Update 6.0

[MOWS 4 U 169]

Update 7/30/2013 - Update 6.0

• New: Granite Lake Region - New 10 city lake region
  • While creating Granite Lake, we had a few key goals:
  • Provide a region with a new visual style that is highlighted by vistas from each city.
  • Two clusters of five cities that are connected by boats traveling across the lake.
  • Create a scenic central lake around which the city sites will be placed.  Include shipping lanes to keep that gameplay option for cities on the shoreline
  • A region with unique and challenging terrain to provide a different experience than the previously released Edgewater Bay.
• New: RCI Tuning - Tuning to make Industrial needed more. Commercial buildings will now lose profit if they don’t receive enough freight from industry. The demand bars will respond more accurately to which zones are needed. This change will impact existing cities.
• New: RCI height variations for Density 3 Buildings. This will add more variety to the look of your cities.
• New: Borderless windowed mode setting.
• Fixes for some issues of the “out of money” problem or unexplained abandonment that some players have experienced.
• Clarity around unfilled jobs and workers to make sure players are messaged that there may be an issue where workers cannot get to unfilled jobs.
• Residential and Commercial buildings are now more consistently in the same wealth in an area of a particular land value. Improves visually consistency.
• Help Wanted, no Shoppers, and No Jobs alerts have been added to the Zoning info panel as alerts.
• Data Layer:
  • Greater map accuracy on the land value map. Residential and Commercial wealth colors added. Abandoned buildings show up red.
  • Land Value map shows when placing parks.
• Fixed issue where RCI sometimes builds on roads.
• Fixed performance slowdown in cities with more than one million tourists.
• UI Clarity: Show which city hall modules are already placed in the region on the palette UI.
• Garbage UI: fixed issue where garbage UI sometimes showed bins that had already been picked up.

[r00n83 12]

Thanks for posting. Updating.

 

Edit: Nice update. No more traffic or crime issues. This update solved the crime and traffic problems caused by the Update 5. Only one issue though how do I fulfill the freight demand in a RC only city?

[Districtopia 23]

I don't notice that the crime problem is any better. Or traffic. Also it seems like buildings are taking much longer to build than they were before. Perhaps the biggest problem though is that some of my missions aren't getting counted as fulfilled even though I'm completely them. For example: in my trade city I had a mission to earn $100,000 from oil exports. I was exporting plenty of oil but it still kept saying 0....

[perafilozof 143]

My cities that I built pre 6.0 so that I could see the effect of 6.0:

Built 4 of them, each at medium density.

Each has about 50% of needed freight made by the factories that take up about 20-25% of the city space. The merchandise-which is freight when brought in a shop, is not getting refiled by the factories fast enough. Shops ran out as soon as I started playing but there wasn't enough freight to go around.

 

All of my C is screaming for more freight, but there is no way I could have enough workers to cover the freight that is now necessary, let alone satisfy those new shoppers with more shops. 

 

Also, all of those 4 cities are just RCI, no specialization to spend freight. 

[Xr3iracer 5]

Could u build less commercial to counter that?!

[stormgear 10]

All of my C is screaming for more freight, but there is no way I could have enough workers to cover the freight that is now necessary, let alone satisfy those new shoppers with more shops.

RCI Tuning is half-baked imo. I think we need this Freight fix in order to really feel its effect.

 

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9637389.page

Currently In Development - (Post 6.0)

 

    New: Brand new tool to create bridges, overpasses, and tunnels when you draw your roads.

When building your road, pressing the , key or . key will lower or raise the road accordingly creating overpasses, bridges and tunnels.

Note: Existing road layouts cannot be raised or lowered

    New: Improvements for Traffic behavior to make it smarter. This should reduce the number of lines formed by all available vehicles converging on a single spot. This affects all vehicles including Police, Fire Trucks, Moving Trucks, Garbage Trucks, Recycling Trucks, Resource Trucks, Buses, Ambulances, and Civilian vehicles going home, to work, or shopping.

    New: Tree tools – Place individual trees around your city. These tools are located at the end of the Nature Parks palette.

    Terrain: Fixes an issue some player’s see where terrain covers sections of roads while the camera is zoomed out.

    Fixed an issue where the fire animation would sometimes continue when fire was extinguished.

    Parks: Sports parks are now accepting Sims 24 hours a day.

    Airship: The number of Airship passenger trips should now be correct over multiple days.

    Vehicles: Vehicles now accelerate and decelerate faster, allowing them to leave buildings and go through intersections more efficiently.

    Freight: Freight trucks now only leave factories if they have a valid delivery destination.

    Gifting: Money gifting should be more reliable.

 

A suggestion that I made where we can put the Freight fix to the other Agents of the game.

[Districtopia 23]

Could u build less commercial to counter that?!

 

I've got a city I had pre-6.0 that had 82% approval and pretty even balance of jobs and population. Now I have thousands of unfilled jobs yet people are leaving because they cannot find shopping. Approval rating has dropped to 52%. I can't STAND the fact that land value map shows when placing parks now either. Wish there was an option to turn it off.

One other thing I'm noticing is that buildings are displaying "not enough room to increase density" notices even though there is more than enough room for them to do so.....

[Xr3iracer 5]

Could u build less commercial to counter that?!

I've got a city I had pre-6.0 that had 82% approval and pretty even balance of jobs and population. Now I have thousands of unfilled jobs yet people are leaving because they cannot find shopping. Approval rating has dropped to 52%. I can't STAND the fact that land value map shows when placing parks now either. Wish there was an option to turn it off.

One other thing I'm noticing is that buildings are displaying "not enough room to increase density" notices even though there is more than enough room for them to do so.....

Having a similar problem of having to zone more industry to fulfil goods orders! I have enough workers but if I add more industry I will have unfilled jobs! I can expand some of my city but I have no room for more industry!

[drunkapple 1,743]

Hmm, make freight a requirement?

 

 

That's a bit of a pain, obviously EA doesn't want high density cities built as the space required to build 8 low wealth high density residential buildings which will provide about 3200 workers will build about 15 high density commercial buildings that provide about 9000 jobs but only 4 high density industrial buildings that will provide only about 2400 jobs.

 

Unfortunately the maths just does not add up.

[specializedguy 193]

Only one issue though how do I fulfill the freight demand in a RC only city?

 

To keep commercial happy in an RC city, you need to lower the taxes. Chris talks about it here: http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/making-industry-matter-rci-improvements.

[specializedguy 193]

I can't STAND the fact that land value map shows when placing parks now either. Wish there was an option to turn it off.

 

I actually like this. I guess you can't please everyone.

[Districtopia 23]

 

I can't STAND the fact that land value map shows when placing parks now either. Wish there was an option to turn it off.

 

I actually like this. I guess you can't please everyone.

 

 

There should just be an option to disable it. or toggle it while you have the park tool open. I mostly don't like it because I use one of the parks to space my roads and it makes it difficult to see.

[specializedguy 193]

Hmm, make freight a requirement?

 

 

That's a bit of a pain, obviously EA doesn't want high density cities built as the space required to build 8 low wealth high density residential buildings which will provide about 3200 workers will build about 15 high density commercial buildings that provide about 9000 jobs but only 4 high density industrial buildings that will provide only about 2400 jobs.

 

Unfortunately the maths just does not add up.

 

You can have a high-rise city next to an industrial-focused city. This would be the strategy I'd suggest. There are those who have built cities with a 1 million population after update 6 with no problems. 

[r00n83 12]

 

Only one issue though how do I fulfill the freight demand in a RC only city?

 

To keep commercial happy in an RC city, you need to lower the taxes. Chris talks about it here: http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/making-industry-matter-rci-improvements.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. They should add an option to tax the hotels separately. The hotels in my tourist city are profitable. Decreasing the commercial tax will decrease it for the hotels too.

[Rufus Honker IV 100]

 

 

Only one issue though how do I fulfill the freight demand in a RC only city?

 

To keep commercial happy in an RC city, you need to lower the taxes. Chris talks about it here: http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/making-industry-matter-rci-improvements.

 

Thanks for the suggestion. They should add an option to tax the hotels separately. The hotels in my tourist city are profitable. Decreasing the commercial tax will decrease it for the hotels too.

 

 

Tax up your residential some to balance.  After all, as a tourist city you're making money off of the tourists, not the residents - they're just workers.

[infoman96 27]

So 6.0 is out? I haven't played in a while so pardon such an obvious question to some.

[stormgear 10]

Hmm, make freight a requirement?

 

 

That's a bit of a pain, obviously EA doesn't want high density cities built as the space required to build 8 low wealth high density residential buildings which will provide about 3200 workers will build about 15 high density commercial buildings that provide about 9000 jobs but only 4 high density industrial buildings that will provide only about 2400 jobs.

 

Unfortunately the maths just does not add up.

Well it is a requirement to begin with, but no one 'felt' the effect of the Freights role in the game because its not working in the first place.

And the IC relationship has been tuned because a lot of people noticed that you can build a city without building the Industry, making it useless. The "C needs Freight from I to be Happy" logic/function is there but its not working and this RCI Tuning from 6.0 is supposed to fix that.

[SockoJr53 51]

I like that industry is now required more than before, (I always preferred dirty industrial cities to clean commercial ones, but that's my own personal play style)  it will just take some tweaking to fix my cities I built before the 6.0 Update. Clearly I need more factories since all the cities have the red flashing zones button now.

Those of you having trouble and thinking you have to tear down all your skyscrapers for factories, just build a new industrial city nearby. I noticed TONS of freight trucks coming from the other region cities to fulfill freight demand in my current city. Freight will cross borders just like commuters if there is a supply elsewhere.

[mapboy 106]

Those of you having trouble and thinking you have to tear down all your skyscrapers for factories, just build a new industrial city nearby. I noticed TONS of freight trucks coming from the other region cities to fulfill freight demand in my current city. Freight will cross borders just like commuters if there is a supply elsewhere.

I've tried doing this, but I could never get enough workers to commute to it, even when there was a worker shortage in the other cities.

[SockoJr53 51]

Upon playing some more with 6.0, I now notice I'm getting berated with freight trucks from the region, even though my in-town factories are actually overproducing goods and there is a surplus over what the commercial stores demand. It appears the trucks aren't coming from another one of my cities, but rather are just randomly generated in the region. That's a big thumbs down in my opinion.

If the freight demand is 1000, and I am producing 1000, then why do I also have 2000 freight "commuting in" from the region? I don't need 3000 freight!

[Noobi-Wan 22]

I expressed concern previously that the traffic would be impacted by the new requirement for freight.

When I checked it appeared that about half of the traffic was delivery trucks going to and fro.

Before sounding off about this does anyone know if this was always the case?

I have to say this was the first time I spotted this but I am not always the most thorough!

[SockoJr53 51]

I think something is wrong Noobi, my cities are now clogged with freight trucks coming from the region, not even the ones my own factories are generating. Check the freight "commuting in" in the population panel, it is always some outlandish number. Since my previous post, I now have 8,000 freight commuting in from other cities in the region, yet my demand of only 1,000 or so is already being fulfilled by my local factories. The roads are just completely jammed up with freight rucks from other towns, and that stupid Zones button has not stopped flashing red claiming I need more factories.

I have tried not to be one of the complainers on this forum since this game came out, but it seems like with every update and every GFI (Great ________ Idea) they come up with, it horribly breaks another part of the game. I guess I just have to wait for them to tweak this freight demand...yet again...

[Noobi-Wan 22]

Well that sucks but I cannot say that I am terribly surprised!

So the region provides enough freight for your city to cope but you get demands that there are not enough freight producers in your city. Hmm I agree GFI.

Honestly the region and syncing everything with a server have caused more issues than anything else in this game and I am starting to get a bit frustrated with it truth be told.

Roll on update 7 please.

[infoman96 27]

Has anyone seen the taller buildings yet on update 6? I still haven't played because my Windows computer doesn't seem like it wants to connect to the Internet; anyways, if any of you have seen the taller buildings are they much taller than before?

[CosmicSpeed 28]

^ I noticed a few building variations for residential. But it was obvious as the top and bottom were only vaguely different with the middle portion of the building being stretched or cut to give the variation.

[Districtopia 23]

Got another problem since the update: students suddenly DISAPPEAR. I have adequate bussing in my cities and minimal traffic but my education level has fallen and skill levels are dropping. When I turn on the education data layer it shows almost no students, and even less "not attending." Yet I keep getting alerts telling me to build more schools, low skill level. Also when I open the population map it shows hundreds or thousands of students depending on the city, with around half not enrolled.

 

 

So annoying. No matter what I'm specializing in I try to offer basic education.

 

 

Another thing: having a problem with too many low wealth jobs. Never noticed this before but it may not be a bug.. might just be the particular region I'm working on and the way I've built it...

[ari88 0]

I am having a similar problem with education, although i have no traffic problems, i have the university, grade school and high school with bus stops all around the city and i only get half the students the advisor says i have, because in the student layer, i have almost NO students in the city, (no other cities in the region btw)

[Rufus Honker IV 100]

(no other cities in the region btw)

 

Along that line, I'd like the game to detect when there are no other cities around.  I'm in a brand new region.  I build my first fire department: "SHARE FIRE SERVICES WITH YOUR NEIGHBORS!"  Um... what neighbors?  But I still have to click the region button to stop it from blinking at me.

[Noobi-Wan 22]

Has anyone else noticed discrepancies between what the advisors are screaming for and the RCI bars? The scenario is as follows and please feel free to highlight any obvious logic holes!

I had zero RCI demand for commercial yet my industry was screaming for more places to ship freight.

I got rid of a couple of factories as my thought process was that I had over done the industry and that I was simply producing too much freight (despite the RCI bars telling me that there was still demand for I but because there was no demand for C).

Once I got rid of the factories my commerce went nuts telling me that they did not have enough freight. So this caused a bit of a dilemma do I zone the couple of factories again and watch them close due to lack of places to ship freight or fiddle with the commercial to find the balance?

I ended up just plopping a trade depot with the freight storage lots and used that as the buffer between the two (mostly because I am pathologically lazy when it comes to finding the balance if there is an easier solution) but I am curious as to how many other people have struggled to get the balance right. Is this the only workable solution?

[MayorQuimbie 13]

Has anyone else noticed discrepancies between what the advisors are screaming for and the RCI bars? The scenario is as follows and please feel free to highlight any obvious logic holes!

I had zero RCI demand for commercial yet my industry was screaming for more places to ship freight.

I got rid of a couple of factories as my thought process was that I had over done the industry and that I was simply producing too much freight (despite the RCI bars telling me that there was still demand for I but because there was no demand for C).

Once I got rid of the factories my commerce went nuts telling me that they did not have enough freight. So this caused a bit of a dilemma do I zone the couple of factories again and watch them close due to lack of places to ship freight or fiddle with the commercial to find the balance?

I ended up just plopping a trade depot with the freight storage lots and used that as the buffer between the two (mostly because I am pathologically lazy when it comes to finding the balance if there is an easier solution) but I am curious as to how many other people have struggled to get the balance right. Is this the only workable solution?

I just always build a trade depot anyway... and more recently... ive been building one close to my city enterance... This seems to deal with the tide of freight trucks I get coming into my city every now and then.