Greenland

[Spaceblaze 194]

Thanks for all the help I get from you guys and sorry for asking so much

I guess building industrial zones next to freight trainstation is obvious, but at how many tiles does the influence of a freight station reach?

I mean at what distance does the freight train station takes freight and I need to build another freight train station and thus try to prevent trucks to take over the transport

When I build a fire station, or school, hospital etc I get a big red  circle divining the area that the particular building covers, but not with train stations

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

11 hours ago, Spaceblaze said:

... how many tiles does the influence of a freight station reach?

The entire city tile.

For freight, the game just needs to get it out of the city or to a Seaport. The path finding algorithm calculates if that is possible. If there is a single freight station connected to a rail which subsequently leaves the city tile then that is sufficient to fulfill the exodus and gain the cap relief.

However, the other important factor is trip length for said freight. This is then a desirability factory for industrial. Use the Query tool (clicking on or hovering over) for individual industrial to see if the trip is short, medium, or long. If it's long then you'll prolly want a quicker way for the freight to leave your city tile and that's when you'll want to provide another station in closer proximity which yields a shorter distance.

[Spaceblaze 194]

4 Million peeps

And there is still room for new cities and the biggest land hasn't even been used. My next goal will be to reach the 5 million mark without using the center tile. there are 5 medium tiles left and I thin my average population is somewhere around 100 to 150K so there is room for improvement on the lower pop tiles(the highest tile has 250k population)

I also want to start experimenting with subways and see what they do and maybe integrate bus stations because I didn't use them so far

 

 

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

Congratulations Mayor. 

It was a relatively fast ride! Good job keeping it all coherent and running well.

[Spaceblaze 194]

Lets see if I can explain how I do things these days and maybe this a reaction to the post of @TheMurderousCricket in this topic

First of all, I created a new city called Bloemfontijn and it has a 6x6 grid

 

The 6x6 grid has been my favorite after the last few months because it connects the best with surrounding cities

Now the problem with Bloemfontijn is that the only connection to the small lands in this region is on the upper right. I only build industries in the smal lands because I don't want the pollution in my medium lands(my cities)

So here is the problemI need to cross a large area to beeing able to get to the industrial area

 

 

To make it happen I have drawn 6x6 grid to a certain extend, I only put some roads on the map and this is to make both areas to match up. To make it in detail

 

 

From there I can start working on the industrial zone I want to devellop and over time I can add residential and commercial zones on the map of Bloemfontijn

The industrial zone( called Westerpoort) can devellop next to Bloemfontijn and the start of Westerpoort will look like this

 

 

So far doing things this way have worked for me and until this point I haven't messed up cities or industrial zones and I must admit that so far I am quite surprised that I haven't failed on setting up cities because that is one thing I remember quite well. In the past In messed up on a regular basis and it made me start up a new region to come to the conlussion I f*cked up again

[Spaceblaze 194]

I wonder what this is?

First time I see it

Witte hutjes - white huts

[gwada971 1,891]

@Spaceblaze Hi, It's on tileset Chicago R$ White Bungalows or White Cottages (Maxis Buildings)

[Whte_rbt 1,431]

@Spaceblaze: That looks like a missing tree or yard prop. Given that @gwada971 identified it as a maxis lot the question becomes "what modifications have overridden the base game data?"

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

Thanks for linking me up @Spaceblaze.

6x6 grid works good indeed. My only concern when using it though is the traffic. The more intersections you have, the poorer it gets.

At least this is what happens in my case. But as I already mentioned, I am terrible at managing traffic.

10 hours ago, Spaceblaze said:

To make it happen I have drawn 6x6 grid to a certain extend, I only put some roads on the map and this is to make both areas to match up.

I frequently leave empty city tiles and reserve them just for the purpose of creating communication lines.  What can I say? That's what regional play is all about. 

[Spaceblaze 194]

Small update, reached the 4.5 million mark and there is still room for more. I would say it will be possible to reach 5 million peeps before starting to devellop the mayor region

[Spaceblaze 194]

Almost done and ready for the only large tile in the region.

 

I think I have to do some tweaking on the railroads and highways before I really start at the largest land in the Greenland region and after that I can really close it and start looking at another region and start using everything I learned so far

 

 

[Spaceblaze 194]

Lost hope, the final tile of the greenland region

I don't want industrial areas in this city

 

This is the playing ground for this city. There are lots of connections to surrounding cities and I already got the tourist trap and those connections will cost me money, and I haven't started yet 🤣

 

 

So let's start small and see how things devellop

 

 

I made my first income, now let's see if I can make more money and build a healthy city

 

 

Stay tuned, I will update when I can keep a positive income on this tile and also update when I fail!

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

15 hours ago, Spaceblaze said:

Stay tuned, I will update when I can keep a positive income on this tile and also update when I fail!

One thing I noticed is that a city just needs to have some med and high density R$$ or R$$$ buildings to be able to make profit.

The more afluent citizens you have the better. But of course, you first need to have good living conditions to keep them. 

[Spaceblaze 194]

@TheMurderousCricket

Ofcourse there is a need for R$$ or R$$$, but I am still a long way from that 😉

But I also would like to mention that with low density plots you can also have high income and starting with low density living areas combined with high density commercials worked best for me in the past and made me the most profit(and kept me going)

Now for this large city I do have a plan and if it works, I don't know, there are so many things to think of and everything cost money to maintain(building things in SC4 isn't the challenge, beeing able to maintain your investments is)

But back to the plan, I want to create a ring of highways around the city center and beyond that another highway that circles the city. This second "ring" is for the connection to other cities since there are small industrial cities and medium residential/commercial cities around it. I also want to create a railway system that goes deep into the center of the city and has connections to the cities around it.

I think the best way to explain what I am thinking of is to show a small map with highways and railroad lines.

How I am going to do this and make it work, I really don't know yet, the plan is all in my head. 😁

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

By all means, you are right. It is possible to get good income even when R$ are the only taxpayers out there.

I guess my mind is still set on a small, rural town I currently build. It has low density all across, so not much pockets to pick from, heh. In this setting even three R$$ houses make significant impact!

7 hours ago, Spaceblaze said:

But back to the plan, I want to create a ring of highways around the city center and beyond that another highway that circles the city.

This is a good idea, frequently seen across the world. I remember I was really impressed about the ring system I saw (and used) in Brussels. No traffic jams. You just hop on a highway and get to the other edge of the city in less than an hour.

And welcome to the "Pen n' Paper" club!  

[Spaceblaze 194]

The game is on and I made the first highway and railroad connection

 

 

 

Now the city is just starting and so far there is only a fire station, a energy plant, water facility and 2 train stations

 

 

There is something funny though. There is somebody living close to a train station and all this peep has to do is cross the road and jump on the train....

But no, this peep is so happy with his car that in the morning commute he takes his car and travels to the train station on four wheels

 

When going home after work this same peep takes a detour and likes to show of his cabriolet and makes his way home 😎

 

I really like where this is going 🤣

[Spaceblaze 194]

Small update, the first ring of highways is completed and I made a ring of railroads around the highways. The first hospital is placed and all the different school types have a place on the map.

 

 

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

Nice! Good job with the transportation.

And may I say, the steady income of over 1000 Simoleon makes a city rich very quickly. Which is evident given the five million figure you've accumulated. 

Do you plan to make more neighbor connections out of this city or would you rather minimize the chance of the eternal commuter bug?

[Spaceblaze 194]

I am planning to make as much as possible connections to the neighbor cities. And that is ofcourse when I can afford it and when it fits into my plan of making a second ring of highways

[Spaceblaze 194]

I have a question for @TheMurderousCricket

In your signature you say that you should avoid building an operahouse. Why?

In Lost hope I have the possibillity to build it but you write it's evil...

Small update, the total region is close to 5 million peeps

Lost hope have reached the 100.000 peeps mark, but somehow I don't seem to get further over 100k, no matter how much I build. Money/income wise I am doing very well and even when a disaster happens I think I can survive. I am not completly satisfied with the connections on the highways, I would like to create another connection of both rings in the south east, but have to work on that.

The center starts to look like a real city center and I have placed some landmarks to make it look like downtown (fill in an American city name) or (replace American name with a Chinese city, maybe Chongqing) There is still a lot to do and many residential areas have to be replaced and made into commercial areas.

 

Down south I have created a hot spot for education and placed the universcity, the city universcity, highschool, private highschool and junior school close together. I also placed a universcity hospital closeby so medical research can be done in the same place 😎

 

I also started to creat some other areas with highrise buildings outside of the center and will concentrate those areas around train stations all around the map.

 

 

Looking at the traffic everything looks ok and also the life expectenscy is not something I worry about

 

 

Stay tuned, I am going to play for another hour or so and this region is almost completed 😛

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

3 hours ago, Spaceblaze said:

In your signature you say that you should avoid building an operahouse. Why?

It all started in this post of @TheMurderousCricket's Feeling Overwhelmed thread.

 

There's a solution to that now. See our 1st Beta - Opera House Fix for ModPacc Zero topic. (It was his experience of the trouble occurring which motivated us to make that our first project for MZ.) And the fix works very well with our Hospital Pockets Picked and Other FUN Dialog Boxes mod to keep you informed where there is underfunding.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

Nice to see some people still read signatures! 

5 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

It all started in this post of @TheMurderousCricket's Feeling Overwhelmed thread.

Precisely. Thanks for digging this up Cori. But to summarize...

The default opera house has completely destabilized my biggest (and greatest to date) city of 211 000 citizens. Desirability across R$$ - R$$$ spectrum has plummeted. Education quotients have plummeted. Tax income - gone. High land values - gone.

As a result of the opera house bug my city has lost 30 000 inhabitants and about 97% of those still left were R$.

But there were some peculiar circumstances to it as well.

I embarked upon a very large-scale redevelopment of that city and demolished numerous residential areas. As a result I got new citizens with lower education quotients (which is normal of course) while most of educated ones (formed before the opera house was built, mind you) were removed.

The problem is that the opera house bug, let's say, prevents the citizens from becoming smarter. It has impact on the education quotient overall.

But due to heroic efforts by toroca and the CoriBoom team, you can actually enjoy having an opera house in your city. Go ahead and download their mod, it fixes the bug. I haven't because I became discouraged by this evil, evil structure.

Spoiler

(Actually it is a good narrative feature, so I'm keeping it for later... )

 

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

9 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

But due to heroic efforts by toroca and the CoriBoom team, you can actually enjoy having an opera house in your city. Go ahead and download their mod, it fixes the bug. I haven't because I became discouraged by this evil, evil structure.

You could, perhaps, tweak your signature to reflect that the The "SimCity 4" Vanilla Opera House is the most evil thing in existence.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

42 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

You could, perhaps, tweak your signature to reflect that the The "SimCity 4" Vanilla Opera House is the most evil thing in existence.

Cheerfully amended. 

[Spaceblaze 194]

Small update,

I have created the first metro line 😺

It didn't cost much to build and the exploitation cost are something I can manage(for now..)

 

It als seems the peeps have been waiting for this, although I don't see any effect on the use of cars

 

 

I will try to to expand the metro lines and see where this will go

 

On the overall picture, Lost hope is doing fine and I hope to reach the 200k peeps mark soon

 

 

 

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

What's! Up! In! Greenland! 

Hope you are doing fine @Spaceblaze, looks like you've been missing in action for some time! All good?

[Spaceblaze 194]

I have closed this map and moved on to another 😎

Also, I am busy with work and have less spare time to play

But no worries, in the meantime I have set up a few cities in a new region and have permitted the gambling so the is a income of 100 simolians each month and have let thos cities in the background of the PC 😋

When I have more time I can start with some cities already having several millions to spend

Here is an example from my new region