Realism?

[SoujiroElric 0]

Uh, did I zone mid density too fast? Uhm, what should I do???

[joshriddle 29]

Well, as far as realism goes, I try to keep everything low density until 30,000 residents come in. In your case, you can rezone the commercial zones to low density, the game will evict the big businesses and replace them with smaller ones. The smaller ones might be offices OR shops. Either or is good.

Also I recommend grabbing a couple (for starters) of Simgoober's buildings from the STEX. 90% of them are based off of real life businesses.

[SoujiroElric 0]

Alright, so big commercial zones shouldn't go there.

Is it okay if I replace the farms with something else?

[joshriddle 29]

If you need to expand your residental, and commercial, go for it.

Also once your city gets up around 5,000 residents try adding a small industrial zone (10x10 grid tiles should work), and be sure not to put it close to the center of town. If you do the city becomes polluted. If anything, tear out a small chunk of the farms and put it in there.

[SoujiroElric 0]

Uh, but I already have a industrial zone, near the port, with nearly 2000 inhabitants...

...Am I doing it wrong? I had no choice, there was an enormous demand and no more space to plot more farms.

[joshriddle 29]

Well, if you have a port you may want to keep the industry, just so you aren't wasting money of hauling produce and dirt (from the giant patches of dirt they call farms).

I don't worry if something is high in demand. For the sake of realism, I wait to put it in until X time or X population or whatever.

[SoujiroElric 0]

Check the map, I placed the industry near the port, just for realism.

I think I better expand the residential zones...

[x493x 446]

Always try using Google Earth or get out and about, go for a walk, take note of what you see, then re-create it in SC4.

[joshriddle 29]

I noticed on the pic of your city you had a big bulky high school in there. I recommend adding a high school later into the game, like at 10,000 residents. As for elementary, I add them once I hit 1,000 or so.

[SoujiroElric 0]

Uh... I had no other way to increase the resident's education...

Okay okay, I'm getting confused. How am I supposed to know when to grow? When do I go from low density to middle? When do I build something bigger? Industries, commerce?

[joshriddle 29]

First of all, try adding apartments at 15,000 instead of 30,000. That may help. However I rarely zone med density until 30,000.

Industry comes in at a low population of 5,000. If you allready have a seaport, just skip that part, for added realism.

Commerce, as far as med density goes, wait till a good 15,000 residents.. However I still go for 30,000, because I just don't seem to like medium density that much.

As for high density, residental high density will start doing good at 60,000-70,000 residents. The game lets you develop high stage residental at 26,000, but most of the time it fails.

High density commercial can come in at a very high commercial population rate. Try getting your commerical office population to about 50,000 to 60,000 before attempting highrises.

Mass transit can be established when traffic starts getting very heavy (sometimes uncontrollable) in certain areas. Start with bus stops. Then go to rail, elevated rail/monorail, then subways for the extremely dense areas.

Also, I wish you luck with your cities. This has been quite the adventure into realism.

[SoujiroElric 0]

Haha, thank you. I'll try "fixing" the city. I think I'm gonna keep the industrial zones, just not expand them further. I think the industries are okay for now.

And just to fix stuff further I'll try doing a second village. I'll post results

[joshriddle 29]

Here is a demonstration of my latest city, it is a fantasy city in BC, Canada called Gulf Springs. In Real Life this area is probably uninhabited.

The reason why the water suddenly stops at the dip to the left is because I used the Setsealevel "0" cheat to remove the water from the landscape in order to install seawalls. Otherwise, the water would have been tucked up right against the CBD to the northwest.

I labeled some significant areas. Every area in bold explains it's working role in the region.

I intend on filling in all the empty spaces in the pic. This will take a while. This pic demonstrates 4 large city tiles, btw.

Edit: I edited my pic to demonstrate more areas.

[SoujiroElric 0]

Looks good! Why are the other cities that apart?

[joshriddle 29]

Originally posted by: SoujiroElric

Looks good! Why are the other cities that apart?quote>

Construction on the southern and eastern ends of the city have just begun. However the town to the southeast was there ever since I started this region, but I was just a tiny rural town at the time. It has lately grown into the figure it is in today.

How are your's coming along?

[SoujiroElric 0]

Well I just started another city. I farmed a little bit so it's nothing but a village.

The town's okay, just zoned residential a little bit more to kill a farm.

[Jayster 7]

SoujiroElric: Updates 9, 10, and 11 from my MD focous on creating a somewhat realistic small town. ">Link The link should take you to Update 9 and Update 10 is on the same page and Update 11 is on the next page. Hope it helps!

Jayster

[SoujiroElric 0]

Wait, wait. I don't get it. How did you think about that? How did you know, the town had to take that shape, with that amount of stuff? I can't quite understand how you came to that...

Oh, this is what I've done up to now

(Images were too big so I figured I would rather post links)

...I'm doing it wrong, right?

If I have to start all once again, I'm willing to do so. I really want to learn to do this kind of stuff.

[Jayster 7]

Well what that is is about three years of work and about 3GB of plugins. That is actually pretty small compared to some people though. With a little bit of practice, you will begin to create cities that are extremley realistic! Don't worry about it too much, from what you have there, youre off to a good start so far, I'd suggest getting a mod that removes Pedriana Plants from the agriculture. Also, if you are going to zone farms, don't zone in squares, if you give them some unique shapes, it will begin to look really good. Just some other suggestions.

Jayster

[SoujiroElric 0]

Made an enormous farm zone between Bimar and Punta Oeste, linking them together.

What else should I consider?

[Tonnakin 2]

As I can see in your pictures (especially the large ones you linked), you use the SAM. The only thing I would like you to try is this. With it, you can manually stop SAM streets, and continue with either the original Maxis street, or place another stopper and continue with another SAM street!

The reason I would like you to use it, is that the SAM texture you use actually only "fits" in agriculteral zones. In the city, you shouldn't use dirt roads.

Also try this and this. With these mods, you can have trees in your agriculteral zones, and it will make them more realistic.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Thanks for the SAM Stopper.  I was going to use a single road tile for that, and it would have been ugly.  I do like herringbone streets for my out of town subdivisions where roads are not needed, and I like dirt roads for industrial and farms.

I down loaded that one, and I will try it anon.

I try to keep my plugins down to a dull roar.  One can get overwhelmed.

This has turned into an interestng back and forth.  However, do remember that the main clue is to do what comes naturally and try not to force too many issues.  The Region is the City and the Tiles are just Districts.  This more general thinking will help you plan better.  If you eon't like your layout and you have the .jpeg for it, make a new config.bmp and re-render it to your taste.

The most important thing to understand is that the game is not designed for realism.  It is designed to be whatever you want within its limitations which are many.  So, just turn on the old imagination, and go for it.

If you haven't travelled much, maps will help, but like writing a novel, do what you know best.  This will always lead you to a good result.  I have a pretty eclectic collection since I have lived in every kind of urban setting from small villages, where I live now, to megalopoli like Toronto.  I think the game actually aims at small south western U.S. university towns by design.  It is what the designers, living in Silicon Valley, would have known best.

[SoujiroElric 0]

Thank you Tonnakin, I'll make sure to use these!

Anon, I have just lived in cities and barely seen some suburbia or farms. See the photos I posted in the first page? That's what I'm used the most to. I have traveled, so I might try to remember what I've seen but I haven't got a grasp of living in places other than cities. May I know what you mean with "do what I know best"? Do you mean, in terms of a city?

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Yes.  In creative things it is always best to start with your own experience base and work forward imaginatively from there.

I tried out the SAM stopper, and it has been of great benefit in my new region I started on today.  My farms and industries have dirt streets and my civil population areas have herringbone brick.  Where they meet, this mod has been a great help.  This also helps when you lay down a road as they tend to stand out more.

If you want to convert a section from one texture to another, I suggest you pause the game because you have to rip up the old roads.

[SoujiroElric 0]

I decided to google a little bit, and found something interesting.

http://www.plataformaurbana.cl/copp/albums/userpics/10020/mdu-1_2005-alto_hospicio.pdf

Page 8, that's my city. It shows industrial zones at the north and the south of Iquique, aswell as industrial zones near Alto Hospicio's downtown (since now it's another city). Back then there were lots of low wealth residential zones in Alto Hospicio, while in Iquique it's just in the easternmost parts. Near the beaches, most of the high wealth people live.

I've seen some few other cities and I think I can conclude this:

-Downtown can be griddy, that's how it is every time. Griddy doesn't mean squared though, the downtowns aren't squared overall yet it's divided in a grid.

-Farm zones should go at the edges of the city, in or after the suburbia. These zones must be extense, too, and don't go in short roads between cities.

-If possible, leave all industrial zones apart from the city. They should also be near the port.

-Cities near a river should have lots and lots of farms. Sometimes the farms surround the city.

-Suburbia must have other shapes. It must blend with the nature, too. If a hill has a certain shape, the suburbia must try to follow the scheme.

-Main streets in a suburbia can have some kind of decoration. Actually, suburbia should be decorated.

-Streets between nearby cities must be decorated and have few houses around.

-Commercial zones usually go within residential zones

-Avenues that go through the entire city must have two ways. Streets within the downtown must go in one way. The rest are just streets. Highways and the like go between highly populated cities.

-In metropoli, the same concepts above apply, however taken to a bigger scale, thinking that the entire terrain as just one city, when it's actually lots of cities mixed into one. Cities further away from the downtown city act in their entirety as a suburbia, yet they have their own griddy downtown. So, it's downtown city -> suburbia city with its own downtown. In this case, some other cities also act as industrial cities, aswell as farming cities.

Am I missing something here?

EDIT: Yes I did.

-Commercial zones usually go in avenues. However, beach zones have high density residential at the side of the beaches. Otherwise, the central part of the downtown should be full of houses and near or around it there should be high density residential zones.

[Deathcat001 8]

I space my High density out... Its more just keep it laid out well with smooth transitions..

I am still working on this one so its a bit dodge now.

[SoujiroElric 0]

Thank you. I can see the same scheme I described is being followed here.

I'll try everything again, from zero, to plan the region as one city. But one question, whenever I build a downtown, must I begin with farms or what?

[Deathcat001 8]

No? Try and build up the 9 surronding tiles with  Medium density if your DT is gonna be High density,

[SoujiroElric 0]

Question then. How do I raise desirability without building industrial zones in the downtown?

[joshriddle 29]

Try placing parks, plazas and occasionally schools. This always helps for me. And where I live, CBDs have small green parks.