Organization methods

[yayaya1 22]

I use grids a lot when creating a functional city for income and growth. However, I use many different intersections and NAM tools when making aesthetic cities. Every time I try to combine the two, it never seemed to work out and I would end up use random space. What is your organization for cities? I would like to see some ideas to inspire new ones. Also, is there any advice when creating these types of cities?

[wuzzle2 3]

I just let mine grown naturally.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The game is grid bound and you don't have much choice except with NAMs FAR pieces.

[yayaya1 22]

So are you saying that creating grid-cities is "un-avoidable"? I see many cities with twists and turns, or is that not supposed to be functional?

[cardiomonkey 32]

Twists and turns are doable, but not without some sort of grid-like area that allows the growth and combination of RCI that is needed.

It is also worth noting that ALOT of those fantastic buildings and areas in massive skyscraper cities are plopped. 

[yayaya1 22]

So I guess I will continue with grids, thanks guys!

[cardiomonkey 32]

What you could do (and what I am trying myself right now) is have on a large city tile one area in a grid pattern that fulfils a lot of the requirements of a city and in another area go all twisty, turny and crazy and see how that develops.

 

Remember too that twisty/turny also reduces tile space. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Do whatever you can.  The curvy streets are pretty normal for many cities, especially away from recently developed places like north American cities.  Many streets start out as cattle or game trails.  A more modern example is St. John, Newfoundland where most of the streets of the city were originally designed for horse drawn waggons.

[Prophet42 1,501]

What I usually do is start with a grid pattern for the aterial and main roads.  As I run into terrain features (hills, coastline, etc...) I will curve the road to match the terrain.  Residential areas I also tend to have a less 'griddy' pattern.  I find that this makes the most pleasing look to me.  And that last statement is key.  Do what looks good to you. If you don't like it...well that is what the bulldozer is for.

[Turjan 1,048]

I love to look at these awesome cities with winding streets in city journals, but most of the time, I cannot bring myself to do this. Diagonal streets only look good with diagonally oriented buildings, which means plopped landmarks most of the time. Which somehow collides with my own philosophy of having most that can grow actually grow. I'm always happy if a grown neighborhood ends up looking good.

 

FARs have similar problems. Having normal, orthogonally oriented buildings on their sides is not quite as grating as on diagonals, but it still distracts from the overall feel. You have a natural-looking road network then, which is an awesome thing to view, but buildings on the sides tend to destroy that image. You can somehow work around that by having growth only occur on side streets. Which basically means that I avoid FAR in built-up areas, except for short stretches or as connectors between built-up areas. There may be some custom content for FAR available though (like c.p.'s).

[yayaya1 22]

i think I will be trying out the prophets idea, sounds really cool. Nonetheless very good advice from everyone