Much like the SimCity franchise that inspired it, the way to expand a city in Cities: Skylines 2 is to create construction zones and wait for residents and businesses to build on them. If the zones are in good areas, more people will show up, the buildings will upgrade, and players will get more property taxes.
The first step of this process is to understand how to create construction zones and how to make sure they're in good areas. While Cities: Skylines 2 has a decent tutorial on the subject, this guide will try to answer any questions players may still have.
Creating and Removing Construction Zones
Every small, medium, and large road in the game comes with zone tiles that stretch out on both sides. These tiles go six out and can extend the full length of the road. If the road curves or goes up or down an incline, players will see the zone tiles break apart into smaller blocks that do their best to cover the corners. Zone tiles don't extend along highways or next to roundabouts.
Because the tiles extend along both sides, the best way to fill space is by placing roads twelve tiles apart. That way none of the land between the roads goes to waste. Something else to consider is that if players widen or shrink a road, the zone tiles will expand out or pull in to match.
To start coloring these tiles in, players should go to the Zones tool along the bottom of the screen. It's the icon with the blue, yellow, purple, and green tiles. Next, choose the desired zone type by clicking on a tab and then selecting an available option. At this point, players can paint in zone tiles using one of three tool modes.
- Fill Mode is the paint bucket icon. It'll fill in all the zone tiles in the same block, even if that means following different streets. This is the easiest way to fill in a lot of tiles all at once.
- Marquee Mode is the dotted line icon. Click and drag the cursor to create a box, and all the zone tiles in the box will change to the selected type. Players should point the camera straight down before using this tool to avoid painting the wrong tiles.
- Paint Mode is the paintbrush icon. When this mode is active, every tile the cursor touches will change to the chosen type. This tool mode is best for getting lost corner tiles and otherwise touching up an area after going through with the marquee or fill modes.
Citizens can only build on zone tiles when the closest tiles are colored in, and when the tiles aren't covered up by a civic building or other obstruction. Players can make use of this by coloring in all the tiles along a side road aside from the single strip along the main road. This way all the buildings in the zone will face the side road, which helps reduce traffic congestion.
To remove a construction zone, players can use the same tools but must hit the cancel or erase button instead. On PC, this is the right mouse button, while on Xbox controllers the button is Y. Players can also replace one zone type with another zone without having to erase the first one.
Residential Zones
Green residential zones are the beating heart of any city. This is where citizens live, and it's where most of a city's property taxes come from. To make them appealing players must build residential zones away from all sources of pollution, including noise pollution sources like busy roads and other zone types. Some residential zone types produce their own noise pollution, like mixed housing and low-rent housing, and so players may want to avoid using them.
Commercial Zones
Blue commercial zones are for companies that sell consumer products and other services aimed at local residents. Players should build them close to residential neighborhoods so customers can reach them, but still keep them some distance away since they generate noise pollution and heavy vehicle traffic. Commercial businesses particularly love medium and high-density residential zones since they place a lot of customers in a concentrated area.
Industrial Zones
Yellow industrial zones are for businesses that create products that commercial businesses sell to consumers. They generate air, ground, and noise pollution and can contaminate groundwater reservoirs, so keep them far away from residential areas and water pumps. They should also be downwind so the air pollution goes somewhere else. Still, industrial zones are good for job creation and can send their finished products to local commercial zones.
Office Zones
Purple office zones are for a special kind of industry that produces "immaterial goods." This includes software, media, financial services, and other things that don't directly generate pollution or waste. This means office zones can sit closer to residential neighborhoods, though they still generate a low amount of noise pollution.
Specialized Industry Zones
Specialized industry extracts raw resources like coal, ore, oil, and livestock from natural resource deposits on the map. These resources can then travel to regular industrial buildings to turn into commercial products.
Specialized industry works differently from every other zone type. Instead of coloring in zone tiles, players set down a building that has an activity district on the back. Players must then create an area for the industry to work in. This area should include as much of the natural resource as possible, but it can't cross a road, it can't overlap with another industry, and it must stay within the building's activity radius. Players can always adjust the shape of the activity area later.
Cities: Skylines 2 is available now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.