5 Top Things Players Ignore But Shouldn't in Cities Skylines!

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

Chapters now Included as I used it correctly this time! Also check out this video to see an 18% to 80% Traffic Fix! ▶ kzbin.info/www/bejne/a57ZaYx4ltuWkMk ◀ 😀

[@ananiaslokk]

Can I have the name of the map in "start" plzzzz ~TnT~

[@michaelfenske4357]

Biffa, I see you're subscribed to the advanced vehicle mods. instead of subscribing to different vehicle assets you can go into that mod, choose a vehicle and change it's max person capacity (to ridiculous numbers too) and max speed (just make sure the line has an unlimited speed limit and straight enough segment to gain speed- great for high-speed rail).

[@Narada.Apollo]

@@ananiaslokk I would like to know too :D

[@cm24624]

@@michaelfenske4357 true, but it's nice to have multiple vehicles riding on the streets. I wish could increase maintenance costs with larger capacity as well.

[@JJJnl]

Have you tried playing the Xbox version ? Would be nice if you could give some tips on that , since mods will disable any achievement there and there aren't any useful mods anyway on xbox , and traffic is way worse on console version

[@Stant123]

I can't speak for everyone my age, but us older gamers that fall into that trap at the start of the video do so out of habit of playing Sim City for 24 years or so before Skylines came out, before traffic was actually simulated. SC encouraged long blocks and big districts and if a road got 'busy', just upgrade it to a higher tier. Even though Skylines has been out for six years now, it's still a tough habit to break.

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

I get you on that one :-)

[@jeremymason8081]

I get it also, but experimenting at our older age can show us we can still be creative. Practicing it will allow your brain to clock

[@Francois424]

That's fine, you can fight off that urge at each expansion project of your cities, and plan the heck out of it. OR, you go on a sprawl doing whatever how you want it... Then have hours of fun fixing it later. When you're tired of it you either send it to Biffa or start a new project. I can't believe I'm still playing that and I started just before the snow expansion. if only the game was ported in Unity32bits tho, a lot of large city issues would go away, if you get to that point that is.

[@zamboughnuts]

The first tip is a mistake I make 20/10 times starting a new city for this exact reason.

[@carpemkarzi]

Ya know as an old gamer I never thought of it that way but yeah, you’re right. Thank you

[@Myne1001]

Important tip: office zones also generate next to no traffic. So they are perfect as "filler" buildings too.

[@christoph90er]

Yeah thats true!

[@abrahammendoza8708]

I like to be noise conscious, don't they produce a lot of noise and residents don't like being next to them?

[@Myne1001]

@@abrahammendoza8708 they don't produce any noise pollution.

[@muhammadizzuddeen2037]

I'm sorry, I'm new with the game . What does "filler" building means?

[@Myne1001]

@@muhammadizzuddeen2037 "Filler" means filling in spaces. If you're going to for a dense built-up city look they are great for filling in gaps. They don't complain about pollution or noise, don't generate traffic and fulfil your industry need and give jobs to citizens. Also look nice too. I use them along busy collector roads in built up areas. Commercial and industrial cause way too much traffic.

[@silberphonix4457]

Two years ago a really presistant recommendation showed up in my KZbin feed. It said things like "how to fix traffic in cities skylines" or "how to solve your spaghetti streets". I never played cities skylines before. But one day I clicked one of this videos and watched it while I was doing the laundry. And I watched more. Because the voice of this british guy sounded nice and the traffic solutions looked so satisfying. After ten videos I wrote my first commentar on this channel and biffa answerd. A few weeks later I bought cities skylines. Now, two years later I still watch this videos and gosh how I love playing cities. So thanks biffa for introducing me to one of my favorite games. 😊

[@Annemarie.swiftie]

Sooooo, having a British accent has that affect on non brits? 👀👀👀

[@oscarn-]

KZbin algorithm works in mysterious ways! I had a very similar experience with Silberphönix. And yes, British accent does have that effect!

[@silberphonix4457]

@@Annemarie.swiftie It depends on the region, but yes it has this effect. I'm not native speaker and I find it easier to follow British English than some of the American accents.

[@mrnormalbox2136]

@@Annemarie.swiftie id rather have a girlfriend with a British accent then American. So 100% yes

[@CesariaMagento]

@@Annemarie.swiftie Yes, it has :D I love to watch British youtubers so much, their accents are so calming

[@ViktorVaughan]

The rule I abide by is creating little sub-sections or "towns" that make up the city. Each town has its own residential, commercial and industrial zones and therefor its own traffic routes that rarely spill over into other towns. Eventually, as the city grows, the towns will merge (or come close) but they will still be their own bubbles as you will.

[@Clavichordist]

I do exactly the same. I always thought of the city-region more of as a county instead of a city with various towns and cities located throughout. I like using the first-person camera view and riding along and seeing the change from busy traffic areas to countryside then approaching another city. The view of the distant metropolis can be breathtaking at times until a truck decides to pull in front and block the view. 🤔

[@JETZcorp]

I've never been able to do this. I'm too OCD and build everything as grids and grids-of-grids.

[@milton1969able]

Same here, I normaly start with all 81 tiles unlocked and build small industry towns (includeing fishing) then slowly let them join up. Makes for headaches in the later game but it feels more natural.

[@Clavichordist]

@@milton1969able I agree. That's how the cities developed in the first place. In my area, the main city is on one side of the river with an annexed town on the other that joined in the late 1880s. Today, this maybe one city, but that town across the bridge still has its distinct difference and feel about it.

[@RaccoonCityPoliceDept]

You think in the most realistic way, because that's literally how most cities form, hence how districts get special names. A bunch of small towns grow into a city.

[@MontyBoosh]

Your first point about zoning also works in real life too - especially in the US where urban sprawl and the lack of walkability in suburban design forces everyone to drive everywhere.

[@JETZcorp]

Definitely. There's nothing wrong with a city being car-friendly, but bad zoning creates traffic. When everyone has to commute to the same place, it breaks everything. Even in a transit-oriented city, that kind of thing could force you to build a huge metro, where more distributed zoning could allow the same population to be well served by trams and buses.

[@MeloncholyKay]

Sprawl is what keeps things affordable.

[@TAP7a]

@@MeloncholyKay sprawl is literally bankrupting American cities. Infrastructure grows in cost proportional to the area it covers, you can see how that simple fact alone makes it undesirable before any more detailed analysis?

[@ZenAndPsychedelicHealingCenter]

@@MeloncholyKay It does the exact opposite in fact.

[@googiegress]

​@@MeloncholyKay Bone up on Strongtowns, or failing that maybe try NotJustBikes who tries to distill those ideas and mix in some more personal examples. You need to start from the perspective that transit (neighborhood streets, big roads / freeways, rails, sidewalks, bike lanes) exist to make trips possible. Each person demands a certain number of trips every year, and their ability to go do those trips is the transit supply. Second, cars are the least efficient type of trip. They take up TONS of road and parking space, cause a ton of deadly accidents, are expensive for their owners, and in total they clog up the street and road infrastructure. If you properly zone a city, and properly build the streets and roads, people will find that walking, biking, and mass transit are way more convenient than cars and cheaper too. And if they want to drive, they can rent one on an app for as long as they need. Or even own a car if they desperately want it. You don't build to favor inefficient cars and then tell every other type of trip to go to hell. Third, the benefits of a city where most trips are non-car are amazing: All that extra parking can be used to some economic or public benefit like a park (imagine any Walmart parking lot you've ever seen turned into an entire neighborhood or an enormous public facility). Fewer transit accidents and deaths. Less pollution, FAR LESS noise. Citizens can choose whether to own a car or not, saving a lot of money. Less stress and time blown on a commute every day. People get a lot more exercise. With narrower, lower-speed streets the cost of maintaining all that infrastructure is lower (NJB has a whole video on how American cities are in a cycle of expanding the suburbs to get quick income, but then their budgets are dragged down by maintaining all that infrastructure for homes with very low tax income). And in the end, the average trip duration in such a city is way lower than if the whole city were car-centric and everyone drove cars. And remember, you CAN still drive a car. It's just that the whole city isn't built to cater to the car at the expense of literally every other form of people-moving. The only reason for someone to push for a car-centric infrastructure is if their conservative political party has set its battle lines as pro-oil and essentially said anything a liberal or progressive likes must be corrupt and evil.

[@samuels1123]

Major issue is that cities skylines restricts large roads at the start, making it difficult to plan for the expansion or replacement of roads later

[@benjaminnoordam7707]

I think that's actually a forced problem. Small towns naturally don't build massive roads for future growth unless it's a city in Asia. Forcing you to destroy major city centre's for expension or even forcing the player to use public transit option

[@MrJCAT]

@@benjaminnoordam7707North American cities (not so much in the past but now a days) try to build in right of ways into the land parcels for future road expansions. This forces a set back from the road were a permanent structure is not allowed to be built so when the road needs expanding in the future, they just dig up a grass shoulder instead of demolishing big stretches of existing buildings (then needing to attract new investors to build new buildings etc). Don’t know if it’s possible with an update/doc, but the answer would be to have roads that allow for this in skylines so you don’t have to build 6 lane roads at the start of your city, but won’t delete buildings later on when you do upgrade the

[@benjaminnoordam7707]

@Jason Campbell oh ok. I mean you can still build 4 lane roads with medians that helps make your town feel more natural and that's unlocked from the start.

[@lukasgoodyear9430]

Keep in mind that the first area that you build in doesn’t always beed to be your downtown

[@Hermione617]

I leave space for growth, like not putting any buildings on the main path of coming and going. I turn and use side streets so i can upgrade the main road later.

[@kizzmequik70four]

The cars just sending it onto the highway on-ramp while Biffa explains lane mathematics is unintentional hilarity at its finest.

[@DTPGMedia585]

Your not the only one who thought that. People ignoreing the merge lines

[@rafaboanova]

Man, this game's AI is amazing, look at those tiny asshole drivers ignoring lane rules and just crossing all lanes at once to cruise on the leftmost lane. Just like real life!

[@memethief4113]

That was great but it looked like it was fixed when he opened the lane management tool

[@ABCScandalFanatic]

If you are playing vanilla, I’d advise pick your squares when you first start - even tho you can’t buy all right away. Look at natural resources, ports, highway, rail, etc. and get an idea for which squares you want and choose a place for a transit hub. I find it helpful while building early on to always keeping in mind where the hub will be (even if I haven’t gotten access to it yet) and that any area I build can get to it easily.

[@nlx78]

I'm getting back into the game after a year or so, what is the mod with the A to F? Camera settings?

[@Demonslayer20111]

You cant see resources until the third milestone I believe. Dont quote me. But I do know for a fact you cant see what resources are where in the beginning

[@germany7988]

@@Demonslayer20111me on console who can ☀️🗿

[@torkakarshiro5170]

For me, somebody living in Europe, it is easy: I design cities following the rule "what would I want there if I lived there personally" and all traffic problems solve themselves, for small and big cities.

[@shastamite2]

I don’t live in Europe but I agree. Americans aren’t used to roundabouts but they help traffic so much.

[@torkakarshiro5170]

@@shastamite2 It is not just that! I plan an abundance of footbpaths and parks (for free) and public transport and the main thing is probably that I mix residential and business zones. (I miss a definitive mixed zone though.)

[@WilhelmFreidrich]

What does that have to do with Europe?

[@wangbob1532]

@@WilhelmFreidrich cuz america is shitty in tha t sense

[@Jurvaa]

Thanks for bringing walkability and bikebility up. Too many times these two have been neglected. That forces cims to use their pocket cars and causing traffic jams. I would also like to add, that seeing cims walking is probably my favourite type of detail work. Every city and town has people walking. So why not encourage cims to do the same. I know it can be tedious work to micromanage and add every single footpath. What's helpful, is thinking yourself as a cim walking in your city and thinking which route would you like walk from point A to point B. Then check if your choices of roads can support walking and bicycling. Highway road roundabouts don't support walking, so they need walking paths around them. If you use them in your roundabouts, try adding them and you would be surprised to see how many cims use them. Notice that if you have highway roads connected to said roundabout, cims cannot cross highway roads. Use normal city roads to add crossings. Also sometimes adding a shortcut between roads and dead ends alone, can give cims an alternative route, where they leave their car and walk.

[@jasonsteele958]

I connect neighborhood small roads to connector road crosswalk stops. Neighborhood folks will quickly go to shop centers or targeted tourist districts

[@immigrantgaming420epic]

personally, i have a "rule" of every place being connected with paths

[@Jurvaa]

@@immigrantgaming420epic thats a good rule.

[@Mr.Korzack]

My big new player friendly tip is... Rivers & water actually have flow, so careful how you place things with this in mind. My first big town I figured so long as I kept my water pumps & sewage outflow well away from each other I'd fine... Until the flow carried the poop all the way round & I accidentally gave my entire populace Cholera. Second one I tried using Hydro-electric power & accidentally flooded half my own town out.

[@Exposed-3]

It happens to all of us

[@johnterpack3940]

It's difficult not to clump industry when you're using specialized industry. You have to put it all on top of the available resources. The trick, then, is to use rail to move cargo between industry and commercial.

[@ingmarslazdins2853]

One extra bit of info on TM:PE is, that AI settings work on a "per save (a.k.a. city)" basis. Thus, for every new city, you start, you'll have to set those options again. When you save that city and continue later those settings will be kept. This is easy to forget actually and your AI will work in a default low mode despite you've set it to high (or whatever) for your previous city. :)

[@youtubesingpopularsongs6163]

Right!!

[@Clavichordist]

Thanks for that tip!

[@DocMartin-v7q]

Good to know!!

[@JETZcorp]

Here's something that just really clicked for me after a couple hundred hours in my city. Exit spacing on highways. It should be huge. My city is built on a super-block grid system, with a major road every 10 blocks or so. I had every one of those crossing the highway (which is good, it stops the city from being "cut in half") but each of those crossings was a service interchange. Almost instantly those small diamonds couldn't keep up, so they became small DDIs. Then soon those couldn't keep up either. It took very little to fill up the short ramps, and very little for that backup to reach the next interchange and cause IT to back up. Soon my city has a TON of very expensive 6-ramp micro interchanges which have no signal lights. But now we've got traffic from an on-ramp needing to cross a bunch of lanes to go straight, and straight traffic crossing those same lanes to exit, all in the space of 2 nodes. That's a problem you just can't throw more lanes at. So, I just tore out my old highway which had been my first mega-project, and built a new one underground with NO exits. Over the top of it, a huge 12-lane boulevard with dedicated lanes for trams and bikes. It crosses the same roads that used to interchange with the highway, but now with traffic lights. Traffic can easily change lanes, and is welcome to "get in line". The lanes provide great holding capacity so when the light does change, a crazy amount of cars get to go. Through traffic is unaffected because it's underground. Either side of the boulevard, a frontage road has high-density commercial zoning and parking. The boulevard and highway merge together at a hideously complicated "Big Chungus" doubled-up stack interchange, which is very fun to look at. So far, traffic flow has been superior, the city is not cut in half at all, and I didn't have to build a full city-wide spaghetti apocalypse like the dual express/local highway system I had planned. The 4-phase traffic lights are a bit of a worry for bulk capacity, but I left myself space to build a Nuclear Option CFI, which would be a 2-phase light with 24 FREAKING LANES moving when the East-West light goes green. That makes me giggle so much I'm just daring my city to make me do it. TL;DR - Road hierarchy is important. It's easy to think that frequent exits are convenient, but they're the opposite. They're inconvenient.

[@jan-lukas]

In real life that city would still be cut in half because crossing a 12 lane stroad as a pedestrian is not something many people want to do

[@JETZcorp]

@@jan-lukas As it turned out, the 12-lane boulevards were just inefficient. Standard intersections are just too slow and the roads were so big that clearing times were huge. I ended up tearing it out and building a more standard 6-lane boulevard with trams, and doing 4-way CFIs at the major intersections. The efficiency of the CFI outweighed the capacity of the extra lanes. Crossings at the majors are done with overhead walkways so that cars and pedestrians don't get in the way. The smaller intersections that feed the CFI turns are also used to feed the frontage roads, and these do have level crosswalks with island tram stations nearby. I have traffic lights timed to coordinate all these intersections in phase with each other. It's very walkable. Making it more walkable would mean total car gridlock, cutting the city in half for the car drivers and truck cargo.

[@namelessfellow]

@@JETZcorp The AI is really bad at using more lanes. TMPE makes it slightly better, but I don't think I've ever seen more than 4 lanes in one direction actually be useful. One thing I'll add to your original post is that exit spacing is important on *every* kind of road. The more lanes the more node you need intersections, so that people can change lanes. The smallest 1-lane-in-a-direction road can have an intersection every node. 2-lane you need (at least) a node between intersections. 3-lane you need two nodes, etc.

[@AtticusNorman]

Show us the big chungus

[@dechezhaast]

0:19 - 5) Use Better City Design 3:52 - 4) Utilize All Transport Options 6:24 - 3) Using The Right Mods In The Right Way 9:36 - 2) Use Proper Road Hierarchies & Lane Mathematics 16:53 - 1) Understand & Use TM:PE Correctly Go Broncos!

[@dusrus]

Another good "Biffa Tips" video would be "Making effective and attractive intersections". With focus on asymmetrical intersections, lines painting, and traffic flow.

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

Nice idea, thanks :-)

[@marcdingena3920]

That intersection marking mod is the just the best. Traffic Manager for lane selection, lane mathematics (god I hate that term), move-it tool and the intersection marking tool make for very attractive roundabouts and on/off ramps. Much more realistic.

[@danthiel8623]

Good for a refresher video.

[@speedingoffence]

I'm surprised I don't see double trumpet interchanges in many Skylines videos. Heck, I'm surprised I don't see them in real life.

[@kgmiller.]

You forgot policies! Setting policies “old town” (only residents are allowed to drive cars), encourage cycling, free public transit etc are great when combined with a lot of bike and pedestrian paths. I build every city to be primarily used by public transit and bikes and never had congested streets, even without recommended stuff like roundabouts, lane mathematics and so on

[@namelessfellow]

Yeah, cims will walk a long way, even just on sidewalks. A nice metro network with a Manhattan circle (aka diamond) of stuff around it and the only traffic will be delivery trucks.

[@JessicaZane4realz]

My life has been consumed by this game for literally the last week.

[@kris.monroe]

Look forward to the next year! XD ... I've stayed just as consumed, if not more so, for over a year now. It's such a good game.

[@jcosunshine]

I've played so much during the pandemic and being home from work that I could be an actual city planner by now!

[@anteeklund4159]

It has consumed my life for the last few years

[@Clavichordist]

I thought I was the only one. I start up the game at 4 in the afternoon and I'm shutting down at 2 am! It starts out with I'm only going to tweak a few things and then I'm done for the rest of the night, but it's not just one night it becomes a week at a time.

[@Everie]

Do you know what is funnier? I don't even ay Cities: Skylines but I love to hear his tips and watch his videos

[@bohs2000]

this was me a year ago, and then I bought everything.

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

Nice :-)

[@jackimo22]

This is me 😂 I’ve been hooked watching for over a year now. Think it might be time to start playing it

[@RobertDoornbosF1]

@@jackimo22 just too late brother. I swear it was like 6 bucks 2 days ago.

[@chimleypot]

@@bohs2000 yeah biffa should get a commission. i started out on the videos and still have more watch time than play time tbh. ETA of course i'll use the links for DLCs when i get them :)

[@adrianperez8695]

I enjoy putting small commercial zones on corner lots in my residential neighborhoods and then activating the organic specialization. I also always separate my commercial zones from my residential ones by at least one space of dirt walk paths. This looks aesthetically pleasing as well as serves as a buffer for my residents to not complain about noise.

[@CB-lw7ty]

I think the tips I've learned over time that help my cities be better were: Never build 4 way intersections, 3 is the max, 4 means roundabout. Always re-plan and re-build your starting area to make it look nicer rather than leave it when your city expands. Try to use as little straight lines as possible. It takes up more space but makes the city look more natural. Lane maths especially as I only play vanilla. Finally Highways to connect highways, I found making grids out of highways rather than cities out of grids a better way to give people plenty of highway access regardless if they are N,S,E,W in the city they can get on a highway connected to every direction of highway.

[@danielseager-smithdanzo2345]

Always good to go back to basics even with 700+ h (yes it’s not even that much) in the game. Still get stuck in the habit of hiding all my industry away in the same corner - old habits die hard

[@ingmarslazdins2853]

With 700+ hours it's ok to start to disable certain aspects, like pollution and just build an aesthetic/working city without awkward mechanics of the "original game." :) Same goes for cemeteries and even pipes/electricity. IMHO.

[@SomeGuyWhoPlaysGames333]

Ingmars Lazdins How is pollution an “awkward mechanic?” That’s something real working cities obviously have to deal with. Same with the rest of it.

[@MalhaIIa]

@@SomeGuyWhoPlaysGames333 well, the primary thing this game have top notch attractiveness for is building cities, not supplying the cities. kind of self explanatory with the creative mode. it is very common to have focus only on look/layout. also in other games. valheim is a good example. we buy games just for the character creator. surprises me that biffa recommend the larger vehicles mod that take 3x or more passengers, that is an extreme cheat and highlights what the focus is, a pretty and well functioning city. nevermind the rules and restrictions that devs decide is balanced for the game.

[@worlwr2]

I have 4,500 hours in a game called, Rust. I intend to bring my immeasurably anemic 350 hours in C:S up to Rust levels. It's interesting since I've owned and played C:S on and off since a year after its release (2016) but then owned and played Rust a year later and have accumulated multiple fucktons hours.

[@KindredBrujah]

@@MalhaIIa It's no more cheating than being able to force particular lane choices or setting up your own traffic lights. Obviously if the transport vehicle can carry far more people than one of its size should, that's a cheat (e.g. the MAN Lion buses are 150 passengers by default, but the real bus can only carry something like 48). Same goes for parking with vast entertainment ratings.

[@jackimo22]

I live in Sydney where those giant 750 capacity metro trains are used and I still think it’s wild that our underground has double-decker trains running through the tunnels 🤯 The largest train on the network now carry’s 950 passengers!

[@MikePalladino]

Paris does with the RER C trains, too. Very odd indeed.

[@Clavichordist]

We're not so lucky up here in Boston where they cram hundreds of passengers into tiny trams coupled together in pairs. There's nothing like experiencing the life of a canned sardine on a hot summer day crammed into a tram with broken A/C and little ventilation.

[@jackimo22]

@@Clavichordist i take the network for granted and forget how lucky we are here. Those giant ‘A sets’ here can carry up to 1150 passenger if people stand in all the isles too, which makes it a nightmare to try and climb over people to get off at your stop 😂 Extremely rare with such large trains though and they run every few minute in peak hour. I’m not into trains by any means, but I appreciate just how good the design and build quality of the trains they’ve been supplying to the network for the past 20 years, they’d have to be some of the best in world. Even the 40 year old trains have been refurbished and modernised.

[@Clavichordist]

​@@jackimo22 Those trains that run on your Central City loop line are amazing, indeed. We all take our public transit for granted then cry loudly when its gone as we kick ourselves in the backside for not standing up to those that want to replace it with buses or highways. This can be a whole topic in its self. Boston could never fit anything like these in their tunnels. The "Green Line" is the oldest subway in North America with some of the tightest corners in the world. The curve between Boylston Street and Park Street is something like 5-degrees. This requires 3 km/h speeds and customized trams. There have been issues with suppliers not following the order and trams getting stuck in the tunnels causing millions in damage as they derailed on the curve due to the bogeys not being able to turn tight enough.

[@kingofracism]

I've always been jealous of nations with double decker trains

[@sunshine135]

Districts Districts Districts, and walking paths between these districts are so very important. I also turn on anything that encourages pedestrian/ bicycling for the whole city. You can have a very vast city with greater highway distance between the districts and short walking distances, and you walking paths will see great amounts of traffic over the highways. Also, never overlook a sound bus system.

[@NiyaKouya]

Since you explained road hierarchy, I'd say there's the same thing for mass transit. Local MT within a few blocks can be handled by (trolley) buses. "Collectors" like tram, monorail and ferries can connect several blocks serviced by buses. And the real people movers to get tons of cims from one end of the map to the other are metro and trains. What I tend to do in my cities is to have bus routes that snake through a few blocks, they stop near tram/monorail lines that circle around a cluster of blocks in both directions, and usually in the center of such a cluster (or near hubs on the edge) are metro and train stations that have lines connecting several clusters.

[@zerrodefex]

Same strategy I use, put down stations and surround them with offices and commercial as a noise buffer and have buses loop out into the residential areas further away. Tram circuits for real busy loops like big commercial areas, tourist districts or around universities, I like using the Metro-Tram and Monorail-Tram road stations for that now. Metro stations also put in industrial areas and buses used there to cut down on non-truck traffic.

[@zamboughnuts]

The explanation of road heirarchy is something I very much needed. I hadn't thought of highways as arterials and would tangle my traffic up because I was mixing arterials and collectors.

[@Clavichordist]

Just like they do in real life sometimes.

[@Stealthymist]

Refreshing the page waiting for a biffa video in the afternoon. Classic way to spent the afternoon break.

[@subynut]

Thanks for doing this. I’m struggling with traffic in my cities and it turns out, I’ve fallen into a few of those traps you mentioned in the beginning. I will go back through this video and see how I can tweak my city to move traffic better. Thanks Biffa!

[@PinataOblongata]

Looking at those TM:PE options, it strikes me as an interesting idea to have better drivers produced my certain building and policy upgrades - i.e. the better educated you make your sims, the better they drive. Could have driver's ed centres or larger DMV centres that cater for it, or policies that put money into driver ed.

[@F14thunderhawk]

driver skill has nothing to do with education and entire to do with environment they learned to drive in.

[@LuckyDT]

@@F14thunderhawk Simply not true. The safest drivers in the world (as well as per capita some of the highest amount of racing drivers in the world) are in Finland. Drivers education and the process to getting a drivers license is a multi year process…and it pays off.

[@chadhinkley7532]

Building cities isn’t just a game to this guy, it’s an art project The cities he builds are so amazing! Everything is just perfectly placed, his roads flow so smoothly and form amazing patterns

[@chaoscommandant]

I am using selfmade stations for my underground. Everybody can walk the tunnels to catch the Untergrund or the trainstations. It is so populated... sometimes i think the whole city is running in that tunnels 😅

[@nahuelma97]

After so many years of watching videos of people playing Cities Skylines I've finally been able to play it myself and I'm having the time of my life but it's also hard af in terms of traffic. You're a life saver :3

[@DronesClubMember13]

I tend to start my games like you lay out but I generally try to mix up the R/C/office. Industries I push to the side unless I have fertile land or forest. Maybe I'll mix that up from now on...

[@Seriously_Unserious]

Great tips and for me reminders of how and why I should do certain things certain ways. I especially appreciate the tips on TMPE and the less understood settings. I've done a little bit with those settings but not much as I just don't really know what some of them actually do. I think most of us get reluctant to mess with something when we don't know WTF it's going to do. I've especially found applying the road hierarchy helps a ton. While I'm not much in the habit of using roundabouts (side effect of living in Canada, where we rarely use them), I do understand the benefits in keeping traffic moving through busy intersections. However, they DO take up a LOT of space and in a crowded urban area like a downtown core, you can't just plunk those down willy-nilly and bulldoze half the city. Sure you won't have any traffic problems anymore, not because of the roundabouts being any better then what was there before, but because half the buildings the transport network was built to support are no longer there, so no reason for anyone to go there anymore, thus less traffic. In those cases, traffic lights can be a godsend in keeping traffic moving on 2 intersection busy streets, without needing to bulldoze half a neighborhood to fit in a huge roundabout. I call that the best compromise between traffic flow efficiency and preserving your land use so people still have a reason to use your roads in the first place.

[@_Cazot]

This video really helps me. I can't get mods and help like that, but the best thing I CAN do is watch videos like this!

[@25_zilla]

This was extremely helpful, I’m one of those people playing vanilla and I really didn’t think about all that stress on just that one roundabout now I know better so thank you so much 👌

[@christoph90er]

Vanilla building is the best! ;)

[@SeanLamb-I-Am]

The only tip I would add is to provide multiple transportation options between districts and a few bridges or tunnels crossing arterials and collectors (and over train/metro lines as well). If the only way across the big arterials is at the intersections, you'll have a bunch of traffic bottlenecking through that intersection causing lengthy backups. When you've got development on both sides of an arterial, add a bridge or a few of them over the arterial away from the intersection to divert traffic away from the main intersection.

[@FakeSchrodingersCat]

The sad part of your first point is how many real life city planners fall into the traps you warn about.

[@hquest]

Back to basics video. Nice refresher and good to see fresh directions for new players. Well done Biffa

[@lukes7479]

I love to build a lot of small towns that connect up to each other by highway, as opposed to one big city. In this way I suppose I like to build a whole "country" (though obviously, scaled down significantly) as opposed to just building one big city.

[@waynedavis3956]

G'Day Biffa, one of your "Fix My City" videos was suggested by You Tube about a year ago, I was intrigued, watched it, LOVED it, and have since become an avid fan of your content, I am a subscriber and a member. Weirdly I have not as yet purchased the game, but I've watched your City Builds and Tutorials with keen interest, along with those of YumbleTV, City Planner Plays and a few others. Of all the Tips, Tricks, Advice, Achievements and Mistakes, your content has been great to learn from . This video is another priceless piece of advice. Thank You.

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

You're welcome Wayne and so glad you're along for the ride :-)

[@qlus]

Bite the bullet and buy the game!

[@waynedavis3956]

@@qlus Cheers mate, it's on my Christmas list.

[@papagrounds]

One thing I've started to use lately, especially when I start a new city is to use the district zoning tool (as soon as I get it open or when I play with unlock all) to mark dedicated areas for Industry, Commercial and Residential. That way, for me at least, it's easier to keep in track when to stop expanding certain areas and also, like Biffa said, to avoid expanding everything only on one highway connection.

[@simongeard4824]

Very useful for city *design*, yeah. It's a pain not having districts and natural resource maps available at the start of the game, but once they're unlocked, districts become a very convenient tool for marking out where your industry areas will end up, and where the little satellite towns will be seeded, in turn giving you a better idea of where the highways and railways will run in future.

[@papagrounds]

@@simongeard4824 100% Agree. IMO both of those should be open right at the start or at least have the option to unlock them. I don't like to play with unlock all but with many ideas I have to and then it ruins the challenge...

[@gurge4420]

Honestly, I literally just sat down for lunch. I opened youtube and the perfect video was waiting there. You have the BEST upload schedule EVER.

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

Hope you enjoyed it!

[@tgf0cj101]

That bicycle person might have been me; I rode my bike all across town back in the day. I can still do it too, even though I love my car.

[@williamhuang8309]

Make sure you get a multitude of transportation assets like trains and metro. So if your metro line is overcrowded, you can put larger vehicles on it without changing the other lines as well.

[@jonathanmarsh8119]

Great tips Biffa, as always I get to learn something new from every video.

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

Glad you like them! :-)

[@EthanKristopherHartley]

Another useful hint for lane management, you can use a multi lane road to reduce traffic caused by vehicles queuing to get into Industry/Commercial buildings. Mark the outer edge roads as no vehicles (I usually allow emergency and public transport) and the inner road(s) for general traffic. You won't end up with traffic jams blocking the entrances. I prefer 3 lanes per direction, and they're set (left to right because my cities drive correctly... 😉) 1. Emergency/Public transport 2. Straight ahead and turning into Industry 3. (Middle of the road) Straight Ahead only

[@oscarsusan3834]

Since I retired,I find this stuff so thereauputic with the logic and all illogic that Biffa chucks at you. Don’t own the game,don’t play the game but when Biffas on a roll it’s great stuff. Btw join the “Save A Rock Party”😎

[@bobblebardsley]

Maple Heights looks so good from above, very realistic road layout, good hierarchy, just looks very pleasing for some reason.

[@spekenbonen72]

Great tips for beginners!!! FWIW @ 17:50 etc. Don't use bike lanes on the inner circle of a roundabout. Bikes are always on the outside.

[@ObsidianHawk]

Don't ignore Biffa's videos he has a lot of good advice including how to fix spaghetti roads! Maybe one day I will submit my traffic problems to him. Stupid rail roads are doing an amazing job of shuffling goods around but create a ton of traffic problems.

[@HandsomeLongshanks]

Me: "ah, let's see what mistakes others make" *watches first 2 minutes and feels attacked* Me: "ok, well, I'm here to learn...."

[@F14thunderhawk]

dont listen to lane mathmatics though. the actual source of road traffic is that the AI has no concern, and no idea, how to do lane mergers properly. you can get "high" traffic areas with continous flow if you are very careful about forcing single lane changes,

[@nekomasteryoutube3232]

Since I tend to build with a North American style for residential and suburb stuff, I take a page from my city and connect cul-de-sac's and the corners of neighbourhoods to the main roads with paths. I like the idea that you can have a sub-urb that might seem car-sentric but several points through out the neighbourhood there are paths that people and cyclists can travel on to get to a major road and meet up with Bus or tram stops. I also like to make bike paths along scenic routes that are also useful and I've seen lots of people and cyclists in game using them.

[@sirfanatical8763]

Thank you, I loved that. I never thought about roads that way and the fanatic walkabilty of the perople there. Thanks for explaining

[@Synthonym]

3:36 a simple way to make this style of planning much more efficient is to use a roundabout interchange - essentially a roundabout that goes over a large motorway or main road. In the video's layout, for example, a simple but highly effective change would be to run a main road underneath the roundabout perpendicular to the motorway on/off ramps, meaning that freight traffic can slide under the roundabout without jamming up access to the motorway. Given that many trucks will need motorway access to deliver goods in and out of the city, this approach more than halves the amount of freight traffic using the roundabout

[@johnterpack3940]

Coming back to this video as a bit of refresher. Regarding transit-- I think people vastly underrate the lowly cable car. It's typically only thought of as a way to get up a hill easily, but I use it in so many other situations. I'll run it across rivers, it will actually move more people in a given time than ferries because it's so fast to load and it's constantly moving. I'll also run them across highways or busy streets where there's a lot of pedestrian traffic. This is normally between residential and commercial zones where there happens to be a bit of a bottleneck forcing pedestrians onto just a couple paths. I have even used them as jumbo-sized moving walkways; run a cable car right down the median of an avenue and you can carry people from one side of town to the other. It's even possible to put mid-stations along the way, basically mimicking a bus line without adding traffic to the route. A lot of people don't know you can change the elevation of the pylons just like you can change the elevation of roads. So it's even possible to run the lines directly over low buildings or parks, something you can't do with paths. Another thing I highly recommend from the workshop is pedestrian elevators. There are ones for both underground and elevated paths. Instead of ugly, massive tunnel entrances you get tidy, little boxes that connect surface-level citizens to above/below grade paths. They make paths much less a chore to use.

[@iddqdvie]

what if i WANT to create massiv traffic? 2 years ago i watched your traffic fixing videos and i got all excited about creating a huge city with alot of traffic so i can fix it. it needed two main cities with the outside connections running right through them to make that 6-lane highway worth having. maybe if i RON the next2 out of it and therefor lose the TM settings, i 'll hand it over to you. but as of now, its already at 84% even with real time, thanks to your videos ;)

[@dulio12385]

I think the root of this problem is that Skylines does not have a mixed-use or light industry district. I mean if you go to Megapolises like Manila and Tokyo you have mixed districts that have light industry abutting residential zones and even schools. In Skylines its all or nothing. If you have industry anywhere its automatically a kind of hellscape of noise and pollution that no sane person would venture into.

[@zerrodefex]

Yeah even in my American small city there are light industrial zones with stuff like machine shops and small manufacturers right next to neighborhoods.

[@MikePalladino]

Biffa, you add bus stops near train and metro stops. When I do that, I have huge lines waiting for a bus. Instead, my closest bus stops are several blocks away from train and metro stops. That way some of the people will walk to the nearby areas and therefore have less people waiting for the bus. Wanted to understand your thinking on this topic.

[@matthewparker9276]

You could instead not have any other bus stops on the route too close to the station, so the bus doesn't actually take the cims closer to their destination near the station.

[@MrMetallicafan101]

Instantly became one of my favorite Cities players. I hope to show you my city when it gets bigger as I play the game. Happy city building!

[@kyleanderson3787]

Can’t get enough at looking at your 2 amazing cities your doing at the moment.

[@Piesy001]

Would be great to show us how to work the mods that you use, you do a lot of the work off camera and doing things like adding lanes or even just how to switch between vanilla roads and modded roads is great. The other ones is tips I have picked up such as advanced traffic AI at 70% etc..

[@edwardmiessner6502]

I haven't got the game yet (old p.c.) but one thing I learned from Lee Hawkins and City Planner Plays is, don't make your neighborhoods or districts their own cul-de-sacs. Worst is cul-de-sacs off of cul-de-sacs which is typical American suburban planning which generates an awful lot of traffic. Better to have internal connectivity and interconnectivity with at least two ways in or out of each area.

[@MB-ww5ej]

Great tips Biffa. I’ve really been enjoying your New Tealand and Antarcteaca videos since the start of this year when I first started playing CS on PS4. I now have a 180,000 pop city and trying to unlock all of the buildings and trophies - making planning a bit harder when you have to fit in so many 1000s of units of certain zonable types to unlock them. I also now have the game on PC - also with all the DLC and wanted to play vanilla so I could get the achievements there too but found the ‘Achieve It’ mod so have started to subscribe to the mods you recommend. It would be great for a quick tutorial vid on some of the display and detailing mods and assets you use similar to your traffic manager and intersection marking tool vids you have produced for us.

[@nhatminhtranngoc8940]

for zoning, I think: - for low density: commercial in the collector, residential after, commercial blocks in the neighborhood for shopping basic goods - for high density: commercial in the main road, office 1 block after, afterwards are residential - for industries: industries after, office before (prevent pollution), some sort of train stations nearby

[@AyoSosanya]

The American style generates so much traffic, the European style that has loads of connections or routes gives more options to drivers resulting in less traffic. Then also bus lanes are good too for service vehicles

[@speedingoffence]

While it makes for pretty neighborhoods in real life, the traffic cap in Skylines means that you can't really spread out commercial like that past 150-200k citizens because of the delivery vans. Keep it in dense clumps on the collectors. Also, you'll want the mod that tells you how many cars you're at, so you can check periodically.

[@tonystowe9772]

I love the way this city setup is laid out.

[@krzywygeneral]

Biffa: don't split your zones in different directions USA: let's build cities just like this

[@homietclown]

Woo Hoo like number 580! I can’t say why I love your series so much. I don’t even own this game, or a computer to play it on. But I certainly try to not miss an episode. Keep it up Biffa!

[@deilusi]

9:00 you can ALSO download shorter metro/trams that hold less people. remember that smaller cars cause less traffic, I found that 2 wagon trams cause jam at one of my junctions, while single one can keep up with load, and dont block that poorly designed junction.

[@christopherklenz8630]

"build a better city" wow what great advice, i didnt think of that one before.

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

Then why aren't you doing it? 🤣

[@brickisland6353]

One tip that is very important, specially if you run in "hard mode", as BIffa said, turn on the Traffic AI. Or all cars will basically only use one lane on the highway.

[@AnhNguyen1986]

I like planning residential at the center of the city, industrial and commerical scattered in all directions. That will help with the traffic congestion.

[@ulysseslee9541]

5: coz Commercial produce noise, so many players place it at the main road, then office use as buffer zone, then Residential at the inner part of the local suburb. 4: I prefer to have Improved Public Transport to manage my Transportation setting(numbers & types of the vehicle, capacity)

[@AndyWoodger]

Argh!! How many times do I need to start a city before I get things close to pleasing!!! Videos like these keep me playing this game and trying to make things look a little more realistic. A thumbs up and a subscribe click has been done.

[@my_Lord_please_note_that]

My tips: 1. Make several connections between your city and main highway 2. Make cars tunnels under your city between busy parts

[@barrydylanbotha]

So I know this isn’t a strictly Tealand video, but I think a great suggestion would be to have a road that goes through the middle of the island (under the mountain) now that both sides are being used. Maple Heights has great access off the highway and that could be used to tunnel to the other side :)

[@VestedUTuber]

There's a way to make the "chunk of industry on one side, chunk of residential on the other" layout work but it's a LOT different from just having a big sprawling expanse of both. Basically, what you do is build the part of the city you want to build this way parallel to the highway, and then just build along the side of that highway rather than spreading outward, with a large number of crossover points and frequent exits. As soon as you start to expand away from the highway, however, you need to start shaking things up, so I don't recommend doing this for your entire city. Also, roundabouts are good, but they can't replace having proper connections. A grid city with a large number of good connections without a single roundabout will flow better than a city of isolated neighborhoods with plenty of roundabouts but everything relying on a single major road for every single connection. Additionally, trolleybuses are pointless in C:S. In real life, they fill a niche in areas where clean transport is desired but it's impossible or uneconomical to install trams. But in Cities: Skylines you don't really have that situation, as they require a similar investment in infrastructure to trams but don't bring nearly the same level of capacity. And of course, grades don't cause issues with trams. On a similar note of buses vs trams, I actually find myself typically skipping buses and going straight to trams. I tend to build well-connected cities (both with roads and paths) so I usually don't find myself actually needing public transit until around the time trams unlock. As a result I end up using trams as my "local" level transit system as well as a medium-distance transit system, by setting up local routes along the reversing loop tracks.

[@Steuber101]

As a trainer at offices to learn people something about technology and smoothening their workflows I always tell exactly step for step what happens in practice, and because of telling it they think about it and then come to the conclusion that what they actually are doing sounds really stupid and they will change their behaviour next time, many of them also starting to laugh, and laughing is recognition of the things they do. I just caught myself at laughing out loud when you explain the issue in the first 2 minutes of this video hahaha. Well done and good explanation.

[@vfxsoup]

This was one of if not the best tips for CS I have ever seen.

[@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines]

Thank you VFX Soup :-)

[@vfxsoup]

@@BiffaPlaysCitiesSkylines Hey there… I thought I’d let you know that watching your series above inspired me on a movie I’m working on right now for Netflix. I live in Canada but have been posted over here in the UK to shoot this movie. Thanks! I actually showed a clip of your work to the director and actors and used a layout you had created to inspire an idea for a layout for a movie. So… thanks Biffa… your work affects way more than you know! Cheers… Mark Breakspear.

[@Mxryh4]

I've recently started playing this game and this was very helpful, you've explained it very well .. thanks! Love the way your city looks btw, very inspiring and well put together!

[@perrylim9728]

When will you release a new building video for New Tealand and Antarctea?

[@ganzgrosseskino]

Other creators do tier lists, but with Biffa this probably was more of a tea list.

[@jakelakeyt]

These are actually good tips, 'cause I'm used to Sim City from back in the day and a lot of these mechanics were non-existing back then

[@toddabbott781]

I stick with subways and pedestrian walkways. I also have cargo trains and a bus terminal for people outside the city that is right next to a subway. I do the 4 lane with a cement median then run a pedestrian walk overhead right down the middle of the rode with ramps just barely squeezed into the intersections so you do not loose any buildings. Yes the ramps are not realistic, but they have no spiral ramps or stairs for the pedestrian bridges. They also do not allow them to go through high rises and let people get on the walkways from building entrances.

[@ixiwildflowerixi]

Your tips are fine if you want to build an European-style city, but they run opposite to any American best practices. For the latter, you need to make walking and bicycling impossible, encourage usage of trucks to buy groceries at the Walmart 90 miles away and focus on the strength of airports to facilitate mid-distance travel to get everyone to work on time.

[@thesteelrodent1796]

I usually try to keep industry and residential separated at first to keep the pollution under control, and then as the city grows and we get the cleaner industry, and office, options I build res closer to the industry. With the industries DLC it's a little trickier because people don't like living near those areas, so you do need to keep some distance between res and the industry. When it comes to busy bus routes, sometimes it's worth adding a parallel train or metro to suck up some of the passengers, and then you may end up not needing the bus because the trains can move more people. But if you have multiple train lines it's a good idea to have busses that go across them so people more easily can change between lines 16:05 Vanilla++ isn't a "pack" as such. Each road type is an asset you have to subscribe to individually (although he has a one-click collection for all of them). And more importantly: There are Vanilla+ roads which have no other requirements, and then you have Vanilla++ roads which require Traffic Manager and/or DLC. Like the bus roads require Traffic Manager to work because you have to set up restrictions, tram roads require Snowfall, trolley roads require Sunset Harbour, and there are some roads that will only work with the Mass Transit DLC. There also some other roads that are recommendable, like asymmetric roads with bike lanes and roads specially made for roundabouts 18:00 that opposite direction bicycle path in the middle of the roundabout really bothers me... fairly sure there is a one-way road with bikes on only the one side

[@SickSkilz]

I agree with the point about using all of your transportation options. But, I find it best to go as long as I can in a new City without using any mass transit and without having despawning on. That helps me make sure I have good road design so I prevent problems rather than having to fix them. That I use mass transit when the population gets high.

[@chillerruffy1382]

Love it a lot when biffa drops a vid! Really like the 20:20 tiime

[@brickisland6353]

I also try and avoid building 4 way crossings in busy areas. I only use T-junction as they will not clog up in the same way. In places with low traffic you can use 4 way intersections.

[@evandipasquale9255]

I play on console so I'm very limited to what I can achieve but I have a city that's around 150 to 160k citizens. I knew I succeeded while just following a random citizen in my city. They lived in a corner of my city and were going to work so I was curious how they were getting to work. They took a train to a bus depot then took the bus to a subway station and took the subway to the area where they worked and walked from the subway station. They crossed the entire length of the city to just go too and from work. Lol it's like 5 or 6 tiles across, success.

[@ph11p3540]

In my real life city, half of the commercial properties are near industrial areas. There is a special reason for that. They are what are called super discount outlet stores or liquidation stores. If you have spending money, then you already have a car and not reliant on public transit. We do have special retail districts on the outskirts of our city called power centers or lifestyle malls. These are very large retail complexes that can occupy a couple of kilometers of land with half of the land set aside for parking. Since these types of centers are very carefully designed to eliminate the pedestrians, the road system encourages driving from one block of stores to the next. This is good for the energy and automotive services companies while shutting out the public transit that bleeds business dry.

[@SpreadFriendliness]

Thanks Biffa, never seen the P and B sidewalks before, so installed that immediatly. Also the Commute Destination mod was unknown to me. Always some useful tips in your videos!

[@brickisland6353]

I actually start my cities exactly like Bifa showed in the beginning, but as I progress and unlock more stuff I tend to rebuild my city, that normally takes place when I unlock the high density zoning. And I use busses, trains and subway for public transit, if I got rivers I also use ferries. And I build airports when I get them. But I don't bother with monorail as it's not very common in the world anyway. I play mostly vanilla, except you always need the traffic management tool and the move it mod so I can build more life like roads. I also use some different trains and busses as I like to use more "real" version of those vehicles. Lane mathematics are not so important (only in very busy places) if you have the traffic management tool. But you still need to use the correct roads at the correct place.

[@FrankOpinion1]

4:45 my man was biking for months🤣

[@Thehoeh]

Manual traffic lights just lets you act as a crossing guard for the intersection. To edit the manual traffic light you have to hit stop and then edit the states.

[@muss06]

There was definetly some useful and clever things mentioned in this video :D. Good job Biffa!

[@mathiassky8849]

CIMs actually don't care about road hierarchy. The main and basically only factor for different road is the speed limit. So the fastest route will be always choosen for travel. Public transports has some hidden extra rules CG never completely revealed ... Probably their knowledge got incomplete over time