New to SC4?

[Caelem 4]

I'll do that later, it's 2:40 am here. One thing I can say is there's a lot of residential and then some commercial scattered around. 

[Caelem 4]

I decided to restart everything. I'm doing things a lot less rushed now, and paying closer attention to the RCI. there's a lot of small details in the game I never noticed before, I saw zombies (i think) at the graveyard, I saw wedding photos being taken outside a worship house, I saw schoolkids running about, it's makes everything seem much more real. I was wondering about the future of my new city (well town) and I thought about industry. After a while the population will demand way more jobs including industry, and eventually industry will take up a huge part of the map. Obviously this is bad cus of pollution and sims not liking it. Does something happen in the future?

[fredinno 54]

22 hours ago, Caelem said:

I have nam, and the pointers are facing the road. I just don't know. 

make sure your NAM's max transit time (or something like that) is 600.

[Caelem 4]

11 minutes ago, fredinno said:

make sure your NAM's max transit time (or something like that) is 600.

HOw do I do that?

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

1 hour ago, Caelem said:

HOw do I do that?

Run the TSCT and it's under the Base Network Capacity label. Like 3 lines down.

[rsc204 21,808]

1 hour ago, fredinno said:

make sure your NAM's max transit time (or something like that) is 600.

Why would you need too, isn't that the default setting? Unless you've changed this, there is simply no need to modify anything here.

Personally I would stay well clear of altering any of the TSCT settings unless you really know what you are doing. Right now, such modifications are only going to make things even more complicated. These advanced options are intended for expert users who want more control over how their game works.

I sense that you are failing to understand a critical point in all this, pollution is not all bad. Pollution within reason is necessary. Once you move away from I-D and I-M to I-HT, the pollution levels will reduce. Trees are a great help too. If your sims are complaining about pollution, check the Air Pollution map. If the areas shown with heavy pollution do not reach their homes, then it's not a problem from a desirability perspective. If the pollution is "leaking" across from the I-D to Res zones, use a lot of trees as a barrier to suck it up.

The bulk of pollution comes either from Industrial or congested/heavy-used roads. If the former, it's fine, seriously, it really is fine, honest, fine, with me here?, it's FINE!!! If that pollution is from the roads, just make sure the worst affected parts have Commercial zoning, not residential. Actually, provided any residential was R$, even then, it would still be fine (I'll stop saying that now).

Whatever you think is causing your cities to stall, it's not pollution, it's almost 100% necessary to go through this phase to get to a point where you can run a clean city. Bear in mind, sims don't just become educated because you built a school. It takes generations of good-quality available education to increase the EQ level in your city. But, once you've hit 100 EQ,  I-HT demand will begin to appear, at 150 EQ, you'll should have enough I-HT demand, that you rarely, if ever need to have new I-D or I-M in your cities anymore.

If a city "stalls", don't scrap it and start over. It can almost always be fixed, provided you don't end up with a budgetary problem. I posted this link before, but I am going to repeat myself. Following this tutorial, you can't fail to get a successful region started, it has all the information/tips you need and more.

 

[Caelem 4]

No I know that pollution doesn't affect them if it's not reaching their home. I just thought once there's more and more residential and there more and more industrial they'd meet eventually. I have many tree barriers. I've played for 5 hours and got my pop to 5k.. that's how slow and careful I'm going. I scrap my cities a lot because I just get annoyed and think maybe I can change this or change that to stop whatever caused me to scrap it. I also have 3 schools. One of them only has 9 pupils 

[APSMS 1,892]

The trick, I think, is to never scrap a city unless you really, really don't like it, not because you think you can do a different change. If that's really the case, make a new city, and try it out in that. Then, if it works, open up your old city and try to modify it.

The game tutorials are not terrible, as they at least give you a handle on the game. But they don't really go too far into it. Remember that you always need at least an Elementary, High School, and a Library to raise and maintain your EQ to 120+. A community college is a really cheap way to give a boost, and museums/university are nice, but TBH you only need the primary school bits (+library for adult Sims) to give yourself a head start on Education.

Not scrapping cities forces you to be able to troubleshoot and fix your city's problems. Starting over unfortunately doesn't replicate these problems, and unfortunately because the simulation is surprisingly complex (even if its roots are simple), and not every city is the same, you will undoubtedly run into at least trouble in one of your cities in the future where scrapping will be a very painful option; it is easier to solve these problems if you learn the technique (whatever works for you) now, while you have baby cities and [relatively] small amounts of time invested.

Scrapping a city will be less of an option once you have 30+ hours into one city, which believe me happens way more often than I'd like to think, given the number of cities that I have and how undeveloped a lot of them are. I'm sure I have a few cities with well over 150 hours into them.

[fredinno 54]

10 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Why would you need too, isn't that the default setting? Unless you've changed this, there is simply no need to modify anything here.

Personally I would stay well clear of altering any of the TSCT settings unless you really know what you are doing. Right now, such modifications are only going to make things even more complicated. These advanced options are intended for expert users who want more control over how their game works.

I sense that you are failing to understand a critical point in all this, pollution is not all bad. Pollution within reason is necessary. Once you move away from I-D and I-M to I-HT, the pollution levels will reduce. Trees are a great help too. If your sims are complaining about pollution, check the Air Pollution map. If the areas shown with heavy pollution do not reach their homes, then it's not a problem from a desirability perspective. If the pollution is "leaking" across from the I-D to Res zones, use a lot of trees as a barrier to suck it up.

The bulk of pollution comes either from Industrial or congested/heavy-used roads. If the former, it's fine, seriously, it really is fine, honest, fine, with me here?, it's FINE!!! If that pollution is from the roads, just make sure the worst affected parts have Commercial zoning, not residential. Actually, provided any residential was R$, even then, it would still be fine (I'll stop saying that now).

Whatever you think is causing your cities to stall, it's not pollution, it's almost 100% necessary to go through this phase to get to a point where you can run a clean city. Bear in mind, sims don't just become educated because you built a school. It takes generations of good-quality available education to increase the EQ level in your city. But, once you've hit 100 EQ,  I-HT demand will begin to appear, at 150 EQ, you'll should have enough I-HT demand, that you rarely, if ever need to have new I-D or I-M in your cities anymore.

If a city "stalls", don't scrap it and start over. It can almost always be fixed, provided you don't end up with a budgetary problem. I posted this link before, but I am going to repeat myself. Following this tutorial, you can't fail to get a successful region started, it has all the information/tips you need and more.

 

He might have changed the setting...

 

What are your transportation settings? I would like a traffic map of your city...

 

and + on the pollution part. It's pretty much impossible to have 0 pollution in a city, unless you force everyone onto public transport, or mod the TSCT to have 0 vehicle air pollution...

 

Also, it depends on your city densities... If everything is high-density (like me), your TSCT capacity should be Medium or Medium-High.

You should also build extensive subway networks, and monorail or highway (or both) networks to keep people moving, depending on if your TSCT settings for mass transit use are Low/Medium, or High/Ultra-High. Personally, I build both.

 

Also, keep all your cities' zones in 'blocks'. Like in real life, consolidate industry, residential, commerical, etc to each other in 'blocks', reducing the chances of the 'eternal commuter bug' enormously....

[APSMS 1,892]

The TSCT makes it hard to change this value, and notifies you of unintended consequences.

I wasn't aware the OP had even downloaded the NAM when the thread started. I doubt he has had time to fiddle with a tool that is obviously for an advanced user (which he has stated he is not).

I'm not sure why you would ever change this value (MAX Trip Commute Time) anyways. The only effect it really has, besides making abandonment easier, is force your game to run slower because the Traffic Simulator needs to make sure that all routes are valid and fit in the allotted time. 600 minutes lets the TS be a little lazy and just pick the first route it finds. z1 noticed that this caused the TS to run up to 3 times as fast, depending on the size of the city.

Best guess is that the NAM wasn't properly installed the first time. It's not the most obvious of installations.

[Caelem 4]

I never changed the settings anyway so I'm guessing that part is fine. When I build a city I want it to have many areas with trees and many parks. Also if I want to build a countryside or suburbs then how do I stop the buildings from upgrading? Is it possible to have a city and then suburbs in the same map?

[Caelem 4]

Oh yeah about the school things. I have 2 primary schools (elementary i think they're called) then a high school. They don't have much children/teens in them, the population is ageing faster than I'm placing more residential I think. I also have a train line and some bus stops. 

[matias93 7,535]

41 minutes ago, Caelem said:

When I build a city I want it to have many areas with trees and many parks.

This is made fundamentally plopping parks and trees. This one is a great and very complete park pack, which is also compatible with most texture changing mods:

 

44 minutes ago, Caelem said:

Also if I want to build a countryside or suburbs then how do I stop the buildings from upgrading? Is it possible to have a city and then suburbs in the same map?

That is made by simply zoning low densities, so they only upgrade into that category. Growth stages are mainly determined by the population size of your region, and the wealth preference of the ground you are zoning. If you want them to keep on low growth stages (mainly to make low wealth suburbs), you'll need to deprive the area of certain public services. Try experimenting with some disprovision and industrial pollution to archieve the desired mix.

36 minutes ago, Caelem said:

Oh yeah about the school things. I have 2 primary schools (elementary i think they're called) then a high school. They don't have much children/teens in them, the population is ageing faster than I'm placing more residential I think.

The population age is also strongly linked to wealth: richer sims live longer and stay for longer on the same place, while poorer sims have shorter lifes, more children that low the median age of their homes and are changing houses fastly. So for more wealthy neighbourhoods you'll need to replace some school related educational services with museums, art galleries, universities and libraries, that avoid sims to forget what they have learnt in school.

[Caelem 4]

Oh ok. It also says my sims health is bad yet the pollution isn't near their homes, I have a hospital covering most with funding that has the capacity greater than the actual number of patients, so why is the the health so bad? 

[matias93 7,535]

Did you check water pollution? Farms and high density residentials are very water contaminant...

[fredinno 54]

1 hour ago, Caelem said:

Oh ok. It also says my sims health is bad yet the pollution isn't near their homes, I have a hospital covering most with funding that has the capacity greater than the actual number of patients, so why is the the health so bad? 

Plus, you need a water treatment plant to clean the polluted water, even if there is little water pollution.

 

3 hours ago, Caelem said:

I never changed the settings anyway so I'm guessing that part is fine. When I build a city I want it to have many areas with trees and many parks. Also if I want to build a countryside or suburbs then how do I stop the buildings from upgrading? Is it possible to have a city and then suburbs in the same map?

zone low desnsity. Keep in mind that this means that you will need high speed networks like highways and monorails made in large amounts (highways, I find, are a LOT more cost effective in suburbs) to keep people moving to their workplaces fast.

[APSMS 1,892]

Actually, an adequate road network will more than serve suburbs within the city tile. Monorail and Highway are better for intercity transit, but even then it's not strictly necessary, more for appearances than anything, unless you have an inordinately large population which almost exclusively commutes. Only build the highways if you need to; the simulation is a lot more tolerant of traffic and commute times once you install the NAM. It's significantly smarter, too, so large avenues will have traffic directed towards them rather than Sims cutting through side streets as the most direct route, rather than the fastest. 

[Caelem 4]

Thanks for the Help. I have mainly streets and some roads. And a small part of an avenue. Then just the bus stops and trains. 

[fredinno 54]

57 minutes ago, Caelem said:

Thanks for the Help. I have mainly streets and some roads. And a small part of an avenue. Then just the bus stops and trains. 

What is the NAM transit commuter percentage settings? Medium? (aka American?) If so, skip the monorail, and concentrate on roads, highways, and buses. Sometimes subway, if the bus is getting too congested.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

7 hours ago, matias93 said:

Did you check water pollution? Farms and high density residentials are very water contaminant...

5 hours ago, fredinno said:

Plus, you need a water treatment plant to clean the polluted water, even if there is little water pollution.

 

With regard to these comments, I needed a plant for my city this morning and I've fallen in love with @Crysspm's MCP Water + Air Purification Plant V.01 available here on the STEX. It's 2 x 3 in size, looks good, and says it costs $50 per month. (Somehow I'm getting a discount cause it's costing my town $41 when I first placed it and now just $38.) You may find, as I did, that it fits into the budget much better than the Maxis's one.

[matias93 7,535]

That's an staple of mine, even if its stats are very unrealistic ones. It is very handy on tiles where there's no space for a treatment plant, while having it on other tile. Air pollution, on the other hand, gets very distorted.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

1 hour ago, matias93 said:

Air pollution, on the other hand, gets very distorted.

Oh? In what way? (My rural town doesn't have any air pollution to begin with so I wouldn't notice any problem there.)

[Caelem 4]

I was wondering about the disasters. Do they ever happen randomly or does it only happen if I actually use the disasters myself? Also I've kinda given up on the whole "trying to make my city look nice/realistic" thing and just focusing on getting used to the game and how it works and what to do. 

[APSMS 1,892]

Only disaster that happens randomly is fire, with the exception of a failed launch from the missile silo business deal, which will blow up some buildings at a random location in your city and start a fire. You can watch this happen if you are savvy enough to pay attention to the launches; the missile does trace an arc IIRC, so the landing location can be tracked.

Those are the only ones that trigger at random that I'm aware of inside the vanilla game. Everything else has to be triggered manually.

[fredinno 54]

2 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

 

With regard to these comments, I needed a plant for my city this morning and I've fallen in love with @Crysspm's MCP Water + Air Purification Plant V.01 available here on the STEX. It's 2 x 3 in size, looks good, and says it costs $50 per month. (Somehow I'm getting a discount cause it's costing my town $41 when I first placed it and now just $38.) You may find, as I did, that it fits into the budget much better than the Maxis's one.

Seems too OP. I use the Maxis Overhaul Compact Water Treatment plant lot. I never use any air purification lot because it's not realistic....

1 hour ago, APSMS said:

Only disaster that happens randomly is fire, with the exception of a failed launch from the missile silo business deal, which will blow up some buildings at a random location in your city and start a fire. You can watch this happen if you are savvy enough to pay attention to the launches; the missile does trace an arc IIRC, so the landing location can be tracked.

Those are the only ones that trigger at random that I'm aware of inside the vanilla game. Everything else has to be triggered manually.

Or power plant meltdown, though if you let those happen, you have serious problems.... though it can also make nuclear explosions happen! (there are mods that allow this to be done manually with a bomb too)

There are other (boring) events that can be triggered manually, like water pipe blowout (too low water utility spending), car crash (high congestion, no actual effect), and another one I can't remember right now.

[rsc204 21,808]

2 hours ago, APSMS said:

Only disaster that happens randomly is fire

It's not strictly-speaking random. Where you have good fire coverage in place, you'll find a much reduced chance of this occurring. Like a lot of things that happen in-game, fire is the games way of telling you that you need more fire-fighters or better protection. Of course it's easy to ignore the problem by just manually dispatching fire-fighters to take care of it, assuming you have some that is. Using the Smoke Detector ordinance is also a great way to reduce the chances of fire, for much less than the cost of more fire stations.

[APSMS 1,892]

Well, sure. Once I get a city up and going I practically never have fires.

But he wanted to know if any of the disasters happened naturally on their own in-game. Fire is pretty much the only one that can happen regularly, with the missile silo and powerplant explosions being secondary.

I guess the missile silo is the only truly random disaster (it can, and has for me at least, blow itself up if the missile is a real dud). But the others can occur due to poor maintenance or planning.

Lightning, autosaurus, UFOs, Tornadoes, Earthquakes will never happen unless you trigger them, I figured this was what he was asking about, since it's possible in SC2013 to enable all of the available disasters to happen randomly if you choose to risk your city like that, which would be the closest reference that I am aware of regarding the idea (not counting JENX Jupiter mod).

[markussaage 762]

Well, I don't know if somebody mentioned it before, but traffic congestion is needed for commercial buildings to have high customers, when your query the building. So it's not at all a bad thing to have traffic jam in your city... But as always there are two sides of the medal, right?! And don't forget that you need much more R$ citizens than R$$ or R$$$, like in real life and your R$ citizens like to ride the bus and after a while you can actually make some money with public transportation like busses. 

Kind regards!

[Caelem 4]

Normally I zone low density for the most part, but it changes after a while. Does commercial buildings having low customers effect anything in any way?

[markussaage 762]

Well, I don't think the game makes a difference between the customers on a commercial lot, but if you wanna keep any kind of building you need to query it and mark it as "Historical".
 That prevents a let say a R$ building from changing to a R$$ building by the demand. Unfortunately you have to this by hand and query every building and set the mark. There is no other way.

Kind regards!