Cities: Skylines II – Tips on Low Res Demand, Budget and More

I am by all means not an expert but like many of you who have started out playing CS2, I was frustrated with many recurring issues, like seemingly endless demand for Low Residential.

After watching some help videos and starting over, I found some things that seem to work. It is hard to know what is a bug or isn’t a bug since the game is no where near polished but it can function with some trial and error.

Above is the current size of my city.

Note, I apologize in advance for misspellings, grammar and errors.

Education

Probably the biggest item that needs to be developed. I would recommend getting your college down early and then your University soon after.

You need these two buildings for a variety of reasons.

1. Students want smaller spaces than families. Low Res buildings are for families.

2. Colleges and Universities produce Educated and Very Well Educated people. Both of whom are employed at a variety of your buildings especially Office Buildings.

3. Employment and Jobs, which are addressed later, are a mix of different education levels. Your education system needs to provide for all four education levels.

Uneducated, (level 0)
Poorly Educated, – Elementary
Educated, – High School
Well Educated, and – College
Highly Educated – University

As you can see with this screen shot, there is low demand for Low Res, but a healthy demand for Medium and High Res.

Also note the healthy demand for Office Space.

Your college should get a lot of students. I added bus lines to feed into the college.

This doesn’t get rid of the High Rent icons, but as you can see, its no longer a major issue.

A Technical University is also worth adding as it gives a nice boost to Office and Industry.

Don’t Over Zone Low Res

I also didn’t over zone Low Res like before. I always zoned more Med Res when demanded and occasionally added Low Res. It was more about keep the employment and jobs inline.

Unemployment and Jobs

Here is my first play through. Notice all the Low Res I zoned. But also see my unemployment.

I didn’t realize I didn’t have enough jobs. I find this info screen (located where the graph icon is on the bottom to the right) to be invaluable. Early game you have to make sure to have enough jobs.

My new city.
Note at the start of the 5 year, I needed more jobs.

Detailed View

If you click on any building that uses employees, you can hover your mouse over the employees and get a break down of each education level. Here is the Geothermal Plant for example.

Note a few things, one, if there are missing employees, the building will not operate at its max efficiency. So in this case, less power would be generated.

Two, Uneducated Workers are not an education class, think of them as level 0. Some factories and other buildings will employ them.

Universities (all types) mint the Highly Educated. While College mint Well Educated.

Early Game

Found some good advice on Youtube where he recommended building a Geothermal Plant and then to use it to export the power. I recommend finding this video as it is easy to follow and implement.

Later, when I unlocked the water treatment plant, I exported my excess water too. And I also have the incineration plant providing power which goes into the export pool.

As you can see above, the export fees are substantial.

Do export water, unlock tiles to the edge of the screen. Then drag a water pipe to the edge and it will create an outside connection.

As far as I can tell, if you are connected to the outside, excess power and water will be automatically sold.

Production

I know there is some controversy surrounding how the industries work in the game at release. With that said, I enjoyed building the raw material industries to make the city self sufficient.

In theory, this should mean your city is not paying to import the raw materials, like grain, ore etc. Thus saving the city money.

Even if bugged, these buildings do create jobs, so building them is still worthwhile.

TIP: If you build ten of each industries buildings (there are four) you unlock a signature building. For example, build ten mining buildings (Ore, Coal etc) and you unlock a signature factory which provides jobs and buffs. You can also just build ten of these, you don’t have to zone the are, and once you unlock, delete the ones you are not using.

Taxes and Fees

I kept my taxes up around 15% and only recently started to lower them. At the start I had negative taxes for Well Educated to help fill jobs at the Power Plant but once you start minting your own Well Educated people you can up the taxes.

If you unlock parking, parking lots will fill up fast. I charge at least 15, an increase of 50% from the base of ten. My buses I also charge but usually discount them to around 6.

Note this image was saved a little after the first one so the amounts may not add up to the total pictured above.

So this is a problem that far has escaped any easy solution.

But I do find two things that help.

1. Parking. Your sims can’t go shopping if they can’t park. Parking spaces help with that. So far, my parking maxs out soon after I build it but it sometimes does help make the icon go away.

2. Public Transport. Giving your Sims a way to get to the shopping area, instead of driving.

Of course, this could be a bug, but It’s probably combination of different factors that are not readily apparent.

Keep this graphic in mind as it does provide a base level of requirements if you have having trouble with demand. Note the mix of Low and High skill labor which means education level.

I hope you find this helpful. We are not even a week into release (I wrote this on 10/27) so there is plenty more I am sure we will discover.