The Edge's city building discussion thread

[CorinaMarie 29,894]

Yes indeed. The Maxis default is 50 (0x32) over 22 (0x16) tiles.

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

@The Edge

Also to add how you may have seen this from our file entry, but I'll just post the reference list of Maxis Parks sorted by their effect magnitude.

As follows:

M = 10   R = 10   Open Paved Area
M = 20   R = 80   Ranger Station
M = 25   R = 15   Small Plaza
M = 25   R = 25   Medium Plaza
M = 30   R = 15   Open Grass Area
M = 30   R = 30   Basketball Court
M = 30   R = 30   Tennis Court
M = 30   R = 50   Soccer Field
M = 30   R = 50   Softball Field
M = 30   R = 60   Skateboard Park
M = 35   R = 30   Large Plaza
M = 40   R = 35   Community Garden (All 4)
M = 40   R = 40   Gazebo
M = 50   R = 15   Small Park Green
M = 60   R = 15   Small Flower Garden
M = 60   R = 15   Small Playground
M = 60   R = 30   Medium Park Green
M = 70   R = 30   Medium Flower Garden
M = 75   R = 25   Medium Playground
M = 75   R = 45   Large Park Green
M = 80   R = 10   Beach
M = 85   R = 45   Large Flower Garden

(M = Magnitude   R = Radius)
 

If useful sometime, I can compile a list of the other Maxis items like the Art Museum reward has Park Effect too.

The thing about these is they perhaps give too much of a strong effect for the aura produced, and how they do accumulate also. So like if having multiple in a close vicinity to each other, then the aura mounts up and is seen stronger from Cori's Parks Aura data view as visible.

Being positive and Lovely though, it's still a good thing.

[The Edge 215]

Thanks, very helpful indeed. So if I read that right, the Large Flower Garden is the bomb when it comes to generating positive aura? Is that right?

[CorinaMarie 29,894]

Tho, ofc, you could fit 9 small flower gardens in the same space as one large and it'd be even more bombier since the auras combine.

[The Edge 215]

City update time. Middleton seems to be coming along nicely
I guess one caveat of building a city like this is the population usually won't go much over 100 000, as space that could be used for more housing etc is being sacrificed for trees/green space.

Any comments etc much appreciated

[The Edge 215]

On 8/19/2020 at 2:53 AM, jeffryfisher said:

The coastal cliffs are daunting. That city will have difficulty utilizing ports, beaches etc. If you want those in future cities, take some time to smooth / terraform some of those cliffs in god-mode to reduce the elevation changes both above and below the waterline.

With this new city I'm trying ferries again but no one seems to be using them. Do the cliffs put the Sims off using them or something?

Also @CorinaMarie cheers for the flower garden tip, it works really well!

[CorinaMarie 29,894]

44 minutes ago, The Edge said:

With this new city I'm trying ferries again but no one seems to be using them. Do the cliffs put the Sims off using them or something?

Cliffs in and of themselves shouldn't be a problem. I have found tho if the water isn't deep enough the Sims won't use a ferry. If that's not the trouble then the ferry needs to be seen by the Sims as the quickest route for where they want to go.

[The Edge 215]

Ah that could be it. Thanks, I'll lower the sea(?)/river(?) bed and see if this makes a difference.

[Max4k 727]

I installed Radical Water Pump and Pollution Reduction V1.3 - just 1 device and it seems to have completely nuked all Air Pollution & Water Pollution on my map.

The only pollution I see now it little bit on congested streets.

 

Also have been jacking up Pollution Tax by 25%

 

[The Edge 215]

How do you increase pollution tax? Haven't heard of that one before.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

17 hours ago, The Edge said:

How do you increase pollution tax?

I'm reading that as the tax on dirty industry.

[Max4k 727]

19 hours ago, The Edge said:

How do you increase pollution tax? Haven't heard of that one before.

 If you click on Monthly Budget you click on those Balance $$ numbers and brings up another window to edit Taxes

[The Edge 215]

I know that, but there's nowhere called "Pollution Tax" - and the highest rate is 20% anyway. How do you get 25%? Do you mean the tax on Dirty Industry like @jeffryfisher is saying?

[Max4k 727]

oh sorry, it's not exactly that phrase.  It's the one in Yellow that says Dirty Industry.

[The Edge 215]

Saw this on a random Youtube video about how to build a city. Anyone know where I can get those lovely rounded corners on the road and that nice looking roundabout from? I could definitely make use of a setup like this in some of my cities!

[Whte_rbt 1,431]

The curves that you see in that video look like the original puzzle piece curves, these have since been absorbed by the NAM deparment, and are now available by drawing certain patterns on the ground using the relevant road/street/rail tools. There's a section or two in the NAM documentation covering which patterns do what. Ive got them loaded on my tablet so I can check them while still playing without having to switch out from the game.

[The Edge 215]

Thanks for that turns out I actually do have them, after doing some digging this morning. I made a nice-looking roundabout but damn these bits are difficult to stick together. Not much good if I can't join it with a connecting road

 

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

Connect the spurs first, and then see what shape you can make.

[Lucario Boricua 7,050]

On 10/7/2020 at 3:25 PM, The Edge said:

Thanks for that turns out I actually do have them, after doing some digging this morning. I made a nice-looking roundabout but damn these bits are difficult to stick together. Not much good if I can't join it with a connecting road

 

Are you using a slope mod while also not flattening thoroughly the area? If you're using a strict slope mod (forces networks to take flat slopes) and don't flatten the terrain where networks will intersect, then the game can reject the forming of intersections because the elevations aren't lining up.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

15 hours ago, Lucario Boricua said:

the game can reject the forming of intersections because the elevations aren't lining up

However, "slope" mods also have parameters for auto-smoothing terrain for you... and I haven't seen any evidence (yet) that the popular mods did anything with those parameters. As far as I know, all smoothing has been stuck at the Maxis defaults for 20 years, which were set with bottom-end CPUs of 20 years ago in mind. Edit your "slope mod" exemplars in iLives and then open up the smoothing throttles so your modern CPU can do your work for you.

[The Edge 215]

I changed the title of this thread as I felt it didn't really reflect just industrial buildings anymore

I've started another city if anyone would like to see...?

Also, Season's Greetings etc

 

[The Edge 215]

Without further ado, I present to you...Riverview!

As always, any feedback much appreciated

And the city stats from the Census Repository (Industrial looking very healthy!):

[The Edge 215]

Some extra bits:
* I did have some ferries in place but no one used them so I removed them

* Is it 192 for the EQ before I-HT really takes off? I seem to remember that as being the magical number

* Anyone have any feedback on it? Anything I could do better? Note that I tried to have as many trees as possible surrounding the buildings

Also any suggestions on what to do with the landmass at the top left? Industrial? More Residential/Commercial? A mix?

[CorinaMarie 29,894]

2 hours ago, The Edge said:

* Is it 192 for the EQ before I-HT really takes off? I seem to remember that as being the magical number

In general it's 160 when I-HT demand starts creeping up.

This is, ofc, also tied to the number of Sims with said EQ. For instance, one of my farm tiles where the entire population of, say, 500 who are fully educated to 200 EQ will have a mere pittance of I-HT demand. However, jump over to my big town of 50,000 where the EQ is 160 average and it'll show about +6000 demand for I-HT.

Ofc, if you have connected city tiles and data propagated from even more distant connected tiles then the EQ in a particular city tile can be zero, and yet you could have oodles of I-HT demand carried in from the rest if they, themselves have high demand for it.

[Propfam 2,305]

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

In general it's 160 when I-HT demand starts creeping up.

This is, ofc, also tied to the number of Sims with said EQ. For instance, one of my farm tiles where the entire population of, say, 500 who are fully educated to 200 EQ will have a mere pittance of I-HT demand. However, jump over to my big town of 50,000 where the EQ is 160 average and it'll show about +6000 demand for I-HT.

Ofc, if you have connected city tiles and data propagated from even more distant connected tiles then the EQ in a particular city tile can be zero, and yet you could have oodles of I-HT demand carried in from the rest if they, themselves have high demand for it.

For the third point, I've been experiencing that too. But, there is an another quirk with the demand, I use CAM and start 2 cities without connecting to a region with I-HT. The result, when my people only have EQ of 80, the demand for I-HT is there, but small.

[CorinaMarie 29,894]

@chfzdn

That's cool. Ofc, when using other mods, things can be completely different than vanilla.

[The Edge 215]

What does the Colossus Add on Mod do? I have the NAM one installed but not the former. Is it any good/use/value?

[Whte_rbt 1,431]

Its a massive investment in time and energy. The CAM itself is a realignment of the game's basic growth stages and the addition of more to allow for the development of truly huge cities. This requires the modification of most of the buildings used with it to make them grow at the corrected growth stages. It does add a lot to the game in that one direction but does take quite a bit of setting up.

[RobertLM78 1,598]

7 minutes ago, The Edge said:

What does the Colossus Add on Mod do? I have the NAM one installed but not the former. Is it any good/use/value?

I mostly don't use CAM because it conflicts with SPAM, but it seemed pretty cool when I checked it out.  Just be prepared for slower growth than you might expect otherwise.

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

For further info about what the CAM provides, I recommend reading this blog post Alex (Tarkus) wrote.

As follows:

The CAM (Colossus Addon Mod) – Separating Fact From Fiction

 

11 minutes ago, The Edge said:

Is it any good/use/value?

It's one of those personal preference mods really, so it'll depend on your play style. It would probably take a while to really get into CAM and learn the ins and outs of what it provides, since there is a major difference for the growth simulation being overhauled (with the added 9-15 stages).

Perhaps it'd be worth giving a try in a new region sometime, and that way to get a feel for whether it's worth using.