First major city 'recreation' help, hints, tips, check through

[Culinia 11]

Introduction

I have been playing Simcity on & off these past years (mostly off, unfortunately) however with Cities XL and the highways mod has renewed my interest in playing Simcity simply because there is the potential to build bigger and longer highways! However there are some questions I have which I want to find out information to make my experience better e.g. by avoiding mistakes.

Aim

My goal is to recreate the city of Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom) and surrounding areas (Olney, Lavendon, Northampton suburbs amongst others) by as close as possible. However, as a former commuter to Milton Keynes and aspired resident of MK, I feel it is necessary for some highway improvements which I wish to implement in-game!! Once MK has developed to it's modern day size, I intend to document it (CJ) and possibly sometime probably in the distant future to extend it. This is more of a test-case scenario or practice run because my dream or long-term goal would be to recreate the whole of London (one day maybe!).

Confirmation - Scaling

I want to confirm some detals regarding scaling of Simcity since this will make map work much easier to decipher. Please correct me if I am wrong:

1 tile or square = 16 x 16 metres

1 small city = 64 x 64 tiles or 64 x 16 = 1,024 square metres

medium city = 128 x 128 tiles (128 x 16 = 2,048 square metres)

large city = 256 x 256 (256 x 16 = 4,096 sqm)

Transportation Mods - NAM, SAM, RHW - any thing else?

Apart from the essential road network mods (NAM, SAM, RHW), is there any other mods you guys can recommend for me to consider?

Milton Keynes does have a railway (although not sophisticated since it is one line) which I intend to create, so is there any (overground) railway mod to consider?

Other mod recommendations/packs

Does any one have any recommendations for

- UK/European-style roads

- Suburban housing

Difficulty Level

Which difficulty level do you think I should start at? What difficulty level do you guys start at for recreations?

Any other hints/tips?

Thanks!!

[alexander.bowman 11]

I suppose you have NWM? Oh and there's a NAM Europe road mod but I'm new to this so I do not have anything else to suggest.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

There is a single track rail mod that adds them to the system. If you have a single and not a double track in MK you may want that.

You might also look around for stations, but you might be better off modelling your own in the BAT if you want a specific building.

NWM will give you some interesting extra road models.

Run on hard difficulty. It keeps the advisors quiet (mostly) and if you need cash you will need the Extra Cheats .dll mod which opens up all the system debug commands. One of them is the moolah command which can reset your treasury balance to anything reasonable.

You will probably prefer the SPAM farm mods and SimGoober's Ditch set to go with it. With SPAM, take as much as you like except the controller which conflicts with the NAM.

Have fun.

Your scaling estimate is correct.

There are several housing sets on the STEX that feature 1 x 1 and 2 x 1 lots. You might have a look at them. Try Paeng's mods and look at Madhatter106.

[Mithrik 562]

Referring to the UK-styled buildings, you should look for Gascooker/vividu29, he made some really nice terraces. But there are other ones you might find in the STEX.

[Zodicus 34]

Simgoober has some nice UK styled house. Also look at mrtnl's European sign packs. Definately get the Euro texture replacement mod for the RHW.

[Dannibee 138]

Gascookers' done some nice UK housing, Mntoes on the STEX, ILL Tonkso too. Seaching 'UK' will bring back some decent stuff, Dexter has a few sets too. I'm trying to do the same thing in a different town so PM me if you need any help And honestly for recreations cheating is normally the best way forward, you can still grow stuff but money should not be a thing to worry about. Looking forward to seeing lots of roundabouts

  Edited August 28, 2012 by Dannibee  

[MandelSoft 2,770]

... Also look at mrtnl's European sign packs ...

I think you should look for MandelSoft now, since I changed my name from mrtnrln to MandelSoft.

Yes, I have Euro Texture replacement mods and a UK signage pack. I've also a LHD compatible stoplight pack and soon I'll be releasing version 5 of the LRM UK lamppost replacement set (details man!).

[JimCityBuilder 14]

1. Mods to add are:

NAM v30 with essentials

SAM v3.0

RHW v5.0

RAM - Single Track Railway

NB: when downloading NAM be sure to tick the TuLEP box for realistic lane changes on roads etc at junctions.(don't know how to get rid of the red strip markings on avenue crossings at the mo so any advice would be appreciated)

2. Then:

NAM Euro Cosmetic Re-texture Mod v1.1

Euro Texture Replacement Mod For RHW v5.0

SFBT Euro Road Texture Mod

3. As mention by other good peeps there are a number of other addons with the important ones being:

Modern UK Sign Set

Stoplight Replacement Mod

RoadTop Mass Transit 1, plus UK BUs Stop Markings 1

I have downloaded all these mods to make UK realistic towns and villages and so far have not had any problems or crashes.

I hope this will be useful to you and have fun building Milton Keynes, I am working on a map for Stoke on Trent but doubt there will be many takers for that map !!! lol ;-D

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Be sure you get the Hotfix for NAM v30 as well.

[Culinia 11]

Just a quick message to say thanks a lot guys for replying with your suggestions! I will start to check them out now! Thanks again!

[Zodicus 34]

... Also look at mrtnl's European sign packs ...

I think you should look for MandelSoft now, since I changed my name from mrtnrln to MandelSoft.

Yes, I have Euro Texture replacement mods and a UK signage pack. I've also a LHD compatible stoplight pack and soon I'll be releasing version 5 of the LRM UK lamppost replacement set (details man!).

Lol hello Maarten long time no see. I've been out of game/contact for 6 months, I missed a lot Didn't realize you were Mandlesoft I feel like a 'tard

Great to see you again Sir

[Culinia 11]

Just another quick update.

I've been practicing creating some simple highways in an empty region just as a practice. Wow, it surely is complex for a novice like me!

Still looking at the STEX meanwhile and just another message to say thanks for JimCityBuilder list which made searching the STEX easier and of course the other suggestions from everyone else

Wish me luck, I'm going to need it, lol!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Hang on to your Sandbox region. Testing there is less painful than messing up an active city when something goes wrong, ... goes wrong, ... oes wron, ... es wro, ... s w ... s-s-s-s ... ACCESS DENIED ...

[Culinia 11]

Thanks for the tip.

My whole one square region went to a standstil (wrong-way one-way roads for RHW) so goodness knows what would have happened if that was the real thing!!!

Will upload some pictures later of my test first interchange - I made a standard flexible interchange (I think it's called) i.e. dual carriageway (avenue) underpass and I used RHM 5 on/off ramps connecting to the above roundabout for left/right turn.

This is good because there are roundabouts at least every 1km in Milton Keynes but no fancy underpasses which are imo much needed especially for a west-east route (there are only two grade separated roads in MK, i.e. the A5 and the M1 but running north south lol). So I will be having fun 'correcting' the roads, hehe.

I'm already having ideas for an improved traffic layout already and have been looking at some youtube video tutorials for inspiration (especially the iconic roundabout interchange)!

Will keep this updated and start a CJ later when I finally start making it proper.

  Edited September 7, 2012 by Culinia  

[Culinia 11]

My test city is having massive problems - people are abandoning their houses due to 'commute times' of 0.4 (according to the chart, whatever the hell that means) despite the traffic map showing green lines everywhere. Do not understand, maybe I have installed the NAM wrong or something?

[MandelSoft 2,770]

Do the people have enough jobs? Which driving side of the game do you have and what driving side have you installed when you installed the NAM and related components? These things should match, otherwise, you run into routing problems.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Assuming you have the proper fixes for the game to even run the NAM, your problem is probably too much haste. Development of a large city takes considerable time. Just plopping in buildings messes up most of the algorithms in the game leaving you with some sort of recovering mess while the program figures out what you've done.

Grow your city, slowly. Take time for it to develop. You can no more make an instant city that works than you can make a baby in one month by throwing nine women at it.

[Culinia 11]

Thanks for the replies guys.

As far as I know I have selected the correct LHD set-up files (for driving on the left hand side) for the plugins I have installed.

However, having said that on one of the junctions on the traffic query tool it doesn't seem right. Namely when I query the westbound carriage it shows the eastbound traffic going the other way...

I therefore am including some screenshots to see if you experts can see whether or not I have done the junctions incorrectly.

Here is the junction:

As you can see I have selected the eastbound carriageway however the westbound traffic shows up?

This is querying the eastbound traffic...seems correct as far as I can tell:

General test city overview

As you can see my attempts of alleviating unemployment in the residential areas by the inclusion of a spur road to the west of the city and one way roads but there are many houses unemployed.

Junction in question:

  Edited September 10, 2012 by Culinia  

[Fatherted 129]

On avenues, querying one side will show a slightly weirdly displayed show of the other.

[Culinia 11]

Hmm... in that case I have been still trying to work out what is wrong with my installation. Having massive umemployment rates even though there are more jobs than residents.

Do you guys think it's because I have the Steam version conflicting with the NAM/other addons?

  Edited September 11, 2012 by Culinia  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I don't think there is anything wrong with your installation other than the fact that the Steam version uses a different file structure. It is version 1,1,641 which is fully patched and diskless. However, I believe it comes only in an RHD version and you have to do several nip ups that I don't have to change over to LHD. There is a tutorial on this somewhere, but you would have to interpret it with respect to the structure created by Steam.

[Culinia 11]

Hi yes I have already changed the files/edited the registry to make it LHD. That is why I was wondering if I did anything wrong to cause all these commute time;long and unemployed houses...

Perhaps tomorrow when I have more time I will install the disc version which I also have (but I bought it on Steam because of the no disc oh well) and hopefully will solve my problems to have it LHD.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

That's rather drastic. I suggest you stick with the Steam version and solve your problem. If you put up the disk version, you have to patch it to level 1,1,640 and even then you have to have the disk in the drive to play.

You might check that you have the correct name on the language file. Others can advise you on this since my version is RHD.