Cities: Skylines

Cities: Skylines doesn't have a story so much as a goal--to plan and build a thriving city. Players must set up roads, water pipes, electricity, and districts. As people move in to the city, they will have needs and requests--for instance, a fire station, a hospital, or a school. Setting up an active, working city means budgeting, planning, coordination, and multi-tasking. You may have to deal with disasters, or you may find that a neighborhood is out of bounds of essential utilities, and have to bulldoze it.

Players can save at any time.

Cities: Skylines can be difficult to "win" because there isn't really an endgame goal. The idea is to get good enough at city planning that your city doesn't fail, but the game is entertaining even when it is destined to fail.

• What are some of the conflicts you came up against in this game? Were you able to get past them, or did you have to start over?
• Do you think it's reasonable for a city planner to simply start over? In what ways is this unrealistic, and how might a problem (like going into so much debt you cannot build anything) be corrected in real life?
• What are some problems city planners face that were not present in the game?