Natural Growth Philosophies / Mindsets

[Daeris 1,116]

Hello again all! I know there was another post somewhat similar to this one here about a week ago, however, where that post seemed to start out as geared towards more resources and assets, I'm actually wanting to inquire more on your mindsets and philosophies when you play the game, to achieve natural growth. I want to pick your brains! =p

After a many year break, I'm diving back into SC4 during quarantine, and I'm loving this game all over again. I'm so thrilled there is still a strong and friendly player base, and that mods are still getting updated. Because I had never really satisfied my itch to play the game with the "natural growth" approach, I'm doing so now for the first time. I can already tell I'm making plenty of mistakes and this first region playthrough I'm just going to consider a giant learning experience. I'll try to list some of my philosophies and early problems to this approach,  but I would love the feedback of all you seasoned players out there.

First off, to me there seems to be sort of two avenues of play regarding the word natural -- I feel like on one hand there are some amazing cities out there which have a natural look, with many manhours pre-shaping the terrain, heavily editing growth possibilities, and laying down amazing looking road networks, and then delicately crafting the cities with ploppables to achieve simply unparalleled realism and looks... all crafted pretty much to the expectations and idea the artist had for these creations before beginning them. On the other hand, I think there is a method more aimed at natural growth, where the primary mindset is to go into the region with practically zero or very little preconceived plans about how the region will develop and turn out, and simply play the game according to how you envision the sims actually expanding and growing their towns/cities and road networks. With this method, players play the game wanting to create extremely amazing looking cities in the long run (like the first method), but they are interested in letting it happen as naturally as possible. There is almost a sense of wonder while playing, and the region takes on a life of its own (not to say it doesn't in the first method).

To clarify, I don't think one method is better than the other, and there is certainly crossover and it's not so black & white. Each method contains a bit of the other. Perhaps the first method is more about natural look, and the latter method is more about natural growth. One day I hope I can handcraft a spectacular city worthy of a CJ, but for now I think I want to focus on natural growth first and foremost, with a natural look being the secondary focus. In fact, just with discussion with a friend in the Discord channel, I described my love for city-builders like this: "What excites me the most about city builders is the not knowing, the not knowing where your downtown sector will develop, the not knowing where your first freeway will need to go." Hopefully this helps you understand my core motives at this present time.

 

Anyways, here are some of my early philosophies/approaches I try to keep in mind while going for this natural growth method:

• First I identified likely spots where settlements would form, such as next to lakes, or along rivers. I started about 8 small, isolate villages with only low density and farmlands. I barely built them up at all, basically just a few months of game time.
• Next I built dirt streets (SAM portion of NAM) to act as paths between the settlements. I first branched out from where I imagined the settlers first making landfall in the region, and then tried to make realistic decisions about where the trail would go next. My focus here is basically the path of least resistance. I follow contours of the land, I try to cut through clearings or the portions of woodlands where the trees are not as dense. If a path can go straight and steady, it does.
• After my villages were connected, I cycled back through each city-tile and played for about 3 or 4 in-game years. I continued only using dirt streets to expand, and only according to RCI demand. Again, all low density. Some of the earlier posts I've read on this method emphasized that you basically only provide services as the people demand them. Just like in real life, things typically go long overdue before the service is provided or upgraded. I focused on building dirt roads to clearings and riversides where I would zone for farmlands. I expanded residential areas to eat up the clearings closest to them.
• After my first 4-year cycle through, I cycled back through each city-tile again. However, for my 2nd pass I started going in the order of whichever cities had naturally become the most populous. On those populous cities, residential demand was through the roof, so I continued residential expansion into available clearings. I continued focusing in farmland expansion on the outskirts of the bigger towns, and for all the other city-tiles on the outskirts of the bigger towns, emphasize was on farmlands. Some of the bigger towns have starts asking for fire protection and medical care, to which I obliged on some of them.

 

And that's currently where I am, about 8 to 9 years into region development. Here is what my region is looking like so far:

 

 

While I'm happy with the region look, and mostly ok with my individual cities looks, I'm also definitely running into some possible issues, and understanding this is going to be a big learning experience. I didn't expect to master anything right off the bat, and I have a LONG way to go to even become decent at this approach. I'm just going to not beat myself up, but let myself learn from this, and hopefully learn from all of you who are much more experienced in creating both natural growth and natural look.

 

Here are some of my ongoing early "problems" or issues I keep thinking about or wondering:

• Should I build my paths/roads first, or my villages? When should I upgrade from dirt paths (streets) between my villages, to actual roads? I guess these thoughts kinda keep going back to my idea about the two avenues of "natural" gameplay. Part of me is tempted to just pre-shape and lay down some amazing road networks (which of course will take a lot of practice in and of itself). On the other hand, I want to let my villages grow to the point where it feels proper that they would finally get an actual paved road. Some of the bigger towns have upgraded to red brick streets (but of course these are still just streets for the simulation aspect). This natural approach with road networks may be what fascinates me the most about the play style. I have NO idea where the first freeway will be! It's exciting to not know! I have an idea where it may happen, but allowing the demand to just happen naturally is extremely exciting to me. I'm at the point where many of my streets in my biggest towns are showing red congestion, so I think I'm ready for some roads to start popping up, but it's a bit daunting, and I'm not sure how to proceed quite yet. Should new roads be constructed on top of the old dirt paths? Also, when should road networks destroy previously existing development? These thoughts are a slight hassle.
• When should I offer plumbing and widespread electricity? Right now I'm just using wind power, mostly around all the farmlands. I almost wish I didn't need to offer any electricity for a long while (perhaps I didn't?). I think I'm on the brink of plopping a coal plant somewhere, which I'll probably put on one of the outskirts of the most populous cities. Perhaps for realism, I should put it in one of the more hilly or mountainous tiles. As for plumbing, what's strange to me is that my sims aren't really complaining about no widespread water yet. I think I'm going to wait a bit longer on plumbing, and again, only for the more populous and therefore wealthy towns.
• Even trying to emphasize natural growth, I feel my towns grew very quickly and have perhaps become a bit more gridlike than I preferred. I'm mostly happy with the look of my towns, but I feel perhaps I allowed the residential areas to develop and sprawl a bit too quickly. There are farms on most the outskirts, but I almost feel like the residential sectors are too big right now considering how much of the wilderness isn't covered with farms yet. Part of this is also me trying to understand, in the wealthy towns, grids aren't necessarily a bad thing. Take a look at NYC in 1890, it was already extremely gridlike. I think the more a city grows, the more likely the infrastructure will need to become more rooted in structured math (aka grids).
• When should I start swallowing farmlands or already established areas vs. When should I continue expanding horizontally to nearby clearings? When should I start destroying denser forests for new development? This might be one of the hardest things for me to figure out. I'm obviously not quite there yet, but since my demand for residential continues to be through the roof, I find myself asking the following: Should I start to zone Medium Density residential, Should I create more Low Density residential in nearby clearings (continue expanding horizontally), or Should I start to have residential areas swallow up farms and I just place more farms further away on the outskirts? I'm trying to determine what is more realistic. Since I explained I feel my towns perhaps have already expanded too quickly (residentially speaking), I kinda feel like if I just have residential start swallow farms already than it's not very realistic.

I guess those are my primary concerns at this time. Sorry this turned into a massive post, I just love the concept of this playstyle, and I'm eager to learn from you all on how you go about this, and what tips and recommendations you have for me. While I'm certainly open to you recommending assets and mods to assist with this playstyle, I'm mostly interested in your strategies and philosophies that will help me learn!

Lastly, I'll share some more pics of what I currently have so you can form a more complete idea/opinion, and better give advice.

 

This here is Grandtrix, where most of the settlers decided they wanted to live after making landfall in a settlement south of here:

 

Grandtrix is the most populous town in my region right now. Based on some of my earlier points, the things I'm unhappy with involve the quick horizontal sprawl of residential, and how it's perhaps a bit too gridlike than I'd prefer. On the other hand, perhaps I'm being overly critical, and the gridlike development is more natural for a blossoming town like this. You can see there are more clearings to the north along the river, so I think that's where I will being to expand residentially and commercially speaking. Residents don't have widespread water yet (they aren't demanding it for some reason). I also wonder, at what point should I begin to zone medium density instead of low density.

 

This here is Northrice, second most populous town in the region right now, just north of Grandtrix, along the river:

In some ways, I think I prefer the overall look of Northrice more than I do to Grandtrix, but of course the same aforementioned expansion issues arise in my mind.

 

Here is Southpaw, an example of a more mid-sized town in the region:

 

Here is Dashroad, a smaller community that I feel is perhaps becoming a more "touristy" vacation spot for the wealthy residents of the region:

 

Lastly, here are a few pics of farmland development on the outskirt city-tiles, away from Grandtrix and Northrice:

 

Thank you all for looking and for any advice and philosophical tips you may have for me! I am eager and excited to learn from you all! Asset recommendations are welcome, but I want your advice mostly! <3

[Propfam 2,295]

A beautiful region. There's no civic buildings in the region and the density of the city quite prohibits them, however. This makes improving citizens situation difficult. But, you get perks like no traffic, low crime, low pollution, and no pollution. So, there's no need for civics (especially police and fire) in the first place whatsoever. Also, how about your region financial situation? Do you use CAM?

[Daeris 1,116]

20 minutes ago, chfzdn said:

Also, how about your region financial situation? Do you use CAM?

Finances seem fine so far, all cities are pulling in much more than they are spending. However, I can see that as I start to lay some of the more serious road networks, I'm sure it will eat into my finances quickly.

I do use CAM. I've downloaded mostly commercial lots (skyscrapers) that I think will benefit the most. I should probably try to find some "lower tier" residential and industrial CAMpatible lots. I am still learning how the new stages with CAM will affect growth, which I suspect I will see come into play more as the towns continue to develop and become bigger cities. One thing I'm rather surprised at I suppose, is the overwhelming Residential demand right now (it's consistently high). I'm not sure if this is affected by CAM or not. it was my understanding that RCI demand itself isn't really affected by CAM, moreso that CAM just slows and expands the growth stages (by creating more of them).

[Whte_rbt 1,431]

3 hours ago, Daeris said:

There is almost a sense of wonder while playing,

I'm most definitely not wired like this. Me sitting down to play SC4 feels more like playing chess against a good opponent.

Maybe its over-familiarity on my part...

Some good looking starter town there.

[Propfam 2,295]

2 hours ago, Daeris said:

Finances seem fine so far, all cities are pulling in much more than they are spending. However, I can see that as I start to lay some of the more serious road networks, I'm sure it will eat into my finances quickly.

I do use CAM. I've downloaded mostly commercial lots (skyscrapers) that I think will benefit the most. I should probably try to find some "lower tier" residential and industrial CAMpatible lots. I am still learning how the new stages with CAM will affect growth, which I suspect I will see come into play more as the towns continue to develop and become bigger cities. One thing I'm rather surprised at I suppose, is the overwhelming Residential demand right now (it's consistently high). I'm not sure if this is affected by CAM or not. it was my understanding that RCI demand itself isn't really affected by CAM, moreso that CAM just slows and expands the growth stages (by creating more of them).

Yes, I do use CAM too and so far, finance is also fine if you don't have any services besides power. However, garbage is important because if it accumulated too much, it will reduce the desirability and garbage is very expensive, with a minimum of almost 1000 simoleans. You will need to scale up to recoup the loss. But, I don't know if you placed garbage early on.

[Daeris 1,116]

No garbage services yet. Nobody has griped about it yet. I'll have to do research when garbage services became widespread and commonplace in bigger communities, in relation to plumbing and paved streets.

I think plumbing was starting to become more commonplace basically 1900 thru 1950. How I translate that into playing with this style is something I'm trying to figure out.

I think brick paved roads were arriving in the wealthiest places also around 1900 or so, and in 1956 the interstate system was commenced (and technically not finalized until 2018). As of 2008, about 67% of US roads were paved. Again, how I translate these figures into the game I'm still unsure. I basically only want to provide upgraded roads and utilities/services when the city needs it and when it makes the most sense to do so.

I think I'm on the brink of a coal plant, and offering some paved roads, and perhaps some initial plumbing in only the wealthiest of spots in-game.

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

23 hours ago, Daeris said:

Hello again all!

Re-Hiya, one.

I really love your concepts with the natural growth philosophy of SC4 game play. I've transitioned to a similar idea over the past few years with the caveat that I do lay out a regional railroad network first. For me, it means I won't have to do any major bulldozing and redevelopment to keep the simulator simulating properly as I go along playing. Later you mention not knowing where the freeway will go and that is true in my region too. That'll be when major redevelopment occurs and farms will get bisected and Sims tossed out on their ears to make way.

One thing which helped me is viewing plat maps from 1876 of every county in the state of Indiana (since that's where I live) to see how things were laid out back then. For the most part, nearly all towns were somewhat isolated with only minor dirt, plank, or gravel roads connecting them in a spiderweb-like fashion. There were a very few major thoroughfares between the larger cities, but also larger towns and many smaller towns were connected by the railroads.

I'm going to post some pics to illustrate points I'll be talking about. I hope they don't distract from your showcase above.

I've scrolled off to the mostly undeveloped area to show the rail lines layout:

 

 

23 hours ago, Daeris said:

I think there is a method more aimed at natural growth, where the primary mindset is to go into the region with practically zero or very little preconceived plans about how the region will develop and turn out, and simply play the game according to how you envision the sims actually expanding and growing their towns/cities and road networks.

Indeed this seems like a great way for the game to be an exploration of what happens rather than completely pre-planned.

 

23 hours ago, Daeris said:

First I identified likely spots where settlements would form, such as next to lakes, or along rivers.

From the bits of history I remember, this is spot on how it would go. Alongside rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans would be where the commercial and industrial would develop as they would be the gathering places for trade and, ofc, where the merchant class would live. I believe IRL these would account for maybe about 5% of the total land area. Everything else would be either farmland and tiny villages or wooded areas or other non-tillable land.

 

23 hours ago, Daeris said:

I first branched out from where I imagined the settlers first making landfall in the region, and then tried to make realistic decisions about where the trail would go next. My focus here is basically the path of least resistance. I follow contours of the land, I try to cut through clearings or the portions of woodlands where the trees are not as dense.

This follows well how the herds of animals would migrate forming trails which are sometimes a hundred or more miles long. As peeps expanded into the wilderness these would be the logical choice to make their own transportation networks.

 

23 hours ago, Daeris said:

On those populous cities, residential demand was through the roof, so I continued residential expansion into available clearings. I continued focusing in farmland expansion on the outskirts of the bigger towns, and for all the other city-tiles on the outskirts of the bigger towns, emphasize was on farmlands.

Here's where the game simulation and the real world differ. The game is geared to really help things move along towards higher population density and mega sized cities. However, you can consider the demand for residential as excited Sims who want to move in, but you are not obligated to give them all a place to live. The only time you must grow more residential is when the demand for agriculture is so low the farms won't grow.

As my own examples of not letting the Sims reproduce as much as they demand, here's a little island showing much less residential than it could support in the game.

 

At the south end this is the middle sized town:

 

But, I also create teeny, tiny towns too:

 

 

23 hours ago, Daeris said:

I'm at the point where many of my streets in my biggest towns are showing red congestion, so I think I'm ready for some roads to start popping up, but it's a bit daunting, and I'm not sure how to proceed quite yet. Should new roads be constructed on top of the old dirt paths? Also, when should road networks destroy previously existing development? These thoughts are a slight hassle.

My first concern is what traffic settings you chose when installing NAM. Based on your pics, it seems you shouldn't have red congestion yet unless selecting the Classic option. I went with the Low version which allows up to 1500 on the streets before they get angry with me. My reasoning is that I can then use various SAMs for what I wish to simulate. For instance, this town would be expected to have more traffic and wealthier Sims living there so they've upgraded to gravel.

^ Ofc that seaport is way larger than makes sense, but I've not installed any of the better custom alternatives yet.

 

23 hours ago, Daeris said:

As for plumbing, what's strange to me is that my sims aren't really complaining about no widespread water yet. I think I'm going to wait a bit longer on plumbing, and again, only for the more populous and therefore wealthy towns.

I believe the best way to really simulate natural growth is to develop every tile in the region first as predominately farms (where it's logical for them to go) with little to medium sized towns as needed. No water, no education, only windmills for power (as those are sufficient until you start with big industry), and no medical coverage. Ideally you'll be playing on the hard difficulty so the only advice which pops up is either a reward you've earned or an important message about something terribly wrong.

Now, the other thing which is not geared to a mostly agrarian design is the fire coverage. There are modded fire stations that can cover an entire tile if you want or you can use a little mod I made that simply reduces flammability to zero.

Cori's Fire Suppression Ordinance v0.01.dat

^ If you use that, you'll find it in the ordinances where the smoke detectors used to be.

 

23 hours ago, Daeris said:

I'm mostly happy with the look of my towns, but I feel perhaps I allowed the residential areas to develop and sprawl a bit too quickly. There are farms on most the outskirts, but I almost feel like the residential sectors are too big right now considering how much of the wilderness isn't covered with farms yet

I personally believe that residential should be limited until really ready to expand the towns. Here's another example where I do have a couple of larger towns, but I feel that I've maintained the ruralness fairly well:

 

And some smaller villages in close proximity to each other:

 

23 hours ago, Daeris said:

I feel my towns grew very quickly and have perhaps become a bit more gridlike than I preferred.

That is actually how almost all towns and cities were laid out until sometime last century so it is realistic to do that in the game. However, you can use diagonal streets to get some variation like this:

 

Or, (and this is simulating way later in the development) you can use curved streets for a residential subdivision that's an expansion of an original town:

 

23 hours ago, Daeris said:

When should I start swallowing farmlands or already established areas vs. When should I continue expanding horizontally to nearby clearings? When should I start destroying denser forests for new development? This might be one of the hardest things for me to figure out. I'm obviously not quite there yet, but since my demand for residential continues to be through the roof, I find myself asking the following: Should I start to zone Medium Density residential, Should I create more Low Density residential in nearby clearings (continue expanding horizontally), or Should I start to have residential areas swallow up farms and I just place more farms further away on the outskirts? I'm trying to determine what is more realistic. Since I explained I feel my towns perhaps have already expanded too quickly (residentially speaking), I kinda feel like if I just have residential start swallow farms already than it's not very realistic.

I'd personally hold off until your region is fully filled with as many farms as you'll be creating and then expand each of the towns along the major thoroughfares a little bit at a time. Those then would start eating into the nearby farmland.

Edit: I forgot I was going to mention you won't need garbage collection until 1000 pop in a city tile.

[Daeris 1,116]

Corina, you just blew my mind and I think helped me fit some great puzzle pieces together! First off, thanks for your spectacular, well-thought out response! Your stuff is fantastic to look at, and if I can achieve even half of that look, I'll be happy! I haven't read and processed your whole reply yet (but trust me I will!); after I let things simmer a few hours (and I get some sleep), I'll offer up a response and further questions if that's ok? I absolutely love that you embrace this style as well!

Don't ever think twice about sharing pics with me; your stuff looks so good, and it's extremely helpful for me to see and get ideas. I love how you create natural forests and overgrowth on the perimeter of your farms (geez that's so smart and realistic). Here's a pic of a farm I laid down literally 2 minutes after reading a bit of your post:

 

Ok, I'm excited, but first sleep time. I'll get back to this thread in the near future!

[Flann 1,709]

Here's an example of how I do things for smaller towns:

In this case I laid out the major rail and road corridors sort of following the lay of the land.  I randomly picked a spot for a road in the opposite direction, where I was to grow a town.  I also placed a rail junction near by.  After, I filled a lot of it with farms and started growing the town to a fairly compact footprint.  Where I'm from in the Midwest, almost everywhere is pretty gridded, so I usually try to follow that.  The key is to break it up with non-grid features and to vary the grid size a bit while maintaining the larger structure.  Think smaller varied grids within a larger grid.  This is somewhat related to the PLSS (Public Lands Survey System) in which most of the western US was divided into squares more or less.  Older US cities are often less gridded in their core.

Following the basic town development, I added a few larger industries and expanded my town a bit, eating into the farm land, but maintaining my grid.  This would be pre-1950s expansion.  Following that I built a freeway around the town and some.  The next step in this tile would likely be suburbanization, a break away from the grid.  However, this town isn't near any cities so I might never do it.

So for me typically, I do some barebones planning and have very vague idea of what it will turn into.  I usually operate under the mindset that I'm working towards achieving an end result in a certain time period, but I try to be mindful of how cities would have developed and respect that.  Sometimes I place big transportation networks ahead of when they're needed, but I'm also equally happy destroying swaths of city to put in a freeway, as it makes it look more natural and its more challenging to adapt to what's built already.

[Bruno the Bear 48]

I really like the small roads and the use of rail at the beginning of the game. I think that is is very realistic. Are there any railroads that actually carry product?

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

11 minutes ago, Bruno the Bear said:

Are there any railroads that actually carry product?

Normal rail can carry freight from industry to a neighbor connection (where it vanishes).

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

I'll offer up a response and further questions if that's ok?

Tis more than ok. It's encouraged.

 

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

Here's a pic of a farm I laid down literally 2 minutes after reading a bit of your post:

Lovely. Those trees provide a wind break so the crops won't get blown around as much and during the off season the soil won't get caught up making a dust storm.

 

14 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

I forgot I was going to mention you won't need garbage collection until 1000 pop in a city tile.

I need to clarify this. It's not a set value of 1000 population for when garbage needs handled, but more what I notice when doing only farms and small, low density residential. Ofc, you should check the garbage graph to see if it's becoming a problem in any given city tile.

[Daeris 1,116]

Thanks again for that response Corina. Here are some thoughts/questions I had.

19 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

I've transitioned to a similar idea over the past few years with the caveat that I do lay out a regional railroad network first. For me, it means I won't have to do any major bulldozing and redevelopment to keep the simulator simulating properly as I go along playing.

I hadn't thought about this, but that does sound like a good idea. Plus, with it being railroad, for RP purposes that also kinda makes sense since the railroad was such a big project in the early 1800s, before a lot of other widespread infrastructures. I would definitely be open to laying down a railroad line through the region; perhaps something basic, and of course something I could expand upon later. Let me ask, what is the major reason you feel this is necessary to ensure the simulation is working properly though? I understand it's likely going to vastly help your early agricultural industry, but you seem to emphasize you consider it a necessity. Also, do you try to run the rail right by a lot of your farms? Again, super good idea, and also kinda fits in for RP reasons!

 

20 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

One thing which helped me is viewing plat maps from 1876 of every county in the state of Indiana

Another smart move! I'm in Michigan (grew up south of Detroit), so we have that midwestern blood in us! I'll have to check up on some of the maps you describe to get a better visual idea of the birdseye developments.

 

20 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

I'm going to post some pics to illustrate points I'll be talking about

I'm so glad you did, and you're welcome to any time! Seeing the overview of your region made me want to ask a quick related question. Since you play with the natural growth concept, what do you primarily look for when selecting new regions to play with? I only went through the first 13 or so pages here on the STEX, so I feel like I need to hunt down more regions for my future playthroughs, but I'm curious what you recommend keeping in mind here. Do you design/customize your regions yourself?

 

20 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

On 11/26/2020 at 1:57 AM, Daeris said:

On those populous cities, residential demand was through the roof, so I continued residential expansion into available clearings. I continued focusing in farmland expansion on the outskirts of the bigger towns, and for all the other city-tiles on the outskirts of the bigger towns, emphasize was on farmlands.

Here's where the game simulation and the real world differ. The game is geared to really help things move along towards higher population density and mega sized cities. However, you can consider the demand for residential as excited Sims who want to move in, but you are not obligated to give them all a place to live. The only time you must grow more residential is when the demand for agriculture is so low the farms won't grow.

OMG this is absolutely GENIUS! As I eluded to, I kinda felt like I was missing a big mental puzzle piece about how to go about playing with this style, and I think this might just be it. You're 100% right, that the game and real life differ in this capacity. I shouldn't view the strong Residential demand as indication that I must expand the residential areas (especially when I don't even have farms widespread through the available clearing yet). Instead, I can view it as simply the potential residential demand for when that particular area develops. Other than dotting the landscape with some villages as you've said, if farms will grow first, they should!

Speaking of little villages/towns, it seems that you sprinkle multiple of them through certain logical spots in one city-tile, is that correct? In other words, a large city-tile may have more than one small village, correct? Or do you try to limit a village/town to 1 per city-tile? If the former, and you sprinkle several villages within one city-tile, may I ask how you go about naming that city-tile? Do you name the villages in your head or with landmarks of any kind, for RP reasons?

 

20 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

On 11/26/2020 at 1:57 AM, Daeris said:

I'm at the point where many of my streets in my biggest towns are showing red congestion, so I think I'm ready for some roads to start popping up, but it's a bit daunting, and I'm not sure how to proceed quite yet. Should new roads be constructed on top of the old dirt paths? Also, when should road networks destroy previously existing development? These thoughts are a slight hassle.

My first concern is what traffic settings you chose when installing NAM. Based on your pics, it seems you shouldn't have red congestion yet unless selecting the Classic option. I went with the Low version which allows up to 1500 on the streets before they get angry with me. My reasoning is that I can then use various SAMs for what I wish to simulate.

Yeah, thanks for checking on this. I'm was originally on Ultra, but after my form post a few days back (regarding why my dirt roads were holding so much traffic) I did use the traffic controller to switch my capacity down to LOW, like you. Perhaps I overexaggerated my congestion. I am seeing some red on the streets in my most populous towns, mostly at the intersections - however - I feel like this is likely mostly because I let my residential areas sprawl too much in those cities. For example, in my biggest city Grandtrix, population is 14,000. See, so I let that grow too quickly this playthrough (but hey I'm learning!). Here is what some of the intersections look like in Grandtrix:

 

So yeah, I will double check, but I'm fairly sure I'm on the LOW traffic capacity setting (I'll double check), and I think this is just a case of me letting things grow/sprawl too quickly for this playthrough.

 

20 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

For instance, this town would be expected to have more traffic and wealthier Sims living there so they've upgraded to gravel.

I love that you do this; I do this too, and want to basically show gravel/brick street in certain areas, but of course mostly stick to the PEG dirt streets everywhere else at first. Quick side question regarding this... I noticed that sometimes when connecting 2 different style streets together (ie connecting brick and dirt together), sometimes the the dirt street will kinda override the other and make it difficult to get it how I want it. Seems sometimes I need to use the bulldozer to fine-tune what street style I want where, so one doesn't override the other visually speaking. Do you get this too, or have any recommendations there?

 

20 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Ofc that seaport is way larger than makes sense, but I've not installed any of the better custom alternatives yet

I have the BSC Functional Seaport mod (not the whole thing though, because those dependencies THO, lol). I haven't used it either, but if you're like me you might like the look of the BLS Rural port that is offered within. I just downloaded the dependencies for this and one other of the BSC ports.

 

20 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

I believe the best way to really simulate natural growth is to develop every tile in the region first as predominately farms (where it's logical for them to go) with little to medium sized towns as needed. No water, no education, only windmills for power (as those are sufficient until you start with big industry), and no medical coverage. Ideally you'll be playing on the hard difficulty so the only advice which pops up is either a reward you've earned or an important message about something terribly wrong.

Now, the other thing which is not geared to a mostly agrarian design is the fire coverage. There are modded fire stations that can cover an entire tile if you want or you can use a little mod I made that simply reduces flammability to zero.

Thanks for this! Also a great philosophy to share! That sounds like a great approach, and will be very helpful for me to resist all the Residential demand (like you said, not until farms are populating everything or won't grow). I definitely like the sound of this approach, and it's hyper realistic. Quick side questions regarding wind power... do you basically plop a windmill or two somewhere and then use the giant agricultural zones to act as power lines transferring the power through the zones? Or do you place a new windmill for new farm often? Speaking of windmill, I almost feel the wind turbine breaks my RP a little bit, and seems slightly out of place. I know windmills didn't exactly produce electricity way back in the day, but do you know if there are any wind turbine re-skin mods or anything? I almost would prefer to use some windmill skins for power, up until I'm ready for big towns to develop.

Also, regarding fire, hmmmm, you seem to make it sound like this might definitely be a potential problem. Great idea on the mod, and thank you so much for sharing. I think I may take advantage of that if it's something you really recommend. Or do you think it's doable if I simply place a small fire department when the public demands it?

Lastly, does hard difficulty to anything other than change the starting money?

 

20 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

I personally believe that residential should be limited until really ready to expand the towns. Here's another example where I do have a couple of larger towns, but I feel that I've maintained the ruralness fairly well

Yeah, you're right, and your stuff looks so good. You've done a great job of not only letting things develop naturally and realistically, but you have made your stuff look so realistic too. I'm so glad such a prominent person like you is very experienced with this type of gameplay. I'm a fangirl for sure! =p

Speaking of the look of your stuff, a few questions there plz: Do you use the SPAM mod, or no? I am currently using SPAM for the extra crop types visually, so anything you can recommend here might be helpful to increase realism and diversity. Also, as mentioned, I absolutely love that you have overgrowth around your fields and cutting/snaking throughout the landscape. It's fabulous to look at, and so very realistic. Do you have any recommendations for trees or bushes you've found to help create this overgrowth look the most? After following your lead, I found a few bushier trees that I like, which I think are part of the tree controller mod I have installed. As for the larger forests you have snaking throughout, how to you decide where those should go? Do you use the flora blast command to help with this in any way? Lastly, do you notice that painting/plopping so much overgrowth slows down your game in any capacity? I have a moderately beefy PC, so I'm not too concerned by it, but I think I should start to consider doing anything I can to optimize my game so it doesn't get out of control. Eventually I should probably clean up my Plugins folder and optimize it for efficiency so the game loads everything sooner. Anyways, sorry that's a lot of questions, but I love the way you incorporate nature, because that gives you something for development to swallow up later when you start expanding. I just love it.

 

21 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Or, (and this is simulating way later in the development) you can use curved streets for a residential subdivision that's an expansion of an original town

Absolutely LOVE the look of that sub-division. Again, coming from a midwesterner like me, that is just so darn realistic looking, with those curved streets and giant houses. =p

 

Anyways, geez I bombed you with questions! I do apologize; please no rush to reply of course, I'm just so thrilled that you tackle this style so masterfully imo.

[Daeris 1,116]

12 hours ago, Flann said:

Where I'm from in the Midwest, almost everywhere is pretty gridded, so I usually try to follow that.  The key is to break it up with non-grid features and to vary the grid size a bit while maintaining the larger structure.  Think smaller varied grids within a larger grid.

Thanks for your reply and helpful concepts Flann! Yes, this is a very helpful approach to consider.

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

Firstly @Daeris it's great to see how you've got such a passion for city building, and the natural growth is really what I can resonate with also. I never used to be into rural themed regions, but I find that they are inspiring in their form, and with so much potential. Something I enjoy about SC4 is the freedom of creativity, and there is no rule book. As mayors we each have the choice to build to the particular style of our choice, and that is the wondrous thing indeed for what possibilities this entails. Your thorough articulate responses are appreciated, and from your pics there you've really made a splendid start at crafting how you wish to go about developing each particular area.

I'll help find links for @CorinaMarie to answer your other questions for her in a bit, but I'll just touch on this for now...
 

1 hour ago, Daeris said:

Lastly, do you notice that painting/plopping so much overgrowth slows down your game in any capacity?

Yes, I have noticed that planting trees does indeed cause the game to lag more. Even on a modern system it very much is the bottleneck in how it takes time to process than would be expected for a game released in 2003. One tip I suggest is to consider reducing the shadows to Low in the Graphics Options panel, and this way it will dramatically improve the scrolling swiftness. Then when sightseeing to take pics, to then toggle it back to High and everything will have more depth again.

Thankfully this can be done on the fly, so there's no need to restart the game for the changes to be applied.

[Daeris 1,116]

Well said @Cyclone Boom, and thank you I certainly will turn the shadows down.

[Kloudkicker 4,563]

Hay @daeris I thought that this guide may interest you. I think it's very interesting and helpful learning how the game works. I played for may, may years never knowing that you could mod the game till middle of this year. I read the whole guide before playing with the mods and learned new things. Than reading here on Simtropolis, I learn the game is miscreated and people are fixing it. That's so cool for an old game. I'm having a blast and loving it.

https://archive.org/details/SimCity_4_Rush_Hour_Prima_Official_eGuide there is a digital download in PDF I believe. Enjoy if you haven't yet.

[Daeris 1,116]

Thank you @Kloudkicker, I will make sure to read it this weekend. Speaking of weekend I took Monday and Tuesday off, so it's a long one! Any guesses what game I'm going to log hours in. =p

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

1 minute ago, Daeris said:

Any guesses what game I'm going to log hours in. =p

Rescue Rover?

Btw, @Cyclone Boom and I are creating a detailed reply post for you, but it'll take a while.

 

[Daeris 1,116]

Oh my, take your time! I can't wait (but I will, lol). I really appreciate all the responses from everyone. As I've said elsewhere, it's so nice to see such a great community still going strong for this game.

[Kloudkicker 4,563]

4 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Btw, @Cyclone Boom and I are creating a detailed reply post for you

@Daeris your in trouble, LOL, I told on you, hehe, jj sorry, I've been this way all day. I blame the turkey

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

Corina

Feel free to call me Cori if you like. It's what I go by IRL. (Ofc, if you prefer my full given name, I don't mind that.)

 

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

Anyways, geez I bombed you with questions!

Oh, my! The battle has started.     This post is our return salvo.
 

First off, this dissertation would've been too overwhelming for me without the concerted effort of @Cyclone Boom who tirelessly probed the site search mode along with his proficient delving into the database itself to locate all the elusive reference linkys I wanted. Thanks ever so much, CB.

 

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

Let me ask, what is the major reason you feel this is necessary to ensure the simulation is working properly though? I understand it's likely going to vastly help your early agricultural industry, but you seem to emphasize you consider it a necessity.

I do indeed consider it necessary. The key aspect that SC4 added (compared to its predecessors) is Regional Play. Every single city tile in the whole region can influence any other tile provided the information is propagated all the way from one to another. So the reason I feel it's imperative to have the connections in place is to keep the overall balance in check. I have discussed propagating the demand from tile to tile a few times. If you check the linkys, some may need reading above these linked posts to get the context of my replies. Propagating demand post.  (Other examples:  [1]  [2]  [3] )

 

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

Also, do you try to run the rail right by a lot of your farms?

I often do, but sometimes I like a cell or two space between the fields and the rail to place trees. Just depends on my mood at the time of zoning.

Here's a quick scenario in which the farms will be right up to the rail line. Let's jump to an undeveloped tile in which I've run the regional rail lines and flora blasted. (More on flora blasting later where you asked about it.)

City Tile ready for new development:

 

Turning off the trees and highlighting the rail which I already have in place:

^ Ofc those rail curves are way too sharp and NAM has drag patterns to make nice, sweeping ones, but I've not learned them yet.

 

Then I like to use the feature whereby industrial (which includes farms) can toss their goods onto passing freight trains if their anchor lot is touching said rail line. To do that I control where the buildings will grow. (I did a little tutorial on that concept here.) In this next pic I've also zoned irregular shaped agriculture to conform to the terrain. (My mini tutorial on creating irregular shaped farms here.)

(And somewhat related is my Maximizing Farm Income the Silly Way thread.)

It's best to run the game at no more than the medium (Rhino) speed because sometimes the fields will show a slew of No Road Connection Zots. You'll need to pause the game before a game month has elapsed or else the field will die. To remedy this, I run a temporary street all the way alongside the field:

 

Next I'll drop a SAM starter for the type of street I want and convert the Maxis one to that. Then bulldoze off the starter and the extra part I don't need once the zots are gone. In this sample, I've curved it and made the north/south leave 4 cells open between the dirt road and the rail. This'll allow the later industry to also toss their products onto passing trains. I go ahead and plop one of @Raymond7cn's rural train stations because I'll be expanding with other farms and industrial which won't touch the tracks. And lastly, I grow a wee bit of residential:

^ Not shown, but in Raymond's bus stop set there are a couple of rural themed ones I use a lot too once I've expanded the town some more.

 

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

I'll have to check up on some of the maps you describe to get a better visual idea of the birdseye developments.

Here's a really good place to start: David Rumsey Map Collection (And I've set the search to include the words "Michigan" and "County" with the year of publication set prior to 1900.) Here's a direct linky to a map of Wayne County, Michigan as of 1873 on that site. (Which is where Detroit is.)

 

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

Since you play with the natural growth concept, what do you primarily look for when selecting new regions to play with?

Very early on while getting my feet wet initially playing the game I became enamored with the ability to create my own regions. The first one I created was using the in game terraforming tools:

 

But later I developed a method I used for a long while called: C.O.R.I.M.A.P.S. - A Tutorial for SimCity 4 which stands for Cloud Oriented Region Import Method Adding Painted Streams.  

 

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

Do you design/customize your regions yourself?

Indubitably. And over time I feel the ones I've made have gotten better than my initial creations. Here's a list of ones I believe are pretty good. These were created by taking some public domain C code and then tweaking it a bunch to work for SC4. I added a routine that creates flat terraces at multiple elevations which makes them super easy to build on. The drawback to the grayscale image conversion to a region is there are no majestic mountains like in the one you are playing. My Rina's Ridiculous Rivers is by far the most popular based on downloads by over a 3 to 1 margin.

One thing I'm happy about is how my play style has progressed from region to region as I learned more and developed my style. If you are really curious, you could peek at my very first farm pics in a Show Us Your... thread. (And if you wanted, you could scroll thru the rest of that page and the next 9 as I've posted quite a bit in there.) Or there's also the ACoCFPaLbN (It's Farm Stuff) thread where our dear @Naomi57 had gone thru adding reactions to a bunch of my posts and so CB and I made a thread showcasing those.

However, the one I've been playing for the past 3 years is plana camporum montem Aetnam Map which I named Corillion for myself. There's also Cori's Castle.  (Plus our addon lots set.) So, I'd say the main thing I look for in a region is the ease of creating farms the way I do and that they can be on level ground so the Apple and Orange Trees are vertical and the regular fields don't wind up showing a moire pattern at certain zooms.

 

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

Speaking of little villages/towns, it seems that you sprinkle multiple of them through certain logical spots in one city-tile, is that correct? In other words, a large city-tile may have more than one small village, correct? Or do you try to limit a village/town to 1 per city-tile?

I do indeed have multiple tiny villages/towns in a single city tile. They are basically at the intersections of four 18 x 18 cell farms, but I'll vary that depending on the terrain. (The 18 x 18 number is the default before Maxis wants to toss in auto generated streets and is sort of a soft limit for when the game is less likely to go zot crazy.)

 

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

If the former, and you sprinkle several villages within one city-tile, may I ask how you go about naming that city-tile?

Well, it's not one per, but I'll still answer this cause my city tile naming is quite unconventional and not RP'ish at all. For pure convenience I've simply named each of the city tiles with a grid coordinate system like this:

And a wee bit more info in this post and this post where I've shown it before.

So I use that layout along with the full region view created using the Region Census program to keep track of the relationship between tiles. For instance here's a cropped portion of the transportation view where I've expanded with a larger city:

 

And the full image, but it's so big you'd prolly want to download it to zoom in and scroll around. I use the FastStone Image Viewer, but that's not a requirement.

^ What you'll see if you do explore that fully zoomed to 100% is that it's a mismash as I've hopped around exploring new ideas and the cohesiveness of the region is lost. I'm not worried about it as I've plans to start a different region from scratch sometime and begin anew with all I've learned.

 

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

Do you name the villages in your head or with landmarks of any kind, for RP reasons?

Yep. I'm somewhat silly that way. CB collected a bunch of what he calls Cori-isms and posted the pics here. One of which is:

 

Then there's also a small town I named Naomiville for our fairy ferry godmother member in this post. (Speaking of which you might want to check out @Naomi57's Discovering the "Fly-swat Ferry Loop" post and her OWR-4 Ferry Loop (NAM36 visual tutorial.)

So, yeah. I do a bit of Role Playing like a movie in my mind as I play.

 

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

I am seeing some red on the streets in my most populous towns, mostly at the intersections ...

Ah. And I've misled you a wee bit. I edited my traffic controller directly with Reader to make the intersections more forgiving so I'd forgotten that when wondering how yours would have red congestion. Oopsie.

 

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

The dirt street will kinda override the other and make it difficult to get it how I want it. Seems sometimes I need to use the bulldozer to fine-tune what street style I want where, so one doesn't override the other visually speaking. Do you get this too, or have any recommendations there?

That, unfortunately, is inherent in how Maxis designed the game as it seems they didn't think about how peeps would mod override textures for them. I used to use SAM Stoppers, but now I used @Naomi57's technique of using two Starter pieces adjacent to each other.

 

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

I haven't used it either, but if you're like me you might like the look of the BLS Rural port that is offered within.

Yes, that one will be ideal for the look I want.

 

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

Quick side questions regarding wind power... do you basically plop a windmill or two somewhere and then use the giant agricultural zones to act as power lines transferring the power through the zones? Or do you place a new windmill for new farm often?

I generally plop one near the farms I start in a new tile and then when more power is needed I add more to the original location. Often times for very rural tiles, I'll only need a couple or three of them.

 

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

Speaking of windmill, I almost feel the wind turbine breaks my RP a little bit, and seems slightly out of place. I know windmills didn't exactly produce electricity way back in the day, but do you know if there are any wind turbine re-skin mods or anything? I almost would prefer to use some windmill skins for power, up until I'm ready for big towns to develop.

Yeah, the Maxis one is way, way too modern for my tastes. CB and I have plans to someday relot DEDWD Aussie Windmill to produce power instead of water and prolly reduce the number of deps to zero.

 

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

Also, regarding fire, hmmmm, you seem to make it sound like this might definitely be a potential problem. Great idea on the mod, and thank you so much for sharing. I think I may take advantage of that if it's something you really recommend. Or do you think it's doable if I simply place a small fire department when the public demands it?

Phooey on the public and their demands.

The reason I mention it is that things not covered within the radius of a fire station can actually catch on fire and then you need to deal with it or enjoy the resulting rubble. Maxis made their stations such that anything within the radii of them will not ignite, but it takes several smalls or about 5 large stations to cover a large city tile and that rather breaks the realism of the older themed development much like the wind turbine being too modern.

So, my above attached file is an out and out cheat which means you wouldn't need to deal with potential fires. If you don't mind plopping several fire stations, that works too. (Btw, almost all of the in game messages you get are scripted text which shows for certain conditions or combinations of conditions. Nearly all of them can simply be ignored.)

While you didn't ask about it, water pollution is another thing I semi-cheat on by using the MCP Water & Air Purification Plant. It's smaller and more economical than the Maxis one. This isn't needed tho until you plan to make your Sims happier.

 

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

Lastly, does hard difficulty do anything other than change the starting money?

Yes, a wee little bit. Such as the neutral tax rate at high populations is a bit lower, growth of all types of zones will be about 2% slower, the advisors won't be so damn annoying, and other minor things. The first time I selected hard I was actually scared it'd be too difficult, but in that very first attempt I really couldn't tell what, if anything, felt any different. (Other than less wear and tear on my rodent playing whack-a-mole with the advisor popups.)

 

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

Do you use the SPAM mod, or no? I am currently using SPAM for the extra crop types visually, so anything you can recommend here might be helpful to increase realism and diversity.

I have looked at SPAM and there are many things about it I like. I haven't yet tried it tho. I really like that there are many additional style barns in that mod, but I actually don't care for some of the farm fields. Where I live I'm used to basically two major crops so I don't mind having a limited set. I did, however, create modified textures for the Maxis farms and I set them up so I never get either of the two dirt fields. You can see a comparison in this post. That also shows a diagonal farm filler set CB and I have been creating as well as a grass underlay texture for rail and streets when it would otherwise show dirt. CB posted a comparison pic of that here. The file is attached to this post if'n you'd want it. CB made a really nice comparison of it in use in an actual town here.

Btw, the way those pics are made, you can click on one and then use your arrow keys to flip back and forth between them to see the differences. They are pixel perfectly aligned using the EPIC Technique for Centered City Screenshots.

 

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

Do you have any recommendations for trees or bushes you've found to help create this overgrowth look the most?

Prior to the diagonal fillers, I tended to just paint in God Mode Maxis trees. Here's a couple samples showing that:

^ Both of those are in my relaxing play in the Timbuktu Too region where I'm deliberately playing just for fun and not worrying about aplopping filler lots.

However, my first love for fillers around Maxis farms are @SUICO's Farm Fences. I found I could use just the light green pasture one backwards (with the fence facing the fields) and if I did that two cells wide between fields I could then place God Mode trees on them to have both fences and trees as my separators.

 

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

As for the larger forests you have snaking throughout, how to you decide where those should go? Do you use the flora blast command to help with this in any way?

For me it's the other way around. I Flora Blast (details about using it here) the whole tile first and then cut out where the farms will go based on the terrain. Another example (which is prolly in one of the other linkys above), but this shows how the grown zones leave plenty of room for where the trees are:

 

13 hours ago, Daeris said:

Absolutely LOVE the look of that sub-division.

TNQ.

That's possible now that I've learned all the drag patterns NAM adds for streets so I can do those curves with ease. Here's another way I've developed a less modern residential housing addition.

The final pic of that mini tutorial:

^ Basically, I'm showing how to have various size lots so it looks more realistic.

 

Now, some other random things which were found while CB was up to his chin in database electrons:

There's a trick for running power to other areas of your city tile without using power lines, but if you do use the power lines, I recommend this patch if you use the PEG Power Tower Pylons.

Ofc, you've prolly already seen the NKO info thread.

 

And one last thing you might like. An animation CB made for one of my city tiles showing the growth over time:

^ Click the image to see it larger.

[Matrim Cauthon 344]

2 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Ah. And I've misled you a wee bit. I edited my traffic controller directly with Reader to make the intersections more forgiving so I'd forgotten that when wondering how yours would have red congestion. Oopsie.

For Daeris, this can be edited easily with the Traffic Simulator Configuration Tool. I personally tend to use .7 (default is 1 IIRC), though I swear I saw a screenshot with Cori's at .2  or so.
I mostly lowered it because I use a lot of street curves and those get hit with the intersection effect.

 

2 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

That, unfortunately, is inherent in how Maxis designed the game as it seems they didn't think about how peeps would mod override textures for them. I used to use SAM Stoppers, but now I used @Naomi57's technique of using two Starter pieces adjacent to each other.

I recently discovered a method for this.

The network disconnector tool severs the override ability and can be used to create single tile override or for chaining different SAM types.

[Bruno the Bear 48]

These look great and are exactly want.

[Flann 1,709]

16 hours ago, Daeris said:

I love that you do this; I do this too, and want to basically show gravel/brick street in certain areas, but of course mostly stick to the PEG dirt streets everywhere else at first. Quick side question regarding this... I noticed that sometimes when connecting 2 different style streets together (ie connecting brick and dirt together), sometimes the the dirt street will kinda override the other and make it difficult to get it how I want it. Seems sometimes I need to use the bulldozer to fine-tune what street style I want where, so one doesn't override the other visually speaking. Do you get this too, or have any recommendations there?

 

4 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

That, unfortunately, is inherent in how Maxis designed the game as it seems they didn't think about how peeps would mod override textures for them. I used to use SAM Stoppers, but now I used @Naomi57's technique of using two Starter pieces adjacent to each other.

 

1 hour ago, Matrim Cauthon said:

I recently discovered a method for this.

The network disconnector tool severs the override ability and can be used to create single tile override or for chaining different SAM types.

 

 

1 hour ago, Bruno the Bear said:

These look great and are exactly want.

 

I don't know if you all are aware, but SAM FLEX transition piece was added in NAM 38 which allows for orthogonal transitions between different SAM networks.  Here's an example of a subset of them:

 

 

[Matrim Cauthon 344]

omg, go team NAM!
I'll have to play with those

Also, Raymonds rural lots are incredible, and now I have to go replace a bunch of train stations and bus stops lol.

[Daeris 1,116]

4 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Oh, my! The battle has started.     This post is our return salvo.

Haha, what a super salvo of useful information. I'm going to start digging into all this and putting some of it into practice in-game, but I'm sure I'll be back after I've reloaded my question gun. =p

[Daeris 1,116]

4 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Yeah, the Maxis one is way, way too modern for my tastes. CB and I have plans to someday relot DEDWD Aussie Windmill to produce power instead of water and prolly reduce the number of deps to zero.

Oh quick mention; YES, this would be an amazing adjustment!

[Kloudkicker 4,563]

47 minutes ago, Flann said:

SAM FLEX transition piece was added in NAM 38 which allows for orthogonal transitions between different SAM networks.  Here's an example of a subset of them

Ok now, this is cool. I had no idea they can be used for more than street to dirt transition as the preview shows. I thought I played around with it enough. Looks like I was wrong. Thank you so much for that info.

[Daeris 1,116]

I might start sprinkling in little tidbits/question posts as I go, until I can offer up another return salvo .

 

These farm fences are for sure fun! Of course, since it's a plop, it does eat up the agriculture zone under, guess I just need to make my farms BIGGER, lol. =p

I like the birches and rowan trees I'm using as overgrowth, but I think I need to do some hunting for something more bushy and less "tree-ey". Anyone have any good recommendations there? @CorinaMarie (btw I will start calling you Cori ), do you use the standard maxis trees, or a preferred tree controller? Apologies if you already mentioned the trees you're using, I didn't notice. I am using the newer Monkeywater one:

I do like it, but I am thinking the trees might be a bit too tall in style to compliment the farms completely. Might need to go on the hunt.

So much to put into practice now! Back to it until I formulate more thoughts.....

...OH OH, one other quick question. Is there a hotkey to show/hide trees? Or is that a command via the ctrl-x popup? One of the main reasons I wasn't flora blasting heavily is because seeing through the trees to level my farms & paths/roads was difficult. Your tutorial post showing how you make irregular shaped farms kinda follow the contour of the land is great, and it seemed like you had a quick option to hide the trees.