Some Questions From a Newer Player

[ssnakes9 0]

Hello everyone,

I'm a long-time owner of SimCity 4 (I actually bought it the day it was released back in 2003). I was pretty young at the time so I don't really have many memories of playing or using any type of strategy whatsoever. It was just sort of a fun game for me.

I recently picked it back up and I have discovered how in-depth you can go with this game. I have been using the "Making Money The Easy Way" tutorial in the Omnibus to sort of start things off. I'm currently doing all-right with a pop of around 5,000. I have some questions though and I was hoping you guys could help out...

1) Is it always advisable to build your city using the method described in that tutorial (ind. and energy in one city, low den/mid den res/com in another ect...)? It is working for me so far, but I was wondering if there are any strategies that are more realistic and still work.

2) Is agriculture an important aspect of any region? I'd like to create some farms near the north end of my suburbs but I wasn't sure if it was extremely important or not.

3)I have the NAM, and I played around with some of the "toys" a little bit. I was wondering if there was any glaring difference between standard ground rail and the "light ground rail" that you can build with the NAM?

4) I have also installed a few other minor mods/addons such as the huge pack by goober and some miscellanous water tweaks ect. Are there any other mods or addons I should look into?

5) Do you guys, as experienced players, have any tips to make my city as realistic as possible? I have read through many of the tutorials but some of them are just lacking the depth that I am looking for. I'm interested in creating very realistic cities in the long run.

6) Where is SimCity 5 (haha).

Thanks,

Snake

[hawkpride147 1]

1. it depends on your preference. i always go into debt when starting a city, but always end up positive very quickly because of the way i play. I tend to support the cost of building transportation networks with tolls and lots of mass transit usage.

2. it depends again on your style and region. my style and regions rarely have farmland as they tend to be large metropolis areas.

3. yes. Ground Light Rail (or GLR) is simply elevated rail that has been dropped to ground level. you can transition between GLR, el-rail, and subway with ease. there is also an elevated standard or heavy rail network that is simply a raised heavy rail network. transitions are available as well.

4. the only modds i use are the NAM, the side street modd, the street cul-du-sacs modd, the CAM, and a water mod. i have plenty of custom buildings that i have downloaded though.

5. i got most of my ideas from real life cities, and the omnibus. it's kind of a mix of them all.

6. bound in a locked cell guarded by EA's tight wallet. lol.

[ssnakes9 0]

3. yes. Ground Light Rail (or GLR) is simply elevated rail that has been dropped to ground level. you can transition between GLR, el-rail, and subway with ease. there is also an elevated standard or heavy rail network that is simply a raised heavy rail network. transitions are available as well.quote>

Thanks for the answers. I am still a little bit confused on this aspect though. I know that there are two options for rail with the standard game: ground rail and elevated rail. Is ground rail always a heavy rail network and elevated a passenger network? So then GLR can connect to the elevated rail network as well for a ground alternative?

[Maxis92 11]

Originally posted by: ssnakes9 Hello everyone,

I'm a long-time owner of SimCity 4 (I actually bought it the day it was released back in 2003). I was pretty young at the time so I don't really have many memories of playing or using any type of strategy whatsoever. It was just sort of a fun game for me.

I recently picked it back up and I have discovered how in-depth you can go with this game. I have been using the "Making Money The Easy Way" tutorial in the Omnibus to sort of start things off. I'm currently doing all-right with a pop of around 5,000. I have some questions though and I was hoping you guys could help out...

1) Is it always advisable to build your city using the method described in that tutorial (ind. and energy in one city, low den/mid den res/com in another ect...)? It is working for me so far, but I was wondering if there are any strategies that are more realistic and still work.

2) Is agriculture an important aspect of any region? I'd like to create some farms near the north end of my suburbs but I wasn't sure if it was extremely important or not.

3)I have the NAM, and I played around with some of the "toys" a little bit. I was wondering if there was any glaring difference between standard ground rail and the "light ground rail" that you can build with the NAM?

4) I have also installed a few other minor mods/addons such as the huge pack by goober and some miscellanous water tweaks ect. Are there any other mods or addons I should look into?

5) Do you guys, as experienced players, have any tips to make my city as realistic as possible? I have read through many of the tutorials but some of them are just lacking the depth that I am looking for. I'm interested in creating very realistic cities in the long run.

6) Where is SimCity 5 (haha).

Thanks,

Snakequote>

 

1. If the strategy in the tutorial works fine to you, then go for it. Judging from the information given to us, you seem to be doing quite well for a beginner. Another easy way to build a city quickly & properly is placing your commercial, residential, and industry in separate cities & connecting them with roads, rail & highways. What I usually do is place my industry in a seperate city, then in my main city, I zone the area I want to have as my downtown later on (residential & commercial), then go from there. Make sure the downtown is built with very high density, then the inner city neighborhoods are built with medium density, then the neighborhood on the edge of the city are built low-density. That's how most real cities started.

2. From what I've learned, Agriculture isn't  very important, but they do help to bring out the asthetic features of your region. If you're planning on building a small rural town, then I highly recommend farms.

3. Basically, the only real difference is the NAM light-rail is like a trolley or street car while the ground rail is like a heavy locomotive. Both can be used to your liking.

4. I would recommend taking a thorough search through the STEX for custom buildings like McDonalds, Wal-Mart, Target, K-Mart, etc. Really, the NAM, the Opera House Fix, and a Sim City 4 EP1-Update (adds nightlighting to the game) are the only "important" modds/addons you need. The rest of them depends on your style of play.

5. I explained it pretty thoroughly when answering your first question. However, one thing to remeber is make sure your city isn't very griddy (built with consecutive square street blocks), demolish any repetitive buildings, generate plenty of traffic, and plop down plenty of parks/trees.

6. Supposedly, SCS (SimCity Societies) is Sim City 5, but it sucks.  

[masochist 111]

Hey, ssnakes9!

Seems like a lot of your questions have already been answered quite well, but I'll try and help anyways...:

1.) I don't think I can answer this without repeating what everyone else said.

2.) From a purely economical standpoint, farms are terrible.  They take up huge amounts of land for a tiny amount of jobs, and they pollute your water source.  Aesthetically, however, they may or may not be very important, depending on what your definition of "realistic city" is.  For example, a city in the Midwest portion of America will most definitely have farms surrounding it, while New York-style city probably won't.  Simply depends on preference.

3.) I can think of a few.  The GLR, being nothing more than a ground version of Elevated Rail, doesn't handle freight like regular rail does.  Besides that, though, GLR is a great space saver: it can run in the middle of avenues (taking up no extra tiles), and it can make instant 90 degree turns, as opposed to two 45 degree turns required for regular rail.  It's not a bad choice at all for city building, though it might not be as easy to lay down as, say, El-Rail.

4.) Read Maxis92's answer.

5.) Yes: look at some of the city journals here on ST.  There are plenty out there that showcase the very best of what SC4 can produce for all different styles of cities, and they're sure to give you plenty of new building and layout ideas.

That's all I've got...feel free to ask any more questions if you have them!

[SC4BOY 20]

5. Exercize care in using CJ's as guides.. few of them use actual running cities.. many use elaborate cheats and mods and some of them are never meant to run at all.. just to be "still life" cities with all plops..

[ssnakes9 0]

Thanks for the responses guys. They helped me a lot.

Hopefully you guys can help me with a few more questions I have...

1) I decided to use the 45 degree avenue turns included with the NAM to move one of my avenues over a few tiles. Unfortunately, this curve area doesn't continue the sidewalks or plants that are included in the rest of my avenue. Is there any way to get around this?

2) Why is it that when I place parks inbetween my house lots in my low-income area, they appear as flat pices of grass with a pole sticking up? Shouldn't there be trees ect...?

3) Is there any way to quickly and easily place trees, preferably without using any cheats? How long does it take those stupid sapplings to grow?

[SmartRoss1 0]

1) I don't believe there is a way to get around that, it's just a tricky thing to do.

2) Different items look different depending on the surrounding wealth level. If you build an avenue in a high wealth area, the median will be full of plants and it will look nice. In a low wealth area, however, it will look bleak, dull and dilapidated. The same goes for other lots. The low wealth park won't look good, but it still has an affect on the Sim's happiness ratings.

3) There should be a lot of tree plops available on Simtropolis, and the saplings take about 1 Sim-Year to grow. It's meant to be like real life.

[ssnakes9 0]

Thanks for the replies again. I hope I'm not bothering anyone here, but as I keep playing more questions come up!

1) Have any of you found a realistic way to place industry in your cities? I am currently using the method provided by the tutorial that I mentioned, which is to put all of the industry and power in a separate city from the res/com ect. My problem is, I am a realistic kind of player, and frankly I don't find it too realistic to place grid after grid of industry in my second city. So, is there an easier/more realistic way to go about doing this?

2) I am working on my low-density residential city as of right now. What is the most realistic way you guys have found to go about doing this? Do you pack as many houses together as you can (that is what I have seen in many pictures from CJ's ect)? Or do you space them out slightly?

Thanks again for the help!

Snake

[rtil 1]

Originally posted by: hawkpride147 the side street modd, the street cul-du-sacs modd, the CAMquote>

people keep talking about these but i can't find them. can someone give a link?