commercial/residential building levels question

[SlimGenre 2]

Actually 2 quick questions...

 

First question is a $%&^! question... I know buildings "mature" so to speak, or are razed and rebuilt at least as they grow.  I hear people talk about tier/level 5/6/7 buildings, etc.  How do you know what tier/level a certain building is?

 

Second question is probably also a $%&^! question.  Regarding commercial high density buildings.  Most of my residential buildings in my main city are pretty large, housing 3000 people or more.  However the commercial buildings in the same area are all still pretty small.  Since I was given the option to build a stock exchange, some of the commercial buildings have begun to grow but still no where near what I see in some other peoples pics on the forums.  This city tile is about 160k people, my whole region is only about 200k (been working pretty extensively on this one tile and expanding out from there).  Commercial demand is very high.

 

Any tutorials on commercial districts I should read?  Or does someone have a quick answer as to why my residential is dwarfing my commercial in building size, or is that just how the game works and I should just be patient?

 

Thanks all

 

ps, after I posted this I noticed that it blanked out the word otherwise pronounced as "nube" with two O's

[Ltw 401]

The size of buildings depends on the demand you have for that type. If your demand for services is high it might be worth considering building large commercial zones with a low density. The office-buildings will grow when your demand for that type is high enough. If your demand for offices is high, your lack of development could be caused by a small grid-size. A common grid style is 2x2, this works fine for early development but it could be that the grid-size doesn't grow further, normally it would be changed in 4x4. It could also be that the buildings you see in city journals etc. are plopables. I use plopable buildings in my CBD because I want really high skyscrapers in a certain area (not randomly throughout the city). These skyscrapers often have jobs. They should be placed with care though! If you place those skyscrapers with 4000+ jobs your demand will drop. I only place skyscrapers with 4000 jobs when I have a demand of 16.000, when I have a demand of 24.000 I will place larger skyscrapers. In these cases it is important to watch the RCI-graph closely.

[SilverCyric 131]

Not a bad idea at all if you like plopping, which I do on occasion, usually to try and soak up that crazy CS$ demand. But as far as growing, you'll need a pretty large regional population, say 600,00+, to really get you're commercial areas to grow tall, It's about Stage Growth, maybe what you're calling tier level. I play with CAM so I have some modified demand drives and 15 stages as opposed to original 8 stages of growth. But also Stage Growth depends on your total regional population of that type of demand. It's quite possible to have Stage 10 Residential, Stage 7 Industrial, but only have a stage 3 Commercial, just depends on how you zone and develop your cities.

[T Wrecks 10,210]

The correct term is stage. The higher the stage, the taller the building and the tighter the lot. For example, a given building may require a 3x3 lot on stage 5, a 2x3/3x2 lot on stage 6, and a very compact 2x2 lot on stage 7. The reason is pretty obvious: Higher stage = taller buildings and higher density due to more compact lots.

 

The word that got auto-corrected is censored because it is often used in a derogatory sense. There are more neutral terms like "beginner", "newcomer", "rookie", or even "newbie".

 

As for your problem with commercial skyscrapers, I bet it's the usual stuff: Too many high-density zones. As you correctly stated, buildings will be overgrown by better stuff ("better" = more jobs and/or higher wealth) from time to time. Now if the game has many, many, many zones available that are not yet maxed out, it will probably spread the demand all over these zones so you'll have many smaller upgrades.

 

If you use zone densities wisely, you'll limit the game's upgrade options, forcing it to load off all of its demand on a few high-density zones strategically placed at desirable spots (high traffic, low pollution, good police/fire protection, plazas etc. nearby). This will improve your chance of getting skyscrapers considerably.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Keep your CBD small.  Start out with a couple of blocks of medium density 2 x 2 lots back to back.  When things look good, upgrade the zoning to high density.  Create lots of traffic on all the streets passing these blocks.  Don't be shy about doing a little urban demolition and rezoning of adjacent lots as things start to proliferate.  High traffic is one of the big clues to getting a successful CBD.

[SlimGenre 2]

Thank you all, very helpful.  My problem is probably that I'm building my city in sections, not the traditional sense of how a city would naturally build itself over time.  I've been working on my cbd recently, so likely when I go out and work on other things (more suburbs, low density shopping centers, etc) I'll probably come back to my cbd later and it will have grown in relation to the rest of the city.

 

I rarely pay attention to specific demands, and certainly should.  I see high commercial demand, I should probably be finding out what type of commercial is demanded.

 

Also, thank you for the term stage, I guessed

 

Is there a way to know what stage a certain building is?

[Ltw 401]

For as far as I know there isn't a easy way to see the stage of a building. However, this might help. This is a list of all the default Maxis-buildings with their growth stage and other useful information. You could search the building if you have doubts whether it is completely developed.

[Bdub01 201]

I tend to bump my C demand up by creating low and medium wealth cities nearby. I like to tax R$$$ and CO$$$ at the full amount so they won't build in these cities thus raising demand in the city you go want high skyscrapers to grow.