How to Lay Multi-tile City Out

[Propfam 2,295]

Hello,

I'm afraid to lay multitile city out due to

1. Its sheer size.
2. The complexity of the network.
3. The "unpredictable" (or more like seam) network behavior across tiles (aka NC behavior) due to NC preference over city route by the game despite the latter is closer/faster than the former..
4. Lack of inspiration. I know there's my topic on it but I included it nonetheless.

What are your solutions? Let me know in the comments. Huge thanks!

Side note: for the point 3, we may need to use custom lots with custom Transit Switch Cost property.

[City_Slider 2,716]

6 hours ago, chfzdn said:

I'm afraid to lay multitile city out due to

Hello,

and sorry, but what are "Multitile City´s" ?

[Propfam 2,295]

3 hours ago, City_Slider said:

Hello,

and sorry, but what are "Multitile City´s" ?

Sure, at one point, a city may spans across tiles. But what I mean is a city with region-focused network not tile-focused. I used to play SC4 with completely flat regions and I choose a tild and then start developing. I lay the tile out and start building. I only laid out the tile, not the entire region. That's what I mean.

Then, I develop the tile. After that, I make neighbor connections using only roads. I don't think much road type. Next, I develop the surrounding tiles and repeat the process. The disadvantage with my technique is the network isn't always conected and there's always a traffic jam due to I don't use appropriate network capacity for the neighbor highway or whatever called.

[City_Slider 2,716]

Thanks for letting me know. 

[Naomi57 2,985]

13 hours ago, chfzdn said:

After that, I make neighbor connections using only roads. I don't think much road type. Next, I develop the surrounding tiles and repeat the process. The disadvantage with my technique is the network isn't always conected and there's always a traffic jam due to I don't use appropriate network capacity for the neighbor highway or whatever called.

The reason for the traffic jam is because the network connection is a symbolic commute destination representing ALL THE JOBS in the neighbour city.  

SimCity 4 adds some arbitrary value to the commute length to cross the neighbour connection, but that arbitrary value is nowhere near big enough to make the neighbour connection less attractive.  I actually use neighbour connections as one of my primary traffic magnets, to prime avenues and highways for adjacent commercial with High Customers, using all the commute traffic exiting the city tile.

Given how attractive they are as commute destinations, the neighbour connections can become the ideal spot for developing a central business district (CBD), and that tends to be counter-intuitive for many mayors, to have the CBD split across the border of multiple city tiles.  That works whether the neighbour connection is avenue, highway, ferry, elevated rail, or monorail.

Of course, your use of demand mods might change some of these in-game dynamics.

Highways are typically the primary link allowing travel across the border, because they have high traffic capacity.  I usually don't allow roads to cross the border in high density cities, because a road neighbour connection tends to attract more traffic than it can handle.  When I want the visual cosmetic appearance of a road crossing the border, I fake it with SAM-7 - Hableurg's Asphalt Streets, or else I fake the neighbour connection with some other SAM starter tile, so that all the traffic is forced to use the highway.

Here's an example for you to see how this works, roads and streets across the border that don't let traffic through.

Quote

https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/14932-show-us-your-mosaics/?page=10&tab=comments#comment-1725868
A Mosaic Across Borders

This is a mosaic with a difference, being screenshots across the border of two of my cities, Hendrix Creek on the left, and Brownsville on the right.

There's no image editing in there, aside from making the Brownsville sky transparent so that I could stitch the two screenshots together along the diagonal edge.  All my blending is done in SimCity only, using terraforming, trees, and SAM.  There's actually no neighbour connections between these two cities at all, I've faked it using SAM.  

You can tell it's two separate cities, because there's a 3x4 Private School 1 in both sides of the stitched screenshot.  Can you spot the border?

 

SPOILER: To give a clue to the above puzzle, the city border runs north-south through the above mosaic screenshot, between the basketball court and the private school.  The neighbour connection is faked with SAM-1, SAM-7, and SAM-9.  The grass match between basketball court and private school is another key blending characteristic across the border.

You can do a similar thing using NWM starter tiles.  An alternative to using SAM or NWM starter tiles to just fake the appearance of a neighbour connection, is to use traffic blocker lots to prevent cars and buses from using small road neighbour connections, forcing that traffic to use the highway neighbour connection, but still allowing pedestrians through.  That might be a fun thing to try, or else it might be frustrating, because neighbour connections are exceedingly attractive traffic magnets.

• https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/28975-traffic-blocker-set/
• https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/1811-no-trucks/
• https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/26285-traffic-restriction-lots-for-nwm/

Do you think that SAM starter tiles, NWM starter tiles, and/or traffic blocker lots might serve your goals for preventing traffic jams?

[Kloudkicker 4,561]

2 hours ago, Naomi57 said:

Given how attractive they are as commute destinations, the neighbour connections can become the ideal spot for developing a central business district (CBD), and that tends to be counter-intuitive for many mayors, to have the CBD split across the border of multiple city tiles.

That is interesting. It gives me a new way of thinking about how to lay out my "layout". I never thought about it that way. I always build in the center and it never looks the way I want and I even know I am doing it when I build. I just cant stop myself. But having this info should help break that style that I am slow getting out of. Thanks

[Kloudkicker 4,561]

On 2/11/2021 at 5:27 AM, chfzdn said:

Hello,

I'm afraid to lay multitile city out due to

1. Its sheer size.
2. The complexity of the network.
3. The "unpredictable" (or more like seam) network behavior across tiles (aka NC behavior) due to NC preference over city route by the game despite the latter is closer/faster than the former..
4. Lack of inspiration. I know there's my topic on it but I included it nonetheless.

What are your solutions? Let me know in the comments. Huge thanks!

Side note: for the point 3, we may need to use custom lots with custom Transit Switch Cost property.

I can't offer up much help in whole but one thing I would suggest is to start real small. Work with a small town and just baby it for a while. Not building much but just enough to keep them balanced and to slowly working in the different civic services. Don't worry about any thing else but the basic service and just place the free rewards as time passes. The whole time keep an eye on the budget. But don't stress over it. Cheat if you have to, just to keep afloat. It will fix itself over time as you baby the city. Find ways to reduce spending but keep the sims happy. Do small changes over long periods. Keep that simulation running full speed after things settle. A small town will not eat much computer resources on fast. Run it for around 50 plus years. Than do the same thing next door, starting a new city. But this time run a connection to it. Keep it basic. Run that city for 20 years and jump back to the first city. Run that city for a few years to refresh it so it can absorb the growth from the new city. Go back and forth, doing that for a few decades. As time goes on you will start to notice the changes that take place over long periods of time. Like how sims get smarter and will require new thing than the did before. Pushing out some old businesses for better ones. Each generation will be smarter and heathier then the last. Pushing up the demand for better jobs.

Keep adding a new city to all four neighbors. But one at a time. Like every 20 or 30 years after the first 50 years in the first city. Pick a theme or four, for decorating or to play with. Try out new things with network styles. Just to give yourself something to keep busy at. But keep that simulation running. Only stop it if you have to work on the roads sims need to go to work on.

Running the game for long periods of time will help you understand the game a little more. Over time, work in a new neighbor connection and do nothing but monitor it with the tools in game. Bounce over to the connecting neighbor and just monitor it also for a while. Use the route query tool a lot at. Monitor the traffic flows to the neighbor. Watch how the simulation changes routes and how the traffic behaves and is always readjusting.

It takes a ton of hours just to get the hang of this game. And add in mods, it can be more than tough, it can get very difficult. You never know what is fighting what. It may look good on the surface, but it's not. Just moving the wrong file to another location and mess with things real easy. Start small. And grow slow. You cant lose that way.

[Propfam 2,295]

1 hour ago, Kloudkicker said:

I can't offer up much help in whole but one thing I would suggest is to start real small. Work with a small town and just baby it for a while. Not building much but just enough to keep them balanced and to slowly working in the different civic services. Don't worry about any thing else but the basic service and just place the free rewards as time passes. The whole time keep an eye on the budget. But don't stress over it. Cheat if you have to, just to keep afloat. It will fix itself over time as you baby the city. Find ways to reduce spending but keep the sims happy. Do small changes over long periods. Keep that simulation running full speed after things settle. A small town will not eat much computer resources on fast. Run it for around 50 plus years. Than do the same thing next door, starting a new city. But this time run a connection to it. Keep it basic. Run that city for 20 years and jump back to the first city. Run that city for a few years to refresh it so it can absorb the growth from the new city. Go back and forth, doing that for a few decades. As time goes on you will start to notice the changes that take place over long periods of time. Like how sims get smarter and will require new thing than the did before. Pushing out some old businesses for better ones. Each generation will be smarter and heathier then the last. Pushing up the demand for better jobs.

Keep adding a new city to all four neighbors. But one at a time. Like every 20 or 30 years after the first 50 years in the first city. Pick a theme or four, for decorating or to play with. Try out new things with network styles. Just to give yourself something to keep busy at. But keep that simulation running. Only stop it if you have to work on the roads sims need to go to work on.

Running the game for long periods of time will help you understand the game a little more. Over time, work in a new neighbor connection and do nothing but monitor it with the tools in game. Bounce over to the connecting neighbor and just monitor it also for a while. Use the route query tool a lot at. Monitor the traffic flows to the neighbor. Watch how the simulation changes routes and how the traffic behaves and is always readjusting.

It takes a ton of hours just to get the hang of this game. And add in mods, it can be more than tough, it can get very difficult. You never know what is fighting what. It may look good on the surface, but it's not. Just moving the wrong file to another location and mess with things real easy. Start small. And grow slow. You cant lose that way.

That's what exactly I did. But, the expansion to other tiles **seamlessly** is a problem. Sure I can expand it with vanilla way (by not making useless NC) and using proper networks but I'm lazy to demolish some area not to mention doing it multiple times because upgrading one line isn't effective as I discussed some times ago with endless RHW upgrades discussion.

Quote

The first issue you're encountering, is perhaps the same problem all cities encounter when they build new traffic infrastructure ... a small highway just shifts the burden of the traffic congestion to the next set of intersections.  You don't just need a highway running to the ferry ... you need a highway running through your city, with proper interchanges.

-Naomi

But seamlessness is another level. Maybe, I should take @Naomi57 advice and stop providing or stop car traffic to the (or even any traffic if possible but there's no such lot yet) useless NCs. I shouldn't overthink how the game works. Just do it.

[City_Slider 2,716]

I just startet a new Region. Its called "Rio". i got it from the STEX Years ago. But this File is lost after the Crash.

For myself, i start normaly at the Border. Thats make it cheaper, to create a NC and it goes faster to grow up both Citys.

BRB with Pic´s.... *run*

[City_Slider 2,716]

 

  Edited February 12, 2021 by City_Slider  
Wrong Screeny

[Naomi57 2,985]

6 minutes ago, Kloudkicker said:

2 hours ago, Naomi57 said:

Given how attractive they are as commute destinations, the neighbour connections can become the ideal spot for developing a central business district (CBD), and that tends to be counter-intuitive for many mayors, to have the CBD split across the border of multiple city tiles.

That is interesting. It gives me a new way of thinking about how to lay out my "layout". I never thought about it that way. I always build in the center and it never looks the way I want and I even know I am doing it when I build. I just cant stop myself. But having this info should help break that style that I am slow getting out of. Thanks

Not that the CBD has to be on the border.  For a large city tile (256x256), I tend to have multiple separated residential districts, with commercial lining the avenues and highways between those residential districts, I also tend to plonk commercial districts around (and even inside) highway interchanges.  The $$$ follows the traffic.  

For a small city tile (64x64), I tend to have one or two central highways or arterial roads, with the commercial zoning clustered along the highway (but zones facing away from the highway).

Here's a map of one of my small city tiles that shows the clustering of commercial buildings, keeping in mind that a Ferry Terminal is a neighbour connection, too.

[Naomi57 2,985]

1 hour ago, chfzdn said:

Quote

The first issue you're encountering, is perhaps the same problem all cities encounter when they build new traffic infrastructure ... a small highway just shifts the burden of the traffic congestion to the next set of intersections.  You don't just need a highway running to the ferry ... you need a highway running through your city, with proper interchanges.

-Naomi

But seamlessness is another level. Maybe, I should take @Naomi57 advice and stop providing or stop car traffic to the (or even any traffic if possible but there's no such lot yet) useless NCs. I shouldn't overthink how the game works. Just do it.

If you're looking for efficient highway interchanges, for running a RHW-4 highway through your city, here's a tutorial for building an effective and compact RHW-4 x RHW-4 interchange.

• https://community.simtropolis.com/journals/entry/29588-NAM-tutorial-for-building-a-simple-rhw-4-x-rhw-4-interchange/
  

 

[Propfam 2,295]

Also, where should I place industrial? Like, I'm under impression that we only need to focus on residential and commercial and even for developed cities, industrial is still needed.

Also, should I make a complete sketch of my region, like real life planning? Preplanning in game is quite pain to me. Imagine building interchanges only to be replaced by superior interchanges or building roads to be replaced by avenues etc.