A little help for a newbie!

[Zipster69 0]

Hello

I've recently purchased Sim City 2013 after lengthy deliberation. I have played Sim City 2000 and Sim City 4 but find Sim City 2013 to be less about building and more about strategy. Initially I wasn't very impressed by the game but persistence has paid off and now I'm enjoying it (even with the bugs). That being said, I am in need of some tips and am hoping that some of you guys can help me.

Traffic Problems.

No matter what transport I put down I always seem to have heavy traffic. I have made cities that have train stations, maglev, streetcars and bus terminals and yet I still have heavy traffic. My roads can have lots of intersections so that could be part of the problem but I thought transport would alleviate this?

City Population.

I can never seem to get my population over 150,000 sims. I build mega towers and have a large proportion set out for residential. I also lower taxes to encourage growth but this doesn't seem to help. Any advice?

Omega.

I've read a lot of posts on how to have successful Omega cities but I'm still struggling. I usually have one Omega City and import oil and ore. I build a recycling factory and have this feed a processor plant so that it can be self sustainable. I then tend to build 3 or 4 Omega factories around my industry and 2 or 3 drone plants for my residential. This should be enough according to other posts on this forum but yet I still get messages from my Omega advisor telling me that we are not producing enough Omega. When I check my plants they are running between 30% to 70% output and I can't understand why. I usually place my Omega factory on high density avenues and have the VTOL pads. Again, any advice would be welcomed.

Successful Regions.

Any other tips on making a successful region would be great. Should I have cities concentrating on one speciality or should I share them between cities (1 city for gambling, 1 city for academy etc)?

All help is greatly appreciated

[Agente Silva 28]

Hey Zipster

 

Welcome to the forum

 

Traffic: as you mentioned, you should carefully manage your intersections. One BIG hint: don´t "cross" intersect your first entrance to the city. Make a "T" intersection going right - the problem is that traffic lights will turn green for both upward and downward cars. If upward traffic (incoming) is to turn left they will get blocked by the stream of downward (outgoing) traffic making huuuge gridlocks.

 

No matter how many public transportation or how well they are placed, if you have many road intersections you will get flamed (literally)

 

Population: considering the small lot size, if you want to max your population, you´ll have to max your density. Usually players use a few trick to guarantee the best spacing between stretches of road/avenues - here´s what I do: I stretch a road/avenue; place a tall tree row; edit this tall tree row and place another in front; strecth a parallel road close to those tall tree rows. That spacing will grant a back-to-back high density building. Other than that it seems your doing things right.

 

Omega: I bought CoT recently so I don´t see any reason why is your Omega production low. You said you have 3 or 4 Omega factories - did you mean 3 or 4 Omega MODULES in a Omega factorie?! If so, there is no apparent reason for low production. If you really meant "factories", maybe you need to place more "modules" in each of them.

 

Sucefull Regions: yes, try to have specialized cities, for example: a Industrial city providing freight to neighboors. A sanitation city with garbage/recycling/sewage treatment. A Residential ONLY  providing work force for neighboors (with low taxes@ 1 or 2%). A tourism city mixed with casinos (expect HUGE revenues ).

 

I will advice, as to every SimCity player, to use Industrial mod by Nikola in order to increase your freight production. Look for Build Outside Border mod (BoC) by Procskalone - this will allow you to plop EVERY ploppable building outside city border.

 

Mods are mostly troubless. I´ll only advice you to place them one-by-one and for each one load your game and check if they are ok

 

Don´t hesitate to post any questions regarding SimCity.

 

Be well,

[Zipster69 0]

Hey Agente

Thank you for the warm welcome and the very insightful reply

[Rufus Honker IV 100]

Traffic: 

 

Keep your density low while you're getting the feel of the game.  I know it's tempting to grow-grow-grow, but the more people, the more traffic problems.  Skip megatowers for now, I haven't used them much but I hear they are ready-made traffic problems - that's why you can research skybridges later.

 

Put commercial in little bunches near and in your residential areas:

 

RRRRRRRCCCCRRRRRRRRRRRRRCCCCCRRRRRR

 

Sprawling business districts look great, but they mean your sims will drive there, and driving there means contributing to traffic.

 

Agente above brings up a good point on the T-intersections.  You can go four-way, but I suggest with feeder roads - put (for instance) your residential and commercial east-west and avenues with no development north-south.

[Agente Silva 28]

Hi again...

 

I would suggest your first city to be a essentially low wealth residents, some comercial and some industry, having all the dirty services (power, garbage, recycling and sewage). Usually I tend to develope my first city to pack as much residents I can in one plot (600k to 700k) so I can have all City Hall´s modules - achieving this will allow to unlock all services to the whole region, thus saving zoning space to neighbooring cities (if you are already using the BoC mod you can always plop your City Hall outside).

 

Regarding that "tall tree" hint I gave you, be aware that tall trees wil increase land value (because they are "Nature" parks and these increase to medium land value). Do not forget to bulldoze tall tree rows after you get your roads space correctly to assure you´ll get Low wealth residents (workers) - in the beginning these are the main working class you should care about

 

About the Omega thing - yes, if your traffic is clumped Ore and Oil trucks will get stuck and might not deliver these raw materials to the Omega facility making it stop producing. Once you sort your road layout and traffic starts flowing your supply chain should guarantee a stable production (even though it´s always a good idea to have a trade depot next to your Omega factories).

 

The mods I use are offline only... I really really recomend you to use Nikola´s Industry mod and Procskalone BoC mod (sorry for such insistence on using them, it´s just they are true gamechangers).

 

 

edit: Here´s a photo showing how I avoid the cross intersection, but still assuring cars can go left by the shortest path (it´s a bit wide I play on 3 screen display):

 

https://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m155/vasco_filipe1/Spark_2014-07-04_05-37-40_zpsbqaxrgsf.png (in case you want to download the full resolution photo and zoom in

 

edit2: notice that both Municipal Bus Depot and Streetcar Depot on the low left corner are built outside city

[Zipster69 0]

Hey guys

[Agente Silva 28]

That is the entrance to my city yes You can tell by the freeway sign (modded to look a bit more those we have in Portugal ) The junction is actually an overpass above city entrance to compensate there´s no left turn at my first intersection. This way I assure cars can head to the left part of city by the shortest path, without crossing the main avenue. Did you notice the amount of freight trucks in freeway? Eheheh That´s the Industrial Mod working

 

If you build a city mostly out of low residential/high density you easily pass those 350k. Low wealth-High density buildings hold aprox. 4800 residents. Mid wealth-high density something like 3000 and High wealth-High density aprox. 1800. If you want to FullUpgrade your CityHall you should consider a low wealth-high density city. Playing with BoC helps as well since you´re not wasting zonable terrain with ploppables

[Zipster69 0]

Thank you again Agente

I'm unable to find the mods you listed:

Industry Mod by Nikola

BoC by Procskalone

Would you be able to guide me on where I would find them please?

[zacnlinc 4]

Hi Zipster,

 

I just sent you links to locations where you're able to find the files you're searching for.  I too recently was advised to have these files as well.... (check your inbox)

 

The link that take you to the EA forum is for a file that contains the BoC mod.  It's in a Drop-Box location.  The Nikola mod is located on this website in the ST/Exchange section (think it's on page 3 at this point.)

 

 

Aside:  SC2013 Mob, how does one "copy/paste" links in the threads.  I tried but the control-V shortcut isn't allowing me to paste links in this reply.  And I was too lazy to actually type it all out too!!  Thanks for the tip...

[Agente Silva 28]

I always though copy/paste was enough... Anyway, I can .zip/rar you guys BoC and Industrial mods and send it directly to a mail of your choice. If you´re interested just send me a private message

 

Always glad to help.

 

Be well,