landen99

I have high wealth buildings occupied by lower wealth sims, and they look ugly. How do you fix it without bulldozing? I think that poor buildings look better than high wealth ones with mid-wealth sims in it. How do we restore the high wealth ones to high wealth sims and get the lower wealth sims to live in the right buildings which correspond to their wealth level?

Higher wealth sims seem less likely to travel far for their commute. Higher taxes could be driving them away. Lower taxes will pull them in. Police and fire and water coverage is important to higher wealth sims. Also, look at the education charts and the commute time charts. Look at the education view. Less educated sims will invite only basic industry and commercial jobs. Better businesses come with more educated sims. I try to keep the rich out until the education has risen somewhat and I can meet their needs for fire, police, and fast commute (highway).

The dillemma is like this: My industry city needs workers for ID demand to rise, my poor city has no demand for poor sims like the industry city does and its population is around 40,000 (no medium or high wealth at all). The medium wealth city developed to a point without poor sims, but imported a lot from the poor city, and stopped developing until I lowered the poor tax to allow poor sims in. It takes poor sims whereas the poor city will not. The poor city does have two libraries and no other educational civics, and I fear the libraries may have educated them too much to work so much ID as they used to. There is no poor bar in the poor city either up or down, so it may well be that either there is perfect equilibrium, not likely with neighboring cities seeing high ID job demand from my ID city, or there is a cap to the distribution of sims or something I don't understand. The poor city couldn't sell more than 230,000 water, but when a neighbor city needed water, it could sell an additional 130,000 to it. The neighbor city could sell 110,000 water to the same ID that was capped for the poor city at 230,000 because it really needed the water. I put multiple pipe connections between the poor and ID city just in case there was a water pressure issue with the pipes and connected those pipes through to the other side of the city to allow the pressure to distribute evenly .. made no difference on the neighbor connections.

okay, so building degeneration seems best managed by "wealth zoning," which leads me to some interesting problems in a few of my cities, .. well, all of them, actually. My poor city seems to have a demand cap for the poor on it, so that there exists no more demand for poor even though there is high demand for poor sims in adjacent connected cities. In fact, a great flow of these poor sims go into these cities, yet the bar for the poor sims in the poor city is flat. Now, when the taxes go down and allow other wealth sims in, the cap for poor sims seems to be raised for some reason. Also, this poor city has two large water pumps, but there seems to be some kind of cap (about 230,000 to the industrial city) concerning the amount of water which can be sold to a neighboring city so that the poor city has to sell 130,000 to a neighboring city which sells most of it to the industrial city to fill its water demands. I wonder if there is also a cap on the amount of garbage that one city can buy from another, or simply a flat import limit, given that neighboring cities cannot sell garbage to the industrial beyond a certain amount, and can sell it to other cities.

DOXXP29: Hate to break it to you, but sims don't get mad or sad or happy .. they just run programmed. But even in America, where her citizens are armed, you don't see people killing each other off because of road rage. Firearm casualties here are usually the result of hard crime or more often, accident (firearm mishandling), So any simulator which made sims employ their firearms at the slightest rage would be an entertaining fantasy of the programmer, or a model of some third world or of some Middle eastern country, like Palestine, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan. A fellow comrade soldier told me of a brother in Afghanistan who was brought to him for medical treatment for several gunshot wounds inflicted as a reminder by his brother for each room in the house he built for his brother because he built the house with one less room than requested. Try and program a simulator for that kind of culture, if you can. That's just crazy. SC4BOY: I had a feelin that residential was purely one class, while the others hosted multiple classes. I'm trying to figure out how to separate wealth classes using regional play (by cities), since I haven't had much luck zoning specific wealth classes. Trying to model the reality that wealthy people purchase real estate near other wealthy people, partly for status and social identity, partly for security, and partly for the view (nicer to look out your window at a beautiful mansion, than a rundown trailer, or any kind of industrial building, even if the land value is made to be high in that area. It always feels wrong when I see a towering poor building next to a dense, rich building. That just doesn't seem to happen naturally in reality.

Hey, you got a sense of humor I see. Honestly, I have been things to do with my time than to live in poor, crime-striken neighborhoods and worry about safeguarding my possessions. So I choose to live in a nice neighborhood with an accessible, but hidden, unloaded, but easily loadable handgun, just in case I might one day need it. But the weapon usually remains untouched because I live in a place where I haven't ever needed it. Perhaps we should have a new city ordinance added to SimCity5 called the firearm ordinance which promotes the purchase of and education concerning firearms and their use against crime, which has the effect of drastically reducing crime and increasing the effectiveness of police civics. Now there is a good idea. It should even have the effect of lowering the number of criminals in the city jails by several different mechanisms, including lowered inclination to commit crimes. SimCity really could use a fair amount of diversity in the mayor's powers to manage it and its laws. Nevertheless, it's still a great game despite those substantial deficiencies.

I love the idea of elevated rail, but wish that 1) I could get a better looking train, 2) It could move freight trains also. Anyone know of some modern or sleek looking elevated rail trains for passengers? Anyone know of any mods with allow freight to use those tracks?

Hello SimWorld, While most other people seem to be trying to create cities which wean off of dirty industry, I want to create a city whose specialized function is to provide dirty jobs while being responsible about pollution management. Currently, I have a large and well educated, medium, main city of only residential and commercial surrounded by a medium farm map with some residents, a small dirty industry with some residents, and two small medium and high wealth industry with no residents. My principle mode of intercity travel is elevated rail. Now I want to create another dirty industry city by the main city without residential or commercial, but I want to manage pollution. Any suggestions on how to do that? My first dirty industry is a pollution nightmare and its residents can hardly breathe or drink. Any suggestions on how to reform the first dirty industry city without undermining its supply of dirty jobs and power supply/trash disposal services? Thank you in advance.

My approach has been primarily to space out the industry zones and filter the pollution with trees.

Surely you must be joking! Social conditioning? Sounds like you are talking about theft to me. The poor get reformed to become what, better thieves? If I had wealth, I would not move into any of those kinds of "luxury apartments," and if I was forced to do so (conditioning?) then I would either secure my possessions from theft (with locks, weapons, and guards) or liquidate them (sell them) and send their monetary value away to a more secure location or financial institution. And if I could not secure my wealth while being forced to live in a "luxury" prison without law (allowing theft) then I would cease to increase my wealth and devote all of my attention to fighting my way out; it would drive me to rebellion and escape. Unfortunately, the popular income tax modelled in SimCity4 represents a legally-sanctioned form of this kind of theft. So my question is: What about social justice, where fairness and impartiality rule? I would like to see SimCity5 allow for different types of taxation, including flat taxes, sales taxes, and property taxes.

Follow the instructions on the post, "Making Money the Easy Way," by STomnibus (Dweller), 06/21/2006 01:50 am, including all three parts. Maintain high land value and as your city (with no industry -> neighbor connections) is ready for it, then increase education and other city services as REQUIRED. Allow a little space between buildings, even .. no, especially .. in high density zones for parks, grass, etc. to increase land value. Don't be afraid of medium and high density, just give them the right road network (another subject, but a good one at that). Have a good plan for MT to move large populations across the city and across city boundaries.

How do you get streets with high density wealth R$$$? Seems that you have to make up for noisy roads with the other items on the checklist. I'm concerned mostly with commute times, so I guess I should worry about the rest after I fix that. I imagine that the rich only move in when there is available capacity, either when tenants move out or when they die (80+ years). I wish that tenants would move to open spaces in buildings nearer to work every few years or so.

When using Monorail with parking lots, I've noticed that sometimes the monorail gets substantial use and the parking lot gets zero use, while at other times the reverse is true. This is in the middle of a dense residential district (city population is about 617k). Any ideas why? I can't see a correlation, but it raises some additional questions: Concerning directional alignment, can the monorail station face the parking lot or must it face a street? The idea is that the sims drive to the monorail and board from the parking lot (does the parking lot generate revenue?). If the monorail station faces a street, then is it best to have the parking lot across the street from it or adjacent to it facing the same street, or can it be adjacent facing a different street. Does the traffic density on the street it faces affect its usage? When building monorail, in the event of a T, does the rail need to connect to both directions or will the sims be able to go in one direction, get off at the next stop, and take the next monorail going the other direction?

I just remembered another question about monorails, so sorry about the double post in advance. I just had a great idea concerning the T-issue with monorail: Are there any "no pedestrian" roads and avenues? I was just thinking to place them on the roads adjacent to the ends so that pedestrians couldn't access the ends (of the monorail station). Or maybe I can place toll booths at either end, assuming sufficient clearance from an intersection. Can pedestrians travel on toll booths?

Hey, does anyone get the monorail train shakes itself apart problem? It's like I drive it too fast and it flies off the track or shakes itself of the track. How do you know if you are going to fast? I haven't had success braking, but I wonder if that is just because I start braking too late. I tried pushing forward once and releasing shortly after, and the train accelerates to oblivion. Any tips for driving it in the U-Drive-It mode?

I've added the monorail after my city has become really dense, i.e. 617k sims, so its tough to run a line anywhere (let alone build corners) without knocking down some rather large buildings. I accidentally lost a few when I first installed the lines (weaving around large buildings while demolishing "smaller" ones, but it seems that the investment grew my city from 417k to 617k, so I guess it was worth it. So where can Sims walk? Can they walk through bus stops (even RSMT) , across avenues and roads (J-walk), or over undeveloped terrain? Can garbage trucks travel through Roadside Mass Transit (RSMT) such as bus stops on roads? How about police cars, and fire trucks? Can you drive through them in U-Drive-It missions. Just checking before I upgrade my main city (617k sims) and use the extra space for beautification and plazas. Okay, it may seem like I'm changing subject from monorails, but I'm considering how my sims will travel by foot to and from my monorail stations if I block cars from a very busy section of my commercial area with RSMT and basically force them all to go through my monorail stations. Plus, the subject of pedestrian travel is useful in a great many other applications.

Does this mean that a building can house a mixture of high, medium, and low wealth sims, and the blg classification simply reflects the class with the majority of its residents? Or that the entire class moves out at the same time that another class moves in? For instance, a high wealth building seems to first be abandoned for some reason before lower wealth sims can move in. Do I have to remove road access and force the tenants out, once the desirability is right, before high wealth sims move back in? Do these tenants find another place to live in my city after their building looses road access to work places, or do they move out of the city altogether. Correct me if I'm wrong, but demolishing a building removes all tenants from the city; they don't just find another building to live in, for instance somewhere that is closer to work. How about commercial? If a high wealth commercial turns into a medium wealth commercial, will an increase in high wealth sims, land value, desirability, and air quality (etc.) restore it to high wealth?

Well there's a problem, as I've already placed the monorail stations parallel to existing roads in my large city. I'll have to think about that one. I have a 6x6 block with no sims traveling between a monorail facing one street and parking lot facing a perpendicular street, but sims will travel to a nearby bus stop and subway station from the parking lot. Can't remember if the bus and subway are on the same block or right across the road from the parking lot, but they are at an intersection. So, do sims jay walk? Can they cross the street anywhere? The query tool ALT-? seems to indicate so by the pedestrian lines that it draws. The monorail station gets use, but not from the parking lot. Only from sims who walk to it, at least that's what the query tool seems to be telling me.

You know, I like the complication/realism, if only the game's gui was improved to reveal the proper mechanisms and aid in the control of the city, then it wouldn't really seem that complicated. The hardest part is undertanding how each item works and realizing that Sims don't use common sense when it comes to many transportation issues. So here are my suggestions: 1) Allow mouse over any item in the consol to reveal a pop-up with the basic mechanisms and stats. Improved access to more complete, clear, and concise help from the mouse-over of each respective item in the consol or on the ground and from the main help. A Simtropolis interface within the game for in-game discussion and even image sharing for community support/recognition. 2) Provide shortcuts for the toggling on and off of: buildings, roads/streets/highways/bus stops/parking lots/etc., tracks/subway/monorail/and their stations, usage/congestion (of everything toggled on). 3) Provide shortcuts for changing levels in order to assist layering (i.e. subway lines crossing over-under at different elevations) 4) Integrate the two query functions, query and route query, into one. 5) Map rotation was much smoother, so that I could follow the object of interest without losing my orientation and perspective.

Right. Advice taken. Forum rules is on the reading list. Thanks.

Do these stops prevent cars from traveling through them like a normal bus stop? I thought I noticed that kind of behavior when I placed them, but maybe I was just using a bad mod/bus stop.