Prepping my First Region

[That Retro Guy 321]

So I figured out exactly what I want to do with my first Region.

First, the Region:

City A will supply cities B, C, and D with Power, Water, and Garbage services.

Likewise, City E will supply cities F, G, and H with Power, Water, and Garbage services.

I'll do a 'You Don't Deserve It', and place a Hydrogen Power Plant in cities A and E.

I know that I'll want a Highway Loop that goes through all cities except A and E.

I have a question:  Do schools only have to cover Residential, or the entire map?

More questions later.

[CorinaMarie 29,922]

4 minutes ago, That Retro Guy said:

Do schools only have to cover Residential, or the entire map?

Yep. Only Sims at home will learn things.

 

Looks like a well planned idea you've got going. Keep us posted on your progress.

[Joey Auburn 150]

That's nicely thought out. I wish I thought out my regions like that.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

13 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Only Sims at home will learn things

Not only that, but only the few employees need a road-path from home to the school. Students effectively teleport.

[That Retro Guy 321]

Told you that I'd have more questions . . .

1.  Is there a specific size for a realistic city block (i.e. How often should there be a cross-street?)  I am trying to avoid a grid.

2  So schools only need to cover Residential . . . does this include Elementary Schools, High Schools, City Colleges, and Universities?  Does it also include Libraries and Museums?

3.  Does everything else (Police, Fire Stations, and Hospitals) have to cover the entire map?

That should do it for now . . . more later. 

[Scarton 57]

@That Retro Guy Let's see if I can help you.

1. When you say "cross-street," do you mean a major avenue or higher traffic road intended to cross the town, or do you mean any typical street that bounds urban development? Because you are trying to avoid a grid, I recommend determining city block sizes for yourself. Let the individual lot size limits in the game determine how far apart your streets are. Most buildings will not need lot sizes any larger than 3 - 4 grid tiles wide and 3 - 4 grid tiles deep. A few low density Maxis buildings, many Landmarks and Rewards, and some BATs will occupy grid tile areas larger than 4 by 4. Next you can arbitrarily decide to have major thoroughfares a certain number of these street blocks apart. For example, if your streets bound blocks of zoned land 8 tiles by 10 tiles in area, you could place higher traffic avenues 4 blocks or 5 blocks apart.The following information about game scale may assist you: 1 grid tile is 16 meters long and 16 meters wide. From your region picture, you are working with small and medium sized city tiles. 1 small city tile is 64 grid tiles long and 64 grid tiles wide. 1 medium tile is 128 grid tiles long and 128 grid tiles wide. 1 kilometer would be 62 - 63 grid tiles long, and 1 mile would be 100 - 101 grid tiles long. Your entire region is 256 by 320 grid tiles, or ~2.56 miles by ~3.20 miles, or ~4 km by ~5.1 km. Also, the scale of buildings, props, and textured assets (for example roads and footpaths) in the game is not consistent.

2. Yes, Elementary Schools, High Schools, City Colleges, Universities, Libraries, Museums, and any other structure that provides an educational effect only need to cover Residential areas.

3. Hospitals, Clinics, and other healthcare providing structures also only need to cover Residential structures. Police Stations, Fire Stations, and other protective service providing structures indeed need to cover all development.

In addition, Landmarks and other buildings which provide a landmark effect should be placed near Commercial development to boost desirability and demand. Likewise, Parks and places which provide a park effect increase desirability and demand of nearby Residential zones.

[CorinaMarie 29,922]

@Scarton states an important point inasmuch as the scales within the game are not consistent.

1. For an example, let's take some random town (which I happen to live in) that has a population of 24,867 peeps and occupies 13.01 square miles (33.70 km²). In SimCity that would be about 364 x 364 cells or roughly 3 x 3 medium sized city tiles (384 by 384 cells). For low wealth, low density the game has about 6 Sims per cell meaning if every cell in a small city tile was a home 24,576 of those peeps could fit in one small tile (64 x 64 x 6). Then if I arbitrarily say we need twice as many total cells (8,192) to hold the roads, residential, commercial, and industrial, and other miscellaneous stuff we now need roughly 91 x 91 cells. Round that up to 128 x 128 and you have one single medium sized tile populationwise. So, my conclusion is that from the regional view I'd want to make my hometown about one ninth the size it is in real life to look about right in SimCity. This would also mean I would not draw every street (and home) there is. Only the main ones. Kind of like how real world maps change the detail level as you zoom in or out.

2. One thing to note is that the City College, University, and Museums have a range of 256 so they cover an entire large city tile no matter where you plop them.

3. If you get the Farmer's Market it too has a 256 cell coverage.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

21 hours ago, That Retro Guy said:

Does everything else (Police, Fire Stations, and Hospitals) have to cover the entire map?

Health like edu need only cover residences. Any building can burn, so fire fighters can be called to anywhere you have buildings, so at least have road paths even if you don't cover an area within a red circle.

Ordinances seem to help. I've never needed anything more than the smoke alarm ordinance in farm areas. With one police station in the city to unlock it, the neighborhood watch seems to be enough to keep crime down to an acceptable level in rural spaces

For development stage purposes, fire coverage need will depend on what mods you have. Likewise police: You can have crimes in non-residential areas, but lots' development might not care.So, for instance, if you use the CAM, read its docs to learn the prerequisites for stages of various zone types; they might not be the same as in vanilla (CAM certainly has more stages).

  Edited January 18, 2018 by jeffryfisher  
Ordinances help

[That Retro Guy 321]

Sorry that I've been quiet lately.  I had the flu.  >yuck!<

About Educational buildings only needing to cover Residential, do I need to have multiple Elementary schools (and High Schools, and City Colleges) to completely cover Residential or do I just have 1 Elementary school cover part of Residential, 1 High School covering another part of Residential, etc.?

[CorinaMarie 29,922]

When you plop the schools they will show a coverage radius. Sims within the radius get educated. Those outside do not. So, you need to have enough to cover all the residential homes (for maximum EQ boost they each give). When the radii of the same type of school overlaps, those in the double coverage do not get any extra smarts. It just reduces the number of students per school.

[That Retro Guy 321]

11 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

When you plop the schools they will show a coverage radius.

OK.  I just want to make sure that I understand this.  Do I need multiple Elementary Schools (or High Schools, etc) ( with as little overlap as possible ) or just have 1 Elementary School cover part of Residential and 1 High School covering another part, etc?

[CorinaMarie 29,922]

Each type of educational facility affects certain age groups better. So, for maximum effect and quicker average EQ increase it's best to have them all covered by each type of school. You might also be interested in my 505 Year Education Experiment.

And keep in mind you can adjust the funding sliders of each school individually. You only need enough funding to have more capacity than the number of students.

[That Retro Guy 321]

I understand that Res=Com + Ind is SC3000, but has anybody figured out what the proper ratio between the zone types is?  Or is the question silly because of Low, Medium, and High Density Zoning?

[CorinaMarie 29,922]

Just now, That Retro Guy said:

Or is the question silly because of Low, Medium, and High Density Zoning?

I'll go with this 2nd half of your post and say it's prolly not silly because it would likely still be the count of all Jobs vs all Sims.

I'll leave the real question for the experts.

[rsc204 21,868]

Roughly speaking you want a 60/40 - 70/30 split between Com and Ind zoning. Then 2x the number of jobs as your population. However, this balance is not set in stone and changes throughout region development. The RCI graph should always give you a good idea of what's in demand, monitoring it regularly is a good idea.

[That Retro Guy 321]

3 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Roughly speaking you want a 60/40 - 70/30 split between Com and Ind zoning. Then 2x the number of jobs as your population. However, this balance is not set in stone and changes throughout region development. The RCI graph should always give you a good idea of what's in demand, monitoring it regularly is a good idea.

So basically, RES = 2x (COM + IND).  In other words, 50% of a map (roughly) should be RES, right?  That's more math than I've done in the past 2 decades . . . My brain hurts!

I was messing around with a blank city and plopped an Elementary School to see the radius.  When I lowered the budget on that school, the radius didn't shrink.  Did I do something wrong?

  Edited January 29, 2018 by That Retro Guy  
Additional question

[twalsh102 1,601]

For schools (vs. colleges/universities/museums/libraries), you have two budget sliders.  The Local Funding slider affects maximum capacity (i.e. as funding decreases, so does max capacity).  This is one way you can lower spending - adjust budget to meet current capacity + a buffer.  It doesn't make much sense to have Local funding maxxed out if the current number of students is only 1/10th the maximum capacity.  But doing this also implies constantly rechecking to insure schools aren't getting overcrowded based on current funding.  The second slider is for Local Bus Funding.  This slider affects coverage radius for the school (i.e. as bus funding decreases, so does coverage radius; Note that with this slider set to zero, your effective radius of coverage is exactly half the published coverage radius)  To get the maximum Education Boost, you will need a mix of education facilities of different types to cover specific age ranges, and probably multiples of each type to cover your residential areas.  Note that it can get expensive trying to provide all this education coverage.  If you can't afford full education coverage for all age ranges, nothing bad will happen.  It just means that some Sims will take longer to reach maximum EQ than others.

You have a similar situation with Health Care facilities, except the second slider is Ambulance Funding.

As far as your brain hurting from the math, luckily you really don't need to do any math.  Basically, the game automatically figures out what type of development is needed at any particular time, based on education and wealth level of the workforce.  Just follow the RCI graphs.  In the end, you will probably automatically end up with something close to the ratios mentioned by @rsc204, without punishing your brain.

[That Retro Guy 321]

I have decided to begin building my Region in City C.  It's a small map which (once developed) will hopefully help build Cities B + D.  (Technically, City A will be first so City C will have Power, Water, and Garbage Services.  I'm not really planning on developing Cities A + E, but maybe I will.  I have the straight edge coastline built, and it's ready for beaches.

Now what I need is a step-by-step tutorial about how to properly build an RHW highway through City C.  Since it's a small map, I'd like to have 2 lanes going in each direction with room for ramps to connect to the roads, avenues, etc.  Basically, it'll connect Cities B + D together.  In Cities B + D, I'd like 3 or 4 lanes in each direction (haven't decided yet . . . probably 4).

I've been playing around on a blank map trying to build an RHW, but I can never get the ramps and overpasses right.

All help is greatly appreciated (Oh, I'm using NAM 36 just so you know).

[adventurerneil 29]

On 1/17/2018 at 3:40 PM, That Retro Guy said:

1.  Is there a specific size for a realistic city block (i.e. How often should there be a cross-street?)  I am trying to avoid a grid.

I'd suggest playing around with block sizes, and actually embracing a grid if you're new (or even new-ish) to the game. I was inspired by Manhattan city blocks to do long rectangles that don't feel all that grid-like to me. I have Avenues running north-south, bisected by lots of one-way streets running opposite directions. The blocks are 28 tiles wide by 8 tiles long (I looked at Manhattan's numbers and found that most blocks were about 3:1 width to length ratio, so mine are slightly wider). This can accommodate all sorts of interesting combinations of things, and will eventually be a high-rise jungle. I just finished with all the NAM transport networking, and am slowly beginning build-out. I'm keeping farms to "land bank" some central areas that I'll want fancy stuff in later. 

 

Hope this helps! Have fun and be patient with the NAM - it is powerful but definitely a huge and disorienting learning curve. There's a good forum location for NAM-specific questions. 

[adventurerneil 29]

For some NAM knowledge and city-building inspiration, check out this series by Haljackey: 

 

[That Retro Guy 321]

I've watched a bunch of @Haljackey's videos about NAM (including the Building a City from Scratch series), and I love his videos.  The problem is that he goes way too quickly for me to keep up.  He just picks the pieces that he needs without explaining what piece he's picking and why.  Perhaps he could make a beginner's tutorial for NAM 36 where he goes over things step-by-step on how to make an RHW Highway including overpasses, on-ramps (and off-ramps), and anything else that he can think of. 

[adventurerneil 29]

1 hour ago, That Retro Guy said:

Perhaps he could make a beginner's tutorial for NAM 36 where he goes over things step-by-step on how to make an RHW Highway including overpasses, on-ramps (and off-ramps), and anything else that he can think of. 

That would be amazing!!! Gets a +1 from me for sure. 

Speaking of grid-breaking, there is a cool thread on the forums here called "Show us your grid-busting cities" or something like that. Some cool stuff there too, with lots of people making good use of diagonal and other fun visual tricks to subvert SimCity's strict orthogonalism. I'm not sure if you've played Cities: Skylines at all, but there you can more accurately recreate cool European angles that are totally organic and look so much more interesting from birds-eye than grids. Is it time to just admit that Europeans are better at urbanism than those of us in the USA? It seems they have a fundamentally different relationship to space, at least. 

 

Oh and PS - it looks like the city building genre may be in a renaissance! 

 

[CorinaMarie 29,922]

4 hours ago, adventurerneil said:

Speaking of grid-breaking, there is a cool thread on the forums here called "Show us your grid-busting cities" or something like that.

Maybe this one: Show Us Your Anti-Grid!

[rsc204 21,868]

7 hours ago, That Retro Guy said:

Perhaps he could make a beginner's tutorial for NAM 36 where he goes over things step-by-step

Try my tutorials:

And the basics of RHW interchanges:

 

[That Retro Guy 321]

I watched your videos, @rsc204.  They're great. (pity about the audio on the first one though).  Thanks for directing me to them.

Question:  If I'm building a Highway over a road and the road is on level 0, can the Highway be on Level 1 and work, or does it have to be Level 2 or higher?

[rsc204 21,868]

Using the draggable pieces you can make a highway at L0-L2 and crossings at L0-L2 also. Of course stability may vary depending on the setup. If that's an issue, just keep a tile of space between the intersections and the RHW and you should have no trouble.

[That Retro Guy 321]

Where exactly did you find that Starfield for the space outside of the map?  I'd much prefer having that than the clouds.  It's cool!

[rsc204 21,868]

Should be this mod here.

[That Retro Guy 321]

So I downloaded the Starfield, and extracted it into my PlugIns Folder.  I'm still getting the clouds instead of the Stars.  Did I extract it to the wrong place?

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

12 hours ago, That Retro Guy said:

Did I extract it to the wrong place?

Did you follow the directions that included "Swap out the five png's with drunks personal background images"? Where are the five PNG files?