I play this game and was horrified when I saw that. Seems like a mistake. It’s really taxing them by income level, as education is what determines income level.
People won’t enjoy a game unless they learn the basic features.
It’s a fine line for devs between teaching the player what they need to know in order to even have a chance at enjoying the game, and jamming it down their throats.
The classic example is the game Portal. It’s a perfect tutorial. The player doesn’t even realize it’s the tutorial.
I am frustrated with Cities Skylines 2, lately. Text-based tutorial with optional progress checks which is okay, but they pop up as soon as you look at a newly unlocked feature, not necessarily when you are ready to build the feature.
Also, compared to any other city builder, there really is no competition. Even if the launch was truly botched, the game was unplayable, nobody got about 12 fps, there’s not another full feature city builder. Not since SimCity blew it’s brains out.