How Many Squares Can You Buy in Cities: Skylines? A Comprehensive Guide
In Cities: Skylines, the seemingly simple act of purchasing land is a core mechanic that dictates the scope and scale of your urban ambitions. The game doesn’t operate on a free-for-all land grab, rather, it carefully doles out buildable areas as you progress. So, how many squares can you actually buy, and what factors influence this?
The answer, in short, is nuanced. In the base game, you can purchase a total of 9 tiles, including the starting square. However, this number can be dramatically increased using modifications. With mods, you can expand your city across 25 tiles, or even the entire map with 81 tiles. It’s crucial to understand that ‘squares’ often refer to these unlockable map tiles, which act as distinct areas of buildable land, not individual squares within the game’s grid.
Understanding the tile system and how to acquire them is essential for any aspiring mayor. Let’s delve deeper into the mechanics and various possibilities.
Understanding the Tile System
The Base Game
In the unmodified game, the map is segmented into a grid of 81 tiles (9×9). However, when you start a new game, you only have access to a single tile. To purchase more, you need to reach specific milestones in your city’s development. These milestones unlock new tiles, one at a time, culminating in a total of 9 purchasable tiles (including the starting one) in the base game. This limitation was originally in place due to AI constraints that managed the city simulation.
Modded Expansions
The Cities: Skylines community is renowned for its creative modding scene. Players wanting to expand beyond the basic 9 tiles have the option of using mods to alter the tile limit. There are popular mods that increase the usable area to 25 tiles (5×5), these being the central tiles of the original 9×9 grid. Other more ambitious mods unlock the entire 81-tile map (9×9), allowing for truly sprawling metropolises.
Tile Size and Playable Area
Each map tile in Cities: Skylines represents a substantial area of land, approximately 1.92 x 1.92 kilometers in size. Therefore, even the base 9-tile city provides a considerable 33.18 km² of buildable area, though the total playable area is 92.16 km² when accounting for the initial 25 tile view. With mods, this extends greatly, allowing you to build cities of tremendous scale.
Milestones and Unlocking New Tiles
In order to buy new tiles, you must hit milestones that the game has set. To start you have one piece of land and for reaching a “Worthy Village” you can get one more. For all following land purchases you will have to reach other specific milestones that unlock new plots to purchase. Each milestone adds one more land purchase to your city.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Here are some frequently asked questions about land purchasing and city limits in Cities: Skylines:
1. What is a “tile” in Cities: Skylines?
In Cities: Skylines, a tile is a discrete area of land on the game map that can be purchased and developed. These tiles are arranged in a grid, and each tile is roughly 1.92 x 1.92 km in size.
2. How do I purchase more land?
You can purchase more land by reaching milestones in your city’s development. Each milestone unlocks the option to buy a new tile.
3. Is there a limit to how many tiles I can purchase?
Yes, in the unmodified game, you can buy a maximum of 9 tiles. Using mods, this can be increased to 25 tiles or even the entire 81-tile map.
4. What is the total playable area in the base game?
The total playable area with 9 tiles is roughly 33.18km². While the 25-tile central area is displayed, this does not mean these are the available buildable tiles in the base game. The total display area of the initial map is 92.16 km².
5. How do mods change the number of purchasable tiles?
Mods can override the base game limitations, allowing you to purchase up to 25 tiles (the central 5×5 square of the map) or even all 81 tiles (the entire 9×9 grid).
6. What are the benefits of using more than 9 tiles?
Using more tiles allows for much larger and more diverse cities, giving you more space for specialized districts, infrastructure, and natural environments. It drastically enhances the scale of your urban development.
7. Can I reach the 1 million population limit in a 9-tile city?
Achieving a 1 million population in a standard 9-tile city is not possible, even using all 81-tiles you may reach building limits of 49,000. It requires significant optimization, and is not reachable without mods.
8. What is the difference between “playable area” and the “full map”?
The “playable area” refers to the total amount of land that you can actually build on, which is dictated by how many tiles you have purchased. The “full map” is the total size of the map, which is 81 tiles in total.
9. What is the 25-tile limit, and does it affect the base game?
The 25-tile limit is a common restriction imposed by some mods, which unlocks the central 5×5 tiles. This limit doesn’t exist in the base game (limited to 9 tiles) but is commonly used to provide a middle ground between the base game and the full 81-tile expansion.
10. Why was the original tile limit set to 9?
The original tile limit of 9 was designed to ensure smooth simulation performance. With more complex AI for managing citizens in cities, this limitation helped reduce the computing demands.
11. What is the performance impact of using mods to expand tile limits?
Expanding to 25 or 81 tiles with mods can significantly impact your computer’s performance, especially with large cities. You may experience frame rate drops, lag, and longer loading times. It is essential to have adequate hardware to run larger simulations smoothly.
12. What are the building and road limits in Cities: Skylines?
The maximum number of buildings allowed is 49,152. This, combined with the number of roads you can build, can also act as a limit on how much you can build in the game and the population you can achieve.
13. What is the population cap in Cities: Skylines?
In the vanilla game, the population limit is approximately 1 million, though it’s hard to reach this without mods. Performance and hardware limitations are the real constraints.
14. Can mods increase the population limit?
Yes, mods such as the Realistic Population mod can allow for a theoretical population reaching 9.7 million when using all 81 tiles.
15. Is there a difference between Cities: Skylines and Cities: Skylines Remastered regarding the number of purchasable tiles?
Cities: Skylines Remastered provides an increased base tile limit of 25 buildable tiles, compared to 9 in the original console version. However, both versions can achieve 81 tiles with mods. This update also lifted restrictions and improved both visuals and performance, giving the player a better experience.
Conclusion
The number of squares you can buy in Cities: Skylines is not a static value. It scales with your progress in the base game, and further increases through community-made modifications. Whether you are satisfied with the standard 9-tile city, prefer the increased potential of 25 tiles, or want to craft a gigantic metropolis spanning the whole 81-tile map, Cities: Skylines offers a flexible system to match your city-building ambitions. Understanding these limitations and the impact of modifications is key to mastering the game and crafting the city of your dreams.