What is better?

[Liszak 48]

What is better for begginer like me? Small map or big map? Wich one is easier to develop and wich relief should i choose? Can someone explain me basics? Thanks a lot..

[Tysons4 68]

start small and work to larger sized citiess. Don't make the map all the same size tiles, mix them up, and when you are ready you can start the neighbor on a larger tile.

don't just do one city in the region. go crazy and fill a lot of them up, don't worry to much about where you place things. The more you do the more you will learn, also the more you do the larger buildings will start popping up.

zone only light density on the first 10 cities or so, and then maybe start combining light and medium density.. only use a touch of high density after you have filled more than 15 cities and you will start to see highrises popping up.

watch your demand graph and zone for whatever is highest.

do deals, buy water and power, or sell it to all your neighbors, same goes for garbage.Tthink of a region as a single city, and the tiles are districts of that city (or like i did with my cj, small = distric,t medium = zone, large=sector. and the name of the region is the name of the city.

use mass transit often , rails are better than roads, subways are better than highways, and monorails are the best, be simple and make them the shortest route to your destination. use parking garages next to terminals, and place bus stops in good locations where a lot of people are driving to and from (one in each) use the route query often.

only place civic structures when your tile you are working on is filled up (police, schools, parks, ect) or fire station in the area of a fire if one breaks out. save to region often and start new cities maybe every 10 minutes. keep an eye on demand and zone for whatever is needed most and give it good connections back to your main areas.

water only medium and high density development

you should have a metropolis in no time.

[Cob92 360]

I never noticed any difference, except that on the small maps, if you decide later that you want to expand your city, there's no more room to build.

[cmdp123789 710]

you can always make some more room...just edit the config

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

you can always make some more room...just edit the config

Yes, but this is not for the new user. Can be done, but only down and to the right and you cannot modify an existing city without losing it.

The answer to the original question is Yes. The question is a logical or.

[Cleaner475 150]

I'd go for a medium sized map, in between . Personally I use massive regions normally I download them and then edit them together (currently working on a massive region of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar all merged together) because I'm always worried I'll want more room and I don't want to have to edit the config and then terraform myself. As a new user though I'd suggest a Medium or Small map though as although you might not want to manage a massive city at the start you'll probably grow through time and start filling up your region and if you really love your created city your then going to face a dilemma of starting a new larger region or continue managing cities with no space left (not as fun IMO). So anyway medium or small is good for a new user Sorry for my ramblings

Richard

  Edited March 28, 2011 by Cleaner475  

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Smaller maps tend to run faster because there are fewer textures and models to load, fewer automata to animate, and fewer simulations to run in the background. Likewise, you won't have that huge empty terrain which can be intimidating if you're new to the game.

I always find small maps to be rather gratifying because I'm one of those guys who like to trim every blade of grass by hand, so to speak - which means I have a terribly hard time filling large maps. On a small map, you can concentrate on a few things like farms, a land bridge, and a waterfall, and then you get on with the next map.

You can also build suburbs around a small map in the middle and build a dense CBD on that small map in the centre without the game slowing down too much.

Of course, some things require more space - farms, for example, modular airports, or highway intersections made with the RHW. Likewise, you won't be able to practise using civic facilities and rewards on small maps because there isn't enough space to reach high population (in order to unlock rewards) and place all the stuff somewhere without getting in the way of other developments.

In any case, I'd recommend going from small to medium, and perhaps more importantly, from villages and farms through suburbs and industrial regions to downtowns. The first city in a region is always the hardest due to lack of neighbours and regional demand. Once you have some towns up and running, starting a real city with skyscrapers and everything next to them will be a lot easier.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

It is not clear, to me at least, whether we are discussing city tiles or regions. The number of objects inside cities within regions doesn't appear to relevant unless you are discussing the overhead for a region, which isn't much even if there are a lot of thumbnails.

On the other hand, a city tile that is getting filled up with objects within the grid will get slower and slower because of limitations of the CPU. As in all simulations, the main loop has to visit each grid square on each pass, and may trigger some co-routines on the way by unless the square is not zoned. Unzoned forest squares may or may not contain animals to be animated as well, so there is the possibility that something happens in passing. The density of populated lots also increases the load time for the tile, as the memory tables have to be created during the load.

Considering the large number of the animation possibilities, I am surprised that the game works as well as it does. Will Wright and his team did a superb job, even if EA messed with them. Come to think about it, I run this game partly because I continue to be amazed by its programming.

By the way, a fancy GPU is unimportant other than for its memory capacity and speed. The game cannot use all the fancy hardware features, and will probably crash if any are turned on. This is one of the reasons for issuing an update, but we know it just won't happen.