A Finnish city is using Cities: Skylines to help develop a new urban area

[elfensky]

Quote

^{*roughly translated and rewritten from a google translate translation of the Finnish website*}

 

The Finnish city of Hämeenlinna is holding a Cities Skylines contest during Spring of 2016. The players have to download a custom map of the surroundings, build and maintain a city on it. The city is looking for new solutions in the Kantola and Katuman areas, and provides existing plans for the players to base themselves on.

 

 

 

Quote

^{*Quote of the Reddit post*}

 

The objective is to develop an area near the city centre, with challenges like improving connections to the center from the design area and improving land use between a railroad and a highway. The main prize is 2x2 tickets to an Iron Maiden concert (actually held at the area to be developed!). 

 

 

 

I think this is a really cool idea, I remember (vaguely) some random guy getting mayorship of a town because he put "good at C:S" on his resume. It's great to see games used for more than just entertainment. +1 to Finland for being progressive af.

I also think the prizes are funny: from Iron Maiden, to a 1 hour sport simulation and finnishing (see what I did there) with a relaxing Spa treatment. Quite a contrasty bunch.

 

Original Finnish Source

Google Translate of the Website

 

Reddit post

[shadowbyte]

that's cool

They should do that in more places

[NinjaJc01]

1 minute ago, ElfenSky said:

 

I think this is a really cool idea, I remember (vaguely) some random guy getting mayorship of a town because he put "good at C:S" on his resume. It's great to see games used for more than just entertainment. +1 to Finland for being progressive af.

 

 

Source

What's your source?

[elfensky]

4 minutes ago, NinjaJc01 said:

What's your source?

 

Fixed, forgot to make it a link.

[Nexxus]

Unless its been fixed as of late this is a horrible idea as much as I love cities skylines its traffic simulation is garbage. 

[minibois]

Sounds like the Fins are trying to copy the Swedes, but instead of Minecraft they uses Cities Skylines  

[elfensky]

2 minutes ago, Minibois said:

Sounds like the Fins are trying to copy the Swedes, but instead of Minecraft they uses Cities Skylines  

Wasn't that Denmark? Or am I confusing something.

[minibois]

3 minutes ago, ElfenSky said:

Wasn't that Denmark? Or am I confusing something.

maybe it was, but it was some school making a city or whatever in Minecraft

[elfensky]

1 minute ago, Minibois said:

maybe it was, but it was some school making a city or whatever in Minecraft

I was talking about Denmark recreating their whole country in MC.

[Ruostunut kokis]

So the economic situation has fallen this low to justify letting volunteers to develop the area for a low price over actually doing it professionally...

 

I guess it could give a vague idea about what should they do, but if they take it too much word-to-word, I can't see it being a good solution.

 

The Google translation seems fine. Better than usual. Read the original through and it appears correct (the original article's length though is a joke; not much in-depth information).

 

46 minutes ago, ElfenSky said:

I also think the prizes are funny: from Iron Maiden, to a 1 hour sport simulation and finnishing (see what I did there) with a relaxing Spa treatment. Quite a contrasty bunch.

The prices seem silly because that's all they can afford to give as prizes...

 

Really though, the economy of this country is sliding down slowly but surely. I'm not surprised if it eventually falls on the level of the rest of Eastern European countries.

[Sidiox]

This is really cool. Ofc this won't be their final plans, something you make in C:S doesn't work quite the same in real life, but they may get some nice ideas on how to lay out the city. 

 

At least it is progressive!

[Beskamir]

Let's hope that Cities Skylines is a really good and completely realistic simulator...

[Sidiox]

1 minute ago, ElfFriend said:

Let's hope that Cities Skylines is a really good and completely realistic simulator...

It won't be for that. Why do you think the rewards are just a bit silly.

It will just be both for publicity and for them to get some creative ideas on how to do a lay out. 

Some pro's will do the actual simulation and design, but probably using design elements from the winning entry

[monkey10120]

1 hour ago, Nexxus said:

Unless its been fixed as of late this is a horrible idea as much as I love cities skylines its traffic simulation is garbage. 

Its not all bad though.

 

The AI likes to take the shortest and not the fastest route meaning it doesnt use multiple lanes as much as it should which cause all the backups and traffic problems.

 

If they can get a layout that can work great with CS AI then that really is one of the possible worst case scenarios. Its not that bad of an idea at least for a starting point. 

[Beskamir]

1 minute ago, Sidiox said:

It won't be for that. Why do you think the rewards are just a bit silly.

It will just be both for publicity and for them to get some creative ideas on how to do a lay out. 

Some pro's will do the actual simulation and design, but probably using design elements from the winning entry

Good point. I assumed they were stupid enough to use it for only simulation purposes.
 

Off topic: Why did the good point button get renamed to thumbs up?

[Belgarathian]

That is honestly awesome. 

[UnknownEngineer]

Well this is interesting, weird how this is the first place I hear of any of this.

 

One of the requirements for the submission is for it to be "original", if this turns out like Rovaniemi..... Oh boy, it's going to be nasty to navigate with a car.