Al, Adam, and Tim examine the city builder genre’s evolution from SimCity’s 1989 origins through City Skylines’ dominance to the controversial developer change for City Skylines 2, exploring why Paradox removed Colossal Order from development after three years of attempted fixes, whether the game’s failure stemmed from rushed release pressure or fundamental design problems, and how different city builder subgenres—from Anno’s island logistics to Banished’s survival mechanics—serve distinct player preferences between aesthetic builders and optimization enthusiasts.

This episode delivers comprehensive analysis of city builder gaming’s current state through examination of City Skylines 2’s troubled development and Paradox Interactive’s November 2025 decision to transfer development from original studio Colossal Order to internal team Iceflake Studios. The hosts debate whether Colossal Order’s success with the 2015 original was accidental given their mediocre Cities in Motion predecessors, dissect how mod ecosystems create impossible expectations for sequels when community additions become essential rather than optional, and explore whether Paradox’s corporate control over mod distribution and rushed release timelines caused the game’s failure. The discussion examines city builder subgenres from Anno’s AAA-budget island logistics puzzles to Soviet Republic’s command economy realism, comparing sandbox experiences prioritizing aesthetics against survival titles like Frostpunk and Banished demanding careful resource management, while questioning whether Paradox’s established DLC monetization strategy motivated removing experienced developers in favor of controllable internal studios.

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Critical Moves Podcast Episode 59 Show Notes

Episode Title: City Builders: Paradox, Mods, and the City Skylines 2 Controversy
Hosts: Al, Adam, Tim
Episode Length: ~41 minutes

Episode Summary

The episode traces city builder evolution from SimCity’s 1989 genre-defining release through City Skylines’ 2015 triumph to the contentious City Skylines 2 situation where Paradox removed Colossal Order after three years of post-release fixes, transferring development to internal studio Iceflake. Al, Adam, and Tim debate whether the original City Skylines’ success was accidental, examine how essential mod ecosystems doom sequels to disappointment when community improvements can’t be replicated at launch, and question whether Paradox’s corporate pressure caused premature release or fundamental design failures justify the developer change. The discussion explores diverse city builder subgenres—Anno’s logistics optimization, Tropico’s dictator simulation, Banished’s survival challenges, and Soviet Republic’s command economy accuracy—examining how each serves different player motivations between creative aesthetics and mechanical efficiency while considering whether Paradox’s DLC monetization strategy drives development decisions over game quality priorities.

SimCity Origins and Genre Foundation

1989’s Genre-Defining Release

SimCity established city builder fundamentals in 1989, introducing commercially accessible urban planning simulation that popularized the genre despite earlier predecessors existing. Tim recalls childhood experiences playing on his brother’s PC, primarily enjoying destructive natural disaster features—tornadoes, meteors, earthquakes—rather than optimization mechanics more appealing to adult players seeking strategic depth.

The game’s dual appeal established patterns persisting throughout genre evolution: younger players gravitating toward creative chaos and destruction while mature audiences engaged with economic systems, zoning mechanics, and efficiency puzzles. This split audience created design challenges as developers attempted serving both demographics simultaneously or choosing specific target markets.

Progression Through Pharaoh and Historical City Builders

Tim’s serious city builder engagement began with Pharaoh, part of the Egyptian/Greek/Roman historical series including Zeus, Cleopatra, and Caesar titles. These games offered closer camera perspectives than SimCity’s distant overhead view, enabling individual citizen interaction where clicking residents revealed satisfaction levels and needs through direct feedback commentary.

The historical setting series demonstrated city builders could thrive through period-specific theming beyond modern urban planning, establishing template for future titles leveraging historical contexts like Anno’s various eras or Tropico’s Caribbean dictatorships. The personal citizen feedback created emotional connection between player decisions and population welfare that abstract statistics couldn’t replicate.

City Skylines’ 2015 Dominance

Eclipsing SimCity Through Granular Detail

City Skylines released in 2015 after SimCity franchise faltered, filling the sandbox city builder void with superior execution of established formulas plus innovations that captured massive audiences. The game enabled unprecedented granular control—placing individual trees, flowers, benches, and park features while zooming close enough to watch citizens navigate detailed environments.

Al describes accumulating 8,000 hours pursuing aesthetic perfection rather than optimization challenges, illustrating how City Skylines served multiple play styles through flexible systems. The game combined SimCity’s macro-level zoning and infrastructure management with intimate detail manipulation that satisfied creative builders alongside efficiency-focused strategists, expanding potential audience beyond either approach alone.

Traffic Simulation Innovation

City Skylines revolutionized city builder traffic simulation, creating realistic congestion problems requiring sophisticated solutions rather than abstracting transportation into simplified systems. Adam focused exclusively on traffic optimization using unlimited money mode, finding satisfaction in solving gridlock puzzles across expanding metropolises without financial constraints limiting experimentation.

Content creator Biffa Plays Indie Games built following by accepting viewer save files featuring catastrophic traffic disasters, then systematically diagnosing and resolving circulation problems through expert intersection redesign and flow optimization. His analytical approach demonstrated traffic simulation depth that elevated City Skylines beyond predecessors treating transportation as secondary consideration rather than core mechanical challenge.

Mod Ecosystem as Essential Foundation

City Skylines’ longevity and success fundamentally depended on robust mod community transforming vanilla game into comprehensive simulation tool. Traffic Manager: President Edition (TMPE) became essential modification reworking traffic behavior beyond base game capabilities, establishing pattern where community additions transitioned from optional enhancements to necessary components for complete experience.

The Steam Workshop integration enabled seamless mod discovery, installation, and updates without technical barriers preventing casual players from accessing community content. This accessibility democratized modding beyond enthusiast communities, making modified gameplay the default City Skylines experience rather than niche alternative pursued by dedicated minorities.

City Skylines 2: Failure Analysis

2023 Launch Disaster

City Skylines 2 released in 2023 in catastrophically unoptimized state with performance problems making the game borderline unplayable despite hardware requirements suggesting reasonable accessibility. The rushed release damaged brand reputation and commercial performance, creating three-year recovery period where Colossal Order attempted addressing fundamental technical and design problems.

Al argues Paradox bears responsibility for premature launch, applying publisher pressure demanding release before development completion despite Colossal Order presumably wanting additional polish time. Publishers funding development control release schedules, forcing developer compliance regardless of readiness concerns—a dynamic creating tension between quality aspirations and financial realities.

The Impossible Sequel Problem

Adam initially argues City Skylines 2 faced insurmountable challenge replicating the comprehensive modded experience players expected from the original. Paradox successfully navigated similar transitions with Europa Universalis and Victoria series, but those games’ mods served different functions than City Skylines’ ecosystem where community additions became foundational rather than supplementary.

Tim counters that Paradox develops EU and Victoria internally, understanding code and systems intimately while maintaining continuity across iterations. External developer Colossal Order lacked that institutional knowledge integration, creating asymmetry where Paradox could successfully evolve their own franchises while struggling to replicate that success with licensed external development.

Mod Platform Control Controversy

Paradox removed Steam Workshop support, forcing players into Paradox Launcher mod system for City Skylines 2. This decision prioritized corporate control over established community workflows, ignoring player preferences for familiar Steam integration. The launcher proved less intuitive and accessible than Workshop, adding friction to modding experience that had been seamlessly integrated in the original.

The platform change suggested Paradox valued centralized content control and potential monetization opportunities over user experience optimization. Players accustomed to Steam Workshop’s convenience resented forced migration, viewing it as corporate overreach prioritizing company interests over community needs—a perception contributing to negative reception beyond technical performance problems.

Missing Essential Mods at Launch

City Skylines 2 launched without equivalent to TMPE and other essential modifications that had become assumed baseline features rather than optional enhancements. Players returning to vanilla traffic systems after years of sophisticated mod-enabled control found the regression frustrating and limiting, creating perception the sequel represented backwards movement despite graphical and engine improvements.

The fundamental problem: Colossal Order created base game requiring community enhancement to reach full potential, but couldn’t include those enhancements at sequel launch because community creators needed time developing for new codebase. This created guaranteed disappointment period where sequel compared unfavorably to heavily modded original regardless of underlying quality improvements.

November 2025: Developer Change Bombshell

Colossal Order Removed from Development

Paradox announced “mutual agreement” with Colossal Order removing them from City Skylines 2 development, transferring the franchise to internal studio Iceflake Studios. The corporate language around “mutual decision” failed to disguise what hosts interpret as Paradox forcibly removing external developer after three years of attempted fixes failed achieving desired recovery trajectory.

Al expresses cynicism about mutual agreement framing, noting corporations consistently use diplomatic language masking unilateral decisions. The removal after substantial recovery period suggests Paradox lost confidence in Colossal Order’s ability to salvage the game commercially, opting for internal control despite Iceflake’s limited relevant experience beyond fishing simulators and pool games.

Iceflake Studios’ Inexperience

Iceflake Studios enters City Skylines 2 development without established city builder portfolio or apparent expertise in the genre’s specific demands. Their previous work on fishing simulation and pool games suggests competent development capabilities but nothing indicating preparation for managing complex urban simulation systems or understanding what made the original City Skylines successful.

Al questions whether newcomers unfamiliar with existing codebase can meaningfully improve core game systems or whether Paradox expects them focusing on content additions and cosmetic DLC rather than fundamental mechanical improvements. Learning unfamiliar code requires substantial time investment before productive enhancement work begins, suggesting recovery timeline extends further if technical improvements remain priorities.

DLC Monetization Strategy Suspicions

The hosts suspect Paradox’s developer change primarily serves DLC monetization strategy rather than game quality improvement. Bringing development in-house enables complete control over content pipeline and pricing without external developer negotiations or profit-sharing arrangements. Paradox’s established reputation for extensive DLC programs across franchises suggests similar approach forthcoming for City Skylines 2.

Al predicts regular cosmetic packs and map expansions designed recovering development losses through volume sales to existing playerbase rather than substantial mechanical innovations attracting new audiences. This strategy prioritizes short-term revenue generation over long-term franchise health, potentially extracting maximum value from disappointed launch purchasers before moving to other projects.

Publisher Responsibility vs Developer Accountability

Debate emerges around ultimate responsibility for City Skylines 2’s failure. Adam initially argues Colossal Order had three years post-launch proving incapable of fixing fundamental problems, justifying Paradox’s decision replacing them with developers who might succeed where they failed. The business perspective suggests unlimited patience with underperforming external developers represents poor resource allocation.

Al counters that Paradox created the failure conditions through premature release pressure, proprietary mod platform enforcement, and insufficient development support. Blaming Colossal Order for problems Paradox caused through publisher decisions represents unfair scapegoating. Tim notes Paradox as IP holder and funding source bears ultimate responsibility regardless of developer execution quality, since they chose Colossal Order initially and controlled critical decision points throughout development.

The Colossal Order Success Question

Adam provocatively argues Colossal Order’s City Skylines success was accidental given their mediocre Cities in Motion predecessors and the disappointing sequel. If evaluated purely on track record excluding the 2015 outlier, Colossal Order appears inconsistent developer occasionally producing quality work rather than reliable studio consistently delivering excellence.

The counterargument suggests Cities in Motion provided learning experiences culminating in City Skylines’ refined execution, while City Skylines 2’s problems stemmed from publisher pressure and impossible sequel expectations rather than developer incompetence. Determining whether success was accidental or earned requires unknowable counterfactuals about what would have resulted from different publisher relationships or development conditions.

Anno Series: AAA City Builder Excellence

Island Logistics as Core Mechanic

Tim describes Anno’s defining characteristic as managing production chains across multiple islands with distinct resource availabilities, creating logistical puzzles around maritime trade routes and supply coordination. The series scratches optimization itches through increasingly complex “plate spinning” where each new island and production chain adds another element requiring ongoing attention without abandoning previous commitments.

The island structure differentiates Anno from continuous landmass builders, forcing players to think strategically about resource distribution, transport efficiency, and production placement across separated territories. This geographical fragmentation creates natural complexity scaling as empires expand without simply enlarging single unified city management challenges.

Historical Settings and AAA Production Values

Anno consistently delivers AAA production quality rarely seen in city builder genre beyond major Civilization releases. Each installment receives substantial budgets producing gorgeous period-appropriate visuals, detailed animations, and polished interfaces that elevate the experience beyond indie or mid-tier productions typically dominating the space.

Adam emphasizes Anno’s visual excellence and development investment visibility, noting players can feel the money poured into creating ludicrously beautiful environments and systems. The historical settings—from 1602 through 1800 and beyond—provide thematic variety while maintaining core mechanical identity, demonstrating historical contexts can successfully differentiate installments without fundamental gameplay overhauls.

Anno 117: Roman Disappointment

Tim and Al recently discussed Anno 117 in depth (previous episode), expressing disappointment with the Roman setting implementation despite gorgeous visuals and some mechanical improvements. The hosts reference that analysis here without extensive repetition, noting Anno series generally represents city builder excellence even when specific installments underperform relative to predecessors.

The juxtaposition between Anno’s consistent quality and City Skylines 2’s troubled development illustrates how established franchises maintained by competent publishers can sustain excellence across iterations when properly managed, contrasting with external developer relationships producing inconsistent results despite initial success.

Cooperative Multiplayer Appeal

Tim highlights Anno’s cooperative multiplayer enabling complementary play styles where one player focuses on optimization while another pursues aesthetic perfection. This division of labor creates synergistic partnerships where efficiency enthusiasts and creative builders collaborate rather than competing, with each contributing specialized expertise toward shared empire development.

The co-op framing repositions optimization and aesthetics as complementary rather than competing priorities, suggesting games designed accommodating both approaches serve broader audiences than those forcing singular focus. Tim and Al playfully suggest their contrasting preferences would create ideal Anno partnership—a dynamic illustrating how multiplayer features can leverage player diversity rather than demanding homogeneous approaches.

City Builder Subgenre Diversity

Sandbox vs Survival Split

The hosts identify fundamental division between sandbox builders like City Skylines prioritizing creative freedom and relaxed pacing versus survival-focused titles like Banished and Frostpunk emphasizing resource scarcity, population management, and potential failure states. Each subgenre serves distinct player motivations—experimentation and expression versus challenge and optimization under pressure.

Sandbox builders enable unlimited money modes and creative experimentation without catastrophic consequences, appealing to players seeking stress-free creative outlets. Survival builders implement harsh failure conditions where mismanagement causes population death and game-over scenarios, attracting players wanting meaningful stakes and difficult decision-making beyond pure aesthetics.

Banished: Difficulty Debate

Adam finds Banished too easy once core food and wood production mechanics are understood, criticizing the game for insufficient depth and challenge escalation. The gameplay loop becomes repetitive expansion without death spiral risks forcing careful resource management, undermining the survival premise through forgiving systems tolerating substantial mismanagement.

Tim counters that true difficulty lies in games like Dwarf Fortress where random events—cat overpopulation, demonic invasions—can catastrophically destroy established colonies through unpredictable cascading failures. Banished’s predictable systems enable mastery eliminating challenge, whereas emergent complexity games maintain danger regardless of player skill through chaotic interactions between numerous simulation layers.

Frostpunk and Settlement Builders

Frostpunk represents survival city builder subgenre’s sophisticated evolution, combining resource scarcity with moral decision-making around authoritarian versus humanitarian governance approaches. The frozen post-apocalyptic setting justifies harsh survival mechanics while thematic coherence between environmental hostility and ethical compromises creates narrative depth beyond pure mechanical challenge.

Settlement builders like Endzone: A World Apart and similar titles focus on small-scale community survival in hostile environments, contrasting with massive metropolitan construction enabled by sandbox games. The intimate scale creates personal investment in individual citizens’ fates rather than abstract population statistics, though success requires balancing narrative engagement with mechanical depth preventing Banished-style mastery trivialization.

Tropico: Dictator Simulation

Adam appreciates Tropico’s unique identity as Caribbean dictator simulator blending city building with political management and humorous tone. The series maintains distinctive island tropical aesthetic and lighthearted approach to autocracy across six installments—remarkable longevity suggesting the formula successfully serves dedicated niche audience.

The relaxed vibe and comedic framing distinguishes Tropico from serious historical builders or challenging survival games, creating space for players wanting city building without stress or heavy optimization demands. Tim compares the chill atmosphere to Settlers series’ jingly music and lazy settler animations, suggesting certain games prioritize pleasant vibes over mechanical intensity or competitive challenge.

Soviet Republic: Realistic Command Economy

Workers & Resources: Soviet Republic attempts historically accurate recreation of Soviet command economy city planning, resulting in laborious micromanagement reflecting period bureaucratic realities. Tim appreciates the concept but finds solo play exhausting, suggesting the game might work better with large collaborative teams distributing the overwhelming workload across multiple players.

The game represents city builder subgenre extreme where historical accuracy trumps accessibility and fun, creating niche appeal for players specifically seeking authentic command economy simulation regardless of tedium. Tim identifies it as potentially the only realistic city builder since one person actually would have made these centralized planning decisions in Soviet systems, whereas democratic or capitalist city builders abstractly combine decisions multiple entities would make independently.

Future City Builder Prospects

Citystate: Metropolis Solo Dev Innovation

Al highlights Citystate: Metropolis as promising upcoming title from apparent solo developer featuring gridless zoning enabling organic city layouts beyond rigid square-based placement. The procedurally generated buildings promise visual variety eliminating City Skylines’ repetitive structures that made vanilla cities monotonous without asset mods.

The gridless zoning addresses longstanding city builder limitation where American-style grid layouts dominated despite European and ancient cities demonstrating diverse organic street patterns. If successfully implemented, the system could enable more authentic recreations of non-grid historical urban forms while maintaining gameplay clarity around zone function and building placement logic.

Barcelona, Rome, and Grid City History

Discussion reveals Al’s initial misconception that grid cities represented purely American phenomenon, when actually ancient civilizations including Romans extensively used grid planning for military camps and colonial settlements. Barcelona’s famous grid layout demonstrates European grid adoption, challenging assumptions about geographical planning pattern distributions.

The historical context complicates arguments about appropriate city builder spatial systems—grids aren’t anachronistic impositions but authentic planning approaches across cultures and eras. However, gridless options still matter for representing organic medieval growth patterns or terrain-adapted layouts common before systematic planning dominated urban development.

Genre Design Philosophy Observations

Core Feature Identification

The hosts recognize each successful city builder centers on one defining mechanical focus differentiating it from competitors. City Skylines emphasizes traffic simulation and beautiful city design. Anno specializes in inter-island logistics. Banished and Frostpunk prioritize survival. Soviet Republic commits to command economy accuracy. This specialization enables depth exceeding generalist approaches attempting everything superficially.

The pattern suggests city builder success requires identifying specific player fantasy—managing traffic, optimizing supply chains, surviving scarcity, designing aesthetically—then building comprehensive systems supporting that core experience. Games lacking clear mechanical identity risk feeling generic despite technical competence, unable to capture devoted audiences seeking specific simulation depth.

Optimization vs Aesthetics Player Types

The conversation repeatedly returns to fundamental player type division between optimization enthusiasts pursuing maximum efficiency and aesthetic builders prioritizing visual beauty over mechanical perfection. Tim and Al embody these contrasting approaches, with Tim seeking logistical solutions and Al placing decorative flowers.

Rather than forcing unified approach, successful city builders accommodate both types through flexible systems supporting varied priorities. City Skylines’ unlimited money mode enables pure aesthetics while budget constraints and traffic challenges satisfy optimization seekers. Anno’s co-op multiplayer explicitly enables complementary partnerships where different players pursue different goals within shared empires.

Immersion and Historical Authenticity

Multiple hosts emphasize immersion and historical authenticity as important city builder qualities beyond pure mechanical interest. Anno’s period-appropriate visuals, Pharaoh’s Egyptian theming, and Soviet Republic’s command economy accuracy create atmospheric engagement beyond abstract optimization puzzles.

The immersive historical settings enable educational experiences where players unconsciously learn period-appropriate urban planning principles, economic systems, or architectural styles through engaged gameplay. This learning-through-play represents unique video game educational value that dry historical texts or abstract strategy can’t replicate, justifying city builders’ existence beyond pure entertainment.

Contact & Links

Episode Verdict

The city builder genre demonstrates remarkable diversity serving distinct player motivations through specialized mechanical focuses and production scales ranging from solo developers to AAA publishers. City Skylines 2’s troubled development and Paradox’s controversial developer change illustrate tensions between publisher control and external developer autonomy, with the hosts arguing Paradox bears ultimate responsibility for premature release pressure and platform decisions that doomed the sequel regardless of Colossal Order’s execution quality. The transfer to inexperienced internal studio Iceflake suggests prioritizing DLC monetization over quality improvement—a cynical but potentially accurate interpretation given Paradox’s established business model across franchises.

The mod ecosystem problem appears insurmountable for sequels where community additions became essential rather than optional—City Skylines 2 couldn’t launch with modded feature parity because those mods required development time after release, creating guaranteed disappointment period. However, Paradox successfully navigated similar challenges with internally-developed franchises like Europa Universalis and Victoria, suggesting the issue stems from external developer relationships rather than fundamental impossibility. The discussion reveals city builders succeeding by identifying core player fantasies—traffic optimization, island logistics, survival challenge, aesthetic creativity—then building comprehensive systems supporting those specific experiences rather than attempting shallow coverage of every possible feature. Whether future releases learn from City Skylines 2’s mistakes or repeat them remains uncertain, but the genre’s health depends on publishers respecting development timelines and community ecosystems rather than forcing premature releases and proprietary platform control.

Next Episode: Total War: Medieval 3 and Warhammer 40K – What Creative Assembly Got Right (and Wrong)

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City Builders from SimCity to Skylines, Anno to Frostpunk (Ep.59)