Why Can’t I Buy More Land in Cities: Skylines?
Cities: Skylines is a popular city-building simulation game where you get to design, plan, and manage your very own city. However, one of the common issues players face is that they can’t buy more land. In this article, we’ll explore the reasons behind this limitation and the ways to work around it.
Limitation Explained
The reason behind the limitation on buying land in Cities: Skylines is due to the game’s design and its complexity. The game uses an AI system to simulate city growth, and increasing the land area would make the game too complex to balance. The developers of the game have intentionally designed the game to have a fixed map size with 441 unlockable tiles. This design ensures that the game is neither too easy nor too challenging, and the experience is consistent for all players.
How Many Plots Can You Buy?
In the vanilla game, you can buy up to 9 plots of land, which is a major limitation. However, if you use mods, you can increase the number of plots to 81 or even more. Using mods can greatly expand the game’s capabilities and offers more flexibility in designing and managing your city.
Why Can’t You Buy More Land in the Normal Game?
In the normal game, buying more land is not an option because the game is designed to have a finite play area. The AI needs to simulate city growth, traffic, and infrastructure in a specific area, which is limited to the number of tiles available. With more land, the simulation would become too complex to manage, leading to inefficiencies and unrealistic scenarios. The game’s balance relies on the fixed map size, and increasing the land area would disrupt this balance.
What are the Trade-Offs of Limiting Land Acquisition?
While limiting land acquisition simplifies the game’s balance, it also limits your creativity and freedom. Having more land would give players more opportunities to build a more diverse and extensive city, with more residents and businesses. However, increasing the land area would:
- Increase Complexity: More land would introduce complexity in managing city services, traffic, and infrastructure, making the game harder to balance.
- Dilute City Character: With more land, players might focus on sprawl rather than creating a strong, compact city.
- Affect Resource Availability: More land would also affect resource availability, including water, power, and waste management, requiring further adjustments to the game mechanics.
What Are Your Options?
So, what can you do to work around the limitations and still build an extensive city? Here are a few options:
- Modding: Use mods that increase the number of unlockable tiles, such as the City-Scoped Mod or the Extended Map Mod. These mods can add 81 or more unlockable tiles to your map, giving you more creative freedom.
- Master City Planning: Focus on optimal city planning, optimizing density, and building strategically. This approach requires more management and planning, but you can still create an amazing city within the fixed play area.
- Resign Yourself to Limited Options: Accept the game’s limitations and focus on what you can do with the available land. With great planning and management, you can still create an outstanding city within the vanilla game’s constraints.
In conclusion, the limitation on buying land in Cities: Skylines is a design choice meant to balance the game and ensure a consistent experience. While it might restrict some players’ creativity, mods and master city planning provide alternative solutions to build the city of your dreams. With a little creativity and know-how, you can still design and manage an impressive and thriving city within the confines of the game.