NEW
- Added a large hospital with a capacity of 800. (2.5x the default stage 2 hospital). Unlocks with 200,000 city population and 95 health score.
- Added a large elementary school with a capacity of 5,400. (3x the stage 4 school). Unlocks with 150,000 city population.
- Added stage 6 retail buildings. Require 1,800 points of retail demand to develop. Pre-update retail buildings must be manually rezoned (destruction not necessary) to force the new max stage to be set.
CHANGES & BUG FIXES
- Roads were not connecting automatically with existing adjacent tiles.
- Redesigned ground/underground rail connector. Rails should now visually connect properly.
- Enhance zoning tool accessibility.
- In some cases tooltips were not staying on screen for more than a few seconds and so could not be read.
- Improved shadows at far distances.
- Increased visible amount of cars, trains and pedestrians.
- The speed at which the amount of printed money decreases is now displayed in the budget window. Added tooltip.
- The speed at which the amount of printed money decreases is now based on the inflation rate and the cash flow (increments of 15% of the current cash flow when the inflation is near zero). Printed money only decreases if the cash flow is superior to +$10. [requested by MotionMan51 and Romulo]
- Increased by 50% the effect of printed money on the exchange rate.
- Fasten speed at which piled up trash is collected.
- If not unpaused after loading a city the balance cash flow was incorrect.
- Updated tips on loading screens.
- Changed the first two texts of the tutorial to give a little more background about the game.
- Changed some news title for more accurate and useful information and added new lines for when there's nothing to report.
- News submenu scrolling was painfully slow.
- Scrolling in any UI elements no longer affects the camera.
- Sped up keyboard zoom.
- Closed ports and airports were still counted for the total trade capacity.
- Changed the number and type of jobs created in arcologies. Now for every 100 occupants: 3 retail jobs, 6 office jobs and 14 high tech jobs. Census tool was displaying incorrect number of jobs. [reported by Omnius]
- Decreased the number of office jobs induced by each advanced manufacturing job by 6%.
- Slum dwellers now create retail demand too.
- Increased pollution emitted by coal power plants and incinerators.
- The balance red warning icon was displayed too late and inconsistently.
- Facilitated placement of wind turbines (tool now shows 6x6 borders).
- Graph for GDP was getting inverted for very high values, now clamped at 2 billion (visual only). [reported by Romulo]
- Calendar year now starts at 1 instead of 2021 (for new cities).
WHAT'S NEXT
11 major updates with new content and 17 smaller patches have been released since the game's launch in September 2021.
I've been monitoring feedback, reviews, refund requests and sales number very closely in the last months so as to take a decision regarding the future of Citystate II. Now I've got one good news and one bad news.
The bad news first. Despite the updates and some marketing efforts, sales and feedback have not improved much. Continuing to work on Citystate II is therefore becoming a little riskier on the long term. The most common requests such as mod support and curved roads cannot be added to Citystate II without having to remake half of the game. I also realized that the complexity of the game itself and
the lack of sandbox features makes it really difficult for it to reach a broader audience.
But here's the good news. Citystate II has sold enough copies since launch that I can confidently invest the next couple of years at least into the development of a new game.
Development of a third Citystate has in fact already begun. To help me figure out some of the core game design choices and if you want to know more about my plans go ahead and fill out this short survey.
Minor updates to Citystate II should still be expected so if you encounter any bug please let me know!
