Realism?

[diamonddog_74 32]

Originally posted by: SoujiroElric

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.

quote>

I'm still trying to figure out what exactly is it that you're trying to do:

1. Build an end-result realistic-looking city? or,

2. Develop a city from beginning in a realistic manner?

If 1, all you have to do is study your map and decide how you want your city to look when it's mature. Use logic to decide where the likeliest places for a type of zone would be based on the features of the map you're working with. Think about how a city in the real world (even yours, although you said you don't like yours) is laid out. It really all depends on the map. The way I build is in this way, so I spend a lot of prep time in "God Mode" terraforming features where I know I will want a certain kind of zone in relation to others. The games mechanics, as you're playing, will drive some adjustments.

If 2, read history. Why did Paris develop the way it did? Similarly, New York, Hong Kong, Chicago, or your city? You live near the ocean from the picture you provided. Where is the oldest part of your city? Why did people start there?

From the examples of other cities I mentioned: Paris spirals out from Île de la Cité (where Notre Dame Cathedral is), that is the oldest part of the city. Why there? It was the easiest ford across the Seine, and a place of refuge if it got invaded, so it became a crossroads.

New York started at the southern tip of Manhattan Island. Why? it is at the meeting of two rivers and at the northern end of a deep natural harbor that can be defended easily. Why did it develop into such a dense city? It's an island, the only place to go was up when the technology became available.

Same with Hong Kong, which is really pressed for space. It's a very narrow strip of buildable land between the harbor and the hills.

Chicago, where I live, sits on the shores of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the Chicago River. Why? Excellent trade route. The river got close enough to the Illinois River, which in turn is close to the Mississippi River so a canal could be built connecting these waterways. It's also a prairie, so the city could grow uninpeded by natural obstacles like mountains. However, it's the birthplace of the skyscraper. Why? The city developed so fast in the second half of the 19th century, that the old part of the city was hemmed in by all the railroads and ports that surrounded the CBD. The only way to go was up.

What's the common thread? Trade. Cities are trading centers and always have been since ancient times. Think about what facilitates trade in a map you're thinking of using. Also think of the types of resources your Sims can take advantage of. It's rare to see farms right up against coasts in the real world, but you see lots of hotels and residential buildings, why? Salt water is not conducive to agriculture, but people love living near water. It's recreational.

So with that logic, where would you put farms? If I were using your map, I'd put my farms further inland in the plains close to the river.

Same with harbors. A natural harbor is a lot more desirable than one where you're facing the open ocean without breakers to protect ships from storms. Sure, you can build breakers, but it's a lot of work, and would people in the real world would have done that? Possibly, but only if they really had no choice.

So, really what you have to do is look at your map and think about where would be the most logical place to establish a trading post. Even landlocked cities, like Paris, Kansas City, or Budapest, were built along an easy trade route (a river). Then, just slowly work with your map and the games mechanics, think of about how you would like your mature city to look, and lay transportation networks and zones accordingly

So, even though I start with a picture in my mind of how I'd like my city to look in the end (point 1), I still think of the historical concepts in point 2. This helps me avoid giant skyscrapers next to airports, or other weird, un-realistic development.

Like I said in my previous post. It's really all about your creativity too. How are you going to solve certain issues that come up in-game? What kind of cities do you prefer, seaside, landlocked, hilly, plains, etc.? Do you want it to be a skyscraper city, or do you want it to be a beach town, or a quiet, pastoral town in a valley. These factors will drive how you develop the city in a "realistic" manner.

You can find a lot of plugins and information on Simtropolis and SC4Devotion that will help you, but it's really up to you to have a picture of what you want your city to look like. Take a look at some City Journals on this site, and Mayor Diaries on SC4Devotion. There are lots of good ideas in them, as well as some not-so-good ones. But you can see how some people have decided to tackle problems in their game given the limitations.

Nonny Moose's advice is very good, think of the entire region you're working with as the city, not just the individual city tiles. This way you're not cramming everything in one 4km x 4km square. Unless you just want a small town. But don't think you have to fill the entire region with development. Some of the examples people have shared here show plenty of open space between developed sections because that's what happens in the real world. However, it's really up to you to decide where you're going to leave open spaces and why.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

An excellent post.  As I said in one of my earlier contributions to this thread, you  do what comes naturally.  Your historical perspactive exemplifies and amplifies my remarks, and I appreciate your work.

I am currently working two regions.  One is the game's New York, and the other is the New Harbour I published on the STEX.  I was unhappy with my work on the New Harbour region previously (it had the infernal loop in it), so I scrapped the region and re-rendered it.  I started again last week with a farm-crossroads scenario leading to a seaport.  So far, my only city is developing nicely and has just about turned the corner from red to black.  If I add a few more R lots, I think I will be there.

In the New York region, I started with a port/industry/commerce scenario, and started expanding.  As soon as a tile went in the black, I set up neighbor connections and moved on.  This allows me to develop a large city in the region.  One of the tiles took off and now has a population of around 200,000.  The region is up to about 350,000.

I think the point here is to have more than one region going.  You can get jaded working on only one thing, and extending yourself is better than stagnating.  You get more ideas this way, because you multiprocess these things in your mind.

By the way, I have done some serious terraforming on the New Harbour map.  You don't have to take one of these maps as found you know.  Eventually, I will cut one or more rivers into this map.

[diamonddog_74 32]

Originally posted by: SoujiroElric

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.

quote>

I just saw this posting, which for some reason I missed earlier. Your conclusions are too black and white. If anything think about the "why" in these two points that you bring up:

-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.

Farms are usually far outside cities because they take up a lot of land to grow crops. Ranch farms (livestock) produce a lot of waste (that's why in-game, water pollution is very high in farms). Generally, people don't want to live near smelly cow or pig poop.

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

Again, pollution is a big issue of part one of this point. Point two is that it's easier to get manufactured products to market if the manufacturing facility is near railroad or port or a high capacity road. The inverse is true, importing the raw materials for industry is easier if they have immediate access to port, rail, road.

In game, you have to take into account that there are quite a few limitations. One of the biggest ones that really bug me, is that when you zone, you have to build in squares and rectangles. There are ways of "breaking" this rectilinear grid, but you have to get very creative to make it look good. So suburbs with sweeping curves are a challenge. But they can be built.

I downloaded the planning document you provided a link for. I don't know if you read the document, but it would be a good idea for you to understand the reasons why they came to certain conclusions on how to fix certain problems in your town. This could help you apply ideas into game play no matter what map you use.

Essentially, the way to approach the game is to think of the story you want to tell with your city. I don't mean literally tell us the story of your city, but have that in mind when you're deciding where to put what and why. For instance, is your city an industrial center, or a resort city, or an agriculural center, or the capital of a vast empire. Start with a vision of what your city will be when it reaches the maturity level you desire.

There's no "goal" in this game except for the one you set. It's very open-ended. Your city can look like anything you want. And you can ignore some of the things that the in-game advisors tell you to do (or delay doing them) to get to your goal. For example, I never start with farms. I like industrial-commercial cities. So I begin with all the things that an industrial/commercial city needs: education, water, health, and waste disposal services. I also like coastal cities, so those are the maps I tend to play. I begin in a part of the map where it looks logical to have a harbor/port, and go from there.

Here are the Simtropolis CJ's I'm currently following:

1. Tenements & Rust: Ghetto Stories

2. Hong Kong 1.0

3. Gran Via - Valiosa

All three are very different, but they are chock-full of interesting ideas. The first and the third are original creations, and the second one is an exercise in recreating a real world city.

In addition, I read the following Simtropolis forum threads:

1. Show us your railroads

2. Show us your city's detail/close-ups

3. Show us your Downtown/CBD

4. Show us your city, road or transit maps 2!

Jayster's SC4Devotion Mayor Diary, The Region of Tepoto, looks excellent, so I may start following that one too. You can learn a lot from reading CJ's, MD's, and forum threads. But I can't stress this enough, in the end, it's really up to you to decide what your city's raison d'être is, and how you're going to get there.

[SoujiroElric 0]

Thank you a lot!! I'll be following those. Meanwhile I started a new city... It has an enormous commercial district, at its side a high and mid residential zone and in another tile a port and a industrial zone. Maybe it won't look as beautiful as many other cities, but at least I'm trying to zone correctly.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Well, good luck with that.  There really isn't any way to zone correctly.

IMHO the game's initial demands are wrong.  It should be asking for high-rise zoning early if not right away.  R$ don't live in nice little cottages on single occupancy lots.  They can't afford the equipment nor the time to maintain the property.  Once you start getting some serious industry, houses should be de-emphasized.

Factory workers generally live in high-rise apartments or MURBs (Multiple-unit Residential Buildings or low-rise).  They usually can neither afford nor want to bother with landscaping.  If you are a single person or a working couple with no kids (DINKs), you want to hoard your cash for that house in the suburbs when you decide to have a family.

I have been through the full cycle from apartment dweller to house renter to home owner to apartment dweller.  I moved out of my last house last spring because I couldn't maintain it any longer nor did I want to, having become a widower.  One of the disadvantages of getting older is that you lose that drive to landscape.  My only real loss was having to give up my big dogs.

Don't expect to build the megalopolis of your dreams right away.  You are on the learning curve and are not doing badly.

q

[EyeofMobius 27]

I am also working on the realism but am meeting some success that I am happy with so I would like to share.

Geography

I like to actually look at the land and see what I can envision at a quick glance before I even place trees in god mode. There are some really good examples even in this thread where hills and shorelines have been built around rather than over. I like to start building from the flatest terrain to the elevated terraing & complex shorelines because flat is easier to build on in real life. I place residential zones and industrial zones in the flat bits and dedicate the gentle rolling hills to farmland.

Many cities have historically developed near a major water source. Look at your region map and decide where the you can develop the most water traffic. Intersecting water is my choice place to start from; Meeting points of two major rivers; River empties to ocean or large lake; sheltered pieces of coastline either in a bay or behind some islands(to reduce storm damage on budding communities); and so on.

Growth

I feel that farmland is essential for realistic regional growth so it is important not to neglect it. As I grow up from my core region I naturally find myself reclaiming farmland. To counter this I expand my farming in to adjacent regions by a large margin just to sate the demand. Eventually the farmland can no long be supported by the resident work for of the core so I wil make small farming communities to supply the farms with workers. One very important key to this philosophy is that in a region with lots of hills and mountains you cant just push the farms to the mountain tops so there will have to be a point where you can say these farms will stay as they are. I still prefer the valley bottoms to be residential & industrial while keeping farms on the rolling hillsides in the sunshine.

In this growth strategy when the rolling hills are claimed by the urban the elevation gives a nice boost to land value so I flat out give it a kick with including parks and YIMBY items. I lean towards making these my residential zones because I like to lay my high flow traffic options as flat as possible making transit corridors with low flow fingers into the residential. As a result my supporting commercial seems to become offices and they take over the flat residential spots unless a few lofty residential high rises spring up.

Slums near the industrial hubs are not bad things and can keep your city realism with them as well. The counterpoint is that the slums are usually just a gradual progression away from the R$$$ areas so it would not be entirely realistic to have the industry surround the slum.

At some point in my growth I separate my focus from my primary core and make a new community/future core to be. I like to use growth reaching certain points in the landscape and not population numbers. If my farmland stretches into a great spot for a port then I will get a port going; agriculture doesn't typically support a port on its own so around the port becomes more industry creating a demand for more workers. Another spot I like to have more development at is when I finally extend on the land scape as far as I reasonable can until I need a bridge to cross to the other side of a river; I find bridgeheads to be great to start commecial development at and grow them from there.

---------

That is the jist of my regional philosophy on realism. As far as how to make it all pretty on the ground that I look at the city journals and the 'show us your' threads for help myself. I personally play on hard mode because the demand and the development just seems too fast for me on the other modes that I tend to end up with ugly imbalanced grids in an all of a sudden type fashion.

Hope this wasn't too much to absorb but mostly that its helpful.

[Timmystwin 201]

Here is an unfinished attempt of mine (My CJ) Image shack wont work, so this will have to do. The image is a rather large attatchment, but it should show offf a bit. And put across my thoughts.

[diamonddog_74 32]

EyeofMobius has some good advice there, and it similar to what I, and A Nonny Moose, said.

Wow, Timmystwin, that region looks intense. Which map is it?

EDIT:

BTW, SoujiroElric, The NHP Team just released a map of where you live:

https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=25275

[SoujiroElric 0]

I have tried to make my city in the map I requested. This might help me and things are turning alright for now. I just wonder how to make my cities grow without the industrial zones...

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Put your industrial zones next door with neighbor connections.  You can have industrial in your city, but treat it like commercial and only allow I-HT.  This means you have to meed the educational and amenities targets before they will grow at all.

[Bruno the Bear 48]

Is there anyone out there that can tell me how to get out of diary?

[Bruno the Bear 48]

I am Bruno the Bear not bruno-the-bear. I don't want any part of bruno-the bear's diary or anything else to do with bruno-the-bear but every time I try to sign in all I get is bruno-the bear's diary. I how the #### do I get out of this #### diary!!!!!!

[SimCoug 5,976]

Is there anyone out there that can tell me how to get out of diary?

 

Wait until April 2nd