Commute and Traffic

[grant903 0]

I'll admit I'm not the type of person who wants to see a city grow. I just click and plop and build my own big city. I really want to plop my big residential buildings, but they become abandoned sometime after. I have roads and avenues everywhere but it doesn't change. Is there a mod (not NAM) that allows to remove or extremely shorten commute with little effort? Is there a way to change the cities internal files or something? I hate commute time a lot, and don't want to spend HOURS on a city... Help me?

[Prophet42 1,500]

NAM is about the only thing that will improve the traffic situation and shorten commute time. As far as not being able to plop residential buildings, the way the game computes a trip is hard coded and cannot be changed. A plopped residential building will not generate a trip and therefore will go abandonded. As far as I know, there is no way to create a mod that makes the game generate trips from a plopped residential building.

[grant903 0]

Thanks, I guess I can check out NAM, but it seems like a lot of downloading and updating

[Indiana Joe 1,750]

Actually all the NAM components were recently combined into one big package.  Install it once and you're good until the next update.  You're really missing out if you don't have it--it really fixes commute time in the game.  And adds a whole bunch of transit options.  You can of course opt out of anything you don't want in the installer.

 

[z1 566]

Also, the NAM has an option to install the only the NAM traffic simulator.

[Ro-Bo 183]

For SimCity 4, if you want big cities, pretty much you have to spent a lot of time on them.

 

_{For me, that's why SC4 is addictive.}

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

SC4 is a leisure activity, and not designed to quickly produce much of anything except debt if you are not careful. 

 

Take your time, run in default (turtle) hard mode, and play at a gentle pace.  It doesn't matter if you take ten years to build a region into something.  This is an exercise in problem solving, not really a city builder.  As soon as you open a new city you have an immediate problem of where to start a town, then with every move you make, things get more complicated as more problems need to be solved.  Growables beat ploppables six ways from the origin.  It is more fun to see things grow than to just drop them in and watch them abandon.

 

SC4 can also be used as a canvas on which to paint your dream cities.

 

The whole idea of this game is to relax, unwind, and waste as much time as you can afford.  If you can't afford much time right now, save the city.  It will wait for your next entry.

[Bdub01 201]

My understanding is that plopping R buildings doesn't work. Apperantly there is a bug or something that makes them abandon quickly, unlike CO or CS buildings.

[infamousjbe 592]

My understanding is that plopping R buildings doesn't work. Apperantly there is a bug or something that makes them abandon quickly, unlike CO or CS buildings.

From what I've read, it can be done.

 

Supposedly the technique is, plopping the Bat immediately after destroying which ever building was built in that location. Even then, it also stated that your R demand has to be quite high as well. And even after all is said and done, the chances of the R building not eventually abandoning is still slim to none. 

 

Probably more of pain than it's worth. Though it would be nice to be able to plop an R building once in a while instead of doing the bulldoze & repeat method.

[Turjan 1,048]

 

My understanding is that plopping R buildings doesn't work. Apperantly there is a bug or something that makes them abandon quickly, unlike CO or CS buildings.

From what I've read, it can be done.

 

Supposedly the technique is, plopping the Bat immediately after destroying which ever building was built in that location. Even then, it also stated that your R demand has to be quite high as well. And even after all is said and done, the chances of the R building not eventually abandoning is still slim to none. 

 

I had it work once. When I bulldozed the building much later, I noticed that the game had failed to delete the zoning information below the plopped building, which it usually does upon plopping. This might have been the reason why it worked, but I wouldn't be able to tell you how. Probably a fortunate glitch.