rmugabe

My unwarranted opinion is that, without question, South Dakota is the best Midwestern state. I think it's safe to say that the discussion is pretty much over now.

The fireworks also appear from the Resort Hotel on the Fourth of July- if you have that in your city.

I apologize if this is a subject that has been covered before, but it didn't seem to appear in any of the commute time discussions. Here's my problem: I'm working on a city of about 25K. I have a good mass transit system (subway) that is moderately used, and I do mixed zoning (ie every residential block is connected to at least one commercial block). R$$$ residents make up about 1/6 of my population, and no one commutes from my city to any of my neighboring cities. The problem is that R$$$ and R$$ buildings keep getting abandoned due to commute time. The twist is that the commute will be listed as Long when in fact the Sims only travel about 8 squares (some Long commutes even consist of Sims walking across the street to their job!). Needless to say, this is most frustrating. Has anyone else had this problem, or do you know how it can be fixed? Thanks a lot.

AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! I've won! [demented laughing continues]. So, yeah- in case anyone was wondering, what solved my problems was building a third neighbor city, in which I left tax rates at default levels, resulting in a city of 40K R$ Sims. These eventually increased demand levels in that city, which in turn increased demand in the city I was having difficulties with, solving my problem of low demand. My abandonment in my problem area has greatly decreased- at least now, if I have to demolish something, it is rebuilt quickly. So, thanks everyone for all your help. I feel sometimes like this game is my nemesis, and must be beaten into submission. For now, I have won.

So I've installed NAM (which may or may not be working- I still had abandonment and NJZ a few years after installing it). I installed bus stops and parking garages (neither of which are used) yet commute time has dropped to around 60 minutes. I still get Long commutes from Sims who travel to adjacent blocks to work (easily the single most frustrating thing about SimCity 4). I've demolished all of the distressed R$$$ and R$$ buildings- most have been replaced by now, so I'm waiting to see whether or not they also become distressed. I will probably move on with my city anyway, since this is the only area affected. Hopefully new additions will not be affected by this problem. I'm also willing to chalk this up to a weird phenomenon I've noticed- that of cursed cities. Specifically, the area that this city is built on. This is something like the fifth city I've built on this lot (I lost my first when my computer crashed, and cities 2-4 ended up with NJZ/development problems and were obliterated). I've noticed that when saving the city after exiting God Mode and before you actually start time, saving tends to result in higher RCI demand overall. However, when I saved this city, I got negative commercial development right away, so my city started off with negative C demand right away. It's kind of weird. Has anyone else had this issue- where some cities seem to have a higher natural long-run RCI demand than others, and that some cities (no matter how appealing you make them) never seem to grow quite how you want them to? Perhaps there should be an option for more state control over commerical development. . .heh heh. . .

Okay, so in response to the latest posts: Peorth- He comes the next step in you name problem, I tell you how it doesn't apply game- thanks a lot for your patience. My city is part of a region of ~250,000, and connected to two other cities (one at 130K and the other at 5K). I have created a slum city already which did improve the previous NJZ/development problems I was facing in the city. I however, have not extensively used the work on the neighbor city and then this city alternately thing. It might be worth a shot. . . pnorell- Yeah- I like the mix of R and C because it usually lessens traffic problems, and makes me rely on mass transit less. I will look into other forms of mass transit. Do you reccommend buses or trains (or something else)? I enjoy the monorail- unfortunately, my Sims don't seem to share my love of it. I think that I will try the NAM to see if that improves my problems, as well as working on the alternating cities thing, as well as perhaps addding another neighbor city. Thank you both for your help- there may be some re-allocated farmland near Harare in your futures. . .I'll let you know how it goes. rmugabe

Okay, I wasn't having luck with the inserting picture thing, so hopefully this is somewhat adequate. I don't know if it was the file type or what that was preventing me from inserting my picture. I'll respond to the other questions a bit later.

Okay, here is a picture of the affected area (hopefully the picture isn't too large). I tried to make the R/C areas more visible (the yellow circles are obviously subway stations: I've advanced my city some since my first post in an attempt to fix the problems (ie my city is now 30K, though most things are unchanged). I've demolished the abandoned buildings in the Residential areas north and south of the soccer fields, and increased the amount of subway stops (the two in the soccer block had not existed). Despite this, the problem has continued. The problem primarily affects the Residential blocks to the north, south, and east of the soccer fields, as well as the three blocks at center-south. This is where 95% of my NJZs have appeared. I also have vacant Commercial lots elsewhere in the city (within close distance of this area) so I'm thinking it's not just a straight-up I don't have enough commerical jobs either. In response to the new questions, Peorth: 1. My city's slow development is a combination of two things: 1) My historically low demand for R and C; and 2) My gameplay: I've been going pretty slow with this city- developing it in stages, allowing each section to develop before I move on to a new one. I want to make sure that my city is sustainable with each addition before I move on, in case growth suddenly gets out of control and I realize my city is doomed. 2. I have indeed applied the latest patches from Maxis (if the latest patch is the sku 1 update [or whatever it's actually called] from 11/14/03). Thanks again for the help and the welcome.

Thanks for the response. To your questions: 1. My commute time is around 80 minutes (which seems excessively high for my city given limited travel to neighboring cities) 2. Yes, I used the special query tool. 3. Road congestion is fine- all roads are green. Like I said, the weirdest thing is Sims that cross the street to work and have Long commutes. Perhaps my Sims have trouble finding crosswalks. . . To the other questions: 1. I believe that I have enough jobs- +20K for a city of ~25K. 2. Education is excellent- levels around 160, with no age group below 130 3. Police and fire coverage are excellent as well. My garbage is exported to another city, so I don't have to worry about that. Pollution is low. No dirty industry. 4. Desirablity is also excellent- I'm a fan of the parks. 5. My demand caps are the strange part- from about year 5 (I'm at year 30 now) they've been hovering between -2000 and +2000, with a tendency towards the negative side. Hence, it takes a while for zones to be developed. I have no idea why this is. Finally: 1. As you may be able to tell, I'm not running a straight-up no cheat city, so money isn't the biggest problem for me. I find subways more convenient than bus stops. Ah well. 2. On the subject of mods- do you just put them in the Plugins folder? I've tried a few different ones (to overcome this strange problem in my city) and none of them seem to have any effect. Thanks a lot (again).