The traffic AI in Cities: Skylines II, the urban city-builder by Colossal Order and published by Paradox Interactive. Smart enough that vehicles will now actually fill up all the empty lanes on a road. But also get into traffic accidents.
The latter sounds like an oxymoron to the AI getting smarter, but to phrase it differently and make more sense, the simulation of each vehicle that makes up traffic AI, the agents, is deep enough, and thanks to other additions in the game, now enable the game to model traffic accidents and the ensuing traffic jam.
Cities: Skyline’s traffic AI works in that each agent will try to find the shortest way possible to the destination. That means all the scenic yet longer alternative routes will be less utilised as every agent tries to use that one same road, and one same lane at that. So you’ll see in many cities in the original game where you build wide roads but there’s still a traffic jam as every vehicle crams into that one turning lane. Not anymore, it seems.
The agent now considers the shortest pathfinding cost when picking how they pick their routes to their destination, which inlcudes multiple factors like time (how quickly they can get there), comfort (simpler routes with less turns are preferred), money (how much fuel does the route take, how high is the parking space cost) and behaviour (agent’s willingness to make “dangerous” decisions like make a U-turn).
All these factors aren’t just randomised. It reflects the kind of citizens living in the city. Adults value time, so they’ll likely drive on highways to get to their destinations faster, while Teens favour money, and will look for the cheapest way to travel, which can be by using public transport.
Other little morsels of new additions found in the blog post and the trailer includes the following:
- No cap on vehicle agents, only limited to hardware performance. As such, cities can be even bigger
- However, various simulations are more efficient, and uses all power from a multi-core CPU, so performance isn’t as demanding
- Traffic accidents can be caused by road condition, lighting condition, weather and disasters
- Vehicles will change lane or make U-turns to avoid car accidents
- Roads will be closed off by road maintenance and police to clear out accidents. Ambulance may arrive on the scene if the accident is sever enough to cause injuries
- Taxis confirmed. Starts out with needing taxi stands to hail one, but after a taxi depot upgrade taxis can pick up fares anywhere
- High-beam courtesy, vehicles driving in the night with no road lighting will lower the lights for an oncoming vehicle
Previously, Cities: Skylines II reveal the new improvements it has in store for the Road Tool.
Cities: Skylines II will be available on October 24 for the PS5, PC (Steam, Microsoft Store) and Xbox Series X|S. The game will also be available on Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass at launch.
Source: Paradox Interactive