Show us your city built on tricky terrain

[MOWS 4 U 169]

Looking for ideas/inspiration to build on some hilly terrain.  I've always gravitated towards flatish regions and I'm finding it very difficult to layout my cities.  Pics please!

[Haljackey 17,302]

Here is one of mine: Halton Hills

[BartonThinks 3,416]

37 minutes ago, Haljackey said:

Here is one of mine: Halton Hills

RIP Memorial Arena

[Lucario Boricua 7,028]

Now where do I start? I have too many examples of these:

 

Village of Gladia, Lake Diamond. Started as a ribbon development along primary highway 10, but then grow towards the river feeding the reservoir. The trick here is to use city blocks which are long parallel to the slopes.

 

 

Aeternis, featuring the Hunttail and Gorebyss falls. If the terrain is especially steep, then the better idea is to use it for nature. Terrain mods for SimCity 4 are extremely versatile, and the terrain doesn't have to always host urban and suburban areas. Make sure to leave room for nature to make things look nice and welcoming.

 

 

If constructing railways, especially when using really flat slope mods, does require being creative with the alignment. Use loops, switch-backs (zig-zag pattern) and horseshoe bends to lengthen the incline to make it less steep. These are actual things done in mountainous landscapes when doing a straighter alignment would result in an unacceptably steep rail line.

 

 

Sometimes a city starts in the flat area but further expansion requires developing surrounding steep areas. Some of your friends in this quest are the ploppable diagonal streets, slope mods, and leaving gaps between developed areas to accommodate the unevenness of the terrain.

 

 

Don't try to fight too much against the geography. Let's say you want to build along a canyon or gorge, the easier way to go is perpendicular to the slope, and roughly parallel to the streams at the bottom of the landform.

 

 

There's also a few instances when you do need to fight against the geography, through cuts, fills, tunnels and/or overland viaducts:

 

 

 

[11241036 5,097]

When I'm laying out main roads on hilly terrain, I usually try to find a location where the slope is most gentle and drag the road up there, or I'm dragging the road in narrow curves. In the latter case, I'm only zoning directly along the roads/streets and try to avoid laying out zones on steep terrain; I'm especially planning my streets accordingly.

You can find a few examples in my CJ, Maxiland, Entry 1 and 2 (see link in my signature). Sometimes, you need to look closely, but it should give you an idea of how I'm doing it.

If I really want to zone on steep terrain, I'm modifying lots manually in Reader to set the LotConfigPropertyMaxSlopeBeforeLotFoundation to 0, so the lot, whether growable or ploppable, flattens the terrain. You might want to check these posts of mine:

This is also a really old picture of me, showing how I'm usually constructing roads uphill:

[ByeByeBayou 1,936]

[MOWS 4 U 169]

I'm seeing lots of very smooth looking roads on uneven terrain.  One of my primary frustrations is with lumpy roads on areas that are relatively flat, it is particularly bad on the avenues to the point that every tie is angled opposing the angle of the neighboring tile (wishing I had a picture now).  I've been zooming in and using 'soften' in God mode as I place my roads, but it is very tedious, is there a better way to do this?

[11241036 5,097]

Yes. You can install a slope mod, this will set a maximum angle possible for a network. I just don't know the majority of slope mods, however. In case you have NAM installed and much time and patience (or you are only working with small stretches for a slope), you can also read this tutorial I wrote:

I also wrote a tutorial on how to modify slope mods:

 

[Lucario Boricua 7,028]

I've listed a majority of published slope mods in my Earthworks Tutorials official thread. I haven't yet listed the properties, as I'm still investigating and testing these to report on them.