Cities Skylines 2: Economy 2.0 Update - Is it really better?

The Economy 2.0 Update for Cities Skylines 2 was released about a week ago now and it's made a BIG impact on the management end of the game, but how does it effect modded play and detailers?
And what new features have been implemented? Is the game worth a buy now?
Please no harsh negativity in the comments but feel free to disagree or critique the game, etc. An honest discussion of the game in its current state is encouraged. :)
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#citiesskylines2 #citiesskylines2economy2.0 #citiesskylines2update #citiesskylinesvanilla #gaming #pcgaming #citiesskylinespc #cs2 #colossalorder #cityskylines2gameplay #citiesskylines2traffic #citiesskylines2mods

[@hazeldsr]

LETS GO DIANA UPLOAD

[@CitiesByDiana]

im BACK

[@H20444]

We’re back 🎉

[@unclemikeyplays]

I've only played about 3h of the updated game, but I'm much happier with it, even with the economic challenge of it. I think they need to rebalance that tile upkeep cost a bit (and find a better name for it that actually makes it sound like it's a mechanic a city government and/or planning department would face; saying it mimic property taxes makes no actual sense since that would mean the city would RECEIVE money! It does make sense as maybe the cost of all the infrastructure a real city might have but the game doesn't explicitly represent? I dunno. I don't hate it, but it's not yet balanced right.

[@Cruxxy21]

(First!?) I still wonder why some things (like city subsidies) are not just toggleable options (so difficulty is more flexible based on player preference).

[@CitiesByDiana]

yeah i think a toggle for subsidies would be cool

[@30Minparking]

I’m more of a management player and i definitely agree with your assessment, I started a new city and have been much more deliberate with its growth. Hot take but I am kinda okay with the tile upkeep definitely made the game more interesting

[@stefant2655]

It's interesting how this update affects different pervious saves differently. In my case, it was fine with a city of about 215,000 people. I had a small death wave but nothing bad. As for the 529 tiles, my tile upkeep turned out to be half of my expenses! That didn't seem right to me so I did use the slider in the mod to reduce it to about 65% of the vanilla cost as I think that's more realistic to what property taxes would be, especially in undeveloped tiles. That's just my 2 pennies. Overall, it's nice to see the game is getting better and mod support is more and more stable!

[@shaneintheuk2026]

I agree and when you add in the detailers patch the game has really improved for both groups of players. I am not quite ready to play again until they allow assets in the workshop but it’s really nice to see significant improvement.

[@CitiesByDiana]

I have the feeling that that's the common sentiment. I'm working on a vid about the detailers patch, which is GREAT and almost makes the fully vanilla game playable (ALMOST) BUT assets will really make the game shine.

[@kutilmartin]

the game is currently completely unplayable for me because of the persistent bug with Homeless people not moving out of parks!!! :( the update itself is excellent but these major bugs that ruin the entire experience are just so demoralizing when you want to play this game properly

[@idcanthony9286]

That’s just the Colorado patch. So, I’m used to it. Lol.

[@seamonsta_]

Too realistic.

[@wteff8586]

Good to hear something positive about this - and from you I can really believe it :) I heard they did a detailers patch by now, really hope they make it something you really want to get your hands on again since I love your style of playing CS1

[@PeterEvansPeteTakesPictures]

I like how your closing Lane Man guy is like something from the David Lynch universe. Also - oooh! Promising! Great informative video, and it looks like the game is finally on the road to something better. I'm holding off for now as I'd have to upgrade my PC, but I can see myself picking this up by the close of the year.

[@WestCoastBuilder]

Since my series was already modded I figured, eh what the hell, may as well turn the tile cost off 😆wasn't worth losing my YT series world to the economy lol. Thanks for covering this in such depth Diana!

[@sumiooSU]

im playing the game for the first or second time in 2024, and i am honestly happy with the change. i play the vanilla game as i dont have any interest in the mods, and im kind of an achievement hunter, but even without mods, the game has become more exciting with some of the new assets that were recently released im pretty sure. the economy, is very difficult. but once you bite through the nail, it should be more fun! only thing that sucks much, is the fact that our old worlds now have to suffer from the new economy

[@rlas]

In the spirit of the endcard: IMAGINE A WALMART HERE

[@Qualiall1]

abnsolute game breaking bug in the game-well a few actually-when you delete a residential building, everyone becomes homeless and doesn't move on with their lives-from wretched to wealthy-doesn't matter-then the demand for residential goes bye bye. The other one is when offices get to max level the company downsizes to 5 employees only. It's unplayable for me in its current state

[@indoorjetpacks]

it is nice that it seems like they're listening, hopefully it'll continue. I'm curious to see if anyone has performance updates after the update, i think i'll still hold off on getting it until i can figure out from other people if the actual playable performance has improved from like, Januaryish when I last saw people talking about it. Most of the content creators of course have beefy hardware especially compared to mine, so I have to ask people in their communities about their specs and experience with fps and overall game responsiveness etc or try to go looking for random people's benchmarking videos lol

[@Grazysworld]

I my god I did relaunch because they broke Fallout 4. And O boy was this a pain in the ass. I never restarted the game so many times and learned every time. The game forbit you build to fast. I must say it's not in a perfect state yet but that will come I hope.

[@__supreme7]

GASP YOUR CAMERA IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN I REMEMBER

[@CitiesByDiana]

I got a new camera hah its MUCH better now.

[@__supreme7]

@@CitiesByDiana very epic

[@pcsproshop8972]

Thank you for the update. It certainly has been a wild ride :) be well~

[@LarrySkylines]

I haven't watched any Cities content and I stopped paying attention to CS2 a while ago, but I knew I would get the truth here. Still not ready to spend money on this yet. Once they have the actual successor to Cities Skylines ready to go (DETAILING, PROPS!!) then I will consider it. Getting closer, but not yet. I bet a Target and Rainforest Cafe would look great on that island BTW 😁

[@CitiesByDiana]

Yes detailing will make this MUCH better. The mods for it right now are great but unstable and should be base game.

[@delta9k]

@CitiesByDiana - I left a comment earlier in this thread whining about the lack of detail focus in CS2 and that the swing to a more management style of play was not my thing. But after seeing the new detailers update I am excited again and it may negate most of my complaints.

[@CitiesByDiana]

YES I am VERY happy to see the detailers update, I'm gonna put out a video on it soon 😁

[@SydGhosh]

I had a few crashes as I played with mods on pretty much day 1 of the update being out; but, now the game's running better than ever! I'm already making decisions I never would have before - like constructing a highway and new bridge to smooth out traffic thanks to all the rebalancing - something I wasn't even considering before this update. The only issue I'm having is with tile upkeep. I can't afford basic services for my residents, and am struggling to expand properly for my city, as the type of demand I'm getting would need more tiles to be purchased to properly exploit that demand for the kind of city I'm going for.

[@drknowsalot_]

I love both your satire/instagram brainrot and these great videos about my favorite game cities: skylines. love you diana!!

[@CitiesByDiana]

hell yeah :) ty

[@nathanielcimaroli8181]

Honestly the Economy 2.0 update is what has brought me back to CSII, glad to see the devs actually listen to the community

[@SteelWalrus]

There's a cat in the background. Based

[@MellowGirl2000]

I havent gotten to play the new update yet but Ive been one of those players where my game lags the second residents move in so hopefully thats fixed or at least slightly improved. Im used to lag but nothing on that scale, its been upsetting not being able to play this game at all

[@melissaleeo]

I love this update (with tiles all unlocked). It was challenging and painful at many points, and clearly I'm a masochist.

[@CitiesByDiana]

its definitely a new challenge thats for sure hahah

[@dopeimportcarvids3763]

We're so back

[@Merkreus]

Good to see you back Diana :) One thing I noticed is your anger has subsided alot. You make some amazing detailed cities in CS1 and I know you didnt think CS2 would come out as good as CS1 right off the bat but I and probably many others saw your anger with the shit-show that was CS2 launch and could tell that you were beyond disgusted with it. The game will get better......hopefully

[@CitiesByDiana]

I was never truly "angry" more so very let down and frustrated....but seeing actual much needed improvements in the pipeline instead of radio silence and blaming the playerbase is so refreshing it gives a lot of us hope to see the game we all wanted to begin with. now if theyd only fix the zoning squares issues

[@LondonTom]

I'd love to try the update but I am one of the people who has bug where it just doesn't run still when loading the game 😂 and Paradox support seem fairly unintrested in getting to the bottom of that😂 I may get it when it gets real cheap on steam rather than gamepass and see if that works at this point 😂(or the next time I do a full PC rebuild)

[@Sleepy_driver_Boy]

This update kinda benefited my city of Marham even though my city is on unlimited money I still treat it like it isn't And my city got like 120k people living in it now before the update it was like 83k overall the update is good makes a slower form of gameplay and how I play is, Is to play by 1 month = 1 year started in 1855 and as of yapping about this its 1987 in game time 2030.

[@stevengalloway8052]

Nope on the tile upkeep cost. Unlock tiles before you run your new city so it won't cost you anything! 😆

[@thelightbrigadef4172]

I'm not ready to buy CS2 yet as they still contained crash issue with performance. Even with my PC processor graphic run as jet engine speed, I still can't guarantee it runs smoothly.

[@An_Economist_Plays]

Still waiting for it to be fixed enough for console and/or proper custom assets.

[@thephantomchannel5368]

On a positive note- assuming CO can still get funding from Paradox at least the console version, if it ever gets released, should be in a better state due to the PC players being beta testers which is resulting in the game seemingly getting better after each update/ patch due to all of the "toxic" feedback they have been receiving from their paying customers.

[@christopherr.561]

To me, no it’s still got a ways to go before it’s the game it should have been and needs to be.

[@CitiesByDiana]

Yeah that's fair. That's why I say yes* with an asterisk cos there's still some things.....

[@__tadpole__8195]

We’re so back ⁉️⁉️⁉️

[@user-sn1yw4ol1h]

Where can I see that clip at the end of the video by itself 😂

[@CitiesByDiana]

It's either on my page here on Shorts or it's also on Instagram 🥰

[@Palpatine001]

DIANA is BACK 😀 I can give a full report on Sandbox and modded for Cape Solaria as the city successfully ported over. But for now the TLDR: 1) Unlimited Money and All tiles are on but I have Disabled Tile Upkeep as how CO have done it is why am I paying to upkeep grass and trees that are NOT a national park. Doesnt work that way IRL and this is me speaking as an IRL Planner. 2) Budget is losing $686,000 an hour but it is reducing. Healthcare followed by roads take up the most of that budget for now 3) There is a death wave of 1900 citizens per month over 900 being born. But this is masked by 17,000 Cims moving in. WTAF team. Glad you love the city as my infrastructure certainly does not. 4) Commercial and industrial demand are up with residential demand tanked but that is because 1/4 of all houses still empty. I have to remember 60,000 jobs are available to around 38,000 currently filled. 5) Population went from 35,000 to 84,000 in two hours of game play 😮 6) Commercial taxes are a bit poked with Realistic Trips but Real Time in CS1 did the same although that was countered with After Dark with the Tourism and Leisure districts that I dont have in CS2 7) Infrastructure is heaving with all the new cims so massive infrastructure build especially transit as the current lines are maxing out 8. I do have Profit Based Industry and Offices on to counter the current office bug. It certainly put my industry on crack but the offices have not tanked killing my City Centres. All in all I hope this helps given while I have a population boom masking a death wave, it is putting all my Planning skills to the test and limit

[@thephantomchannel5368]

The question I have is, are you playing the game or is the game playing you ? It is a shame that their paying customers have to be beta testers for a game that should have been released as early access despite being marketed and sold as a finished product when both Paradox and CO knew that it wasn't.

[@Palpatine001]

​@@thephantomchannel5368 caveat emptor - Let the buyer beware

[@lucasmoreno2154]

Didnt agree much with the tile upkeep ngl, someone on Reddit had talked about infrastructure cost instead of tile upkeep and I couldnt agree more tbh. I also think that subsidies should be toggleable instead of deleted completely, it would act as a easy mode.

[@CitiesByDiana]

Solid points and I agree.

[@ethanpaul878]

LETSSSSS GOO WE LIVE DIANA UPLOADS. 😑 also yea the 5 office worker bug and the homeless bug have made my city unplayable

[@delta9k]

I'm less in to the management aspect and more connected with building and now that the focus has swung heavy towards management the game might just not be for me. That doesn't make the game bad, just that its going in a new direction now that doesn't appeal to me. I feel as other's have said, wish the added simulation management was a toggle feature.

[@user-bq3nu9qy5v]

I don't think they are heading in a management direction in general, just this patch focuses on that and it's one of the many aspects that need fixing. I suspect the next patch will focus on something else.

[@joshkund]

Huh, I might re install it. Just hope some of the annoying bugs are fixed.

[@CitiesByDiana]

It's better hence why I say yes with an asterisk ✳️🤣

[@crg_mad]

how do you select both european and north american styles at once? this would be a game changer if you could drop the mod link please. also what map is used in the city you showcased that you are building on twitch?

[@CitiesByDiana]

Honestly I actually dont know 🤣 it's either an update in an existing mod I already have or maybe it's part of the update itself I have no clue totally forgot to address that

[@CitiesByDiana]

The map I believe is called Conception Isle if I remember correctly

[@crg_mad]

okay thank you so much. also i think the selecting both of them is a game update because i play in a pretty lightly modded game and i still have the option to do it. i just wish something came out that would randomize styles of buildings automatically to give more variety.

[@88balloonsonthewall70]

When it comes to buildings, You just select both themes within your zoning tools and you have both options.

[@88balloonsonthewall70]

@@crg_mad i agree, it would be a lot simpler.

[@rlas]

I don't think its a great idea to have tile upkeep costs and not be able to sell tiles. An experienced player will be able to tackle the budget impact but I doubt newcomers will grasp the complexity and issues laying in that. Having something like a buyout option could be a thing. Lets say it is like renting land, then give a secondary higher price that would give you the tile without extra costs. Alternatively let the player sell the tile again ->would lead to a penalty and a automatical bulldoze of all infrastructure and buildings that are not: highways, ship lanes, airplane routes and train tracks within the sold tile. I think that would be an interesting mechanic I think that costs for infrastructure should have been raised a lot instead. Highways are not cheap in real life but they are in cs and cs2.

[@CitiesByDiana]

yeah im personally not a fan of tile upkeep at all in the slightest, but i see the logic for it, its just prohibitively expensive and makes it harder to do a build with multiple towns spread across the map

[@amadeogamer7942]

Nah bro i dident know that almost every mod still works 😭, i got rid to almost every i had

[@GamingWimpGW360]

Need custom assets ASAP.

[@CitiesByDiana]

Absolutely

[@Mark-qj5kp]

Which map is this?? edit: found it - "Conception Island" Double edit: Well, that was a fast quit. Never have I struggled so hard to connect a freakin' water line to a water pump station in my life.

[@grdfhrghrggrtwqqu]

THE ECONOMY!

[@justdude7222]

Back to sc1 this game is to difficult to start.😢

[@ninyaninjabrifsanovichthes45]

I'm still gonna get the first game instead because it's on sale for $8.99

[@rlas]

The 2 games are vastly different. Enjoy

[@CitiesByDiana]

The first game is still the better buy in my opinion

[@r3dkoolaide]

talk that talk

[@MateriaGirl]

Is your hair a wig or is it real? Asking because if it's a wig I want to buy one lol

[@CitiesByDiana]

No it's real what? 🤣

[@MateriaGirl]

@@CitiesByDiana damn I need a new one and they're hard to find

[@codyowen5070]

*updates game* *start losing $18m/wk* "sounds about right"

[@MistaH1N1]

I still wouldnt recommend the game. I dont know if it will ever be fixed or optimized enough but like I mentioned in one of your previous video, I used to stream this game every Sunday and I enjoyed it a lot. My city grew to about 180k before it stopped growing. I would leave my pc running on the weekday so it could progress forward before streaming on the weekend. I got it to around +260k pop before giving up. Even at that pop, I had much more planned for my city. So I dont know if this is just the limit of the game or if this can be fixed. In addition, the game on medium setting is still too dark and performance with bigger cities is not great. Traffic was also a nightmare, Im not sure if they fixed car changing 3 lanes at the last second yet. I do welcome the new update though, with bigger cities the money just doesnt matter any more. So to keep it a challenge in late game is good. I need to figure out why my modded game wont show the menu anymore.

[@bobconstructeur]

THE FORTNITE FONT??!?!

[@lytuingame5717]

the price of the tiles is completely stupid making this game simply unplayable in towns with small populations, we are immediately forced to do something big... a stupid decision which literally cut me off from playing. so I play Planet Zoo. I have 1000 hours on csl 2 I supported them through thick and thin and this bunch of puppets do that.

[@brianr7734]

I gotta admit, im not a big fan of title upkeep, nevertheless another great patch. The devs actually care, something that most game studios dont, its still going to take some time but CS2 is on the no mans sky recovery path.

[@thephantomchannel5368]

Are you familiar with the game Life by You ? It is now Death by Paradox. According to one of the dev team who posted on linkedin they were shut down by Paradox after being gaslit and lied to by the publisher. My speculation is that 20 people just lost their jobs as a result of Paradox being desperate for money since they have lost 40% of their value in the past 2 quarters. Since Cities Skylines is their largest franchise I assume they are killing other studios to keep CO afloat while they try to build back a decent sized user base because they rely on those people to continue buying DLC exactly as they did with version 1 which sold far more copies. If they had sold more copies they wouldn't be working as hard to appease their customers in an attempt to maintain their numbers. There is a possibility that this might be the last paid vacation they get for both CO and Paradox if they can't generate revenue from a console release and hundreds of dollars worth of DLC for both platforms. Worth noting is that Life by You had some extremely ugly NPC's with wonky animations that looked eerily similar to the ones in CS2. I have also heard but can't confirm that it was planned to have both of those games work in tandem so you could have a life simulator inside a city builder, which honesty would have been a great idea if it was done right.

[@CitiesByDiana]

I'm so sad that Life By You was canceled.....really shitty move. I hope CS2 can turn it around....

[@mathdash4236]

You know im playing the elden ring DLC there is the moment where Miqellas great rune breaks and the charm the people have break. I think this is the great rune broken moments, after the wait for console and seeing the lackluster content and knowing how much were are going to miss, its as if a spell wore off and now I completely lost interest in cities, I am still angry to this day spending so much money on cities 1 and I regret buying the DLC. I think I'm done with cities for a while.

[@SPR_NAPALM]

49 comments and not one mention of your hat, Glycine Queen. So disappointing.

[@CitiesByDiana]

Someone's gotta be the first and you were it 🥰

[@Franimus]

😸😸😸

[@blonded1]

I disagree that now is a goods time to buy the game. CS2 is still flawed by design. The game is nothing more than a graphical update to CS1. The fact they didn't add major DLCs as default features in CS1 proves that Paradox and CO still don't care about the end consumer. It's all profit to them. Once this washes over for them, it'll be back to regular programming of selling you a half a game and convincing you that they are selling you DLC to "Support the game for longer". It's honestly pathetic they couldn't include the DLC from the first game and then think of NEW DLC to come up with for the second game. Everything is too clean in CS2. There's no urban decay, there are homeless people, sure, but they are the cleanest homeless people to exist in the world. The game is basically Pleasentville creator. Just create a clean city and pretend urban blight, decay and abnormalities don't exist. I played over 1k hours on the first one and gave this second one 100 hours. I refuse to continue to believe that Paradox or CO are the victims here. They knew what they were releasing and sold a fake promise to us with the trailer.

[@blonded1]

Also it's so pathetic that the grid still is as dated as it is. How is it 2024 and we're still using a grid painter from 2012.

[@christopherr.561]

I am with you. This game is still not ready. It’s going to be a long while before it’s worth what they want for it.

[@thephantomchannel5368]

@@christopherr.561 It will be a long while and a lot of money for it to become what version 1 was. They need a consistent player base to support their predatory model of selling DLC's to fill in the gaps of a base game which is empty and bland and currently devoid of content and mechanics despite having 8 years of experience and feedback from the first game. Somehow version 2 feels like it was done by an entirely different team trying to copy from something better and somehow they just can't figure it out.

[@hfbdbsijenbd]

Tile upkeep is supposed to mimic property taxes?!? Cities dont pay property taxes unless they own property outside of their jurisdiction. The more I hear CO talk about this stuff, the more its apparent they are making it up as they go.