maximising density layout

[Polaropolis 0]

Hi, I have noticed that the placement guides are there to help us maximise the layout but even after following them I still get "not enough room to expand" messages. It's very unrealistic to have a manor surrounded by skyscrapers! The land value for each block and the perpendicular roads are all homogeneous and I still get this message. I have tested bulldozing those problematic lots and the adjacent ones but they just grow the same way.  I don't like replacing these lots with other elements for two reasons : 1. There are too many of them 2. It decreases population therefore decreasing income and the job/worker ratio gets screwed up. Has anyone figured out a way to correct this issue? 

[Griffon 19]

I've noticed that the guide lines change depending on what type of road you're using.  I've found that the best guide lines to follow are the low density road or dirt road lines, but not the closest lines to the road, I use the second closest lines.  I usually start at the guides next to the border of the city, draw one road all the way around.  I then switch to the square tool and draw the rest of the square road.  Once I have that one square I don't need the guides anymore and go from there.

 

In certain cities I can't use those guides as well because of the terrain so I usually get creative with curved roads.  I also make any corner curved I can and that's just to help traffic although I know it won't get maximized in that spot.

 

And sometimes you need to wait for them to grow up unless they say they don't have room to grow then it's the road grids that are too small.  I never build low wealth parks and still get high density low wealth buildings.  The parks just make them grow faster at the cost to your budget unless you want to increase wealth levels then parks are a necessity, because parks give the same benefits as commercial buildings when sims visit them...happiness, except that the parks are free for them to use.

[Polaropolis 0]

Thanks, I'll check out how the guides behave depending on road types. I've also noticed that before plopping the zones there is a limit guide showing how far the depth of each row will be and that is directly related to the road density type. So a high density road will show you a further limit than the low density one. That doesn't help when you're trying to layout the city step by step (from low to medium to high)

[Rufus Honker IV 100]

I asked about this once before on here and got a tip - use the "tree line" $$ level parks to show how deep the density needs to be.  It's time consuming, but it does work.  I really wish they gave you better ways and guidelines though.

 

The guidelines are set by "the last two roads you moused over", but it's still erratic.  I've had the guidelines turned off for months now.

[Robproc 4]

Yes I absolutely HATE this bug, because it makes laying cities with both roads an avenues a absolute pain! For whatever reason when you try to place roads next to an avenue, using the avenues guide, the guide tries to space 2 hd buildings without any space for a road inbetween them. So, this means you need to never use the guides when placing roads next to an avenue.

I used to use the park trick as well, however I don't like that one as much because the reasults are somewhat random. Sometimes the system will draw the parks with more space around them than other times, or the edges can get strange and make itself expand out a little.

Anyways what I do now is draw the proper guides myself with dirt roads. So, here is how it works. Rather than place a park strip as your guide instead grab dirst roads and draw between $270 to $279 worth of dirt road. This amoun of road will give you enough space for HD buildings. I think actually 265 or something is the exact size. I usually go for around 275, but the big problem with measuring like this is that you don't always get the same numbers. Meaning sometimes you draw it out and you can only get like 271 and 275, sometimes you can only get 276 and not 275.... If you don't know what I am referring to you will once you start measuring with roads.

Ultimately road measurements are the best solution as it gives a much more precise measurement. Its a shame though that we cant use the in game guides... Having to measure out the spaces with dirt roads takes so much more time. I hate it, like a lot... It exponentially increased the tedious time it takes to manually size all these roads...

FIX THIS BUG ALREADY!

[Rufus Honker IV 100]

Also a big issue with road layout is terrain level.  I've found a tiny five-foot hill will screw with road layout and density - the road will go down, but no little workers flatten out the land and no one will build houses on the raised land. 

 

This annoys me to no end because obviously the developers have never lived in Pittsburgh - here's a part of the street I live on:

 

 

So come on, developers.  Give us sims who live in three dimentions - and not just "future buildings" 3 dimentions.