SC4 Deluxe ed - help with big cities

[0rion79 1]

Hi all,

I just joined this forum since I'm in great troubles with my cities and I need some expert's advice about resolving some bad troubles!

I apologize in advane for grammar errors, but english is not my mother tongue.

1st  - traffic & noise: = guys, I really don't understand how to deal with it: my sims always are unhappy for traffic or car noise. Even if streets are connected to the main avenues, there are always too many cars into them and if there is no traffic, then there is too much noise and the advisors tell me that there are too many roads and too few streets. Any help?

I would like to know, too, if it is important how I turn my buildings when preparing zones. Each of them has arrows that show the building's main side, the one with the door (I guess): is it important if it faces on a road, street or avenue, to reduce the noise?

2nd - environment = when my city grows bigger, the environment level goes down and there is no remedy for this. I use the cheat to turn back to GOD mode and plant a lot of trees wherever I can, to keep it high, but it doesn't look enough. I can't even plant parks and plazas everywhere, since they are just too expensive to mantain! (and they steal place to population).

2-B garbage = I don't understand how to deal with garbage too. I usually build reciclers near landfills, far away from the city, but I don't understand how much garbage is produced by the city and how many funds I really need to keep the city clean. Even more, I belive that the writings near the recycler are quite confusing: "it serves 25.000 ppl and reduces garbage by 20%" Does it mean that building 5 of them would reduce garbage by 100%? Hard to believe. Even more, I tried to build only one with a 20.000 ppl city but my advisor still tells me to build more landfill zones. I want to know this: building coal or oil plants, toxic waste dump or other nasty items will lower my environment levels REGARDLESS of where I build them? So, i.e., if I have a LARGE map and I build my city on the top left corner and all the firty stuff in the lower right, upon a hill and surrounded by trees, does it matter for the people living in the city?

3rd - locating commercial zones = it is not clear to me where I should place them. It is logic for me to have residential and commercial zones mixed here and there in the city. Maybe my mistake is that I'm building even medium and high density commercial zones "randomly", so this increases the traffic. Maybe I should only build low density commercial zones, just to offer basic services to citizens far away to the city center.

About medium/high density, should I instead try to concentrate them along main streets, in the way for industries?

4th - locating bus stations and "1-square-size" items = this may be a bit stupid, but, like all other SinCity games, even in SC4 it is terrible to build diagonal streets and usually I make all streets to create squares, parallel to the map edges. Still, in this way, I really don't know where to place bus stops, since they may prevent a building to face on the street. I resolved building them near corners, maybe using small decorations like statues, basket fields or parks to fill the adjacent space in a way that doesn't leave "holes" in the map.

Like this: R = road p = park * = Bus stop.

RRRRRR

R*p

Rpp

Rpp

5th - high-wealth sims always are unhappy = from what I've seen, those people are the most difficult to make happy. In my latest cities, I have my low & mid wealth sims requests to top, but high wealth sims residential zones request is all the time below zero, even with very low taxes. The same for commercial offices & stuff. I really don't understand why, since I have a very high mayor rating and I have high scores in all fields (only average about environment).

6th - hi-tech industries = this is another problem: I can't keep them separated by manufacturing or dirty industries. For dirty ones, I rise taxes to 20%, to prevent their growth, but this is not enough: they always look unhappy and I can't tax them more than 6% or 7%, otherwise their request goes down a lot. Too many times, I see abandoned buildings due to "low request", but what's the use of Hi-Tech industries if they cause only troubles and don't pay taxes? Should I invest in parks and other green areas to enhanche hi-tech industries? What's the ideal area size for them? Is dirty industry "bad" or should simply stay far away from other industry types?

7th - city ordinances: any backdraw? = Does City ordinances have any backdraw? I usually mark almost all of them when I have the moneys for doing so but, except legalized gambling that actracts criminals (is it worthy of, for you? Is a casinò actractive for citizens?), do the other ordinances have any backdraw except their cost, maybe making some citizen category unhappy?

8th - cheats & stuff = First, i tried to download the new cheats dll from this site, but there is only a zip file that I can't open. Is there any cheat or trainer to boost mayor rating or zones request?

Thanks a lot.

[Mikeaut1 261]

Hey Orion79!!

I'd love to answer the questions you have. I will supply some helpful links for you if you're the cheating type. Note that many of these downloads aren't necessarily cheating, but are helpful if you want more realistic cities.

1. Traffic & Noise

Traffic and noise is just something to deal with when you have a major city. There is really nothing I do in my huge cities to prevent noise and traffic. It's almost unpreventable. Except with traffic you have many options. You can put a nice mass transit system in your inner cities like elevated rail, ground-light rail, or subways, to reduce traffic on the streets, thus limiting noise on the streets. Mass transit helps especially when cities are very big and lots of people are transporting around it. When preparing zones, make sure the arrows face the roads! They will not change traffic or noise.

Important Links : 

THE NAM. The NAM is by far the most important download on Simtropolis. It fixes your transportation networks, and Sims find better and faster paths to work. If you have any questions about this download, please PM me or post here!

2. Environment and Garbage 

For a city to grow nicely, you must have a nice desirability throughout. Parks and plazas are basically required for a city to maintain its wealth and life. I have a few downloads below to help you with maintaining cleanliness in your city. Large factories will make pollution a problem, so keep them away from the main cities. Look below for more info.

Important Links: 

PEGS GARBAGE CHUTE: Helpful little tool for garbage. 
POLLUTION CONDENSER: Helpful little tool for reducing pollution. 

3. Commercial Zones

Place commercial zones on the big streets; avenues and roads. When building high and medium density, keep them near highways or on avenues in a centralized location, like a downtown. 

4. Bus Stop Placement

Place bus stops and stuff on the street. Make sure as you said you dont put buildings in the way of the bus stop or 1x1 item or the building will not have road connection. Do it anyway you want; 1x1 park items usually dont need road connection.

5. High Wealth Sims

High wealth sims love a clean environment!!! Make sure your environment is clean and they should become happy. They are the hardest to please. Just make sure your health and education systems are well funded, in good condition, there are lots of parks, good commute times etc.. and they should become happy.

6. High Tech

You need high tech demand. I seem to find that high tech assimilate themselves with the manufacturing and dirty industries. But like you said; if you tax manu. and dirty, only hitech will be built if you have the right demand. Low request is something I haven't seen before, so maybe you just dont have the right enough demand for something like hi-tech industry. Grow your commercial and residential sectors more before you begin with industrial. Commercial especially will probably lead to an increase of high tech industry.

7. City Ordinances

I never really pay attention to the city ordinances, i just check them all off.  I do believe some of them have positive and negative effects on the city, but I do recommend checking off all the ones that have to deal with the environment, recycling, pro reading, carpooling. That will really have an effect on your city.

8. Cheats 

Some of the cheats I provided for you are there; hopefully you can download them! If you cant, then it is something with your computer not opening zip folders. 

If you have any other additional questions or concerns, don't be afraid to ask!

We're friendly here, we are happily willing to help you with any question you need! 

[0rion79 1]

Hi HIM

(great band, really! I love Join me in Death and other songs from Valo), thanks for the answers, but maybe it is time to go into detail:

1. Traffic & Noise

Sadly, you confirmed me my thoughts: for quiet living, people must NOT live in a metropolis. Afer all, it is quite realistic, but maybe EA/Maxis forgot double-glass windows to reduce the noise!

 You wrote: "When preparing zones, make sure the arrows face the roads!" but must it be a road? What if they face an avenue or a street? Is it worst, better or the same?

2. Environment and Garbage 

Parks and plazas are basically required for a city to maintain its wealth and life.

Large factories will make pollution a problem, so keep them away from the main cities.

The problem is that I made a city that has almost more parks and cemeteries and trees than buildings! And still "environment is green by 3/5, not more. I wonder if the only presence of dirty industry or dirty plants and landfills may lower the environment value, even if they are very far away from the city: what do you think about?

3. Commercial Zones

what about low density commercial? Are they ok if mixed with residential zones?

5. High Wealth Sims

They are the hardest to please.

Hm... everything is at top. Maybe it is just commute time that is a bit too long for the riches even if traffic is ok, but I've red somewhere that they hat using mass transit, even cool stuff like railway.

8. Cheats

I have no idea: I'm using winrar to extract it, but maybe the download source is corrupted. Could you be so kind to mail the dll file NOT in zip/rar archive at orpheananger@hotmail.com?

I must admit that I feel a bit "lost" due to the huge quantity of available stuff in the download section.

I found that great "mass transit patch" that adds buss stops that do not steal place from buildings but I haven't download the files that you suggested me, except the traffic patch, since, even if very good, I don't want to cheat. May you suggest me some other unofficial patch or anything that boost the game experience without cheating?

Thanks....

M.

[rob9926 0]

hi and welcome Orion

for your first problem traffic noise...this is a factor of desirability and affects residential. if the traffic noise is high then you got lots of cars racing around your residential area. this is a negative factor for residents in your city and if it gets very bad you might even see abandoned buildings for reasons relating to desirability most likely. also you are seeing advisor messages saying that you have too many roads in your city. well this message can be ignored if you are in a good financial situation (roads cost more but it's worth it). now although there are no advisor messages saying traffic noise is out of control it is a very common problem and if you place a "my sim" in the city they will tell you how bad traffic noise is. i must say that traffic noise only becomes a problem when abandonment occurs. if you want to lower traffic noise in your city, try enacting ordinances, encouraging mass transit, placing trees and parks or lowering the capacity of your road networks around your residential (easier said than done). also when you ask do building arrows need to be facing the roads, i am pretty sure it's optional for buildings and compulsory for zones. after all most buildings will have an effect even if no road is present.

moving onto the second problem environment...i must say this is very hard to keep high when it comes to mayor ratings. you are doing the right thing by placing trees and parks, but you are right parks can be expensive if you're using them for fighting pollution. one thing i might say is unless you are trying to be a realist, environmental issues like pollution can be ignored if you're residential and commercial population is away from the source. some people have chosen to benefit from regional play and have a seperate city for residential and industry. also traffic pollution on the other hand is harder to fix because we can't exactly place traffic in another city like we can with industry and power etc. the solutions above for lowering traffic noise will also help deal with traffic pollution

your next problem garbage...i can honestly say i've never used a recycling plant EVER. the theory with the recycling plant is that it reduces the amount of garbage your city creates and this is by 20% to be exact. it is not cumulative and the remaining garbage is sent to whatever facility you provide. now these are a few ideas you can use to dispose of your cities garbage. you can zone landfill and as long as it is away from your residents you will have no problems. your advisor will also yell at you when you're have no more room in your landfill and the garbage is pouring out in your neighbourhoods. also in regard to nasty buildings, you WILL see a decrease in the environment rating but as long as you do not have these buildings in the radius of your residents they will not be discouraged. on the other hand your environment advisor will.

your problem with commercial zones...i see this as a debate on whether to place commercial zones realistically or strategically. the truth is they want lots of customers and high land value but they don't want garbage crime or pollution. the best way to plan your commercial development is to look at your desirability chart and the traffic chart and zone where it is desirable and lots of traffic. so essentially you want your commercial zones in rich areas and probably on the way to work. as for zoning medium and high density, this is something you consider when your population is high.

now we look at bus stops...well bus stop placement is something you will have to experiment with. the factors involved when placing bus stops is that residents will use them to get to work and if they have to walk the entire length of your cemetery to get to one, well they'll be exhausted and won't be able to continue. just remember that walking is something the game doesn't endorse.

proceeding to high wealth discussion...it is true unfortunately that high wealth sims are pretty much always unhappy. at the end of the day a high wealth sim can survive with only education and health coverage. water is only needed for dense buildings like apartments etc. fire coverage is a bonus and police coverage is only needed when crime is out of control. now if you have full services coverage and low commute times, traffic noise, pollution, garbage, crime etc your high wealth sims should love you. if not open up your disasters panel and don't hold back.

speaking of high tech...i don't think i'm the person to help you here. my high tech population in my cities is discusting. that being said i think what you might need to do is build your high tech in primarily rich places and if dirty and manufacturing are interfering then raise taxes.

ordinances...i enact these only when they are needed and i advice you use at your own discretion. if you are unsure what an ordinance does you might want to search through a few tutorials.

as for cheats...i can't help you since i don't use them, sorry.

overall i hope you can benefit from the above somehow. if you go on to play the game and you don't have these problems anymore well that is a bonus to you but i think i should note that even i have these problems in my cities, i'm just too lazy to fix half of them lol. cheers

[Mikeaut1 261]

Haha, my username on Simtropolis is not HIM, it is Mikeaut1, but I am a big fan of HIM too!

The arrows can face any road, street, avenue, except for the highway. But keep your commercial on the avenues and big roads, and keep your residential on the streets. Not only is it realistic, but commute times and traffic patterns will be good.

The NAM boosts the game without necessarily cheating, but that's all. Theres really nothing else out there that isn't cheating that boosts your game. The NAM and many of its plugins are enough. (The radical custom special option for traffic is the best plugin from NAM, in my opinion).

Low density commercial is okay mixed with residential, it provides jobs for them!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

So far you have had good pointers, but here is my two cents worth as well.

1. Traffic:  One of the main thrusts in Rush Hour was to up the traffic levels.  Someone suggested the NAM to help with path finding, and I concur.  You can install this many times until you get it right (uninstalling between)  One way to reduce traffic noise is with mass transit, specifically buses and subways.  You have to be careful with your pathing here.  Sims will drive at the drop of a hat.  Make sure your MT route, including the walk to and from stations is shorter than the car route or it will be ignored.  Ignore the advisors unless the message is bordered in red. Arrows should point at the street/road/avenue on which you want the Sims to exit the house onto.
2. Environment:  Parks, trees, water, plazas are one way to fix the environment without cheating.  The STEX has some air pollution control plants, and the water treatment plant in the game is pretty good.  You might need two or three of them in a really large, dirty city.  However, there are cheat lots, a couple in my name, that make pollution a thing of the past.
   1. Garbage:  Land fills and recycle plants (one per 25,000 pop) help.  But land fills are dirty and slow.  You can pick up garbage eating lots as noted.  The other trick is to ship it to one of these lots in another city.
   2. Avoid toxic waste sites, including Area 51.  If you have to build these, your city will slowly become a real mess.  You should also avoid power plants that are heavy polluters, or at least put them on the edge of your city.  Anything that falls off the edge is gone to the sweet by and by.
3. Commercial zones should be placed so that the Sims must travel through them to get to work, if the work in industry.  I generally place my commercial downtowns in a spot that has residential neighborhoods butting up against it.  During urban redevelopment phases (don't be a chicken about this), you can wipe out residential neighborhoods to add commercial districts.  It is good if you also build a suburb for the poor, displaced people to live in at that time, usually before hand.
   1. Build low density until you run out of room, then change the zoning as appropriate.
4. Bus stations should be placed so that the Sims don't have to walk more than eight or so squares to get to and from the bus when going to work.  The same apples for subway and other transit stations.  I often place transit stations in the middle of the block of say 11 squares.  If you use subways, you can run diagonals for long reaches without stations, or even with stations.  Subway networks are a good intercity hook up as well
5. High Wealth Sims are happy if the commute is short, and they can get a job.  They also want good education, hospital, protection (police, fire), recreational facilties (parks, playgounds, statiums), and absolutely minimum pollution.  R$$$ should be kept to between 15 and 20# of your population.  More than that won't be able to find work.
6. You should not expect hi-tech industry when you have dirty and manufacturing in the same area.  It just won't happen.  I-HT has the same requirements as Co$$$.  After your city gets going, you can lock out further development of I-D and I-M by setting their tax rate to 20%.   You get a nice revenue jump while they very slowly move out.  Meanwhile, you can zone industrial and hi-tech should move in, especially if you set the tax rate for them at around 7%
7. Ordinances:  Some are a nuisance.  I never allow gambling as it increases crime.  The smoke detector ordinance I turn on before I set my first fire station up.  I keep it on always.  I also use the tire recycling and automobile pollution reduction and the car pool.  I do not give free transit, nor free medical.
8. Downloads:  All lthe downloads from here are zip archives.  If you have XP or Vista you don't need anything else to open it.  Downloads should be away from the game in their own folder.  I put mine on the desktop, named My Downloads.  Unzip the files there, and follow the read me or download page instructions for placement of files.  Some parts of a download are often mutually exclusive, so this requires care.  You should read the Plugin Mania thread over the Bugs and Technical Issues.  You will save yourself a lot of grief.  The new cheats dll is exactly that, a .dll library.  When you get it unpacked, it must be directly under your My Documents\Simcity 4\Plugins folder.

Pant, pant, whew!  I hope this is helpful.\

If you have any problems with this or anything else, feel free to PM me.

[0rion79 1]

Thanks for the answers, really. You are confirming some of my thoughts. One matter is that I reproduce the island on which I'm living now (Sardegna, Italy) and I've build the capital esactly as it is and it is suffering esactly of the same troubles that we do have here, while I'm trying to build other cities with my general knowledge ( I don't know how cities in the north are made, but I know more or less where are the industrial areas, where the farms and that, for example, only the city of Sassari has light train & underground inside the city range). So, I don't complain too much if they don't grow more than 80 or 90.000 sims, because we just don't have huge metropolies here too, but I would like to create good middle-size cities as they are here. Then, later, I'll play for huge metropolies.

About garbage, why should I avoid area 51 and toxic waste site, if I'm able to keep them far away from city? Of course, I'm not gonna build them close rich areas, but ony upon hills or already dirty areas.

About the downloads, I just can't open the extra cheats dll archive! All the others are fine. WinRAR just says me that the file is corrupted. Maybe I'm downloading it from the wrong site or link....

One last question: I've seen that SC4 offers monorail, underground and light rail services, but I feel a bit confused about them. Underground has the obvious advantage that it doesn't take space, but what about monorail or light rail? I've seen that light rail may be connected with underground, so I guess it should be a cheaper alternative to connect underground lines in two different places of very big maps, but what the use of monorail? What are the pro and cons?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Can anyone give a valid link to the Buggi dll?

Sardinia?  Well, that is very interesting.  A very large island in the Med area, very nice, and usually warm, I think?  Is it independent, Italian or French?  Haven't really kept up with the tossing about.

Area 51 and toxic waste dumps are both radioactive.  A problem you don't really want, i think.  Dirt is one thing, but radiation is generally bad.

Actually there are really only two kinds of rail.  Heavy rail suitable for freight on which some passenger traffic is possible, and light rail which is passenger only.  Parking for passengers is provided in the passenger stations 

The light rail can be Elevated Rail and/subway in the standard game, and there is a link lot for these to transition. 

The Ground Light Rail comes with the NAM, and is a version of the Elevated Rail.  No stations are provided, but there are several on the exchange.  Using GLR with the June 2007 NAM is easier than it used to be, especially with the revised stations.  There is a link on the exchange for GLR to subway.  GLR to Elevated rail is part of the NAM.

None of the light rail has passenger parking.  You need to provide parking garages (there is at least one underground one on the exchange) or good surface transit to the stations.  There is limited employee parking.

The monorail is a faster version of the Eleveated Rail really designed for long haul or intercity travel.  Again, no parking facilities.  There is a package somewhere that converts the monorail to maglev.  Sorry, I don't have a reference.

[0rion79 1]

Oh my

Well... Sardinia (Sardegna) is 100% italian! Maybe you are confusing it with Corsica, that is french even if Ajaccio's people have a very strong and indipendent culture, that is not really french either. Anyway, yes: we have quite a torrid climate: in summer Sardinia looks more like african Savannah than roman green grassplains.

If you want, I can upload the SC4 region, when I'm done.

Anyway, could you tell me more about radiations? Why are they so bad, even if kept away from city?

[ShortStraw 1]

Hi everyone, I've been dropping in on this site off and on for about a year but only just recently joined.   I've built a number of cities in the 150,000 population range and my biggest is nearly 250,000.  I've used a lot of tips and tricks picked up from these forums to make some very succesful high tech and high wealth cities as well as huge sprawling industrial meccas and, more recently, small quaint villages and farming communities.  What has inspired me to post here is traffic noise issues and and the comments regarding the Nam in this topic.  Mike's reply to Orions "Traffic and Noise" problem inspired me to download and install the Nam.  I should point out that this is my first mod for this game.  I've been playing for almost 3 years off and on but I've never used a cheat, mod or downloaded content.  (Not too proud to cheat, just too lazy, heh).  Through very careful zoning and deliberate and careful use of avenues, busses subways and trains I have managed to keep commute times reasonable in cities up to 150,000 population but I usually lose control of traffic noise around the 50,000 mark.  I hope to be able to fix this with the Nam.  I got it downloaded and installed but I'm a little baffled by the new transportation options so if someone could point me toward some GLR tutorials or Nam content (Especially  any tutorial dealing with the latest Nam stuff) I would really appreciate it.

And as long as I'm here I'd like to offer what help I can on some of Orions specific problems.

1. Traffic and Noise:  I try to point residential buildings at the street/road/avenue with the least existing traffic or with the highest available traffic threshold.  I usually have an idea which way I want my traffic from a particular city block to flow so I can channel residential dwellers through commercial districts and into work zones.  Generally speaking, I try to face buildings at main avenues on the outskirts of my residential areas then as I move in towards my downtown area or "workzone" or city center, I will aim buildings at "feeder streets" that empty traffic out of residential blocks and onto main avenues.  I've had good results controlling congestion in this manner but unfortunately traffic noise is high no matter which direction or what sort of road surface my buildings are facing.  So for the purposes of reducing traffic noise, No I don't think it matters which direction your buildings face.

2. Environment and Garbage:  In my experience, Heavy polluters such as Dirty industry, coal and oil power plants, toxic waste dumps, landfills etc WILL hurt your overall environment rating and can harm your overall mayor ranking.  I don't know anything about area 51 but the Toxic Waste Dump business deal lot will reduce desirability in its area for ALL LIVING THINGS.  I dropped one into a Dirty Industry zone once and just left it there and within a few months every building in 3 blocks was abandoned and they were starting to catch fire on a fairly regular basis.  I finally bulldozed it and the dirty industry came back after a time.  As for the other polluters, I don't think their pollution effects on desirability are city wide.  In other words, if you put a Coal Power Plant and a Waste to Energy plant (both heavy air polluters) far away from residential and commercial (and high tech) zones and take steps to regulate their pollution, they should not have a negative effect on the population outside the area they are polluting.  I have a few successful cities with both dirty industry and high tech located far from each other with pollution buffers in between and it is workable. 

That said, I have had the best results with locating my polluters in neighboring cities, a method which has already been mentioned I think.  The only other thing I'd like to mention about pollution is the Waste to Energy plant.  You can reduce funding for it so it doesn't cost you anything monthly and it'll burn off a fair amount of garbage for super cheap.  Its air pollution can be controlled with trees and parks and strategic location.

3. Locating Commercial Zones:   There's not much I can add to the great advice given here already about this.  I'd just repeat what better builders than I have already said and stress that commercial zones do very well in high traffic areas.  Most other commercial considerations are dependent on the wealth levels of the commercial properties but they pretty much all like high traffic so you cant go wrong by placing them in places where they'll have lots of customers.

4. Bus Stations and "1 square" items:  I usually leave a strip of land 1 square wide along each of my city blocks to accomodate bus stations, subway stations, small parks and trees.  I use a LOT of bus and subway stations when my cities get above 70,000 or so population so I always leave lots of "1 square" areas for them.  I've recently been experimenting with an idea someone posted about laying out 1 way streets with a "1 wide" strip in between them instead of using avenues.  This makes a roadway three squares wide with carefully controlled traffic flow and a "buffer strip" in the middle where you can put bus stations, subway stations and various pollution controlling tools.

5. Unhappy Rich People:  Again, better mayors than I have already said all I can think of about pleasing wealthy residents.  I would stress that they like a lot of the recreational/health and educational reward buildings.  Stuff like the opera house and country club as well as the main library and art museum and even marina and cruise ship ports can help keep rich sims happy.  In fact, anything with a positive residential "yimby" is a good thing to have near rich neighborhoods. 

6. High Tech Industries:  I've spent a lot of time on these guys and in my experience you are best off keeping high tech as far as possible from ANY pollution at all.  In cities where I have both High tech and polluting industry, I locate them on opposite sides of the map.  I generally start out with high tech taxes set to 20% so they'll stay out while I build up my dirty industry zones.  Once the dirty and manufacturing industry zones are full and as big as I want them (I want no more growth) I will raise dirty/manufacturing industry taxes to 20%, lower high tech taxes to 7% then lay out medium industrial zones on flat land, far from the nasty industrial zone and keep plenty of trees in the future high tech area (High tech loves trees, go figure).  This is the only way I've been able to make these types of industry coexist and even then it can be tricky.  Other than that, High tech industry has much the same requirements as other high wealth sectors.  Keep education high, pollution low and a healthy base of high wealth residents and high tech industry will stabilize, then you can slowly bump their taxes up till they're making you some money.

7. City Ordinances:  I can't really make up my mind on this one.  They seem to be worthwhile early in a cities development (less than 20,000 people or so) but I could swear they lose their effectiveness beyond a certain city size.  I usually enact all ordinances except gambling and carpool just to be on the safe side but they're costly and their effects on a large or troubled city are pretty small.  I suspect they're a waste of money the way I use them but I haven't really studied them hard enough to be comfortable with not spending the money on them, heh.

8. Cheats:  I know nothing at all about cheats.  As I said in my first paragraph, the Nam is my first attempt at modifying the game in ANY way whatsoever.  It doesn't seem to be a cheat though, it's more like an expansion pack as far as I can tell.  I have nothing against the idea of using cheats if that's what you want to do, I just haven't bothered with it myself.

Anyway, Thanks Orion for asking questions I needed answers for and thanks everyone else for your excellent insights (especially the NAM info).  I'm off to tinker with light rails some more...

[db108108 0]

I just finished with my biggest city ever - 1.3 million (and the city includes a river). I never got above 500k before (mostly due to a slow processor). And I didn't use cheats (money, specifically) Here are things from this city that I did differently:

1. Garbage: Outsource it to neighbouring cities.

2. Industry: Start out as normal, and eventually move towards high tech. How I do it: put the tax on D/M up high, then put in parks. Clean up the water with a few purification plants. I like to zone industry on the corners of the city. HT moves in quickly. As an added bonus, this helps to unlock the Hydrogen power plant and creates less pollution.

3. Downtown: For a very large city, set aside an area in the centre of the map and hem it in with highways. Leave it until you have it surrounded on three sides, then start building high density in downtown.

4. Mass Transit. The biggest mistake I made before was having mass transit everywhere with no particular plan. What I did this time was have different train and tram lines  every 16-25 blocks, all leading into the edges of downtown. Downtown had an avenue tram, and subways under every street. This city doesn't even have buses, but the commute time is only 17 minutes. And if you're going to use mass transit, download the Road-top mass transit modd. It's way more realistic and saves valuable real-estate.

5. Types of wealth. If you want to build a really populous city, don't be scared of low-wealth residential. In my city, Low wealth = 400 k, med = 600 k and high =  350k. It's a nice distribution.

6. Parks. There are some nice downloads that have trees already built on open grass areas. What I usually did for parks was plunk an OGA and then tree it. Place these everywhere (coastlines, especially, and wherever you can't place zones). If you have a block of zones that aren't developing, placing a row of these OGA will create an instant boom, and ups the property value to boot.

7. Streets: Use them very sparingly. In a very large city, they get congested way too easily.

8. Opera House. I can't stress this enough. Either install the patch in the modds section, or delete it. It was seriously dragging down my education, so much so that the month after I deleted it, the population zoomed from 1,050,000 to 1,250,000. I didn't realize that it has such a negative effect due to the capacity being way too low.

9. Neighbouring cities. If you want a large city to boom, you have to first develop bordering cities. The population in the main city will only grow so far if it's alone on the map. Once you develop neighbouring cities, higher densities will occur in the main city.

[0rion79 1]

Hi again.

Bwfore answering to the last messages, great news: I think I've found a way to reduce traffic noise and traffic, keeping some safe street in my city. Maybe I've just discovered hot water, as we say in italy, but I've stopped to play and have began to think: what are streets for, in real life? They are just used as small streets INSIDE city quarters, that basically should not lead to anywhere.

In SC4, I've tried to do the same: I've build a lot of avenues, zoning residential areas with arrows facing ONLY the avenue. Then, I've built streets that simply make a circle and come back from where they started, maybe surrounding buildings that do not need traffic, but just a connecton street, like hospitals, schools, police stations, or others that just don't need a street at all, like parks.

My previous mistake was to create more realistic city quarters, where even streets were connected to another quarter, but it is a big mistake, since sims are stupid, they won't take the fastest street but only the closest one and the straightest path, so having a street that is paralel to an avenue, will make the sims to use it instead than the avenue. Now, I still have "traffic noise high", but my advisors doesn't complain anymore about the lack of streets, nor one of my neightbours does complain about traffic noise.

    Avenue

===================================

^^^^^^^^^^^| s |^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

.          | s |

.          | s | residential area

.          | s |

___________| s |__________________

ssssssssss street sssssssssssssssss

s_________________________________s

s|           gardens or whatever |s

s|_______________________________|s

sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

__________________________________

DB, I have 2 very important questions for you: is manufacturing industry "bad"? I mean, it looks like that it can pays as much taxes as HT industry... as well, I've seen that some small dirty industry, 1x1 square, simply do not produce pollution at all and they dont' bother HT industry. As long as HT request is strongest and the othe industry buildings are no greater than 2x1 and are too small to create pollution, I think that they can co-exhist together, in the same area.

About mass transit, I already have that great mod that you told and its only bad side is that all those new bus stops & co. are not grouped into fewer icons, to shift with the tab key, maybe by kind of street or by the kind of mass transit stop.

I have a very important question: I've red somewhere that $$$ sims like driving their cars and use mass transit only if traffic is really dire. How can you force them to use mass transit? or maybe they like some "cool" stuff like subways or monorail and dislike busses and common train?

And, another question: where should I place free parking garages? I know that they are used to enhance the use of mass transit stops, so that ppl may take their car and move by it to buss stops, but it is not clear to me in wich city areas I should place them. IN the center of resitential zones, near a buss stop? Near high traffic avenues?

Thanks 4 everyting

[Mikeaut1 261]

Hey!

You have a nice layout there, with the residential areas and then the streets and gardens. Not only is that realistic, but it could provide the demand and the desirability needed for your city.

The manufacturing industry is not "bad", I think it is better than the Dirty industry because it doesnt let off as much pollution. Manufacturing industries can coexist with dirty and high tech industries as well. I'd recommend making a big industrial neighborhood, bordered by trees and stuff to contain pollution. Have a few streets entering the industrial neighborhood as well. If your industrial neighborhood is near a river or other body of water, I would suggest a seaport too and some rail lines with freight train stations.

It is true that $$$ Sims do not like using mass transit. They feel too important to even board a subway or a bus. I really rely on them to use my road networks, since they don't bother using the mass transit. Just make sure your road network is good and easy to drive through, and that many of your roads lead to downtown.

Parking garages should only be used downtown or in large commercial developments. Putting parking garages in the middle of residential quarters is a bit unrealistic. Although, if your residential areas are high density or even mid, then a parking garage might blend into the mix there. But I reccomend parking garages only for the bigger downtown and service areas.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I took a tip that was in another thread and I try to rig my intersections as Tees instead of crosses.  This acts as a traffic baffle, and to some extent seems to make traffic flow better.

[ShortStraw 1]

Wow, great thread.  I'm following this closely and applying what I learn here to my "San Fransisco"  region development.

If I could ask a question or 2 though...

Can anyone link directions to info about that opera house issue?  I have several opera houses and haven't noticed any particular negative effects but I haven't been looking for anything bad either. More info on that would be appreciated.

Also, my "Advanced Research Center"s sometimes crash my game when that little ghost looking thing comes out...is that normal?

Interesting about high tech and dirty industry coexisting in close proximity.  I messed with it a bit and found Orions observations to be accurate.  I'm currently blending small dirty and manufacturing  industry in the same city blocks, essentially micro managing low pollution levels.  It's cool to me to see farleys foundry sitting next to an avionics plant.  Then again, I'm easily amused. 

I'm about to work on some high density and quick developing properties.  I intend to try the "T-Intersection" traffic baffle idea out when I do.  It sounds perfectly feasible and a logical extension of Orions observations concerning inner city traffic patterns, street use and Road/Avenue use.

Thanks again everyone for the valuable (to me at least) Q&A.

[Barker 0]

ShortStraw: https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/view.asp?mode=viewtopic&topicID=48119

Im not sure if you saw this thread yet, but it covers the opera house bug.

Here is the link for the mod, also on the modds and download page of this site:

https://www.simtropolis.com/modding/index.cfm?p=details&id=339

I second ShortStraw's comment, GREAT THREAD, very informative, and refreshing to see very valid ideas/strategies/points from multiple angles, can we say STICKY??  I've been away from the game for a few months (bought a house, ugh), but this makes me wanna dive right in again, THANX!!!

My wife will hate me again....oh well, cant live w/o sc4...lol

And do lawns really need mowing?

[Cob92 360]

High traffic noise and pollution are inherent problems of large cities and are impossible to stop without cheats. If you want peace and quiet, go build suburbs. Commerce should be placed in a central location. That way, all the traffic funnels into one area, creating congested roads that boost commercial desirability. When laying out zones, don't think about it in terms of offering services to people, think about more as doing what's best for buisness. Also, it is near impossible to make everyone happy. Sims will always find something wrong to blame you for and will always want more.

[politicman 1]

If we have high traffic, put some subway station and subway lines, put also more buses station and change your road into avenue !! Than your city looks better !!

[politicman 1]

For your environment problem you can download some depolluing props This is a good help !!

[0rion79 1]

No, thanks... no cheats. My game is running more than fine and now I'm enjoying my time with SC4 creating agricultural landscapes with villages and little towns. They are very beautiful to see, and pretty nice to manage: no big expences but nice rewards.

The problem with high $$$ residents is that they don't use mass transit, but cars, so there is the need to build them facing on main avenues and pretty close to the map edges. It is quite difficult to make their commuting time short, right for this reason. Imho, I've seen that even zoning for office development in low-traffic areas really helps, since it gives work to sims, making shorter their commute time.

Now I would like to create some industry free-region, completely based on tourism. I guess that I'll have to boost commercial services in place of commercial offices.... CU!