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I'm still alive! Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, was last week and as usual it was super busy and tiring but a lot of fun. It was great to finally get to talk about *drum rolls* Cities: Skylines - Natural Disasters! The articles of first impressions have started to appear and I hope you have already seen a bit more information about the expansion than what was revealed at the announcement last Thursday.

IMG_20160816_172947_small.jpg

Here's a photo of the box I was in the entire week. It was fancier than before. I guess hard work does pay off!

Let's be honest here, you don't care how my week in the box was. You want to know more about the upcoming content, right?
So let's look at the information we have now:
- The expansion is called Cities: Skylines - Natural Disasters
- We showed a meteor strike hitting the city leaving a crater and fires on impact
- There will be more than one disaster in the expansion
- Counter measures and warning systems for the disasters
- Random disasters can be turned on and off, you can also call upon a disaster at will
- Helicopters for healthcare, police and fire departments
- New city service to help out in the aftermath of a disaster
- We are adding a completely new game mode: Scenarios!
- There will be a couple scenarios in the expansion
- Scenario editor will be released as a free update for everyone alongside the expansion release

I'm the type of player that finds it hilarious to call upon a disaster on the citizens who don't appreciate my efforts running the city. However what I find even more exciting is the scenario editor. I really hope you guys will be creating a bunch of scenarios and share those on the Workshop for everyone to enjoy. Having clear goals and basically the possibility to lose the game is really a game changer for Cities: Skylines, which has been very much a sandbox game until now. The main goal of this expansion is to bring new challenges, added gameplay and loads of fun in one disastrous package. It's really not about just breaking your cities to pieces but figuring out how to build them to withstand and survive the misfortunes.

The team is currently working on the scenario editor to make it even more powerful than what we were able to show last week. We will be asking feedback from the modders to making sure it will be as flexible and easy to use as possible. There are also more disasters being implemented so there will be much more news and updates coming this autumn. Stay tuned to find out all the things you can try to protect your city from :)

Cheers,
Mariina
 
Fantastic! A goal (or goals) to achieve. This gives a total change to the game, as we saw for Cities in Motion 1, for example. Keep doing this good job! ;)
 
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I'm still alive! Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, was last week and as usual it was super busy and tiring but a lot of fun. It was great to finally get to talk about *drum rolls* Cities: Skylines - Natural Disasters! The articles of first impressions have started to appear and I hope you have already seen a bit more information about the expansion than what was revealed at the announcement last Thursday.

View attachment 202124
Here's a photo of the box I was in the entire week. It was fancier than before. I guess hard work does pay off!

Let's be honest here, you don't care how my week in the box was. You want to know more about the upcoming content, right?
So let's look at the information we have now:
- The expansion is called Cities: Skylines - Natural Disasters
- We showed a meteor strike hitting the city leaving a crater and fires on impact
- There will be more than one disaster in the expansion
- Counter measures and warning systems for the disasters
- Random disasters can be turned on and off, you can also call upon a disaster at will
- Helicopters for healthcare, police and fire departments
- New city service to help out in the aftermath of a disaster
- We are adding a completely new game mode: Scenarios!
- There will be a couple scenarios in the expansion
- Scenario editor will be released as a free update for everyone alongside the expansion release

I'm the type of player that finds it hilarious to call upon a disaster on the citizens who don't appreciate my efforts running the city. However what I find even more exciting is the scenario editor. I really hope you guys will be creating a bunch of scenarios and share those on the Workshop for everyone to enjoy. Having clear goals and basically the possibility to lose the game is really a game changer for Cities: Skylines, which has been very much a sandbox game until now. The main goal of this expansion is to bring new challenges, added gameplay and loads of fun in one disastrous package. It's really not about just breaking your cities to pieces but figuring out how to build them to withstand and survive the misfortunes.

The team is currently working on the scenario editor to make it even more powerful than what we were able to show last week. We will be asking feedback from the modders to making sure it will be as flexible and easy to use as possible. There are also more disasters being implemented so there will be much more news and updates coming this autumn. Stay tuned to find out all the things you can try to protect your city from :)

Cheers,
Mariina
i care deeply about someone spending a week in a box! did someone at least shove some food under the door now and again?
 
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Fantastic! A goal (or goals) to achieve. This gives a total change to the game, as we saw for Cities in Motion 1, for example. Keep doing this good job! ;)

Thank you! We're doing our best!

i care deeply about someone spending a week in a box! did someone at least shove some food under the door now and again?

Luckily we did get lunch! Though on Thursday the announcement stream was scheduled on top of the lunch break and I demanded we keep it short (there wasn't that much to reveal yet anyway, and I was starving). The turnout with the journalists and streamers was amazing and reactions to the demo very positive! I was a bit hesitant to show the expansion so early on as we are only in pre-Alpha currently. We got tons of questions and feedback that we can still easily utilize in the development so I'm very much looking forward to discussing the expansion with you guys as well. So all good in the end I think :)
 
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I'm so happy Helicopters are arriving at last! I'm looking forward to finding out more about this in the upcoming weeks!

One thing I have to say though is that If you guys are still adding more disasters, please don't put silly ones in like the ones that appeared in Sim City 4 like Autosaurus Wrecks

@co_martsu Will we be able to turn off individual disasters in game? (For example, say you want to build a city where earthquakes could occur but not a meteor strike could you turn the meteor strike off but keep earthquakes on?)
 
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I am so excited for this expansion! Whenever I played Sim City 4, I used to rain destruction on my city whenever I felt it was complete and I had finished with it. I look forward to doing it on Skylines. And OMG Scenarios!!! Absolutely the best thing. I always thought they were pretty cool back in Sim City 2.
 
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I think I just have to get used to this idea. Because the big reason I went for CS is: NO STRESS. No riots, no roads that break down (like the very first Simcity), just creating a beautiful city. Not destroying things. I had 2 nice flats in my city, but they dissapeared because of a modder deleted it (I guess) and I was like: "Noooooooooooooo". So I can't imagine I would like to break things. Especially because I use RICO buildings/houses, not just random stuff. But sure are curious how its gonna be and like your effort in changing the game. Still like to see an easier way to make highway roads ;)
 
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Looking forward to the Dev diaries about disasters and scenarios!

Will the DLC include a scenario where a disaster strikes just after you open the city and you just have to deal with the consequences?
 
And what about trams?
Many people want it, but also, not everyone wants to buy snowfall DLC.
As for me, i`m playing on laptop, so i don`t want to install useless dlc, but i want to have trams in my game. Are you planing to add some transport pack, or add trams to ND DLC?
 
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Awww, yea! This is great! Can we hope to see an improved AI for emergency vehicles? Taking all of the ambulances from a hospital over five miles away seems like a bad idea when the hospital a mere .3 miles away is ready to respond.
 
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I'm so happy Helicopters are arriving at last! I'm looking forward to finding out more about this in the upcoming weeks!

One thing I have to say though is that If you guys are still adding more disasters, please don't put silly ones in like the ones that appeared in Sim City 4 like Autosaurus Wrecks

@co_martsu Will we be able to turn off individual disasters in game? (For example, say you want to build a city where earthquakes could occur but not a meteor strike could you turn the meteor strike off but keep earthquakes on?)

The expansion is called "Natural Disasters" so we'll focus on weather and nature related disasters, I guess the meteor strike is the most unusual one :)

We planned it so that you would have either the random disasters on or off while in sandbox mode, but turning of individual disasters sounds reasonable. We'll have to look into it and see if UI wise it would be possible. Good feedback, thanks!

I am so excited for this expansion! Whenever I played Sim City 4, I used to rain destruction on my city whenever I felt it was complete and I had finished with it. I look forward to doing it on Skylines. And OMG Scenarios!!! Absolutely the best thing. I always thought they were pretty cool back in Sim City 2.

Thank you! I love the idea of the scenarios, can't wait to see what will appear on the Workshop ;)

@co_martsu Will Health services be relevant now? I mean, hospitals and clinics. Any improvements to the hearses AI?

I'm not sure what you mean by more relevant, but there are no major changes to the city services on how they operate. The disasters will stress certain services depending on the severity and the helicopters will come in handy. The hearses AI has not been specifically looked into at this time.

I think I just have to get used to this idea. Because the big reason I went for CS is: NO STRESS. No riots, no roads that break down (like the very first Simcity), just creating a beautiful city. Not destroying things. I had 2 nice flats in my city, but they dissapeared because of a modder deleted it (I guess) and I was like: "Noooooooooooooo". So I can't imagine I would like to break things. Especially because I use RICO buildings/houses, not just random stuff. But sure are curious how its gonna be and like your effort in changing the game. Still like to see an easier way to make highway roads ;)

Thanks for the feedback! We're not taking away the sandbox mode so you just keep building beautiful cities in peace :)

Will modders be able to create their own disasters to add to the mix? I like zombie attacks...

I don't know. Is there anything they can't do?

While you were trapped in that box, were you dead and alive at the same time ?

Well that would be a paradox.

Looking forward to the Dev diaries about disasters and scenarios!

Will the DLC include a scenario where a disaster strikes just after you open the city and you just have to deal with the consequences?

Or maybe it has already happened? I don't know to be honest. We're still working on the editor itself :)

And what about trams?
Many people want it, but also, not everyone wants to buy snowfall DLC.
As for me, i`m playing on laptop, so i don`t want to install useless dlc, but i want to have trams in my game. Are you planing to add some transport pack, or add trams to ND DLC?

There are no plans to separate the trams from Snowfall I'm afraid.

Awww, yea! This is great! Can we hope to see an improved AI for emergency vehicles? Taking all of the ambulances from a hospital over five miles away seems like a bad idea when the hospital a mere .3 miles away is ready to respond.

The traffic AI is not something we are currently looking into.

completely unrelated question, what is the name of the ingame currency?

Haha, talk about an oversight in design! We actually haven't named it :D
 
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