Paradox and Colossal Order published another developer update for Cities: Skylines 2 today, continuing its streak. This week's information drop focuses on the economy and production elements of the upcoming city builder.
For players coming from the original entry, the economic simulation will feel familiar, but Colossal Order says it has been rebuilt from the ground up to offer much more granular control.
"As Cities: Skylines 2 has been built from the ground up and all of its core systems redesigned,
there was also the need to redesign the economic simulation," the studio explains.
"It governs the households and their money and resource usage, businesses finding suitable locations in the city based on their evaluation of potential profit, available resources, connections, and workforce as well as city service functionality and trade."
The taxes page is still the primary method of adjusting cities' growth direction, but now every aspect can be changed. Instead of simply increasing taxes for industrial zones as a whole, players will be able to change the rates for each resource that industries use and produce.
While increasing taxes on a certain industry, such as fossil fuels, can make the city prefer other options, this can also make companies lay off employees, making newer problems to solve.
The developer stresses that even though players will have control over the smallest details, this is not a requirement to simply enjoy the game using broad strokes for management. This also extends to the production side of things:
"The production chain is designed so that you do not have to micromanage it but if you so wish you can really delve deep into the intricacies of what makes up the whole system. Starting from extracting the raw materials all the way up to specializing the industry in the city you can influence any step of the process."
Moreover, the title will offer four types of farming (livestock, grain, vegetables and cotton) as well as five types of natural resources (forestry, stone, coal, ore, and oil) to harvest as part of its Specialized Industry types.
Read the complete deep dive blog into the economy and production of the title over here, which also has details on loans, zone tax, and other changes over the original. Next week, Colossal Order will give a look at the game's progression system.
Cities: Skylines 2 is slated to launch on October 24, 2023, across PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5. Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass members are also receiving the game on day one for no extra cost.
