Can't get commercial skyscrapers

[Phranzor 2]

Hi,

I can't get commercial skyscrapers to develop in my city. I'm getting lots of luxury offices but the tallest one is like 20 stories.

I have a city with a population of 250,000. Commerce is around 120,000. Industry about 20,000. My residential areas are mostly skyscrapers. I have one 'downtown' area which lies on the shore, which is mainly comprised of commercial plots. Other than that I mix up the residential and commercial zones quite a bit. Commute for the commercial areas varies between high and low, but even in areas with a high number of customers, I can't get commercial skyscrapers to develop.

I have bombarded my city with plazas, rewards like congress centre etc. and I just started placing some reputable landmarks (don't want too many because they tower above my city so awfully ).

$$$ tax is around 7.5 percent, and I tried lowering to 6 but it didn't help. $$$ interest remains fairly low. $ and $$ quite high no matter how much I tax them.

Is there anything else I can do to increase the demand for skyscrapers?

[The Avatar 1,089]

Hello.

I'm not very good with these technical issues, but this article might be able to help you.

All I know is that in order to get CO$$$ skyscrapers, you have to have a lot of demand and desirability. It also takes time for these to grow. You could influence demand by creating some neighboring cities, if you haven't, or by lowering taxes further. Having an efficient transportation system is also important for skyscrapers. OWR, subway, el-rail, etc. - these are all helpful.

video on YouTube explains this further.

That's where my knowledge stops. I'd suggest posting some pics of your region and city, as well as your demand and desirability graphs/views, so some of the more informed members can help you.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Pick a likely corner in your CBD, clean it off and zone a 4 x 4 high density commercial there. If a drive in theatre develops wait a bit then bulldoze it. Also try this same trick in a residential area with a high density 4 x 4 residential lot. You have the population to support this, but check your desirability display before you do anything.

[zahrul3 472]

Low demand maybe?

[Cob92 360]

My advice is to just focus on pushing up commercial demand, which is done by growing your educated workforce and by developing high tech industry. Don't worry about creating the desirable area until your city is giving you the demand to support these things. In my experience, trying to force a downtown to grow has never worked. Also, you need to limit the number of medium and high density commercial areas in your city, or else all demand will be spread across a huge area instead of going to the city center.

  Edited May 27, 2012 by Cobhris96  

[Jasoncw 12,030]

What I like to do, is I make sure there are areas with a high desirability and the right zone size, then I pause the game. Then I go around the city demolishing CO$$$ buildings. When I unpause it, demand skyrockets, so this simulator thinks I have the demand for a few big buildings. They get built and the rest of the zones usually get filled up with CS buildings. Doing this I'm basically concentrating existing CO$$$ jobs into a smaller number of buildings.

The risk with this is that your zones can't absorb the spike of demand fast enough. If you demolish the jobs and they don't have the chance to regrow, then your city simply has less jobs, which in turn lowers residential demand. To prevent this from happening, let the city run for a little while before you pause the game and demolish more CO$$$.

[I. Lostalim 589]

The gold for me to get massive skyscrapers is a well-funded education and health system (And tons of hi-tech industry). Because where are your educated Sims going to work, usually at hi-tech industry and shop at CO$$$ and CS$$$, and that’s when you might get giant skyscrapers. Also, I have had the worst traffic situations possible and that never prohibit them to developing.

But there might be more ways to do it then what I just described...

[Moskva 75]

These are all good advices. I especially agree on creating A LOT of neighbour cities and do not neglect the regional industry, i believe it has a play in commercial demand, or at least it should have. The other advice that i liked most is the one about keeping the downtown and not spreading it around. Do not configure high density outsides of the downtown (imagine LA, nearly no supertalls outside downtown LA). This could work pretty well. I think increasing suburbia will have desidered effect more than anything else.

[Cob92 360]

Increasing the size of the city has a positive effect on the ability to grow skyscrapers because SimCity4 uses a "quota" system for determining how likely a building of a given size will develop in a city of various sizes. In a city of a given size, a certain percentage of all structures housing an occupant type must be of a certain stage. The larger the city, the larger the percentage allotted to high stage buildings, including skyscrapers. In addition, you want to have bad traffic in your commercial downtown, because commercial buildings prefer high-traffic areas. This is another benefit to concentrating your commerce in a single Central Business District; by doing so, you route massive quantities of commuter traffic into a very small area, making this area desirable to more commerce, which in turn attracts more traffic. It's a positive feedback loop that encourages ever-larger commercial developments in established downtown areas.

[Moskva 75]

So having the NAM traffic simulator can slower the growth of your CBD since it decreases traffic?

[Cob92 360]

So having the NAM traffic simulator can slower the growth of your CBD since it decreases traffic?

No, I think commercial zones are affected by traffic volume, not traffic congestion. I've used only NAM simulators for the past several years and have had no trouble growing CBDs.

[T Wrecks 10,210]

What most people forget is to use zone densities wisely. They will zone high density anywhere, and this way the game has thousands of possibilities to fill commercial demand: a slightly bigger building here, a slightly bigger building there... 150 more jobs offered here, 80 more jobs offered there, and so on.

If you use low and medium density in the outskirts/suburbs and don't offer high-density zones initially, the game will be forced to build the biggest buildings that can exist on low and medium density, but then these zones will be maxed out, while demand will continue to grow. Likewise, you can use the "Make historical" tool generously to preserve everything that looks fitting in the respective environment. This way, the corresponding lots will also be maxed out and not available for further development.

Then, when enough demand for a skyscraper has accumulated, do as described above, zone a 4x4 high density, and you will channel the entire demand on this little patch - the only choice the game has is building a skyscraper there. This might not work in each and every individual case - sometimes desirability is too low, sometimes the game just hates you and gets on your nerves with drive-in cinemas. However, in the long run you will see that growing skyscrapers is really easy this way.

[jdbknpchi 14]

ive also have this problem but commerical skyscrapers take longer too grow then resdential skyscrapers! i dont know for sure if ur into modds u can get the RCI demand modd,but anyway every time i lay out commerical zone the grow small then after like 2-6 years they grow into skyscrapers it also counts the demand for commerical in your city try too raise it by adding moore resdential zone try low too the start then just goo from there. hope what ive says helps!

[Phranzor 2]

Thanks for all the advice. Certainly good tips have been shared here.

I have lowered the density of the suburbian commercial areas and limited the number of commercial areas in general, hoping it'll do the trick. I'll try demolishing some old low density commerce occupying the downtown hotspots and have them rebuild later, but I currently don't have the demand or the funds to support that experiment. Currently quite busy developing neighboring cities to get increase the demand for my main city.

[jalbatross 2]

Also keep in mind that before the largest Co$$/Co$$$ starts to develop (Stage 8 Buildings) you will need a certain number of these jobs in your region. You can find more information about that here:

http://www.simcityce...uilding-stages/

To develop demand for CO in my main city, I took a similar approach to you in developing neighboring cities. I found that zoning a neighboring city with a lot of CS/I-M/I-D with an educated workforce while blocking Co development with max taxes caused regional demand for CO to skyrocket. If you build a specialized neighboring city that zones only I and R, you won't need to adjust the tax rates for CO to block it and you'll be able to extrapolate what kind of demand to expect for CO in your main city.

  Edited June 2, 2012 by jalbatross  

[Phranzor 2]

To get a sense of what you're saying - Cs doesn't produce skyscrapers, only Co?

[jalbatross 2]

Yes. If you're playing with no added buildings, the only true high rise buildings you'll be able to get are R$$,R$$$, Co$$, and Co$$$.

[LightSkinnedPisces 71]

ok so what is CS? commercial skyscrapers? assuming CO is Commercial office? does the $ stand for low density and $$ for medium? still trying to figure this out.

[The Thinker 479]

1 hour ago, LightSkinnedPisces said:

ok so what is CS? commercial skyscrapers? assuming CO is Commercial office? does the $ stand for low density and $$ for medium? still trying to figure this out.

CS - Commercial Services

CO - Commercial Office

$ - Low Wealth

$$ - Medium Wealth

$$$ - High Wealth

 

As a rule, Commercial Office will only be either $$ or $$$, never $.

[LightSkinnedPisces 71]

Gotcha , thanks, B

[Cyclone Boom 17,032]

1 hour ago, LightSkinnedPisces said:

ok so what is CS? commercial skyscrapers?

Good guess there, and nice idea for replying to this older topic which we very much encourage.

As it happens, CS stands for Commercial Services and the CO are the Commercial Office growables indeed.

These are both separate developer types which are the ways RCI lots are categorised. The service buildings are ones which are common to provide a retail function like shops of various sizes (depending on growth stages), and the office buildings are those as a minimum of Medium wealth (CO$$).

Expanding on the list @The Thinker posted above, here's a formatted list of all 12 developer types:

Residential
R$    =  Low wealth Residential
R$$   =  Medium wealth Residential
R$$$  =  High wealth Residential

Commercial
CS$    =  Low wealth Commercial Services
CS$$   =  Medium wealth Commercial Services
CS$$$  =  High wealth Commercial Services
CO$$   =   Medium wealth Commercial Office
CO$$$  =  High wealth Commercial Office

Industrial
IA   =  Agricultural  (Low wealth)
ID   =  Dirty Industrial  (Low wealth)
IM   =  Manufacturing Industrial  (Medium wealth)
IHT  =  High-tech Industrial  (High wealth)

 

[LightSkinnedPisces 71]

so for if RCI demand says CS $ & $$ in high demand I need to zone low density and medium density commercial right? and with R $, $$ both in high demand I need to zone low and medium density residential right? or no?

[The Thinker 479]

With the exception of Agriculture (which has its own zone), zone density and RCI wealth bands are independent of each other.  You can get CS $ & $$ buildings at any zone density, likewise with R $ & $$.

[Cyclone Boom 17,032]

55 minutes ago, LightSkinnedPisces said:

so for if RCI demand says CS $ & $$ in high demand I need to zone low density and medium density commercial right? and with R $, $$ both in high demand I need to zone low and medium density residential right? or no?

It depends really on what type of shops or houses you'd like to be eligible for construction.

A consideration is how the zoning density corresponds to the Growth Stages which are allowed to develop. This means to zone Low Density Commercial and it can still allow for all three wealth levels to construct ($, $$, $$$). It's later possible to upgrade zones which then makes them eligible for the higher stages to take place. Upgrades won't happen though until requirements are met for Stage Caps and there must be sufficient demand and supply, along with adequate desirability in the local area.

There are 8 stages in total in the base game, and the distribution is as follows:

• Low Density:  Stages 1-3
• Medium Density:  Stages 4-6
• High Density:  Stages 7-8

The same applies for Residential also in the same way.

Then with Industrial they're a little different for only Medium (Stages 1-2) and High (Stage 3).

Lower wealth levels can be replaced by higher ones, unless marking as Historical or using Cori's NKO Mod.

 

Additionally a water supply can be important.

Without one for a given zone parcel, development is restricted to:

• R$   = Stage 3
• R$$  = Stage 3
• R$$$ = No development

• CS$   = Stage 3
• CS$$  = Stage 3
• CS$$$ = No development
• CO$$  = Stage 3
• CO$$$ = No development

• IA  = Stage 3 (No requirement)
• ID  = Stage 1
• IM  = Stage 1
• IHT = No development

 

[LightSkinnedPisces 71]

so I could get high rise buildings even with zoning medium density (with commercial and residential) or even low density? I want high rise buildings/bigger population, I can't seem to get over 100k, its seems to me that when I zoned higher density bigger buildings rose sometimes or aleast buildings that can hold more people than smaller houses/etc obviously, after having low density residential I will zone medium over it and it will grow buildings sometimes that's why I thought I had to zone higher density.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

10 hours ago, LightSkinnedPisces said:

I can't seem to get over 100k

Check your caps (and add cap relief if needed). Be patient while educating. Develop neighbors (and make connections). Raise the overall population of your region.

[rsc204 21,868]

13 hours ago, LightSkinnedPisces said:

so I could get high rise buildings even with zoning medium density (with commercial and residential) or even low density?

Not directly, you'd need to upgrade the zoning at some point, but even the game tells you it's not a great idea to zone Med/High too soon. For starters, it costs more and in the early stages it's just wasting precious funds, because such buildings can not appear in new regions, because of something called Growth Stages.

This basically controls the balance of small through large buildings that appear. This chart shows what the percentage chance of a given Growth Stage building being built, based on current regional population. Bear in mind that whilst stage 8 CS buildings do exist, being basically shops, you aren't going to find huge 40-storey buildings growing. So let's take a look at the CO section and you can see that for the first Stage 8 CO buildings to have a 2% chance of appearing, you need at least 43859 existing CO jobs.

What a lot of new players want is a big New York style skyline, which you can create in SC4, but doing this properly takes time and effort. Whilst SC4 as a game doesn't have a set goal, the progression can be simplified into three main stages:

1. Starting Out
   In the beginning you'll have almost exclusively R$ sims. They are uneducated so only demand for I-AG, I-D and some CS$ will exist. Everything growing will be low density. On the flip side, they only need Power and a way to get to work.
2. Improving
   Demand starts to appear for I-M and CO$$ when sims hit a certain level of EQ. Jobs for higher wealth sims will start to appear, creating demand for R$$/R$$$.
3. Developed City/Region
   Your region is running smoothly, stuffed with diverse education opportunities, good health, clear water, minimal pollution and is basically a nice place to live. Now I-HT and CO$$/$$$ demand should be healthy, as should the number of R$$/$$$ Sims living in your city/region.

Getting to the last stage requires a lot of money, because at this point sims expect a lot of services. So you need to build up slowly, adding services as they are needed and you can afford them. The issue most players run into, is they are trying to run before they can crawl. When you've finally built out a region with a couple hundred thousand sims, demand should remain healthy and large buildings grow with no effort. But as a game, SC4 works best when played slowly and methodically, reacting to things as they happen and slowly growing cities and the larger region. This is because failure to spot problems for a while can have quite dramatic effects, running out of water/power can lead to mass abandonment for example. Your economy can tank because one piece of the jigsaw is missing. For example, even with optimal conditions, at least 50% of your population will still remain R$. Now, imagine you've made every nook and cranny of your city very nice indeed. Higher wealth sims will probably be very happy, but new R$ sims may not move in, because they can't afford to live there. Without R$ workers to do their parts in Industry, Offices or Shops, none of these businesses can function. When they abandon, the higher wealth sims who previously had jobs, say running the company or managing employees, become unemployed. It can happen, when you upgrade too fast, that a lot of the demands cannot be sustainably met. This basically leads to recession, mass unemployment and takes a lot of careful balancing to restore order.

You can rush the process, but if you don't understand the intricacies of the game, in all likelihood things will get screwy. Because it's actually quite a challenge to keep everything running well. The slow methodical player, who is constantly checking the graphs and data views, will gain a much better understanding of the game and be able to react quickly when problems occur. But SC4 is a really deep game, even if on the surface it looks pretty simple. If you've not already done so, I urge you to take a few hours and go through the in-game Tutorial Region. It has so much useful information on understanding how to make the simulation work. After that, I recommend this tutorial on Region Play, it covers almost everything else you really need to know to make successful regions. After that, if you want to start really digging deep into the game's workings, read through the Prima Guide, but that's optional.

In addition to rushing the process, many players resort to Mods or Cheats, to rush the game into getting Skyscrapers. First, let's dispel a myth, installing CAM will NOT make skyscrapers appear more quickly or easily, quite the opposite is true. CAM extends the number of Growth Stages, designed to better balance the spread of density. But in reality it will actually require larger populations for the most part, to support high-rises en-mass. The next mod type is Demand Mods, which I would personally avoid using, because most I've seen have modded some settings to jack up demand, without understanding the bigger picture. Let's think again about the CAM mod, it makes many changes to many properties, but all of which need to work together in harmony. Demand Mods don't tend to bother with related settings and properties, so who knows what problems they might be causing. Likewise, if you rely on them, you'll never bother to learn how the game really works, so if issues arise, you'll likely not notice or know what to do.

Of course, the "playing the game" may not be something that's of interest to you, many players use such games as "city painters", just wishing to make attractive cities. If that's more your style of play, maybe consider Cities Skylines, there isn't much of game there to worry about. Of course SC4 can be played this way too, it's just a lot more effort to do so, because meeting the needs of your Sims is much more complex.

[LightSkinnedPisces 71]

Thanks for all that info,  that tutorial showed me some things I didn't know too.I'm glad I haven't used any mods yet too, cuz I wanna learn the basics first even tho I got couple cities with 120k n have followed the tutorial basics already there's still some things i learned from it,  and a lot I gotta learn.