Cities Skylines 2 beginners guide – start off right with these six steps

Want a comprehensive Cities Skylines 2 beginners guide? The latest city builder from Colossal Order offers players even more ways to tinker with the cities of their dreams.

Our Cities Skylines 2 vs Cities Skylines comparison paints a good picture of all the new features in the sequel. As for the bump in visuals, watch out for the Cities Skylines 2 system requirements to ensure your machine can handle it. Here are some essential tips for players new to Cities Skylines 2.

Best steps to follow as Cities Skylines 2 beginners

Cities Skylines 2 and its interwoven systems can be overwhelming for newcomers. But with a helpful tutorial, the game does its best to ease new players into its mechanics. We’ve prepared a handy list of steps to make the most of your first outing in Cities Skylines 2.

Pick the right map and use autosaves

We’ve got a guide that ranks the best maps in Cities Skylines 2. The right map can mean different things to players. Each of them offers a variety of resources to consider in addition to building area and fertile land. We recommend starting off with the Waterway Pass map. This map offers the highest building space among all maps despite having a river flowing in the middle. And don’t forget to switch on the autosave feature in the Options menu. I’m surprised it doesn’t activate by default. You can also set the frequency of autosaves here. And here’s how to delete save games in Cities Skylines 2.

Don’t keep your zones away from each other

Cities in Cities Skylines 2 have four primary zones: residential, commercial, industrial, and offices. This is in addition to your service buildings and decorations tied to a specific purpose. While you might be tempted to make large zones of a single type, that can slow your city down. Commercial stores need residents around for customers. Similarly, residents need stores to fulfill their needs. While industrial sectors can cause pollution, don’t keep them too far from your main districts as workers must travel from residential areas to get to them.

Export water, electricity, and goods

Outside connections can be used to export electricity, water, and other goods. Connections can also lead to tourism from neighboring cities. Note that electricity can be exported via power lines. Here’s how to connect power lines in Cities Skylines 2. And here’s how to export water in Cities Skylines 2. As for goods, you can export surplus goods via cargo routes over the air, water, or land. These are important sources of revenue in addition to providing services to your civilians.

Build a robust transportation system

Transport systems enable your city in a variety of ways. From letting kids reach schools on time to minimizing the time to reach the office, it’s an important facet of any city. While proper road networks are a must, consider public transport systems too. To build elaborate roadways, here’s how to raise and upgrade roads in Cities Skylines 2. Pair these with bus stops, taxi stands, or even trams to boost traffic flow. Diverting traffic by following road hierarchy (highways, arterial roads, and one-lane roads) is a surefire way to improve living conditions in the city.

Hit milestones to keep growing but watch out for upkeep costs

Unlike the previous Cities Skylines, milestones are earned by earning experience. This is done simply by developing your city. But don’t expand too quickly or else you’ll run short on funds. Here’s how to make money fast in Cities Skylines 2. Note that working towards the next milestone usually involves placing buildings granted by the previous milestone. These tend to be expensive and have high upkeep costs so watch out for a hit in financials right after placing them. Using development points can unlock even more helpful buildings but these don’t come cheap either.

Taxes and service funding cuts can protect your finances in a pinch

While there are better ways to get out of debt in Cities Skylines 2, taxes and service funding cuts are the easiest ways of doing so. Just remember that this will affect citizen happiness. But its settings are granular enough that you can tax specific segments of your population. Service funding cuts are fine right at the start of the game as you won’t be completely utilizing service sectors like a police station or fire department. But as your city grows, improve funding in sectors like education and healthcare to bolster your city’s growth. This can be used to work towards other objectives too. For instance, lowering taxes on educated people can tempt other civilians to pursue an education.

That covers our Cities Skylines 2 beginners guide. Dive right into the game and test its features out. Cities Skylines 2 is already out on PC. Check if Cities Skylines 2 is on Game Pass to test it via Microsoft’s subscription service. Now go on and build a bustling metropolis.