Your strategies

[ScarcticCG 3]

So I've been playing SC4 for a while now, and I've always used pretty much the same strategy; build it as it goes, whatever happens just roll with it. I build with some vision but mostly open ended. The problem is all of my cities look mostly the same (skyscrapers with dirty and high-tech industry away from the main development), and it also slightly stunts development as the city grows as I try to put in rail and such (I'd have to destroy a massive amount of stuff).

So does any body have any strategies that work well that don't feel like your just reading an instructions book? I'm wondering because yesterday I lost all of my saves and I'm having to start again.

[ewd76 2]

I have found generally that my visions tend to look ridiculous once implemented even assuming that they work, which they usually don't. I miss the ease of SimCity2000 and 3000 when you could pretty much plop a bunch of zoning down and start making money. You can't even easily remove unneeded streets in SC4 without messing things up. I am working on one region which tends to be working so far. I have a bunch of cheats, so money is no object. Once I run out, I just give myself another billion and keep going. I started by making a completely flat region with no water. I chose a big section as close to the middle as possible. Within that section I laid down avenues in roughly the shape of an X from the corners to the center. Where the avenues would intersect, I put down the monorail cross station that someone made while extending the monorail out to the edge right down the middle effectively diving the section into quadrants, and then making a monorail beltway around the edge of the section. I  plopped down the tall skyscrapers in the middle where the avenues ant the center monorail station meet while filling in the gaps with High density residential and commercial. I put rail out about 3 quarters out from the center along two edges around which I have put industry and some residential all leading out of the section. I extended the monorail out to the sections at the edge of the city making another monorail beltway extending through each section on the edge of the region. In each section out side the center one I started with I have nothing but low density residential, medium commercial and some high density industry. Not all sections have all three zones. Sections which have no monorail or rail, I connect with a neighbor which does with a road. It seems to be working well so far with still many unzoned areas throughout the region. I have some dilapidation but very little abandonment. I figure I will take this as far as it works(or I get sick of it) and then upgrade everything to high density to try to get as high a regional population as possible.

[Dizastrow 4]

Look at the way you use space for each city.  Do you try and fill up every single tile with something?  Or do you have vast areas of undeveloped land, forests, lakes, plains?  Try constructing rural neighborhoods that use funky street designs.  Use landscaping and terraforming to diversify the terrain.  Spread your industry out.  What I like to do with industry is terraform a chain of islands in vast water, then place all the factories on them.  

I try to stray away from grids whenever possible.  So boring! 

[ScarcticCG 3]

@ ewd76 That's a bit hard to follow, but thanks anyway. Regardless, I don't like cheating as it takes away all of the challenge and sence of accomplishment from the game. Oh, and I found it hard to adjust to the new SC4 style too! Embarrassingly the first time I played SC4 I only played it for 2 days because I couldn't get to grips with it X[ . But the revenue system is more realistic which I respect in some aspects.

@Dizastrow I have the perfect opportunity to try that now, as the region Timbuktu decided to flatten its self completely! I used to use grids because they are practical and the best way of making money, but as I found out this makes the region very generic.

[ri0tiny0urcity 0]

When i started the region im currently playing i started with a poor town. It has 20,000 poor people stuck in project towers, dirty industry, and 3 oil plants. Next door to that city is all rich sims with a nice strip of commercail. Since i built a poor town first the rich were free to prosper in my other city which is powered by the poor city of Marlboro haha. Then the next city connected to the rich city was mostly middle class with a few poor unwanted sims lol. My middle class town had mostly manufacturing jobs while my rich city had high tech. With all my citys connected it was a good start. Now im having a hard time with demand for a larger map connected to all three of the citys at the same time... so im kind of stuck right now.

[ScarcticCG 3]

My newest city runs far more smoothly than my previous ones and looks better too! On the south east side of the city is dirty industry, which is separated from the suburbs by two highways. The suburbs look far more realistic that they used to with interesting streets and pockets of commercial scattered here and there. Going more westward the apartments and mid height buildings, separated from the suburbs by a commercial strip that prospers from the varying classes of people surrounding it. I'm still working on it though so It's only got about 30,000 people i it.

@ri0tinyurcity Try merging two of the cities in to one, like the high class and middle class. Leave the lower class though, nobody likes them. That should make it so that the population is forced to vacate; not to the lower class because the standard of living is lower there. If you make you large city of a high standard, the sims will move in.

[ewd76 2]

Originally posted by: ScarcticCG @ ewd76 That's a bit hard to follow, but thanks anyway. quote>

Yeah, I could have done better on the punctuation and the sentence structure.

[Smudger 0]

everyone always talks about have no grids. but i find it hard to not make grids, i hate zoning or plopping on diaganol roads. how can i work this out?

[Randomtaskk 1]

Im the total opposite, have grids everywhere and a very organised layout.

See this topic for my general method.

https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=105347&enterthread=y

Theres some screenshots further down if you find it hard to follow the writing

[Darth Apple 54]

making diagonal roads is actually quite inefficient.

I always just follow my creativity , and plop whatever comes to mind , thus , all my cities are unique because they developing organically.

edw76 , that doesn't look to creative... but it is a nice idea.

Hope this helps.

[ri0tiny0urcity 0]

ScarcticCG: that is not my problem. i have all three citys connected through an avenue. They are all small size territories with a large connected ontop stretching to all of them. I have connected roads to the rich and middle class to the large territory. Very little has happend. Just a small commercail rich strip and maybe two manufacturing facitlites. Thats it. The demand is little to none in my large map. Im thinking i will have to drop taxes down a bit but im very against doing so.

[ScarcticCG 3]

@ri0tiny0urcity Perhaps its a demand problem, or maybe your low value city is actualy sparking interest in other classes?