Region Wide Neighbor Deals

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

I have a region that is made of 9 large city tiles. The city in the center north is the jump starter bedroom city with some industrial and C$ scattered throughout the residential zones like grocery stores you would find on corners and shopping avenues but very little offices (made use of the historical button). The center city so far is 100% commercial and is the utility hub for power and water for the entire region. There is an island in the northern half where the utility buildings were built. I think there's enough room for about 6-8 high capacity power plants (Natural gas with no pollution) and I have water pump buildings that might as well be cheats as they pump out tremendous amounts of water. Don't think I need more than 2 of them. The region in the center south city is to be the garbage dump for the entire region. That's where the challenge comes in especially once the corner cities get developed.

 

So far I managed to get these 3 cities up and running. The bedroom and commercial cities are in the black financially. For the first time I am trying to send garbage in a way that it gets shipped through the adjacent city to another. I was able to set up deals so that garbage was being exported to the commercial city and then the commercial city exports it to the southern garbage dump city. Now when I open the corner cities, the garbage will have to go through 2 city tiles before reaching the dump city. Last night when I went into my commercial city, i got complaints about the garbage though the deal seemed to be still going through. I'm guessing that's because the commercial city is exporting a little less than a 1000 tons of garbage with its own garbage combined with the northern city and so far in the dump city, I only placed a garbage dock that processes 1000 tons per month. I plan on putting more garbage disposal solutions in the dump city but I'm trying to avoid any waste to energy lots because I want to keep consistent with the center city supplying power to the entire region with no help. Anyone tried this before on a region wide scale and is this sustainable?

 

Here is a pic of the region. It's not my usual terraform work but just wanted something flat to experiment on

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

Anyone?

[Turjan 1,048]

Just so you know that someone was actually reading your topic, yes, it's an interesting experiment but, no, I have never done this. I usually make my cities self-sufficient. I found neighbor deals to be too much work.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

At the moment, I have a similar situation on my most recent region.  The large port city of Cunegonda also included a large PEG garbage dock.  It gets garbage from several connected cities, but only two of them have a direct hookup.

 

What I found out relatively quickly was that I didn't have enough capacity to handle all the garbage for the home city plus everything coming in from elsewhere.  The garbage deals were stuck.  So I built another large PEG garbage dock.  This cured the problem.  The garbage docks are far apart.  One is in the southern harbour, and the other is in an inlet in the far Northeast corner of the map.  Distribution is proceeding fairly well.  The rest have to pass their garbage through neighbouring Bellingham.

 

You should make a note to yourself that you need to check your garbage deals regularly after you have expanded any city.

 

Even though they are expensive, I have scattered recycling centres around the various cities using the ratio of 25000 Sims : 1 recycle centre.  You don't need these right away, but they do cut down on garbage shipments.

 

You don't say what kind of garbage arrangements you are using beyond the garbage dock.  Don't be shy about having more than one either adjacent or separated.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

Thanks Noony. I have 3 recycling lots, the big administer of garbage building and some landfills in the north city only because that was the kickstarter city and had to develop. In the southern garbage city I plopped 6 garbage docks so far. In the menu the description says 1000 capacity. But not sure how to read the in game query. The development so far is producing around 8,000 tons region wide so far so not sure if I have enough to support whats there now. I'm building the garbage city slowly until I can get enough deals to afford to spam the city with many docks and other garbage solutions. I am in the market for a very high capacity garbage processing lot but I want something that looks realistic. I have the little one where garbage gets chucked over the side of the region but that would ruin my experiment. It seems too much of a cheat but if I get desperate I just might use it.

 

Since I am now exporting garbage out of the north city, does that render those garbage facilities useless or are they still being used?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Check them to see if they are still in use.  You can eat a landfill by putting down a waste to energy plant next to it and setting the funding to zero.  It will consume garbage anyway.  Takes a long, long time.  As the grids in the land fill empties, you can dezone them (v).  You may have to run the city for a couple of hundred Sim-years to clear out landfills.

 

Once you recover the land, check the pollution levels on it, and see if you can find another use for it.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

What about the garbage docks? Exactly how much do they consume a month? I'm not very clear on that. Perhaps because I don't really know how to read the query. Or is it what's stated in the menu I should focus on (where it says "capacity 1000 tons")?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

If you are using PEGs docks they are 500 and 1000 tons respectively.  The query panel tells you how they are doing, and if you use that in conjunction with the garbage display, you'll see if you are getting all of it or only some of it. 

 

It does give you a figure for uncollected garbage.  If this starts going up, you need more capacity.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

Thanks again. I'll let you know how it goes after I got all the cities going.