Cities: Skylines is an addictive simulation-based game you can play on all major platforms. This game does a great job of showcasing various elements that go into running a city as a mayor. One of your most basic goals when playing Cities Skylines is to ensure your citizens are healthy and the population is thriving.
So when you start getting indications that your citizens are getting sick or dying in a particular area of the city. While an occasional ill citizen or death is part of the gameplay, when a large number of citizens start falling sick and dying, it can be a sign of a problem. Your Cities Skylines citizens may start getting ill due to several issues related to the environment and improper facilities available in the city.
If you can’t understand why your population is getting sick in this city simulator, keep reading. Because I will explain the fundamental causes of the problem and help you fix them.
What causes your Cities Skylines citizens to get sick?
Similar to an actual city, the cities in this simulator are built upon complex infrastructure that needs to be supervised. And the citizens are directly affected by various types of pollutants. You can see the levels of multiple types of pollution by going to the pollution info section.
The infrastructure and various healthcare services are available to manage pollution and ensure the health of citizens. If you haven’t planned the infrastructure and failed to upgrade it over time, it won’t be able to meet the growing population’s demand, and pollution may get out of control.
In addition to the pollution-related issues, a significant cause of unexplained sickness and death in Cities Skylines is what’s called a “Death Wave”. This situation occurs when citizens move into the city simultaneously, get old simultaneously, and die. Both of these causes of sickness in your Cities Skylines population are preventable, and we will explain how in the next section.
How To Prevent Citizens In Cities Skylines From Falling Sick?
You can prevent disease outbreaks in your citizens with the help of the following tips:
Manage ground pollution
Ground pollution is a significant cause of sickness among your city’s population in this sim. By managing ground pollution, you can stop the citizens from getting sick.
The leading cause of ground pollution is industries, facilities, and plants. So make sure these buildings are away from the residential zones of your city.
Similarly, you should ensure that garbage is collected regularly from residential areas to keep ground pollution low.
Manage water pollution
Like ground pollution, water pollution can quickly make your city’s population sick. Your water towers or pumping stations should be supplying water from a clean source, and if the source is contaminated, it can lead to mass sickness.
The best way to ensure your citizens are getting water from a clean source is by placing the water pumping stations upstream and the drainage outlet downstream from each other. Similarly, if you have towers to supply water to the city, you should ensure the towers aren’t located on the polluted ground because the polluted land can contaminate the water in the towers and ultimately make the citizens sick.
Lastly, make sure that your city has optimal sewage drain capacity and the sewage is being drained properly. Often players forget that the drainage system needs electricity which can cause sewage to back up. So ensure your drainage system is connected to electricity to eliminate sewage effectively.
Manage noise pollution
Noise pollution is an often overlooked aspect of managing a city in Cities Skylines. That is because citizens don’t show signs of sickness immediately after exposure to noise pollution. However, if the population is exposed to noise pollution over the long run, they can become sick.
A solution to managing noise pollution is to:
- Set industrial zones away from the residential population because industries are a vital source of loud sounds.
- Keep the residential areas away from highways and use sound barriers around them.
- Set garbage facilities and power plants away from residential areas.
Avoid setting up a large number of residential zones at once
While the “Death Wave” can happen in even the most well-managed cities, there are ways you can avoid it. As mentioned earlier, the cause of Death Waves is a large number of citizens dying of old age at once. Doing this can put a lot of stress on your city’s healthcare and deathcare facilities. You can avoid this issue by ensuring you don’t set up too many residential zones simultaneously. However, if you are already facing the Death Wave, the only solution is to build enough death care facilities, such as cemeteries and crematoriums, to handle the sudden spike in the death rate.
