Looking for mod which can fix concrete walls

[Nielsen 10]

I'm looking for a mod but I don't know whether it exists so I hope someone can point me in the right direction. I like to zone low density residental areas on hill slopes in my rural areas but from an aesthetic point of view, I find it problematic that some properties are being built into the terrain whereas others are being built on top of the terrain. The first results in concrete walls that surround the entire property, which in turn becomes totally flat, and the latter results in properties that fit on top of the terrain. I need a mod which only allows residental properties to be built on top of the terrain. Does such a mod exist?

It looks odd when an R$ property has a concrete wall in the backyard which is worth more than the entire neighbourhood. Well, they look odd anywhere,

  Edited June 19, 2012 by Nielsen  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

You can use the mayor mode levelling tool to lay out your zoned areas. This is just normal civil engineering. When there are slight slope variances, you can lay down arrays of single road tiles, then bulldoze them.

I do this all the time.

[Indiana Joe 1,750]

Yeah, your best bet is leveling the lots in your residential areas. In reality, you'll find most house lots are leveled to a certain extent. There might be a huge hill way back in the back yard, but the house itself is on level ground. So no, there's no mods that remove retaining walls (proper name for "concrete walls").

Also you can always go into the lot editor and edit the slope conforming abilities of any lot.

[Nielsen 10]

I usually do use the single road piece trick when I systemically zone for some low density residential areas in hilly terrain. However, sometimes I just like my rural areas to look more random hence I would find it nice to place zones on slopes while knowing with 100% certainty that I wouldn't see any of these so called retaining walls. Oh well, thanks for the advice

  Edited June 20, 2012 by Nielsen  

[JayStimson 211]

There's always a bit of terrain adjustments needed.

The only way to get the walls or foundations you mention to look right is to make BATs that are made specifically for a certain terrain config.

There might be some, but few I'm sure. So you your MM terrain tools and the road dot and things will look pretty good.

[Mithrik 562]

^This. Look for "slope friendly" buildings in the STEX and LEX, I am sure you will find a few.

And remember you can always hide the flattened terrain's end with flora.

[Yuu Caa Sim 55]

{Try this Omnibus Tutorial}. The last two pictures are especially relevant to your issue.

It's not a 100% solution, but it helps.

[Ro-Bo 183]

Crazy leveling!

Yup, costly. I use cheat to set my money back to the value before I start leveling.

[cogeo 960]

Zoning itself performs some flattening (I would rather say smoothing), but often in an unpredictable and undesirable way. And the result isn't really good: buildings still having the foundations, lots still having retaining walls, props (esp the larger ones) half buried underground and half hovering in the air (the ones that stay upright at slopes), or looking unrealistic, eg fences (if they are modded to follow the slopes).

So the solution is to try to make the zones as flat as possible (ideally perfectly flat). Read the above tutorial, to see hows this can be done. Perfcetly flat terraforming can be achieved not by using the (mayor) terraforming tools, but instead by plopping street tiles (one next to another - works in a diagonal direction too. So you will always have a row of tiles between the zones to be "lost". But this is not very much true, because even if the land was flat you would again have this "unused" or "wasted" land and plop some small parks or plant trees in there. Otherwise desirability would have been so low that you wouldn't even be able to grow those unsightly 1x3 small tennements, just lowrise R$.

The problem is what to put in there. Slopes can be so steep that trees may just be impossible to plant (or else looking small, sparse and unrealistic). The Maxis parks either flatten the land or cause retaining walls to be displayed. Parks like "paths" or "gardens" of course aren't suitable either. Jeronij (as well as other custom content creators - but these are the ones I like most) have uploaded special park lots, known as "Walls".

Take a look at these pics:

You can see only lowrise development here (villas), on 2x3 lots. This lot size is very convenient and versatile. Later on, as the city grows, they can be upgraded to palazzos, condos, or even hirises (two lots can be aggregated to form one 4x3).

Unfortunately jeronij's lots were made a long time ago, and have undergone very few updates. Also the set is incomplete (eg no corner lots) and their effect is strong - they are modded as Small Park Green, but having so many of them put together has an extremely strong effect (and monthly cost). The pics above are from my modified set (which I'm going to release some time). It addresses a lot of issues, including aesthetics (fewer trees, better slope-conforming fences), more types of lots like corners and those with trees only (like the ones you can see along the city's edge), useful in cases where the terrain is sloped, but not enough, to justify "Walls".

  Edited June 21, 2012 by cogeo  

[Ro-Bo 183]

...(which I'm going to release some time). It addresses a lot of issues, including aesthetics (fewer trees, better slope-conforming fences), more types of lots like corners and those with trees only (like the ones you can see along the city's edge), useful in cases where the terrain is sloped, but not enough, to justify "Walls".

Nice. I'm looking forward to that.

I just download jeronij's "walls". As you said, the park effects is too strong to justify placement on a stretch of hillside roads isolated from residential/commercial zones.