Help me grow my city

[vaughanwiliams 53]

Hey forum folks, 

my newest city, Stockton, needs some thorough planning in order to sucessfully expand.

It's 72.000 sims, playing on the lovely EUREKA map, so there is room to expand to the north and east (started in the left bottom corner of the region).

So far all runs well, slight deficit. there is still a LOT of room to the north to expand, but i want to keep my city realistic (well, halfway, realistically the city would have been founded along the coast as a port,...nevermind)...mid size, think Southhampton, Kiel, Atlantic City, the likes. 

 

I attached a map for you to see the general outline:

YELLOW: rail (connects to all other tiles except north);

PURPLE: major avenues and approved extension(no connection to other tiles so far, that is all done by 4 arterial roads (more or less forming a cross around the CBD in all directions except north);

ORANGE: planned rail extension;

RED: planned second industry zoning (but open for anything, really) and planned avenue extension;

GREEN: already certain about these areas;

GREY: where do i put my harbour?

Farms form a ring around the west and east, and i wanted to keep at least SOME of them (develepment nibbling them away ever so slowly already).

 

 

all input is appreciated; trying to develop my city as realistic as possible.

hope this is fun for you..:)

have a nice weekend, y'all.

  Edited December 2, 2018 by vaughanwiliams  
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[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

Hi there @vaughanwiliams,

While I'm not too sure what to suggest at this point, I've moved your thread over to the SC4 General Discussion forum. With all the recent Showcase activity and since GD is the catch-all forum for gameplay related topics, hopefully those knowledgeable can suggest a few ideas of strategies to help your city growth.

[vaughanwiliams 53]

thank you..i consider this an act of good forum parenting

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Nice looking city there! I like the transition from low to high density.

One thing I'm pretty certain about is that - if it was my city - I'd place the harbour along the north coast. IMO it makes sense to have the harbour at the mouth of that river, plus the coast is relatively straight there, which makes things a lot easier. There's also more space up there, and you'll see that a decent custom harbour consumes a ridiculous amount of space.

That small bay at the west coast, between your two potential sites for a harbour, might make for a nice fishing harbour or marina, by the way.

As a buffer between the harbour and industry zones, you could place some council housing. Or maybe low-rise commercial stuff. Big box retailers, warehouses, servo stations, fast food chains, car dealers, and the like. Or both!

The "Office 3?" area might indeed make for a good suburban mid-rise office park, or maybe some high-tech industry.

These are some suggestions I can think of off the top of my head.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

Make connections to neighboring cities and then grow them too. Then come back and grow Stockton some more.

[vaughanwiliams 53]

@Cyclone Boom, @T Wrecks, @jeffryfisher...

 

i tried to implement your ideas. attached is the once empty north of the city. i built a harbour and all those retail boxes, casinos, shady joints, what have you. also built a highway/avenue/train-system that's more or less encompassing the entire city by now. pop up to 150.000, city in the midst of a crippling recession (think pre-reaganomics (headcanon date: 1979) (avert your eyes of the pruitt igoe montrosity in the bottom middle....city planners were sacked, i tells ya). 

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Wow, that looks splendid! While you are using a lot of custom content, it still looks like good old SimCity - I like it. I like it a lot.

If you're up to a challenge, you could try and see if you get those rail lines alongside the harbour and the avenue completely grade separated, but that's pretty advanced stuff. That city sure developed impressively. I just checked the initial picture again, and there has sure been a lot of change. The city now fills the tile and looks pretty complete.

It's also fun to discern the BATs you used from this far away... a bit like spotting the faces of people you like in a crowd photograph. "Oh, there's Roy Thomson Hall by 6459978... and my, isn't that Simmer2's torus-shaped water tower there? Don't I know that retail store over there, too?" I always like that.

Thank you for showing the progress of that city! I hope it won't be the last picture you post here on Simtropolis.

[vaughanwiliams 53]

thank you!:) it is really fun playing the game with the BATs/mods/plugins found here and on LEX. all 1478 of them^^

and getting some feedback for a game that is to be played in relative solitude (the odd forum posting aside) is very motivating. you guys are so advanced players and some of you have such a good grasp of traffic systems and zoning/city planning...i just learn a lot by reading through the forums. 

again, love hearing you liked the implementation. if there is interest i could start a whole region and go with you guys' proposals. i am a TOTAL NOOB in regards to NAM (especially the new avenues and tram stuff...but i can learn^^).

and yes, love that torus water tower.

[vaughanwiliams 53]

kinda off-topic..but is there any trusted moderator from germany around to whom i could wire some money to gift to simtropolis? i wanted to do this already but i absolutely will NOT use paypal, sorry. maybe someone of the german mods uses it and can funnel my money through..lol^^

and i seriously wanna contribute sth...i practically downloaded a new game here..:)

[CorinaMarie 29,894]

16 minutes ago, vaughanwiliams said:

i could wire some money to gift to simtropolis?

While @Dirktator is the one who handles all of the donations, I'm fairly certain you can also start via the PayPal method, but then select pay by credit card as an option if that would be better for you. Then there would also be the possibility to wire the money directly to Dirk. And, although a slow method, you could send an international money order via the mail.

If you like, I can initiate a Private Message with you, me and Dirk or you could do that without any need for me to be involved. I'd suggest a subject line something like: Donation without using PayPal?

-Cori (doing the admin thing)