Grid secrets: a tutorial CJ

[TinySim 4]

Although I would say 256 etc is not binary, but they are powers of 2. Wich are the most efficient numbers to use in a binary environment.

[Goldfish4209 9]

Not really. As I understand it, a big city tile is 128x128 tiles. If a block is 8x8 with an avenue on two sides, that leaves 2 sides of the city without road access. But if you replace the avenues on the edge of the city with 1 tile wide roads, a system of avenues and 6x6 blocks will work.

[boefmans 0]

great gridding, i did it almost the same in my biggest area's.

One main difference: i found out that gridding 9x9 works best. If u do the math on area waste:

6x6: 36 tiles to build on, 28 tiles road

9x9: 72 tiles to build on, 40 tiles road, 9 tiles 'empty' (not reachable by car)

In comparison, you save tiles when using 9x9, and, assuming you use only avenues and build a good transportation network (also with a few highways, i tend to build a highway every 3 or 4 9x9 blocks), its no problem at all.

The empty tile, 3x3, in the middle, can be used for large parks or large plazas, also good for destroying those demand caps ;-) THis way, i build quite a large city....

[Johny-Walker 0]

great reagion....although you seem to use quite a few mods and cheats;-)......and one more thing regarding your messages frndofjaweh...as far as i was taught english and as far as i read my dictionary right the word "citizen" is spelled awith c and not s;-)

[DioAngel 1]

very impressive!!! That's unbelievable!

[Gridlock 9]

Great tutorial , very interesting , at what setting are you using the Nam ? Also imo Avenue crossroads become very conjested as the city grows , strangling the economy and restricting growth, i know this from experience ,kind of , Great experiment be interesting to see how the roads fair as the city ,region grows .

[winkosmosis 3]

Originally posted by: tf923 Sorry to break this to ya, but grid is not the most efficient layout. Grid type layouts work well in areas where high connectivity is desired, such as where jobs are located and excess traffic is actually desired.

The most efficient method is to first separate residential from commercial/industrial districts. Then use a system of dead-end roads coming off of avenue connectors for the residential areas, forming a sort of tree where avenues and highways form the trunks and roads/streets form the branches.

The reason is this: Grid increases connectivity at the expensive of using more land area, but sims have no need to go to other sims' houses. They only need to get to their jobs and back. So, using grid for residential areas wastes a lot of land giving extra connectivity to areas that don't need it or want it. In addition to the land wasted to unnecessary connectivity, the grid system itself actually increases traffic flow past each lot, which increases traffic noise, which decreases the capacity of all your residential buildings. This worsens the efficiency of grid systems even further.

On the other hand, commercial areas don't want traffic efficiency. They actually want more traffic than is required to service them. So grid is actually perfect because you get the increased traffic flow plus good connectivity that grid offers.

The reason all the big cities use grid isn't because of efficiency. It's because all major U.S. cities were designed in the days of horses and buggies. There were no cars, and when cars came around they did not bother to smash all the buildings and redo the city layout. They also didn't bother to do any traffic studies either, until it was far too late.

Today, new cities that are laid out from scratch use loops and cul-de-sacs because that system uses the least amount of land area for roads. Long straight roads are only used for collectors that connect residential neighborhoods with commercial/industrial areas. Grids are still used for new downtown areas just as they always were.quote>

A grid may not be the best for Simcity, but it's the best system for a real city, not just for downtowns, but for neighborhoods too. A grid allows people to go for walks, to the shops and cafes. New cities are not designed with cul de sacs and loops. You are thinking of new suburbs, which are designed to eliminate traffic flow to match Middle America's tastes. A cul de sac neighborhood is not a functional community.

A grid may seem boring in the game, but in the real world, the opposite is true.

[winkosmosis 3]

Also, binary has nothing to do with the computer liking any certain numbers.That only matters for storage of things like images. 1024 pixels for example can be addressed with 10 bits. If there were 130 pixels, you'd need 11 bits to number each pixel. The optimal grid sizes depend on the formulas the game uses, which are all decimal based anyway. You can't change the number of bits used to represent integers. It's fixed at 16.

[SEAL SGT. Ryan 0]

For us people who don't have the time do you think you could upload the main city the one named multifurious or something, the one with the main gridcould you upload it to the stex exchange so people could try this. If not the complete one atleast create one where the grid of roads is down and nothing else so people don't have to take the time to build all the roads. Like me seeing as I am in school I don't have time to build all the roads.

[jammin77 0]

I just read thru the whole thing.

Exemplary

Excellent

Brilliant

I will definantly use grids in my cities.

Usually, I build a main road and then build my city around that, but this thread inspired me to use grids.

Thanks!!!!

[IDS2 3,344]

It would be great if this had a good ending...I just read it all and I will try this in a future cj (almost)

[Switch01252 0]

Where do u download the money thing? i could not find it anywhere please send me the link and or send to me on msn steve01252@hotmail.com thankyou or is it just for ppl who have delux or rush hour becuase i just have normal simcity 4

[IDS2 3,344]

Just go to the STEX and search for money, it comes right up.

[Switch01252 0]

i went there and its all for rush hour expantion pack and that can somone please make one not for rush hour or send the link to one please becuase im just trying to get use to the game still and that and id reli like tht sort of money to start off with because i reli cant lol

[Sunil 3]

Originally posted by: Switch01252 i went there and its all for rush hour expantion pack and that can somone please make one not for rush hour or send the link to one please becuase im just trying to get use to the game still and that and id reli like tht sort of money to start off with because i reli cant lolquote>

 

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Try artmoney, there are still shareware versions of it out there; google it

[Interchange 0]

What are those buildings above the G?

[Cuahtemoc 0]

Liek this! Good job here frndofyaweh. I wanted to ask a question about the grids...whats the ultimate comm and industrial strip?

[IDS2 3,344]

Those rowhomes? search for morhavoc.

[Gamer 0]

wow... this was realy great. it was almost at the top.... and sudenly it stopped.... verry impressing...

[oldoldie 0]

Mr. Frndofyaweh: Hello Mayor and greetings from Oldoldie, Mayor of King City, Ontario. I would like to tour your cities of Waffleland and The first city you made. Could you please send me your regions with their cities?

[the8thark 0]

This whole grid experiment makes the game feel a little like the original sim city where the residental/industry/commercial were all set sizes. I like the look of this. Well done.

[TheCrybKeeper 278]

The community still reads this and I feel honored. However I am still experimenting with several designs, refining, etc. My recent cities are more like one big diamond within a square.

Busing is still the supreme way to handle massive amounts of commuters, but have recently been trying some alternating modes of transportation.

Cuahtemoc:
As for the best commercial, I still haven't decided, but turn your sims into brainiacs and they will build your corporate world tall enough.

Industry is easier to figure out. the checker board zoning technique is mathmatically logical for equal balance of trees and parks vs. high tech industries. Your beginning industrial sector will look like a yellow and green checker board. Be sure to put the bus stops, utilities, civil service buildings and the not so desirable things, in the park and green blocks. This enables the zoned blocks to be 6x6 solid, with no obstacles to its growth, within that city block.


This same technique works rather well for high rising residential buildings too, or commercial for that matter. 

Massive industrial: go all high tech and solid yellow, adding just enough medium sized parks to maintain consistant high tech industries. Always build industrial cities outside of your populated, primary cities, for best results.


https://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k167/FrndofYHWH/Esta67ccw3x.jpg

[Mayor AL 1]

wow... I have been reading through the first pages and then skipped some, but overall i find it very interesting.

A while ago I have been experimenting a bit and I came up with an idea. First of all you build a one way road in a square with a 6x6 center. In the center you can build a bunch of civic buildings and there will be space left for bus stops and subways. This square gets connected to a central avenue or highway with 8 tiles in between by an avenue from the middle two tiles of a 8 long roadpart of the square. Paralel to the highway/avenue (one tile in between) you build a normal road. So now you have 6 tiles between the paralel and the square, this will give you the space of growing 3x3 lots.

hmm, I have read this and I don't know if its clear... I guess I'll have to make a screen

to be continued

[Mayor AL 1]

well, it dind't take me very long to make the basic in Simcity... so here is a screen of my idea

as you can see there are large blank spots in the middle of the squares, these are to be use for public transport and civil services... I have been considering 8x8 center squares and it is possible as well. It won't have a negative effect besides the fact that even more traffic will have to go across the avenue from the squares to the highway, still, if you use 8x8 squares, you might also build an extra avenue. 

I know there are some buildings that wont fit properly into this system but I always combine industry, residential and commercial in one city... for the industrial areas I use a different system, so that's why you might need to change my idea a little to fit into a plan of a residential city.

I have never tested it actually but in theory it seems a good idea

[tcgreg99 0]

newby question: hey does anybody know where I can find this "BAT BSC BANK" that is used by frndofyawehin this tutorial?

[Hanson784 165]

Its been a while since I've seen this CJ. Since then it has grown 8 more pages.

After reading through all of your information I must say well done. There's a lot of helpful tips here for any city.

[sobol 1]

Wow... absolutely riveting.

[PennDOTguy 5]

this is great.

oh, and yes, grids are real-world. They're much more efficient at distributing traffic then your typical suburban hierarchal system is. Trust me on this, I do this for my job. I just wish Sim City would allow grids to be oriented differently.....then THAT would be accurate and closer to real life.

[writingliberty 0]

Also, it's important to note that grid systems are not always designed for maximum efficiency. Sometimes they are just a byproduct of athe situation; for example, most of Western Oklahoma has an almost continuous grid system of "major" roads, even out in the country miles from the nearest town - because of the way homesteads were laid out under the Homestead Act.... the "major" roads are every so many farms in each direction, with more minor ones in between (every alternate farm, so they all have a road of some type on two sides).

[SimJames 0]

I have read the complete thread and I must thank you for the outstanding effort to lead and report such an interesting experiment!

Grids seem actually to be the most effective planning system for SC4 cities.

I find it funny that a lot of people keep talking about cities with grids in contemporary USA: does anybody remember that grids were commonly applied to city construction by the Romans, many hundreds years b.C.? And they had been used even by Greeks (remember about the city of Miletus, in Anatolia!).

What worked for millenniums in real cities, still keeps working in sim-cities

Keep on with your great job

and thank you again