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Cities: Skylines is currently the most complex city-building strategy game right now—until Cities: Skylines 2 is released. As is the case with complex stuff, more moving parts means higher chances of dysfunction. And it’s easier to build a dysfunctional city in the game rather than a functioning one. The best Cities: Skylines mods, however, can help with this unintended disaster.
The city-builder game has been a playground for gamers and modders alike. With a thriving modding community and a plethora of quality-of-life enhancements, the game has reached new heights of creativity and customization. Hence, we recommend the best Cities: Skylines mods that can make city-building less painful.
Traffic Manager President Edition
The most glaring challenge in Cities: Skylines is managing traffic flow within your city. Bad traffic in the game is a consequence of poor city planning, but with the limited road thresholds and lack of space, it’s easy to mess up your city’s flow.
Traffic Manager: President Edition steps in to provide powerful tools for players. It allows you to fine-tune parking and customize roads with stop signs, lane priorities, and even roundabout rules.
Traffic would still be a challenge even with this mod, but it will be a lot more manageable. At the very least, your in-game economy won’t be ruined just because of a few dozen bottlenecks.
Roundabout Builder
Road management can be a headache in Cities: Skylines. You’ll find yourself over-relying on roundabout roads to keep traffic smooth. But even then, placing roundabouts can be frustrating and janky.
The Roundabout Builder mod simplifies the process. With just a few clicks, this mod clears roads and connects them to a brand-new roundabout: no more tedious road modifications or traffic bottlenecks. Roundabout Builder streamlines road construction and keeps traffic flowing smoothly.
It’s an ideal companion to the Traffic Manager mod.
Precision Engineering
For city builders who demand more control in their creations, Precision Engineering is a must-have mod. The mod is yet another simplification of a rather annoying grid-snapping mechanic in the game.
It offers angle snapping, guidelines, and detailed information on angles and distances when placing roads, railways, pipelines, or power lines. Whether you’re striving for symmetrical designs or need precise information while building, this mod is indispensable.
Realistic Population Revisited
Realistic Population Revisited addresses a common issue in Cities: Skylines— the rather odd population distribution in buildings. This mod redefines building populations, ensuring that smaller houses house one family each while skyscrapers accommodate an appropriate number of families.
It also adjusts commercial and industrial buildings, creating a more balanced and authentic city simulation experience.
More importantly, downtown areas won’t be abandoned and turned into crime slums just because businesses are missing a few workers.
Building Themes
Building Themes mod allows you to create distinctive neighborhoods effortlessly. By assigning themes to individual districts, you can maintain a cohesive and visually appealing cityscape.
Whether you want to recreate historical eras or craft unique aesthetics, Building Themes offers an easy way to style your city. Plus, you can download additional themes from the Workshop to expand your options.
Consider this an aesthetic mod rather than something that can simplify the game’s complicated controls for you. It’s still as welcome as such mods.
Ambient Sounds Tuner
Do you find the sound effects repetitive or uninspired? Especially those fake Twitter popups?
Ambient Sounds Tuner comes to the rescue, enabling you to customize the game’s ambient noises. Say goodbye to annoying sound effects and enjoy a more varied auditory experience. This mod lets you create a city soundscape that suits your preferences and makes the cities feel less generic.
Extra Landscaping Tools
Extra Landscaping Tools empowers you to reshape your city’s terrain effortlessly. There’s a way to do this without mods, but again, it’s easy to mess up, and the options are limited.
Whether you’re crafting a custom map or enhancing your existing city, this mod provides some personalized landscaping tools. It allows you to add rocks, natural features, trees, and adjustable water levels.
This way, you can plot out the perfect city without worrying about the terrain’s restrictions.
Move It
Move It is a game-changing mod for creative city builders. It grants you the capability to move objects, buildings, etc., within the game with precision. This includes large structures, trees, props, decals, roads, and surfaces.
The implications are huge here since you no longer have to demolish important buildings or districts just to reshape your city or remove traffic bottlenecks. To use Move It more effectively, it’s best to pair it with Prop Precision and Prop Snapping for seamless integration.
Prop Line Tool
Prop Line Tool simplifies the process of placing props and trees in your city. With a single drag, you can populate your city with props and trees, eliminating the need for manual placement. This mod enhances efficiency, making tasks like forest creation, fencing, and road bollard placement a breeze.
Prop Line Tool can save you time and enhance your city’s aesthetics since you can now draw districts and ornaments as though you were placing roads.
All 25 Areas Purchasable
Cities: Skylines typically limits the number of areas you can purchase, and you need to hit milestones as your city grows before you can expand.
All 25 Areas Purchasable breaks this restriction by unlocking the entire map for purchase, allowing you to expand without constraints. Now, you can create sprawling metropolises that cover every inch of your map, unlocking endless possibilities for urban planning and design.
