Consequently, I removed that original highway=6-lane-road connection and extended my highway down into my city. Adjacent to my highway, on either side. I have a 2-lane one-way road acting as a service road to the highway. This gives drivers numerous entrances and exits throughout the city and spreads them out from the main road and its major.

Here we go again. Third time lucky. I've already gently bored you with half a dozen articles onCities Skylines traffic management, offeringandto make the game's engine andsomewhat incomplete pathfinding algorithms work with you, rather than against you. After all, urbansimulation is meant to be fun!All my previous guides so far had one problem - they were expensive. The recent ones focusedmore on making the monetary side of things tick, too, but proposed infrastructure still came with ahefty bill, making my cities less profitable.

So I got me thinking. Can I be cheap - but also makekickass 100K+ cities with high demand, stunning layout and efficient roads? The answer is, yes.Tighten the belt - and let's buildSo the mission is, be in the green. Make sure you earn more money than you spend. With the infinitefunds mod, it's easy to work around this, but still. Overall, I think being profitable in CitiesSkylines is easier than it was in, for instance. So what we want to do is cut down on allthe unnecessary costs.

If you can get away with one of something rather than two, build just one. Smaller roads. Fewer stations. More efficient services. Smart network grid planning.

Let meshow you how.The old layout and planning works just fine - and yet, we can do better. Name of the game: heavy traffic banCities Skylines has two built-in policies that allow you to try to rein in the chaos. You can blockheavy traffic from entering 'smaller' roads, and you can use the Old Town policy to completely bantrucks from your residential areas. The former applies to two- and four-lane roads, which means you canstill have trucks thundering through your neighborhoods.

This means clogged junctions and roundabouts,as the vehicles will always cut a short one to their destination, not necessarily the fast one. Thelatter will prevent trucks from going anywhere you have green plots - supply vans will still be able toreach your businesses.Most of the 'old layout' complexity stems from having the heavy industry and citytraffic mix.My guide today relies on the first policy being in effect. Making sure your trucks do not drive offhighways into residential areas to save 25px worth of road. As for the previous models we used -internal + external train loops, well now, we will try something else. Cut the spendingI decided to focus on making my cities as profitable as possible.

I love underground passages, butthey are very expensive. Then, subways, trams and such make for lovely decor, but they also incur acost that is disproportionately high for the volumes of traffic they ferry. In other words, they cannever turn profit.My motto for the experiment was - no inefficient, money-losing services. First, I decided to buildhigh-density grids with six-lane roads and adjacent bike paths as well as two-lane + bike low-densitydistricts. Standard roundabouts connect different neighborhoods, while two-lane elevated highways crosseach neighborhood at roughly its middlepoint, with on and off ramps to the city streets. This meansthat pretty much any car, and more importantly, any van, has to travel equal distance to get onto ahighway that will channel it toward outside connections, or back to the industry zones.It's not only making money, it also looks right.Bike lanes also reduce traffic, and I made sure to use them to connect remote districts, oftencrossing highways and rail connections.

The same applies to footpaths, as they can carry and unlimitedvolumes of pedestrians to great distances. Much like two-lane highways, I'd always have at least one,often two and sometimes three elevated footpaths crossing each neighborhood and connecting to adjacentzones.Elevated highways crossing districts, loop roads for the industry.Transport services are limited to buses - and plenty of them - some subways - for medium-rangedistances from one district to another, or to connect large zones, running perpendicular or diagonal tothe road grid - and finally, trains.

Only what arrangement, you may ask. What do I know about trains?I decided to stick to the one connection = one station rule. This means my cities would allowinter-city passenger traffic only to one or two major stations, later also upgraded to 12-track hubsthat make for an even cheaper and efficient solution, and also only one cargo station per outsideconnection. Like I said, no other modes of transport, as they are a waste of money.Notice the layout - grids + roundabouts; highways to reduce pressure on ingressand egress points; Long foot paths crossing entire neighborhoods and running into adjacent ones; bikeslanes; train traffic loops around the city and then dives 'deep' where needed.This does require building smart industrial zones, though. Sony icd p210 drivers for mac. And then.Bus routes are also circular and relatively short, mostly covering in-district traffic, with an oddline connecting to the nearby zones, helping ferry some of the people around - those not using foot orbike paths or subways. Keeps the costs down, and the bus traffic comes in rather profitable.

Althoughthe overall income is low compared to what you can generate from taxes, every little bit helps.Tight, compact, frugal, efficient.This is far more pronounced with subways and trains, where each station costs almost 1,000dollars/week upkeep, so the fewer of these you have the better, and if you place them smartly, you willstill maintain good demand. The end result is net profit that ranges anywhere between 35% and 80%relative to the population, i.e. A 100K city could be making as much as 80K money per time period (weekor month or whatever).Making it even betterAfter a few successful rounds and flourishing cities with good demand and excellent income, Idecided to optimize this formula even more. Industrial areas absolutely do not need anything more thantwo-lane roads in the best case. A single passenger station transports all the workers into theindustry area, and from there buses ferry people to their workplace. There are separate bus linescircling the district, each one on its own, and connect to the shuttles that run to the passengerstation.Some red here and there, mostly around cargo stations, but overall, it flowsgreat.It seems better to have many small industry areas than one large one, as the traffic is moredistributed.

You then connect each one to a highway - these can be two-way highways plus two-lanehighways, and you don't need fancy stuff. Just a plenty of easy and relatively short connections tosimplify the pathfinding mission.I also decided to trim down on the track traffic - I use a single 12-track hub for outside trafficplus the internal loop, with fewer but more strategically placed stations. The same applies to subway -fewer stations that carry people over longer distances and to central areas. The bus then takes care ofthe rest. There's no point having subways running to industry zones, or short subway routes within thesame district.

That's just not profitable, as it gives you only a somewhat improved peopledistribution.Other servicesMy frugality crusade extends to all other services - schools, medical facilities, etc. It ispossible to build fewer of them. Not garbage collection, though. That's the one you must keep tip top.So build them incinerators like mad. Other than that, the cities are fairly tolerant, as long as youhave enough parks, and you keep the traffic flowing so there's constant supply of goods. The restreally becomes optional, and it's up to you.

But you don't need much to hit the highest level ofhousing development. The important thing is that you people can travel freely around the city. If indoubt, build more bike and foot paths. They are cheap, but the benefits are immediate.After that, it becomes a quest - no longer a crusade. You focus on making nice, organic, ever soslightly chaotic cities.

Perfect grids do not and should not exist. There must be some asymmetry creep,and no matter how well you plan, there should be an element of mess and unpredictability in yourarchitecture. I find that the best part of my newfound wisdom and money-saving measures.

ConclusionI will not claim to be a prophet of city building. Not by a long shot. How to install vray material library in 3ds max. But I do think my methodsoffer a good balance between fanatic OCD-drenched city planning and fun.

The idea is to see your citygrow without feeling like it's slipping away from you. Nor should you constantly fret and fuss over thefunds. Somewhere in the middle, in the sweet spot of creativity and leisure.

After all, it's just agame. An addictive one, but still only a game.Cities Skylines is a tricky one, but it does not aim to destroy you. Be nice, don'toverspend, and focus on keeping industry away from living zones, and you should be fine. Now, I haveread a lot of similar guides online, and everyone seems to have their own private bible on how thingsshould be done. I'm interested to hear if you have any mindblowing ideas of your own. Share them.That'd be all.Cheers.