My cities are going nowhere fast

[VeronicaDrama 0]

This always happens. I start working on a few small cities before I go after the big one. But all three of my cities lack anything for growth other than residential and agriculture. I know I need a mixed environment but that's pretty hard when DIRTY industry!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

This always happens. I start working on a few small cities before I go after the big one. But all three of my cities lack anything for growth other than residential and agriculture. I know I need a mixed environment but that's pretty hard when DIRTY industry!

I am afraid the answer is "to take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing, end them." (Wm. Shakespeare in Hamlet)

I gave up this worry several years ago and made two mutually dependent BAT lots:

Water and

Power

Both needed for industrial anyway. You will need 110,000 in your treasury to place these but they are cheap to run and consume pollution. The power plant will power a large tile. Because the power plant consumes a great deal of water, you may have to lay down a second water plant when your tile is getting full.

Since they are just lots, it is hard to call them cheats. I consider cheating to be doing something that skews the game. These just reduce the amount of micro-management and needless expense. The high price of the power lot ensures you know what you are doing.

[VeronicaDrama 0]

What exactly do those do? I'm at work (love my job playing sim city) and can't download them. its crazy to think my entire region only wants farms!

I deleted my region and have started fresh with a nice water filled region. I don't understand what went wrong. I don't wanna do the individual cities for residential industrial etc. So how do I have a successful region with cities that are nice and diverse? Last time the only demand I had was from agriculture

  Edited January 11, 2012 by VeronicaDrama  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

What exactly do those do? I'm at work (love my job playing sim city) and can't download them. its crazy to think my entire region only wants farms!

If you open the links you'll find out a few things.

the power plant eats all pollution except road pollution throughout a radius of a large tile plus. It also supplies 400,000 MW of power. The water system provides 200,000 units. You have to still use a pipe network. Both water and air pollution are nullified.

[cogeo 960]

How about, commercial development? Do you have demand? Do you have high traffic?

I have started a region, employing the opposite strategy: no industry or farms, only commercial (and civics of course). And the interesting thing is that such a setting does actually work! My cities are now 15-25 years old, population is 5000-10500, balance is positive and EQ high. They grow ca 50% every 5 years. Don't know if the simulator will slow down or halt growth at some point, but for the moment it rather seems to be accelerating. Here is a pic of the region:

If you are interested in the technique, check this post.

[VeronicaDrama 0]

I'm currently interested in anything that works. I hate cheating and refuse to use a money cheat. I just want a crazy big and populated region, but so far all i can ever grow is the farms. About the commercial stuff, there is a small demand for them.

Another thing is I would put a school down within the first two years and by year 10 the EQ is still bright red.

  Edited January 12, 2012 by CaptCity  
Merged double post. Please use the 'Edit' button.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I'm currently interested in anything that works. I hate cheating and refuse to use a money cheat. I just want a crazy big and populated region, but so far all i can ever grow is the farms. About the commercial stuff, there is a small demand for them.

Another thing is I would put a school down within the first two years and by year 10 the EQ is still bright red.

Elementary schools are 1 - 8. Don't expect much improvement until later. All the Sims don't go to school at once.

[Cob92 360]

It takes longer than 10 years for EQ to improve, and you need to build your education system up with high schools and colleges as well as elementary schools if you want your city to actually produce something other than farms and dirty industry. Also, your city has to be big before you can get lots of commercial demand. Small cities will NOT get major office development.

[nas786 104]

I'm currently interested in anything that works. I hate cheating and refuse to use a money cheat. I just want a crazy big and populated region, but so far all i can ever grow is the farms. About the commercial stuff, there is a small demand for them.

Another thing is I would put a school down within the first two years and by year 10 the EQ is still bright red.

If you zone medium or dense industrial then it won't grow farms. I usually zone medium from the jump (either in a seperate city or off to the side, so it doesnt mess with my future commercial development), it forces dirty industry to start growing, which starts pushing up residential demand, and when more and more sims move in it starts pushing up commercial demand.

Like said above, legit education is key for eventually having high tech demand, which helps commercial office demand

[cessna151 2]

Here is a city i did real quick on a small tile. Maybe this will help with your strategy. First off i have no mods or downloads of any kind installed except the official patch from EA's website. First thing i did, with speed paused, was raise the dirty industry tax to 18%. Then i laid out the road network as you see it. I then added the civic buildings... hospital, police station, fire department, elementary school, high school, landfill, power plant, water pumps/pipes, and a few parks. Then i simply filled in the rest of the space with all RCI zones high-density as you see it. Then hit go and 50 years later here it is...

  Edited June 26, 2012 by cessna151  

[pianoblack 0]

Here is a city i did real quick on a small tile. Maybe this will help with your strategy. First off i have no mods or downloads of any kind installed except the official patch from EA's website. First thing i did, with speed paused, was raise the dirty industry tax to 18%. Then i laid out the road network as you see it. I then added the civic buildings... hospital, police station, fire department, elementary school, high school, landfill, power plant, water pumps/pipes, and a few parks. Then i simply filled in the rest of the space with all RCI zones high-density as you see it. Then hit go and 50 years later here it is...

Ok, I know this post was nearly a month ago, but how did you do this? I am just getting back into SC4 and am also running vanilla; just downloading the patch now... have tried to replicate your results but with no success.

[jacksunny 741]

and am also running vanilla

You might want to look into purchasing the Deluxe version of the game. Many things on this site will not work without it.

As for your troubles, we need to know what exactly the problem you are having is.

[pianoblack 0]

You might want to look into purchasing the Deluxe version of the game. Many things on this site will not work without it.

As for your troubles, we need to know what exactly the problem you are having is.

Silly me. It is the Deluxe version. And it's not that I'm having a specific problem (just started again), it's that I found cessna's 'pause, place, zone and play' style hard to fathom. It's a working city yet he says he just placed everything and went with it. If I try what he suggested (had to try out of curiosity; I'm ok at building cities), I'm losing $3k/year and don't make it past 10 years.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

You might want to look into purchasing the Deluxe version of the game. Many things on this site will not work without it.

As for your troubles, we need to know what exactly the problem you are having is.

Silly me. It is the Deluxe version. And it's not that I'm having a specific problem (just started again), it's that I found cessna's 'pause, place, zone and play' style hard to fathom. It's a working city yet he says he just placed everything and went with it. If I try what he suggested (had to try out of curiosity; I'm ok at building cities), I'm losing $3k/year and don't make it past 10 years.

Assuming you are updated to at least build level 640, this probably won't work on Cheetah. Try running it on Turtle. The other thing is that our friend didn't specify whether he used a money cheat to keep from going broke.

[cessna151 2]

Sorry for my long absence, i became wrapped up in creating maps for another game(C&C Red alert 2). I will try to video capture this method asap and post it here.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, it might work, but I don't find any pleasure in just flopping down a city and waiting for it to grow. Too much like farming with no crop insurance.

[cessna151 2]

Well, it might work, but I don't find any pleasure in just flopping down a city and waiting for it to grow. Too much like farming with no crop insurance.

Agreed, however, this was the fastest and simplest way i know of to show how to make a profitable city.

The Video:

It ends with the city at 5 years old and profitable but if left to grow it will look like my pics above at 50 years.

  Edited June 3, 2012 by cessna151  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The struggle is part of the fun. Instant gratification is not the way to start up a civilization.