Milestones: how important are these unlocks? (Cities Skyline)

Cities Skyline Guide – Milestones: how important are these unlocks?

Introdcution

Cities Skylines features a milestone progression system. Each time
you reach a certain population milestone additional gameplay and related buildings, overlay and settings become available. This is a great way to keep the game simple at the start but challenging near the end.

Besides knowing all future milestones you might be interested in how useful these unlocks actually are. I will do my best to pass judgement on all unlocks in the coming weeks.

Overview table

Milestone	Population	Buildings	Services/Features
Little Hamlet	500	Elementary School, Medical Clinic, Landfill Site	Taxes, Loans, Garbage, Healthcare, Education
Worthy Village	1000	Police Station, Fire House	2km x 2km, Districts, Policies, Second Loan, Industry Specializations, Services Policies, Fire Department, Police Department, Unique Buildings, Forestry Specialization, Agriculture Specialization
Tiny Town	1500	High School	Decoration, Level 2 Unique Buildings, Pet Ban, Smoking Ban, Parks and Recreation
Boom Town	2600	Bus Depot, Advanced Wind Turbine, Cemetery	2km x 2km, Transport, Level 3 Unique Buildings, Bus, Recycle, Recreational Use, Ore Industry Specialization
Busy Town	5500		City Planning Policies, Level 4 Unique Buildings, Free Public Transport, Heavy Traffic Ban, Oil Industry Specialization
Big Town	7500	Metro Station, University, Incineration Plant	2km x 2km, Taxation Policies, Level 5 Unique Buildings, Metro, Education Boost, Tax Raise, Tax Relief, High Density Residential Zone, High Density Commercial Zone, Office Zone
Small City	11000	Train Station, Cargo Train Terminal, Hydro Power Plant	Level 6 Unique Buildings, Train, Small Buniness Enthusiast, Big Business Benefactor, Industrial Space Planning, High Tech Housing, Highrise Ban
Grand City	20000	Solar Power Plant	Third Lone
Capital City	32000	Harbor, Cargo Harbor	2km x 2km, Ship
Colossal City	44000	Nuclear Power Plant	2km x 2km
Metropolis	65000	Airport	2km x 2km,Plane
Megalopolis	80000		2km x 2km, Monuments

Little Hamlet – Reach a population of 500

New Features

• Taxes: OptionalUnlocks the ability to set custom tax rates for residential, commercial and industry zones. Default settings is  9%. Leave it if you do not know what you are doing.
• Loans: ImportantAllows you to take a €21.000 loan at 5% interest.Important to quickly expand your city.

New Services

• GarbageGarbage collection is extremely important in Cities Skylines. If you fail to gather garbage buildings will abandon. Meaning a loss of income or even population.
• HealthcareHealthcare is important for happiness and it can prevent deaths.
• EducationEducation allows your residential area to level up. When buildings level up they can house more families and therefore pay additional taxes. Educated citizens are also good for your industries. Educating your citizens takes time!

New Buildings

• Elementary School: ImportantThe first building to provide Education to your child citizens. I recommend constructing it immediately  because education takes time.
• Medical Clinic: EssentialThe Medical Clinic is your basic health care solutionThis clinic can send out 8 ambulances and “store” up to 100 patients. The range is about a single tile (2kmx2km). A single medical clinic should be enough up to 10.000 citizens.
• Landfill Site: EssentialThis building will send out up to 15 trucks to gather garbage. This will only be sufficient for very small cities so expect to construct multiple landfills so you have enough trucks to drive across town.

To be continued…

Conclusion

There are 12 milestones. How far did you get??? (And as usual if you have any questions or remarks feel free to post them in the comments).