Help a newb out.

[rollenkingston 0]

Okay, so I'm definitely not new to Simcity but I am new to Simcity 4. A few questions.

1. I have the Deluxe Edition and it is really prone to crashing. Can someone help me out?

2. I read some of the tutorials, man this game is such a step up from previous games. The realism is intense. So my question is, my demand for redisential zones increases while commercial and industrial zones are decreasing, therefore I can't find work for my sims, can someone offer a solution?

3. How do I get the skyscrapers and office towers? It isn't as simple as making a large plot like in Simcity 3000 and waiting for it to grow.

I'll probably have more problems later, but I'll save those for later.

[patriots_1228 51]

1) no clue

2) Check out the booklet that came with it, i remember there was a chart in there that really helped me raise my demand the first time. Or, you can plop buildings that you downloaded from the STEX(Simtropolis Exchange) that come with jobs.

3) Two ways. First one is to lay out a zone, then keep zoning, and slowly, as your city gets wider, the buildings get taller. The game has caps, say 20,000 population and the buildings start getting higher. somthing like that, i dont really understand that part. I just plop skyscrapers from the STEX

Welcome to ST

[masochist 111]

Welcome to Simtropolis, rollenkingston!

Ahh, your first question is kind of vague.  The game is prone to crashing, but there are many things that can make it crash, from your virus scanner to the type of graphics card you're running.  Could you give the specs of your computer, and maybe some things that you notice happen right before it crashes?

For your second question, I would first suggest going ahead and zoning more Residential zones.  If it's still going up, that probably means that you have too many jobs and not enough people, so that may help.  If it doesn't, then I would suggest lowering taxes for Industry and Commerce.  That will drive the demand up for both of them.  Also, is it all the commerce and industry that is low in demand, or just specific wealths?  You might be able to zone some and have a particular wealth level grow.

For the third question, remember this general rule of thumb: build outwards before you build upwards.  To get large skyscrapers, your region population has to be to quite high (around 500,000).  You can get some medium-wealth commercial 'scrapers before that, but to get the high-wealth ones, you need to meet a lot of requirements.  Find a place that's easily accessible to the residents, and make sure that it's a high-traffic area, because commerce feeds off of it.  Make sure to put many plazas and an airport or two in that city to raise the Commercial Demand cap, and zone slowly (if you zone too much at once, you might overkill it and it may take longer to grow).  There's probably more to it, but those are the things that I remember .

I hope I've helped you in some way.  Good luck !

Originally posted by: patriots_1228

The game has caps, say 20,000 population and the buildings start getting higher. somthing like that, i dont really understand that part. I just plop skyscrapers from the STEXquote>

From what I know, demand caps are basically limits on how much of a zone your Sims want.  You get negative demand when you build more than your Sims demand, and the demand won't go higher unless you raise the caps.  That's how they control when you can have skyscrapers and such.  In the beginning, the demand caps for stuff like dirty industry and CS$ are high and the caps for CO$$$ and Hi-tech industry are low.  Building things like civic buildings, plazas and airports and such raises the demand caps (and I believe the number of Sims in your city does, too), and when you raise the caps high enough, your Sims will demand more of them.  That's my understanding of it, anyways...

[bwatterud 7]

1. Making sure you have all of the patches should help the crashing issue (I'm assuming you don't have any mods installed)

2. There are a few mods out there that increase demand a lot. The one I know about, found here, is good if you want your cities to grow quickly into urban centers, but not if you want your city to grow normally.

3. You have to wait until you reach a certain population threshold before large buildings will grow. You need 1,100 sims living in your city for medium density buildings (mid-rises) to grow, and 26,000 for high density buildings (skyscrapers) to grow. If you don't mind "cheating" the mod linked above can help you reach those thresholds more quickly.

And welcome to Simtropolis.

[rollenkingston 0]

K, so I got rid of my unemployment problem, that was a close one. But a lot of my buildings especially the houses are showind decay. Sure its not as ugly as it was in Simcity 3000 but I'm still worried. Do they replace themselves? And I took your advice masochist and lowered the taxes. I think it worked though I'm not sure, anyways I'm out of my employment phase... for now. I have a population of around 10 000, where do I go from here? Oh and how do I get my sims to go to work in other regions? Thanks for the help guys.

[masochist 111]

Usually the next step after 10,000 is 10,001 ...seriously, you just keep going.  There's no limit...now that you have a population that size, you're probably on the right track.  All you have to do is upgrade roads, make sure that all the services aren't at capacity, and just keep going with it.

As for your buildings decaying, it may be due to several different things.  If it's because of commute time, then I really can't help you (that could be due to any number of things, and a lot of the time has no justification).  Anything else can be solved by fixing what it says (no water, no jobs, etc.).  If it's decaying but not all the way abandoned, it means that there aren't enough people to support that level of wealth.  You can delete the building if you want and let something else grow, or keep it and raise the demand caps until the building can support it again.

And different regions have absolutely no connections with each other.  To get Sims to work in other cities, just provide jobs in the other cities (and highways to those jobs) and they'll go work.

[rollenkingston 0]

So in a sense they do have a connection. At least if I connect it with a road or an avenue. As long as there is a connection, they'll go to work, right? I'm not totally enjoying this region system. Is there a setting where the computer creates the cities beside you like in SC3K? I don't want to have to manage all the settlements in my region; not just yet.

[masochist 111]

Yeah, all you have to do is connect them together, and they'll go. Well, they'll go if there isn't a job that's closer. If you have little demand for jobs in one town, usually people won't go to the next town over to work. And if they do, then jobs in the first town will become abandoned.

There isn't an "automatic" city thing, but what you can do is import a city to the space next to it if you want. You build a city in one region and use the import option to bring it to the region you want (it has to replace a city tile of the same size, of course). That way you can have a city that's already built next to your city...but you still have to manage it once it's there. It's just a shortcut you can take.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Welcome to our conversation.  I'll take a stab at your questions, but I don't guarantee to be right, either.

1. This has a lot of variables.  Please post this problem in the Bugs and Technical Issues forum with your system configuration including the build version of your game, your operating system and its update status, along with your hardware in use.  You can get the build version of the game by finding the executable, right click and look at properties tabs for version.  If your version is not 638 or 640 you are missing updates.
2. You might be running into "demand caps", which are part of the game designed to force you to keep things in balance.  Sometimes you need to add cap busters such as the Mayor's house ®, Plazas ©, and so on.  Many of the rewards and landmarks that come with the game provide cap relief.
3. Skyscrapers are dependent on population size and desirability.  You won't see any commercial ones until you get up to around 50,000 Sims and then only if things are just so.  If you can find one, the Prima Guide is well worth the investment.  Saves a lot of hair tearing.

I hope this helps, and I look forward to your crash thread over in Bugs and Technical Issues.

[rollenkingston 0]

Actually the crash comes when I alt+tab, I can just stop doing that all together. Also, my xfire is not working properly with the game.

[hawkpride147 1]

that is your problem. you are trying to use to much memory by running too many apps. run SC4 only if possible. when you change apps, you use more memory so the alt + tab crashes your game

[Sandis_van_Great 346]

1)i haw that same problem and i did this:i creaqt 2 new regions 1,blank 2region wher i play!!and i delet all crase files from my docoments/simcity4/Exception Reports/

and that du the trick

[Barbarossa 51]

Also, although this has not been mentioned and may not have any bearing on the situation... re: crashes, if you have a dual processor, then I STRONGLY recommend Alt-Tab (yes, this could be a problem for you), Ctrl-Alt-Del to bring up the task manager, right click simcity4.exe and designate a processor affinity for the game. I always pick 1, not 0. SimCity4 does not like dual processors. This caused me no end of grief until I learned of it. My game now only crashes due to the Zoom bug.

Barbarossa

[rollenkingston 0]

I don't have a dual core, but I do have 3.0Ghz proccessor, so I don't think it matters that much. I far exceed the system requirements. Anyways, it doesn't seem to be crashing that much on me anymore. Now onto the game topics, how do I build high-tech industries?! I really don't get how to build those, they aren't a specific zoning type, is it dense or medium? I really need those jobs.

[Barbarossa 51]

I don't have a dual core, but I do have 3.0Ghz proccessorquote>

Are you sure? My system is a 3.06 GHz, but only because it is really two 1.03 Ghz processors. I just want to throw that out there...

how do I build high-tech industries?! I really don't get how to build those, they aren't a specific zoning type, is it dense or medium? I really need those jobs.quote>

Use High Density. If you have demand, they will come...

Barbarossa

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Originally posted by: dzekins 1)i haw that same problem and i did this:i creaqt 2 new regions 1,blank 2region wher i play!!and i delet all crase files from my docoments/simcity4/Exception Reports/

and that du the trickquote>

I seriously doubt that the contents of other directories and regions have any effect on the game.  Why should it?   These items are on your disk, and inactive when you are playing some other region. 

The only thing deleting files may have done was given you more virtual space.  If you are that hard up for disk, it is time to run Disk Cleanup then do a defragmentation pass.  As a matter of principle, all disks should have about 30% free space to allow for contingencies.

[GMoney702 0]

The realism IS a big step from previous titles.

If you want some skyscrapers, build your city outwards and don't zone high-density commercial until your city is wide.

Oh and if your sims want a certain zone (such as residential) real bad, then give it to them and work until your demand goes down again and work from there.

If you have any more questions then ask in this discussion forum, p.m. me, or p.m. somebody else.

[masochist 111]

To get high-tech Industry to build, your Sims need to be very educated, so build lots of schools and museums and such. You can zone either medium or high-density industry to get them to build, but the main thing is to have educated Sims. You can also lower HT industrial taxes and/or raise the other industrial taxes, and that'll make them a bit easier to obtain.  Just be sure to build those industries early on, because the farther along your city is, the more the demand shifts from Industry to Commerce.

I'll tell you this, though...there's not too many jobs involved. Even in the biggest high-tech buildings, you'll find hardly more than 50 or so jobs (if that ). So if it's the jobs that your after, I'd suggest downloading the Industry Quadrupler Mod (if you haven't already). You can guess what it does, and it's actually makes the amount of jobs more realistic than the game does.

[rollenkingston 0]

By the way, I don't have gmax but I hear it is a discreet product. I have 3Ds Max. Can I use that to model stuff as well?

[masochist 111]

Yes, you can. Don't ask me how, though!

[rollenkingston 0]

No, I know how to model. I just need to know how to get it into the game? Is there some sort of export file?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

To get the model into the game, you need the BAT and its associated utilities.  Since the BAT is a gmax game pack, you'll need gmax.  Gmax currently comes from Turbosquid and you need to register it with them as well.  Once you have gmax active and registered, you download the BAT from simcity.com.