Building large Skyscraping communities!

[HisUnholyness 0]

I'm somewhat new to Simcity 4 as well as SimTropolis, My best city is a medium sized one that has a 108K population, I would love to hear how the "pros" of SimCity build their citys to where they have towering skyscrapers and huge High-rises, much like the pictures I see in these forums.

[Mr. Glamazon 9]

A lot of the cities you see in the forums are filled with buildings from the STEX, and a lot of the buildings in the STEX are ploppable, so they never have to actually grow anything.  They put things where they want them and upload pics later! 

[Surferb0i8o8 1]

I plop most of my CO$$ and CO$$$ towers when demand is high. If you zone high desnity residential you should be able to get good sized towers if you have good health, education, and safety programs. If you want any good commercial towers just search up NDEX and you can find a ton of nice buildings made by them.

[masochist 111]

Well...it's true that a lot of the pictures with huge downtowns are custom made with plopped buildings, but it's definitely possible to grow them.  A secret I've found to work is to download nice looking CO$$ towers.  Those grow a lot quicker and easier than C0$$$, but in most cases they look just as good.  They also help spur on the growth of higher-wealth buildings by increasing the traffic around where they are.

Your medium city has just about the same population as one of my large cities, so you should be able to grow at least a few of them (I did, anyways).  What I do is delete all the other Commercial offices in my town except where I want the big ones to grow, so that demand increases for them; when they build, I let the other ones start building again. Some other things you might try (if you haven't already) is to give your commercial area regional support; in other words, build on the tiles around it.  Boost your region population, and that will boost region commerce demand.  Also, be sure to build an airport, as well as lots and lots of parks, plazas, and reward buildings, and be sure to use ordinances that will help increase commercial demand.  Just some things you can try....

Hope I've helped a bit!

[XpirAment 0]

Remembering that bigger commercial buildings show up on high traffic roads, I build culdesacs with dense residential zones, forcing the car traffic to pass the commercial zones. More or less, I force most of my residents to drive past most of my commercial zones, putting commercial between residential and industrial zones.

Otherwise, when building cities, I spend most of my time "XpirAmenting" with figuring congestion, wealth, demand, cost efficiency. I'm currently working on a large city with only one road to each of the 16 small cities adjacent. The large city has over 250000 industrial jobs. Then I'm playing the 16 small cities with different residential and commercial settings just to see what happens. I love it when one city steals 50000 residents from the next! We all play differently, I guess.

[crazyyaya 4]

The stex has all you need, just search tower and you'll get like 2000 lots you can download.

[Cob92 360]

In order to get skyscrapers, the commercial population of your city should be at least 75,000-100,000. Secondly, sprawl kills downtowns, just as it does in reality. Allowing too much low density office space will cause developers to opt out of skyscraper construction in favor of sprawling office parks.

[Culture_and_Eggplant 0]

I would definitely agree with masochist...build up your region population. Connect your downtown area to areas of medium to high density population. Make sure you give these residential areas time to grow and develop -- especially focus on developing the medium-wealth residents. High wealth residents are OK, but keep in mind that if you cannot coax them into high-wealth highrises, your residential area will be overrun with estates, and your population will, in a word, suck. Make sure your residents are well educated and healthy. If done properly and efficiently, you should easily have tens of thousands of residents in just a few years game time. With that many residents clamoring for jobs, your commercial development should be ready to explode.

Cobhris also has a good point. When zoning your downtown, make sure you zone exclusively medium to high density, taking into account a transport system built on roads and LOTS of avenues, with consideration for any future mass transit system (I recommend subways...they are fast, and mostly underground).

Read this article for more detailed information: https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=146&threadid=78505&enterthread=y

True, it is called "Making Money the Easy Way", but is also a great look at region play, and touches on some great strategies for developing land. It should give you a good idea where to start, and of course encourages you to use your own ingenuity and creativity when designing.

[bbfan02 23]

If you need an example, heres one:

Thats only one part of my huge city named Longridge, Population 1.1 million.

The newly formed high-tech insutrial center

The North end of Northern Longridge

The overview of the work-in-progress Northern Longridge

[squall816 0]

that looks completely ploppable...therefore fake

[siso43 13]

not bad, but skyscrapers you don't really need, a city is so popoular

[TomNobles 0]

I start by zoning cities on it's borders in Industrial. Ex.: Using a large map, zone two medium cities in Industrial then zone that side of the large city in Hi Density Residential. (with roads connecting them of course). Run the res. until population tapers off. then run the two industrial until they are satisfied, then go back to the res.

Just keep doing this until you have large apartments then start zoning Commercial. I keep going back & forth until the industrial is fairly saturated, then start on another side. I've built cities over 1Mil this way (Flat Map).

[WackoJak 0]

Only ever start in low density anything, except for a bit of high-dens ind. just to start the ball rolling.

And also, bbfan02, your city seems to have a collection of 6 or 7 different towers which you've just plopped over and over. You might want to try for some variety.

[iamihop11 19]

Don't just plop everything.  How exciting is that? Buildings will get bigger as your region grows.  And yes, if you limit sprawl and allow for strategically placed jobs, commercial buildings will be more likely to tower.

Here, a city 100% RCI grown, and the size of the buildings only makes sense because it's in a region of around a million, not because of the 270,000 who live in Two Lakes:

A broad view of the downtown isthmus between the two lakes.
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/8826/twolakescitybroadph3.jpg

Welcome to downtown.  You'll notice an annoying proliferation of Kinzie Towers, but other than that, I'm quite pleased.  I intend to add walls along the waterfront, perhaps, and keep pushing for more large commercial towers.
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/883/twolakescitydowntownww5.jpg

The downtown of Two Lakes City started out further south, and the area is still relatively prosperous.
http://img119.imageshack.us/img119/4882/twolakescityolddtek6.jpg

And finally, Lake Stadium, home of the Two Lakes Salmon, who regularly make journeys through the play-offs to reach the frigid waters upstream. Many will not complete the voyage.
Oh, and parking is on the mainland, with free buses and shuttles to transport the fans.
http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/2940/twolakescitystadiumky1.jpg 

[bbfan02 23]

So you are saying ploping the commerical buildings are bad?!?!

[Tojglee (HUN) 2]

Plopping is not exciting. It's too easy! There's no "risk". There's no reality. In real life, the mayors don't put down everywhere buildings where they want them...

[JakeMD 107]

yes, most of the cities that have huge skyscrapers are either plopped, or have custom growables, search through the stex and download a buncha buildings and mods, and get the NAM, that helps alot too

[patriots_1228 51]

Plopping is much more realistic than growing.

In RL, a person will design a building, then ask the mayor or the city council/etc. if they can build it. Note they they need permission. They don't just walk up to the site and build a building. they also don't build the samebuilding 10 times in the same city.

Plopping also has weaknesses though, but it is much more realistic. my perfect system would be you zone, but before somthing grows, you must approve it. Of course thats off-topic, aint it?

HisUnholyness-easiest way to make a beautiful skyline is "plop till ya drop". Of course some would prefer a challenge, but I'd rather cheat for 1,000,000,000,000 then just plop

[_MostlyHarmless 17]

3 Sears Towers? lol. Plopping is tedious but I think much more realistic, sims don't know how to build realistically any more than they know the correct path to get to work.

[Haljackey 17,354]

You can also download the super demand mod to increase your commercial office demand. With demand skyrocketing, all your large dense commercial zones should spew into a sea of skyscrapers!

[six-five-two 0]

You mean Super Demand Ordiance Mod by buggi? I read somewhere that it causes alot of crashes, is this true?

[nsj806 1]

I have seen a few cities with large commercial districts made entirely of default (Maxis) buildings. You can get skyscrapers but theres no variety, and plopping is definitely easier.

[tjh876 31]

yeah, you can't get too carried away with this, you shouldn't expect a city to grow like crazy. And yes it is possible to make a city completly off of maxis buildings. It just requires a lot a game playing, experience, and trial and error

[joeshmoe 1]

i prefer to get my city up and running, and i start ploping when my city is ready for it.

i tried starting a city by ploping alone, and everything was OK, right away my city had a pop. of 250,000. then everything adbandoned and all but 5000 people moved out. it was an utter failure.