The Cities Skylines 2 economy has been volatile so far. Since the city building sequel first arrived, Colossal Order has been hard at work delivering both performance improvements and tweaks to the overall simulation, but money, exports, land values, and more remain a problem. Aside from roads and traffic – perhaps the hardest things to get right – money is the most important component of any successful Cities Skylines 2 endeavour, but CO now admits that the in-game economy, at launch, was not up to the standard it hoped. While some economic problems have been resolved, the CS2 creator says that more are still coming, while the potentially game-killing land values issue will also soon be fixed.
Cities Skylines 2 mods can help repair economic issues, rebalancing imports, exports, and building profitability to make the city building game feel more balanced. However, the fundamentals of the simulation may still create some issues, particularly when it comes to the Cities Skylines 2 UI and how it presents income and outgoings. If you’ve ever looked at your city and felt like it’s doing great, but then changed the information tab and found yourself confused by the seemingly low amount of profit you’re generating, this might be because of bugs. Colossal Order says the CS2 economy has so far not lived up to the studio’s own standards.
“At release, the economy did not meet the quality standard we strive for and I apologize for the frustration this has caused,” Colossal Order CEO Mariina Hallikainen says. “In the post-release patches, we have included fixes for issues present in the economy implementation, but some still remain, and we’re working on resolving those thanks to your reports. The fixes will focus on the underlying system as well as how the information is presented in the game to achieve more clarity that helps you understand the economy better.”
Specifically, Colossal Order is looking to resolve issues relating to specialized industries, and clarifying on the UI end which of your companies are importing or exporting. The developer is also aiming to resolve the problem where the information tab does not correctly display financial information about your city, and potentially underreports either profitability or outgoings. The Cities Skylines 2 developer says that, with regards to profitability levels of some companies, “calculations may change” after it has evaluated the complexity of the entire CS2 economy.
But what about the land values bug? We’ve already discovered a seriously helpful Cities Skylines 2 land values fix thanks to a visionary new mod, but Colossal Order says it will address the problem internally via the next CS2 patch.
“Fixing major systems like the land value takes a bit more time than the usual bug fixes because these elements are connected to the other parts of the game’s economy system,” the developer says. “Our goal with these changes is to make the systems more user-friendly to work with so, for example, it’s easier to understand what causes the high rents and how you can affect it.”
It seems like CS2 is getting closer to the game it’s always had the potential to be. In the meantime, though, check out all the Cities Skylines 2 DLC we’re expecting to see, or maybe some of the other best strategy games available on PC.
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