New neighborhood design

[brianc1327 161]

Every once in a while, I build a city with SC4. The city I have now is doing very well, with over 100M and making about 5k per month, though it has been as high as 10-20k.  I will say more on that later.

When I started building this city, I used the "standard" neighborhood layout of 6x6 squares (technically, I suppose it was actually 8x8, but the outer rim had roads going around it, so the "zonable area"  was 6x6).  Sometimes I would vary this up a little by using a rectangle of say 10x6, and the industrial was in bigger squares, I usually used 10x10 squares since industrial doesn't have to be as close to the road as either residential or commercial.  I would usually also put 1, 2 (1 at opposite corners), or 4 (1 at each corner) city beautification objects like a small park, gazebo, whatever.

As I was playing, I came up with a new way to make neighborhoods, that is better at making money (see the numbers I cited in the first sentence), seems to generate fewer abandoned buildings than my original method, and I think just looks better.  I will attempt to describe it in text.  I think on these forums is a place where screenshots can be placed, so I might just build an isolated neighborhood, take a screenshot of that and post it there.

First I build a "neighborhood frame" that is 11x11 suares of zonable area with roads on all sides of it.

In the center of the zonable area I put a large (3x3) park (park green, flower garden, or plaza), or what I call a "sports complex" (which I will describe momentarily), then I put a road going around it so I have a sort of "roundabout" in the center of the neighborhood, then I connect these inner roads to my outer roads.  As far as I can determine, "city beautification" obects have to have road access to have any effect.

This leaves me with either 82 or 84 zonable tiles.  I did some experimenting, and the best balance is maintained with using half of those for low density resisential, and the other half for medium density commercial.

I build roads for a 3x3 grid of these neigborhoods, but in the center grid I put what I call my city services center.  In this i put an elementary school, a high school, a library, a museum, a police station, a jail (which I think is a NIMBY structure, but I put one anyway), and a fire station (though putting so many fire stations really doesn't seem to have that much advantage over having just 1 in the entire city), then I build the neighborhoods in the way I described around this city services center.  I could make more money if I didn't put a library and museum in each sevice center, but I have reason for keeping the education as high as possible.

My "sports complex" consists of a tennis court, a baketball court, a skateboard park, an open paved area, an open grass area, and a small park, and like the large parks has a total area of 3x3.

The "sports complex" costs more to build/maintain than the other large parks, but assuming the effects(increase in demand cap) are additive and not governed by some weird formula that is used when they are right next to each other, they have an effect that appears to be approximately proportionate to the amount of money spent.  I didn't do a detailed enough analyses to determine which is the "best investment," but I think there are 2 considerations that are more important than that.

First, and most importantly, I think they look cool.

Second, I feel like I am doing more for my sims when I put down a sports complex than one of the prefab parks.  They can pay tennis or basketball, ride their skateboards in a place that is safer than riding it in a parking garage, use the paved area for practicing isolated skills such as dribbling, passing, or their backhand, use the grassy area for practicing their karate katas, or can use the park if they just want to have a picnic and not play any of these sports (and yes, I do know that this is a game and there aren't any real people really doing any real thing).

Then for the industrial area, I put a "ring" of medium density industrial that is 10 tiles wide around the residential/commercial neighborhoods.

I keep this industrial area from choking my residential/commercial area with smog by discouraging dirty/manufacturing from even coming in by passing the appropriate ordinances (clean air and power consumption, I believe), raising the taxes on the dirty/manufacturing industries to the most the game will allow, 20% (call that an environmental tax if you want), and by keeping education levels as high as possible.

I also built cities called "power," "water," and "trash" that supply those services through neighbor deals so I do not have to build NIMBY structures/zones such as power plants or landfills in the city I am building.

In the current city I am working on, I have gotten rid of all but 1 of the dirty/manufacturing industrial plants, or at least I assume it is 1 each from the data gathered from the jobs graph and the chart showing the tax revenue from those industries.

This neighborhood design has worked so well I went back to my original 6x6 neighborhoods, adapted my design for smaller squares, and am remaking those neighborhoods as well.

When I complete this city, I will perhaps move on to a new city and see how well this neighborhood design works in building a city from scratch.

Brian Christiansen 

[CorinaMarie 29,923]

On 7/24/2016 at 2:53 AM, brianc1327 said:

I did some experimenting, and the best balance is maintained with using half of those for low density resisential, and the other half for medium density commercial.

Should this, perhaps, be medium or high density residential? Or did I goof up somewhere else? My city is about to go bankrupt. The EQ did get to about 150.

Btw, you can post pics right in this thread. Just host them on Photobucket or imgur and then paste the direct link right in here and it'll show up.

On 7/24/2016 at 2:53 AM, brianc1327 said:

(and yes, I do know that this is a game and there aren't any real people really doing any real thing)

(Yes there are! *stamps foot* I know they are real. I can even put named Sims in my city and they talk to me.)

 

[brianc1327 161]

That picture looks a lot like what I did, in fact, I thought it was a picture of the town I was building until I noticed that the "city services center" was a bit different from what I do (I didn't put a "city beautification object" into that square). In fact, I was surprised I described it well enough for it to be reproduced so well.  I started a city using this method, and I came very close to going bankrupt as well.  In fact, I had to resort to taking the business deals, and, uh, as much as I hate to admit it, using the "weaknesspays" cheat, to get out of the red.

The main differences between mine and yours, and things that I have discovered since that time are as follows:

The "city center" does not have to have a jail in it since using a large (or perhaps even small) police station provides plenty of jail cell space. Perhaps for the first "city unit," the police protection does not have to be built at all, at least not until later.  Also, the library and museum do not really need to be added until this model is making money. Also, a medical clinic rather than a medical center is plenty for a city unit of that size as long as the residential zoning is low density and not medium or high.

The "city beautification" object for the first group of neighborhoods should be a small park green since it is so much cheaper to place/maintain than the sports complex. I think I put in small parks for the first 1, or perhaps even 2 "city units" for this reason, and waited until later to start building the "sports complexes."

I have discovered that patience is a virtue in this game, at least at first, and building too fast is not good, so the space to build one of these "city units" should be planned out, it should actually be built one subunit (11x11 square) at a time, then letting that fill in before going on to the next one, and so on. 

Perhaps also, the services, such as the schools should not be added in until all the subunits are built up, and you have a "money making machine" going.

The amount of residential/commercial also has to be sort of tempered to the demand meters.  In my current city, if the demand meter shows a bit more residential demand than commercial demand, I make the "outer ring" residential and the "inner ring" commercial.  If the commercial demand is actually in the negative, I place all residential.  It has not yet happened that the commercial demand is more than the residential demand, so I am not sure what I would do in that case.

As I said, this design takes a while to build up into a money making city, and I had to even resort to some of the business deals (and even cheats) to get out of the red (I got rid of them when I was making more money than the business deals provided), but at the current time the city I am building has close to 10M simoleons in the treasury and is making somewhere between 1k and 2k per month. 

It could perhaps even be more if I did  not put a library/museum in each subunit, but although making money is a requirement of the game, else you get kicked out after a while, it is not my actual goal.

My actual goals are:

First, to provide as many services as possible while still making money rather than maximizing the amount of money made, in fact if I do much more than break even, I look at what more services I can provide.

Second, to keep education levels as high as possible.  In the first city I built using this method, I got it close to 200, which I think is the highest the game allows.

Third, to attract as many "rich people" (income of $$$) as possible. In my current city, the percent of the people that have $$$ incomes is a little over 10%,  and $$ incomes is pretty close to 50%.  I have considered using tax rates to drive the $-income people out of the city entirely, but that just doesn't seem very egalitarian of me.

So this method does work quite well, it just takes quite a while (at least in "game years") to establish itself.

Also, I have a flickr account, which is the picture service associated with my email account.  Would that work as well for posting pictures, or do I have to have a Photobucket or imgur  account to post pictures?

Brian Christiansen

 

[CorinaMarie 29,923]

On 7/26/2016 at 9:41 AM, brianc1327 said:

In fact, I was surprised I described it well enough for it to be reproduced so well.

Yeah, I was able to follow along well enough I felt I could reproduce it.

 

On 7/26/2016 at 9:41 AM, brianc1327 said:

Also, a medical clinic rather than a medical center is plenty for a city unit of that size as long as the residential zoning is low density and not medium or high.

I guess I missed the medical center in your first post. I went with the full, regular hospital but cut the funding down.

 

On 7/26/2016 at 9:41 AM, brianc1327 said:

I think I put in small parks for the first 1, or perhaps even 2 "city units" for this reason, and waited until later to start building the "sports complexes."

I had saved the layout before I turned on time, so I pulled it up and deleted all but one small park green in each of the 8 outer sub units.

 

On 7/26/2016 at 9:41 AM, brianc1327 said:

I have discovered that patience is a virtue in this game, at least at first, and building too fast is not good, so the space to build one of these "city units" should be planned out, it should actually be built one subunit (11x11 square) at a time, then letting that fill in before going on to the next one, and so on.

I was hoping I could lay out the whole thing and then just start it up. It does work, but I had to tweak some funding. (More on that in a moment.)

 

On 7/26/2016 at 9:41 AM, brianc1327 said:

As I said, this design takes a while to build up into a money making city, and I had to even resort to some of the business deals (and even cheats) to get out of the red

This 2nd attempt did not need any business deals or cheats, tho the profit is small.

 

On 7/26/2016 at 9:41 AM, brianc1327 said:

I have a flickr account, which is the picture service associated with my email account.  Would that work as well for posting pictures, or do I have to have a Photobucket or imgur  account to post pictures?

That should be fine as long as you can get a direct link. I'll put one of mine in a code box so you can see what it looks like.

https://i128.photobucket.com/albums/p184/CorinaPics/BrianC-02_zpselk1lprc.jpg

And you just paste it like that (without the code box) and it shows up like this:

When the board software asks if you want to remove formatting and display as a link just click the X to say you want it as a picture. Sometimes this site has to think a few moments before it converts it to the picture. If it hasn't in like 30 seconds delete it and re-paste it.

So, the above is the layout with all except 8 small parks deleted. I deleted the jail and even the police station then added the hospital. I turned on time and here's where it's at:

 

It's been running at full speed all while I've been typing this and the population has increased to 1,228. The income is now $1,323 and the expenses are $1,218. It's year 93 now.

Here's how I adjusted the budgets:

• Elementary School at $18. There is 1 student and 30 capacity. Bus funding at $100 covers all Residential
• High School at $52. There are 11 students and 60 capacity. Bus funding at $96 covers all Res.
• Library at $30. There are 322 books out of the collection of 3600.
• Museum at $189. There are 18 visitors, 378 tickets available and 13 exhibits.
• Hospital at $60. There are 98 patients of 180 capacity. Ambulance funding at $12 covers all Res.

Other stats:

• Crime: 0
• Commute: 13
• Air Pollution: 1
• Garbage: 0
• Water Pollution: 8
• Education: 170
• Life Expectency: 88
• Average Income: $55k
• Mayor Rating: 62

How long does it take for the High Tech Industrial to fill out? Mine seems to be stagnated and it's up to year 110.

Edit: Year 150. Funds at $492k, but no other changes.

Edit: Year 225. Funds at $590k, but no other changes.

[matias93 7,535]

May this references could be useful:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_block#Superblock

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=pt&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=es-419&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fpt.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSuperquadra&edit-text=&act=url

[CorinaMarie 29,923]

Ok, so I built another 3x3 grid south of the original.

 

And as it filled in and started making money I was able to build the 8 sports complexes in the original grid and 3 in the new grid:

 

The above pic is after the population stabilized and the education is back up were it was before this latest zoning. It does fluctuate about 50 peeps which means the education is a little bumpy but still around 168 average. Average income is up to $74k.

[brianc1327 161]

I have built 2 cities based on my "neighborhood design". One grid that is fairly big, called "grid" (I am not very creative with my names) that has 36 such neighborhoods, and probably could have had at least 40 if I were a tiny bit more efficient in zoning.  The other is called "Emonds Field" (from The Wheel of Time book series) and is very small, just big enough for 2 neighborhoods.

I think the final stats meet my goals very well. Just to retstate, my goals are: to provide as many services as possible while still making money, to keep education levels as high as possible, and to attract as many "rich people" (income of $$$) as possible. 

  Below are the "final stats" (though I guess a city is never really "finished")

I made 2 cities based on my neighborhood design, one called grids (I am not very original in my naming) that is real big, big enough for 36 neighborhoods , perhaps even 40 if I were more efficient in my zoning and another that is real small, called Emonds field (from The Wheel of Time book series) that just has enough room for 2 neighborhoods .

I think the "final stats" meet my goals pretty well.

My goals are:  to provide as many services as possible while still making money,to keep education levels as high as possible,and to attract as many "rich people" (income of $$$) as possible.

These are the "final" stats for my cities:

Grids
Funds 31,972,192 (although my goal is not monetary, I put his in to show that this model can make good money)
Population 73,228 (On this grid, I think the population could probably 10x as high if I zoned high density rather than low density residential
Year 904(Took a long time in "game years," a few days in real time)
Fire coverage one in each corner(this is one place where I did not spend a lot of money because it did not seem to make much difference).
Crime most are yellow (simcity misdemeanor?)
Education appears to be mostly green.
Desirability looks to be pretty high for most except agricultural (I don't like agricultural because you need to put a water treatment plant for every 2 or so farms, and a least in SC4 classic, as opposed to SC4 deluxe, they cannot be taxed).
Mayor rating high in all neighborhoods
Avg age appears to be mostly "old"
Health mainly green,with a few red spots, Which I think would dissappear if I let the city just run for awhile
Pollution none none,except where I have the research centers there are little green dots of radiation pollution

Graphs (some are my best guess on what the graphs show)
Mayor rating 60 I would think it should be higher based on the other stats, perhaps my low fire coverage is what is keeping it down.
Crime c=a=12
Pop $-3500 $$-60,000 $$$-9000
Education 195
Life expectancy 95
Avg income 80,000
Income/expenses appears to be 1000/month over last 500 years

Emonds field

Data Views
Year 75
Funds $1,113,058
Population 5636
Data views
Fire hazard just 1 station
Crime just 1 yellow(simcity misdemeanor?)
Education all green
Desirability high for all except agriculture, which I don't really care about
Land value all solid green
Mayor rating green in all neighborhoods
Age appears to be somewhat evenly split between young and old
Health green
Pollution none, since population is not big enough for research centers, not even little isolated spots of radiation pollution

Graphs
Mayor rating 60
Crime c=a=1
Population $-150 $$-4600 $$$-890
Education 190EQ
Life expectancy 95
Averag income 90k
Income is a pretty consistent 1000/month over, which is pretty much what I want, much higher and I would have to try to figure out what additional services I could provide

Brian Christiansen

[brianc1327 161]

I just wanted to add the following:

The article linked to by matias93 is really interesting.

To increase the industrial development, you might want to try experimenting with lowering the HT tax rate by perhaps 1 or 2%.  I think doing this will either:

Increase the amount of HT industry, thus making up for the decrease in taxes from them, and perhaps it will increase the proportion of $$$-jobs available, or it will simply decrease the total amount of taxes collected.

Brian Christiansen

[CorinaMarie 29,923]

On 7/29/2016 at 4:17 AM, brianc1327 said:

The article linked to by matias93 is really interesting.

Indeed. I picked up few ideas from it. I especially like how there can be walking and biking paths that are not fighting with motorized traffic.

 

On 7/29/2016 at 4:17 AM, brianc1327 said:

lowering the HT tax rate by perhaps 1 or 2%

Done. I lowered it by 2% to 7%. Here's how the graph looks after running for a while:

 

And here's the main screen:

It was making about $100 per month so that is a little bit of a drop in income.

 

On 7/29/2016 at 3:41 AM, brianc1327 said:

a least in SC4 classic, as opposed to SC4 deluxe

Hmm. Is your design for Classic and since I'm playing Rush Hour they don't react the same way?

Or do you have any mods installed? Such as:

Mine is plain vanilla patched to 640 with the exception that I do have my Zones Data View Mod installed, but that has no affect on demand.

It just seems to me the balance between the amount of residential is off inasmuch as there is too much commercial and HT zoning for the maximum number of residents that can fit in the low density housing.

 

 

[CorinaMarie 29,923]

So, I created a new city tile south of the original one and created one 3x3 grid with the ring of HT zoned land around it. The cities are connected to each other via two roads. Here's the region view:

 

Then the new city has two complete sports complexes and the other 6 have all except the skateboard park:

I let it run until it stabilized. Education is around 170 and the profit is $6 per month.

 

Then I went back to the original city and let it run. The population fluctuations there also stabilized, but otherwise no significant change:

 

Any idea why mine isn't yielding similar results to yours?

 

[brianc1327 161]

Some modifications that I made, that I don't think I have talked about yet are as follows:

In my large city ("gids"), by the time I was at year 456 I had most of the rewards (I take all the rewards, such as the research centers and the golf course - except for the statues, which I call the "vanity rewards"). Whether this helped any, I don't know, but I like taking them and if I have room on my grid, which this on had plenty of, I like finding a place to put them.  

By that time I also had built pephaps half (~18) of my "city subunits" (I hope I am being consistent in my use of terminology, but I mean the 35x35 residential/commercial blocks) built, and thus had a very powerful money machine going.

I also built a single road through my "city services centers" and managed to build my services (large police station, elementary school, high school, library, museum, and small medical clinic) on one side of it. I also deliberately underfunded the schools so I would get offered the private schools so as to relieve a little of the funding requirement for my regular public schools. I zoned the other side of the road as commercial.

I also  made a much lower proportion of my land in this city as "industrial zone", and that was zoned in a sort of chckerboard pattern, with each  "industrial block" (10x10 approximately) being not fully zoned, but divided up roughly into quadrants (~5x5 squares) and zoning 2 of the quadrants as industrial, and in the other 2 just planting trees in the hopes that this would increase desirability and thus speed industrial development, though it did not seem to.

In my smaller city (Emonds Field), I divided the "city service centers" in half as the other city, built the service builings on one side, and zoned the other side of the road as industrial, and until I had 2 city subunits built up, this was all the industrial I zoned. If the dirty/manufacturing industries are zoned out by cranking their tax rates up to 20%, putting industrial in the middle of the city is just fine, as HT industrial seems to produce less pollution than high density residential.

In that city, I also planned it out a bit so that my "city subunits" had roughly equal space around them, though I think it was less proportionately that in my original design, and zoned that sort of half industrial and half commercial.

I would post pictures, but I am still working on whether I can put a direct URL to my flickr pictures.  If not, perhaps I should just do like when posting to usenet, put somescreenshots in my flickr account, publically share those pictures and put a link to my flickr account.  One article I found when googling the question said I could do that (put a direct link to the picture from flickr), another said I could not, so I will not know until I actually try it.

Brian Christiansen

[brianc1327 161]

The link to flickr apparently does work.  Here is a screenshot of my city Emond's field showing the service center with the service buildings on one side and HT industrial on the other.  It also shows how I had to modify my design to fit 2 neigborhoods into this small grid. It finally shows that I zoned the "extra space" around the neighborhoods as approximately half commercial and half HT industrial. 

The only rewards I have gotten so far in this city are the mayor's house and the first church/cemetery combo because of the population (I think).  Even if I rezone as high or medium density residential, I don't think I will get many more rewards because of the small grid size.  Even if I do get them, there is not really any place to put them.

What anime is your picture from (if it is from an anime).  My first though was Serial Experiments Lain, but I am not so sure because I have never actually watched more than perhaps a few clips from online reviews of Serial Experiments Lain.

Brian Chrisitiansen

 

 

[CorinaMarie 29,923]

That pic shows the major difference. An image with the Zones Data View on would help even more. This quote from your first post is where I believe mine differs:

On 7/24/2016 at 1:53 AM, brianc1327 said:

Then for the industrial area, I put a "ring" of medium density industrial that is 10 tiles wide around the residential/commercial neighborhoods.

I took the "ring" of medium density industrial to be one completely surrounding the first 3x3 grid of res/comm. I believe what we need now are pics showing the steps to start with the first 3x3 up to a profitable city and showing how to keep the balance.

7 hours ago, brianc1327 said:

What anime is your picture from (if it is from an anime).

I have no idea. For my avatar (which I've had on my other home site for several years) is from when I Googled images and then searched for one that was a reasonably similar caricature of me IRL.

[brianc1327 161]

I will post a picture of the zones if I can figure out how to do that.  The only way I figured out how to take a screenshot so far is by using the screenshot tool within SC4, and at least as far as I can determine, it takes allows only that view.

When I saw your avatar, the first thing I thought of was "that looks like an anime character, I just can't quite place it."  For some reason the first character I thought was Lain (that is the actual name of the character).  I don't know why, because that only looks a little like her if she had glasses.  The second that I thought of is the character from "Read or Die," the avatar looks a little bit more like that character, but that is one I have neither seen nor even seen online reviews of.

Perhaps I will post a link to this forum on the anime newsgroup I read, state your screen name of and ask there.

Brian Christiansen

 

[brianc1327 161]

I googled how to take a screenshot in windows, and it is just pressing the "Print screen" button which puts a screenshot on the clipbaord of any window, and does not have the restrictions of the internal SC4 screenshot tool.  That I already knew, but since I rarely take screenshots, I just needed to be reminded of that. 

What is more, since this installation of XP is just for SC4 and Rollercoaster Tycoon (though sometimes I do access the internet from it), it does not have any photoediting software such as Irfanview or GIMP on it that I can paste the contents of the cipboard into, so I would have to install such software.  Perhaps I could also paste the clipboard directly into flickr.

Brian Christiansen

[CorinaMarie 29,923]

2 hours ago, brianc1327 said:

this installation of XP is just for SC4 and Rollercoaster Tycoon (though sometimes I do access the internet from it), it does not have any photoediting software

My SC4 is on its own XP comp by itself and I use the PrintScreen button for my pics. I then paste them into Paint which is a part of XP. I chose to save as .jpg. From there I xfer it to a flash drive and bring it over here to my internet comp. I have PSE here if I need to edit it, but mostly I just upload them as-is.

[brianc1327 161]

Using paint never occurred to me.  I guess now I just need to figure out what screenshots would best illustrate what I have done.  

I did ask about your avatar on RAAM (the anime newsgroup I read), and so far the only opinion I have gotten is that it probably is not an anime character.

I have no idea why I first thought of Serial Experiments Lain, as this is what Lain looks like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Experiments_Lain (It seems that wikipedia won't let me post just a link to a picture on a page of theirs).

This is the character from Read or Die that I thought of:

and I think her name is Yomiko (or Nancy?)

Brian Christiansen

 

[CorinaMarie 29,923]

1 hour ago, brianc1327 said:

Using paint never occurred to me.  I guess now I just need to figure out what screenshots would best illustrate what I have done.

The first pic could just be the same one you posted of Emond's Field but turn on the Zones Data View. That'd give a good indication of what you are wanting to show me.

1 hour ago, brianc1327 said:

This is the character from Read or Die that I thought of:

I can see the similarity, tho side by side it's easy to see the difference.

[brianc1327 161]

Here is a picture of Emond's field in "zone view":

 

As you can see, I had to sort of change the shape of my "city subunits" to fit 2 of them on this grid.  The "spare land" around the city subunits is divided roughly equally between commercial and HT industrial, and it is proportionately much less than my original design, partially because there is just not enough room on this map, and partially because a smaller amount just "works better ". 

Allthough the RCI demand meter shows a negative demand for the industrial, opening the details window of the RCI demand window tells a very differnt story:

 

The AG demand is negative, but as I explained before I do not like placing farms, so I don't really care what that one says.  The D and M demands are negative, but that is because I essentially "zoned them out" using the tax rates.  The HT demand is a little bit negative, but it is pretty close to the "ideal" amount.

The demands for residential and commercial are all moderate to high, and I suppose I could monkey around with those by making some or all of the residential/commercial zones as medium/high density.

As for your avatar, if it were a real photograph (and you knew that it was), I think that is the first thing that you would have told me.  However, when I first saw it, my though was "anime character," or at least "anime style drawing" rather than "real photograph."

Brian Christiansen

[CorinaMarie 29,923]

On 7/24/2016 at 1:53 AM, brianc1327 said:

This leaves me with either 82 or 84 zonable tiles.  I did some experimenting, and the best balance is maintained with using half of those for low density resisential, and the other half for medium density commercial.

Ah. Now it all makes way more sense. The above quote from your first post is in contrast to what I made using it as my guide. That also explains why I had so much undeveloped commercial in mine.

 

2 hours ago, brianc1327 said:

Here is a picture of Emond's field in "zone view":

At a guess, I'd say this is around 70 percent residential for the total map rather than 50/50 for res/com with a full ring of HT around it.

[brianc1327 161]

This is the 1st "city subunit" I built in the city "Grids" or at least I think it was the first:

 

and it it much closer, I think, to my original description, and as you can see, for that neighborhood, the "city beautification item" was a "large park green" instead of the sports complexes, because of the lower placement/maintenance costs.

Brian Christiansen

[CorinaMarie 29,923]

1 hour ago, brianc1327 said:

much closer, I think, to my original description

Yes. It is much closer. Based on the props and trees showing it appears you have NAM's new zones data view. What other mods are you using? CAM perhaps? Or other demand altering mods? (Nothing wrong with that, but it would affect how the plan works for others if we don't have the same ones installed.)

[brianc1327 161]

Yes, I do have NAM installed, as for others, like CAM, I do not, or at least I do not think so.  How do I check that?  I did not realize that NAM had any other effect than adding some fancier transportation options than come in the regular game that I am not using, or at least don't think that I am using.

Brian Christiansen

[CorinaMarie 29,923]

There are two places in XP to look for addon things, tho the first one is the most likely place:

• C:\Documents and Settings\<username> or <Administrator>\My Documents\Simcity 4\Plugins folder
• C:\Program Files\Maxis\Simcity 4\Plugins folder

The one in My Documents is the one you typically want to use. There are reasons some peeps use the other one like when they are creating new content and want to keep stuff separated for testing.

The NAM does add the other cool transportation options as well as better path finding and it greatly alters transportation capacities for each type of network. Most peeps find this to be a good thing. Those who play for the challenge (like me) want to tweak those settings with the TSCT. NAM does not alter any of the demand stuff. I asked about that in case you had other mods that do.

[brianc1327 161]

I did a google image search using your avatar, and this is what it came up with: https://freeapkdownloader.info/android-apps/diary-ng-babae/.

According to the description, this app does the following: "Diary Ng Babae app contains a collection of image quotes from https://www.facebook.com/DiaryNgBabae.MP”>Diary Ng Babae Facebook Page. I just made this app for easy access and easy sharing. The credits goes to the owner of the facebook page. This app works even without internet connection so you can browse the quotes and be inspired with it."

You might have this app on your phone, but I don't think so, because I think you would know that, and thus tell me about it.  I still think it looks like an anime character or at least an "anime style drawing."

Brian Christiansen

[CorinaMarie 29,923]

1 hour ago, brianc1327 said:

I did a google image search using your avatar,

Cool. Now you prolly know more about it than I do.

[MushyMushy 3,618]

This is an interesting thread... a much more orderly style than I usually took back in the day when I used to "play" the game (spaghetti cities most of the time). There is an issue that I see, however. The zoning for R and C appears to not have any space to grow 4x4 buildings, which are an integral part of growth in the higher stages. The other issue that might occur will stem from pursuing a disproportionately high amount of R$$$ Sims. It may work at lower density, but it isn't sustainable as the buildings that employ them still employ the other wealth levels as well. People that know a lot more about building successful cities than I do (I don't know a whole lot about it) have generally seemed to say that you shouldn't have more than 15% R$$$ and that at least half of your population should be R$.

When I attempted to make orderly cities, my general approach was long strips of 4 tile wide zones (that were divisible by 4 in length) with one way roads in-between and Avenues running perpendicular to the OWR at standard but space-out intervals. That was before I got the NAM, of course.

Of course, once I picked up the NAM I just started amassing other plugins and stopped caring about the "game" part of SC4 altogether.

[Odainsaker 2,137]

Hehe, a mystery unfolds.  Further image investigation yields this larger fan art, used as an avatar by former twitter user 모자코힝 (aka "@mozacohi").  The twitter account no longer exists, but this is the largest full version of this drawing and it is the only one still showing the artist's signature "M. H. Kim."  Possibly it is fan art from an anime or manga, or maybe it is unspecified art inspired the style of anime or manga.  If someone recognizes the t-shirt graphic, we might be able to pin it to a character.

As for the superblock, you might also draw inspiration from the historic Oglethorpe Plan for Savannah, Georgia, a city often acclaimed as among the most charmingly beautiful and picturesque in the U.S.  I admit I'm not really a fan of trying to find the perfect SimCity simulator block that can be endlessly repeated, as I like to see how things are interconnected and interrelated, and I'm a sucker for sightlines.  Part of Savannah's genius was not just to think of a superblock ward only as a discreet unit, but to think of a patterned layout of neighborhood squares that all interconnect with each other axially from square to square.  They may be automobile traffic flow nightmares, but the squares are beautiful and the center of civic and neighborhood life.  They are not where the utilitarian functional services go, but are the spaces and landmarks for the new democratic and egalitarian society in the Americas.

Additionally, each ward was made up not of a single zone or density bounded within the street, but of a mix uses and sizes along different street scales such that instead of each block being residential or commercial, one side of the block could face a commercial street while the opposite side of the block faced a residential street, and in the middle of the block was an alley, where nobody cared if the backside of a business butted against the backside of an apartment complex.  The result is that the street pattern may be a grid, but it is a grid network of dense commercial streets, light commercial block, dense residential streets, or light residential street, rather than a grid pattern of dense commercial blocks, light commercial blocks, dense residential blocks, and light residential blocks.  A way I have heard it put is to think not of uniformly coloring zones within the bubbles of the blocks bounded by the streets, but to instead think of zoning along streets while letting the interior of the blocks fill in as they may.  This is the closest SimCity will allow us to mixed-use urban planning, which in many ways is the ideal planning for the grid block city.  The neighborhood identity becomes my street and the houses across the street facing my own, or my business and the businesses across the street facing my own, which is how most gird systems are experienced, and not an identity of who is on the residential block versus who is on the commercial block, which has more to do with assigning administrative addresses and utility block numbers and is not how people really see the places they live and work.  The streets that make up a superblock ward in Savannah come in a variety of types, from alleyways to narrow avenues to broad, tree-lined avenues, and their character becomes further elaborated based on which street is a commercial street versus which street is lined by rowhouses versus which streets have single-family houses.

 

[CorinaMarie 29,923]

8 hours ago, Odainsaker said:

Hehe, a mystery unfolds.  Further image investigation yields this larger fan art, used as an avatar by former twitter user 모자코힝 (aka "@mozacohi").  The twitter account no longer exists, but this is the largest full version of this drawing and it is the only one still showing the artist's signature "M. H. Kim."  Possibly it is fan art from an anime or manga, or maybe it is unspecified art inspired the style of anime or manga.  If someone recognizes the t-shirt graphic, we might be able to pin it to a character.

The words on her T-shirt might be: "EACH" upside down on the left and "WAKE MY OW" or "ON" on the right.

At the time I found it, it was simply an image I had Googled using terms like: black hair girl, drawing, sketch or the like. I didn't see any copyright for it and I'm not using it to make any profit so I hope I'm ok to keep using it. I've grown extremely fond of the image.

[MushyMushy 3,618]

Eh I don't think you have anything to worry about if it is copyrighted - people use copyrighted images for their avatars all the time. Game/tv/anime characters, company logos, etc.

Mine technically is, though you wouldn't be able to find what it is by clicking it because I cropped it and tacked the NAM logo on it and then uploaded to imgur. I wouldn't be surprised though if people knew where I got it from because I've seen other users with the same character as their avatar before.