How should i zone my region?

[carlsm600 0]

Should i zone mostly one type of zone (R, C, or I) in each city and just connect them with transportation networks to make one big city, or should i mix up the zones in each city? Which method is more efficient?

[Xyloxadoria 1,098]

The most efficent method is to zone what is in demand. Look on the bottom bar in the game, there is your RCI graph, (Its just to the right of your cash) and bars above or below the center line. The higer the bar, the more the citizens want that type of zone. The best thing to do is to zone for the higest bar above the line, and not zone at all for anything below the line.

[realrocknrolla 0]

What does R$, R$$ and R$$$ mean? Also C$, C$$, C$$?

[SC4BOY 21]

R=Residencial C=Commercial $=poorest $$=middle class $$$=high wealth

[realrocknrolla 0]

Another question, If they want $=Low Density $$=Medium Density and $$$=High Density or is it the other way around?

I think this is the reason my cities fail so hard.

Edit: Is there a way to download a map area and have one spot open so I can only control one city, I dont feel like doing any others.

[BBUUBBBBLLEESS 0]

For the density. No

Low density is best used when the population is below a certain limit (2500 people I think, the number is in the manual somewhere)

Medium Density is best used when the population is above the limit for low density and below the limit for high density (2500 to 40,000 seems to ring a bell, but I'm not sure of this, the true number is also in the manual)

High Density is best used when the population is above all of the other 'limits' (40,000 I think, but I'm still not sure, the true number is in the manual)

Of course, you can use low, medium and high density whenever you like, but medium and high density wont make any difference at lower populations.

And you can still use low density in a city with say 120,000 people if you want to. It depends what you want your city too look like. If I remember right, your less likley to get the taller buildings using the lower density's (if i remember right)

And with the downloaded map thing, do you mean so there is only one city in the region.

If thats what you mean, all you have to do is:

A. Create a new region (call it what ever you like, Jingle Bells, Bubba Lang, whatever you like)

B. DO NOT start any citys or ANYTHING. NOTHING. LEAVE THE REGION ALONE, and EXIT sim city. (so its no longer running)

C. Go to the Sim City Folder in 'My Documents' (or Documents if you have Vista)

D. Go to Regions

E. Go to the region you just made

F. In this folder there is an image. Open it with paint.

G. There are diffenernt coloured squares. Each colour is used for a different tile size (i think Red was Small, Green was Medium, and Blue was large). For the small ones, you need to do a 1x1 square of red, for the medium tiles, you need to do a 2x2 square of green, and for the large tiles, you need to do a 4x4 square of blue. You can make it whatever size you like, all you have to do is adjust the size of the canvas. I dont know if it will screw up if you use blue instead of red or anything, so just stick to what is done already

H. Save it as the same name, in the same folder (Just press Cntl S, its much easier and quicker)

I. Open Sim City 4 and the region again. If you've done it right (and I've explained it well enough for you to understand) you should have the region you've created. If its wrong, read this again, try again, and if its still wrong, then you might want to try and find somebody that has explained it better.

[SC4BOY 21]

Low medium and high density have nothing to do with wealth.. any lot can be any combo of density and wealth

[BBUUBBBBLLEESS 0]

oh, sorry, I just read your density question again, and realised I read it completly wrong last time.

Listen to SC4boy, thats what I was always told XD

[realrocknrolla 0]

Is how I have my city, but I dont think I am playing the game right. It always ask for more and more agriculture to take up my entire map.

It just really confusing because I never played any of the sim city games ever. I am trying to find a manual or game online but cant register because this game was registered previously. So I cant reregister it and it didnt come with a manual.

See where I just demolish residential area to make room for industry and lower my population a bit.

If I build a train station to a empty neighbor til does it still send stuff out? Sorry for hijacking your topic TC but I cant figure out how to make topics.

[BBUUBBBBLLEESS 0]

It looks ok to me (but I've always struggled to get the tallest buildings anyway)

If I may suggest though, dont build farms near other industry. I suggest this because farms are very sensitve to polution (they hate it) and the main cause of pollution is Dirty Industry. I think Manufaturing Industy will also cause pollution, but not as much as DI.

Also in the citys that I try and make bigger I usually try and expand slowly. I don't know if thats the way I'm suppose to do it or not, but I get some tallish buildings (most of the time)

And about the demand, you might want to just ignore it. It depends what your after really, if your after a big city, the farms will just take up lots of space and gain you very little money, whereas if its farms that you want, then you want high demand! (but I'm sure you could have guessed that already)

Last thing (to create a new topic).

If you look at the very top right hand corner of the page, you will see your profile thing (Mine says BBUUBBBBLLEESS)

Under neath that is a search bar, and under neath that is some more buttons.

To create a new topic, its under these buttons (under the search bar) to the very left. Its about the middle of the page

[Kusajika Yachiru 9]

Variety is your friend! Just like in a real life people want to be somewhat close to their jobs. Mix it up! I don't personally like using cities for just ID, R, or C.

[realrocknrolla 0]

I got this message, but I am the only city in the region. What should I do?

[aznshadow 0]

As with all advisor's tips, you don't have to do anything. However, having network connections will allow a higher commerical / industrial demand cap. Demand cap is where you hit a certain amount of jobs with commercial/industry, connections (dragging roads to any edge of the map and accepting road connection) will raise this and should also improve your demand. You don't have to do this though.

If you do, though the same method of connection (road, highway, etc) will appear in the city next to your city you connected to so if you were to have another city on that side, a road would appear exactly where you connected it (also automatically demolishes anything that may have been at the edge).

Also, you don't have to have agricultural at all. The demand will pretty much always be there. Agriculture is more of an eye candy for those wanting less urban cities. They provide little jobs but no air pollution. If you wanted tall buildings, I'd advise getting rid of your farms and replacing that area with other zones. You can't get tall buildings until you have a very high population/job count.

[BowynAerrow 0]

I zone by 'districts' in my city. A district is composed of 9 to 12 'blocks' which are areas roughly 8x8 tiles with streets/roads/avenues around.

The 'district' is compact and will contain all three RCI with in it. Many of my blocks will be composed of both R and C side by side. For a main city I will aim for a block having a residential tower next to a commercial tower in most places. Industry is close by, either behind or within a couple of blocks.

Another method I use is to zone in main streets with commercial fronts with access behind to residential with access behind that or to the size to a small area that I call an industrial park.

Industrial parks are composed of a 4 block area (16 tiles by 16 tiles) that I zone all at once. When the first industrial buildings come in I check to see what they are, I keep a few choice ones, pause the game remove the two cross roads inside the park, remove the single tile unused zones. Then by using the parking lots of the few larger buildings in the area I lay back in roads to those. I zone in 1 tile wide low density commercial zones, watch carefully and when I get the shops I am hoping to get (food shops, grease pit, taco stand, whatever looks right in an industrial zone, I pause the game again and click on the structures and set the as historical. This way I am mixing my low density commercial jobs with my industry.

I have also mixed in low density residential, one tile wide zones (1  to 3 long) as soon as I get a low income house I click and make it historical. This works best with a couple of dirty industry buildings like the cement plant or the copper smelter or the petrol plant.

Another method is to make 'strips' of industry with strips of tenements. The last is difficult, it means a lot of bulldozing, or starting off your game with very low taxes for the low wealth sims, that way their demand for land is high, get as many 'districts' of low wealth as you want, then re balance out the taxes.

The idea is to keep it all mixed up with decent sized areas that are close to industry to make into high rise 'cores' for your city.

Unless you have a mod that changes pathing to allow quick travel between industrial sprawl and residential communities, or if you are using a job multiplier for the industry. If you use those then you can get a more realistic looking city, one with an industrial side of town somewhat removed from downtown.

[Nick9099 2]

Although mixing everything may be more functional, I tend to go with a more realistic approach of having industrial areas, the suburbs that spread over much of the region and a few Downtowns where most of the offices are concentrated. This can create problems with transport, but I find that it just looks much better to not have all types of zoning one against the other.

Yes, I do use the industry quadrupler and the "improved pathfinding" option in the NAM, but I was planning as described above long before that.

P.S. aznshadow, I was under the impression that agriculture demand disappeared after reaching a certain population (100 000?)

[BowynAerrow 0]

Originally posted by: Nick9099

Although mixing everything may be more functional, I tend to go with a more realistic approach of having industrial areas, the suburbs that spread over much of the region and a few Downtowns where most of the offices are concentrated. This can create problems with transport, but I find that it just looks much better to not have all types of zoning one against the other.

Yes, I do use the industry quadrupler and the "improved pathfinding" option in the NAM, but I was planning as described above long before that.

P.S. aznshadow, I was under the impression that agriculture demand disappeared after reaching a certain population (100 000?)

quote>

Demand for Agriculture drops based on desirability. The desirability map will show you where ag can and will grow if yor taxes on ag is low.

I set my ag taxes to 4%, and even with my larger, more dense cities if I still have green desireability more ag will grow.

I had a city of 100 thousand plus with some 'urban farms' right smack dap in the middle. They maintained healthy status through it all. I was able to do that by plopping in lots of parks between the ag zone and the other zones. I currently have another city wit 80 thousand+ sims with a barn lot left of all of my ag. It has 5 out of 6 hired and its surrounded by medium and high density RCI zones.

Drop taxes on farming to 0 and you will have a spike in demand s lon as you have some area that is not completely red for desirability.