A couple of beginner questions

[Kopiok 9]

All the talk and anticipation of the new Sim City game got me in a SimCity kind of mood, so I started playing this after buying it and not really getting around to it. I just have a couple of questions that I couldn't find answers to after browsing around here for a while.

1) Singe City or Mutli-City Region?

I started a play making a single city be 100% residential, another city 100% industry, another city planning to be 100% commercial, ect. but is this at all viable? I seemed to start running into trouble with communte times and "no job" flags. I've since gotten the NAM, so I assume that would help some, but would I be better off just making one gigantic city to start with and then add offshoot regions once I get tired of that, or have multiple single purpose cities?

2) Do rewards affect other cities in the region?

If I unlock the Farmers Market in a side city that's mainly agriculture, for instance, will the bonuses from plopping that affect my main city?

3) What do Alt and Ctrl do when placing zones?

I noticed this causes the darker lines to seemingly disappear (making, say 2x2 or 2x3 blocks instead of 2x1) and clearly Alt changes the facing of the zones. What will this affect?

4) Is my city structure sound, or ridiculous and terrible?

I was kind of messing around and came up with an arrangment like this (sorry for the box in the way, I used Steam's F12 Screenshot tool. You can still see the major outline):

My intent is to fill the empty corners with clinics, fire stations, gifts that will fit, police, education, transit, ect, and the rest of the empty squares and corners with parks and/or transit stations. It also would leave room to turn the streets into roads, roads into one-ways or avenues, (some) avenues into highways, ect. I realise that this arrangment is probably more about personal preference, but I also feel as though I've left a lot of wasted space. Is this going to hamstring me later on?

(I also just considered increasing the spacing on the borders by one square allowing for 4 blocks inbetween the avenues and streets instead of 3 so I can connect some 2x1 plots to the avenues. This would essentially make a universal grid of 4x4 areas following the same avenue-road intervals. Probably makes a better use of the space. I... I think I might actually do that instead. See! This forum is already helping!)

Thanks for taking a look (and maybe helping? )!

[Cottoncandy Cyanide 145]

I guess I'll give this a shot from my experience. I'm not the really ALWAYS helpful lady but maybe this information will help a bit~

Q1) Single City or Multy-City Region?

A) What you stated is a bit, well, too much~? Its nice to have mixtures in one single city for variety and rewards. Plus, if its all residential in one city, and the other cities all industrial and commercial, don't you think the Sims have a hard time traveling from the center of your residential city to the commerce/industry city? At least its how I think job zots will pop out, due to long commute from the center buildings.

Q2) Do rewards affect other cities in the region?

A2) This, I'm not relatively sure of, but some rewards only affect that specific city. However, I think rewards like the federal prison and resort hotel affect other cities as well.

Q3) What do alt and ctrl do?

A3) Hard to explain this one for me, but, alt changes the direction but doesn't change how zones will develop( unless the zones don't face the road ) and ctrl just places residential zones for only a specific building size to develop. Make sure when you use ctrl you only use the specific size of the building you want to grow( like 3x3, 4x4, 4x2, etc ).

Q4) Is my city structure sound, or ridiculous and terrible?

A4) Nah not really in my opinion. Though, you might wanna make some room for mass transit stations like subways and bus stops for future placement. Other than that, its up to your creativity.

Yea uh, remember I'm not THAT THAT expert, just like, a regular one. I'm terribly sorry if I didn't help you at all. :C

[Bdub01 201]

I'm not a really read expert either so till they start commenting here's mine two cents worth.

1. Unless your using the smallest city squares its really hard to have a city of 100% anything ( I tried that myself). That being said you can have an all or almost all industrial city. Then do at least a 50/50 mix of C&R on other cites.

2. Sorry but no. Rewards ONLY work for the city you put them in.

3. Those keys tend to change the directions of the lots as well as take out the automatic roads that come with zoning.

4. That looks good to me for a residential, suburb like area.

Like Yuuka221 said make sure you have room for bus stops subways (not the restaurant!!!) and whatever else you like!

[Kopiok 9]

Thanks for the tips!

One quick addition: Is a single city viable, or should I reaaaaalllly be using the regions?

[Cottoncandy Cyanide 145]

Thanks for the tips!

One quick addition: Is a single city viable, or should I reaaaaalllly be using the regions?

From my perspective, use more of the squares in the region. Neighboring cities do unlock other rewards and may boost specific demand in your main city( if connected ).

[hannesh 0]

can anyone help me. I downloaded lots and pretty sure I installed all required dependencies, but are still seeing brown boxes. All files have been tried in "plugins" folder in both my documents and maxis program files plugins folder. What is the difference between the two? I have SC4. Do I need to upgrade to Deluxe? What else can I be missing?

hannesh

[lhrob 213]

can anyone help me. I downloaded lots and pretty sure I installed all required dependencies, but are still seeing brown boxes. All files have been tried in "plugins" folder in both my documents and maxis program files plugins folder. What is the difference between the two? I have SC4. Do I need to upgrade to Deluxe? What else can I be missing?

hannesh

No offense, but your question isn't related to the topic of this thread, so please start a new one where people can focus more specifically on your issue.

[Bdub01 201]

Thanks for the tips!

One quick addition: Is a single city viable, or should I reaaaaalllly be using the regions?

From my perspective, use more of the squares in the region. Neighboring cities do unlock other rewards and may boost specific demand in your main city( if connected ).

Yes!!! Every city you add surrounding all other cities will add to demand. So make sue you have good city connections. I prefer using interstate highways and passenger trains. I admit idk if you have an airport in two touching cities if R in one city would use the airport to go to work in the other city. That would be cool if they did .

[Kopiok 9]

Thanks for the help! I feel comfortable enough to have a real concentrated go at it. Thanks!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Summary on use of the keyboard when zoning:

Alt turns the lot 90 degrees, usually, but sometimes fails due to things like an immediate highway going past.

Ctrl allows a lot to be drawn any size. No Maxis lots are bigger than 6 x 6, but some custom content can overflow this. Industrial is self-sizing on an amorphous block.

Shift Suppresses the default streets.

These keys can be used in combination to use the effects as needed.