As someone who is really enjoying all aspects of Surviving Mars, do you think there would be similar enjoyment to be had in City Skylines? It is often on sale and I would happily add it to my collection if it was as much fun as colonisation on Mars.
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If you liked SimCity at all, you'll enjoy CSL. I'd say that's the best comparison.
I've never played any pure base builders until now. Just noticed that a few folks have the City Skylines avatar in their owned list - thought perhaps there was decent crossover.
Skylines is the current king of city builders. Its a great game if you like that sort of thing. If you played any of the SIM building games you know whether you like builder games of that style. IF so go get it.
There's a natural crossover, city builders and colony builders are on the whole mostly about management. So if you enjoy that aspect, you'll have a whole lot of it in CSL, especially the traffic. It's a bit different in that you cannot directly interact with your citizens and where they live/work, only influence it through zoning, roadways, service buildings, etc.
Thanks, that's a helpful description i.e. no actual people management, just an ability to influence. Will maybe wait until the next PDX sale.
I really like both, but there are key differences between them that you should be aware of. At it's core, C:S is a game about managing somewhat peculiar traffic AI. The core problem you'll face is 'why is this intersection bogged down?', and solving that issue can require some pretty unrealistic road layouts. Other than that it's easy to build pretty cities, and things like politics, citizen demands, or money will never really hamper your effort. For this reason, the game is often called a 'city painer' rather than a management sim.
Depends if you want a sandbox or management. City Skylines is a good sandbox but a poor management title. The management can be improved with mod's but is still very much lacking in my personal opinion.
Cities Skylines is A LOT about how your roads work. It differs from Surviving Mars in that it really isn't about "survival" at all, you just build a city and if there are problems, people don't suffocate and die lol, some might move out of your city short-term but you won't "lose".
I don't play Cities Skylines anymore. Too much about traffic management, too little of anything else.
I think @DocQuixotic's and @StrategicWarlord's post above hit the nail on it's head.
I think @DocQuixotic's and @StrategicWarlord's post above hit the nail on it's head.
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I love Cities: Skylines, but as above, the constant traffic issue got in the way of my building the cities of my dreams (or nightmares).
The developer of Suriving Mars is also the developer of the Tropico series, that game is much more similar in terms of mechanics than C:S.
Unlike Tropico, Surviving Mars doesn't suffer from massive routing and infrastructure problems in the late game, which is nice.
I suppose that's the one thing SM and CSL have in common that really recommends them: Both can have absolutely massive numbers of actors (city residents/colony residents/drones) acting independently without melting your CPU or a breakdown of logic. I can't take that for granted after, for instance, Rimwold, which will start to melt your CPU with only 30 independant actors, and the aforementioned Tropico, which won't tax your computer but will leave produced goods to rot in the late game as the fuzzy logic of the labor force fuzzes itself out of existence.
I suppose that's the one thing SM and CSL have in common that really recommends them: Both can have absolutely massive numbers of actors (city residents/colony residents/drones) acting independently without melting your CPU or a breakdown of logic. I can't take that for granted after, for instance, Rimwold, which will start to melt your CPU with only 30 independant actors, and the aforementioned Tropico, which won't tax your computer but will leave produced goods to rot in the late game as the fuzzy logic of the labor force fuzzes itself out of existence.
I really like Cities Skylines, and recommend it if a city builder is your cup of tea.
It's not without faults. Traffic and other things can be a bit weird at times, but if you are really stuck, there's usually a few people on the forum that will help (most of the time) if they can.
You can play with infinite money turned on, and can pretty much make it through anything that way. Might be a good way to learn.
If you wait for a sale like you said, you can pick it up for a pretty good price.
It's not without faults. Traffic and other things can be a bit weird at times, but if you are really stuck, there's usually a few people on the forum that will help (most of the time) if they can.
You can play with infinite money turned on, and can pretty much make it through anything that way. Might be a good way to learn.
If you wait for a sale like you said, you can pick it up for a pretty good price.
Sale is on and CS is down to £5.75 i.e. basically giving it away. Watched some YouTube and it looks like something that could fill a few hours...possibly with frustration...but fill them none the less 
I don't see any sale for it on Steam, but Paradox has it on sale on their site, for anyone interested.
https://www.paradoxplaza.com/cities-skylines/CSCS00GSK-MASTER.html
https://www.paradoxplaza.com/cities-skylines/CSCS00GSK-MASTER.html
I like Cities Skylines but I don't see many people playing it without the sandbox mode on.
If you mean unlimited money, I don't... I have, but haven't in awhile. Not that it matters too much to me, as I enjoy it either way.
I get bored when I play this way, but some people can do crazy stuff with it.