hello all and a stupid questions.

[ADYX 1]

1st of all: hello everyone, im new to this community, or at least "somehow": a friend of mine told me about SC4 (i have the deluxe edition) was on sales on Steam so i downloaded it thinking it was sort of a stupid RTS/simulator game. but it was cheap, i was out of ideas, and its been a while since i played these kind of games, so i started playing. like anyone (who s played any rts) i was thinking like "omg retarded tutorials, these r always useless, lets see some action".

how wrong i was.... my first city attempt was a total screw up got overwhelmed with pollution, negative income (actually outcome) a really crappy city, unemployement, no services that were really used and kept eating money (IE putting fire dep + police in the middle of the map without road access and my settlement was in the corner of the map, robbed by thieves and burning down). went back to tutorials, learned some basis of the game, started a new city, which was actually nice: started with HWs, then put a good connection system, started zoning, but WITHOUT KNOWING what i was doing i made a connection to the previous city (the 1st one). after having something nice and decent going in the 2nd city i went back to the 1st one (who had lower taxes since ppl kept abbandoning the city) who started growing and growing (if only i knew ppl were just relocating here from the real city i was working on...).

here starts my oddisey: 210 hrs of play in the last 2 weeks (pretty much), decent ammount of time spent on this forum to learn, read and understand things (always as a guest), so i decided to register and present my self. name s adrian, university student (well non a rly good one since after i got this game i failed all 3 my exams but meh...), nerd, grammar nazi and pretty much thats it.

 

2nd part, the one in which i start with the questions. im not a $%&^! (anymore, well ofc i am, but like "not that much" lately), looked around in the forum for this particular question(s) im about to ask but didnt find much (usually: delete city/drastic changes/no answer) so ill try to be kinda specific describing my situation:

ive read around tactics and ideas and most of all loved the one suggested by the moose user: each city "specialized" into one of the 3 main branches, and thats how i changed my region

 

a) i have AQUARYA, which is the second city i build, now its an almost FULL residentional area, it has an awesomly connected city, lots of bus stops (well planned ofc), an incredible subway (like 50-60% of the population uses it), some train stations (4, 3 are over capacity, 1 at 50%), a wonderful highway system.

tons of services, 5 great hospital (i have the italian version so i hope i get names right) the one with the red helicopter, 3 great elementary schools, 2 highschools, 1 college, 1 university, 3 museums, 4 libraries, 4 biggest police, 3 small police, some kiosks, 5 small fire department. TONS (srsly tons!!!) of appettibility items (parks+green areas+stadium, etc...)

$%&^! crime, i fought it so much then i found out that education worked better than police, so i fed sims with culture.

b) i have ADYXLAND, my 1st city, some small pop, basically full HT-I, like the whole map or almost (has a big hospital, and school items including university), awesome transport system (i only miss highways)

c) MOONSILVER fully commercial (and a couple of residents), has landmarks: chrisler building, hollywood sign, airport (the medium one that asked me for an upgrade (which i did), has some decent ammount of skyscrapers (some really nice ), better connection/transportation than the ones in adyxland.

d) SUNGOLD, full industrial, its a bloody mix, since its like a big map (the others are small maps) also really good transport system (its like smtn im obsessed with) all map is industrial mostly manufactoring and dirty, but also a lot of HT. (the map is like a "T" inside a square, where the T is a river cuting the map, so i have HT in the 2 lower corners, dirty+manu+ oil plant + garbage burn in the upper side)

e) SKYDIAMOND, a new city i kinda didnt focus much on (YET!) still at baby stage, like low pop, jobs and stuff

 

this beings said (and ofc if u actually read all the crap ive writen till now) you can help me find out this:

 

the region pop is ~210k, 180k of which live in the A city. the others live either in B or C (like 15k each). in C i only have rich ppl living, in B rich+poor. my whole $$ residents are in A (but i also have a high ammount of $ and $$$). i have no pop in D.

the jobs are as following: 94k com (S$$$ CO$$ CO$$$) workplace in C, 36.6k industry in D, 8.6k HT + 2.4k commercial (all 5 types) in B, barely 4k com in A. (so basically A=resid, B+D=indus, C= com).

the shape the cities are connected is (imagining a 3x3 square)

top row: D D blank

mid row: D D blank

low row: B A C (E but that shouldnt have influence at 300ppl+200 workplace)

populations demand in all regions is SKYHIGH (they just dont build there cuz i wont allow them unless some specific decisions, EI 15k R$$$ in C for more comerce). in A i have ONLY a demand for R$$, which is "FIXED", meaning unless i change taxes it wont move, i keep building skyscrapers for residents, (they take a little while to build and its always R$$), the other 2 are at like -500 demand (not much below, maybe less than 500), but R$$ is at like ~4200-4400, cant tell. even tho i DO BUILD skyscrapers, and even tho old buildings get renovated (or improved by me) i cant see a population rise. i basically ended up having a HUGE demand for S$$$ C$$ C$$$ workers in C, but they wont come, and a huge demand for R$$ in A. each time i build a new residential lot, population DOESNT rise, but the buildings are working (not like abbandoned or stuff), the sims only seem to "split" themselves around houses: like before cutting some more HT abbandoned lots to zone for res i had 170k pop, after ploping like 6-7 NEW skyscrapers PLUS making 2-3 to bigger ones, from 3x3 square to 4x4, the L shape building, the houses were always at 90-95% capacity, now i have only 10k more ppl (180k) and the houses are at ~70% ocupation. the thing i just CANT get i why r they asking for SO MUCH R$$ and mostly they keep building new ones but never fill them, and the demand STAYS up. this doesnt happen with rich guys, when i had demand for them (at some point) they istantly build above a R$$ making it a R$$$ and then demand dropped (went from 2000 to -300), while R$$ keep asking for houses they dont fill. the city is OVERLY desirable (all panels besides agriculture show FULL GREEN MAPS with some lil "yellowish" color next to a corner where i have stadium+little dump (empty, i used it for uncle vinnie quests)+nuke plant, but is rly rly green otherwise).

a thing i noticed (a rly WEIRD ONE) is that for some reason (one i dont yet understand) population fluctuates, goes up to 185k, then down to 178k, then up to 184k, then 177k, then 185k, and so on in about 1month game time. even if pop changes, demand stands perfectly still (all of them) and the only ppl coming and going are R$$, even tho they dont have ANYWHERE to go (as i have 20% on them in all other cities). i somehow think this is influenced by mayor rating, but i dont know how ,since i looked at it but doesnt follow a pattern: EI one month MR lowers, and pop rises, other month MR grows and pop rises, then MR drops pop STILL rises, then MR grows and pop lowers, then, so on............

 

any ideas or suggestions are welcome. if you should need/want pictures tell me and i will provide.

PS does transport have a "cap" limit? like the subway can carry only set ammount of ppl per "tubeline"? or the traffic i see in them is purely a matter of showing how much the structures are used?

PS also how does water pollution influence the ppl? in a city i tried to remove the water plant and the pollution went to 35 (click on the water pump and says "acceptable") but ppl complain about it, in another city i have no water plant, water pollutions is at ~50, the pump says "acceptable" and no one cares

 

TY ALL IN ADVANCE! 1 HR TO WRITE THIS NOW BACK TO GAME!     

[GeometryMath Algebra 614]

Well, I think I need pictures.

Do you use the NAM? The NAM is vital to your transportation needs and not only that, you have extra transit features. (e.g. RealHighway, Network Widening Mod)

If you want to solve your simoleon issues, to let you start off with $100,000,000. For your existing cities, download

 

If you want more demand, use  to?do=embed' frameborder='0' data-embedContent> max out your demand with one plop.

 

For your water pollution issue, download to clear your water pollution.

[ADYX 1]

1st ty for ur reply, itll sound sad (like ~90% of the things i do/say      ), but ty, i was totally ALD+TABbing like every 2-3 minutes of game to see a reply 

 

btw i dont like hacks/mods, the way i see the life (even gaming life) is that "make the best u can with what you got, and only get external help if you either totally fail or get bored trying", meaning even if its a game, id love to make it on my own (w/o cheats) and even tho ive been reading a whole lot around here about NAM (have no idea what that mod does) i would like avoiding it for these starting times, ive been playing the game for only 2 weeks (even if i got more "play-time" than other in 6 months) and from my gaming experience game modding usually "ruins" the gameplay to some extent (meaning that if i cant enjoy the way to the top at least ONCE while playing the game w/o addons i wont be doing much later on, since usually this stuff makes the game work better/properly, which means after i try the mods ill like their "confortableness" so much i wont actually take them off, so ill have a... reduced... game experience. 

 

regarding the pictures im uploading them on tinypic, hopefulle theyll look decent   

[SimCoug 5,973]

The NAM (Network Addon Mod) is the most essential addition to SC4 - I wouldn't even consider it a mod, but rather an official game patch.  Since you have only just begun playing this great game, I would suggest downloading the NAM and only installing the traffic simulator.  That will leave your game exactly the same as it is now, but it will greatly improve the traffic simulation and path-finding (and make building your cities much more enjoyable and intuitive).  Once you become more confident in your city building skills, you can then go back and run the installer and add additional NAM components.  Good luck, and welcome to the community.  

[ADYX 1]

ADYXLAND (city B)

 

AQUARYA (city A)

 

MOONSILVER (city C)

 

SUNGOLD (city D)

 

region map

 

hope this helps   

cant actually find the "edit" button (damn my eyes) so ill double post (sry for that, ik its rude  ). where can i find nam and how do i install/use it

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Well, first of all the edit button is at the bottom of the post/edit panel after you have posted.  It is pretty faint until you get to that line.

 

Now, your cities look pretty good.  I too recommend getting the NAM.  Use the custom install (has a very fancy installer) to pick what you would like.  If you want to play the vanilla game with the fixed traffic system just use it alone.  NAM has much documentation, all of it in English, I believe.

 

I am a 10 year player of this game, and I've long since stopped making pin-cushion cities.  Mostly what I do is rural districts with multiple towns and villages in each city tile.  Kind of like a consolidated municipal administration with several towns.

 

One more download after the NAM (which is really a free, gigantic expansion pack) is the developer's debug commands which here is called the Extra Cheats DLL.  No installer, so you unpack the .zip away from the game structure then move the DLL into your C:<you>\documents\SimCity 4\Plugins folder directly with no sub-folder.

 

This gives you much more god-like power.  One of the most important powers is the ability to change the treasury balance.  If you are running out of money, this command helps.  Syntax is: CTRL+xmoolah 9*CTRL+m where 9* is any amount of simoleans you like up to about 99 billion (yes, you can overflow this).  I usually use this to increase the treasury by, say 400000.  To do this, you add 400000 to the current balance (mentally) then use the command to reset the balance to the old amount plus the increment.

 

Another good thing here is the ability to see exactly what the stats are are a building.  If you activate the query operator (/) then hold down CTRL+ALT+SHIFT and move your cursor over a building you will get all the information about the building known to the game.

 

If you are having no job zots (zot ::= indicator) you can use the command CTRL+XdrawpathsCTRL+m to show the pathfinder's results.  The reverse of this is hidepaths.

 

To make it easier to get your spelling correct for the auxiliary commands, if you press CTRL+x you can right click in the text box to get a list from which to choose with the mouse.  It only becomes a matter of entering one space and any further parameters and hitting CTRL+m (return).  If your parameter contains spaces, it must be enclosed in quotes.  E.g. CTRL+xwhererufrom "New York City"CTRL+m

 

There is a separate sticky thread on this "cheat".  In this game there are no cheats because you have no opponents.  There is no fixed goal and no way to "win" but you can lose by going in the red more than 200,000 simoleons.  Most people think of this game as a canvas on which to practice city/region building.  Region play is the best as I am sure you have discovered by now.

[Indiana Joe 1,751]

Since this is a building game, there is plenty of custom content that doesn't remotely qualify as 'cheating'.  There are lots of cool-looking buildings, parks, maps, graphics mods, etc. that don't change the actual gameplay at all.

 

I understand and support your decision to get the game basics down before you dive into custom content.  Once you're an accomplished city builder though, the NAM really just expands upon the game in the same direction the official Rush Hour expansion pack did.  All it does is to make job-finding and commute mechanics more manageable/realistic, along with adding countless new transit options.

 

Yes, there are definitely cheat mods--ones that boost RCI demand and create money.  But they only make up a small fraction of the available custom content.

[NCGAIO 562]

Well .. even if  do not want to use mods there are some things that should be fixed in the game to that it behaves better then not to lengthen the post  suggest a read the topic below to get an idea of the required although some links are outdated today.

 

 

And many of the answers to understand the relationships of growth with the many factors of the simulation can be found in the Guide Prime though his reading is a bit tiresome.

SimCity 4 Rush Hour Prima Official Guide

[Little Caesar24 1]

Does an avenue overpass over an RHW require 15m? I am trying to keep the avenue level, with the RHW going underneath the avenue. I cannot find a 7.5m on-slope and overpass for the avenue, but I could be looking in the wrong places. Around 21ft is a more realistic interchange than one that is around 45ft, so help would be wonderful. Thank you.

 

-DavidK

[GeometryMath Algebra 614]

Does an avenue overpass over an RHW require 15m? I am trying to keep the avenue level, with the RHW going underneath the avenue. I cannot find a 7.5m on-slope and overpass for the avenue, but I could be looking in the wrong places. Around 21ft is a more realistic interchange than one that is around 45ft, so help would be wonderful. Thank you.

 

-DavidK

There are no 7.5m avenue over RHW pieces yet. The good news is they are going to be included in the next NAM. In the mean time, would you mind converting your avenue to RHW-4 for the overpass part?