Much like the first game, players of Cities: Skylines 2 start in a small section of a much larger play area, and as they hit milestones they can buy sections of the surrounding land and water. However, the size of these squares and the rules for buying them have changed.
Instead of getting one new tile with every other milestone, players can buy a set of tiles that increase in number as they reach each new target. Players of Cities: Skylines 2 get more freedom in shaping their city limits, but this means they also have to be careful which tiles they buy.
How to Get Land Permits
Each milestone in the game comes with a number of land permits. Each permit is good for buying one map tile, and the number of tiles goes up with each milestone.
|
Milestone |
Land Permits |
|---|---|
|
Start |
9 |
|
Tiny Village |
3 |
|
Small Village |
4 |
|
Large Village |
5 |
|
Grand Village |
6 |
|
Tiny Town |
7 |
|
Boom Town |
8 |
|
Busy Town |
9 |
|
Big Town |
10 |
|
Great Town |
12 |
|
Small City |
15 |
|
Big City |
18 |
|
Large City |
21 |
|
Huge City |
24 |
|
Grand City |
28 |
|
Metropolis |
32 |
|
Thriving Metropolis |
36 |
|
Flourishing Metropolis |
41 |
|
Expansive Metropolis |
46 |
|
Massive Metropolis |
51 |
|
Megalopolis |
56 |
|
Total |
441 |
The grid of every starting map is 23 tiles across on each side. This means it holds 529 tiles, including the nine that players start with. This means players can buy all but 88 of the tiles by the end of a game. Some of the tiles are useless thanks to being water or steep mountains, and so players probably won't need every tile.
Each tile covers roughly 96 acres, or 0.4 square kilometers. This means the starting area is smaller than Cities: Skylines 1, but eventually a megalopolis in the sequel will get access to more space than a megalopolis in the original. Players must simply get through the first few milestones to really start expanding.
How to Spend Land Permits
To start buying up new land, players should select the map icon in the lower-left corner. This will bring up the tile grid, and if players have unspent land permits they can buy tiles from this view. Players can select individual tiles, or they can select an area by clicking and dragging across a set of tiles. Each chosen tile will stay selected until players click on it with the cancel button, and they can click and hold with the cancel button to deselect sets of tiles.
Each tile has its own value based on the presence of buildable area and natural resources. For instance, a tile full of resources and buildable land is worth around 30,000 while a tile of ocean is only worth around 9,000. Every milestone also comes with a cash bonus, and so players should be able to afford the land purchase if they do it right after getting the notification.
Since players may want to build specialized industries, it helps to know which tiles hold natural resources. Players can check by choosing the "Natural Resources" view mode, which can stay active in map mode. However, groundwater reservoirs are only visible in "Water" mode.
Something else to know is that players can buy isolated map tiles that aren't connected to their currently owned tiles. A good reason to do this is to create isolated farming towns or exurbs that can use the highways or railroads to ship goods and people to the main city. However, this also means players need to be very careful when choosing which tiles to buy to avoid spending money on remote tiles they accidentally click on.
Cities: Skylines 2 is available now on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.