When should I worry about Aesthetics?

[CompACE 0]

I'm a first time poster here at simtropolis (by the way this is probably the best community i've ever scene for any single game - kudos), but i've had sc4 for about a year and a half and i haven't seriously considered playing it because well to tell the truth I'm not very good at it.  It's very unlike the other simcity games.  I can manage a decent city and stay in the black, the problem I have with the games is that i can never make it look aesthetically pleasing (+ my streets tend to get congested fairly quickly).  Everytime I try to start playing a game, I sit there for an hour with a fair amount of simoleons but an ugly city - Do you guys have any suggestions.

P.S - please tell me if I'm posting this in the right area - if I'm not, sorry about that.

[Facelessman 5]

Hmm...

Look around on the forums for ideas - that's the best thing to do, I think. Look in the "Show us your..." topic in the City Building forum, especially stuff like "accomplishments" and "creative transportation networks." I'm just now getting to the point where I can make a nice city, after about two years of playing. This forum has really helped, there's a lot of great city makers here - it's a great place for ideas and inspiration!

[Sam 163]

Welcome to Simtropolis.

I have really only learned to make nice cities from the ideas that people post here at simtropolis. The "Show us your ...." threads are great for inspiration, as Facelessman said. Also many of the City Journals here are great for ideas. I would particularly recommend any by Jeronij, Fredval and Frogface. (I know there are lots of other great CJ's but there are too many to list here, sorry everyone)

Another suggestion would be to use custom content, but be organised about what you use (be sure to get any dependencies). Custom content makes a huge difference to the game - especially if you try to keep a consistent look through your city, eg particular types of buildings, parks designed to be used together.

There are also quite a few tutorials around on how to do particular things (perhaps try searching for "tutorials", look in the omnibus or in the City Building Concepts forum).

When you are ready you might like to make you own city journal in the City Journals forum. Apart from showing what you have acheived, others can give suggestions too.

Good luck.

[Drederick_Tatum 0]

Some of my favorite aesthetic CJ's are Digby and Kilkenny, and those by jeronij. They have really turned me around on play style and I am now going much more for aesthetics than density. You can "zone" for aesthetics right away with creative road layout, farms, and trees. Also for aesthetics, I would recommend looking on the STEX for parks & rec buildings/lots -- there are many interesting parks that will give you a lot more aesthetic variety.

Basically, if you have ideas about how you want your city to look you can find helpful files on the STEX!

[CompACE 0]

Thanks for the replies guys - I've looked around and found a bunch of great tutorials - I'm implementing some of the ideas as we speak. As for the STEX cd, I don't have it yet, but plan on getting it soon - I donated my $20 to the community and am very excited about getting it - from what I've heard so far, it makes gameplay much smoother.  After I get STEX I think I'll make a city journal to show my progress.

P.S. - I was actually gonna ask about tile layout in this post but realized this is probably not the right area to post - Anyways thanks for the help & if you guys have any more suggestions, feel free to post.

[soldyne 111]

well I would like to put in my 2 cents if I may:

when I started with SC (any of them) I was a grid happy, sardine city building freak! but after seeing all the beautiful and fantastic city designs in the CJ forum and the City Building Concepts forum I decided I had to break out of my symetrical shell.

I Think the best way to do that is to start a fresh region and start experiementing. I started making streets and roads that went in random directions. I used more angles, more low density areas, and started playing regionally little by little.

I also started experimenting with farms a lot. farms are one of the lots that you don't "need" but can make a very eye pleasing city. the same goes for suburbs. nothing but low density and random, non-grid streets. it may not be effcient or dense but it is realistic and pleasing to the eye.

also, parks, parks, parks. trees make everything look better. In my CJ, Newtopia Valley, I use PEGASUS and JeroiJ Ploppable Seasonal Tree lots everywhere, even in industrial areas, and I have gotten a lot of comments on it. The trees I use are slowly becoming a "National Symbol" for my region.

just keep experiementing and you find what pleases you.

[Tocheb73 0]

Hey, i'd just like to say thanks to all the people you have posted good advice. I am also trying to break free from grids all over my cities and this thread has been pretty useful. Thanks guys!

[diablo_del_bano 3]

I suggest starting out with lots of room, especially around what will be your main CBD. that way, it.s easier to add things as you need them. Break from the grid after you get a little ways away from the CBD, making the suburbs that most cities have.

[Cobb32118 239]

There's no "wrong" way to play the game. Honestly, SC4 in its original form was a big disappointment for me. All I wanted to do was design beautiful cities.  The way the game-play seemed to me though, I thought it would have been more aply named "Sim Accountant" or "Sim Firefighter."  I have no interest whatsover in hooking up utilities, keeping the treasury balanced, or fighting fires.  I do enjoy managing the transportation network, however.

Fortunately, there are so many modds and downloads available, you can play the game however you want to. If you find yourself bored with your limited budget, download one of the money cheats. I like to lay out a massive subway and/or monorail network in advance, and watch the buildings sprout up around them. If you become bored with the buildings available, then go shopping for BATs on the STEX. If you find yourself wanting buildings done exactly your way, then you can download and learn the BAT yourself. SC4 has to be one of the most versatile games ever.

[RiverCocytus 0]

Making things more aesthetically pleasing can be as simple as just building using only large areas and giving yourself more space. In the real world, things don't sardine until they really truly run out of space. a 1km square is really too small for anything but a tiny wealthy suburb or small industrial park. I even think medium areas are too small.

Grids can be very elegant. The best way to make your grids look nicer is to more thematically arrange your buildings; for instance, you could make a very wide avenue of 5 tiles across, and make only commercial on it, and the commercial zones will be of a certain size.

Use zone sizing (force it by holding ctrl) to change who likes to develop there. Click on my CJ link below, and you will see a neat trick I figured out for putting all of the mansions in one place. The streets will be bricked if you get the brick mod.

I've been tooling around with the idea of making ALL streets a brick texture, not just wealthy areas and making the brick a more realistic color.

I've made some neato cities by laying Mass Transit such as rail or monorail and zoning the city around that.

Regardless, using colors that clash a lot (some trees have very dark/bright colors that clash badly if used too much with the regular maxis trees) can cause problems; also over-repetition of elements. Buildings that do not match well together are another source; use zone sizes and types and densities to try to regular who shows up where.

Also, try to avoid resisting the game's natural tendancies too much; people hate retaining walls, but they look nice if they occur in a way that they occur in the real world. Keep in mind that SC4 is extremely gridbound, and while you may want to have diagonal streets and circular areas, they will look extremely goofy if they are too prevalent. The main reason? SC4 buildings don't have diagonal orientations (most of them anyway, at least Maxis' ones) and laying a huge tract of them in a diagonal fashion looks interesting approximately once.

That being said, do a bunch of practice areas to figure out the game's behavior in certain conditions; a strict road grid can look nice if the zoning is done in a more realistic way, etc.

Sometimes 'ugly' is beautiful. Efficiency and modernity might not be beautiful in the pastoral sense, but everyone loves the NY skyline (or won't admit it ) Some areas need to look gritty, packed, or run down; it looks more real, and it will create a foil against which your more elegant areas are placed.

I'm working on a suburbs project right now that will allow you to zone 5x6 areas and get R$$ courts. I'm going to create som R$ courts as well, Partly my goal is that masses of rowhomes are nigh impossible with SC4, so in the style of BSC; making megalots helps out. I'll be using maxis models primarily, but I will also try to get permission to do other authors' works in the suburban and urban styles.

Oh, getting rid of the arrows on oneway streets (there is a modd in the mods section) helps make them look nicer. Just hope you remember what direction they go! =)

Hope that gives you some ideas.

PS - if you use NAM, activate the extended commute length and or traffic capacities on transit. This way you can create more realistic or aesthetic looking areas without being as restricted by the game's limitations.

[Mike3715 3]

This is a great thread...alot of good advice. After I found this site, I completely wiped everything out, downloaded some of my favorite maps, and started over. I really try to stay true to alot of things. I don't really use things like money cheats, but I did download the NAM, and I like downloading different growable and ploppable buildings (gas stations, restaraunts, ect..for realism). Unlike Cobb, I enjoy working the taxes, balancing a treasury, and making a city desireable to live in while still turning a profit. And like he said that's what makes the game great, he plays it his way and I play it mine...there's no wrong way to do it. Just so you know. When I design a city, I design it with the future in mind. Knowing traffic will increase and business will grow, I leave room around Avenues to grow into Highways or place mass transit, leave room around small schools to become big school...you get the idea. It's working really well for me. There's alot of ideas on this site, take your time look over alot of stuff, and let the artistic imagination in you fly. Good Luck.

Mike

[CompACE 0]

I have a couple more questions.

After looking around for a few days, I've noticed that alot of the cities implement roundabouts in stead of using the plain cornered turn. They look very nice and give the cities a more authentic/realistic look, but do they actually help resolve traffic issues?

One thing I've always hated about simcity was the fact that when cities first start out, you are forced to either go agricultural or dirty industry to get your city going. Would you guys recommend something like creating an area in a region completely devoted to such (most likely dirty industry)?

- I really appreciate all your help guys, I've already gotten some good ideas for my next city.

[Tolomar 5]

I ussually end up doing this in at least 1 of my cities in a region...use it as a dirty industry sucker upper and waste disposal purposes, sometimes power supply as well.

this does two things...keeps the dirty industry and garbage in another city so pollution doesn't effect your residents...and stagnets the growth of dirty industry in other more res or com city as the demand for dirty industry has been satisfied

ps always keep at least 1 resident in these town...for somereason you need at least 1 to start some neighbourhood deals