Need help with building a large city

[frostback 0]

Changed title

[Meldervious 0]

I get stuck with building a large city too! But I guess the advice I can pass on is

Zone out before you zone in

Make sure you have a good RCI demmand before you try going higher densities

Make sure you can afford the civil services,water,power and amenities as well

When in doubt. Don't

I am a little stuck getting the scrapers too. But I did try

[jason leo 485]

What do you mean with large city ? Building a large city tile or building a metropolis ? We need more information about what is actually you want, and we need more information about your game's version, either that is the original game or SC4+RH or SC4 Deluxe.

[husher 18]

you could try this: i built a goodly sized one yesterday using this method.

On a medium tile follow this procedure hit pause (very important) 1)set up a network of avenues creating a 3 x3 grid of spaces

2)make sure you put tool booths on the each avenue just before it goes off the tile. save it

3) zone an area of medium or high residential to one side put the industry and as close as you can put in the commercial, fill the rest with agriculteral land and a small airport.

'weakness pays' replenish your money.

4) put in the power water and waste, use the black hole corp water and waste and the star wars turbine, nice and cheap.

5)Put in the water pipes just make a simple grid across the tile.

replenish your money save it

6) Put in essential services; use the police admin building, treasury and the customs house; put them more or less in the center of the commercial district.

7)Put the education complex in the middle of you residential district and the medium default hospital next to it, .

Replenish you money and save it

Thats all you need do for now building wise go to you finances block and reduce the funding on the airport to 40%, set the safety funds to just below the white line, you wont need ambulances or school buses yet so don't fund them, set the services as above and reduce government spending to around $40.

save it one more time and then let the games begin.

Its bang and crash but it works for me; you've got to be quick to keep up with 'moaning murtle' but its worth it.

The results were good last night 120k sims, positive demand and loads of money.after 5 game years.

Good hunting!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, without clarification of what it is you are wanting to do, we are kind of stuck.  However, to build a large city on a large tile try this:

 

1. Running in hard mode at turtle speed, set the treasury to 500000 using the moolah cheat.
2. Pick where you think the CBD will be and plop an avenue round about in the centre.
3. Run avenues for about 20 tiles in the four cardinal directions.
4. Somewhere over on the edge, drop in a coal-fired power plant and drag some power towers into the CBD.
5. Bulldoze the centre of the round about, and dump a water pump in there.  Use the rest of the space for single tile CS$.
6. Arrange your water pipes to supply the legs of the avenues.
7. Hit the A key, and put about eight low density 2 x 2 properties along the legs of the avenues.  These do not have to be distributed evenly.
8. Wait for these to start to grow.
9. Now that you have jobs, step away from the CBD a little, and create a neighbourhood using streets by carefully zoning low density housing.  I recommend 2 x 1 lots laid out back to back (not 1 x 2) in sets of eight per block.  That's sixteen lots in a complete block back to back.  Bringing in water will get you better buildings.
10. Connect this to the CBD avenues somewhere far from the centre.  Take an in-game save (CTRL+s).
11. Now, continue with low density development until the whole works goes profitable.  No industry of any kind.  You have to make the nut of expenses.
12. Somewhere in here, when you can afford it or if the game demands it, add fire service.  Education next, then health and finally police as cash flow permits.
13. Drop in a plaza somewhere in the CBD.  A big one if you like.
14. Since you have now been playing for an hour or so, do an internal save and when it finishes click the OK box and go get a coffee or otherwise take a break while the game runs and builds some capital for you.

 

Now that you have a start, the rest is up to you.  When you think the demands for C$$ and C$$$ are getting high enough, start upgrading the C zones.  The buildings will slowly get replaced by better ones. 

 

Add some farms along the edges.  They need power.  Water would be nice, but not really needed. 

 

When you start getting a lot of no-job zots, pick an out of town spot and zone some medium industry, watered and powered.  Four eight by eights separated by streets will do the job.  You should probably add freight rail and run it off the nearest edge to dump your freight.  Don't forget that you need a freight station, but you can also run tracks through the I zones.  The farms also need access to the rail system, so maybe your industrial zone should be next to the farms. 

 

Don't forget to connect both the farms and the industrial to the residential.  An elevated rail would be nice.  You can convert this to subway later.  You'll need bus service in the I areas to get workers from the EL station(s) to the jobs.

 

This is now a matter of patience and playing the game.  Once things get going, you may want to shift gears to Rhino for better response time.  Enjoy the game, and especially some of the animation features.

 

One more point.  If possible, force the go-to-work traffic through the CBD main drag.  This is good for business.

 

They key to all this is:  If you go into the red, add more housing.  Sims are your taxpayers.  Try and keep the number of Sims around double the number of jobs.  Mama Sim doesn't work.

[frostback 0]

This is mainly my problem. I want a huge city with a lot of commercial in the center.

SC4(deluxe) seems hard. SC3000 was way easier xD.

 

[memedoug85 36]

Normally every city has only four neighbors, but check out the config i made ---> 

 

 

I've got three rivers running into the middle from each of the three corners, thinking about lake or something in the middle... Once I'm ok with the shape and waterways I'll start thinking about highways... 

 

Small towns, I'd say about eight to start off with. Rail connecting them faster then highways. This will encourage freight which will boost res demand and in turn raise com demand....

 

This is where com starts demanding high density industry with airport etc... Most difficult part of Simcity 4 for me is transforming medium density ind to high den ind.... 

 

Once this is on the right track you can start thinking about highrises.... Small patches on a large regional map stand out more then only one central CBD.......

 

Dont use anything othe rthen wind power for a long time... Legalise gambling is a sneaky $100... Only build clinc and/or fire when affordable. If its not then zone more res....

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I posted an analysis of your large city in the other thread.

 

Sorry, no miracle cities.  Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither will any Sim City.  Have fun.  If you want something that will build in a couple of hours wait for SimCity 2013.  I predict you will be bored stiff in a couple of weeks.