Realistic Skylines mod configuration guide
- Introduction
- Simulation mods
- Traffic Manager: President Edition
- Realistic Population Revisited
- Lifecycle Rebalance Revisited
- Improved Public Transport 2
- Empty it!
- Optimised Outside Connections
- Rebalanced Industries
- More Effective Transfer Manager
- Customize It Extended
- Difficulty Tuning
- Bulldoze It!
- Real Time
- 81 Tiles
- Meta
- Building/city management mods
Introduction
Cities: Skylines is a great city builder published by Paradox Interactive. The game is great out of the box, but it can definitely be more realistic in many areas. This modding guide will help you expand the game into a way more realistic simulation as well. In addition it will contains mods that not only improve the realism, but also providing building tools and other gameplay improvements.
This guide is divided into the following chapters:
| Dependency mods | Mod list for mods that act as dependencies for other mods. |
| Simulation mods | Mod list for mods that change the simulation of the game. These mods have a big impact on how the game is played. |
| Building/city management mods | Mods that improve the quality-of-life of the game by adding extra building tools and management tools. |
| Visual mods | Mods that improve the graphics of the game to make the scene more realistic. |
| Meta mods | Mods that alter the user experience such as the UI. |
Mod pages
For mod pages, the pages will be tagged by the level of importance.
| Nice-to-have | Mods that improve an aspect of the game, but is not important. |
| Playstyle-Dependent | This mod should be considered by how you want to play the game. |
| Must-have | Mods that add a serious improvement to the game, that I would not want to play without. |
| Dependency | Mods that act as dependencies for another mod. |
Dependencies
Dependencies that are special (e.g. DLC, non-dependency mods (mods that affect the simulation, and is not only meant as a dependency). Mods that are in the chapter "Dependency mods" should always be installed when using this guide.
Simulation mods
Mod list for mods that change the simulation of the game. These mods have a big impact on how the game is played
Traffic Manager: President Edition
Description
This mod massively improves the vehicle simulation. This mod is an absolute necessity to any Cities: Skylines player.
It also provides many features and tools. For example you can create roundabouts with vehicles yielding, creating timed traffic lights (as well was disabling/enabling traffic lights at all for each intersection), lane selection, disabling citizen "pocket-cars" (cars must be parked) and much more.
Notes
Configuration
The below settings are configured for a realistic acting vehicle AI.
Keybinds you can set as you wish.
Dependencies
None
Links
Workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1637663252
Realistic Population Revisited
Description
Changes building's population levels to realistic values for that building. No more skyscrapers with only 10 households and suburbs having 4 in each house. Also changes employee counts for all buildings.
Notes
Be careful with high density! Too much concentrated high density buildings will generate a lot of traffic and require good road layouts to support.
Be careful when adding this mod to an existing savegame as it changes consumption, traffic amount and city population a lot.
Configuration
Default values are well balanced.
Dependencies
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2025147082
Lifecycle Rebalance Revisited
Description
Changes citizen's lifespans to more realistic values. Also fixes death-waves that occurs in the vanilla game.
Notes
Be careful when adding to an existing savegame.
Configuration
Default values are well balanced.
Dependencies
Harmony https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2040656402
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2027161563
Improved Public Transport 2
Description
Improves public transport simulation with features such as unbunching, line colors and more.
Notes
Configuration
Dependencies
None
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=928128676
Empty it!
Description
Automatically empties full buildings.
Notes
Configuration
For larger cities might be necessary to set interval to 30 seconds.
Dependencies
None
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1661072176
Optimised Outside Connections
Description
Reduces incoming planes, cruise ships and other importing vehicles to more realistic values.
Notes
Configuration
I found the following values to work well.
Dependencies
None
Links
Rebalanced Industries
Description
Amongst other things, increases capacity of trucks so that your industrial areas have realistic amounts of traffic.
Notes
Configuration
Has no settings.
Dependencies
Cities: Skylines - Industries DLC. If you don't have it, it's not needed.
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1562650024
More Effective Transfer Manager
Description
Improves AI of buyer/seller selection. Buildings will try to buy from buildings that are shorter distance. Buyer/seller also includes hospitals to buildings with sick citizens, firestation to building on fire and more. Does not affect garbage.
Must have for larger cities.
Notes
Configuration
Default configuration are good, but might consider reading wiki page to customize to your liking. https://github.com/pcfantasy/MoreEffectiveTransfer/wiki/English-UG
Dependencies
Harmony https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=2040656402
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1680840913
Customize It Extended
Description
This mod is very important if you want to increase realism in your city. It allows you to rebalance building values to realistic values. This includes things like truck-count, range and more.
In the default game the way service ranges works is very weird. For example, in a medium real city (100k population) it is normal to have maybe one big hospital (and in some cases two), but vanilla Cities: Skylines' hospitals has very low range and therefore you have to place hospitals everywhere because citizens far away from a hospital will not be able to use it. In my opinion very unrealistic. Same goes for many large buildings such as high schools, universities and police headquarters.
Notes
Configuration
Of course you can change the values to whatever you feel is realistic, however this is my suggested configuration. Do note that extra assets also need their values updated if you have them.
File is too big to display, therefore it must be in file.
Trucks are increased for some buildings.
File should be placed in %localappdata%\Colossal Order\Cities_Skylines\CustomizeIt-Extended.xml
Dependencies
None
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1806759255
Difficulty Tuning
Description
In Cities: Skylines vanilla I have always felt like the financial part of the game is way too easy. I feel like you never have to wait to get cash to expand the city and there is no challenge except at the very beginning of the game. You can build massive road projects such as bridges, tunnels with almost no real cost. You never need to think about building a hospital, because you have millions in the bank to spare. This mod fixes all of this by letting you increase the pricing for various things. The increased cost of starting the city means you will probably have to take out a loan to support it, which means there's finally a reason to use loans.
Whether or not you should use this mod depends heavily on what you want the gameplay to be like, but if you want a realistic experience where you have to think strategically about your city I heavily recommend it.
Notes
Configuration
During my configuration of this mod I wanted more cost to expanding the city so that I feel like the amount of cash actually means something. Often during my vanilla cities I have reached +$50000/ingame-week (number shown next to cash-in-the-bank) profits and therefore I wanted the increase of cash to be a little bit slower (~+$10000/ingame-week), which I believe this configuration does perfectly.
Explanation for values:
| Construction cost | ||
| Service Buildings | Building hospitals, schools, etc. should be EXPENSIVE! | |
| Public Transport | A new international airport costing $10000? Might as well be free. Increased a lot | |
| Roads |
The new interstate should be expensive, just like in real life. |
|
| Others |
Parks etc don't have to be as expensive |
|
| Relocation cost |
Does not matter much, but does not have to be very expensive |
|
| Area cost multiplier |
Increased quite a bit. Does not matter if you use 81 Tiles mod (recommended). |
|
| Economy |
|
|
| Initial capital |
Due to increased constructions costs this needs to be bumped high so that there is a chance to get the city going |
|
| Reward amount |
Rewards from milestones unchanged |
|
| Loans |
Loans can give more money than before |
|
| Population required to unlock milestones |
Unchanged |
|
| Target land values/service score for buildings |
A bit more difficult to balance out increased service building ranges |
|
| Upkeep |
|
|
| Service buildings |
Running hospitals, police stations and firestations is expensive in real life. Increased slightly to reflect this. |
|
| Public transport | Already quite balanced in vanilla | |
| Roads | Roads need maintenance! Quite balanced in vanilla, but increased a little bit. | |
| Others | Parks etc are not very expensive to run | |
| Pollution radius | Increased slightly | |
| Noise pollution | Increased slightly. | |
| Zoning Demand | Decreased slightly to make city grow slower. Can be changed to whatever you deem realistic (or fun). | |
| Maximum slope | Doesn't change anything because of Anarchy (recommended) |
Dependencies
None
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=519781146
Bulldoze It!
Description
Automatically bulldozes abondoned and broken buildings. This is a very boring and tiresome job to do when the city becomes large, so this mod does it automatically.
Categorised as a simulation mod, becasue it changes what the game does automatically as part of the city simulation.
Notes
Configuration
Dependencies
None
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1627986403
Real Time
Description
Completely changes the citizen daily-life simulation. Amongst other things makes the simulation realistic by implementing difference between night and day and also citizen aging speed.
Notes
Configuration
I have found these values to be reasonably balanced.
Dependencies
None
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1420955187
81 Tiles
Description
Allows you to unlock the full map. Everyone should use this mod as it gives you the full potential of the game.
Notes
Configuration
You can decide if you want to unlock all tiles for free or whether to wait to unlock them as vanilla game.
Dependencies
None
Links
Meta
Mod template
Description
Notes
Configuration
Dependencies
None
Links
Todo
Mods that need additional details
Mods that need links set to other mods
- Difficulty tuning
- Customize it
- Cross the line
- Hide tmpe cross
- Node controller
- Write The Signs
- Surface Painter
- Plop The Growables
Building/city management mods
Mods that improve the quality-of-life of the game by adding extra building tools and management tools.
Cross The Line
Description
Allows building certain infrastructure outside of city borders.
Notes
Configuration
Has no settings.
Dependencies
None
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=498386331
More Network Stuff
Description
Allows editing ship and airplane paths ingame
Notes
Configuration
No settings.
Dependencies
None
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=512314255
Zone It!
Description
This mod allows to change zone block layout and also disable zone block updates.
It's possible to adjust zone radius to either 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4 instead of always having it at the default 4 as well as forcing number of rows in zone blocks. This is especially useful if you are making small villages or cities and want to plan for small buildings (less than 4) with small interwoven roads connected and distance between each house.
It also includes zone anarchy to disable any updates to zone blocks.
Notes
Configuration
Default is fine.
Dependencies
None
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1783307723
Hide TMPE crosswalks
Description
This mod is an add-on for TMPE that automatically removes crosswalks when TMPE bans pedestrian crossing.
Notes
Configuration
No settings.
Dependencies
Traffic Manager: President Edition
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1934023593
Node Controller
Description
This mod lets you control Nodes and override the base games' automatic settings. You can add/remove crossings, Create smooth junctions, control road transition, ...
Notes
Configuration
Default is fine.
Dependencies
Hide TMPE crosswalks
Traffic Manager: President Edition
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2085403475
Write The Signs
Description
Allows you to write on props.
Notes
Configuration
Default is fine.
Dependencies
Camera Positions Utility
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2139980554
Intersection Marking Tool
Description
Allows you to make lines in Intersections and between nodes.
Notes
Configuration
As required.
Dependencies
None
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2140418403
Prop Snapping
Description
Allows to snap props to buildings and elevated roads.
Notes
Configuration
As required.
Dependencies
Prop & Tree Anarchy
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=787611845
Detail
Description
Allows having props & trees which can be color matched to your map theme grass color. Also allows custom lod/max render distances for props.
Notes
Configuration
As required.
Dependencies
None
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1442713872
Surface Painter
Description
Allows to paint terrain surface. Useful for detailing.
Notes
Configuration
No settings for this mod.
Dependencies
Extra Landscaping Tools
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=689937287
Plop the Growables
Description
Allows you to manually plop growable buildings with Find It! and having them remain where you put them.
Notes
Configuration
Default is fine. As required.
Dependencies
Find It!
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=924884948
Quay Anarchy
Description
Allows to place quays and flood walls anywhere. Also fixes 'Height too high' for quays, flood walls, cargo and passenger harbors
Notes
Configuration
No settings.
Dependencies
None
Links
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=650436109