City Population Limits

[Dreadnought 8,226]

First:  If someone will tell me how to load an image, I will be happy to post a few to make it easier for you to understand my situation.  Does Simtrop host images on-site?

Second:

I am running what has been described as a "pretty much vanilla" version of the game.  My streets have no curves, only angles, and no such thing as an overpass.  The water is Maxis, and there are not too many "Mod" plugins in my folder.

Just to set the ground rules -- a REGION is composed of a random mix of small, medium, and large maps.

A small map is 64 x 64 squares.

A medium map is 128 x128 squares.

A large map is 256 x 256 squares.

I buy power from and dump trash in the small maps.  They are just bare necessity towns to provide connections and resources. (Though I am considering fixing them up a bit to make the regional map look better.

I have built a succession of cities (60 to 100) while learning how the game works and figuring out how to incorporate downloads and Mods from STEX, PLEX, and LEX.  And it has allowed me to make a few lots of my own to beautify the cities and to detail some of my industry.  I am beginning to get the "itch" to make my cities more realistic in appearance and planning the layout.  Hence more downloads will be required for industry, ports, etc.  Eventually, I will create a new regional map and try going for the real look of a "satellite view" of a single large city with port zones, industrial zones, etc.  (Kinda like LA looks like on Google maps -- suburbs, ports, etc).  But that is for the future.

My goal for the moment is to see how many people I can get into a single map.  This makes your regional view look exactly like what it is -- a series of crowded squares.  This goal encourages you to cram stuff into every possible nook and cranny on the map and results in an ugly city that eventually runs out of space.

 

Using a medium map, my largest population reached 333,529 people.  No room left to build anything.

Using a Large map, my largest population reached 398,611 people.  About 2/3 of the map still available, but game speed became frustratingly slow and I decided to switch to another city.

Regional population is currently 4,279,849 people with 53 cities connected.

 

I would like to know how other people are doing with their city populations.  Am I about right -- or is there a way to get more people into a city?

What do other players use as cap-busters for business, etc, etc?

Any tips and suggestions will be most welcome.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Loading an image is fairly simple. 

First, you need an account with a photo site such as imgur (free).

Upload your image there (*.jpg format recommended for speed)  {You can convert other formats using the GIMP.}

Access your image there to get a URL (use the one for embedding if there is a choice)

Deposit the URL in the image box in this editor.  The image box is the one currently at the far right in the tool bar.

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

<snip>

I would like to know how other people are doing with their city populations.  Am I about right -- or is there a way to get more people into a city?

What do other players use as cap-busters for business, etc, etc?

Any tips and suggestions will be most welcome.

Sorry about the double post, but needs must.

To give you an idea of my regional behaviour, here is one under development: Erehwon:

This region is barely started, but it is of some interest to you perhaps.

 

And another that I am pretty much finished with: New York region:

Inner Harbour, with over 1M population is essentially unplayable on this machine.  The rest are the completion of the whole region.

Cap busters: Airports, parks, plazas, green space in general.  Rewards are often cap busters.

[citycowboy 183]

You can get 250k residential sims on a large tile no problem, zoning R$ mostly. If you zone rowhouses and apartments, there shouldn't be any problem getting to 500k per large tile. Of course you can connect the edges of one tile with another, and make a seamless overview picture from the region view. If you're going to do something like Los Angeles, I would recommend using some of the cheats for garbage and air pollution, to increase realism. To make LA you need like 80 large tiles. I would also recommend downloading the 'region census' program, which I think would be helpful for you. Good luck. 

[Dreadnought 8,226]

You can get 250k residential sims on a large tile no problem, zoning R$ mostly. If you zone rowhouses and apartments, there shouldn't be any problem getting to 500k per large tile. Of course you can connect the edges of one tile with another, and make a seamless overview picture from the region view. If you're going to do something like Los Angeles, I would recommend using some of the cheats for garbage and air pollution, to increase realism. To make LA you need like 80 large tiles. I would also recommend downloading the 'region census' program, which I think would be helpful for you. Good luck. 

Yo, citycowboy --

Thanks very much for the input.  You mentioned zoning R$ for rowhouses and apartments, and that has reminded me that proper city planning involves mostly low and medium wage neighborhoods with smaller areas of R$$$.  That will fit in quite well with the large LA region I'm planning for the very near future.  I've been working this game so long I've become absorbed in the mechanics and forgotten to apply most of my basic city planning training.  By poking my memory, you've done me a great service.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

Yo, Nonny --

 

Thanx for posting the census info. 

Your numbers pretty much confirmed what I have learned after much trial and error.  It appears that a medium map will accommodate about 300k if there are not too many hills and a minimum of water -- and can range up to 500k under optimum conditions and some luck. 

The large map you created with 1M population was my goal for a large map -- but quickly bogged down.  I had it up to 498k -- but it "went south" on me and I only managed to turn it around at 398k. 

The other problem was "game years".  It was taking ages and ages to build a residential block.  It began to irritate me that the city was going to be 200 years old before it was even finished.  You have conclusively confirmed that a city that size is unplayable on my machine as well.

You also confirmed that I have been utilizing all of the cap-busters available to me.  Consequently, I think I have pretty much reached my goal of attaining maximum population on a given map size.  The population numbers are satisfying enough -- but the visual results on the map are not. 

The act of cramming people into a city forces you to weigh the options of how to use each individual square.  And, it ensures that you WILL use each square in order to obtain the maximum result.  The cities are crowded, lack green space, are too uniform, and all look like square boxes on the regional map.  Not realistic at all.

I think it's time for me to go to work on a new region.  This one will use an individual map more as a neighborhood than as a city.  This will allow for better planning, more distance between the different zones, more definition of types, more green spaces, and -- much more visual realism.  Trying to cram everything together on one map does not really allow proper planning.  If, for example, you are going to build a large port -- there is really very little room for anything else on a medium map.  Working on a regional scale will allow for smaller, suburban type cities dedicated to specialty types -- ports, industrial, manufacturing, high tech, commercial, emphasis on various residential types, and especially more attention to parks, landscaping, etc.

 

BIG THANX, guy -- you don't know how instrumental you have been in pushing me in the right direction.

Any tips along these lines would be welcome.

[rsc204 21,805]

I guess the most I ever got using the Maxis SF map was about 600k in one large tile. But to do it without custom content, it meant fastidiously utilising every tile of space and cramming in skyscrapers everywhere. The region total was about 3m when I finished working on it. This was really my first successful region, the one where I was learning how to play and finally everything clicked into place so I was trying to see how far I could get the population.

Since then, I returned and re-made the entire region, it's 95% complete now, but only has 1.1m residents, the largest city from before now only has 350k population. The point being that I've re-made the region in a way that's vastly more aesthetically pleasing and realistic than just seeing how far you can push what in the end is a meaningless number. A lot more fun/satisfaction is to be had from building things this way as opposed to just trying to make the highest population possible. Of course, the game has no real goals, so everyone is free to do whatever makes them happy, but personally I'm a long way past caring about the population numbers, aesthetics is really my #1 aim when building.

In case you're interested, here is the before/after region views to show how much nicer the second playing style ended up:

One thing to bear in mind, just adding a water, terrain and tree controller mod by themselves make a world of difference between the two.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

I guess the most I ever got using the Maxis SF map was about 600k in one large tile. But to do it without custom content, it meant fastidiously utilising every tile of space and cramming in skyscrapers everywhere. The region total was about 3m when I finished working on it. This was really my first successful region, the one where I was learning how to play and finally everything clicked into place so I was trying to see how far I could get the population.

Since then, I returned and re-made the entire region, it's 95% complete now, but only has 1.1m residents, the largest city from before now only has 350k population. The point being that I've re-made the region in a way that's vastly more aesthetically pleasing and realistic than just seeing how far you can push what in the end is a meaningless number. A lot more fun/satisfaction is to be had from building things this way as opposed to just trying to make the highest population possible. Of course, the game has no real goals, so everyone is free to do whatever makes them happy, but personally I'm a long way past caring about the population numbers, aesthetics is really my #1 aim when building.

One thing to bear in mind, just adding a water, terrain and tree controller mod by themselves make a world of difference between the two.

Yo, rsc204 --

So very nice to hear from you again -- was wondering where you would turn up after the unfortunate demise of PEG.  "Glad to see you're keeping your hand in".

There is much in what you say -- and it's exactly the stuff that's been pushing itself into my subconscious for the last month or so.  To make a long story very short -- the numbers are, in fact, MEANINGLESS.  I have come to the conclusion, after comparing notes with "Nonny", that the game system has limits and I've just about hit the wall.  I've also come to the conclusion that going for sheer numbers doesn't make for very good city planning, results in ridiculous over-crowding and over-numerous skyscrapers, and is aesthetically repugnant!

Looking at your "before/after" regions above, I like them both.  They are spacious, green, and conform more with the natural terrain (you're not fighting the land -- you're embracing it).  So far, so good.  But I will have to make an effort to wrap my brain around that idea.  I'm used to leaving no space wasted on a map, and the "urge to fill" will require resisting.  I am more accustomed to the "before" image, because my terrain and water look like that.  But your casual reference to "controllers" has dropped a bomb in my complacency (as you have done on more than one occasion).

The two pictures are too large to pick out details (a couple of detailed pics might be nice).  If you're not too busy -- could you take a few moments to tell me which controllers you're using, exactly what each one does, and the differences I may see.  Your terrain appears darker -- sort of "grayish", for example -- but the water looks much more natural.

[rsc204 21,805]

I've been here as long as I was around SimPeg, in fact I'm everywhere, over on SC4D and I even occasionally look in on the CityBuilders site too. I just couldn't get MGB as my name here.

The water is easy, that's PEG's Brigantine water. Actually that's a lie, it's SHK's HD remake of Brigantine I'm using, but I figured HD mods might be a problem for you, see below.

The terrain mod is Lowkee's Appalachian terrain mod, it looks great but is HD only, even more so than the water mod this can take a toll on performance.

Lastly the tree controller and guess what, again it's got a load of HD props (there is a theme here), in this case it's Blunder's Cascadia Tree controller, and of all the mods I've mentioned, this one will take the biggest time to setup and the most performance from your PC to use. There are a lot of dependencies, but that's typical for tree controllers, the results are not only stunning, but seasonal too with different models for Winter, Spring and Summer changing throughout the year.

There are many options for all these though, you may prefer to do some searches/testing to find a setup you like. My recommendation to everyone, before you do anything else find and settle on these three mods first. With them you can make the biggest difference in terms of customising your region, they are in essence the fundamentals. Plenty of non-HD terrain mods and tree controllers exist too, so there are options even if you decide not to go that way. Consider also a rock and beach mod to complete your terrain makeover.

Terrain and Tree controllers don't like to be switched, so require a new region ideally before using them for the first time. Therefore open a new blank region and just try out a few you like the look of until you settle on a setup you like.

In essence a HD mod simply contains higher-res textures than usual, this makes everything look better but does come with some cost in terms of performance. I'd say that any cost is worth it for how nice they make everything look, but you may disagree with me. In any case, unless your game is using DirectX rendering, you won't be able to use HD mods without the game crashing, so bear that in mind also. I seem to recall your PC is not the most powerful, so it may be that HD mods are something you'd prefer to steer clear of, but for example's sake, here is a couple shots with no HD mods:

These show CP's Meadowshire Terrain and Tree Controller, with regular Brigantine, it's still a vast improvement over the Maxis textures if you ask me. It's worthy of note, I set out with this city to use as few mods, especially with regards to buildings, as possible. Most of what you see here is the Maxis buildings, so you need not stuff your plugins folder to get great results, it's more important to use the right mods.

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As for filling every tile of space, just try to let your cities/towns flow. Everyone has a different approach, I tend to build the major transit arteries first of all, then plan parts of the city around that. I'm only about a 12-18 months ahead of you, I was just playing pretty vanilla and filling every tile to begin with too. You can fill gaps with forests, fields, agriculture, rivers, hills, pretty much anything. I'm still mostly using flat land for building, but I'm slowly transitioning away from that, even so I do a LOT of terraforming in-game to get things how I want. I wouldn't say I play according to the lay of the land, the land get's pushed around to my whims .

Now some before-after shots, click to see them in their full size/glory:

This is the largest city in the region, Partridge Vale (excuse the brown boxes, I kept the save files for posterity, but not the plugins). As you can see I've tried to cram into most of the space here.

Now it's much more condensed, but if you ask me all the better for it. The outskirts are home to a lot more residential suburbs and smaller buildings, even the center is rarely more than medium density zoning.

Once more in a closer zoom.

I've tried to capture a similar area, I think the picture speaks for itself here. The new versions are from a reasonably heavily modded game, around 4GB plugins I guess.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

I've been here as long as I was around SimPeg, in fact I'm everywhere, over on SC4D and I even occasionally look in on the CityBuilders site too. I just couldn't get MGB as my name here.

The water is easy, that's PEG's Brigantine water. Actually that's a lie, it's SHK's HD remake of Brigantine I'm using, but I figured HD mods might be a problem for you, see below.

The terrain mod is Lowkee's Appalachian terrain mod, it looks great but is HD only, even more so than the water mod this can take a toll on performance.

Lastly the tree controller and guess what, again it's got a load of HD props (there is a theme here), in this case it's Blunder's Cascadia Tree controller, and of all the mods I've mentioned, this one will take the biggest time to setup and the most performance from your PC to use. There are a lot of dependencies, but that's typical for tree controllers, the results are not only stunning, but seasonal too with different models for Winter, Spring and Summer changing throughout the year.

There are many options for all these though, you may prefer to do some searches/testing to find a setup you like. My recommendation to everyone, before you do anything else find and settle on these three mods first. With them you can make the biggest difference in terms of customising your region, they are in essence the fundamentals. Plenty of non-HD terrain mods and tree controllers exist too, so there are options even if you decide not to go that way. Consider also a rock and beach mod to complete your terrain makeover.

Terrain and Tree controllers don't like to be switched, so require a new region ideally before using them for the first time. Therefore open a new blank region and just try out a few you like the look of until you settle on a setup you like.

In essence a HD mod simply contains higher-res textures than usual, this makes everything look better but does come with some cost in terms of performance. I'd say that any cost is worth it for how nice they make everything look, but you may disagree with me. In any case, unless your game is using DirectX rendering, you won't be able to use HD mods without the game crashing, so bear that in mind also. I seem to recall your PC is not the most powerful, so it may be that HD mods are something you'd prefer to steer clear of, but for example's sake, here is a couple shots with no HD mods:

 

These show CP's Meadowshire Terrain and Tree Controller, with regular Brigantine, it's still a vast improvement over the Maxis textures if you ask me. It's worthy of note, I set out with this city to use as few mods, especially with regards to buildings, as possible. Most of what you see here is the Maxis buildings, so you need not stuff your plugins folder to get great results, it's more important to use the right mods.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As for filling every tile of space, just try to let your cities/towns flow. Everyone has a different approach, I tend to build the major transit arteries first of all, then plan parts of the city around that. I'm only about a 12-18 months ahead of you, I was just playing pretty vanilla and filling every tile to begin with too. You can fill gaps with forests, fields, agriculture, rivers, hills, pretty much anything. I'm still mostly using flat land for building, but I'm slowly transitioning away from that, even so I do a LOT of terraforming in-game to get things how I want. I wouldn't say I play according to the lay of the land, the land get's pushed around to my whims .

Now some before-after shots, I'll leave a link to my PB folder with them, you can see them in their full size/glory there:

 

This is the largest city in the region, Partridge Vale (excuse the brown boxes, I kept the save files for posterity, but not the plugins). As you can see I've tried to cram into most of the space here.

Now it's much more condensed, but if you ask me all the better for it. The outskirts are home to a lot more residential suburbs and smaller buildings, even the center is rarely more than medium density zoning.

 

Once more in a closer zoom.

I've tried to capture a similar area, I think the picture speaks for itself here. The new versions are from a reasonably heavily modded game, around 4GB plugins I guess.

Yo, guy --

I'm going to have to make this brief -- got to be someplace -- but you have got me wound-up. 

I've downloaded Brigantine and Meadowshire Terrain and Tree controllers and their dependencies.  I'm going to steer clear of the HD stuff for now.  This will be running on Win 2000 with 2gb ram.  I've only encountered slow speeds on the large map tiles when they get up to 500k people, so I might be ok with HD -- but why push my luck?

There are a butt-ton of rock mods out there, but I tried a few and didn't like their looks.  Could you recommend a rock and beach mod?  I like the way yours look and would feel better working with those.  Plus -- if I run into trouble, you just might be THE MAN. ;->

In top picture -- are those NBVC Marinas?  I like them because I think they are more to scale than the PEG marinas.  Peg's stuff looks great, but is a bit big, I think.  And -- what's the big blue building next to the two oil tanks on the far right?  Looks great.

In middle picture -- are those Marrassat embankments along the beach?  And is that some sort of terraced embankment along the southeast edge of the city (just below the monorail station)?  If so, what is the name of the file?  I like those.

I can see I've got a lot of work to do -- gotta run for now.  THANX MUCH!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Sounds like you are having a lot of fun.  I've become very set in my ways anymore, and am pretty much stuck with the Brigantine mod, and the MTP pine trees terrain mod.  Suits me, so I am not likely to change.  Much of the Simpeg stuff arrived on my system years ago, and I still haven't explored it all fully.  Enjoy.

I can run the HD stuff on DirectX, but it craps out on OpenGL for some reason, and shows up as coloured stripes.  It is a real shame, because OpenGL is the default on Linux.

[rsc204 21,805]

There are a butt-ton of rock mods out there, but I tried a few and didn't like their looks.  Could you recommend a rock and beach mod?  I like the way yours look and would feel better working with those.  Plus -- if I run into trouble, you just might be THE MAN. ;->

Indeed they are, by and large I generally prefer darker shades, I'm using -you guessed it- SHKs HD Rock Mod mostly, variant 3 in the above pictures. Since rocks don't appear so much, unlike terrain and water which often cover large areas, the higher-res textures shouldn't impact you too much. They either work or they don't, if the game crashes when you open the city, HD is either not working for you, or you simply need to open the game options and select to render in DirectX mode.

Bear in mind also that Meadowshire comes with a rock mod (most terrain mods do) that designed for the terrain, so you don't necessarily need another. Otherwise you could consider one of PEG's rock mods (there are quite a few on this page) for a non-HD alternative.

Beach mod in the last two shots is also HD and by Lowkee, designed for the Appalachian terrain, but it works without it. I don't think I even had one installed in the top pictures, since at the time I was still decorating the shores by hand with MMPs. What I found was that using these mods well gives similar results with a lot less effort, I wince thinking about the hours I put into making the shorelines in those pictures. I can't think of a non-HD one I've used right now... but again given the detailed nature of sand, HD really makes a world of difference here and again since it's usually sparingly used, it's not a big problem typically. Honestly, the big city in that picture takes down a modern i7 with 16GB RAM running from an SSD, at a point slow performance becomes par for the course, it's all to do with the number of sims eating your CPU cycles, don't let that put you off HD mods, they can transform the game.

One other thing to complicate matters, a separate mod to bridge the gap between beach and sea was also used in these pictures. The Coastal Pack by Rivit - I've used both the BrownSandForeshore and InshoreGreen file from this pack.

In middle picture -- are those Marrassat embankments along the beach?  And is that some sort of terraced embankment along the southeast edge of the city (just below the monorail station)?  If so, what is the name of the file?  I like those.

Yes, they do a decent job of seawalls, I used some subway entrances (in the NAM FLUPs) to simulate tunnel-walkways down to the beach. The embankment I think you refer to (between the motorway and rail viaducts (red-ish brick) as part of this set by MAS71. They aren't the actual walls, but those are great (and a needed dependency I think), but a supplementary set of embankment pieces. If that's not the one, let me know I'll post some zoomed in samples with numbering for you.

In top picture -- are those NBVC Marinas?  I like them because I think they are more to scale than the PEG marinas.  Peg's stuff looks great, but is a bit big, I think.  And -- what's the big blue building next to the two oil tanks on the far right?  Looks great.

Yes they are. I like to use both actually, NBVCs are great simple Marinas and boardwalks/seawalls, the PEG set is much better when you want more of a seaside complex with shops and buildings mixed in.

The big building is Fukushima Nuclear power plant and there is a separate lot in front which is the water treatment plant, they form a nice complex together. I'd give you a link, but worryingly everything I could find is out of order right now, I hope Somy's site is not offline as well, we're loosing too many too quickly right now :/

I can see I've got a lot of work to do -- gotta run for now.  THANX MUCH!

Well, getting these base mods setup shouldn't be too much effort. Compared to buildings they are really a snap to organise, but IMO make a much bigger impact.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

Yo, rsc204 --

By the way -- where do you guys come up with these names?  Just to greet you properly I have to remember the alphabet and do some math!

After reading the kind of rig you have to run HD, think I'll just stick to the easy stuff.  My gaming computer is a lot like me -- still kickin' over the engine, but long past the upgrade that will never come.  The main reason I keep it is to run the games I bought long ago for my retirement.  Give up the computer -- give up the games.  I still have an old doss machine because it is the only one that will run "Strategic Simulations' Great Naval Battles North Atlantic 1939 - 1943".  Once an a while I like to cut loose in the North Atlantic aboard the Bismarck. (lol)  Too bad they'll never upgrade that one.

For the same reason, I think I'll try Meadowshire's rock mod and simply stick with the Maxis beaches.  It may not look as good as yours, but if you smooth them out, the beaches aren't too bad.  At my age, half a loaf is better than none.

I thought the area in question was a grassy slope that was lotted to look like a man-made earthen embankment with terraces.  I'll look at the Mas71 stuff.  It'll come in handy somewhere, I'm sure.

I thought that building looked damned familiar! I actually managed to find a link to the Fukushima Plant here on Sc4Dev -- would you believe?  It came with a warning to keep the plant well-watered and plop a fire station next door to prevent melt-down! (lol)  I didn't even know Somy had made one.  But thanks to you -- I went looking.

ONE QUESTION -- Does anybody have -- or know where to find -- an LPG tanker vessel for the seaports??  We've got natural gas storage tanks all over the place -- but no ships to carry the stuff.

Make that TWO QUESTIONS -- PEG's web page showed a panorama view of an industrial port with large, greenish, round tanks for LPG gas.  Anybody know where I can get one of those files?  Or the props to make my own lot?

Thanx much for the advice, my friend.  I'm going to bite off a bit and chew on it for a while.  I'll try installing the controller mods and see if I can get a new region started.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

Sounds like you are having a lot of fun.  I've become very set in my ways anymore, and am pretty much stuck with the Brigantine mod, and the MTP pine trees terrain mod.  Suits me, so I am not likely to change.  Much of the Simpeg stuff arrived on my system years ago, and I still haven't explored it all fully.  Enjoy.

I can run the HD stuff on DirectX, but it craps out on OpenGL for some reason, and shows up as coloured stripes.  It is a real shame, because OpenGL is the default on Linux.

Yo, Nonny --

Linux -- !!??  Whoa!

I haven't heard that name in years!

Yeah -- it'll be fun until I get started trying to make it all work.  As Prof. Harold Hill alluded to -- the anticipation is always more fun than the work.  But -- I'll just sit back and take it one thing at a time.  I'll be 65 in a few more months -- I got plenty of time.

I'm pretty much set in my ways, too.  But the aesthetics of the thing was driving me up a wall.  It had been inside my head with a hammer banging on a trash can lid.  I simply couldn't ignore it any longer -- and the idea that population numbers weren't all that important simply wouldn't go away.  I'm much happier with the idea of making something realistic, logical, and scenic -- rather than a city map that resembles a pile of toys tossed into a box by a petulant child.

I came of age in LA -- a city the greatly resembles my cities -- every square foot filled with concrete and asphalt.  And After I left for the Army, I never moved back there to live.  It was great to be a teenager out there -- but I got interested in peace and quiet, trees, and running water.  I lived on a postage stamp lot amidst suburban sprawl.  Now I look out over a nice, shady lawn and I have to look real hard to see the street at the front of my property.  And I've got water !!(lol)  I also took several courses in city planning all those years ago.  I think those two things combined to kill my urge to stack people on top of one another.

Gotta run, guy --

[rsc204 21,805]

It's just MGB really, the number 204 is just an easy way of ensuring the letters I put before it are usually available, since many people use initials - sometimes it's also necessary due to 5-6 characters being the minimum for usernames. Only one other person in the world knows what MGB stands for, it's a secret I've kept 20 years, but it's always been my handle online. hint - it's nothing to do with the car.

I was on-board the good ship internet way before most people had computers or modems, it was painfully obvious even back then I didn't want the whole world to link my online persona with me personally. That's not to say I won't be more personal with people, I'm just wary of it on a public forum.

I think the LNG tanks are also by Somy, third picture down part of the Industry Packs (navigate using the P1-P7 links between all pages of his content on the site). Sure there is a tanker somewhere, you're better off asking on the Can't Find it, Ask Here thread though as you'll get more exposure.

[citycowboy 183]

Miller Genuine Beer

 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Miller Genuine Beer

 

Around here that stuff qualifies as horse piss.

[sys12189 21]

I'm hitting 400K pop count for a medium-sized tile, with about 40% empty space and 10% I-HT complex. When I'm done, I'll have a pop count of about 700K estimated, which is a record. And it looks pretty in my opinion (no pics here). The largest city is 2.1 mil in a large tile, densest is 630K in a medium one(which I lost because of a bad USB drive.... )

Population is still an important issue for me after quite some time playing and I personally think that has something to do with my surroundings. South Korea, where I come from, is a dense country (1/100 land of USA but 1/6 pop count) and around the capital city of Seoul a large metropolitan region shows off its own hi-rises at some point. For some, population becomes realism - unless you try to cram 'Project Hopes, Zaidi Apartments, Ong Condos and Calahane Communications' into every single square, which I wouldn't care to do anyway. The 'suburbs' that most people make on the forums look more like a peaceful rural environment to me (but there are few places that looks like those 'suburbs' here....). Here, all buildings are high density, medium density or just plain farms & mountains. Usually I build up for metropolitan realism(I keep some of my medium/low densities tho), medium density for the suburbs and the 'american/european suburbs' for eye-candy that plain can't be found here. 

this pic is also up in the 'Show us your ghettos' thread and shows my concept of a bland suburbian bedroom community. This 300K pop city seems to be just a 'city', not any 'large city' from the landscapes..... (more griddy than real life of course. And i'm sure 300K is still pretty big in RL too.) This one's ugly, but it's meant to be ugly, so I'm satisfied

 

( http://news.jtbc.joins.com/article/article.aspx?news_id=NB10215092 )

this is what Korean city housing looks like. Lots of high apartments, with the low ones at 5 floors, and the ones in the pics seem to be about 15~20 stories (I estimate those to be built in the mid-1980s ~ early/mid-1990s). Of course rural areas are a whole different story......

  Edited September 5, 2015 by sys12189  
added pics

[Dreadnought 8,226]

It's just MGB really, 

you're better off asking on the Can't Find it, Ask Here thread though as you'll get more exposure.

I can't even find the "Can't Find It" thread ! It's buried somewhere, but I've lost it.  Where did they hide the bloody thing?

[rsc204 21,805]

Miller Genuine Beer

Around here that stuff qualifies as horse piss.

If it's not Belgian, it's a waste of the bottle it comes in - someone get me a La Chouffe please. Actually a Schlappe-Seppel Kellerbeir or Special is also pretty darn good and much easier to find around here.

I can't even find the "Can't Find It" thread ! It's buried somewhere, but I've lost it.  Where did they hide the bloody thing?

That is here.

[citycowboy 183]

mythical giraffe boy

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

MGB ::= Morris Garage type B.  Anyone seen one lately?

This thread has degenerated, eh?

[Dreadnought 8,226]

MGB ::= Morris Garage type B.  Anyone seen one lately?

This thread has degenerated, eh?

Yo, Nonny --

They always degenerate, don't they?

I have a quick question --

I don't know what your level of lotting skills is, but how do you make a custom lot conform to terrain?  I have an idea for some fillers, but they have to be terrain friendly -- not big foundations under one end.  I want them to conform to slopes, not level them. 

And -- how do you make a lot water friendly?  I want to plop a lot with props that won't sink to the bottom -- short piers, etc.

Gotta run -- stayed up to 3am last night and haven't had breakfast yet!

[Dreadnought 8,226]

 

 

Yo rsc204 --

Quick question --

How did you get that shot?? 

I would like to be able to see my region in it's complete span as I start to design my land forms, but the region view in the game does not include the whole picture -- same for the large cities.  Makes it difficult to keep the size of terrain features relative to their surroundings (realistic).

Is there a way for me to get my hands on a complete city map image and a complete regional image?

[rsc204 21,805]

This was just one of those regions that does fit on the screen, so little more than a Print Screen job in essence. If you've photoshop you could do this a couple times at the edges then using the layers put them back together again, although it's a little tedious. There is a utility that can make one for you called Region Census which may be a better solution.

[Dreadnought 8,226]

This was just one of those regions that does fit on the screen, so little more than a Print Screen job in essence. If you've photoshop you could do this a couple times at the edges then using the layers put them back together again, although it's a little tedious. There is a utility that can make one for you called Region Census which may be a better solution.

Yo, guy --

Have you experienced any problems or conflicts with this program?  I always read the comments below downloads, and a couple of people expressed some dissatisfaction. -- although, everyone else seems to be quite happy.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ If you are referring to the Region Census program, I've always been happy with what it does.  I don't use it often, but it generally does what I want.

Everyone should accept programs for what they do.  If you don't like what they do, write your own, or can you?  I can, but my coding days are long past.  It has probably been more than 40 years since I wrote a program that does some of the things people around here request.  I think I wrote my last device driver somewhere around 1965.

[rsc204 21,805]

Never used it myself, but often comments are not exactly relevant as Nonny states, if they refer to missing additional features then that's not a fair reflection of the quality of the program itself. If you get a number of users commenting about the same bug, maybe it's a problem, but honestly some people don't understand what they are doing and use the comments to vent their frustration as opposed to ask for help and not always constructively.

[timmie 988]

Let's get this thread back on topic (i.e.: city population limits), shall we?

[rsc204 21,805]

Well since the creator of the thread is asking new questions in it, is that not OK?, must we always create new threads in such circumstances?