How do you get skyscrapers?

[mayor_brando 8]

Hi all, i'm new here!

I've been playing Simcity4 for a long time, and I have a question that i'm sure you've been asked before:
How do you get skyscrapers? I've seen pictures of cities that look as big as New York, with skyscrapers everywhere, but I never get any! I CAN get residential skyscrapers, but I can never get commercial ones! I've tried everything, like:

• Zoning high density
• putting in landfills
• lowering taxes
• putting in schools for the residential
• increasing traffic

And much more! I have cities of 80,000 with no commercial skyscrapers whatsoever. And the demand for offices is large, so I have no idea what i'm doing wrong! I hear you have to have a commercial population of 45,000 to get skyscrapers, but I never have enough room to zone for more commercial!

Please help!!!!!

[_alphaBeta_ 6]

In order for skyscrapers to appear, your must have a minimum amount of commercial jobs in the region. Commercial is tricky because the threshold must be satisfied for each wealth level and type of commercial (there are five). For example, You need around 30,000 Co$$ jobs in the region before any Co$$ skyscrapers will appear. Looking at the overall amount of commercial jobs is not good enough. If you want Co$$$ skyscrapers, you'll need another 30,000 Co$$$ jobs in the region. Although demand is necesary of the skyscraper to go up, it has nothing to do with "allowing" skyscrapers.

The key is the region. If you run out of room in the current city, consider region play with many cities.

[ryan820 3]

Sounds odd. Double check your education-- you may have lots of schools, but are they working? Increasing traffic isn't necessarily a good thing-- pollution-wise at least. Whats the land value (sort of pointless though since the land value measures seem to be worthless in most cases). You say you have landfills-- why? That does nothing but take of valuable land. I'd sooner cart my trash off to New Jersey where it belongs (I'm kidding!). But seriously, I wouldn't use landfills. I'd send it to a dirty industry town. Not that 80K is something to laugh at, it isn't all that "big." 150K and up is when I consider a city getting big.

Try more plazas, parks, check your education and make the place pristine. I'm not sure what else to tell you. It might be helpful to show us a screen shot of your city.

[mayor_brando 8]

Thanks for the advice. I haven't played the city for a while and last time I did there were only around 10,000 commercial jobs in the region. I will try it out again (this time with a few mods installed) and see if anything changes.

I have another question:

How do you get those road things that raise and lower the ground level (I want to make some canals)? Do you get it from the STEX or something?

[D2629 3]

I used to have this problem. What I started to do is I based the regional economy (i connected many cities via water and road) on commercial jobs. After a certain point I couldn't stop the skyscrapers flying up. It just takes a little time to develop the region. Airports help too.

[sqiddster 1]

Hi, Mayor Brando!

To find the hole digging lots, go to this link:

 https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/index.cfm?id=3599

Another mod that might help you is the stage caps mod-this lowers the amount of commercial jobs you need to have skyscrapers.

Have fun playing SC4!

[sim-fan192 4]

There are two ways to get commercial skysprapers. A 26,000 commercial jobs. B very high commercial demand. With B you can get skyskrapers instintly (I'm not kidding, go to youtube and see for yourself).

[mayor_brando 8]

Thanks for the help. I finally got some skyscapers and now i'm busy digging canals and underwater tunnels. I have one more question:

I reccently got the NAM, and there is an option for light rail and tram rails. Do I put a train station or something for those to function?

[Flann 1,709]

Do you mean the GLR?

[mayor_brando 8]

Yeah, it's the ground light rail. What do you put for it to function, like a train station or something?

[JakeMD 107]

GLR is a rail network, so it needs stations to function.

[demetrius 1]

The part on the 45k jobs isn't completely true with SC4. If you know how to create boom towns (as I call them) you can get towers soon as the traffic get's bad...lol

But as said before Traffic isn't a good thing, even though I love it!!!

I have a city that is called Charlotte, and it is in a three city metropolitan area. The city itself contains cities within it (not really but I say the city is a metropolitan). Since my downtown is in the central area of the city, traffic on the highway's leading from all three of the suburbs traffic can get bad, like 65535 (I think that's the highest it can go) vehicles a day on a highway, when that happens the commute time get's longer resulting in a need for another commercial district closer to the suburbs and when that happens the downtown area will decline while the new district will become a hot-spot for construction, new jobs, and even resident's, then that district will basically be downtown, then the process happens all over again a new district is needed closer to the suburbs because of commute time...lol

At one period of time I had to to build a loop around the downtown area, build two highway's right beside each other, and build toll booths (toll booth's can bring down traffic)!!!

[Elmas 0]

depends on what you call a skyscraper you will get tall buildings it's easy, getting very tall buildings it`s a diferent story.

[Muddlerman 1]

Greetings, I'm new too, and I found this topic which is exactly what I've been trying to do as well.

I don't use any mods, and I'm really curious as to why I'm not getting any commercial skyscrapers. As you can see below, it has nothing to do with population or required amount of jobs, because I have both of those. I have 3 cities connected to each other and over a million people.

Can the city not be on easy in order to get skyscrapers? Also, do you NEED a railroad system in order to get them? I primarily only have roads, subways, buses and highways. But all of them are substantially all around my city.

My demand for Co$$$ is low, but only because I built so many already and still have yet to see any skyscrapers. I know it's not a glitch because I had one once, after I bulldozed an entire town, hehe.

I fulfill all requirements, and I don't know what else to do. Suggestions?

[ParAvion 0]

It's real easy. Just download certain mods, like the auto protect coffers, stage caps mod, money mods and stuff like that. Then it'll be simple. It also doesn't hurt to have the latest NAM installed too, just to make it easier for your Sims to get around. Also, for the absolute BEST results, go for the biggest city sizes. If that's not possible, go medium. The only way you can get skyscrapers in small sizes is with a decent handful of mods. And lots of commercial demand too. In my "capital" city, there's 520,000 population and 350,000 Commercial. So try those tips and start enjoying the skyline!

[Muddlerman 1]

Hey, thanks a bunch for the help. A few things regarding mods.

1, are they necessary to get the skyline that I want? I don't know what it is with me and mods, but I have a thing against them. Again, don't know why, just never really used them.

2, Do I need to restart any particular aspect of my region in order for them to work? I'd hate to lose any of my city for something because it took so long.

Thanks again, I'm just wondering if it's completely necessary to get mods for skyscrapers while I have all the necessary requirements and well above.

[bigthing 35]

mod's do help loooooads.

I would recommend CAM, it basicly raises the maximum stages for buildings from (R-7 C-7 I-3 AG-1 (i think)) to (R-15 C-15 I-10 AG-7) for this to work effectively you need to download the buildings made by the CAM team or buildings that are "CAMpatible".

I takes about an hour to download all the dependencies (varies with internet and SC4 Devotion server speeds)

But don't let that put you off.

This changed the skylines of my cities dramaticly with higher, better looking, modern, and some real life skyscrapers.

CAM:- https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=1008

Also you should get a demand MOD

Radical Ordinance:- https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=21318

Super demand Ordinance :-https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=21299

Hope this helps, I would say that is the basics

Good Luck!!

[mayor_brando 8]

Yes, demand mods mostly did it for me. Before I got demand mods (when I started this thread) I only had a few mid-rises. After I got the Super Demand Mod I got cities with massive high-rises all over the place.

[bigthing 35]

I use it every city. its amazing the difference it makes :-)

[Muddlerman 1]

Alright then, I guess I'll start using mods. What the hell, I'm all in it for superficial reasoning anyway, I just want to see huge skyscrapers

Thanks for the help, I'll let you guys know how it turns out.

I actually decided to switch regions and go to my hometown, New York. So, I'll take some screenies and show ya eventually if it turns out alright

[Cob92 360]

Demand is regional. The best ways to get skyscrapers are A) Build as densely as possible B) Build across several cities. Most of the big "cities" on here are actually regions, composed of multiple large cities joined together to form a continuous metropolis. Really, you need at least 45,000 jobs just to get the smallest skyscrapers. If you want to go for one city, choose a large map. Nothing smaller than a medium will work, and even then you will be pressed for space.

[Muddlerman 1]

Oh ya, I know that much hehe. I made a custom region of all the large cities, all were connected. Problem was, I had all the necessary requirements met, IE 80,000+ Co$$$ jobs, a population of above 1,000,000, and a LOT else that should have led me to my beloved skyscrapers, but none came. I don't know if it was because my commercial districts were too spread out or something, but in all honesty it may have been.

There was one region I just completely dezoned and rezoned, and only then did I get one of those 6,000 job skyscrapers. Something Pharmaceuticals if I recall.

But, I'm restarting in the premade New York region, as well as connecting several cities to my residential city. We'll see what happens.

[mayor_brando 8]

Originally posted by: Muddlerman

There was one region I just completely dezoned and rezoned, and only then did I get one of those 6,000 job skyscrapers. Something Pharmaceuticals if I recall.quote>

Oh yes, Pedriana Pharmaceuticals. I recently got Calahane Communications and Hogan Wallace and White (I think?) Insurance to grow, which I never did before.

Now I gotta get that darn Hurt Enterprise Headquarters to grow; it's the only Maxis Building I haven't got to grow yet.

[Nihar1 0]

Dude you just need more demand, well educated sims, and higher population, i didnt start to get skyscrapers till i had around a 200,000 population.

[MTA3479 0]

Originally posted by: Muddlerman

Greetings, I'm new too, and I found this topic which is exactly what I've been trying to do as well.

I don't use any mods, and I'm really curious as to why I'm not getting any commercial skyscrapers. As you can see below, it has nothing to do with population or required amount of jobs, because I have both of those. I have 3 cities connected to each other and over a million people.

Can the city not be on easy in order to get skyscrapers? Also, do you NEED a railroad system in order to get them? I primarily only have roads, subways, buses and highways. But all of them are substantially all around my city.

My demand for Co$$$ is low, but only because I built so many already and still have yet to see any skyscrapers. I know it's not a glitch because I had one once, after I bulldozed an entire town, hehe.

I fulfill all requirements, and I don't know what else to do. Suggestions?

quote>

In your tow pics, it looks like you have skyscrapers..........

[LightSkinnedPisces 71]

@Muddlerman wait how the heck did u get ur region divided up in to such big squares for the each city? my region that came with game has tons of way smaller squares for each city, so you can download certain regions like that im assuming? 

[Cyclone Boom 16,829]

3 hours ago, LightSkinnedPisces said:

@Muddlerman wait how the heck did u get ur region divided up in to such big squares for the each city? my region that came with game has tons of way smaller squares for each city, so you can download certain regions like that im assuming? 

I'll answer this since I see the poster you mentioned was last at ST a rather long, long time ago...

What they appear to have done there was to make use of config.bmp editing to allocate all Large tiles in their region.

This is a bitmap image file contained in all region folders, and it allocates the distribution of city tiles within for being Small, Medium, or Large in size. There's an article here which explains about the format, and how pure colours of RGB are what determine where tiles are. As per the formula, the dimensions of the config.bmp file should correspond to that of the map itself as used for rendering. You may find my post here useful for an overview of mapping and working with custom city tile configurations.

While on the subject:
To randomly generate the tile allocation for custom maps, there's a nifty little tool @rivit released here.