Monday, 10 December 2018 19:05

Cities: Skylines - Industries Review

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Edited by: John Gerritzen

It’s no great secret that Cities: Skylines is one of the better city building simulations to date. There are plenty of expansions and content out there already, though not all have been that great. In comparison, Industries is perhaps the best expansion yet. Not only are there new models and policies, something most updates have, but it also adds the ability to fully manage supply chains end to end. It’s no longer a case of declaring a district as farming or mining and hoping it works out, instead you can now add a wide variety of extras and take charge of the entire affair.

Pick Your Path

Industries allows you to pick between several industry specializations including things like farming and forestry. From there you can set up a basic supply chain to get you started. Taking forestry, you can set up lumber yards, trees to farm, a headquarters, and a sawmill. This will produce high-quality, unique goods that can then either be sold in your city or exported for extra income. As well as making good use of natural deposits it also provides lots of extra jobs.

Whatever your chosen industry, you can specialize your commercial districts to sell your newly created goods giving them a direct impact on your economy. Each industry can also be leveled up as well, so once you have an initial chain you can expand into new products and raw materials to work with. By doing this, higher quality goods can be made and your supply chains can get quite complex. Each level brings unique buildings with it so even if you experiment with one industry, there is plenty to see and do with the others as well giving you hours of extra content.

Applying Some New Rules

To go alongside the new industries are some extra policies too; these can dictate whether shops sell your organic goods and make the most of your new luxury items. As ever you can set preferences for your citizens and the extensive policies section can be used for the new industrial districts that come with this pack.

Not only this, but there has been a lot of thought and planning put into the automation side of things as well. For extra building costs, your supply chain can be automated to work more efficiently, or if you are finding your hospitals full, safety policies can be passed altering the way your industries work. Being able to make small changes like this can have a big impact on the overall operation so it’s definitely worth exploring all the options.

A Unique Look

Each new industry comes with new buildings, as well as new vehicles specific to that industry, which breathes some new life into existing maps. If you fancy a complete change, there are also several new maps to be explored, each with their own unique resource deposits. Another nice addition is new workers, with different animations that really give each industry a unique feel.

There is plenty going on in this latest expansion with another layer of depth to the gameplay that makes setting up successful supply chains very satisfying. The ability to increase city income with dedicated production is a fantastic, realistic element that will also require some careful balancing of resources like electricity and water. If you don’t fancy making complete supply chains, you can always add the new postal service and provide your citizens with access to mail and delivery services.

8

The Verdict: Excellent

Industries makes a wonderful addition to Cities: Skylines, and gives players unprecedented depth to explore. New buildings, maps, and models freshen things up whether you’re starting again or simply adding to an already sprawling metropolis. There’s a lot more content introduced with this than previous additions and makes this title great value for money. As with all of the others, you only need the base edition of Cities: Skylines to make use of Industries and it works well alongside the original content. This is definitely a great expansion to pick up, with plenty to keep players busy whether they’re veterans of the franchise or new to it all.

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Mel Hawthorne

Mel is a London-based copywriter that has been writing about video games for a few years now. After growing up in Vienna, Austria she followed her dreams and moved to London. Said dreams took her through a few different jobs (which included working as a web developer, shopkeeper and translator) before she settled on what she really wanted to do – periodically anger video game fans by expressing her opinions on games through various online publications. When she’s not writing about video games, she’s probably playing them... or walking her dog in a park. Since that depends largely on the English weather, Mel has plenty of time to indulge in her favourite games. These include but are not limited to Ark: Survival Evolved, Skyrim, GTA V, and oddly enough, Amnesia: Memories. She loves Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. She thinks Star Trek is way better than Star Wars and isn’t afraid to admit it – Live long and prosper!

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