Version 1.14 is all about building. New tools make construction more comfortable, the tools you already use got better, and new buildings give you real control over where your city's commercial life happens. We also wanted this version to open up different kinds of cities: cities that keep the flow of cars under control, or that gather their shopping into centers worth walking.
One more thing before the tour: 1.14 is the last update in the 1.x line. Next is Microlandia 2.0, and we have big surprises in store that we don't want to spoil yet. And yes, it will be a free update.
New buildings
Promenades. The most important change in this version is pedestrian streets. Promenades let you build walkable boulevards, and with them town centers: you can set apart the areas of your city that are about shopping and strolling. Almost every building can now be placed on a promenade instead of a street, so you no longer need cars driving past every front door. A few buildings still require a street with car access next to them, like police stations, fire stations, and a handful of others where a car pulling up really matters. Promenades come alive, too: people walk them all day, and shop-lined ones draw the biggest crowds.
The Shopping Center. One roof, up to 12 businesses: retail stores and food spots that gather a whole area's shopping in one place. Drop it where you want the crowds.
The Fire Headquarters. A much bigger fire station, staffed by up to 40 firefighters and equipped with two pump engines. It's far more effective at responding to fires: fully staffed, it works two fires at once.
Palm trees. A new addition to the game's tree list. Plant them to give your city a distinctive look.
The Ferris Wheel. The flashiest tourist attraction in the game, and tall enough that it will certainly change your city's skyline.
Chonkers. A monument to a beloved fat cat, and the newest entry in the game's list of cat-themed buildings. Like every cat building, it earns extra tourism for each cat building in your city, so the collection gets stronger as it grows.
The Michelet Blimp. The famous tyre-brand airship drifts over your city for half a year, drawing crowds of curious tourists.
We also added more everyday variety: new corporate towers and high-rises, boutique hotel variations, little retail stores, and a fresh look for several office buildings, so cities repeat themselves less. And that's just this version's lineup: we have great plans for more, because we are nowhere near done adding buildings.
Better construction tools
Drag-to-draw a neighborhood. When you drag a rectangle with a residential building tool, you now get a whole neighborhood: groups of buildings with streets in between. It's the fastest way to expand, and it follows real urban-planning patterns. Dragging with single-family houses generates lollipop suburbs, much like the North American ones. Dragging with apartment buildings generates Eixample-style blocks, like Barcelona's. And if you'd rather stick to the plain old grid, drag while holding Shift.
Drag-to-draw a row. Other building types can now be dragged into lines to make rows, turning what used to be one-by-one placement into a single gesture.
The Gift Shop. For a very high price, The Gift Shop sells you any building you've unlocked through gifts in any city you've built. If the Cosmo Tower ever dropped for you while playing another city, from now on you can simply buy it. And if you have money to burn, you can tear down a gift building and buy it right back.
We also made a pile of smaller fixes that make the construction tools easier to live with: the tool's color now signals more clearly what you're building, some tile types can be placed straight over others without having to delete them first, and the game stops you from bulldozing a road that would leave a building cut off.
Transport and traffic
We rebuilt the traffic simulation, to make it more realistic and to fix some edge cases that were showing up in certain cities. Congestion now behaves like friction instead of a wall: heavy traffic slows drivers down and pushes them onto other routes. And parking is honest now: every space is counted, and you can see them all on the map.
Cars and buses now get in each other's way. A traffic jam slows down the bus lines that share the street, and a slow bus service causes the same trouble car traffic does: people arriving late to work, the risk of getting fired, and companies losing productivity to traffic problems.
Clearer transport maps. We reworked the transport maps so problems point at themselves: where traffic is jammed, where parking is hard to find, which buildings drivers are failing to reach, and which bus lines are running late.
Driving is a decision. We rewrote how citizens choose between owning a car and taking public transport, especially when driver's licenses are expensive, parking is expensive, or the city simply has nowhere to park. Some people facing those problems will give up driving and switch to public transport. Others will just move to another city, because they can't stand not driving.
Other cool stuff
Human Resources panel: every city worker in one list, salaries you can change, and the whole payroll in one place.
New rent control policy: cap yearly rent increases at the cost of residential demand points; 0% freezes rents entirely. Without it, landlords raise rents up to 3%/year on full buildings.
Housing floor prices now come from what the building cost to build: the landlord's lowest ask is whatever earns that cost back over 20 years, instead of a flat number set by quality.
Smarter company AI: better decisions about when to grow and rent bigger space; founders now pick from a wider range of buildings instead of always the cheapest one in an already crowded sector.
Hospital triage view: live bed capacity, who's in the waiting room and how urgent, and overall healthcare system status.
Hiring has a cost now: new employees produce nothing for their first 30 days, so a company that keeps replacing people pays for it.
Better love simulation: new rules for how couples form and split up; fixes a bug that made couples without children moving in together nearly impossible.
Citizens who die awaiting care hit healthcare satisfaction much harder, and it recovers slowly.
Fire response rebuilt: several engines can work the same fire, and a blaze still burning the next day pulls in every crew the city can spare.
Richer visuals: new lighting and color grading, height fog on the horizon, and better reflections at night.
A new far-distance renderer draws the whole city when you zoom all the way out, and keeps it smooth.
New OST track by Pablo Rubio, and the music now obeys your keyboard's media keys.
Many small performance improvements that add up to a big boost.
Many small UI and graphics bugfixes and improvements.
An easter egg 🦆