The city Riverbank was founded on one side of a river and that is why they name was chosen. Nobody expected that there would be a massive influx of new citizens but the area was attractive enough to convince 3717 citizens to settle in the first years. The riverside developed so fast that there were over time fewer opportunities to find building plots. New citizens and investors demanded to be able to purchase plots on the other side of the river and we liked the idea so that the population grew to 16236 citizens afterwards.
City planners and architects had the glorious idea to set up canals but at first this was not thought out well so that some nearby citizens got wet feet. Of course, we didn’t give up and tried to make it work and the result is that all concerned parties got compensated with a beautiful view from their homes. However, it’s not suggested to jump into the canal because it’s low water and the fall could take a couple of seconds and you would break your neck. To solve this problem, we built a dam. The idea was to increase the water level, but not only this, we also thought about energy generation.
This was an expensive and educational endeavour. There were two tries, not without issues. The first dam was built at the wrong place in the south of the city and architects didn’t make sure that it would work. The result was a dry riverbed and when citizens created the hashtag #gotacanyonnextdoor that went viral, it didn’t take long until media arrived in our city to report about the issue. We refused to give interviews because it was more important to make sure that no citizen would accidentally fall into the deep canyon. A couple of TNT charges on the dam were the fastest solution to sweep the whole issue, well, under the water. A second dam was built at a better place close to the bay in the north because we thought that we could not dry out an ocean. So, what could go wrong?
One day I noticed the fridge was empty, but the grocery store too. I couldn’t find a single product in the shelves and I wondered about the reason when the phone rang and one of the architects told me that they would still try to open the floodgates of the new dam. That was the last thing I heard, because on my way out of the empty grocery store, it hit me. It was a big water wave and my architects were at fault again. The wave did not only swamp the inner districts, the industrial area was hit first and that was the reason why the grocery stores were empty.
I am still ashamed when I hear people calling our city Riverbanknami because at the end we got the problem solved but this time not with TNT. Yes, the dam is working, and if it wouldn’t, the lights in our street would go off at some point, at least if we manage to convince more people to live here after all the trouble. But that could be difficult because the industrial area was hit hard, and without an industry there will be no products. I do still suggest businesses to come back to our industrial areas because we mastered the critical phase of city planning. But it might take time until they are convinced.
We do however still have another problem. And we can’t get our heads around the issue. There is always jam on the artery of our city. But we do also benefit a bit from it because the media does have problems to enter our city unless they use helicopters, which means we don’t have to answer silly interviews very often. We don’t have buses, a metro or any other alternatives to streets yet. This could be the reason why the main street is jammed 24/7, but maybe it’s also because we built the wrong type of street there, and maybe the wrong type of junction. But once we solved the issue, nothing will stop the growth of the city.
Index
Let’s Play Cities Skylines… Welcome to Riverbank – Part 1
Let’s Play Cities Skylines… Welcome to Riverbank – Part 2
Diary of Dennis 
City simulations do give you a new appreciation for city planners and local government.
Yeah 😀 When I placed the first dam wrong and didn’t connect it well, I thought “Hmm, in real I would have damaged the environment and nature”. When I couldn’t get the second dam to work and my industrial area was flooded I thought “Oops, in real that would have killed people and a whole industry” lol.
Yep, this is just a game with a bit of complexity, but reality is so complex that much more can go wrong than in a game but most of the time things just work. I appreciate that a lot. I remember a month ago I was outside with all my neighbors because there was power outage for a half hour and some people complained a lot. There might have been a fire somewhere at the power plants, or overload… nobody of us knew,.. there are things you can complain about, but being cut from energy for a half hour (something that happens maybe once in a year if at all) is a silly reason to curse like a mad person (one of my neighbors couldn’t calm down lol)… I told my neighbor “Calm down bro, as long as no nuclear reactor in our state exploded, we’ll be fine” and laughed. 😀 He was upset because he couldn’t save a document he wrote on the computer 😀
This looks interesting! I guess it’s kind of an improved version to the newest Sim City? (one which i couldn’t get into no matter how hard I tried.)
Yes you could say that, but Cities Skylines is developed by Paradox Interactive while the Sim City brand is owned by Electronic Arts. I like Cities Skylines more because I can customize it better with user mods, and it’s newer and more 3d. 🙂 Electronic Arts gave so much cool game series up and they don’t develop more niche games. Paradox Interactive seems to produce a lot of niche games and that is cool because it would be sad if certain game genres would die out. You should give it a try one day, it’s normal that it’s difficult to get behind, but once you understand the game, it’s really fun 🙂
Im very familiar with the publishers, i just havent tried cities skylines yet 🙂 the last sim city i truly enjoyed was sim city 3000 and the newest had so many restrictions compared to it so it wasnt really enjoyable at all. But i will definitely check out skylines instead 😊
Yes that is why I turned my back on EA too… Of course I still play some of their more action games because you know, that’s where they are good at, but the last simulations or manager games they created were not my thing either. Sim City 4 was still ok too, but the last ones were really a joke. I am glad Pdox “conquered” this niche. I am especially a great fan of their game Europa Universalis IV 🙂
I was a bit unsure about Cities Skylines, but I grabbed it during Steam Summer Sale… can’t complain for the price I got it. But I’d say it’s still more of a sandbox game than a manager game… the game is not so hard to master, I believe they set the focus on sandbox features… it’s more about building the city than mastering challenges. There are maybe some, I find it difficult to get my head around the traffic issues in my city 🙂 Maybe I get this sorted out , let’s see 😀 Sometimes I really like games where I just have to place things and see how things develop. Really relaxing if I am not in the mood to play action or anything like that.
I feel like they kind of “dumbed down” their games to appeal to a broader audience but it kinda backfired! I agree that their action games are still good though 🙂
I have invested hundreds of hours into the Tropico games and into Banished, and they are both great sandbox games too! They don’t really develop too much on their own though so i suppose Cities Skylines would be better in that sense, i assume it follows the green (residential), blue (commercial) and yellow (Industrial) zoning system like in Sim City? I hope I’ll find it on sale somewhere, if not then at least Steam has a good refund system just in case I can’t get into that one either.
True, that’s what me and my friends think too. It’s all about making more money. They made money before too, but nowadays corporations can’t get enough, especially when investors are behind them. I guess now it’s less about making games for those that love gaming and challenges, but rather about convincing my grandmother that she should be a gamer too (laugh). Me and my friends did for example still try out Battlefield 4 and we had fun, but they all miss games like the old Battlefield 2. We enjoyed the new games for a while, but at the end we always complain how much bigger the maps were in the very first games of the series, that there were less modern “aim-assist” weapons, better spawning systems, and that the whole games felt more hardcore because of many reasons. So, while some modern games are still enjoyable to a degree, it’s often very visible that they are designed for a broader audience now, as you said.
I have some Tropico games on Steam too that I got with a bundle I guess, you remind me that I should try them too. I heard about Banished but don’t own it yet. I like the fact that Banished is an indie game. I think the whole indie developer scene will bring back some old game concepts and add interesting features to it. Big publishes are afraid to try out new ideas or as said to develop niche games. Banished is definitely on my radar too! 🙂
Yup, in Skylines you have this zoning concept as well. But you also can place props and the Steamworkshop is full of new objects and mods. To be honest, after a week of playing I am getting closer to the point of asking myself what I should do next with my city. Now it’s quite large and it feels a bit like just watching the city grow. There are still things to solve like the traffic, but it always has been my problem in city building games that I get to the point that I am bored and want to start a new city. But I would still suggest the game if you can find it on sale in the future.
Yes, the refund system is cool for that. I do track game prices with my wishlist that is connected to isthereanydeal.com, so that I get price notifications, but I assume you know that handy site already 🙂
I thought this was for real and was wondering which city we were talking about. It could almost be ours as the local architecture gods decide to have a “Wasserstadt” someone had a dream. It was a good idea, just a little outside the center of town and near the River Aar. Plans were made, people were engaged for the planning and execution. There was one little problem. The place for the “Wasserstadt” was on top of the old rubbish depony, before it was replaced by the new Burning system in a village and so it came to pass that the legacy of rotting materials beneath the surface is still there and the idea is being reconsidered by the powers that be. This is not a computer game, but the real thing and we still do not have our “Wasserstadt”.
Haha, I thought it could confuse people for a second 🙂 You have a good example there, often there are interesting ideas but in reality there are so many more factors if ideas will work out or cause issues. I am sometimes amazed how people planned such things hundreds of years ago… the city where I live is a great example too, Lübeck has a real history of terra forming (laugh)… I still don’t understand how they were able to build ramparts around the city, to remove them later on when artilleries made them obsolete. Setting up these things and removing them must have been super large projects, as same as building, deepening or expanding canals and stuff like that. Today with machinery, things are easier, but right, at the end it’s about planning and if you can realize the things, without hurting citizens, or the whole environment.