The New Ultimate Beginners Guide to Cities Skylines 2 

Hope you enjoyed the video! Special thanks to Palm's Time for letting me use the map! Check out their channel here - www.youtube.com/@PalmsTime Want to see the save? It's available on Paradox mods - mods.paradoxplaza.com/mods/84973/Any

You make this look so much easier than it actually is. You commented at one point that by laying out all the roads first you are developing the city backwards. I'd love to see you do a video where you try and build as close as possible to the way a normal city would develop naturally (Specifically focusing on how the road layout would organically develop rather than having the foundations already down).

Oh thank god this series is back after economy 2.0. All my successful cities at this point are played with all tiles unlocked so I can build industry early.

"A little bit off, that's character." A phrase I will now use to describe my uncle.

Even with 260 hours in the game I found this to be useful. I took a long break while they were fixing the game and this kind of got me back on track to push through builder's block.

I’ve been following you for years and several other content creators, mainly for CS1. There is no one that comes even close to you in making tutorials. You have such pedagogical capabilities and you put them masterfully in these outstanding didactic guides. Thank a lot and congratulations

I really think after more mods and updates happen over the next few months this game is gonna finally be what people have been waiting for.

Man you are SUCH an artist. This right here is ART, I don't understand how you can be so talented, geniuenly amazing work.

42:55 did I hear the pain in your voice from learning that lesson about coal power plants needing garbage collected...

Woah.. what are the odds I legitamly just looked up newer beginner guides wishing you had one. Thank you for the great videos!

My man. Thanks for the video. Just picked up Skylines 2 earlier this week and have a long weekend. Always enjoy your content, brother. Much love from NC.

Thank you so much, I put off the game a few months ago and just now I've been coming back and with your videos and other creator's like Infrastructurist and FewCandy I've managed to get a basic understanding again, along with mods. Hopefully this guide helps me after these new updates!

Each time you release a new vid, I know I'm in for a comfy 1h coffee-drinking, relaxing hour

CPP: Road building is more of an art than science Bifa while holding his lane mathematics book: *explodes*

I'd love if you had a road building masterclass video. How to determine what the street to call main street is, how to make couplets work; approprate highway links and spacing, and how to realistically transition between them. I think traffic is sometimes the hardest part to understand sometimes. Being able to create an effective road network would bring a lot of value to a lot of players.

A beginner's guide is just what I want! So many of these videos assume you know how to do a decent interchange! Thx

I just got this game tonight and it is downloading now. I've never played it before. I did love playing Sim Copter and Sim City many, many years ago. I am probably showing my age at this point. Lol. I think that was well over 20 years ago. Thank you for making this video. I've watched a couple the past hour or so and this one is explaining the depth of a "good start" immediately it seems. This game is much more involved than I realized and that is amazing. Looking forward to playing it now and looking forward to binge watching your videos. You have a new sub.

One suggestion for the next time we do lots of road building, if you could talk a bit more about how/why you angle the grids you do and slow that bit down that would help a ton! Maybe you could use the draw tool to mark the key orientation points along the map like you did with the industry/community areas? I was building along, but my second grid orientation was all off so I had to make some adjustments. Once I figured out why you oriented the way you did, it made sense, just got confused while following along ^^;.

i love that you’re not only teaching us about cities: skylines 2, but also some irl city planning !!

You make great guides and I love your story based approach to simulating. You've inspired my multiple playthroughs. I haven't played economy 2.0 yet but i'm looking forward to it.

This isn't just a tutorial, it's a masterclass. You make city building seem so elegant and like works of art. The way the grids come together and the way you connect them all is just so seemless

Even after 250 hours, i learned so much more with this "Beginners Guide", especially about zoning and the perfect grid. Awesome. Thank you very much!

This video is soo good. I didn’t even realize how badly I wanted this until I watched it. Phenomenal work here, Phil.

I came back to CS2 after Eco 2.0 and I'm loving it so far

Bro you are the best! I've been watching the Magnolia series and others long before I started playing CS2. Now that I've started playing again and watching the new 2.0 series, provides a whole new perspective on the game for me! Thanks!

Every few minutes my mind was blown after seeing you use a mechanic I didn’t know existed/how it worked, and I have 200+ hours. Had to subscribe after this episode. Can’t wait for interchanges!

I've learned so many things watching this video. Thank you CPP! Enjoyed these types of videos from Cities Sylines. Glad to see you've brought this back for CS2! 🎉

the video i've been waiting for! as someone who is kind of overwhelmed with what mods introduce and functionally do as i'm still learning the basics, seeing what you can do with the vanilla toolset with these most recent patches versus the nightmares we were making at launch is pretty incredible

Love this series! Thank you! I really struggle with organic looking cities but you make it look so easy! I'm watching this video for the second time because I am very impressed with how you handle city layouts and I wanna make my cities pretty and successful 😅

Thanks to you I have my first city that hit 100k people. Great vid and keep up the good work!

I had NO IDEA you could delete trees like that. :slaps forehead: THANK YOU. * Also: Respect. Your. Topography! 😆

I just started my 2 week Cities Skylines addiction and found myself looking into getting CS2, so the release of this video is honestly peak timing. Looking forward to finding my way into CS2 through these videos :)!

I'd like to learn how to manage traffic in densely populated urban areas, especially for a few blocks. Traffic is easy to control at the start, but it quickly becomes a problem once there are many people around

I like how you draw exactly where you want the road to go even if there will be a conflict, and then adjust the conflicting roads to accomidate the new road. This is really great for the over-all shape of the grid! I've always avoided the conflicting roads and wind around them, treating exiting roads as immutable and having an extra wonkjy grid. CS 2 road tools help a lot too, but thanks I learned something

I’ve just started playing this for the first time and it’s a lot different from the first game which was a lot easier than this new one, hope you continue with this guide series for CS2

Thanks for doing this series, was greatly needed as a lot of the older series approaches simply don't work nowadays since the economy update so it's nice to see things being approached from the ground-up rather than just resuming a already thriving old city that was founded on now impossible foundations and just tweaking it. :)

That is a great map choice, I enjoy building on this one too. I'm really looking forward to this series! 6:48 - While Ore deposits do not deplete, Oil wells will run dry. However, specialised industry areas function not only as extractors but also as processors. They will import resources once natural supplies have been exhausted.

Since the Economy 2.0 update I was struggling to afford any service even at 50% budget. But going in following this guide has helped immensely, I have all my services at milestone 5 and haven't had to mess with the budget, and a decent positive revenue. I see now that actually planning out a city layout matters more than before and now its all making sense. Thank you for your work on this, it's greatly appreciated!

I decided to play along. Something I've wanted to do with a content producer's game series for a long time, but never committed to. This 1 hour video took me about 4 hours to watch, with many re-winds to figure out what I'd missed. For example, right when you said we're in the green, I was so close to running out of money and I was still deep in the red. I very narrowly avoided disaster by rewinding and finding the part where you adjusted the taxes. It didn't take me long to realize I was never going to match your angles and road placement exactly, so my city doesn't look quite like yours. Close, but not quite. Especially where the grids mesh together, there's a lot more jank in mine.

Love to see the return of this series post Eco 2.0. I like that you remind folks in this video that real cities have imperfect curves/lanes. A little imperfection adds to realism.

This is the most useful Cities Skylines 2 video out there. None can top it. Thank you for being extremely thorough, you've got a skill for teaching. I absolutely cannot wait to see this series come together!

I want to thank you very much for updating the beginners guide to Cities Skyline 2, it's much appreciated. 😊

This is by far the best cities skylines 2 video I have seen. I always struggle especially at the start where I end up with the most ugly, boring and unrealistic grid possible.. Even though you started it as a grid, it's still not boring and it looks realistic. I love some of the little details you explained, so many things I didn't really think of that are going to make my new city I plan to start tonight after work look so much nicer. You really have inspired me to make my next (and first) masterpiece!

Love your videos! I quit C:S2 shortly after its release since it was unpolished and was missing content but it seems in the past months things have changed for the better. I might take on the game again later this year, your work is so inspiring!

This is so much more difficult than you make it seem. But definitely helps you’re the goat

This video was AWESOME. It was entertaining and had so many helpful, highly applicable tips. Well thought out and thorough. Coming back for first time since launch. Thank you!!!

one of the best city tours from this channel in a while. You really get a feel and appreciation for the work done

I haven’t really played cs2 yet, but seeing how you can use the surface tool to blend lots in with their surroundings is a game changer. Zoned curved roads used to drive me nuts.

I got so intimitated at the fact that you laid out SOOOOOO MANY streets in the beginning, i didnt think of laying down roads so far ahead

Hey! I was just trying to follow your last UBG playlist and ran into issues when you were saying: "let's just buy all these tiles". This is perfect! I did eventually figure out my own city after some trial and error with the sliders but it's still nice to follow along with a more experienced player while I get used to all the mechanics.

Nice to see the new start with the economy 2.0. Only thing I don't care for with your start, is that the loaded map seems to have way more area unlocked to start with. So, starting with a regular map doesn't allow for the industry boom you set up from the start.

It's great to see that CS2 is finally heading in the right direction after such a rocky start. I've been holding off on it until the bugs get ironed out and right now my biggest concern is over game performance/optimisation. Since you're starting a new Beginner's Guide, I think that now would also be a good time to make a new video addressing the state of the game's performance following Economy 2.0, assuming that there is any significant difference in that regard.

I really appreciated this video. I gave up on CS2 quite soon after the initial launch because I was struggling with the demand and economy. I feel like this video has given me some tools to use and it has motivated me to give it another go. Hope you continue this series!

Hey, wanted to say a big thanks to you for making another ultimate beginners guide. You make the game so accessible with your knowledge and friendly videos. Easily the best Cities: Skylines content creator in my book. Keep up the great work! :)

I've always wanted to play like a planner and you obviously with your background. Watched you for years and always followed how you build. Thank you for this CPP

One thing I think you should be mindful of when you landscape fields is how close your trees are to the field. Not only does it shade the border crops but it also makes it less forgiving to operate the equipment like sprayers and seeders. It’s quite common to find dirt roads around fields but I havnt experimented with that.

Great guide. You clearly make the best videos. Maybe a good hint for new players: As soon as budgets are available raise electricity fee to 112% and water to 108%. They dont complain but Your wind turbines will soon bring money instead of costs. Also activate road side parking fees for districts as soon as possible.

Hey there! Just watched your awesome video! Can't wait to see more guides for this game from you. Hoping your next video guide will cover budget systems. I've found a cool strategy to make lots of money early on by tweaking taxes and cutting back on services. Even before hitting level 3, I've been able to rake in up to 4k profit. Once at level 4, I've hit 20k+ through parking, parks, and mostly taxes. And guess what? City growth stays pretty steady at level 4 happiness, and honestly, maintaining level 5 happiness doesn't seem to make a huge difference in growth. Thanks for sharing the tips!

Ive been watching skylines 2 content since it released, but held off on buying the game due to the "issues" at launch. Yesterday (after a lot of updates and fixes) i decided to finally buy the game and here you are with this beautiful video to help me along. Great timing man, thanks dude and gratz on 700k subs! 🥳

I’m so glad you are doing this series again! I’ve only played CS1 on console and I decided to make the jump to a PC so I could finally play CS2. Excited to follow along and learn how to play the game

Thank you so much for making a New beginners guide! I just picked up the game and all the other guides out there are not helping me as they all came out before the economy patch!

I didn't realize how nervous I was about going back to the game after the economy update untill I saw this and suddendly wasn't anymore! So helpful, thanks Phil :)

For the neighborhood called Chester Grove just out of town from Sugar Grove - I’d like to suggest Mt Kinderhook. That’s the nickname of Martin van Buren, who became President right after Michigan attained statehood (and so I’d presume around when Superior did too), so I can see it as a fitting name for the now-flattened hill. And then we can have another Van Buren Street in the neighborhood (don’t rename Underhill Street, that one hilariously cuts right through where the hill used to be!).

Apparently, I needed this... Just started playing again and realized I have no idea what I'm doing anymore lol

Being a fairly experienced C:S 1 and still having some hours in C:S2 but I hadn't played in a while and this helped my mind to get back on track for doing a decent and properly working city, ty

I have been smashing my head against 2.0 so glad you put this out!

Thank you for showing us the mechanics of the Economy 2.0 version of the game. This is super valuable to me; thanks! I have a suggestion for your farm planning, however. Sorry for this being TLDR... I really doubt that most farmers are going to try to maintain forests and tree-lines "all the way around" their farms. It's better to clear that land and keep it mowed or disc'd low to prevent brush fires from destroying the land and buildings, and from killing the livestock or crops. Also, trees will later impede getting around on the land with heavy equipment. If your backhoe blows an engine seal out on the back 40 acres and you need to tow it back to the maintenance shed, you don't want to be forced to drive your tow rig across your already-planted ground just to fetch the backhoe. And driving it across the freshly tilled soil will just crush it and make it harder to plant...or will get your tow rig stuck in the mud. So really, a farm should have access roads or paths to allow you to get to any part of your property without tearing up the crops or damaging the paddocks. And if you have trees, now they will need to be groomed and maintained, or they'll become diseased and stunted. Tree roots will also compete with the crops for water, compost, and fertilizer. And when trees get sick or old, or are struck by lightning or a tornado, they will fall down and crush the crops, or, if they are big enough, could end up blocking access for big machinery such as combines, or harvesters. And then rotting trees actually draw valuable nitrogen OUT of the soil for a long time before they become net-beneficial to the soil. No no, trees need to be removed, or planted only in places that are strategic and logical for what you're doing with that land. Fences with gates are a more realistic option. They will keep livestock in and (most) four-legged predators out. Fences with gates will also prevent poachers and thieves from coming onto the property with their own heavy equipment and stealing your equipment, crops, or livestock, while trees will hide and mask the activities of criminals and vandals. As mentioned above, you might grow a treeline at one end of the property for a windbreak, or maybe for a snowbreak, if you get snow. Or local or state law may require that you build and maintain a tree line along your property that fronts with a certain road or freeway. But I doubt any farmer would want to grow trees on all 4 sides of his property; especially not if he's already in competition with the mega-giant factory farms in the region. Efficiency is the name of the game for the successful farmer, ESPECIALLY if he's a small family farmer, or a member of a farming co-operative. Better to build a fence and treat it with an oil-based protectant (or old motor oil from his great grand daddy's 100 year old John Deere that he still uses every spring) to keep it that wood from rotting. Some of the oldest fences in the world are still "young" by any real measure because they are made of wood and they are preserved regularly with oil, and are maintained in working order by American farmers! It's not unusual to see farms with fences that are 120 years old or older. These fences might be an ugly and greasy black color, but they sure don't need to be replaced just because they got "worn out", no. They only need to be repaired or replaced if they're damaged by weather, vandalism, or an accident. Good series! Thanks for bringing it to us! 😀

This is my favorite series you do! You do a great job explaining decisions to make and what to take into consideration before making them. Keep up the awesome work!

Could you do more on managing traffic I could really use help with that I’ve tried road hierarchy and it helped but traffic for me is still a nightmare.

I find it funny that both him and overcharged egg are using the same map for the CS2 cities lol

Funny enough, I was watching your first tutorial and realized I was going broke with $200,000 and -$10,000 per month.

Must say that I prefer this editing over the other ones that I watched a few months back with the squeaky voices. Muchhhhhhhh better. Keep up the great work Phil👍

This is really helpful! I'll have to use this to design my next city as I couldn't figure out how to stay in the green with the new patch; however, I felt better that I wasn't the only one who experienced this. I'm still concerned that Colossal Order overcorrected a bit in their Economy 2.0 algorithm to be a tad too aggressive but will keep trying!

It's great to see the reboot after the Econ 2.0 patch came out. Hopefully you'll touch on traffic in a future episode as that is usually where I get nailed. I can get my city going and the budget balanced and then I'm nailed by that pesky traffic. I can usually trace this back to a single connection to the highway and a single entrance into the main part of the city (I tend to use custom maps). So, I look forward to seeing how you deal with that in this city. Once again, a very informative and fun video which is one of your mainstays. Thanks, CPP!

You mentioned being able to plant street trees on the roads with the row homes along the railroad tracks. I think that’s a great opportunity for a bike lane collector couplet of sorts, with them terminating at the train station (or meeting at the train station to then continue through downtown to the original beachfront).

Amazing video this should be posted on the steam page as an official game tutorial I learned many new things with 100 hrs already in the game thank you!

So glad this series is back. Your videos always make me want to jump back in. Now that the game has relatively stabilized since lunch, what settings are you using to make everything look so good? I personally can't seem to get the game to look as good.

Nice, I noticed that little zoning trick when eco 2.0 came out and I jumped into vanilla. I did it the other way round, zoning the ends and then filling in. You still sometimes have to delete a road to force the direction but it's okay, those little Skylines quirks just serve to make us feel like we cracked some esoteric riddle when we solve them!

Your CS1 guides are what got me into the game, glad to see there's a new one for the new game!

Wow, thank you for making this video! I just picked up CS2 post econ 2.0 and have been struggling. This is exactly what I’ve been looking for. I can’t wait for episode 2. I do have to admit, I’m still a little confused on roads and what not, I’m hoping that’ll click soon.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm playing CS1 on my Series X, and I start to get overwhelmed after a while. This video was great to watch.

Just installed it on my laptop. Before i begin i need this video for the tutorial 🙌🏻

Everytime I watch these videos I think! Damnn my 500 hour city started wrong let’s start again! 🎉 Great video ❤

Thank You for a new How to Series with the new economy patch. I tried starting a new city after the economy patch released and struggled. This video helps a lot!

This is great, I failed like 4 new cities (could not balance the economy, was really frustrated!) until my current ones somehow generates money. But it is good to actually understand how the things work.

I just modified this map quite a bit this week. Made some smallest mountains a bit more smaller, but still maintained the looked of the island and I also gave the map some custom map tiles instead of the generic grid one. Let me tell you it takes quite a while to do custom map tiles😅 This map would work very well with an Asian inspired build.

OMG thanks for restarting this city. I haven't played CS2 in over a year, I went back in and immediately went bankrupt... 3 times in a row.

Just a easy tips here at 48:55 Build the row home on the corner of the street instead of filling the middle and coming back for the corner. Since you have demands its gonna build right away facing the street you want them to build and you'll be fine to just zone the whole street without having to come back later to fill up the remaining row home zoning on the street corner that you left. Hope that was well explained.

Something you didn't mention was the costs of wages are not shown in the initial costs.

Man thanks you earned a sub, I was just going back to cs2 after many updates incl. economy 2.0. I definitely built along and the city is perfect, but I was really curious like how do you actually come up with where the artery should go, where those intersections, etc. :D like thats so interesting that i would love to watch entire video of you explaining the theory with actual different examples, that woudlve been so cool

Hell yeah! Finally the game seems to become what I was hoping for from day one. Looking forward to follow you for every episode of this series!:)

1:15:29 Fire starts somewhere once again! Look at firefighters trucks at almost middle of screen. 😊

So glad to see this series returning! 🥳 I had so much fun playing along with the first UBG and was a bit sad when it ended, although the reasons were totally understandable and anyway sort of caused me to drift from CS2. Economy 2.0 has brought me back, and I'm thrilled to follow this new series! 😊 One thing I'll be interested to see this time around is how well I'll be able to follow along (or, alternatively, how unique my city's "character" will be 😋). I feel like I was able to relatively easily replicate Twotoria all the way through the first series, but already I'm finding it hard to match how the grids align and how the maid roads cut through them, which has resulted in some very different spaces. Okay for now, but I imagine the impact will accumulate over time, as Newport, its infrastructure, and its services develop. Regardless, should be good fun! Thanks, Phil! --Edit: I don't think the name was touched on, but I feel Newport would be more fun as "Newtoria". 😄

I tend to make blocks of varying size, smaller blocks for reasons discussed here, and large blocks to acommodate larger buildings (universities, High schools with playing fields, ...).

Omg yeeees. I've been wanting this so bad. I'm new to CS2 and I just can't keep a city floating due to economy 2.0! Thank you you're a godsend! ❤

i have found that as soon as you unlock offices subsidising them 1 or 2 % for a while is really profitable. because the demand will be psuedo-constant, and high density offices generate huge amounts of money late game.

Thank you so much for this! I absolutely love playing this and it gets me thinking and being creative. I always just free roamed and did it my way but following along has helped me start my city and learn how to plan! Looking forward to the next video!! Cheers!!!

Thank GOD for CPP. After the economy 2.0 update, all my cities were in the red. Thank you for the simple and easy to follow guide!

What an awsome way to learn the basics fot the game and hit the ground running when building your cities. Thanks for the time to put this together

Theres a long story that proves how the size of the space shuttle (i think, could be another massive object) is directly linked to the spacing between wheels on roman carts. Due to how our trains run on tracks that are spaced the same distance apart and the resulting physical limitations it creates when transporting large, long objects.