Help me love SC4 again!

[landstander248 8]

 I’m an old time city-builder looking for some serious assistance. I’ve played ‘em all, starting with the original, and like most here I’ve loved and enjoyed SC4 for many years. But my joy hit a roadblock and I need help getting around it.

I have a handful of issues with SC4 that have haunted my gaming for years, and I think most can be resolved with some advice from experienced players. I have read through these and other forums over the years, so I know the basics, but I’ve been unable to find resolutions to my specific issues… Here they are in order of importance…

1) Big Commercial Skyscrapers.

Also know as Stage 8 commercial office, these mighty towers have ALWAYS eluded me! I know there was a glitch that stopped them from appearing in the original release, but this was patched later on. Yet, despite that patch, I’ve had a dozen games since that have not developed Stage 8s.

What am I doing wrong? I’ll have a region/city of one million plus people, hundreds of thousands of commercial jobs of all types and levels, including ample C$$$ office, a nice downtown core with heavy traffic and high desirability – yet I never get the biggest towers.

I’d like you to take me word that I can design a functional city and instead think of any technical glitches that might be causing this. Imagine the horror of playing dozens of SC4 games but never getting the downtown core you desire – that is my sad existence! 

Again, I am curious about technical or otherwise obscure reasons I'm not getting Stage 8. I have played enough cities to be 90% it is not my play style that causes this problem. 

2) NAM and transit issues.

I’m going to fresh-install SC4 Deluxe and the NAM, so maybe this problem won’t arise, but it sure did the last time I tried to have a new go at SC4! My traffic according to the info view would show heavy traffic at dead end avenues. See, I would build an outline of avenues for part of a city, a lot of which just dead-ended until I return late to build in that area. Yet all of this traffic was on these useless roads. It made me think the entire underlying traffic model was messed up, and it made me not want to spend the time building a full city. Any idea why this happened, or how to make SURE it does not happen again? I assume it was related to the NAM, but not certain. Maybe someone else has experienced this?

3) Region Play

Regions are a concept I LOVE, but a gameplay element that is a mystery. I’ve managed to effectively use demand between cities to my advantage, as well as resources trading, but I have always been VERY confused about transit. For example, how far will a Sim travel between regions? Will he or she travel across more than one region? How are commute times impacted by high-speed transit (highways, monorails) between regions? My in game experiences have always left me confused, and sometimes I feel like that awesome Monorail spanning 8 cities is actually useless. Maybe someone can point me to a resources on this topic.

Thanks to everyone who reads and responds. Communities like this are the backbone of any great game and people like me – busy with jobs and families – really love being able to enhance their gaming experience with the help of dedicated fans and gamers like yourselves.

Thanks again!

Phil (landstander248)

[saywhatman 0]

1. Stage 8s - Download the CAM and pull an all nighter downloading many many buildings. If you are risky, https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=8269.0 is a fix for double capacity CAM issues. CAM raises stages to stage 15, allowing for much greater range of buldings, both commercial and residential. If you don't want to download CAM, you can never have enough parks

2. NAM issues - I don't really know whats going on here..sorry. I'm not a good networks person. A reinstall sounds like it will help though.

3.Download the High Speed Rail mod. It will provide much greater interregional transit options than monorail, which is mainly meant for intracity transportation. I believe that sims will travel a maximum of 1.5 tiles to get to work in simulator Z but I'm not 100% sure.

Hope this helps a little! I'm procrastinating on an english paper by doing this. Sorry that there are no links!

[SC4BOY 20]

1. You don't need the CAM.. developing stage 8 (the highest "normal" stage is simply a matter of expanding your regional population and using that demand (demand is gererated by population... the type of demand is determined by primarily the education level.. the probability of a stage 8 developing is directly related to regional population..

2. NAM .. this works fine.. what you do with your traffic flow design is determined by you.. if you have adequate transportation modes and paths, people will follow.. assuming you build the transport paths following the general "desires" of your population.. ie they have to go from where they are to where they want to go

3. HSR is purely optional.. its mostly eyecandy.. you can just use monorail to do the same thing

4. Regions are largely a concept only .. a given city has no clue as to the transport model of adjacent cities.. it just throws commuters "over the border" .. in fact it at that point adds 1/2 the transport delay of the adjacent citytile since it has no clue what the transports are nor where the travel will be to... So its really not worth much thinking on your part as to how far they go, etc.. the whole "over there' concept is just called "SimNation" True regional play doesn't exist.. only a "lump variable treatment" of SimNation based on populations, etc

[T Wrecks 10,209]

1) Scarce supply creates great demand. So don't zone medium or dense unless you want something big to grow. It's your choice - get a CO§§§ demand of +10,000 quenched by 1,000 smaller buildings being overgrown by only slighly bigger ones - or limit growth by laying out fewer zones of lower density and having them max out, and then, when you have high demand, zone ONE 4x4 dense commercial area at an attractive spot and enjoy. Repeat as necessary.

[Shilka 0]

2) Since this is on avenues, and avenues only, remember that traffic can not cross the center division if you don't create a crossing. So if a sim lives at one side of the avenue, just before a long stretch that you have pre layed out for later use, the sim will have to travel along that entire length of road to get to the other side of the avenue. So make sure to create a crossing just outside your built up area so traffic can cross the center division and turn around before being forced to drive a mile long dead end stretch of avenue.

[AtkinsSJ_ 7]

3) Beware the eternal commuter bug when messing with regional transport - when there are 3 connected cities neighbouring each other, what can happen is that commuters go all the way around into their original city... and keep going. Each time they loop, it increases the number of commuters that the game thinks are there. It's because the game doesn't simulate traffic in other cities, so it doesn't know that traffic goes back where it started.

[landstander248 8]

Some interesting stuff here, thanks!

1) I feel like in the past I have reached every conceivable milestone necessary to max C growth and provided ample room for those towers to grow, including bulldozing old C for new high density zones and rezoning areas that are already highly developed - all centrally located, high land value, high customers, low pollution, etc. I really don't see what more I could have done in the past - I'll just cross my fingers this time!

I'll consider the CAM, but it may be more than I need, especially if I need to download tons of buildings to make it work.

If I have the same problem down the line, I will simply post my save file to see if someone can advise.

2) Hopefully this was just a glitch and my new install will work without irregular traffic patterns appearing, since no one else seems to have encountered this exact issue.

3) VERY interesting stuff here. I also found some info elsewhere on the site about region play.

I need to run a test - maybe someone already has - if I build Residential in one city and Industry in another AND have a city BETWEEN these two cities (with a highway running through all three) will workers commute across that middle city for work? If what SC4BOY says is true, all external regions are simply 'SimNation' and it shouldn't matter if the regions aren't directly connected. However, it also seems that commute times are impacted by connections - meaning SC4 will calculate better commute times if there is a proper transit connection as opposed to simply a a road out of one city, but not connected to the other.

I'll have to play around with the region concepts some more.

In the meantime I need to do a fresh install, do the Vista/Dual Core fix and the Widescreen fix, install the patches, NAM and some other minor mods... A lot of work just to install one game!

[landstander248 8]

Originally posted by: Shilka

if a sim lives at one side of the avenue, just before a long stretch that you have pre layed out for later use, the sim will have to travel along that entire length of road to get to the other side of the avenue.quote>

Once I thought about this again it made perfect sense. I feel like I played around with it and that any problem like that would have been resolved by my testing and fidgeting, but it sure does sound exactly like what I was seeing. 

[tungston 19]

Originally posted by: landstander248

Originally posted by: Shilka

if a sim lives at one side of the avenue, just before a long stretch that you have pre layed out for later use, the sim will have to travel along that entire length of road to get to the other side of the avenue.quote>

Once I thought about this again it made perfect sense. I feel like I played around with it and that any problem like that would have been resolved by my testing and fidgeting, but it sure does sound exactly like what I was seeing. 

quote>

This is important for residentials next to an avenue that is exiting the city by a neighbor connection.  You should put a crossover about two tiles from the border.

[SC4BOY 20]

Originally posted by: landstander248

3) VERY interesting stuff here. I also found some info elsewhere on the site about region play.

I need to run a test - maybe someone already has - if I build Residential in one city and Industry in another AND have a city BETWEEN these two cities (with a highway running through all three) will workers commute across that middle city for work? If what SC4BOY says is true, all external regions are simply 'SimNation' and it shouldn't matter if the regions aren't directly connected. However, it also seems that commute times are impacted by connections - meaning SC4 will calculate better commute times if there is a proper transit connection as opposed to simply a a road out of one city, but not connected to the other. quote>

This is somewhat simplistic, but not by much.. after you get your data, I'll be happy to expand on it.. You will gain a lot of insight with your experiment. When it "throws them over" it is cognizant of the mode of transport it left on. WRT "commuter loops" that is a well-investigated phonemenon and can easily be avoided, but it is worth reading up on a bit to avoid them... Generally keep you connections near the center of adjacent citytiles and avoid transport models that have "corner cutting" connections.. Do a search on the topic..

[RedImperator 16]

I know this is dead-simple, but have you created large enough zones for the Stage 8s? I've never gotten them to grow without holding down CTRL and zoning a solid 4x4 zone.

[SC4BOY 20]

You might take a look here for help.. also if you look down the list you will find Skyscrapers Beckon .. those may help you achieve what you're after and focus on any issues you may have overlooked.