Show me your layout ideas

[catpower165061 5]

Show me your layout ideas for a starting town, like a farming community or small industry town. I'm lacking imagination right now and need inspiration for road layouts and where things are supposed to go. 

[rsc204 21,808]

You should find plenty of inspiration amongst these "Show us your..." threads.

[mutton noir 170]

For inspiration? You have the whole internet as a resource! Have a look at google maps- search for street maps of different town cities villages- look to your own local area for inspiration. There is so much information at your fingertips

[citycowboy 183]

There is somewhat of a strategy to what you're asking, depending on how many and what type of mods you have installed. If you are just running vanilla, I would advise you follow the 'main street' America grid design, and create a natural barrier (like a river with trees running alongside it) to separate your industrial park from your residential, so pollution doesn't overwhelm your town. Good luck.

[catpower165061 5]

I run vanilla (except for NAM) and the natural barrier sounds like a great idea. I'll try that one out. I figure that if I don't use Google Maps or something as an inspiration or to start off, I can't start building my city.

I'm considering installing a few more mods, but not anything that affects gameplay too dramatically. Was thinking about some rural-type mods.

[CorinaMarie 29,613]

1 hour ago, catpower165061 said:

Was thinking about some rural-type mods.

The MTP - Mountain Theme Pack is a good place to get stuff for a rural atmosphere.

The suggestions to observe real towns with Google Maps is a good one. An alternative is to select or create a map you like, then randomly pick 3 or more places and pretend they have some mineral deposit. Set up small towns around them. After that (provided your map is somewhat realistic with hills and rivers and such) connect those small towns taking the route like would happen in the real world. Roads would tend to follow the valleys for easier construction. Where two roads cross, a small commercial building might go up. Depessie's Diner, perhaps. Then a few houses near it for the employees. Naturally grown cities are the most fun for playing. That's not to say the artistic approach is wrong or anything. Just that the game can be a game too. Add a little new zoning in each small town as you meet demands and they start to grow into small cities.

[catpower165061 5]

I don't want to create a regional landscape with mountains and hills, rivers and lakes from scratch. I will choose to go the pre-made route for this one.

Are there any picture examples of small town setups that you described?

[CorinaMarie 29,613]

On 8/17/2016 at 9:26 PM, catpower165061 said:

I don't want to create a regional landscape with mountains and hills, rivers and lakes from scratch.

Is it the difficulty of creating the map or the mountains and hills, rivers and lakes the part that you don't want to create? Have you looked thru the Map Files for SimCity 4 on the Simtropolis Exchange (STEX)? Or my own CORIMAPS method for easy map creation.

 

On 8/17/2016 at 9:26 PM, catpower165061 said:

Are there any picture examples of small town setups that you described?

One of the best guides (with pictures) that I've read is Realistic Cities For Dummies over at SC4Devotion. Also, you can chose any of a multitude of public access GIS sites for local counties. Then zoom in to one of the towns, turn on the zoning layer, and see how the real world does it. Beacon - Johnson County is a good one to start with. Here's what the town of Franklin looks like with the zoning layer turned on:

Over on the left, you can click the Legend tab to get more details about what each zoning type is.