New guy looking for advice

[Trioxis 32]

Hi, I've been playing SimCity 4 (Deluxe edition) for some time now, but I'm still having a hard time with planning and designing a city layout. Most of my cities are build grid-wise so they don't look like as a real city would. I generally try to build my cities on several maps (neighbour cities). I usually lack the usage of public transport because this hardly seems to work for me. I reckon this is because of bad planning on my part so I still need to improve a lot. How do you plan and design your cities? Do you create a layout on paper first or does it all come during play? On another note, I've read about mods like BAT and I'm wondering if it's a good idea to download a few of those. Sometimes I feel like the game is missing several things like roundabouts and more. Thanks in advance.

[Inusion X 1]

You can get roundabouts from the NAM. just search for it in the mods section. The NAM also includes GLR or Ground Light Rail, which is basically elevated train, on the ground. The easiest forms of public transit to utilize would be the subway, and the bus. Each only takes 1 tile and the subway track is completely underground. Usually cities follow the grid system downtown, and in residential areas, the roads tend to wander a bit more. If your really having trouble getting away from the grid system, just let the autostreets draw your roads for you, they tend to be a little scattered.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

After you pick up the NAM, you can experiment with diagonal streets for your subdivisions.  Not wonderful, but you can do some neat stuff. 

Make sure each subdivision pod connects only one place to the main transport hub (which could be a subway, train, or elevated train), and supply buses in the pods for the Sims to get  in and out.  Don't forget the buses at the jobs end, as well.

[smstevenms 7]

I found it better to create the infrastructure around all the zoned area's keeping the game on pause. That way you can see everything clearly, save often. Then every once in awhile, after a certain level of completion, press play on cheeta (don't forget to save) and see how things develop. Then you can correct, change, and notice conflicks. Retain what you can and reload your city and apply the changes. If your patient you can really create and awesome city that runs nearly perfect.

[ShortStraw 1]

Welcome to the site.

The Omnibus is Full of great Tutorials and References that directly address many of your concerns.  A few hours poking around there and learning to use the NAM improved my city-building by leaps and bounds.  Good luck.

[Trioxis 32]

Well, I've read a few of the articles in the Omnibus, but it doesn't really cover how to create a realistic city layout complete with downtown and sub-urbs, industrial area, etc. I'll probably go and take a look at some real life examples.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Notwithstanding the examples in the CJ section, realistic cities that actually can run are probably not in this game.  It is too limited in its capabilities.  Many CJs are pretty, but not functional.  You could consider them to be static works of art.

The most realistic thing you could do would be to follow the life cycle of most real cities.  A city starts out as a wide place in the road surrounded by farms.  This is called a Hamlet or Village.  It usually has a rail head for transport (off the tile) for farm produce.  There may be a single street of houses with a couple of general stores.  This with about six or seven small farms could easily turn a small profit provided you realize that the only service needed is power (wind turbine is fine).

As time goes on, the village grows by adding more housing, slightly more commercial (all on the main drag).  Some industrial entrepreneur may set up a few factories out of town, which can be reached either by road or passenger train service with buses at the industrial end.  If you add this, you will need a fire station and a water supply in town that supplies a pipeline to the industrial region.

An industrial region may grow, but it will need more workers.  At this point, you could take over a plot of ground on the other side of the village from the industrial section, and place some more housing.  Since you have water and fire services, you should get a better class of Sims.  If you educate these Sims, taking the time needed to do so, you will start seeing the development of better industrial.  You may also see a demand for more commercial.  You can get more commercial by rezoning the main drag, slowly, as commercial.  Traffic along your main street going between housing and the plants will keep the commercial happy.

You can start as many villages on a tile as you like, and let them grow out towards each other.  As you add more commercial, industrial and housing, with care, they will coalesce.  Each village grows into a town, several towns may merge into a city, and on a large tile, this whole business will turn into a metropolis.  Don't be surprised if it take 500 Sim-years for this to happen.  You simply add municipal services as you can afford them.  You can consolidate power plants, water plants, etc. as needed.

Keep an eye on your jobs and population graph.  You should have a ratio of about 3 Sims per job.  The Population by Age chart will tell you when to build high-schools and colleges as the appropriate age groups appear.  I wait until I get over 1000 eligible population before I build a high school, and about 3000 before I build a college.  The college can be in or near the industrial campus.

If you build a university, put it away from everything, then build low and medium density housing around it.  Don't forget to save some space for the advanced research center in this area.  Add commercial as needed.  GLR or Elevated Rail are good to connect your university to the residential areas.  If it is a really long haul, use monorail.

Subways should enhance your downtown bus routes to relieve congestion when your population justifies the price.  Remember that a loss position will eventually wipe you out.

Stay profitable, grow slowly and carefully, and you will have a successful city.  Pretty is for artists.  If you want to be a city builder, be prepared for not so pretty.

Have fun, and slow down.  Life is too short to rush this if you want real satisfaction.

[NetPCDoc 1]

Hello Trioxis,

Two quick thoughts -

1) for the all-inclusive city: stick to large city tiles; or for the more burbs look: use the small city tiles, with a single "sub" in each.

2) the NAM and transit lots/mods (such as road top mass transit stations) should help you with mass-transit.

Personally, being detail orientated - I tend to actually use God-Mode to mold the terrain specifically for each of my city "types"; putting in terrain features that provide a "natural" seperation between highways, residential, commercial office and industrial areas; sprinkling small commercial service zones in amoungst the residential and industrial zones.

The BAT is not a actual mod - but rather a tool that allows one to create customized (or modded) buildings and lots.

Do try to pay attention to the nimby/yimby affects of the available civic plop-ables; most parks will tend to attract Residential sims, while plazas also attract commercial sims - within their areas of effect.

Seaports and freight stations work best when placed between your industrial zones and the edge of your city (remember - water or tracks need to cross the city boundry). When it comes to mass transit - it also works best when the stations are between origin and destination points.

-NetPCDoc

No detail is too small to be micromanaged.

[AeonProjects 20]

yah off the subject, i plan my train systems in from the start, so as my city grows my railways grow with the suburbs. i find railway the most effective and cheap transport system. it may cost more at the start when your city dosn't need it but it's worth it when you get to the stage where expensive demolition is in-order to have a good effective transportation system. i suppose you always have subway but i find its just economically cheaper and simple to use rail, you don't much need subway till you get real highdensity, so i suppose rail covers the city till its weathy enough for subway.

[KingTitan 6]

you CAN achieve a "pretty artistic" city doing it slowly also...I have done it before, and am in the planning for another one...yes...it took many many years (500 plus) but so damn worth it...

I also suggest you put your buses, transits...and what ever form of transportaion you feel fit to use, strategically.

Example.. If you have to go west for jobs....then put your bus stops etc.. on the east side of your residential....then one on the west side of your industrial....this creates a default situation....Always works. Good look friend.

[Trioxis 32]

Well, I've started out creating a couple of Villages and lots of farms and now I'm trying to grow them into a single city. I'll probably upload a few pictures later for you to comment on. It's very difficult for me to plan a placement of the zones beforehand. I'm not quite sure I'm doing it the right way now.

[KingTitan 6]

Originally posted by: smstevenms I found it better to create the infrastructure around all the zoned area's keeping the game on pause. That way you can see everything clearly, save often. Then every once in awhile, after a certain level of completion, press play on cheeta (don't forget to save) and see how things develop. Then you can correct, change, and notice conflicks. Retain what you can and reload your city and apply the changes. If your patient you can really create and awesome city that runs nearly perfect.quote>

 

I completely agree Trioxis....patients is a vurtue right??

[Trioxis 32]

Originally posted by: KingTitan

Originally posted by: smstevenms I found it better to create the infrastructure around all the zoned area's keeping the game on pause. That way you can see everything clearly, save often. Then every once in awhile, after a certain level of completion, press play on cheeta (don't forget to save) and see how things develop. Then you can correct, change, and notice conflicks. Retain what you can and reload your city and apply the changes. If your patient you can really create and awesome city that runs nearly perfect.quote>

 

I completely agree Trioxis....patients is a vurtue right?? quote>

Yes it is, and I don't mind taking some time to build a nice city. But it's just frustrating when certain things won't work as I would like them to. I'm currently getting some pictures uploaded, so expect an edit later.

 

In the screenshot above you can see my main Industrial area. It has some dirty industry, but I managed to limit the demand for it and currently it's something like -4000. There still is a high demand for Agricultural and Manufacturing Industry. I've build a bio-gas powerplant, which is going to be demolished soon because I have just build a waste to power plant which is providing enough power on it's own. There also is a Freight train station which is currently moving 100+ tons of goods. The other part of rail you can see is going to another freight train station somewhat up north, which is mainly used by the farmers (at it's height it moved near 300 tons of goods) and the rail is going to a neighbour city.  

In the residential area of Harpertown I've build a small elementary school for basic education, also there are the Farmer's Market and the Cemetry. 4 Water towers are providing the water needed. I've also plopped a small fire station, but you can't see it in the picture here. As you can notice from the picture, I've got some high wealth residential buildings even without having to build high schools or hospitals.  

More screenshots will come soon.

[Trioxis 32]

Well apparently Imageshack refuses to upload my screenshots. I'll try to get them uploaded somehow. Any feedback on the images would be welcome.

EDIT: Here's another screenshot:

In this one you can see the waste to power plant and the bio-gas plant (red box). I've tried to move the waste to power plant away from the residential area because it's more polluting than the bio-gas one.

The residential area I've marked with green are 2 seperate towns which I've grown towards eachother. The layout still isn't very good so alot of demolishing will be in order in the future. I will also have to extensively rezone this area once it's starting to grow extensively.

[Droftrah 2]

Originally posted by Trioxis:

I'm not quite sure I'm doing it the right way nowquote>

There is no real "Right" way to do it, I don't think.

N_O_Body is absolutely right in what he says about most CJ's being purely for looks - I've had my head turned by many a pretty looking CJ, in comparison to my own efforts in "Eye Candy" cities.

When settlers first arrived "At the river" (you understand), I don't think they had the foresight to think some 500-odd years into the future and how their "city" would look then.

They merely placed/zoned/built what they needed, where they needed it without ever worrying about how their eventual "Downtown" would look!

What we can do as "virtual" mayors (in the strive for function over beauty) is simply zone and place (plop) as and when is needed, managing things as we go and dealing with certain anomalies whenever they arise (Jobs/traffic/crime).

Basically cause and effect.

If you're striving for realism, this is pretty much how it happens in real life.

My home town is maybe a few hundred years old but my house is only 20.

I can safely bet that 22 years ago my house was barely planned.

If you get my meaning.

Hope this is of some use.

[Trioxis 32]

Well I understand it's impossible to plan out your whole city right from the start. Things will most likely never work out as you would like them to or things don't work as intended. I'll try to build up a new city from scratch and have some early plannings done and grow from that point, using experience and careful planning as my guide.

[WarriorX 0]

Hi first post!

Well, I'm a bit like you but I have some suggestions.

Don't worry that much about air pollution.(Try and keep it yellow)

Build your industrial away from your residential.

Never stop trying!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Originally posted by: WarriorX Hi first post!

Well, I'm a bit like you but I have some suggestions.

Don't worry that much about air pollution.(Try and keep it yellow)

Build your industrial away from your residential.

Never stop trying!quote>

Welcome to the conversation.

You are completely correct.  Unlike sky diving, you get more than one try at this.

[Trioxis 32]

Well, I've tried recreating the town I live in, and so far it's actually working out extremely well. The only thing bothering me is the fact I have long commute times and residents are leaving because of it. I'm making some money even though I have 3 elementary schools (2 small and 1 big), a fire station, a water pump, lots and lots of parks, a clinic, a waste to power-plant and a coal power plant. I'm going to develop a few neighbour cities when I've got the time.

Can anyone recommend me a few good mods, I've already got the NAM. Thanks in advance.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

If you have the money, replace that coal power plant.  It is ultra dirty.

The only download I really recommend is the Opera House Fix.  If you have any instances of the default opera house in your cities, you have to bulldoze them before installing this or your funding for public stuff will go nuttier than it is.

There is a neat Rural School that has a large capacity, large radius, and a low cost.  I generally use this instead of elementary schools.  It is prettier.

[Trioxis 32]

Well, I do notice that the range radius for several services (like for instance the clinic) is quite small when compared to a real life clinic. Something like a clinic shouldn't be bound to a fixed range, although this possibly has been done to prevent your clinics to get filled with thousands of patients. I can understand a fixed range for certain things like police and the fire station, since they won't be able to react in time if the distance is to great.

As for the coal plant, sould I replace it with a natural gas plant or should I switch to an oil plant? I don't think using windmills is going to cut it, although it could work when I spread them out.

More on topic, how do you generally build neighbour cities? Do you concentrate one on industry and other ones on commercial and residential or do you tend to create self-sufficient cities with everything available? I'm currently trying a self sufficient approach but I will be trying to keep local industries to a minimum and creat a more industry oriented city in time. I'm trying to do this because I'd like to have rich and clean suburb zones, although these may be more or less independant towns.

My apologies for going on about how to create a good city, but I haven't been able to find alot of information about how to use the region and neighbour cities to it's fullest. I understand city-related issues but getting to create several cities and get them to work together is kind of a harder issue to tackle.

[Kusajika Yachiru 9]

I make my roads and things look pretty...

Okay, I relize that doesn't help you... so um... best thing to do is try.. .try... and keep trying until you get a way thatm akes you happy and looks good but so long as itm akes you happy is what matters!

Happy city building

[Droftrah 2]

I've recommended this to many, and I feel another recommendation coming on....

Go to the STOmnibus and then the "tutorials" section and look for a tutorial called:

"How to make money the easy way - without cheats"  By soldyne.

Rather like yourself, I became stuck in regards to layout and planning and fell into the trap of build! build! build! followed by debt and heartache.

I followed this tutorial almost to the letter (even copying the suburb designs - which I still occasionally do now) and it helped me appreciate how the game works in regards to neighbor connections, commute times, wealth levels, balancing the budget and all manner of game intricacies.

This single tutorial changed my whole outlook on the game and re-invigorated my love for it.

Trust me - give it a go and you won't look back.