Stories 2022-08-10 Noyou Port Game-play
2022-08-10T01:26:00Z Started savegame on Noyou Port, all outside connections, suitable area for building 80%, base theme: boreal.
Goal is to reach population 100k today as quick as possible while still enjoying the game.
Addons used: CargoHoldFix, ExtendedGameOptions, Harmony, RealPopRevisited, RoundaboutBuilder.
Just woke up, did morning computer chores but did not eat days first meal yet, going to start this savegame because with RealPopRevisited addon it will take SO LONG time to build your initial city using the single household buildings that its a lot of 3x speed time acceleration while I eat heh.
Instead of waiting for half an hour of game-play before showing first screenshot, lets do something different this time, here is the first screenshot from the initial city design to get started before I even unpause the game for the first time 
2022-08-10T01:37:00Z Also decided to do first save game right away to get the four rotating file names started. Used Noyou_Port_1 file name.
2022-08-10T01:39:00Z Little Hamlet population 480.
And here we go, first milestone reached, now we get taxes and get this city really started
Okay city fundamentals are in and its growing, now comes the long real life part where I just sit here in 3x time acceleration speed waiting while low density residential zone grows, slowly. The realpop addon is great, but it sure makes this beginning very slow for sure.
2022-08-10T01:45:00Z Worthy Village population 950.
2022-08-10T01:49:00Z City is growing and so is my hunger, its time for a lunch break. Leaving game running at 3x speed.
2022-08-10T01:55:00Z Tiny Town population 1.5k.
2022-08-10T02:16:00Z Feeding time is over, back to building this city.
As can be seen above, tiny town milestone was reached while I ate. Okay now got some work to do to catch up, RCI info bars are up, so lets do it heh.
2022-08-10T02:23:00Z Boom Town population 2.8k.
I am so glad I took this wide roads approach on this savegame, that upgrading the main road wont be a problem with bulldozering buildings.
Growth. I like it.
Now RCI info bar commercial is stuck at 50%, this seems to be the trend in our savegames, can you trust it or is it one of those things that its always there for no reason.
I'm now building this industrial district one 4 x 4 unit square at the time. I learned my lesson from the last savegame of mass blob zoning huge areas.
2022-08-10T03:00:00Z Busy Town population 5.5k.
Another milestone, things are progressing nicely, keeps me busy, no time to sit and wait heh, nice.
Activated parks and recreation policy.
Update time. Low density residential area keeps growing.
Saved game for Noyou_Port_2 file name.
2022-08-10T03:40:00Z Big Town population 8k.
High density zones, metro, incineration plant and university are now available.
2022-08-10T03:51:00Z Started to add bunch of new stuff without thinking... and just as I was finishing up by connecting LAST leg of metro subway line... I ran out of money hehe.
This growth is what I love it
So nice when things develop in orderly fashion.
I really hope to have grown (no pun intended) away from the mass blob zoning mentality, its just no fun to make such insane size zoning without any care "for the little people" or "boots on the ground" so to speak, you might as well play some 2D top down text based game if you never take the time to thoroughly plan, execute and enjoy your handy work
Dunno, difficult to explain, but this slow steady pace one step at the time really giving thought of every city block is really fun and satisfying experience.
Yes goal is to get into 100k as fast as possible while still enjoying the game, but mass zoning insane areas is not the way to go about it.
2022-08-10T04:05:00Z Small City population 12k.
This milestone gives us cargo train station and two good policies. Activated small business enthusiast and big business benefactor policies.
Now first row of high density commercial and residential zoning is done
Busy sending those garbage trucks out.
2022-08-10T04:32:00Z Big City population 18k.
Crematorium, large water tower and advanced inland water treatment plant are now available.
Office buildings, gotta love the amount of workers they employ
Was wondering about industrial buildings "level up", says needs more services to do so, well lets say elementary school or a park for industrial zone, I mean really? Who has ever seen such things in nasty dirty polluted and noisy industrial zone, I sure haven't. But guess its the Cities Skylines universe which requires those, huh.
Whoah look at this office building, 240 fucking workers! 
2022-08-10T05:20:00Z Grand City population 24k.
Saved game for Noyou_Port_3 file name.
2022-08-10T05:40:00Z Saved game for Noyou_Port_4 file name which is the fourth and last in this rotating file name series.
2022-08-10T05:59:00Z Hum dunno if I mentioned this before (could always check, but hey I'm too busy enjoying playing hehe), right now when I'm placing one industrial zone 4 x 4 unit block at the time, I select the growing building and wait until it has all or at least enough workers so it "works OK", I don't want to run into situation where industrial is running out of workers.
High density residential zones I've added in larger unit grids, dunno how many but one of those road grids at the time, so umm err maybe 5-10 unit grids perhaps, never really counted them, overall its "small zone".
Dead giveaway of games willingness to create stuff and how healthy the balance is, comes if your buildings wont instantly start to grow. I'm not talking about fraction of a second instantly but if you have to wait in real time more than half a minute, you know the game is not very happy to add this zone for you and after this you need to not add any more of this zone type.
At least that's how I see it right now, maybe I'm wrong maybe I'm right who knows...
Its also very rewarding to see those number of workers in industrial/commercial/office or households in residential, how many the building initially has and then how much people get in there, will you get "0 jobs available" etc.
High density residential buildings keep popping up like there is no tomorrow.
2022-08-10T06:49:00Z Capital City population 36k.
Cargo harbor is now available.
A little bit more low density residential zoning.
One thing I've learned though, previously for garbage collection I used to stamp down standard FOUR set of incineration plants away from residential zones, I thought its good to have some processing power with such four set, however truth is that is excessive, my city currently is absolutely HUGE and actually only needs two (2) incineration plants.
Like this location used to have four incineration plants, now as experiment I only placed one, works well for the SW sector of the city.
2022-08-10T07:22:00Z Saved game, set it to normal speed and turned on the cinematic camera whatever it is. Now its my lunch break time so off to get some chow, will enjoy my city cinematic camera while eating
2022-08-10T07:47:00Z Feeding time over.
Oh wow that default in-game cinematic camera was boring and claustrophobic with endless almost perfect top-down angles, yuck. I need to search if there are user made addon for cinematic camera which randomly would choose areas but included smoother, slower and more horizon scenes.
Here is new opening for low density residential area
2022-08-10T09:30:00Z Soon the new low density residential area is zoned, I'm keeping slow steady pace always adding all services and parks etc to "make the area good". Things are looking mighty fine.
Another record breaker, office building with three hundred and five (305) workers! WHOAH!
2022-08-10T10:03:00Z Population is now 43k and RCI is 60%, 50%, 3%. Kind of odd, industrial demand went down very quickly, but now residencial came back with a vengeance.
PMC Residential 3 got quite the upgrade, wonder what happens to our logistics and traffic when this baby goes live 
2022-08-10T10:36:00Z Colossal City population 50k.
This milestone gives nuclear power plant and cargo hub (ship + train terminal).
Now I started to zone four 4 x 4 unit grids to industrial, still keeping close eye on the RCI info bar so things don't go out of whack.
And always checking once building has been built that there is as close to 0 jobs available as possible. Sometimes it takes a while to hire people especially on low density commercial, but its not a problem, jobs get filled up.
2022-08-10T11:20:00Z Metropolis population 75k.
Seeing office buildings start up as 240 workers, then when they "level up" they turn into 100 workers, hmm how is that possible, it is somehow more efficient workforce or is that a bug either in the game or real population addon? Hmm...
Been watching high density residential zoning, a new building brings in uneducated people. Not sure if this is common knowledge that this is how it should happen, that a complete newbies move into your big apartment building and then its the citys job to educate them starting from elementary school. Makes no sense that ADULT will go to elementary school hehe.
I have to zone metric tons of offices because most of my folks are highly educated and RCI info bar for industrial is high up. I cant really add more actual generic industry because the traffic is so bad already heh.
Not only traffic is bad but my generic industry area is pretty full, I need to make a new industrial site somewhere else with good highway connection.
2022-08-10T12:07:00Z Megalopolis population 90k.
That was the last milestone, now we have achieved everything, all buildings etc are usable. Now we just grow our city until goal is met
2022-08-10T12:13:00Z Now had to add second incineration plant to this site as capacity started to go to red heh.
Purchased all the terrain grid tiles.
2022-08-10T12:21:00Z Hooyah! Goal met, 100k population reached! Yeah buddy! 
This city was really nice, good terrain besides the fog type glowing floating around from time to time. My city design worked very well, no issues with industry as I reduced it use SO much, check the above screenshot PMC Industrial 1 district size versus the others, its nothing like my previous savegames where industry district is almost larger than residential heh. Also I was very conservative with commercial zones as well.
Just overall great, very enjoyable savegame.
And now I'm going to call it for this gaming session, need to do some more googling and then start another terrain savegame heh.
2022-08-10T12:24:00Z Saved game and shut down cities skyline, we are done here, for now