This prologue can be tl;dr but it explains my thoughts and feelings how this guide came to be

Many would say that art is subjective because it is an expression of the artist's perspective.

I've long contemplated publishing this guide, to not appear biased or arrogant that this is THE definitive guide. I guess I will take my chances.

I would often find that when building cities, I wasn't entirely happy with the way they looked, however the point still kinda stands for me. I think this is because 90% of maps on the workshops are plain poor. I’ll explain why.

Earlier vanilla cities reminded me of the current console version cities. On the surface, elegant functioning cities in a game where city mechanics are advanced and probably the best the simulator market has and had to offer. As mods and assets became mainstay, this game has expanded from a mere game to a full-blown simulator.

Visually - those earlier cities were not at all realistic though and a little candy-looking. The key to games is personal entertainment as a primary function, however I now explore Cities Skylines as an eighty-one tile canvas to digital freedom. To give me a feeling like I'd love to live there. In a way, I’m always looking for maps to create an own seperate universe. Have you ever hoped or had a fleeting thought like that?

No?

Okay. Over time, as the workshop assets and mods grew into thousands, my subscribing addiction began. I'm sure yours did too. My cities looked better, detail felt next to none, and yet, I grew frustrated unable to reproduce the quality that some streamers for example went into. My laziness to use Procedural Objects has something to do with this!

After looking for a next map to play, I made a biased assumption that actually, there isn't that many good maps on the Workshop.

I chose a map that I'd spend over 2,000 hours on, perfecting a city that quickly reached the game's hardcoded 32k node limit that no mod can modify. You’d think this would be enough for your girlfriend to leave you. And for the first time, I felt proud even if it felt rough around the edges!

Transport was functioning perfectly, residents were happy and booming, there were quiet areas, loud and expansive areas, and most importantly, the city was running a huge profit. Everything I wished for. Did I confirm my feelings that the maps on the Workshop aren't all that good?

You will be pleased to find out that I was wrong. Instead, I had to identify that I personally wanted a large map with the ability to build anything on it. It was down to a personal choice that shaped the idea of how creative you can be within a thirty-two thousand node world. Break all boundaries.

Everyone will have a different city in mind hence in the end, my opinion was biased. When I saw streamers build on very tiny islands, achieving a lovely looking city, it all became clear to me.

Creating a great realistic city is all down to a mixture of factors; the RIGHT map, some or extensive pre-planning, a few mods and a dozen of assets won't go amiss. If all boxes are ticked, my motivation to keep building would always stay.

A really good map gives you a great starting point and the motivation to keep building! And there are plenty of interesting, beautiful maps fit for different purposes.

This guide, in turn, should provide a definitive list of great maps to start your city on, without scraping thousands of maps on the workshop.

I found that most maps are awesome, however they all serve a different purpose.

For sake of simplicity, in my opinion you only need a bunch of maps, which can be all found below. Someone already does comprehensive map reviews on a certain "tube" and this guide is here to provide a more concise alternative using literature and opinion as oppose to using video.

Rating shouldn't be followed in absolute terms; its just used to rank them vaguely to at least list them.

Read my guide in full if:

• You are a player that likes to recreate real cities 1:1.
  
• You are someone like me - no plan, improvising, rebuilding and taking inspiration from people. You want balance on your map, variety and a lot of room to build.
  
• You are a player who likes a challenge. Small building areas; island maps, alpine maps, heck even one tile maps.
  
• You love building cities of the future - green, sustainable or fiction-based

Take note if you are someone who likes to build vanilla. You are just a different type of a player and I respect this. Maybe you just want your computer to survive? In any of these cases, any map should 'do it' for you. I'd still advise though to have a look to see if you like any of these maps or if you just want to try something different.

Close this now if:

• You are hardcore and you only build in the sea. This guide isn't for psychopaths.

Finally, this guide considers performance. All maps have been graded and reviewed against how many dependencies are needed to run the map in question, assuming players with low end PCs have less RAM. Unless absolutely necessary towards the overall feel of the map, this guide will ignore any maps with "subscribing overload".

In some cases, you don’t need three fancy suspension bridge assets, although you may need that one absolutely necessary railway bridge that is in exactly the right place.

I once subscribed a map with nearly 150 assets. Combined with its LUT when I removed both, my FPS jumped from 23fps idle to nearly double just by using a different map! This is on a quad-core PC with 24GB RAM.

Personal story time over.

To begin this guide, I'm recommending my favourite 1:1 maps on the Workshop.

It's the easiest section for me to get out of the way. No explanation or rating for these is necessary, as they're mostly based off of heightmaps.

When using these maps, you will probably be building an exact replica of a given city. Sometimes though you may want to subscribe to these maps to put your own twist on these existing cities. You will probably be a purist if you choose to play one of these maps, building these cities either for an external, maybe scientific or a planning project or a deep simulation of a specific city - and rarely for creative purposes.

I've listed maps that need little dependencies however, if you're building a 1:1 city, you probably have a powerful computer and you'll be subscribing to a lot of assets to accurately reflect the actual city.

If you're a 1:1 builder, it is highly likely you won't be rating a map for how many things are required for the map to run.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1408332880
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2777520653
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1700364029
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2091780921
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2058320288
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1921545377

These are just some of the notable 1:1 maps.

You can find yourself any map of a real city by looking for your city on the Workshop.

Some of these will lovingly recreate the terrain and vegetation; others will recreate grids. Take your pick.

The 1:1 section is here because I wanted to cater for everybody, even the most creative purist. I don't know how accurate some of these are, as this is the only map section I haven't put to test, so let me know what you think by leaving a comment.

Be careful with some 1:1 maps. Not naming and shaming, however a thought just came to my mind. There is actually a 1:1 map I played on where I tried to build a tram rank / station next to a large central railway station (if you know, you know) and to my surprise, the water canals surrounding it we're not designed to the 1:1 scale!

Ended up wasting nearly a month of my precious life doing other bits on the map, only to come to this important part to find out it was dealbreaking. I imagine this is how most 1:1 builders feel? So this guide tries to save you that time (albeit not very well for the 1:1 audience).

Unless you enjoy wasting time, then why are you really here?

Moving on ...

These maps are the kind of maps that make a metropolis possible.

Lots of buildable area, usually 50% of buildable area is the absolute minimum. Either completely flat or with some hills. Connections are often smart with very little landscaping required, and little assets required to subscribe.

Park an Arvorig

• Personal quick rating 10 / 10

Interestingly titled Park an Arvorig by Wafthrudnir requires only 20 assets! (and less if you don't want some of the trees). It is mirroring a real life location - a regional natural park in the region of Brittany in France. It is the best map in this category, and undoubtedly, one of the best maps on the Workshop. The land available and the bay resembling an open sea is the key selling point of this 'product'.

For sake of explanation, I will divide this map into three sections. The southern land mass with a river and a waterfall is perfect for building villages and an international airport. You may want to take out some of the water by terraforming the southern land mass.

The central land mass consisting of two capes is perfect for an unconventional, quirky but realistic urban city build. Northern cape can be connected with a majestic bridge leading into the northern land mass.

The land to the west of the map towards the edge can be terraformed into hills and mountains. You might want to build highland villages coupled with expressway bypasses on the terraformed land.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1379528632

Amboy

• Personal quick rating 9 / 10

Another map worth playing for hours. Similar to Park an Arvorig, Amboy features a bay that closely resembles a sea if the map had more than 81 tiles. Lots of industrial capacity with predefined train networks available with only three items to subscribe to! The map is lightweight, there is lots of flat land and an option to terraform edges into mountains.

Only downside is the strange proximity of highway junctions in one concentrated area. Whilst incredibly efficient and unique, it may scare some players off that prefer to build their own highways. For other players, this system will be a blessing, as junctions are very creative on this map. Wide rivers may pose an issue for an ultra-realistic city, but these rivers will accept big ships and barges, so this may be an upside for some.

I'd recommend a industrial port city on this build. Where the natural resources are, to the east, I have built a massive petrochemical refinery, and other industry. Prior planning is the key to this map.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1614747531

Castle Harbour

• Personal quick rating 9 / 10

I love this map for its simplicity. The genius in this map is that it doesn't try. It's effortlessly diverse whilst remaining relatively flat. The sprawl of trees next to highways is equally effortless, as it integrates into the high overall quality of the map. It gives us the feeling of division between busy highways and dedicated housing areas, highways which none of feel neglected, circling in a loop with realistic spurs leading into the centre.

The river banks are far few in between whilst maintaining realism, coastlines don't account for much but leave a lasting impression, realistic currents flow through the map with little streams with gorgeous perfect imperfections. You'll also find high attention to detail on railways, pieces of abandoned engineering, all in midst of a castle nestled inside a harbour.

I just don't see where I'd place an airport on this map - can you offer some wisdom?

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2508312423

Praia

• Personal quick rating 8 / 10

In the second section of this guide, I mentioned that "you don’t need three fancy suspension bridge assets, although you may need that one absolutely necessary railway bridge that is in exactly the right place".

This map is adhering to that exception. All of the assets are worth subscribing to, and it's map theme is just simply stunning! This map has lots of beautifully done terraforming, with every piece of road, rail and every tree placed down with extreme accuracy.

Only things letting it down; graphical glitches in places, and not enough flat land to build big expansive things. Custom terraforming would ruin this map, and it just has enough flat land for it NOT to be in the Challenging Maps section. Heavy on the FPS too, even from the start.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2826884854

Star Fort Harbours

• Personal quick rating 7 / 10

I want the pictures to do the talking for me on this another aptly named Harbour map. No assets to subscribe on this one. Big plus for the vanilla players.

Not far from perfect, the road network is useful, the docks are perfect, and there's a little marina designed for a small town joining it. It's illogical road ring filters traffic well, but isn't very realistic. I was also hoping for one of the rivers (where there is an island in the middle of it) to be placed further south so that there was more room to the north for towns on and close to terraformed hills and mountains.

With so many river bits that deeply divide this incredible map, its hard not to have a network without elevated sections crossing this detailed canal network. If you're going for a medieval canal city, this map is perfect. If you want to build a metropolis, some terraforming, PO and ship path changing may be required; you don't want the suburbs to be connected by some ugly holes under the rivers, or bridges that ships cannot cross under.

Small things let this map down, overall, still, very playable content.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2620241015

These maps are known for their unforgiving limitations.

Sometimes bigger is nice, and smaller is better! Its really incredible what some people can do when confined to a small box?

Nydal

• Personal quick rating 10 / 10

Something you might see in Norway, this map tops this list for its incredible YouTube series by Strictoaster. The map in itself is tiny - a little volcanic (maybe) cluster of islands all connected to an external connection, suggesting there is life beyond Nydal cape.

What makes this map awesome is Strictoaster's ability to build a believable city on it. Challenging maps like these always gave me the impression you can't build what you want on them.

You're only required to subscribe to three assets, however Strictoaster has a list of over 700 items that he uses in his series. You can terraform this map but you'd be taking away the ultimate challenge aspect, so don't - would be my advice.

Maybe add some berths for a little port that isn't the Port of Rotterdam? Use terraform tool with caution!

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1461658615&searchtext=nydal

Embre

• Personal quick rating 9 / 10

The challenge aspect on the Embre map by Ingenium is ever so present. Unlike Nydal, Embre is not a cape surrounded by water and a few volcanic islands. Embre is an alpine coastal map with an expansive sea, with beautiful custom railways. This map even has rail tunnels covered by rock, its impressive! A sea port or an airport is possible with clever, tactful terraforming, but I'd recommend you choose one out of the two to keep realism.

At almost fourty assets required to subscribe, this may or may not let Embre down. Without them however, I wouldn't imagine this as a map.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2508566128

One-Tile Island

• Personal quick rating 8 / 10

The objective here is simple yet challenging - build everything on one tile. Its more aesthetically pleasing than other one-tile island maps. Few assets to subscribe, mostly trees - and that all there is to say!

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=878998944

Entre-Deux

• Personal quick rating 7 / 10

Another map by Wafthrudnir, this map is just outright gorgeous! Rolling sunshine kissed hills, all building land is divided by deep water canyons. With 49% of land buildable, the map could have skirted into the Varied Maps section.

I placed it in this section for a variety of reasons. It offers less of a challenge than the maps above however, it still offers a huge challenge. You’d have to be bold to build an interesting city on an entirely sloped landscape, and any terraforming would critically endanger the map's natural beauty. It scored a seven mostly for its beauty, but also because the challenge is still ever so evident.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2513475943

I did mention candy in a negative context, but what if you could make a city out of the Sims universe, or a sustainable city that only features futuristic assets and say for instance, monorails that fear the traditional industry.

In reality, I have no idea what I'm talking about when it comes to future. I can't predict it. I know that it is a style though, and some players love the sci-fi/future theme.

Are monorails the relic of the future?

Craterra

• Personal quick rating 10 / 10

Nothing comes quite close on the Workshop to the surreal and uniform aesthetic of Craterra. I gave it a perfect rating because when you look at it, the quality makes the mouth drool. This map is mysterious, futuristic, detailed and creative. SerZib explains that the map is based on hexagonal and radial construction. Several assets are required to run this map, but if you want a crazy city from the future, this is the map to build it on.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2025831520

Monument Islands

• Personal quick rating 7 / 10

Mulleboy should have called this map the Archipelago of the Pedantic Square. Its hilarious to see how geometric the land is and maybe I'm being mean, this map however is genuinely awesome. A fun little project if you like to step outside a box. No assets/mods required as stated proudly by the map author, and no terraforming required AT ALL - otherwise you will lose the map's appeal of it being a little gimmick.

I gave it a seven because I'd personally would never build this kind of a city, but I can't help but wonder - what would happen if I broke that rule? I'm afraid I'd have too much fun.

https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=834058968

speshal section 4 smartest l33t maps 4 stupid ppls

ALL HAIL GABEN
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=406973777
(you can suck the water out of gaben’s eyeballs. Thanks, Robbaz!)

if u want Europe to disssa pear becos crem brulee is stronq
https://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2520910671
(other "brands" are also available; its an informal English idiot idiom, google it)

I already have been bold with the very first section. I will risk pushing this further to drive a point across.

No name and shame but the Workshop is home to over 40,000 maps, most of which none of us play! Madness. Some of these could be genuinely awesome, so please help me on my mission to perfect this list.

However, if you are a map maker, please consider this:

• Some maps waste unnecessary land. Rivers that are too wide, or too close to each other, where either PO has to be used extensively or bridges have to stand tall to avoid ships clipping them.
  
• Some maps feature networks that are too circular, too straight. Too much geometry and not enough substance.

You could be a child and tell me to go and create a map myself, truth is, I still wouldn't do it as well as you!

Feedback and discussion is highly encouraged. Leave a rating.

This list is designed to be definitive but in reality, nothing ever is. This list is mostly based on personal views, however, you should attempt to change my views. I’ll be as flexible as I can, within reason. Though my mission is to pick out the most detailed guide for the only maps you will ever need. Your opinion will help to guide this list in attempt to keep it fresh.

Last but not least even if this list is meant to be definitive, I still urge you to try maps outside of this guide. Report back if you found you wasted your time, or enjoyed your new discovery.

I will update this list every now and then. Probably the more you comment, and the more you rate, the more time I will have for this incredibly comprehensive and at times sarcastic guide.

ok, bye