UEC0101

i suspect youre right as to why this happens and the more time that passes, the worse its likely to become. sorry i couldnt provide a quick fix =P updated on the search function problem -- the google custom search works; the search at the front of the forums still does not. thats really weird.

for what its worth, im having the exact same problem with the search function. i thought maybe it doesnt like words under 3 letters in length, so i rephrased the search. same thing, everytime. so i think the search function is fubar'd as for your in game problem, i ran into that a while back and basically the only fix i ever found was to read the support notes for each plugin i had downloaded and made doubly sure that i had snagged any and all listed dependencies. it took forever and involved a lot of back and forth between here and sc4devotion, but eventually the boxes went away. hope it helps.

ah, i knew i forgot something last night. definitely look into dividing up your cities. jman is absolutely right on this and sets his up much the same way i do. just a note on building new cities in neighboring tiles, plan your connections early. say youre building an agriculture/residential tile, if its connected to an already existing city, people from the pre-existing city will commute to take your farm jobs. if i plan on building residential in the agriculture tile, i dont connect the cities until i have it set up the way i want. this will help cut down on people with LONG commutes. typically when i get ready to create my neighboring R$ city, i usually raise the taxes on R$ in my main city and lower them in the city where i want them to relocate. usually a 10-11% tax rate in the main with an 8.8-9.0% in the new city is all it takes to get them to leave. this works for pretty much all other zoning as well, with the exception of R$$$; for whatever reason (i assume because they have the money) they will take a pretty hefty tax level before they decide not to build someplace. as an example, i have a city currently where R$$$ is trying to move in, even at a 16% rate, they still move in (im trying to keep them out of my main for a little bit while i redo part of my transportation network). you asked what happens when your main city phases out the poor... well, the poor will move to the new city and they will be replaced by wealthier sims, allowing for more growth in your main. as for zone percentages, its really up to you on how you want your city to look, but take a res/com city for example; there, i usually end up with something like 90% res, 10% com. the com will end up lining your main arteries, with maybe a small but dense commercial center.. all surrounded by huge residential neighborhoods. one thing that you will occasionally have happen is that you will have insane commercial demand that you cannot hope to keep up with. when this occurs, theres really just 3 options to correct it and its pretty much them same as dealing with high R$ demand. high R$ can happen very early, but i usually dont see this with commercial until i have 6-8 cities going and a region population around 200k. 1) zone more or upgrade existing commercial 2) raise their taxes [tiny increases or youll kill it] 3) start a new city close by to siphon off some of the demand hope it helps =)

i dont believe ive ever posted here, but ive been reading it regularly for a good long while, so ill give some of this a shot (regulars, dont feel bad about correcting me). from my experience you wont see the large skyscrapers within only 1 tile of region play. i usually have 3-6 tiles going in regional (all connected) with a decent population somewhere around 70k before i start even seeing some of the medium height buildings start to develop. as the region continues to grow, it becomes pretty easy to cram 100k into a medium sized city. for your transportation infrastructure problem, i find that i have to plan a lot of my main arteries kinda early and allow space for expansion/upgrades (roads to avenues, rail, highways, etc). it took me a while to get used to doing this, but it really helped me out in the long run. as for the high demand on R$, ive run into this problem occasionally myself. sometimes marginally raising taxes on R$ while slightly decreasing taxes for R$$ will help out, other times the best thing i can do is to start a new city right next door that is geared towards R$ and let it shoulder the burden for that level of growth. increasing education, health, and land values will also help promote growth of the R$$ and ultimately R$$$. to grow your commercial zones, it gets a little more complicated. after trying the above to improve the quality of your R-zones, id recommend the occasional plaza near commercial zones, reducing commute times, lowering your crime rate, making sure water is supplied, and ensuring that garbage is low. as your residential areas improve and the overall wealth of your city increase, itll drive demand for higher tier commercial zones. it never takes a whole lot to fulfill commercial need, so when rezoning your commercial areas, id recommend doing it in small patches as the need arises. its late here and i just went through some of this pretty quick, but ill try to re-read this tomorrow and hope i didnt miss anything. good luck =)