Zoning Sizes

[mxz440fan 0]

Is there a way for you to pick how big the lots are. Its so frustrating trying to get a 3x4 square of residential or commercial. Then it gets stuck on the 3''s when you want 4x2.

I''ve tried pressing Home and End but it seems its luck

[The 2 Revival of SDM 0]

Just create your own lot's I use 5 by 5 on the inside. If you have the patch hold shift to disable auto-roads. Also you cant make it any larger sadly!

[Minotaur420 2]

Yess you can make it bigger. I have made 6x# often. It's easy with commercial and industrial, just click shift for commercial. For residential you often have to do one side of three at a time, then fill the other side of the square with a row of three lots. Just remember to always check shift and alt if u can't get it to work.

[DaleRiley 0]

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On 3/14/2003 9:09:27 PM mxz440fan wrote:

Is there a way for you to pick how big the lots are. Its so frustrating trying to get a 3x4 square of residential or commercial. Then it gets stuck on the 3's when you want 4x2.

I've tried pressing Home and End but it seems its luck

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Are you drawing your own roads and streets? Have you tried using ALT before you unclick? It changes the frontage direction and sometimes get rid of an auto-street.

[Aronion 9]

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On 3/14/2003 9:09:27 PM mxz440fan wrote:

Is there a way for you to pick how big the lots are. Its so frustrating trying to get a 3x4 square of residential or commercial. Then it gets stuck on the 3's when you want 4x2.

I've tried pressing Home and End but it seems its luck

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First- the keys you want to push for zonig are Alt and Shift. With Patch #1 installed the shift key dis-ables the auto road option. While the Alt key changes the way the zones face. Pushing the Home and End keys work for placing buildings. This rotates it so you can face the building anyway you want.

Second- The size of lots you are able to build greatly varies with the grade you are building on. It is easier to get bigger lots on flat terrains. If you build like I do, with lots of hills and vallleys, then you are stuck with smaller zones. Try zoning smaller sections at a time, make sure to pause the game first, then zone one house at a time. This will help if there is a grade near. Pausing the game allows you to take your time and bars any construction in open zones. Sometimes when a house moves in the grade changes, so zoning will be affected if the grades are too large.

[mxz440fan 0]

i use alt and shift but i want to be able to make the width of the zones by myself, not having to have it 2 wide or 3 wide.

it seems it constrains you to either 1 2 or 3 wide all the time and it takes it a couple of minutes to realize that you dont want whichever one it gives you. Its so hard to try to get 3 wide by 4 long on residential too. But once you get it you can zone it acrossed forever, so it just seems logical that you should be able to tell it how wide you want it to constrain. Or at least it should.

[Del 0]

In my experience, the size lots you can draw depends on the land value of the area you are zoning. Put a few gifts down ahead of where you plan to expand your city, wait a few months, and you can sometimes lay zone squares that are 4 X 4. I'm not sure how the game works out whether an area of land will let you put down large zones, but zones larger than 3 X 1 will merge, if rather haphazardly. It's irritating when the game decides to make a big building in the midst of a row of zones, and the awkward 3 X 1 plots left out rarely (in my experience) develop much higher, or remerge. It's also irritating when the large zones fail to develop for years, despite there being plenty of demand and desirability.

One place where you can zone huge zones right from the start is at the coastline / riverbank. If you check out the land value on a freshly terraformed piece of land with no development on it, you'll notice that on the edge of water the land value is a healthy green, growing less valuable the further from water you go.

Elucidation would be much appreciated.

"A river runs through it"
Del

[Blinky_the_one_eyed_pirate 0]

If you hold down the Ctrl button, you can zone one lot any size you feel, but to date I have not gotten anything larger than 6X4 to grow.

[ChicAgo333 2]

Date:10/3/2004 1:29:31 AM
Author:Blinky_the_one_eyed_pirate

If you hold down the Ctrl button, you can zone one lot any size you feel, but to date I have not gotten anything larger than 6X4 to grow.

quote>

are you aware this thread is more than a year old...even before rush hour came out, and youre replying to it?

[Blinky_the_one_eyed_pirate 0]

i dunno, I was just searching around to see if anyone else has had trouble getting 5X5 zones to grow, didn't look at the date.

[Blinky_the_one_eyed_pirate 0]

I love your alias by the way ChicAgo333.

[fw2000 0]

Hey, at least he was searching!!!

[MJBrown747 0]

And now it's May 2006.. almost 2 years later and I am the one doing a search for zone sizes.

So, anyone have any idea's on the sizes of zone's? what is too big that won't grow and so on?

[RiverCocytus 0]

ah. Ok, good question.

Lots have particular sizes, so a lot will only grow on a zone that is big enough. The game can divide up or add together zones provided that the zones left over are still valid zones (connected to road in the case of commercial and residential.)

For instance, if you zone this arrangement

.....

.^^^^

.||||

.||||

.vvvv

.....

this is a common arrangement generated when you use auto-roads; you have 8 2x1 zones.

Now; according to game mechanics here is what can happen.

1. a 2x4 lot or a 4x2 could appear; a 4x2 would only appear at the top or bottom, as the game will not change the facing of the zones unless one zone is already facing that direction.

2. a 4x4 lot could appear; it would be changed to have a particular facing, up or down, but not left or right (right would not face a road.)

3. the area inside would not develop unless it was attached to a zone, so 1x1's would never develop since it would leave invalid space in the middle (not road-connected.)

4. a 3x3 could develop, but it is unlikely. chances are that 1x2s or 2x2s would sweep in faster than a 3x3; I don't know the exact mechanics of this, but I've found that if the zone is the exact size that the lot will be it develops quicker and easier. In this way, a 3x3 would be valid but the game would more easily develop lots that fit the zoning lines evenly. (so 1x2, 2x2, 3x2, 4x2.)

Industrial doesn't really follow this rule; but if you force a zone size with ctrl, industrial will do the same behavior. Try for instance force zoning a 4x5 zone of medium industrial in a new city. Nothing will happen! (even if you have crazy demand.) this is because in order to put in a MPR metals, or others, it would have to create 'invalid' zoned area behind them in the process of dividing up the zone. Keep in mind that if you zone 2 2x2s behind each other with industrial that they will both develop even if the second zone touches only the first zone and not road directly.

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Part 2 is, what types of things use what lot sizes (or zone sizes...)

In general, larger zones = more favorable for higher wealth.

Mansions are the only thing that Maxis-wise will grow on a low density 4x6 zone. R$$ rowhomes only grow on 1x2's and 1x1's -- but remember, a 2x2 forced zone can be divided by the game into 2  1x2's just as it can do the reverse. 1x3 and 1x2 are great zone sizes for R$ apartments for medium density, but there are no medium density R$$ or R$$$ buildings that grow on a 1x3. (R$$ rowhomes will grow on 1x2's, however.) Lower stage houses mostly want more room, but also bigger buildings will too.

Industrial complexes are funny; 3x3, 2x3, 2x2, make a good place for MPR metals; 4x2 and 4x3 are good for Dao Chemicals, a 2x1 or 1x2 will be the home for a Foundry. All spaces touching these buildings can be filled with single-tile facilities such as yards (lots of jobs.) sheds or burners, (or if you provide water you may see chemical tanks and metal sheds that look like they are from SC2000) if you attach 2x2 zones you will see chemical tanks, warehouses, petroleum tanks, furnaces, and so on... with higher density these sizes will get you sorting sheds and other higher-job versions of other facilities; 3x2 or 2x3 may show sorting facilities and warehouses, petro tanks, and so on. a 1x2 or 2x1 will give you furnaces or smoke stacks, but the 2x1 can divide into 2 1x1's.

That's just dirty industry. In manufacturing, the minimum zone size to develop is a 2x2. Most facilities are 2x2's: crunching faclities, heating units, storage units, chemical tanks, others like flyte's and go-gyro are larger such as 2x4, 2x3, 3x3. Vilette textiles grows well in 2x4's... most large (high density plus water) dirty industry plants and manufacturers are 4x4.

High tech functions much like Manufacturing, but densifies better; grounds (sidewalk areas and grass areas) are 1x1s, and things such as accelerators, receiving units, etc will grow in 2x1 zones. Since HT requires water, you can pretty easily get Jenquai Alchemy and other big facilities that grow in 4x4. Some grow in both 4x4 and 2x4, so they might go '2 for 1' and double the jobs provided by that zone area. There are good 2x2, 3x2, 2x3 and 3x3 factories for HT as well.

Commercial (as per wealth level) is kind of non-specific. A good way to get CS$ when you have good demand is low density without water, 2x4 zone size: its the flea market. (80 something or more jobs.) 4x4's are great for retail stores and the like, and lots of high density can grow there. the 6x6 zone (forced) if you have plenty of CS$$ will create a mall. (I forget the name.)

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A good general maxis rule is that 4x6 and 6x6 are absolutely the largest lots. So a series of 1x3s back to back can be a flexible zone shape just as a series of 1x2s back to back.

Above all, try to get a city with a lot of demand and high stage and fool around with zone sizes. By this I mean hold ctrl and force the zone size. You might find some interesting zones.

Also, a dimension of 5 (5x4, 4x5, 5x3, 3x5, and so on) is either rare or non-existant in maxis lots. So avoid multiples of 5 if you want the entire zone to be filled with one lot.

Hope that helps.