changing auto-zoning plots

[SimFuzz 0]

Hello everyone!  I'm having trouble getting my zones to come out exactly as I want them.  When I click and drag a new low residential area, sometimes it comes out in smaller city blocks (4 by 6 i think?), and sometimes the city blocks come out much larger(maybe about twice as big). What determines this, and how can i tell the game which way I want it?

If I'm not explaining my query clearly enough, please let me know, because this is extremely frustrating.

[Keiran Halcyon 0]

I'm not sure what determines which auto-road scheme the game picks, but the best way to get what you want is to lay out the roads manually, and then fill in the zones. If the game then tries to add more roads, use various combinations of shift and alt to change the orientation and/or remove them (I forget which one does which), or ctrl to force the zoning into a single parcel.

[Mystrelia 57]

Either I've missed something or various combinations of ctrl and alt don't do squat. You've got three options there: ctrl will cause all partitioned zoning to create one huge lot size (especially helpful when zoning for special buildings downloaded from STEX when you want them to build more rapidly). Alt is useful for switching the arrows from one direction to another, although unless I'm really missing something (and I've tried tons of things here) you're stuck with the best of the two options. Ctrl with alt means that the area you have the zoning stretched over will still be one huge lot, and the addition of the alt key will allow you to change the direction of the arrows.

As for that auto-zone feature, I could just about (mind you I said just about--I'm NOT a violent person after all) lynch the person who came up with that. To me, it's useless because I want my city laid out the way I want it, not the way someone else thinks will work. I'm afraid, as Keiran Halcyon said, you're going to have to lay out your roads, then zone as you see fit.

It didn't sound like you were talking about this, but one thing I might also mention is that if you lay out, say, a 6x6 block then zone it for light residential, you may see that the actual lot sizes vary greatly. One time you'll end up with every single width 1 tile wide, another time you may end up with 2x3s. As far as I can tell the lot sizes are suited to the desirability of the area. If it's a less desirable area you get the smaller lots, more desirable gives larger lots.

[genshin 0]

I'm not sure whether you mean killing the auto-zone roads while zoning, or whether you're talking about the sizes of the building lots that pop up.

I'm relatively new to the game, so I'm not sure how much I can help. But I just found out that if you don't want the auto roads to pop up, just hold down Shift while zoning. And as for the building lots, as mentioned by Mystrelia, they're constructed based on desirability.