Colossal Order has released a new deep dive look into another one of Cities Skylines 2 gameplay mechanics, and this one focuses on the “simulation” and “lifepath” of the people populating your in-game cities.

Watch the trailer and read on for more info.

Happiness

Citizen Happiness is the overall value that represents a citizen’s satisfaction in their life. It is the combination of their Well-being and Health and affects the citizen’s behavior and their ability to work. It is always visible to the player in the citizen’s info panel and hovering over the family’s combined Happiness level with the mouse cursor in the household’s info panel shows detailed information about all the things that contribute to the value.

Well-being

Well-being indicates the citizens’ mental state and sense of safety. Satisfying their basic needs such as having reliable electricity and clean water as well as sufficient sewage treatment so their toilets don’t overflow, will go a long way in building a solid base for their Well-being. Taking care of the garbage piling up and planning residential areas to avoid air, ground, and noise pollution builds on that foundation, while good city service coverage provides a passive boost to citizen Well-being. Furthermore, you will want to ensure your citizens feel safe as living in areas with high crime probability stresses them out and decreases their Well-being.

Health

The physical health of your citizens can be inspected in the Healthcare infoview, which shows the Health of the residential buildings as a whole as well the city’s average Health. If a citizen is sick or injured, it is shown in their info panel. Health is affected by the availability of Healthcare in the form of a passive Health boost received by living in close proximity to a medical facility and receiving treatment at medical facilities in case of a sickness or injury from an accident, both of which severely reduce a citizen’s Health.

Age Groups

Citizens age through four different life stages, and each age group is visually distinct from the others. You will find children, teens, adults, and seniors in your cities, and families (i.e. households) can comprise multiple generations, from children to grandparents.

As citizens get older their education options change and their Health varies. Children and teens have a Health boost while seniors’ Health slowly decreases. Their age also determines their ability to work and every citizen can choose to work once they reach the “Teen” age group, though some will prefer to continue their education before finding a job.

Citizens Lifepath & Chirper

Citizens have a lifepath dotted with different events such as graduating from a school, finding a spouse, landing a new job, and moving to a new home or away from the city. You can keep an eye on these events through the Lifepath Journal by following a citizen. This is done by selecting the citizen and clicking the Follow button, adding them to the list of Followed Citizens found on the right side of the screen right below Chirper.

The Lifepath Journal records everything from the added citizens from the moment they are followed. The journal entry lists their name, home address, current occupation, Happiness, and other information as well as their Chirper feed where they tell the whole world what is going on in their daily life. A keen player can spot the connections between the citizen’s surroundings such as education options, job opportunities, and living conditions to the changes in their lives, the jobs they get, and the choices they make.

Education

There are 5 levels of Education featured in Cities: Skylines II: Uneducated, Poorly Educated, Educated, Well Educated, and Highly Educated. Each school provides one level of education for citizens. Children are Uneducated until they finish Elementary School which increases their Education level to “Poorly Educated”. Children will always go to school if possible, so make sure to provide enough capacity for your city’s children. Only teens can go to High School where they can increase their Education level to “Educated”. Both teens and adults can go to College while adults can attend the Universities available in the city. College graduation rewards citizens with the “Well Educated” status and successfully finishing their University studies grants them the “Highly Educated” level.

Employment

Companies, found in commercial, industrial, and office zones, and most city services have workplaces for citizens to fill. They are divided into complexity levels which reflect the citizen Education levels. City service workplaces remain the same throughout the building’s existence but when a zoned building levels up, the complexity and composition of the available jobs changes. A higher complexity level company requires employees with higher levels of education than a company with a lower complexity level.

Criminal Behavior

Citizens can become criminals. The probability of this is relatively low but the chance is increased if the citizen’s Well-being is low. When this happens, the citizen will commit a crime to earn income by first selecting the target of their criminal activity. The target is a building where the robbery takes place and it is selected by comparing the buildings in the city and their crime probability values. The final choice is a random pick from the group of buildings with the highest crime probability values. The citizens living in the building targeted by the criminal will suffer a temporary loss of Well-being.

Leisure & Tourists

Citizens love their free time and want to spend it in the city visiting parks and other attractions, going shopping, and enjoying entertainment in the various restaurants and bars. This need for Leisure affects their Well-being and when their Leisure decreases, they seek opportunities to increase it. Not all options are created equally though, which means it takes a different amount of time to gain Leisure in different places. Citizens choose the location based on the amount of and how quickly they can gain Leisure while staying there as well as comparing the pathfinding costs to the different locations. More about pathfinding in the Traffic AI development diary.

Tourists & City Attractiveness

Tourists are citizens who visit the city briefly. They stay at a local hotel while in the city and make choices daily whether to visit one of the city’s attractions and commercial areas or to stay at the hotel. The city’s Attractiveness value determines how many tourists are drawn to the city and this value can be increased by building parks and various other attractions such as landmarks.

Citizen Conditions

Certain events can cause Conditions for citizens which are visible on the citizen’s info panel. While there is no direct way to remove Conditions from citizens, the player can investigate the causes and through city management help the overall situation. As an example, if citizens are becoming sick it can be a sign of sewage backing up in pipes, pollution spreading to residential areas, or insufficient Healthcare service in the city causing decreased Health which leads to an increased probability of becoming sick. Depending on the cause you can improve the situation by expanding city services, such as your sewage treatment options, or by building a Medical Clinic or a Hospital to take care of the Sick condition and remove the negative effects from the area making sure that the citizens remain healthy. Below we have an overview of the different conditions citizens can be afflicted with.

Conditions

• Sick. Sick citizens cannot work. As long as they remain Sick, they are in increased danger of dying. Medical treatment is required to recover from the Sick condition.

• Injured. Injured citizens cannot work. Citizens become injured when involved in traffic accidents, building fires and collapse, and natural disasters. Medical treatment is required to recover from the Injured condition.

• Homeless. Citizens who cannot pay the rent where they live and with no means to move to another home or out of the city become homeless. They have no permanent residence and end up living in the various city parks.

• Unwell. Citizens who are Unwell have a low Well-being value. Their Happiness value decreases and their contribution to work is also negatively affected. Additionally, they are at risk of becoming criminals if their Well-being doesn’t increase.

• Weak. Citizens who are Weak have a low Health value. This decreases their Happiness and negatively affects their contribution to work. Citizens with low Health are at a high risk of becoming sick, and when a Weak citizen becomes sick, their Health value decreases to very low putting them at an increased risk of dying if they don’t get medical treatment.

• Distressed. Citizens who are in Danger or Trapped, are Distressed. Citizens are in Danger when they are in a burning building while Trapped citizens are involved in a building collapse and are buried under the rubble. Sometimes citizens who are in a burning building can also become Trapped, unable to escape.

• Evacuated. Evacuated citizens are in an emergency shelter. Citizens can travel to an emergency shelter by themselves or they can be picked up by an Evacuation Bus which transports them to the emergency shelter.

You can read more about the game’s lifepaths and citizens right here. Head on over here for the rest of the deep dives.