RHW vs Maxis Highways

[Turjan 1,048]

It really depends on what you want. I like the Maxis highways, as they remind me of the Bay Area. If you use the San Francisco map, they are a close to perfect match. Narrow lanes, check. Washed out concrete color, check. Weird sharp angles for overpasses etc., check. The only thing missing is the many potholes, as I cannot bring myself to cut the highway funding down to levels that match reality .

 

So, choose what suits you.

[monomass 36]

Two very different view points! Thank you both. From what I understand, you can't make tunnels with RHW (although I'm aware that there are work-arounds, such as turning the highway into an avenue, etc.), and RHW doesn't seem to get as congested at the onramps. Can anyone confirm these beliefs? Is it mostly a matter of aesthetics?

[Adjiebrotot 94]

if you don't like RHW (but one day i'm sure you will like it) you can use Project Symphony from NAM31... it make your Maxis Highway more realistic

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Basically, the RHW provides more realism.  It also needs a lot of civil engineering to get the grades right.  It is really useful for people who like to pretend there is room for such things in a map that consist of, at most, 4Km squares. 

 

It is much more difficult to use, but it can really use up a lot of time to construct one properly.  With some of the new interchange capabilities you can duplicate almost any set of concrete spaghetti you've ever seen.

 

You could call RHW an opportunity to do some model highway building on the next level.  MHW have the unfortunate property of following the terrain, and do not require any extra land scraping.  Not very realistic, and are there simply to provide higher capacity than avenues. 

 

However, you can invoke the black top road textures from NAM V31 for them to make them look more realistic, or you can convert them using the option for Project Symphony, but that really needs a new city.  Old interchanges don't convert very well, if at all, because the Project Symphony ones are larger (from RHW). 

 

I am afraid that Project Symphony is a misnomer and should really have been Project Synergy.  To invoke this in NAM 31 check the box that reads Maxis Highway Override.  Not very clear but that is it.

[Magneto 316]

To me, the only benefit of RHW is freedom. You can replicate incredibly complex  interchanges, add extra lanes, etc.

 

I don't use it because

 

-it takes too much space

-I don't want to spend 6 hours building a good looking interchange

-too much fiddling

-menu clutter

-no tunnels, not many bridges

-textures may revert  when interacting with other networks

-and the most important yet most subjective topic, the look. I prefer MHWs.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, several years ago I tried RHW and found it too fiddly for my taste at that time.  However, I loaded it with NAM V31 then read the bug list and decided to hold off on using it until V31.1 when many problems will be fixed.  Fighting with a new methodology is bad enough, and much worse if  it includes a little buggy.

 

I will have to wait for my new RHW adventure until my next new region.

 

One of the things that will help greatly are the newly included raise and low individual grid squares lots.  This will allow me to play with graded routes for my train tracks, and I hope make things easier with RHW terrain needs.  I've come to appreciate some of the civil engineering capabilities of the game tools.  Now all we need is a precise bulldozer.

[Haljackey 17,305]

There is already a thread for this. You might find some interesting points about each network there too!

 

https://community.simtropolis.com/topic/49361-rhw-vs-maxis-highways/

[Xyloxadoria 1,099]

There is already a thread for this. You might find some interesting points about each network there too!

 

https://community.simtropolis.com/topic/49361-rhw-vs-maxis-highways/

 

And now they are merged.

[Turjan 1,048]

However, you can invoke the black top road textures from NAM V31 for them to make them look more realistic...

 

You know, I read this all the time, but constant repetition doesn't make the point more valid. I have driven quite often on the motorway I want to show you. This is the motorway that runs past the Maxis studios and where they probably have their inspiration from, with on- and off-ramps:

 

 

Also, compare the lane width of the street to the left with the motorway lane widths. That should look familiar.

 

Here you see the real motorway surface cover (grey concrete) at the place where the off-ramp splits off in the image above:

 

 

There are no fancy breakdown lanes, either (well, not even non-fancy ones ). You can also find that concrete divider of the Maxis highway.

 

And this is how the street to the left, which you could see on the upper image, looks like in Streetview:

 

 

You will notice that the street lane width is about double the motorway lane width. You will also notice that this 8-lane motorway has just about double the width of that 2-lane street. Maxis captured that pretty well in SC4.

 

As a side note: Even the Maxis god mode flora brush, as simplistic as the choice of flora may be, paints a very realistic image of the tree and brush cover of the hills in the area.

[Shortsonfire 67]

It really depends on what you want. I like the Maxis highways, as they remind me of the Bay Area. If you use the San Francisco map, they are a close to perfect match. Narrow lanes, check. Washed out concrete color, check. Weird sharp angles for overpasses etc., check. The only thing missing is the many potholes, as I cannot bring myself to cut the highway funding down to levels that match reality .

So, choose what suits you.

This is what I love about the MHW. Some had said how unrealistic they look, but they remind me of I-680, which I drive all the time. Sure, it'd be nice to be able to add a few more lanes and a bit of variety in the interchanges, but from where I live (and I think Maxis is somewhere in silicone valley) they're pretty similar to what's real.

The symphony pieces look great, too. I can't wait for them to add a couple more interchanges/ramps. A diagonal T- interchange would be great. I dragged a bit of highway to form a diagonal T-interchange and it use the old, small MHW interchange and has a strange graphic shift.

I gave RHW a try, and I really liked the look of them. The flexibility of building the interchanges was awesome, though the cloverleaf I built was huge! I demolished it and went back to MHW, since I was building a dense city. I'll think about transitioning back to RHW when I get to the less dense areas, where I can spread out and really work with the pieces. The pieces are finneky, but if you have a bit of patience, the look pays off.

[Turjan 1,048]

This is what I love about the MHW. Some had said how unrealistic they look, but they remind me of I-680, which I drive all the time. Sure, it'd be nice to be able to add a few more lanes and a bit of variety in the interchanges, but from where I live (and I think Maxis is somewhere in silicone valley) they're pretty similar to what's real.

 

They are on I-580 in Emeryville, just a few miles north from the example I posted above .

[Wiimeiser 444]

I use Symphony, I just wish all the bugs were ironed out...

 

 

As for the RMIP, I'd use it, but I have no Idea how airports work and there are no terminal buildings.

[Haljackey 17,305]

I use Symphony, I just wish all the bugs were ironed out...

 

Oh they will be.

 

I'll tell you this, the first version of Symphony is miles ahead of the first version of the RHW.