Navigating the Cities Skylines 2 Milestones

This game, unlike the first does not depend primarily on city population for milestones though it certainly helps. This is historic as even the early Sim City games depended on the population mechanic, instead this game gives you experience points (XP) for various actions from building roads, placing districts to putting down buildings. Here we show you how to quickly advance through the milestones in Cities Skylines 2

Tiny Village 750xp

Starting out at 0xp. You get 100xp for a sewer, 100xp for a water pump, 300xp for a coal plant

find a child, follow him for "You little Stalker!" achievement

Small Village 2500xp - tooltip says 1750xp

Medical Clinic - 150xp,  Cemetary 300xp

Able to hit this milestone just on population growth/happiness growth. I was at around 350 pop.

Large Village 4800 xp - tooltip says 2300xp

elementary school - 300xp, high school 500xp, unlocked road services and placed for 150xp

Got pop musician mansion - 250xp

Able to hit this on population growth/happiness growth. I was around 750 pop.

Grand Village 8300xp - tooltip says 3500xp

fire station - 300xp, police station - 300xp, corundum condos - 500xp, college - 1000xp. The college really catapulted me into the next milestone, but I wanted to get upper education going so I can later get high density population buildings.

Hit the next milestone at 1700 pop

Tiny Town 13600xp - tooltip says 5300xp

placed about 5 small park 100xp, 

Hit next milestone from pop growth/happiness growth. I was around 3500pop

Boom Town 21300xp - tooltip says 7700xp

bought the telecom tower upgrade in the dev tree, the telecome tower gave 2000xp, placed another clinic - 150xp, police station - 300xp, built lots of roads including an interstate 4-leaf-clover exit and built more housing, commerce and office space.

Hit next milestone from pop growth/happiness. I was around 5500pop.

Busy Town 32100xp - tooltip says 10800xp

I built a bunch of housing, commercial space and office space, starting to define my downtown area. This new expansion needed another elementary school and high school which gave 800xp (300xp for the elementary school, 500xp for the high school). Just building all this with population gain put me at 3450xp. I then got two signature buildings which I placed down: Villa city for 400xp and the Muscle Car Garage for 400xp. Watching the buildings progress, I received another signature building, the Theater Actor Mansion which I placed for another 500xp. 

At this stage my budget went from negative to positive.

I noticed I was starting to get to capacity in my college so put the development points into and bought the university and placed it down for another 2000xp. At this point, I only had 3000xp left to go. After putting down the univeristy I went into the negatives on my budget again. But it was important for me to have well educated citizens for later in the game.

I put dev points into the water portion of transportation and put down a harbor for 1000xp and a post office for 500xp.

While I was terraforming and drawing my new ocean routes, I got enough xp from pop/happiness gain for the next milestone. I was around 7500pop.

Big Town 46700xp - tooltip says 14600xp

Next milestone we can put down high density housing, from there we really start to take off as we can then put down high density business in "Great Town" and high density offices in "Small City" From that point forward, moving up in population and xp should not be a problem as it can done aided by large population increases.

At this point I spent all my tiles to get as many natural resources to plop down specialized industries so that could reduce any material deficits. Easier said than done.

I noticed that my happiness meter was complaining of a "lack of entertainment" which luckily I had enough dev points to put into large parks,  sports parks as well as large sports parks. I always put down an American Football field in my cities...this building gives 300xp. Go Chirpers!

Built old factory condos for another 500xp and a park maintenance depot for 150xp.  I made the push to zone as much housing, office and commercial space as I could, and indirectly elementary schools, high schools, police and fire stations, especially near the specialized industry and was getting close to really going bankrupt but luckily was saved by government subsidies. Population kept expanding and indirectly, my xp. At this point I was at 8580xp and scraping by but not yet going bankrupt.

I was able to hit the next milestone at this point from just pop gain and happiness gain. I was now around 11,500 pop.

Great Town 65700xp - tooltip says 19000xp

FIrst thing I did was buy as many tiles as I could to get oil special industry going as well as ore mining. Once I did this, I went to my downtown area which is also on the water and turned my apartments into high density residential. I immediately went into the positive for my budget. and now am only deficient in production of vegetables.

I gained the signature building Principalis which I placed down and gained 500xp. I decided to splurge and plopped down the Grand Hotel Landmark gaining 2000xp. I put some dev points into parking lots and put down and overground parking lot right next to it which should also help in my down town area. This only gave me 150xp.

At this point I waited for my demand bars to show if I needed more high density residential, then I'd zone some more areas as well as office zoning. I also saved up cash to buy a hospital with helicopter pads, this gave me another 3000xp.

I eventually hit the next milestone from pop/happiness xp gain. At this point I was around 17,500 pop.

Small City 89700xp - tooltip says 24000xp

My commercial demand bar is always high, so the first thing I did is go to my down town area and changed all my buildings to high density commercial from low density commercial. At this point I was making a good amount of cash, roughly $1mil/month and was sitting on $4mil with it gaining. I drew out and zoned the rest of my down town area with mostly high density zones and unlocked police headquarters and fire stations in the dev tree. I also unlocked tourist attractions. Placing the Bronze Statue gives 4000xp and I had fun making a little island for it. A couple of parks next to is gives another 200xp as well.

Big City 119700xp - tooltip says 30000xp

Once you reach Small City status, you dont have any more buildings to receive. At this point advancing to the next milestones is just based on time as you can plop down a ton of high density buildings as well as Landmarks tp get xp. At this point I no longer focus on milestones and just try to redesign parts of the city to look as beautiful as I can.

Conclusion

The greatest hump to get over is from boom town until you get to Big Town, from there the high density districts start to pay off for you in terms of population gain and xp.