All my cities crash and burn when I hit the 75k mark

[TigerLord 0]

When I saw Sim City 4 had hit STEAM, I bought it immediatly. I spent too many hours on it, and after beating the SC2 campaign, I felt like hitting the nostalgia with more Sim4. I've built about five cities so far. I've installed N.A.M. to help with the traffic issues, I've read a few tutorials and FAQs and got the basics of city building.

However, all my cities, whenever they hit ~75k population, start crashing. I expect this is due to bad planning, but I'm stuck. I just don't know how to move on from there.

My latest city looks like this:

Before I hit 60k I had 300k+ in the bank and something like +18/-13k budget, I made sure to micro-manage all my hospitals, clinics and schools to keep the budget down on these. But then I reach that magical 60k-75k range, growth stagnates.

Demand for H-T was through the roof early on, I expect because of the neighboring cities. It was nice because it allowed me to bypass the whole D-T phase. In spite of this, pollution is through the roof, even after I switched to Solar, have a Water Treatment plant.

I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong at that point. Most of my residential zoning is wealthy class. There was high demand for both H-T and R-888 and suddenly, it all crashed. Budget plummeted and now I got 10k and a negative income. I did build a subway network... perhaps it was too quick?

I'd really appreciate any help or pointers.

Thanks!

Resized images to forum limit of 800x600.

--Liv

[joshriddle 29]

Hi Tiger Lord, welcome to ST!

Anyway, cities do that. Their demand will begin to really taper off like that once the pop. gets to high. With me my pop. is only at 33000 and demand is allready tapering off!

First of all, you may want to try the super demand ordinance by buggi, what it does, with me I noticed it made the demand spike when I zoned, and then went up even more when it developed. That process kept on and on until about the demand was at 5000 and it has stayed there solid.

Also make sure you are not taxing the daylights out of them. If so lower the taxes to 5.0%. Also some other modded buildings make demand jump, such as the Census Repositratory Facility. I forgot where they are exactly. I will have to go look for them.

[Decaf Table 0]

Subways are very expensive! I don't know if you'd need one at 78k. It sounds like you were doing great with a 5k profit...so what exactly happened? It's normal to go through phases where you build and then lose profit for a bit. You'll have to asses what's eating away at your budget. How are your taxes, did you change anything drastic? Also, for demand, have you made sure to build demand busters? A side note, you should never need to build a treatment plant for your water supply as long as you keep all your pumps out of the water pollution. Your advisors will say your water is polluted but as long as it's still pumping, you've got nothing to worry about...that will save you some big bucks getting rid of that!

[Ryan123220 18]

It looks like you have to much R$$$ in your city. Unlike what most people think when they start, R$$$ isnt the best. Even CO$$$ CS$$$ and high tech do not provide any R$$$ jobs, they provide mostly R$$ and R$ jobs. Try taxing your R$$$ to 12$ for now (demand will drop but dont worry about that), lower your R$$ tax 1-2 % and delete a lot of those mansions! you will see nice growth and things should start moving again.

As for your budget your subway is probably what killed you. There isnt to much you can do about it right now but if what i said above works you should have a higher money from come in so it might fix both problems.

If you do try this then do it but dont save the game unless it works for you that way if it didnt work you wont have more problems

If it works dont forget to post new pics of the city!

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

If you haven't, add some neighbors.  Be sure there is a way for Sims to get back and forth.

I will reiterate what I tell everyone.  The game insists on balance.  You shouldn't have too many $$$ anythings.    The rule is "the higher, the tewer" just like real life.  If your whole city is R$$$, who gets to collect the garbage, go for coffee, run the copier, boss the office, keep the salesment in line, etc.  In every $$$ building, there are few R$$$ running the show.  The rest are R$ with a few supervisor R$$ and maybe some engineers and specialists.

The name of the game is not to get the most $$$.  The name of the game is to stay in the black and keep growing.  When your entire tile is full, you need the support of the adjacent tiles, and eventually the whole region.  A balanced region will have everything from farms to metropoli.  You just have to keep building, and don't be afraid to do some urban renewal if things get stagnant.  If your industrial segments are boring, give them a dose of Truckosaurus.  It will give you a nice mess to fix.

[apricotmuffins 0]

If you have some demand for commercial like your RCI bar indicates, You should zone for that, either in this square, or in a new one. Neighbour connections are a must. Also, as nice as solar power is, you can save money by making a 'dirty' tile with some coal power stations and DI and MI (set HI tax to 20% so they dont grow) and maybe some ghetto if you feel like being mean (R$ are always useful- be nasty and don't even give them schools or hospitals or park areas, they will still stick around and even with heavy pollution... its a cruel world) Then, selling the power from those to your nice city tile. To do this, put in the power connection from the dirty tile to the nice tile, run for a few months, then save and go to your nice tile, where you eliminate all sources of power from your city (I mean ALL sources. waste to energy plants etc too)  you should then be able to initate a neighbour deal through your budget panel. Buy as much power as you need with a little bit extra. (make sure you put a few power stations in the dirty tile and max their budget, your city is big enough to need a fair bit)

If you have any DI or MI in this particular city, bulldoze it, and set their taxes to 20% to keep them out. you want nice HI only. zone more commercial!! you have demand for it. Be sure to build up the surrounding tiles more. A nice commercial only tile adjascent to this might be an idea if you have some cs and co $$ +   Put in strong transport connections like rail or highways.

I have a city with about 100k population in and a surplus budget of 10 -15k a month doing this. I dont know how far I can take it, but it does work if you are careful, grow in small incriments (never over-zone so your demand dips negative) and if you need more juice and it won't let you buy any more etc, hop over to your dirty city and plop in some more power stations. You should also sell your garbage to the dirty tile. its cheap and keeps your city super clean. Keep moving around your connected cities and grow when demand requires - if your demand for DI and MI bottoms out in your dirty tiles, build more R$ and R$$ in the same tile or a connecting one etc.

Strike a balance. like others have said, too much $$$ is bad. you need the $ and $$.

[TigerLord 0]

Are there must have mods aside NAM out there???

[apricotmuffins 0]

hmm. It depends what you want from the game. I'm inclined to say a game with only NAM is still playable and very enjoyable. But mods can really enhance either the realism or the gameplay. If you want to have HUGE growth instantly, then there are mods for that (the super demand ordinance mentioned) but I feel like that kind of defeats the challenge of growing a city. Just my personal opinion based on what I get out of the game. There are also slope mods, to make road inclines more realistic, the RHW to build more customisable highways (its a big one to get to grips with though) and I have a radius widener to make my civics cover a wider area. I might uninstall that one, but its very useful and means you don't have to build 3 schools for 3 different neighbourhoods with about 20 pupils in each one etc. So i'm keeping it for now! Theres countless more mods, some good, some not so good.

Its up to you. Explore whats out there. Don't get too caught up in downloading everything and trying it. Pick and choose carefully and do one at a time to see how you like it.

[Bplax15 2]

In all my cities where I try to make it a large city there is always a point for me between the 75k-150k mark that the demand will drop, primarily residential. It generally lasts for just a few game years. I use this time to build facilities that will improve growth such as the university, more civic buildings, and any rewards i feel are necessary. Before long the demand is restored and growth returns, however it will not be with the same boom that every town has at first. Just weather the storm.