How soon to start the second city?

[MarkShot 631]

I built my first city.  Before doing anything I did the rail, highways, junctions, interchanges, and some avenues ... thus neighbor connections too.

Now, I got a nice little city with 2 neighbors.  I am using a big tile map of NYC done by CB.

NAM44

CAM 2.10a Extended

NKO & Less Abandonment

How long to wait before moving on to my next city?

(mainly zoning at the moment)

Thanks.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

6 minutes ago, MarkShot said:

CAM 2.10a Extended

NKO & Less Abandonment

Just a reminder: When you use CAM, you shouldn't use @Bones1's Less Abandonment because CAM already has an appropriate setting which functions the same way. When you add the Less Abandonment mod, it'll override CAM if it loads after and will do nothing if it loads before.

 

8 minutes ago, MarkShot said:

How long to wait before moving on to my next city?

You can start the next one anytime you like. The key part of regional play is after you play, save, and exit any given city tile is to propagate the info back to the other city tiles.

[MarkShot 631]

Right I have to yank the abandonment.  I will do that before wrapping up.  Thanks.

I will start another city on a new day.  I was doing a few NAM44 curves tonight.  The thing that I miss.  CS curves are fully functional and you can add a node anywhere, but name curves are like reserved lest you try to draw a road into them.

[MarkShot 631]

It's out, but I kept your Aura. 

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

Have to say the second city in the region can actually be added very early in the game, even after the initial "village" is as small as 2k people.

Small cities can influence and accelerate their neighbor's development just as efficiently as large cities.

[MarkShot 631]

I haven't played for while, but soon I hope.

One thing I found out that despite the beautiful curves which NAM provides, I can not just connect another road into the curves ... it just blows up.  Not, like CS where it just becomes a node.

It was trying to make my city at lot less grid like and also have roads follow the contour of the land.  You also have to be careful plopping too close to a NAM curve.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

23 minutes ago, MarkShot said:

I can not just connect another road into the curves ... it just blows up.

Actually, you can. Just consult the NAM documentation to learn how.

There would be no reason at all for NAM to have selectable pieces that are useless when connected.

[MarkShot 631]

For the first time in a long time, I can get back to my own SC4 experience.  After almost a year of CS, I was look forward to this.

To have such a long break from gaming is really emotionally hard for me.

I remember in 1999, I had open heart surgery.  The old fashion way where they saw your chest down the middle and then use a car jack to pry your ribs apart, and you die for 20 minutes as your heart is stopped.  I came home and it really hurt bad despite the bottle of opiates I had.  But the first thing I did despite the pain was to boot my PC, and launch EAW (European Air War).  I was way too painful to fly, but there was this feature where you could jump from the cockpit of one AI plane to another with a single key.  I just sat there relishing every minute over the life and death struggle taking place during the Blitz between the RAF and the LW.  How a game could make you feel so alive.  (I had grown up in the shadow of WWII.)

So, I am happy to get back to my city build.  I had spent 3 weeks before that trying to fully learn NAM44; I hope I still remember all the tricks from Dr. HalJackey.

[MarkShot 631]

So, like given the situation below, how would I other roads intersecting with my NAM44 curves?  Puzzle pieces?  Thanks.

[Lucario Boricua 7,028]

At present, no network whatsoever supports intersections along curves. You'd need to reduce the radius of the road curve going next to the school, such that you have enough of a diagonal segment to connect the avenue through.

[MarkShot 631]

6 hours ago, Lucario Boricua said:

At present, no network whatsoever supports intersections along curves. You'd need to reduce the radius of the road curve going next to the school, such that you have enough of a diagonal segment to connect the avenue through.

Thank you for your response.  (you had taught me to build NAM junctions bottom up as opposed to top down which was much smoother)

Yes, years ago when I first played SC4, vehicle transit was just an after thought to me.  About one year of CS taught me to design transit first, if I wanted to get into hundreds K population without gridlock death.  Although gridlock death is less likely in SC4, it is still best to go with major transit first for smoother design, and beyond the off ramp you can entertain organic development.

So, I discovered with NAM if you are going anti-grid, then you need to think where the junctions/intersections will be.  I am thinking if Death should come for me one day, I will simply respond, "Give me just a little more time, I am trying to find & rotate the right puzzle piece to plop!" 

[MarkShot 631]

Okay.  So, after exercising and contemplating a mission I came back.

My problem with both CS and SC4 is the lack of artistic talent and creativity.  I do not play an instrument.  I cannot paint.  I did in my youth write some poetry, but whether it was any good is debatable.

So, like I have managed to use MHO, RHW, MIS, NWM, SAM, and few more NAM44 features which were all on my list.  I did some HSR and RRW, but nothing is really running yet as I think I am lacking demand.

I got tons of bookmarks to YouTube playlists for SC4.  But I don't want to spend 100 hours watching someone else play.  I admit that I never looked into ST's City Journals.  So, if you were going to direct someone with zero creativity to at most a few hours of video or a city journal where would you send me?   Like I most often watch CS content that features traffic solutions or how to use mods to work around game frustrations.  I am truly hopeless. 

Thanks!

[TogaMasterJohn 705]

9 hours ago, MarkShot said:

or a city journal where would you send me?

There are several wonderful city journals on here at Simtropolis. A lot of which can spark creativity! One of my favorites is by @TheMurderousCricket:

 

[MarkShot 631]

So, I have North East and South East Heights connected via RHW-4 and double rail (freight).

Now, South East Heights has business which are in demand and jobs are mainly filled.  There is animated traffic on roads, but now real underlying traffic.  Just ghosts working the jobs as no one is coming South.  There is also no cargo.

Okay here is North East Heights which has a fair bit of house.  Agriculture and a also a freight station.

To mildly, I am lost.  I don't understand why there is no cargo or shoppers or workers moving between these two cities.  And where are South Heights jobs being filled from?

!!! HELP !!!

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

12 minutes ago, MarkShot said:

I don't understand why there is no cargo or shoppers or workers moving between these two cities.

Hmm... As far as I can see there is no industry in your towns! No industry = no cargo.

Commerce does not produce any goods. If you want to see cargo moving through your cities you need industrial zones.

The only industrial exchange that can happen in your city right now, would have to originate from your agricultural sector. Otherwise than that, you have no facilities to produce goods with.

[MarkShot 631]

Okay.  Thanks will try that.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

While you're at it, do demolish all of the extra cargo rail stations. You need just one of them per town for the time being as one station can handle, I don't know... 1000? 2000 cargo units?

You have 14 of them, which means that you waste 280$ a month (that is, if I remember correctly that a single station costs 20$ to maintain).

[MarkShot 631]

I got rid of the extra stations.  Trip types show that I have freight running on the rails, but I don't see any animations of trains?  Do, I need to add some kind of RRW mod to the game to see animations?  But the other side I how no trips.

I thought I did NAM connectors on both sides for RHW and I didn't seem RRW has any connectors just highway and roads.

Thanks.

Okay, I finally saw a freight train.  But still nothing is crossing the border.

 

[Ulisse Wolf 4,412]

Your problem is the durability of the automata. In the NAM Installer there is the automata section where you have to set Radical Persistent 24 Hour to have a longer duration of the automata.

We are considering creating a mod to extend even more the presence of Automata in the game but it has the low priority

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

8 hours ago, MarkShot said:

Trip types show that I have freight running on the rails, but I don't see any animations of trains?

It's a percentage chance for the freight train automata to appear based on usage of the stations. As you grow your city with more freight generated, the odds of a train simulating the delivery gets better. The trains can also be generated if you have industrial (including Ag) buildings adjacent to the rail line.

 

8 hours ago, MarkShot said:

Okay, I finally saw a freight train.  But still nothing is crossing the border.

Freight trucks and trains reaching a border will simply disappear (fade out) in the city tile where they are generated. They will never appear as incoming when viewed from the connected tile.

[MarkShot 631]

Okay. Thanks. 

I think I chose persistent 24 hr autonoma. Actually, I like the old style installer like MSFT knows your selections, but I understand your need to change; multi-platform. I tried the high volume ones, but they looked bad for heavy urban traffic. 

I am learning slowly. THANKS!

At least playing SC4 keeps the electric bill down!  

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

Just in case everything else fails regarding the automata issue...

Do remember that trains will never appear if you run on "low" sims & cars setting. Something that I always experience because I just like the looks and sound (or lack thereof) of low-key streets and roads (I actually live right next to one...).

The problem is that there is a very large "leap" between low settings, which present you with almost no cars, to medium where cars are already out in force on your roads. It just spoils things.

I, personally, use this mod to deal with these shortcomings. There are two good reasons for using it:

1. As the name suggests, it makes automata more persistent. From my observations it, in fact, makes them very persistent and lasting throughout their entire trip from point A to B.

2. It lets you enhance the default car densities or, in other words, "spawn frequency". So now you can actually have the "low" car density that I have written about earlier without loosing all of the traffic in your city at once.

[MarkShot 631]

Thanks, I downloaded it, and will check it out.

Actually, I like MAXIS' statistical simulation quite a bit compared to agent based.  It's not like CS' agents are smart or anything.  The statistical approach is far more scalable and flexible.

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

1 hour ago, MarkShot said:

Thanks, I downloaded it, and will check it out.

It really is one of the most useful tools if doing screenshots and CJs is your goal. You don't want to have cellophane or ghost cars in your pixel-perfect shots!

Regarding the rail cargo, if you want to encourage the trucks-on-trains philosophy, sometimes it might be a good idea to... offer no roads out of your industrial zone to the tile border. Or at least make them uncomfortable and scarce.

Example - this is a picture from my "SimCity: Tribalism" CJ that @TogaMasterJohn graciously recommended before. Here, you can see the entire cargo traffic converging onto one rail cargo station. Why?

1. It is in the dead-center of the industrial zone and close to all of the factories.
2. The only road leading to the northern border of the tile is... well, precisely that - the only road leading to the northern border and it's not the fastest route at all.
3. The seaport? Forget it - it's across the bridge and you need to cross an extensive residential area to even get there.

[MarkShot 631]

Thanks.  Yes.  Lacks of roads certainly imposes a constraint.  I do remember somewhere in the volumes of NAM history and the traffic engine that Maxis did favor roads over rails.  And, of course, both Maxis and CS see cities primarily in the context of American sprawl.  You cannot deny it looks impressive ... I myself am a big hub fan as it generates lots of activity in central locations.  I've been to NYC's Time Square, you see in the movies, but once you have seen it ... it's not a place to have an apartment.  (And Time Square doesn't come close to some locations in Hong Kong.  But in real life, I don't like crowds.)

---

Hey, did you ever get and try SC4Ckpt.exe as I remember you had the most questions?  Did you get what you needed for City Journals?  (The truth why we ended up with the autosave choices we do is because those integers are being use to drive action of the cursor recovering your default.  I am not secretly trying to stress that civilization is built on powers of ten!  )  You could get every 2, 3, 4th days save for CONDENSE if you wanted for your completed projects.  It's interface would look very much like AUTOSAVE does now.  The offer for upgrades is open for 2022, provided you don't ask me to calculate the Atomic Mass of your city in terms of electrons!

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

On 13.07.2022 at 8:59 AM, MarkShot said:

Hey, did you ever get and try SC4Ckpt.exe as I remember you had the most questions?  Did you get what you needed for City Journals?

Thanks for asking Mark, but unfortunately I didn't check that just yet.

Tribalism is currently the only CJ that I need your tool for but I work on it during weekends only... Why? Because I do a lot of writing for yet another CJ that I was hoping to release on the Simtropolis anniversary. I try very hard to at least get the story on time but I doubt it will work out. 

[MarkShot 631]

Maybe you can treat your journal with various literary styles.  So, for example you make the deadline by telling the story from the first person narrator point (Omniscient Mayor) view done by the target date.  But there are other stories and views by other characters throughout the celebration of the year which will be told as their own story.  So, it's genre of on Anniversary we have fixed and narrative view of one (maybe the god like mayor), but during the year every two months will feature another resident and their take on the story.  Of course, the multiple checkpoints works into this.  It even potentially allows you to follow a bit the paths not taken as the other characters muse and envision what might have been ... from say environmentalist to industrialist.

Just a thought ...  Think of it as some heavy Korean or Japanese psycho-drama.