Making a city Tips and Tricks

[ArskA 0]

How do u guys make so BEAUTIFUL and big cities.i'm new in simtropolis and in simcity 4.i have only 10000 in my region,but you have about 50000.XD Some help???

What mods or tools do you use???

i'm a finnish guy,so there can be some text errors.

[z1 566]

The main mod you need is the NAM.  Other than that, pick up a copy of the Prima Guide to learn most of the tricks of the game.  You can get a new copy of the Guide for SC4 Deluxe for... $130???    Let's see... a used copy is $40?   If that's too rich for your blood, you can pick up the Prima Guide for the original SC4 for as little as $1 plus shipping; it has most of what you need in it.

[Senekis93 0]

10,000 in a region? You can have up to 20,000 in a single building and without using a single mod.

Be more specific. Post screenshots and I'll help you.

[Panda_Power 1]

You should watch some video tutorials on YouTube...that's how it all came together for me when I started playing. I just copied someone's guide step by step and made my own city just so that I could get a feel for the controls and what all the different things did and then once I felt comfortable with how it all worked and how one thing affected another then I started creating my own city in my own style.

SC4 is very complex and you need to take your time with it and you need a lot of patience, but it is so rewarding when you start to see your own city growing successfully and making profit.

[ArskA 0]

ok,thank u guys. i did watch some tutorials by simmy.uk and vbackseatromeov and i downloaded NAM.Sorry Senekis93, i mean 100,000 in my region. My best is 1000,000.But the problem is my cities look awful and i saw some very nice zonings and regions in some forum.

i would like to hear about how do you zone your cities?

[Senekis93 0]

If all you want is people, just make them want to live in your city via taxes. But it seems you also want it to look nice... could you link us to those pics that you liked? What you consider "nice zoning" may be different from what comes to my mind when reading those words.

Regarding how do I zone my cities, I spend my whole gaming time testing new things, so I use different strategies on each city.

The elemental is to place the residential zone and your civic buildings next to or surrounded by CO and CS. Industry should be a little further. But there are thousands of different ways to do this...

[ArskA 0]

Ok,this looks pretty cool zoning  

And this is very nice city

And i really like this region

[Panda_Power 1]

Wow! 151 million....that last region must have taken months to complete! I like the way they haven't gone overboard with skyscrapers. The end result looks really balanced and realistic.

Total respect to whoever made that one! 

[ArskA 0]

Yeah,that one is really really huge!

[Bow-wow-wow 1]

well, my cities were only getting to 10,000 or 20,000 max. I went out to start a new city and got it up to 40,000 really quickly. You just have to keep zoning and get medium and high density. Make sure your civics are good, your traffic/commute time is good, and you have lots of parks with little pollution. Just put it on super speed for a little while and you will get larger populations. Trust me.

Hope this helps. (=

[ArskA 0]

thnx

[FabioJ 0]

High Density is the solution.

It is a little more expensive however you can get thousands of people in a single building.

In order for H.D. to build, you must have a water supply to the building(s).

[pipelad 6]

well high density is the solution yeah, but you got to use it "correctlly" just zoning high density might not be enough!, you need to mix 3x3 and 4x4 high density in order to get the biguer buildings, (you can make that kind of zoning sizes by pressing ctrl) if you download custom content be sure to keep an eye on the lot size! (3x4, 4x6, 6x6) because youll need to zone that in order for them to grow (again wile holding the ctrl key), also (this is the way i do it... not a rule) i like to make the cityes that will be "smaller" first (like the surrounding cityes from the one with the sky scrapers) and then build the center(bigger) one, that way i would have previously build up the demand and the biguer buildings will apear, for some reason (experience from previous regions iv'e played) wen you reach certain point in one city, upgrading the buildings (the sims do it) gets real slow, and you end up with the same buildings for hundreds of in-game years.

Also a good tip is to try to avoid doing "grid only" cityes, let me elavorate, if you zone youll get only grid (squares and rectangles) with the zones and the roads, dont be afraid of using diagonals! (yes because of the game limitation diagonals are a bit dificult to use and to get the right looks unless you download some fillers and diagonal lots) 

on a side note, i agree with panda-power! all the respect for who ever made that region! HUGE and also really well done!

[ArskA 0]

i've made my cities same way as vbackseatromeov in youtube,but i have a problem...in one of my cities,i have lots of unempoyment,and my neighbouring city has lots of jobs!!! my sims just arent going to ther???

[Darth Apple 54]

151,000,000? I haven't even reached one million for a region, and I've been working two years! Nice work!

[pipelad 6]

Originally posted by: ArskA

i've made my cities same way as vbackseatromeov in youtube,but i have a problem...in one of my cities,i have lots of unempoyment,and my neighbouring city has lots of jobs!!! my sims just arent going to ther???quote>

Well employment in other cityes have various factors to take in to acount,

1 is education, how intelligent (IQ) your sims are determine what job they will have, so maybe the tipe of jobs you neighbour city offers are not the adecuate one for your sims

2 Traffic and transportation, do your sims have enouhg neighbour conections to travel to the jobs? do you have mass transit options? subway? and so on... if they cant get to work you will have abandonment.

3 have you enough civic and recreation buildings? parks, hospitas, police and such? only R$ sims dont need them, bur R$$ and R$$$ need lots of those, or they will abandom... also take care of trash isues and land value (the higher land value the better for al R$$ and R$$$)

[z1 566]

Originally posted by: ArskA

i've made my cities same way as vbackseatromeov in youtube,but i have a problem...in one of my cities,i have lots of unempoyment,and my neighbouring city has lots of jobs!!! my sims just arent going to ther???quote>

Are you using the NAM, and if so, which version, and which traffic simulator?

[ArskA 0]

im using latest NAM and i've never heard about traffic simulators???

[local_authority01 3]

Originally posted by: z1

The main mod you need is the NAM.  Other than that, pick up a copy of the Prima Guide to learn most of the tricks of the game.  You can get a new copy of the Guide for SC4 Deluxe for... $130???    Let's see... a used copy is $40?   If that's too rich for your blood, you can pick up the Prima Guide for the original SC4 for as little as $1 plus shipping; it has most of what you need in it.

quote>

$130???  What a ripp-off.  I bought mine for around $20 when RH was first released.  It isn't much different than the original, I bought that one too.  The original at least has most of the same basic game mechanics inside, except for the new commute model.

The coomute model was the main thing that you might miss if you are relying on the original strategy guide.  The RH covers it briefly and a I'll add a few points here:

In basic SC4, residents would find the closet open job to them and if the trip could be completed in 2.5 hours or less it was considered a complete trip.  The traffic simulators would go through cycles, and as long as a sim could complete a trip each cycle, they would have a job.

In RH cylces are completed every four months, but instead of a sim taking the closet job, they now take a job depeding on their wealth level, with different workplaces offering jobs to different wealth levels.  With wealth levels and route queries added, RH added a lot of complexity to the commute model, but the prima guide only covers it briefly in two pages. The main game mechanics can be found in the original SC4 Strategy Guide or can be asnswerd here on the forum.

[ArskA 0]

i would like to show u my region,capital and connection.would u give me some advice???

This is my capital New Holey Moley

And this is my region

And my connections

Region is Sc4 original New York.

Comments pleaseee!!!

[CrossSide 0]

You only work in squares, no wonder that the city doesn't look good.. Try some variaton, try to download and make some eye candy in the city and read a lot of journals

[ArskA 0]

i've never seen anything else than squares in sc4

[Aktof 2]

Hey,

If you want beautiful looking cities and regions the way you should play is not on a emphasis on getting big buildings. Try to add deviation, form a regional highway system, add mountains, avoid right angles en masse in, no large areas of rows and columns. The city design should be aesthetically pleasing and doesnt necessarily have to be 100% effecient use of space for buildings. Look at layouts of real cities of this era.

Best of luck!

[ArskA 0]

Thank you Aktof! i downloaded Gauntlet Mountains map for my new better region.