Important Questions

[Squoog 0]

I have played Simcity 4 off and on since it was released.  Recently I have become determined to create a world class city.  I have started my region, and I made a city on a large plot.  I knew that this particular city would not be the best city ever, but it would be a city where I experimented with what works and what does not, this city is now near completion and it has almost 600,000 people in it.  Below is a screen shot.  I have Simcity Deluxe and I have downloaded all of the official patches.  The only mod I have is NAM.

Okay I have a series of questions relating to game mechanics.

1.  Is it possible to have naturally created commercial buildings as large or larger than the Crystler Building(seen above as a plopable?)  Or are the buildings commercial buildings that I already have the largest in the game?  It has always seemed odd to me that I could never get absolutely massive skyscrapers in my cities, and that many of my residential buildings are larger than my commercial buildings.

2.  I downloaded the patches, that apparently gave me buildings from Houston, Europe, and Asia however I do not recognize any of my buildings as being from any of those areas.  Is it possible to build only one style of buildings to give your city a uniform look?  An example would be an entirely European looking city, or an entire Asian looking city.

3.  Is it possible to download a package of unique and realistic buildings that are growable, and are not ridiculous in the amount of jobs they provide or sims they house?  If so where can I find these package downloads?  I do not want to be too dependent on plopables for my skyline.

4.  Should subway/bus systems be spaced out every few blocks or in areas far away from each other.

5.  How does the economy work?  For instance when I do start building my dream city I would like it to be only commercial and residential, and I would like most of my high tech industry to be located in the city pictured above.  Would it be a good idea to build loads of cities on smaller panels just to fill up dirty industry, and farm demand?  Also would it make sense to limit residential and commercial building in the other cities in my region?  Does the education level determine the demands of a region's jobs or is there a set amount of demand for all types of jobs regardless of education.

6.  If I were to download a seaport, or an airport graphic would that replace my current seaport of airport, or would I just have a choice in design?  Same goes with if I downloaded trees, and parks?

7.  Do ploppables increase desirability, or in anyway increase development? 

8.  I have seen people on this site post images of cities with curved roads, is this possible with only NAM or do I need another mod?

9.  Does high tech industry develop so that it supplies more jobs.  As it stands I have a lot of high tech industry, but each building is fairly low to the ground, and small.  I get far less jobs out of a regular block of high tech buildings than I do of a commercial block the same size?  It this just how the game is or is my high tech industry just not developing for some reason?

10.  I built an area designed for the super wealthy of my city(low density residential.)  Many parks and recreational activities are near by the crime, and pollution rate is low, hospital, and education levels high.  I have commercial area and a large area filled with trees near by.  I placed the mayor's house there as well as a plopable of independence hall, and yet it has not developed into a rich area, the commute is listed as long, and I have no idea why?

11.  Should I have both an international airport and a municipal airport?

12.  Should I have a train line for my industry, and what is the advantage of a non passenger train?

13.  What is the best way to deal with trash.  A landfill causes pollution, can I depend entirely on recycling plants?

14.  My water system tends to become bulky and inefficient, and requires constant maintenance, is it best to have a water supply spread out all over the city or centralized?  Also should I have two water systems;  one for industrial, and one for commercial and residential to lower pollution? 

Thank you very much whomever replies to this very long post.  I believe that many of these questions will be of great use to both myself and others who are playing at an intermediate level.  So far is have been very difficult to find coherent answers to these questions.