I select quay and place it. If you have problem getting it exactly where you want, try to turn snapping off and see if that helps.
If you are landscaping with simulation paused, you might get “cannot build on water” message when placing quays. That's because you have moved the terrain, but water is still where it was before soil was moved. Just let the simulation run a bit so the water can settle in its new surroundings and you should be fine. After you've placed a quay you can again use landscaping tools to clean-up terrain if there's any visible problem areas.”
All the new tools are found under landscaping button in the main panel alongside paths, trees and rocks. The old decoration service will be called Parks and Plazas and will include only those. There's also a new infoview for the different terrain heights.
Wait, did I say ROCKS?! Let Janne explain:
“Map editor now has lots of terrain props. We've added all kinds of cool stuff from castle ruins to abandoned cars and fallen trees. There is some Stonehenge-type standing stones and pier ruins and then there's rocks. There's rocks that vary from quite small (car sized) to a bit larger boulders all the way to bedrock areas and large rock formations. Some of these you can paint with brush, some are placeable and then there's some that are created like roads. With all these different types of props, we've tried to create a good collection of assets that feeds the imagination of players and modders when they get their hands on the update. There's already lots of stuff in the workshop that I think will get converted to terrain props fairly quickly and new ones will follow for sure. Amount of items there is insane! I still hope that at some point, we have some time in our schedule when we can go trough our own wishlist and make some new great stuff such as ancient statues and ground covering vegetation for you guys to play with.
Like mentioned before, there's three types of terrain props in the update: Props, buildings and net. All of them are mainly done to be used in map editor but the props and buildings are exposed in the asset editor too. In the game-side you only have rocks available. We wanted these terrain props to be something you discover in the game rather than being something you just “build”. You might suddenly find medieval castle that is blocking your new highway route and at that point, you have to make a decision to either bulldoze it and lose it forever or find a way to build your road around it. There might even be some weird ancient stone pillars standing in the bottom of the lake, you never know.”
So there you go, plenty of new things available soon! We're working hard to getting the update ready for you during March. So get ready to get your hands dirty landscaping!
Cheers,
Mariina & Janne
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