Cities Skylines
Or at least, not even five minutes of it because the tutorial is incredibly unhelpful. I'm looking at a big slab of empty land with a turn-off onto a highway and I can't figure out how to connect the right roads to it to start. Or what roads are best. Or where to even start.
Maybe I'm just not in the mood for a city builder like I thought I was. I might refund the game.
Maybe I can help. I fancy myself really good at Cities: Skylines.
When you first start out, all you can really build is 2 lane residential roads. Easiest way to start is just to start by selecting the 2 lane road, then click the end of the highway ramp it gives you, then click where you want the road to end in the open space. Try to keep it small at first. You will notice that placing roads puts these little transparent grids next to them. Those are areas you can zone as residential, commercial or industrial zones. The roads make land zone-able, no roads, no zones.
You'll need power and water pretty quickly after that. If you're not near a river, you can build a water tower to get started with that, then build water mains along under the streets you build, and that will pretty much keep your zones watered. As for power, you can either go for a regular power planet, but it pollutes, so try to keep it away from residential areas or you'll get a lot of sick people really fast. Windmills are a greener option, but they're more expensive per megawatt and they have to be built where the wind is heavy. Placing a power generating building of some sort will then show the areas that have power in bright blue on the power tab. You can use power lines to get power to places far away, but buildings (which build themselves in zones) will automatically transfer power to any other adjacent building within a certain distance, and the blue stuff will indicate that.
Build slow, expand slow, and watch your cash flow. As the population starts demanding things, it will show up on the demand meter - attend to whatever they need most. If they want more certain kinds of zones, build more roads and then zone the grids alongside them.
As your city grows you will unlock more things to build.
I also recommend raising all your tax rates to 11% right off the bat. It doesn't chase people off too much and the extra funds makes a difference.
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