Need a little help getting your city up and running in Cities: Skyline? Well, the game’s popularity has skyrocketed thanks to the dud that was SimCity 2013, and a bunch of new gamers have started checking out the budget-priced gem. This means a lot of people who are unfamiliar with the Cities franchise are looking up ways to get started and find a groove so they can build a successful city. A couple of neat little video walkthrough guides have become available to help newbies get started.

First up, roads, electricity and water are the basic tenets necessary to construct a successful city. Once you choose a map and load in, you pause the game and then you survey the area.

If you build near the water you can put a water pump and a drain pipe alongside the river. IamPetard explains how to position them so you aren’t putting poop back into the water system of your citizens.

Once you get a power station up and running you’ll have a decent flow of electricity, you can use wind turbines traditional grids or a gold fusion station. Just make sure it’s not too close to the water supply.

That’s it. Unpause the game and start having fun.

You can start zoning for industrial, commercial and residential areas so you can build up what you want where you want, but once you get the basics down it’s up to you to build a city to the skyline.

You may have to tweak your budget depending on the size of your city in the Economy tab to lower your expenses as your commercial and residential assets begin to uptick and bring in money. You don’t want to spend more than you’re making.

There’s some pretty generic but well-rounded tips from Curse on expanding your city and how to best utilize unique and special buildings when expanding the value and aesthetic of your city.

The tips about instantly putting down unlocks such as cemeteries and sanitation plants is a good move. No one wants dead bodies and trash bags piling up outside their home… mostly for two reasons: One, it smells bad. And two, it’s a little gross.

If you’re still having a bit of trouble getting started, no worries, there’s a really slowed down, 10 minute video from HardcoreGamingTips that explains how to build the very basics of your city from start to operation without any quick-cuts or jumps. He walks you through each phase that’s mentioned in the above videos, but lays it out slow and thick so everyone will catch on. Check it out below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZrKx1e5XSY&feature=player_detailpage

Cities: Skyline from Colossal Order is already selling great, with more than half a million copies sold already, as reported by Game Watcher.

You can grab a copy of the game from Steam or other participating digital distributors, or learn more about the game by paying a visit to the official website.