Changing a city's size

[AnthonyRM1 10]

Is it possible to change the tile size of a city after the region has already been established?

I have my CBD in the centre of a region and its on a large city tile. I find a common problem with SC4 is that once a city gets too big it struggles to process it and development stall, regardless of how much demand there is and how much youve raised the caps etc.

Therefore I would like to change my central city area into 4 medium tiles, is this possible seeing as all of the neighbouring cities are already developed or would I have to scrap the entire region and start afresh?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Is it possible to change the tile size of a city after the region has already been established?

I have my CBD in the centre of a region and its on a large city tile. I find a common problem with SC4 is that once a city gets too big it struggles to process it and development stall, regardless of how much demand there is and how much youve raised the caps etc.

Therefore I would like to change my central city area into 4 medium tiles, is this possible seeing as all of the neighbouring cities are already developed or would I have to scrap the entire region and start afresh?

In a word no. The only good solution is to make more CPU available. Kill off background tasks, or upgrade your machine. Because it is a legacy game, it doesn't handle multiple cores nor multi-task very well. Once you hit the knee of the simulation curve, things just get slower and slower.

I have given up big cities and now do rural things, and use large tiles as counties with several towns. This runs fast enough to suit me and is just as much fun, more natural as towns grow into each other, and a lot more exciting if you are interested in that kind of growth. Megalopoli are old hat to me, but then I've had the game since it came out.

[Cob92 360]

Nope, only solution is to get a faster CPU or start over with smaller cities.

[AnthonyRM1 10]

Im not sure if its a CPU issue, I think its a game issue. The simulation isnt stuttering, animations are lightning speed, I just find that once a city becomes over a certain size when you zone new areas they dont develop despite the demand, and when they do its minimal. I've got demand through the roof and enough of everything to satisfy caps etc. I just think the game is very old and in desperate need of an update- heres hoping one day they will do it.

I bough cities xl but I cannot stand it, I like the game play of SC4!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Im not sure if its a CPU issue, I think its a game issue. The simulation isnt stuttering, animations are lightning speed, I just find that once a city becomes over a certain size when you zone new areas they dont develop despite the demand, and when they do its minimal. I've got demand through the roof and enough of everything to satisfy caps etc. I just think the game is very old and in desperate need of an update- heres hoping one day they will do it.

I bough cities xl but I cannot stand it, I like the game play of SC4!

The slowdown totally depends on the number of objects in your city. There is nothing wrong with the code, even by modern standards. Single threading on a modern machine is the problem because the processors are not as fast as they could be if you could afford them. This program needs something as powerful as a main frame to run after it hits the knee of the curve in pathfinding and general simulation. This curve is exponential.

If you have a large CBD and a big population, remember every object is visited by the simulator every time around the loop. Each hit may kick off another loop by the pathfinder to make sure the lots remain connected to the road/transport network. You'll find that the program doesn't stutter, it stops updating the GUI (date stops advancing) until it can catch up. If you are running in Cheetah (overdrive) you are spinning your wheels. Just drop down a level and it should smooth out for a while.

What is happening in this program is not surprising. I have taught computer simulation, and believe me these guys have this tuned to a fare-thee-well. For more simulation speed try turning a few things off: UDI for example, waves, clouds; these are resource hogs. Set your shadows to medium.

[Cob92 360]

Im not sure if its a CPU issue, I think its a game issue. The simulation isnt stuttering, animations are lightning speed, I just find that once a city becomes over a certain size when you zone new areas they dont develop despite the demand, and when they do its minimal. I've got demand through the roof and enough of everything to satisfy caps etc. I just think the game is very old and in desperate need of an update- heres hoping one day they will do it.

I bough cities xl but I cannot stand it, I like the game play of SC4!

Oh, now I know what you're talking about. I have the same problem in my old cities; the simulation will run for years and NOTHING will develop despite astronomical demand. Even though I have undeveloped land on the edge of the city I can't get any development and I'm forced to pack ever more people into my downtown to keep the city growing. So I end up with a super-dense downtown surrounded by a ring of empty space and recycling centers.

[AnthonyRM1 10]

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The region I am working on now has all large tiles. However there are several towns in each. The region is now occupied fully, and what I am doing now is a little tweaking. One is a collection of islands with a hunk of main land, so I put a navy base on one island, an exclusive residential area on another, the university on another. Connecting common power and water are a bit of a drag, but effectively, I have four self-reliant communities in one tile.

[goodyou 0]

. I just think the game is very old and in desperate need of an update- heres hoping one day they will do it.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

. I just think the game is very old and in desperate need of an update- heres hoping one day they will do it.

There is something wrong with your image. All I get is a little block. Is it a smiley?

The fly in the ointment is that city building simulations have gone out of style. EA sees no payback in doing more work. The game would benefit from a simple clean up with a modern recompile fixing the existing 'unfixable' bugs, but that would mean a reissue and there is no money in that. At the same time, sitting pretty, they won't release the source to the public domain for fear that there might be a market after all.

Take a look through this. And do start by reviewing the latest design document. You could say that this is a voice crying in the wilderness, but one never knows.

[jabezscratch 159]

This thread contains a lot of interesting discussion and good pointers on optimizing performance, especially in bigger, developed cities. I have been working on the same region for about eight years (seriously). It is a massive region (~18 million population) with a very dense central business district (CBD). The CBD is on a large tile and jammed with ploppable buildings and lots of mass transit (trains, subways, monorails, light rail, elevated highways). I have a fast CPU, 12 gigs of RAM (not that that matters much for SC4), and a top of the line video card with a W7 64 bit OS, and the CBD city still runs extremely slowly. Heck, I basically do some work on it then leave the computer room and let SC4 run for 10 or 15 minutes and maybe three or four years pass on cheetah speed. It's just a fact of life that I've learned to live with on SC4. Hopefully, someday SC4 will get some kind of update to help it run somewhat faster. Letting SC4 take advantage of multiple cores would be great but, I suppose, very unlikely.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Jabez, old devil, come see the new butterflies at Boomtown.

[jabezscratch 159]

Jabez, old devil, come see the new butterflies at Boomtown.

Thanks! That's intriguing and ambitious. Definitely taking the bull by the horns. I will follow that closely and keep my fingers crossed!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Jabez, old devil, come see the new butterflies at Boomtown.

Thanks! That's intriguing and ambitious. Definitely taking the bull by the horns. I will follow that closely and keep my fingers crossed!

Keep your Japanned box handy, and watch out for Daniel Webster.