Codename: Jevial

[Revenger 13]

Region: This region is my codename Jevial its very loosely based on my own city for my thought patterns but its built entirely differently with very minor similarities.

 

You can comment in the thread and help steer the direction I build this city with your input so feel free to suggest and comment away and give ideas.

 

Th city is 12x12 large square with medium tiles all around the outer edge and the plan is to fill up all around the river and ocean at least with all housing industry and commercial in every little space pretty much with some natural bushland around the places.

 

I do not autozone roads on this region instead I build every road and street myself even if allot are gridpack though the suburbs I build non gridpack roads.

 

I am looking for any suggestions on mods I should use and ideas for making the city as pretty as possible.

 

Here is the current region view its only limited to what is built currently, look on post 3 for the transformer map view and this image will update periodically when I remember to update it as most of the time I save while drawpaths are on after working on something something and that shows up on region view also.

 

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Update: 5/3/13: New region hand made by me to my desires and inner cravings for how I feel with how I want to build a city

 

Design ideas and if anyone wants to draw me stuff to build like rivers road networks etc appreciated.

 

This thread will be my log of the region.

 

 

Old stuff:

 

I started this region using one I found here.

 

At the moment I am just building the first city infrastructure and learning how to build with the mods etc so its unlimited funds atm everything I am doing ends up needing to be built many times to get placements right etc.

 

Here is the region, Excuse the grey bars due to the 1920x1200 resolution I run.

 

I'm not sure where to lay things out to the right I want a port side city at the bay inlet and other than that I'm not too sure.

 

 

Here is my city you can see the initial infrastructure going through.

 

Rail is just down the center next to the sunken highway on over road elrail to the ground station then one line to a subway just to pass under the road and continue south the other east next to that bridge.

 

Highways and rail will continue east on the region to the bay and wherever it may go the west one to the small city I dunno what I am going to do about that. 

 

The blank at the top between the highway is a tunnel and I had thought originally that that could be where my main commercial city center area is, with the area south for high rise residential and some landmarks but I don't know now.

 

 

 

 

So I'm looking for ideas where I should plan to build on the region my main areas and highways and infrastructure etc.

 

Also ideas on how best to do my road networks than just the straight gridpack, using NAM, RTMTV, NWM I haven't put CAM in yet is it worthwhile for me?

 

So advice on my central area with how to build it up and region would be great feel free to draw over the images with ideas etc for avenues highways rail etc.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

CAM is a huge extension and to properly install it you need to modify some of the default game tables.  If you do put it in, be sure to keep backups of the stuff that changes.  Because it effectively doubles the number of stages in building, it takes much longer to get tall buildings.  For CAM you should also pick off some CAMpatible lots.

 

You can get rid of the bars on your region by dropping your vertical resolution down, opening and saving each city, then you can put the resolution back up.  Vertical resolution < 1200 will help you fix this.  If you don't mind the annoyance, don't bother.

 

Pick a spot where you will probably have your downtown, put in a pair of crossed streets, and start building with some low density CS$.  I like the second bight to the left of the bridge.  This can grow easily into a port area complete with industrial pod, but take it slowly, build a few farms to get going, and stay in the black.

 

After the CS$ starts building, add some low density residential.

 

I run on hard by the way.

 

With all that infrastructure you are probably in the red right now.  I don't build that stuff until I can afford it.

[Revenger 13]

Been just giving myself money atm just to get something built as I'm going through $$$$$$ on having to do some things 10+ times to get it right so that's not a issue about being in the black just yet once I get something running and up going I'll work on that area with money. That 2nd bight is round where I was thinking and looks good also.

 

I was think around the highway tunnel to turn into pedestrian strips and such and behind the highway for major train rail etc on a central connection.

 

But not exactly too sure on it all just yet.

[Revenger 13]

I have decided this time to make my own region since NAM 3.1 is released. that is more compatible with the RWH for my tastes as it appears that maxis highways are being phased out in some form and moved top project symphony.  As for the other region Ill put that experience down to testing and building networks as its not too compatible with RHW 6c etc what I had built.

 

I present my hand made custom region, as it stands right now which is very loosely based on my own city of Perth Western Australia.

 

All rivers are contour drawn and smoothed a few contours at a time so it flows like a normal river and isn't just flattened out. (note: north river isn't contoured yet after the island I just noticed)

 

Its 12 large + 1 medium by 12 large  + 1 medium square so very large and scrolls on the simcity 4 region overview.

 

Ideas and features for what you would like to see or feel can be done are appreciated and I'll incorporate them into the map where I can.

 

Feel free to draw on the map ideas you would like me to incorporate and where zones should be..

 

Eventually I will be uploading this region here for download..

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Quite a nice layout.  Will you be using Terraformer for this or making a gray-scale map?

[Revenger 13]

That's what has been built already in Terraformer by hand over the last couple days by hand.

The nice long white beaches don't translate well so I'll have to do those ingame with the terraforming tools at some stage.

I have base ideas for where i''m going to build, west to the coast and southwest will be a highway with rural etc.

With the south inlet light and budget residential etc very south around bottom of the river a industrial area and between the north river and the coast a kinda urban concrete sprawl with industrial and residential and the commercial hotspot right in the center.

Very north, east and southwest and southeast will all be agriculture and lots of it.

With the majority of building and city areas around the rivers.

As its based very loosly on my city that's how its laid out here and I guess I'm comfortable building something similar to concepts and design to what I know already even if its my own total new city based on a lose geography that's like 7x the scale and has a river going north which doesn't exist in real life etc.

If anyone is wondering here is my real city for referance, as you can see design kinda same layout in some small ways actually not much at all.

And the hills will be rural and a small city around that lake in the mountains.

[Turjan 1,048]

There is a Perth area map out there btw Of course, making your own map allows for easier building and more customization.

[Revenger 13]

There is a Perth area map out there btw Of course, making your own map allows for easier building and more customization.

 

Didn't realize there was a map but making one myself I can modify it anyway I want as I'm not making it cannon to this city.

 

I wanted a similar design to something I would be familiar to building to with my mindset but not the same one in layout.

 

Also willing to build in a few things if anyone has ideas to make the map unique.

[Revenger 13]

Started ingame editing based on that terraformed map.

 

I am going to be adding many other features rivers lakes etc to the map so in the end its going to end up very different to my real city I am basing initial layouts and plans on.

 

As other people have used base areas as starters for there own regions aka parkland featured on the main page etc.

 

I have code named this Jevial for now out of a random name to get a region saved.

 

Naming suggestions are welcome.

 

Here is the first centralish map base terraformed ingame before I start building I'll fix up that island now so the trees go all the way round the edge. (have done as well as the under water level round the island)

 

I will be terraforming it ingame to add things rivers lakes etc as I go about building using godmode terraform as sc4terraformer imo should only be used as a rough basis to get the layout semi there then you need to do proper finishing ingame from what I have found.

 

Update: bah if you level at a beach it adds grass cant do long sandy beach stretches so I'll have to make do with what I have.

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Looks good.  Once you get some flora and fauna on there, you could be ready to play.

 

Getting a sandy beach is a matter of using the mayor mode civ. eng. tools to lower the shore line just enough.  If you overdo it, it will be considered to be water.  These tools have the same modifiers as the god mode tools using the SHIFT+<number>+<function key>.  You could also use the land digging tools in NAM v31, but they might be a little drastic. 

 

It is amazing what can be accomplished with the mayor mode levelling tool with a little finesse between the water and the shore line.  Sometimes a single click will do the job.

[Revenger 13]

Time to show my central region.

 

Transport is seriously lacking its only busses atm and the single south rail.

 

North will be continue of big highway east will be a continuation of the CBD and residential to the river filling in that area.

 

Main CBD needs residential and amenities its all commercial atm till I save up enough for a redesign and highway etc planning just to sit saving till 2mill.

 

Commercial seems medium and low wealth are through the roof no-one wants high commercial even though are areas are zoned to grow into so dunno how I can raise that up.

 

Tips on transport and glr etc are welcome. I have left gaps for where I plan to extend etc.

 

Always way I can make a nice profit as I'm averaging about 5k surplus or so which is just enough to build or sit and save not a real good amount. which isn't all too much. (ill get actual figures next time I load it up.)

 

I noticed that I need a park or 2 in road square area I zone to attract buildings to upgrade which is fine and my city looks better off for it.

 

Industrial area is taxed both dirty and manufacturing at 13% left bottom is all commercial and hightech industry.

 

So here it is the central as it stands now.

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

 Looks good so far.  Those islands will make good recreation centres and R$$$ residential.  Use ferries, not bridges.  What kind of neighbour connections do you have?

[Revenger 13]

Hoping to leave the islands as natural as I can but with tourists and not built on, the one to the east will have the highway or something running through the center for looks but the sides with the lakes natural.

 

East every straight road is pretty much connection ave and road and others are just the aves to the south east west and south and the south rail.

 

I haven't connected the highway up as I dunno how I am going to do that as the highway is split by the rail.

 

Here is regional satellite showing the immediate map regions around.

 

Yep pretty much in a way recreating the city and central area in some form but already its very different as the main freeway/highway is on the wrong side of the river to what we have here in my city but that's just because that's where my mind is naturally going and wanting to build but apart from that it will branch out onto its own with semi resemblance like network lines etc in the usual directions we have here and new lines etc also will be added.

 

Planning to keep as much residential on or close to the waterfront as I can in the suburbs etc with central top being business on the water and very east at the ocean will be the port etc.

 

But smaller ports on each map probably and airports I have one in central even though in rl its meant to be that region you can see a littler bit of at bottom right.

 

I know I have the transformer version above but better seeing ingame.

 

As you can see not all maps have been loaded and saved only the main ones around river have and any that showed up as all sky.

 

Industrial ion central bottom left is on the cards to get rid off once I can do away with it but its taxed at 13% and generating me some reasonable money.

 

The highrise top left keep having the no work symbol regardless of soo much commercial around so that's going to be north, west and northwest.

 

Excuse the corruption I play at 1920x1200 and yes I know you save each region at a lower res as you can see the westernmost region is fine but I prefer to play in a large screen and spend nearly all of my time in a region so it doesn't really bother me though I would love it to be fixed at higher resolutions. 

 

[Revenger 13]

A quick update but no pics.

 

I redesigned the main CBD with a ship port and marina etc.

 

I put on a couple lots here one that incinerates waste with no pollution another is a 500,000 capacity waterpump and treatment in one which also earns you some money back but I need 2-3 of those as I was using 6 of the large waterpumps on my city.

 

My average income was 2,000 simoleans left over but now is 10,000 after switching to those waterpumps and incinerators.

 

I got rid of all dirty and manufacturing and now I need to start another map with them as now my demand for houses have gone to total crap as a result of no goods and services being produced.

 

As you cant deal with the pollution and you cannot get a totally clean city that's where another lot from here comes in to clean up the air pollution as in rl its not as bad as the simcity makes it out to be.

 

Especially manufacturing which here we have plenty of in welshpool etc and they don't pollute much at all.

 

As here in rl I grew up next to a light industrial area and was no issues at all apart from a small smell which went over the suburb at night which was dubbed the parkwood pong.

 

Also how am I going to do the 6s rhw with rail through the middle as you need the blue connector right between them if there not together but I have rail?

 

I'll post in its relevant thread.

 

Not too happy with the reconcile edges button, it said I had no issues but it didn't match the edge up as its only a rough one :/ I was half expecting a perfect reconcile as it put my highway flat without the raised barrier etc till I made major changes.

 

Guess it has leeway built in for building next to the edge of the map when there slightly out but would of been nice to have a perfect reconcile button.

 

Also installed the census so tomorrow ill get some screens done of all the updates.

 

Also what setting in traffic simulator for commute time should I be using?  its set as default grayed out and all my sims are whinging the commute time is long even when there work place is a few streets away.

 

I want a central CBD and residential etc around and out in the suburb regions not every residential highrise surrounded by commercial so they can all like next door to them as that's not right here it takes people 2-3 hours to get to work on public transit and we still do it and find things to do like read, use a tablet on internet etc, listen to music etc.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Not bad. 

 

I see you have the 1200 px vertical problem.  You can either continue and fix it when you have opened each city, or you can re-render.  Since you are so far along, I'd formally open each city then close the game, set your vertical resolution to something less that 1200, open the game and open and save each city tile.  This will get rid of the stripes from the bad render.  You can then return to your higher resolution and all will be well.

 

Next time you are creating a region, try it with the lower resolution and you'll avoid this bug.

[Revenger 13]

The bug is that you save in a higher doesn't matter if its the first or 100th time or what resolution you previously saved at you can see the city below the main one south central I saved in a lower resolution in god before mayor to start now I'm building the city and saved and that strip is back again which I can show on a screenshot to confirm it.

 

Only way to fix it pertinently is to play and save every single time in a lower resolution without running the game in the higher resolution.

 

And I don't want to play in a lower resolution as I like the higher one and screen real estate one, its pointless for me and time consuming to save normally then every single time to take a screenshot to drop the resolution down open every city and re-save knowing that next time I open and play and save at the higher res it'll do the same thing again.

[Revenger 13]

Some updates started working on South central today.

 

Got it to around 13,000 and still allot more to do.

 

Here is screenshots click for larger view.

 

First my central improved area.

 

 

Then my central census and could use info back what it means and how to improve it.

 

 

Now the suburbs in south central which are all apartments and medium on the connecting road and light in the middle and will be like that for most of the maps as it spread out.

 

I find it funny that the game tells me I have too many roads but its mostly streets around the houses.

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Progressing nicely.  Is the north central green area reserved for something?

[Revenger 13]

Progressing nicely.  Is the north central green area reserved for something?

 

Not really its mainly just a natural nature island and want to keep it that way as you need some nature in a sea of concrete.

 

Once I fill in the blanks around the areas/zones I have with more housing etc there won't be much natural green space left.

 

The area at central has been filled alittle more on southwest area with the residential area to the west border etc.

 

At the moment I left between each zone type blank mostly on southwest and sough but I am going to start filling those in with residential and commercial etc.

 

Also I'm going to place some stuff like sidings for the highway walls etc and if I can find as I read references it a seawall to go around the river for my cbd and built up areas.

 

I want to try to get $$$ commercial in the central as south has it alittle and no commercial there all houses at this stage to try to get them to work and build up the CBD which seems to be working as my trainline is carrying 10,000 to the central area and highway not used yet as I don't think nam lets you split a RHW highway like that as you need a invisible piece which takes up a tile the alternative is to to branch the rail off to the side for the border and bring it back in after the border change.

 

Immediate east to water and north for abit will be mainly gridpack residential and commercial etc continuing with built up areas where sough is mainly open housing and surburbs once I get around to building it.

 

I calculated that I have 144 large maps on this region not including the medium ones which is 193 maps total in the region.

 

Not all maps will be populated with all pavement probably about (counting only large) 50-60 or so maps will be suburban and fully zoned about 30-50ish will be farmland and rural towns and 24 or so will be mountain towns the rest being water which won't be used apart from the island.

 

Note don't calculate that as the amounts don't add up to the total I posted as there about ranges.

 

Knowing that mostly ill be doing roughly 50 full zoned to the edge maps is going to take 2-3 months if I do a map every day or two :/

 

Also note all those roads in both maps are hand drawn first before I even start zoning them as I rarely use the auto zone tool.

 

It's worth it to keep me occupied and I'll speed up my building technique as I go.

 

This is going to be one big project it seems to do this.

[Revenger 13]

Not much to show but here is the region as it stands tonight.

 

You can see east central going to be a continuation of the CBD and all other borders are also a continuation of the zones as carice is only hightech at the moment and extends in that area in east central and central as you can see and low density commercial next to hightech.

 

Abit north will be a near 100% industrial zone once I get that far.

 

Soo far the sims are crying for low paid office work and don't want $$$ stuff as that's all minus and now the RCI is telling me that I don't need residential and only low paid commercial and hightech.

 

Which kinda sucks when I'm trying to get towers.

 

So the region doesn't want any sims or $$$ work,

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Starting to look good.  I guess this is for a CJ?  Hope you have a good narrative to go with all this.

[Revenger 13]

Not really planning a journal and narrative, I'm just mainly building a region to how I want to and using this thread to post up what I'm doing.

 

I realised there will be abit of redesign again around central and east to get it more to how I want at some stage as the highway is going to go under the north of the tracks commercial area east wards next to the rail line.

 

The rail between the hub and main highway will be sunken st some stage transition to subway then back again.

 

There will be rail continuing in the middle of the highway north.

 

I need to do GLR around the central and west central but no idea what route to take so someone can enlighten me on where they think it should go I want to link up to west residential around the hill to GLR to the CBD etc.

 

Eventually get some lots to do walls around highways etc.

 

May rip up more CBD and west side of highway around to raise the terrain abit etc for overpasses etc and detailing but I'll see what happens.

 

There will be allot of redesigns for polishing and doing things with the terrain etc than what is now.

[Revenger 13]

Extending the highway north but hit a snag.

 

I want to make this interchange but finding it pretty hard and its going over my head at the moment.

[Revenger 13]

I made this today after a few hours, its not as compact as I like.

 

[Revenger 13]

Interchange update and here is a very near final version.

 

I need to work out on the top right hand lane how to do a on and offramp and theirs no space for both only 1 of them so any ideas?

 

Reason I need both is from tunnel I need a exit to the north of the city as the avenue at the bottom is the only exit from tunnel currently, as well as a second entry rather than that avenue at the bottom which is basically the only onramp also going north and that's not good.

 

I would have put more on/offramps but RHW is just not flexible enough to do that and mis cant be branched off to 2 mis lanes which I kinda need here.

 

Also for whoever is viewing this thread please comment back would mean allot, other than me feeling like I'm talking to myself here.

 

[Turjan 1,048]

Also for whoever is viewing this thread please comment back would mean allot, other than me feeling like I'm talking to myself here.

 

Heh . I'm looking, but as I have hardly ever used the RHW for anything, I have not tips. It's shaping up to look very nice, though .

 

Just curious: Whose retaining walls did you use?

[Revenger 13]

Also for whoever is viewing this thread please comment back would mean allot, other than me feeling like I'm talking to myself here.

 

Heh . I'm looking, but as I have hardly ever used the RHW for anything, I have not tips. It's shaping up to look very nice, though .

 

Just curious: Whose retaining walls did you use?

Cheers on the look.

 

The RHW is allot of trial and error to get right but its worth experimenting and trying things out and looking online on these forums and simcity4deviation and watching youtube vids etc.

 

One thing is you need paitence when building something as you will find yourself always redoing things 10+ times to get them right in the end as everything is done in certain combinations and you need to do them in order.

 

Also remember to turn on draw paths in the cheats dll for shift-ctrl-alt-x as with RHW direction paths are very important, I always plop the piece I'm about to use on the side so I can see the direction before placement that way it helps me just confirm to place them in the right direction etc. 

 

Here are the walls.

 

Managed to get around the 1 only intersection I could have done I extended the duel straight way had the inner rhw4 on a reverse onramp and a flexfly and doing the oframp from the tunnel rightmost side going north now to a road bridge at the border I'll do a screen when its done.

[Turjan 1,048]

Ah, thanks. Those should come in handy.

 

I'm not sure why, but I always liked the look of the Maxis highways. The ramps could be slightly longer, but that's about it. They remind me of the motorways in the Bay Area, even the sharp up and down angles when you switch from ground highway to elevated or back. Which means that I will probably not use many features of the RHW anytime soon, except some very basic overland road replacements.

 

But I have to admit that your solution with the sunken RHW intersection looks pretty nice. Good work!

[Revenger 13]

Maxis highways has the features of RHW now under project symphony with the latest NAM to be RHW compatible,
 
You cant do this with maxis highways and here is the final completed intersection with all the buildings built up around it.
 
Each exit and entrance handles 3/4,000+ cars and 10,000+ buses theirs both north and south entrances and exits and one on the west side coming from north, as for that non existent north incoming exit southside I just added it in and image has been updated.
 
I think I did well in this and am very pleased with the result 2-3 days building and a couple trying to get my head around it.

 

Update: I missed adding a second onramp for the tunnel and on traffic graph the only mis onramp from that city is orange, running at 30,000 buses and 3,000 cars :/ so ill have to do some big changes mby to add one in northside but ill do that tomorrow and change the image when its done on this post.

 

Had a quick look don't think I can fix it as I have no more space to add in a extra entry there.
 
Here is the real interchange in my city which is similar and I had open the whole time building.
 

[Revenger 13]

Worked out how to add that second onramp but bugs in rhw prevent me from doing it fully and it pretty much destroys a good chunk 20 blocks worth of the stuff or so on the left at the border for what should be a simple intersection of just 2 ramps next to each other due to stupid curves etc.

 

Also due to space etc and how rhw works, just for 2 ramps takes up a big chunk of space as height transitions curves etc all play a negative factor and means more wasted space.

 

I don't have images yet but will do in time once complete I will try to revisit the interchange and try to work around the bugs on different implantations if I can but the way I was going to do it also looked semi decent..