Review of Natural Disasters Additions to Cits: Skylines

Gradostroy Cits: Skylines, given the announcement of the sequel, is approaching the end of its development cycle. So it’s time to talk about those DLCs that at one time bypassed me. And I will start with Natural Disasters – additions dedicated to natural disasters and the fight against them.

Break – do not build!

Adding various disasters in Cits: Skylines occurred after a year and a half from the release of the main game. And even before the official DLC there were already mods with all kinds of floods and other unpleasant things.

It is understandable. The main lesson in any urban planning game is construction. And no matter how large the card is, sooner or later everything will be built up. So to expand the city to infinity – it is impossible to rebuild, optimizing traffic flows and maximizing demographic indicators – too, and this lesson is already so -so. What remains?

It remains to come up with a problem that would have to be solved by perestroika and reconfiguration of urban infrastructure. And various disasters, calamities and other misfortunes destroying buildings (and sometimes the landscape itself) come in handy. It was not for nothing that in every part of the SIM CITY there were tornado, floods, fires and even the invasion of monsters.

Addition Natural Disasters is limited only by natural disasters. No Godzill or aliens raids. But the remaining arsenal is still quite diverse: tornado, fire, thunderstorm, earthquake, shedding of the soil, the destruction of the building, tsunami, the fall of an asteroid.

Each disaster can be caused by yourself, or activated “random disasters”. In the first case, you must go to the menu “Relief” (logically xD) and select the corresponding tab. At the same time, there will be another slider on the left, which regulates the scale/strength of the elements (exception is the destruction of buildings, one building that you point to) is collapsing there). For a random, you can set the frequency with which misfortunes will be collapsed to your city. And also whether fires will spread – by default the option is turned on and each burning tree or building has a great chance to set fire to neighbors.

The fire and destruction of buildings begin almost immediately as soon as you click in the place that you want to make a “starting point”. With destroyed buildings, nothing can already be done – only to demolish and build another. Or, in the case of buildings of services, you can choose to “restore” the building in the info-panels of the building. But you can fight with a fire if you have fire engines or helicopters. And in the case of the “fire distribution” turned on, timely intervention will not be superfluous.

Earthquake and shedding of the soil also begin where you click. But they begin with some delay. Therefore, do not spam them if you do not want a few underground shocks in a row. However, the activation of disasters already has a certain “kuldown”, which is the greater, the more power is set in the settings.

The main danger of earthquakes and subsidence is that they not only destroy buildings, but also change the landscape. Therefore, you have to not only rebuild, but also spend money on alignment of the earth. Also, do not forget about the underground infrastructure (water supply, metro), which will almost certainly be damaged, especially closer to the epicenter. And for a snack – with intensive earthquakes in buildings, fires may occur.

Thunderstorms are much less destructive – from the entire infrastructure, lightning strokes destroy only power lines. However, lightning can also cause a fire. True, the fire does not spread during the rain, so there is a chance to quickly put out all the foci of the fire until the thunderstorm ends. But if you don’t hurry or there are few services, then the fire can already become a serious problem.

It is worth noting that the thunderstorm (especially strong) takes place on a large territory around the “starting point”. But Thornado is a much more “localized” thing, but more destructive. The funnel most often moves in a straight line from one edge of the screen to another, always passing through the place where you called it. On the way, she sucks cars, animals (once I had a hurricane along the farm) and in general everything that was not fortified in the ground. All this rotates in the air and falls from time to time, carrying additional destruction.

Buildings, roads and other ground https://casinosnogamstop.co.uk/review/madcasino/ infrastructure, which is on the way, Thornado is unusable. So again – either the demolition of the debris and the construction is again, or expensive repairs. Unfortunately, the game does not provide for “partial destruction” when the building could withstand in a hurricane but after that it was not completely to work.

It’s funny that tsunami is much less destructive than air vortices. Yes, they wash off cars and other objects, but buildings most often remain whole (albeit abandoned). Only if the house completely goes under water, it risks being destroyed.

Another thing is that after the wave splashes ashore, the water will decrease back for quite some time. And during such floods, roads, services and even water supply will not work under water.

Also note that for the tsunami “starting point” little means little. The wave will simply come with a wall from the edge to the edge from the side of the map, where the most water. Of course, if you have only a small river there, then the flow most likely stalls somewhere on the edge. But if your city is on the seashore or worse, on the island ..

Meteor is undoubtedly the most spectacular of the disasters, which can be compared only to Thornado. In terms of destructiveness, it all depends on the size and place of the fall. Of course, the most harm will disaster if it happens in the center of your metropolis. The crater will completely ruin the surface for the construction and in addition there the underground infrastructure will probably be destroyed there. And along the edges of the funnel will be full of sunbathed and destroyed buildings.

But even falling outside the city, the meteor is able to cause you a flashed fire. Or even small tsunami if it falls into the river or sea.

Salvation of drowning

Although the rage of elements is great (especially when setting the intensity of disasters to the maximum), you are not entirely helpless in front of it. First, you have firefighters to fight fires. Moreover, in Natural Disasters, fire helicopters were added, which can extinguish the fire far from the roads.

Secondly, the addition of the “Salvation Service” actually contains. One with cars, the other with helicopters. And rescuers have dogs who can find residents of those buried under the collapsed buildings. Yes, such mechanics are present in the game, so do not rush with demolition or restructuring of collapsing buildings.

By the way, the addition added helicopters for ambulance and the police so that they could work when the disaster destroyed the roads.

Thirdly, in DLC there are already several buildings that help fight the floods that remained after the city covers the tsunami. The pumping station, the tank that allows the water pipe – all this will significantly accelerate the pumping of water and, as a result, it will cease to block your roads faster.

By the way, you can also fight the tsunami by means of the main game. Build the diving channels, barriers, the city itself on the hill – then your buildings will be able to get only the largest waves.

With earthquakes or meteors falling from space, nothing can be done, but the population can be evacuated. For this, shelters are available to you – there are two types, smaller and more. Each of them is equipped with several buses that will collect people. But you can also build radio extensions to notify the population in a certain radius – then they can run to asylum and without a bus.

But do people have time to run to the shelter, overtaking an impending wave or flying asteroid? – You ask. Will have time if they warn them in time. And especially for this, the addition is in a radar for cosmic observations, following the currents and water level buoy, a seismic activity sensor and even a weather station that warns of the most powerful thunderstorms.

Remember that with manual activation of the disaster, it occurs with a delay? So, this is precisely related to the mechanics of prediction of disasters. The higher the budget of your service, the earlier and more precisely the prediction. And the higher the chance that your inhabitants will have time to evacuate or hide in the shelter (if any).

By the way, if you listen to one of the in -game radio stations during the game, then during the broadcast of the warning music or advertising will be interrupted and you will personally hear about the threatening disaster. Decorative trifle, but nice.

Fire towers act in a similar way. Only they do not predict the fire (after all, it can appear at any time), but report it when the forest fire is in the visibility zone. After all, extinguishing fires in the game is automatic, so it is better to call services in advance until the line of fire approached the buildings. Of course, they will find out about the fire in the buildings of the service immediately.

You can also spend on certain decrees in order to reduce the risk of harm from the elements. It is especially worth noting the “use of thunderbones”, which reduces almost to zero a chance to a fire in a building when a lightning strike.

And so that you are filled with a hand in the use of all the above funds, five scenarios are attached to DLC. To develop the city on the plain, somewhere and then there are a tornado. Establish transport links between several villages in extreme conditions. Build a city on the archipelago, which is regularly rolled by tsunami. To populate the lowlands gradually going under water (you will decide whether you will buy land plots trying to get away from the water, or try to block it with relief means). And finally, save the already developed city from a bunch of disasters, including the destruction of the local dam.

You can make your own scenario in the editor. Which, by the way, appeared in the game with the release of DLC.

There are also three cards in the kit, two of which (the archipelago and Prussian peaks) are just used in scenarios. But the third came out some completely unprincipled-just a plain separated by a river. You can do this in an editor in an editor.

As I said above, random natural disasters (and the fight against them) is one of the main ways to extend interest in the city when it was completely rebuilt. Therefore, Natural Disasters is one of those additions without which game experience in CITIES: SkyLines will be incomplete.

The fact that in destroyed buildings people can be littered and their salvation services must be sought by their searse in the script of disasters. And the opportunity to put firefighters, doctors and even the police on helicopters is also beneficial during the city’s calm life.

So Natural Disasters, I definitely recommend everyone who see the end of the CITIES cycle: SkyLines wants to buy a game and thinks which DLC is worth taking them in the kit.