Region Questions - Rectangular Regions, Getting Across Water, and main ways.

[SD40-2 36]

I was thinking about a few things last night regarding SimCity 4s regions, and I decided to consolidate some of them here. If the mods want to split these into separate threads, you have my approval. I just didn't want to spam threads. 

1. If you have two regions, both flanked on one side by water, but with both sides next to each other, how do you bridge the gap to form a connection? Do you have to mod the terrain slightly to get a connection point of sorts, can you use a ferry to bridge the gap, or can you use a actual bridge, just with the other bridgehead in the region next door?  
2. Can you have a region in the shape of a rectangle? One of the ways I though about getting around the above problem was to have a rectangular shaped region to "bridge" the gap. (No pun intended.), but I'm not sure if that is possible.
3. Should I use highways as primary regional connections? I've always tended to use rail, because that's kinda my jam, but I've often thought about building a highway alongside it. Thoughts?

[rsc204 21,855]

1. You can use ferries for this situation. Bridges can't span cities, well not without a little modding. Technically the optional NAM addon, the Diagonal Bridge Enabler (DBE), would make it possible, but that's a bit complex.

2. No reason you couldn't, in fact I'm sure many regions you can download are made like this.

3. That really optional. Highways have advantages and disadvantages, just like Rail does. I find for a well functioning region it's best to use a mix of transport options.

[CorinaMarie 29,852]

9 hours ago, SD40-2 said:

I decided to consolidate some of them here. If the mods want to split these into separate threads, you have my approval. I just didn't want to spam threads. 

Many peeps find having their own all in one thread keeps it consolidated and easier to have it as their main reference point and that's perfectly acceptable to ST staff.

 

9 hours ago, SD40-2 said:

Do you have to mod the terrain slightly to get a connection point of sorts,

You can extend land between tiles to make an anchor point for bridges. The pics I have here aren't good as I've cropped and zoomed up to show how I did it in an old region.

In this pic I happened to have a random island near the city tile border:

 

Then in the game I used the leveling tool to extend the land to the border, saved, then exited. I opened the adjacent city tile and let it do the reconciliation. Since nothing was yet built in that city tile it did not destroy all existing bridges and tunnels like that function normally does (cause there weren't any). I used the leveling tool then to extend flat land in that tile and I was able to build a bridge in each tile with the land connection allowing the proper neighborhood connection:

 

9 hours ago, SD40-2 said:

can you use a ferry to bridge the gap

If you have a ferry terminal in each tile then Sims can travel between them. If you have two city tiles with ferry terminals, but there are other tiles completely filled with water in between them, you can use Underwater Ferry Connectors available over on Devotion's LEX.

 

9 hours ago, SD40-2 said:

Can you have a region in the shape of a rectangle?

Yep. You can alter the config.bmp to make the region the shape you want. See Config.bmp: How to Make it Yours.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

10 hours ago, SD40-2 said:

If you have two regions, both flanked on one side by water, but with both sides next to each other, how do you bridge the gap to form a connection?

Regions can't be connected. Only cities within a region can be connected.

I suspect we have some terminology problems here interfering with communication. To be clear:

CELL = smallest plot of land in the game, 16 meters on a side (~50 feet square). When talking about road widths, single double and triple refer to how many cells wide the road or highway is. When talking about lots on which buildings sit, 2x3 refers to 2 cells by 3 cells. Some people also call these tiles, but unfortunately the word "tile" is also used for the next larger scale, so I advise against it.

CITY = A square of 64x64 or 128x128 or 256x256 cells. Each city has its own clock, its own cash, and its own ordinances, but on real-world maps drawn to scale, an SC4 "city" is often only a neighborhood within a much larger real-world city, so you'll sometimes hear it called a tile or (when reading one of my posts) a city sector to distinguish it from any RL notion of city spanning several SC4 "cities". If you have questions about connections, you are asking about connecting one city to another neighboring city within a region. If you have water borders, use ferries. If you have a full all-water sector in the way, then install the underwater ferry "terminal" that will build routes across it.

REGION = largest scale of SC4 development. A region consists of several square "cities" of the three sizes. On a real-world map drawn to scale, an entire SC4 region may barely encompass one real-world city, so some confusion can exist on the word city; always start by thinking "city" is a city-sector.

[SD40-2 36]

Sorry, I got my terms mixed up big time. Thanks for clearing that up Jeffery. 

I was referring to the city sector plots when I was saying regions earlier. And I'm not sure if one can have a rectangular plot to be honest, having looked around a bit. 

I will keep that underwater Ferry Terminal in mind. Thanks for referring me to that one Cori and Jeffery. I do wonder how I'll be able to keep it funded though, or can I just set it and forget it?

[CorinaMarie 29,852]

9 minutes ago, SD40-2 said:

And I'm not sure if one can have a rectangular plot to be honest, having looked around a bit.

Oh. If you mean a rectangular (instead of square) city tile, then no. City tiles are only square in the sizes jeffry mentioned.

 

10 minutes ago, SD40-2 said:

I do wonder how I'll be able to keep it funded though, or can I just set it and forget it?

Things plopped in another city tile that is not the one you are in do not cost anything.

The only part you'll need to keep in mind is propagating the demand back and forth as you play. Lets say you have three city tiles in a row called A, B, and C and A and C have some land and each has a ferry terminal. Then lets say the B tile in the middle is 100% water. You plop the Underwater Ferry in tile B, save, then exit. Now you need to go into A run some time (about a year) save, then exit. Go back to B, run some time, save, then exit. Then go into the other end of the chain in tile C, run some time and the demands from A will be coming into C via B. To get the demand data from C back to A you have to reverse this by running some time in C, save, then exit, run some time in B, save, then exit, and finally go into A and run some time.

[SD40-2 36]

Thinking about it some more, it's probably a better idea to create a small island like you suggested. 

And looking at my region map, I see a perfect opportunity to do such a thing. I need to merge the four regions to the right of the first region merge I did, and then I could just build ferries or a long, long bridge. 

[CorinaMarie 29,852]

6 minutes ago, SD40-2 said:

a long, long bridge. 

Long, long bridges have a certain eloquence, you know.  

[SD40-2 36]

I know.  I live in Louisiana, and ultra-long bridges are something of a norm down here, due to the the inability of the state to decide if it wants to be land or water.

I seem them often, rising above the landscape to cross the many bodies of water here. 

[dubldrop 43]

My current region has a large bay similar to the SF map, but the bay is 4 large city tiles wide. On the east side of the bay is my region's largest metro area with about 6 million sims. On the west is an industrial city with a sizable population itself. I basically did the same thing, terraforming islands along the bay to make a massive highway bridge connecting the two otherwise separate cities.

One thing I did though, was add enough room on the terraformed islands to add some zoning and jobs (ferry terminals and a couple industrial lots designed to look like bridge construction/maintenance areas). Reason being if you do want to make a bridge spanning multiple tiles, the ones in the middle having jobs will help get traffic moving along your connections (no point in a bridge if it's not being used right?)