Recreating real cities

[Mcarn110 2]

What would be the best real world cities to recreate on SC4? Any ideas would be helpful.

[LivingInThePast 364]

What would be the best real world cities to recreate on SC4? Any ideas would be helpful.

Depends how much detail how much you want to sacrifice and how much road details you want to smudge to fit.

[EyeofMobius 27]

Please define Best?

However to be constructive towards this my vote would be London, England or Prague, Czech Republic.

Popular recreations that seem to be around are Paris, Tokyo, Berlin, Amsterdam and Hong Kong.

[Kusajika Yachiru 9]

Hm... well let's us that word "best" okay um... I suppose any city that has mostly a grid layout to it, as Simcity4 seems to function best with grids. Then, I suppose it would have to be a city the real life buildings are offered as downloadables (find em next to the lunchables)these can range from skycrapers to train stations and you gotta collect em' all, so check, and check... um... oh yeah a terran/water mod to match. As well as trees... yeah need trees. What else? Ah, yes the city itself! Hm... Las Vegas is very grid like but lack of casinos for download make it a bad gamble to build. Phoneix is another good one... that also lacks a lot of buildings it needs. Hm... Chicago? a lot of buildings for download look like buildings in the city, and the Sears tower is a download. So there is one! Um...Dallas? Though making the freeways could be hard if you want all the lanes, otherwise just use the Maxis... are there Dallas buildings for download? I dunno... so that might be one. A lot of little cities Fresno, Bakersfeild, Barstow, etc all got grid like sets to them. I just named a few in Ca I know but there are tons around... though you would need the maps for them too... hm... teh best is Chicago?

[TekindusT 3,809]

I think that I can merge the opinions above with mine, and sum up everything. IMO, to make a recreation, a good recreation, you need two things:

1) Layout compliance: knowing that the game works much better with grids than without grids, the first thing you need is a griddy city; or a griddy district. If not, you can begin to think what real life points are you going to sacrifice (tunnels, diagonal and twisty highways, one way and narrow streets...) for the sake of your recreation.

2) BATs available: without BATs, always IMO, there's no recreation. As Kusajika says above, if you don't put buildings from the city you're recreating, there's no recreation!

Nevertheless, despite all this difficulties, there are outstanding city recreations CJ, I can recommend you to take a look to Tokyo [link], New York [link], Berlin [link], and specific districts of several cities [link] to get ideas and see by yourself what are we talking about.

You can see how all of them have the two things in common I've posted at the begginning. They have a kinda griddy layout and there are plenty of BATs available out there for them.

And asking to the question in the original post, I think the most obvious have been said, but I'd like to highlight Madrid and Mexico City. Some of their districts are very griddy and there's a good amount of BATs available if you're going to recreate them. Recreating the whole Madrid can be nearly impossible because of having a chaotic city center, but some districts or some specific places can be recreated quite "easily".

  Edited May 3, 2011 by TekindusT  

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

If you want a griddy city, try Phoenix, AZ or Las Vegas, NV. Both designed to be easy to get around. And learn how to use the BAT.

[Kusajika Yachiru 9]

If you want a griddy city, try Phoenix, AZ or Las Vegas, NV. Both designed to be easy to get around. And learn how to use the BAT.

I named those already silly Moose... and they're are not enough BAt's to support a remake of those cities. Wasn't there a Las Vegas attempt before and no BAts for it ended it?

[Dannibee 138]

Recreating cities without a grid is hard but not impossible, you just have to find workarounds, also you don't necessarily need specific buildings just find a range that are in the city style or choose buildings the same shape and function. Having a lot of plugins is needed though. As for the best it honestly depends what you're looking for in a city, most cities in the US are very griddy and easy to do so that would be good. The problem with doing it in a country say England or somewhere else in europe is finding the right buildings and trying to get the roads right. In my CJ I've kinda done it but it is a heck of a lot of trial and error, finding what will work and stuff, but once you do one section you get the idea and it becomes easier!

[Mikeaut1 261]

I've found that creating real cities is much easier with the help of Google Maps or Google Earth. As mentioned above, creating real cities with a grid layout is the easiest attempt. Especially now that the Network Widening Mod is out, you can make some realistic interchanges and thoroughfares in game. I really appreciate anyone who could re-create a region in SC4, it takes a lot of practice and trial and error!

[Mcarn110 2]

Thanks everyone for your ideas. ive had a go several times at several european cities but they are pretty difficult to replicate. I think i might go for New York city.

[TekindusT 3,809]

@Dannibee: We all will agree that we won't be able to find absoultely all the buildings we need to make an EXACT recreation, but this recreation needs a minimum number of landmarks to be called "a recreation". Some landmarks are so unique, so special, that making a recreation without them is pointless. Could you make a whole Paris recreation without an Eiffel Tower?

In the case of Vegas, it turns out that all the Strip is made up by a sequence of casinos (landmarks). How many casinos does the Strip have? Fifteen? You'd need 15 different casinos BATs, and AFAIK, there are only 3 available in the exchanges. You can recreate accurately the specific areas near the MGM Grand, the Mirage or the TI, but not the whole city

[Mikeaut1 261]

Thanks everyone for your ideas. ive had a go several times at several european cities but they are pretty difficult to replicate. I think i might go for New York city.

New York City is a good choice, due to its relatively simple transportation network. Also, there's a lot of custom content on the STEX and in the community for New York regions. Quite a lot of city journals too have re-created New York, I recommend you check some of them out!

[iowndiscti 141]

Denver would be a good one to recreate, if you dont mind the elevation, or the fact that a small area of it is fractionally angled. I haven't seen a lot of buildings from denver though. maybe look around some more

[WillG_75 19]

Have you tried something like Kansas City or Omaha? Mostly grid, fairly good sized cities.

I will have to share my tricks for creating real city transportation networks. Very clever and useful, would likely help a lot of people.

[lilmissattittude 2]

Have you tried something like Kansas City or Omaha? Mostly grid, fairly good sized cities.

I will have to share my tricks for creating real city transportation networks. Very clever and useful, would likely help a lot of people.

Please Do Your Transport Maps are Simplely Out Of This World!!!

[Unassigned 23]

If anyone recreates Ouagadougou, I hope they post it in a CJ. Pop 1.5M, airport, squares & boulevards & monuments, military bases, lots of griddish areas....

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

If you want a griddy city, try Phoenix, AZ or Las Vegas, NV. Both designed to be easy to get around. And learn how to use the BAT.

I named those already silly Moose... and they're are not enough BAt's to support a remake of those cities. Wasn't there a Las Vegas attempt before and no BAts for it ended it?

In a word, my ersatz Nipponese friend, the idea is that if you want those cities, you need to be independent enough to do your own BATs and thankful for any contributions. The problem these days is that everyone wants to have stuff served up on a platter with gravy. Whatever happened to self-reliance and perseverance?

[TowerDude 2,187]

What would be the best real world cities to recreate on SC4? Any ideas would be helpful.

As someone who made Hong Kong twice and maybe even a 3rd time I can tell you that there are 2 best cities to recreate, and that they are total antagonists,

1- Hong Kong, the amount of custom content needed is huge! but once you have it all, HKBAT's etc, Hong Kong is an amazing city to recreate, once you understand the urban typology & Topology of it it's not that hard actually..

2- New York, the NYBT makes this enigmatic city joyfull to recreate, it is much more grid like, but has similar properties to Hong Kong

these two cities have enough on the stex to get around it without BATing, for HK I batted nothing specific

I'd say HK and NY are at the same level but it then depends of your tastes

Los Angeles can be interesting aswell, but harder

Hope it helped, cheers

[Lucario Boricua 7,048]

Something we should also consider is the scale of the city. If using maps of a 1:1 scale relative to the real thing, you might get something too huge of a region, even for the city proper. A good criterion stemming from this would be to choose a city with a scale fitting both your comp's capacity to handle the game as well as the level of detail you want for it.

As an example, I at least have some long-term plans to do a reincarnation of San Juan, Puerto Rico. I might use half the scale (1:2), if not the full scale (1:1) and focus only on main urban area (most maps of the San Juan metropolitan area show the main urban area--if exurbs were to be included, the urban area would be like half of Puerto Rico). A full-scale map of the area I'd be using would be 36 x 18 km (~36 x 18 small city plot tiles) for the full-scale. Unfortunately, I'd have to spend too much time finding and/or creating stuff for San Juan; and the city is non-griddy in many areas.

[hackinosa 29]

I agree with what's been posted above that if you want realism, choose a city from the American midwest or west. I feel SC4 was basically designed to build modern, grid oriented cities. Because of that it is very difficult to recreate realistic old-world cities, or even older colonial cities from the Americas.

@Dranxander, I've been working on a generalized "Spanish Caribbean" city for a while, kind of a composite of San Juan, Havana, and Santo Domingo. I've learned something. It's hard! haha best of luck to you

[Lucario Boricua 7,048]

Concerning my plans for the San Juan Metropolitan Area (you can take it as an example on how to plan a good city recreation project), I'd say its challenges and blisses are distributed as follows:

Blisses:

- Freeways are doable with the Real Highway Mod--with the current version (not sure if it's 4.1 or 4.2), I have up to 5 lanes (there are a few 6-lane stretches, but these are due to exit lanes). Also, since freeways aren't as common nor as monstrous as what's present on the large US cities, there are no multilevel interchanges requiring several bridge levels (although the RHW development plans are meant to allow that functionality for its 5th iteration).

- The land is mostly flat or rolling, so it's not gonna be hard to create a realistic-looking terrain.

- The distribution of the municipalities and wards is convenient for the game's city plot system, making it possible to define specific urban sectors without needing filler small tiles.

- The NWM pretty much covers all of the needed road configurations I need for the urban thoroughfares

- There's enough terrain mods to get the desired water and land.

Challenges:

- there are many diagonal suburban arrangements--even if these are doable with the NAM diagonal streets, building them is gonna be tedious

- I haven't seen any BATs corresponding to buildings of San Juan, so that'll be something I'd have to either request or do myself

- The architectural style of most of the San Juan Metropolitan area does not fit any of the Maxis architectural styles. I need: Neoclassic, Spanish colonial, Puerto Rican urban/suburban old (much of it being Art Deco), and the Puerto Rico modern urban/suburban (not sure which architectural styles represent it best). I would also need a lot of stuff for strip malls, small commercial establishments and various hospital styles. I'd even like power plants that look like the ones of the Autoridad de Energía Eléctrica.

- There are many landmarks I'd like to incorporate that I'd also have to make: Estrella del Norte, Bayamón's city hall, the various historic structures of Old San Juan (castles, forts, temples, government buildings, monuments), the University of Puerto Rico (Río Piedras campus), the various malls, stadiums and coliseums, the Bacardí distillery and the Convention Center of Isla Grande.

- Placement of landfills is gonna be hard, as most of the landfill areas are outside of the city and many have been closed or are soon to be closed.

- I'd have to find the appropiate modular airport mods, as the Maxis airports are pathetic.

[RGullett 3]

Portland, Oregon is perfect. Not to large, but not to small, with great suburbs. Easy grid and top rated light rail system. Strives for sustanability and is open to new types of ecodistricts and green buildings. Almost every landmark is on the stex!

[x493x 446]

Los Angeles - only challenging part would be the highways

Seattle maybe? Though I don't know if their's a downloadable Space Needle.

Maybe don't think major cities think smaller like Fresno for example.

The possibilites are really endless so boot up Google Earth and start looking at those cities, and if you choose I city that doesn't have a grid it might be more impressive.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

Portland, Oregon is perfect. Not too large, but not too small, with great suburbs.

 

I live in one of those suburbs (and regularly traverse the whole region in RL), so I would enjoy developing it in SC4. I see several versions of the region have been uploaded to STEX, but I don't know how to choose among them. Can anyone recommend one that includes Vancouver WA while being scaled correctly?

[MandelSoft 2,774]

Sir, did you realise you just bumped a two year old thread? Don't expect any replies here...