Cities: Skylines 2 – beginner tips for the best possible start

How to get your perfect city up and running

Cities: Skylines 2 has hit PC Game Pass. The sequel to Colossal Order and Paradox Interactive’s 2015 city simulation invites you to build and maintain your own sprawling metropolis. But that’s easier said than done. If you’re new to the series and want to know how to get off to the best possible start, or just fancy brushing up on your city building skills, here are some helpful Cities: Skylines 2 beginners’ tips.

Best starting map

It’s important to start small. Any Cities: Skylines player will tell you there’s a long and potentially complicated road ahead as you grapple with the intricacies of developing your city. That’s why there’s no shame in keeping it simple. Choose the smallest map and take it slow at first. You can always scale up later. Once in your map, use the tab to check for resources, so you know what you’re working with.

Smaller maps provide a good starting point, keeping your city focused :: Colossal Order / Paradox Interactive

Keep zones separate

A core tenant of Cities: Skylines 2 is to separate your zones. The likes of residential, commercial, and industrial zones should never mix, unless you want to negatively impact your citizens. For example, industrial zones generate harmful air and noise pollution. Trucks passing through will also cause traffic problems. That’s why you should decide early where to put each zone and stick to it. No one likes to live next to a factory.

Make sure to check the wind directions as well, since air pollution travels along with the wind.

Use the variety of filters available in the top left to get all the information you need about your city :: Colossal Order / Paradox Interactive

Make money fast

The quickest way to get an early influx of cash is by using roads. By implementing a policy called roadside parking fee, you can charge people for parking, and watch the money roll in. OK, it’s more of a trickle, but it’s better than nothing. You can set up each district with its own bespoke policies, so try the roadside parking policy in one and see how it goes before applying it to more districts.

Producing cheap green energy, such as through wind turbines, and selling it to other cities is another clever way of making money.

A thriving economy is not the only way of making money :: Colossal Order / Paradox Interactive

Raise taxes for more revenue

For an even quicker source of money, you can try raising taxes. Doing so increases your revenue, but of course, nothing comes for free. The downside is citizen happiness – the higher you raise taxes, the less happy they’ll be. That will grind your city to a standstill as you won’t attract new inhabitants, your population size will stagnate, and new wealth will be harder to generate. It’s recommended to keep your tax rate at 12%, which is the perfect balance between money for you and happiness for them.

If people want to live in a nice city, they'll have to pay their fair contribution :: Colossal Order / Paradox Interactive

Use public transport

Don’t neglect public transport. This is vital to increasing traffic flow through your city and avoiding any nasty traffic jams. Buses are the cheapest tier of public transport, so start with them. Unlike with trains or trams, you don’t need to modify your existing road layout; just place bus stops along your desired route. Later on, you can use bus routes as an indicator for popular areas, then build subways or a train system along those routes, catering to as many people as possible.

Building cargo terminals in your industrial zones helps alleviate traffic issues as well by getting cargo trucks of the road and on to the rails instead.

Traffic is a challenge for any city and you'll need to get creative to tackle it effectively :: Colossal Order / Paradox Interactive

Place paths to negate traffic problems

Paths are an underrated aspect of Cities: Skylines 2. You can use them to link up areas for pedestrians, who will always prefer them to roads. When pedestrians travel by paths, it not only reduces the amount of traffic on roads, but makes people happier and healthier, since they’re not sharing the same space as cars and breathing in all those nasty fumes.

Pedestrian paths are a solid alternative to huge roads in some areas of your town :: Colossal Order / Paradox Interactive

Get new tips from Chirper

Cities: Skylines 2 contains a faux social network called Chirper. This is a key insight into your citizens’ wants and needs. If there’s a problem, people will write about it on Chirper, letting you identify immediately what area of your city needs fixing. It’s essentially an in-built tips Discord channel allowing you to get to the root of the problem and make improvements fast.

You can always find the in-game tutorials by using the help feature on the top right of the screen :: Colossal Order / Paradox Interactive

For more on this title, check out our Cities: Skylines 2 review, the best Cities: Skylines 2 settings to increase performance, and explore the Cities: Skylines 2 DLC roadmap.