My first working, successful city.

[Rufus Honker IV 100]

I had a new game experience today.  I made a city... and it worked.  No relentless traffic backups, no out of control budget, heck - I got all the 85% addons to my mansion done!  I didn't pull off 90% (yet), but good heavens was it nice to have a city that worked for once.

 

I was aiming for RCI (though I tossed in a casino for some extra cash, and two more when things were moving along well).  I like the look of a city with two avenues crossing in the center - it hasn't worked out well.  Tonight I made a loop around the intersection, and it worked really, really well.

 

Pictures?  I thought you'd never ask!  I've said this before - my graphics card isn't this good.  I pause the game and turn up all the settings for screencaps.

 

Behold the skyline of Cheese Junction, population 132,721. 

 

 

Here you see the loop I put around the spot where the avenues intersected.  I didn't have to raise it, but I thought it looked good.  I think next time I will go with regular roads -- and maybe see if I can do tunnels.  Hm.  It's not a perfect, neat circle, that bugged me.  I specifically chose not to run the streetcar tracks on the loops - the cars would have impeded traffic as the turned onto them, and the streetcars would probably just loop.

 

 

Going in closer to look at the intersection itself, it was remarkable traffic-free.  The reason I had tried the above loop is I realized everyone was making the turn at the intersection.  Now they take the loop, or if traffic is backed up they can go left or right.

 

 

Getting out to look around my city, here's my mansion - nearly all decked out.

 

 

The expo was instrumental.  I simply did a rock concert every night, and the moment the concert was over I booked the next one.  I know the game doesn't care, but I hate booking the same thing every night.  I was going to build a stadium but ran out of room - and the money you get for that isn't that much more than the expo.  (Those trees on the bottom behind the casino are the only open patch in the city.)

 

My

 

My University.  No one in this region had built one, so I had to have one if I was going to up the tech of my industry (Hazmat trucks).  I also put in the law center and researched the detective van, helping me beat back crime a little.  The airport is right on the other side.  I don't have room to put in a second runway, which annoys me.

 

 

I have a better shot of the industrial section of my city, but I liked this one with the building on the left.  It's "artier".  As you see the buildings are all teched up.  In the distance you see my nuclear reactor - the first nuclear reactor I have ever built in this game, despite having been playing it since and through that ugly launch.  I realized my city was smart enough to run one without melting it down so I bulldozed the coal plant and slapped that puppy down.

 

.

 

There, same shot, without the building:

 

 

And there you have it, Cheese Junction.  My first successful city.

 

[jakewj 0]

What other mass transit did you have in the city? Every city I've tried to build with a grid pattern ends up with hectic traffic no matter how much mass transit I've got in place. 

[Rufus Honker IV 100]

What other mass transit did you have in the city? Every city I've tried to build with a grid pattern ends up with hectic traffic no matter how much mass transit I've got in place. 

 

I had only one bus terminal and one regional bus terminal.  I had all three streetcar terminals.  I'm not totally sure how the traffic ended up working well. 

[CapTon 592]

What other mass transit did you have in the city? Every city I've tried to build with a grid pattern ends up with hectic traffic no matter how much mass transit I've got in place. 

The reason grid patterns probably don't work is because there are tons of intersections and places for cars to stop. Thus, traffic forms

[specializedguy 193]

Nice looking city!

[Trooth 22]

What other mass transit did you have in the city? Every city I've tried to build with a grid pattern ends up with hectic traffic no matter how much mass transit I've got in place. 

 

I have done well with a grid system before.  Just don't feel like you need to connect everything with a 4 way intersection.  I will start with 4 blocks in each corner as different neighborhoods, put an avenue loop in the middle and have that middle block inside the loop be the only high density section, and then use T connections in stead of 4 ways and funnel the traffic from each corner into the avenue.  It works, and it is efficient with land use.  It gets a bit nastier if you go for dense population all around though.  I also use a lot of park and rides, buses, and trains when available. 

[Robotica 36]

Nice city! Now, the intersection could use a little work. What you have there is almost like a clover stack, but since we don't have one way roads it's not quite the same idea. In my cities I usually run avenue around the edges, and where the avenue from the entrance and the avenue from my outline meet up I usually make a half clover stack intersection. Rather than have the 2 avenues intersect, I run one stretch a single notch above ground (as if you were making a bridge) just enough so that it's still attached to the ground but obviously raised. Then I take what would be the intersecting avenue and run it a few notches down (as if I was making a tunnel) and the road will usually form a tunnel under the raised avenue. Then, I take the raised avenue and bulldoze it and lay flat avenue back in its place so that it's no longer raised. Now you have a good starting point to make the intersection.

 

Next, because makinjg a real clover stack without one way roads is impossible, and because laying the roads in a cloverstack style doesn't really work properly, I make a half stack which works okay. This is basically connecting the intersecting avenues by two roads. Imagine the intersecting avenues in 4 parts just like the planet. There are the western, northern, eastern and southern sections of the intersection, which basically forms a + sign, but remember the two roads are not actually intersecting they are on top each other. So, it's basically just connecting the west and southern avenues by a road, and the north and east sections by another road. This works well because the connections are fairly long, enabling a good bit of traffic to get backed up in it before it causes any backup to the main avenue.

 

Also, my main avenue always only has a few connections. This makes for a lot less traffic on the main intersections. Ill usually never have more than 2 entrances/exists on any given stretch of avenue, and I typically try and avoid zoning/plopping anything on the avenue itself. So, to be honest, I don't know how people have success with anything other than a grid layout. The tiles are so small, ploppables are so big and the size of HD buildings require so much space that I have the best success from grid layouts as they maximize space, maximize traffic flow options and maximize your chances of having all HD buildings. Just have to do like mentioned above, and make sure you don't connect everything, because that is how your city get's congested.