Newbie - Direction?

[Amnesia180 1]

Hi All,

I'm a newbie to Sim City 4. Got it for less than a fiver and have to admit, it is such an additing game.

I've done the tutorial, and decided to start my own region. I've begun building in two areas of the region, will each city continue to grow/create revenue whilst I'm working on the other? If not, what is the need to connect via road/rail/bus to other cities?

Also, I find I tend to fill the whole map in zones within a couple of hours (yes, I play on easy so have a lot of money to start with). So once the place is filled, it seems I lack in things to do?

I am sure I am rushing the developing/growth of my city, any tips on how to slow down or pace myself a bit more?

Oh, and another thing... the demand for agriculture is always sky high when I create cities. How can I change this?

Many thanks!

Amnesia

[chimeran 208]

one way to slow yourself down is to download mods that extra buildings to your city, especially ploppable buildings that you have to figure out how to place in your cities. agriculture will die off as the game progresses

[Amnesia180 1]

Thanks,

I am one of these that has an end result in my mind, but obviously it takes time to develop. I like the fact you can de-zone and re-zone areas, meaning I can constantly tweak.

At the moment, I'm caught up in "one section for industry, one section for commercial, one section for homes". When in reality, there is no reason I can't integrate those rather than having three separate areas of my city.

[jdbknpchi 14]

Welcome to simtropolis!!!,Hey you connect to other cities by dragging road/rail/subway across the border in your city once you drag it to edge it will say will you like to connect to sim nation? hit yes but make sure your draggin it to the right side of the city other wise you would make a road too no where! lol,and if you wanna spend more time building a city pick a large tile square! I hoped this helped. Have fun building!

[lhrob 213]

I'm not an expert on the game, so take this with a grain of salt...but while you're working on one city, I don't think the other cities in your region continue to grow. The reason is because when you exit the city and go back to the region, it will ask you if you want to save first or not. If you save it, then the next time you open the city, it will pick up right from where you left off. If you don't save it, then the next time you open it, you'll start from the previous save point. Does that make sense? So if you let time run when you exit the region, it's basically like everything in the city comes to a complete standstill until you reopen it.

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Welcome to the conversation.

There are several good threads pinned at the top of this section that will give you much background and tips on working the game. Here is my current personal operating procedure: I am adding links to this post, and I suggest you open each in a new tab.

I pick a likely spot on the map and create a cross roads (streets). Then, if there is a seacoast, I create a village that tends to move towards the coast. I run on hard in Turtle mode, and I cheat with the moolah cheat if I need more money. This helps to speed up development. I generally start with wind power and a small water supply. I always supply water. If I am on a bigger tile I may use the This supplies 200,000 cu. m/mo. costs 10,000 to plop and 100 per month to operate.

Mostly, I zone slowly. Initially I zone 2 x 1 lots for R and C. I work at this until the village goes profitable, then add fire prevention, police, education and health in that order while working to keep the city in the black. This requires some serious work, generally. Here is an example.

Fangorn is a forested village in the middle of a big region with activity on all sides. Note the demand bars which are not justified by the image, but by the surrounding tiles. There are two neighbour connections, one rail and one road. It doesn't take much to get the demands through the roof if the other cities are developed.

If I have a seacoast, I quite often develop a port using Pegasus' CDK3 Seaport set. This takes longer, and you have to do some serious work to straighten out your coast line at the correct level. You can then get cities that look like this.

The important point is to take your time and develop slowly. Use the 'extra cheats .dll' download (placed directly under the Plugins folder with no subfolder) to supply some of the amenities you need. Notably money using the moolah command to reset your treasury balance.

Run on hard. This reduces the number of dialogue boxes you get from the 'advisors' who each have a hidden agenda that is not always in the interests of the city. If you do this, then I suggest some money levels for starting up. Medium tile: 300000; Large tile: 500000. The makers of the game were pikers, IMHO.

Learn to play by running slowly and working your way up in a natural way. No city ever arrived on the planet full blown. First, a farm stead or a fishery, then a village, town, large town, small city, etc. If you are modelling a specific city, this becomes a major challenge to grow it and get it in its modern form.

The game is a canvas, on which you can perform artistic development.

  Edited November 2, 2012 by A Nonny Moose