Is that the Grim Reaper?
The next patch for Cities: Skylines 2 will be Economy 2.0, which will be released in the upcoming week. But before we can enjoy everything on offer, publisher Paradox Interactive wants to highlight a couple of life-and-death issues.
No one's saves should be broken, but that won't stop the upcoming Economy 2.0 patch from messing with your files: "Any saves that you have built and played on before the patch will be affected by the changes brought by the patch," a Paradox Interactive blog post says. "We wanted to share a list of things you might encounter while loading up your save after the Economy 2.0 patch."
Essentially, the first few in-game months after the patch may be a little strange as the game tries to catch up or counterbalance all the changes that the new patch brings. One of the most terrifying bits of collateral damage that players will have to deal with is an oncoming "death wave" that'll take out most, if not all, your city's elderly population. "The older your citizens are, the more severe it will be," the blog post says. "This is because we want to vary the age when citizens can die much more to avoid future death waves—but this can only happen once the Grim Reaper has finished with the city."
I don't like how quickly the blog post just glosses over the idea of a 'death wave' or that if I finally decide to launch Cities: Skylines 2 again, I may have to witness a mass of deaths that I haven't seen since I accidentally messed up my water and sewage pipes in the first game, giving half my population cholera. But at least this should mark the last major visit from the Grim Reaper, so it's swings and roundabouts, I guess.
There'll also be plenty of changes to the economy. "Expect a negative money trend initially, but tax income may offset new costs after recalculations," the blog post says. "If your city is struggling financially, consider increasing taxes, reducing service budgets, or temporarily turning off buildings to save costs."
Companies will also need time to readjust to employee numbers and production, which could mean you'll see an increase in unemployment. Plus, the new residential density demand may also cause citizens to relocate or seek different housing. Long story short, your game isn't broken just because your city may be doing weird things, bear with and it should even out.
The Economy 2.0 patch will also likely mess up all your mods, as Paradox even admits that there aren't any "guarantees for modded saves—check for updates or instructions for modders." This will especially be the case for any mods that affect the economy, as that's what the upcoming patch reworks the most.
"Please be patient with the modders that make the mods you love, and while some mod creators have been given Early Access to the patch to be able to update their mods, they might be unable to update them immediately." Paradox also suggests that if you don't want to wait for mods to be updated, then there's always the option to "use a new playset empty of mods or temporarily add disableModding to the game's Steam launch options to disable all mods."
