Zoning on hillsides

[lhrob 213]

Is there a way of zoning on hillsides so that the buildings don't leave huge gouges in the hillside or towering foundations - a mod which prevents this, or at least minimizes it?

[Lost Realist 762]

There are numerous slope mods that will prevent the jacked up look of your roads by adjusting the slope beneath a road you drag to smoothen it out. The retaining walls I don't think can be avoided other than zoning in less steep areas - you couldn't do that in real life either. There has to be a retaining wall or the building would be sloped ridiculously, that wouldn't look much better.

So my advice would be to do some terraforming before zoning, so as to not zone into steep slopes like that.

[SimCoug 5,977]

using a slope mod and terraforming before you zone is good advice. You could also use houses with custom foundations. C.P. has a nice set of houses (do a power search for c.p. over at the LEX) and I think Mattb is working on a set as well. There are others, I'm sure.

[cogeo 960]

Take a look at my posts and pics and

[paeng 2,527]

Yep, sound advice there...

for an overview and many links on this topic, check this article :-)

[Yarahi 1,831]

A tutorial for that problem can be found here;

[lhrob 213]

Okay. Lots of reading to do. Thanks for the tips and links. I'm familiar with the slope mods now, but laid out these neighborhoods first before using one. I guess I can go in and bulldoze it, then place the streets again using a slope mod and go from there.

[AcmeSigns 97]

The retaining walls I don't think can be avoided other than zoning in less steep areas - you couldn't do that in real life either. There has to be a retaining wall or the building would be sloped ridiculously, that wouldn't look much better.

note: emphasis added

Well...yes and no...at least in relation to housing. I designed a home back in the early 70's that was on a steep, otherwise 'unbuildable' slope. I engineered piers with pads that were essentially 2' diameter holes bored into the hillside laterally 50'-75'. The 'stilts' were then placed on the pads. The bottom floor was a good 20' off the ground at it highest point.

As to what you can do in SimCity...I'd follow the slope mod advice.