Finalists prepare to face off in the panic challenge

Your weekly fix of Cities in a Snap is back for May, starting with an ambitious thirteen person competition based off Biffa's Panic Challenge.

Organizer & host Cazgem writes:

12 participants will participate in a series of 30-minute population challenges. no mods, no assets. Each of the three qualifiers will run at 2:00, 2:40, and 3:20 (afternoon US/Chicago time) this Saturday.

Each qualifier will feature four builders. The final round, at 4:00 will feature the three previous winners against a mystery final competitor.

Round 1

Round 1 was off to a solid start. Iamthecitiesdork had a false start and dropped out after running out of cash before laying down the basics, something we've all done I'm sure!

PumpkinHead_Live laid out a solid grid, but the choice of wind power for the competition proved to be an expensive impediment to mid-challenge growth, without enough money to purchase more.

The competition was close, but with 10 minutes remaining things started to firm up with EclipseChris in the lead with 7.5k, to runner up Irishh_'s 4.5k.

With three minutes to spare and Irishh catching up, EclipseChris took desperate measures and dropped taxes to zero. At this point his high density residential became a runaway train to win the round with 10798 pops to Irishh's 7211, and PumpkinHead_Live's 5150.

Round 2

Round 2 saw Luca_Fiorini with a strong start, being the first to lay a zone with a bold dirt road strategy to save cash. Terahdra was also fast out of the gate building a large and spacious grid to expand zones into, including two separate industrial zones on opposite ends.

Everything progressed smoothly until twenty minutes into the competition Terahdra was hit with an earthquake which took out out a service building. A timely reminder to turn off disasters.

But at this point he'd unlocked high density residential and was clearly pulling ahead of the competition. This healthy lead was enough to take him over the finish line with 15,620 to Luca_Fiorini's 8,214, Supernova_Gamerttv's 6304 and Sybex99's 6284.

Terahdra: “We're just in cruise control now”

Round 3

Kiggi85 started the competition with an entry roundabout, with Usually_Working being the first to zone residential and Sp3ctre18 laying out a large grid straight up.

Kiggi85: “I well and truly messed up there”

Things were looking good until Kiggi85 ran out of cash to connect his outside connections, and was forced to wait until the 6 minute mark to receive a bankruptcy bailout to continue the competition.

Ten minutes in Sp3ctre18 hit catastrophic issues and took the hard decision to restart the game, forfeiting a third of the time to complete the challenge. Unfortunately this wasn't enough to get back into the competition.

With ten minutes remaining, Usually_Working pulled ahead at 6.3k, vastly ahead of the competition and enough demand to get to the 7k mark and unlock high density. Too much went wrong with Kiggi85 and Sp3ctre18's early game to catch up at this point and Usually_Working easily made it over the finish line.

Winners face off in round 4

Finalists were:

The final round between the winners also gave Kiggi85 a chance for redemption, after the chat voted to give them another try.

All the challengers started off to a strong start, with Terahdra running a typical grid (after turning off disasters) and Kiggi85 learning from the past by immediately connecting their squareabout to the highway.

Terahdra was again first to high density, followed closely by Usually_Working, but late-game demand issues took over with Terahdra increasing by 360 citizens/week but Usually_Working at only 160 and unable to catch up.

The CIAS May 2 finalists

Catch up on VOD

Cities in a Snap is a community event focused on creating a fun, competitive environment. Streams run Every Saturday at 2 PM (14:00) US/Chicago Time, or 3 Eastern.

You can follow the CIAS channel or catch the VOD for the whole event on Twitch.