JohnTheMutt

When you're laying out avenues and roads and want to make sure your zones can fully grow in density to medium and high, try using the 'row' park tool as a guide since it's spacing is right for that.

What I do when I want to start a mining operation in a city that starts with just the starting cash (not a big money gift from another city in the region), is to get it established first as a functioning plain old RCI city that is making a fair hourly profit first. However, before that I will use the curvy road tool and outline my ore, oil or coal reserves so that I don't build in those areas. Once my population is up a bit and I have cash, I'll start drilling or mining. Always using the 'guide me' feature to get cash rewards for things I'm going to do anyway. Also, I will work straight away towards building the Metals or Petroleum HQ's as I like to unlock the smelter and/or the refineries asap. Selling raw materials is nothing compared to using them to power a thriving manufacturing industry of smelters, refineries and eventually electronics. By then, most of my natural resources become depleted and I'm importing them, but the profit margins are still quite large and I'm still making millions...

Good tip, thanks JohnnyV9999, That's the solution that worked for me. I just closed them (consumer electronic factory) all down temporarily and my tech level boomed big time in all my industry to max. It also unlocked the processor factory which was what I needed.

I've had exactly this problem. Definitely seems like a bug to me. I'm going to try your method of using a siding and see if that helps as no freight train is making it passed that passenger terminal... Edit update: Well, I tried using a siding for my passenger trains but still no freight train...oh well..

I remember when Will Wright was interviewed about the success of his early SimCity games and when asked how he could explain their popularity he described his Sim City games as more of a 'Toy' rather than a game. A Toy is something you can play with and is only really limited by your imagination. A well designed toy and great imagination equates to a lot of fun. That being said, it appears that the current creative direction for the Sim City franchise is heading towards 'more game' and 'less toy'. God mode terraforming was a big creative part of the Sim City series and is now removed. Perhaps this is all due to the 'game must be playable only online' edict that EA gave Maxis for DRM issues. For whatever reason, it means less creative satisfaction for city builders and those who enjoy playing with Sim City like the 'toy' it is and should remain. Rather than the increasingly limited 'game' it is becoming...

I built this city (4 million +) as an experiment quite a few years ago (2007)... it was on hard setting and no mods. I apologize for not having a screenshot of my region...it's actually pretty important and I can't understand why I don't have a picture of it... This is the only tile which had residential. All others abutted it and created demand/supply. But if I recall, to help with the money problem I built quite a few toll booths (have to be careful with this as it slowed commute times and thats a critical factor I believe) to capitalize on the heavy traffic between cities and on the roads. The hard part was paying for all the expensive infrastructure and maintenance. You can also cut services and raise taxes for awhile to generate funds on fastest time setting. It's important to build a big city patiently and don't starve yourself of capital. Can everyone get to work? That's usually a big tricky issue for an un-modded SC4 game, especially for region play across tiles...they are only willing to travel so far... There's all kinds of oddities found when building large cities and populations. Perhaps you could provide some screenshots and we can see how you are laying your region and cities out to get a better idea of what might be happening...

I prefer my graphics in city simulation games to lean more towards the 'realistic' graphical aesthetic than the 'cartoony' aesthetic. Simply my preference. However, that being said, the graphic shots being shown so far are not too bad... time will tell and I'll wait until the final game comes out before rendering judgement. From a Q&A session with the developers on this very topic, it appears they are set on the graphical style currently shone so far.. http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/qp15f/

Originally posted by: Rutgar The Oil Pollution is BS in this game (just like the ship dock). These days, oil extraction is very clean, environmentally safe, and highly regulated.quote> Actually, port complexes do produce massive amounts of persistent air pollution in real life. I live near and work in a major port complex. The noise pollution is very high as well. The reason for it is the massive amount of cargo handling equipment used. Top Handlers, UTR's, Truckers, Trains, Idling ships, Transtainers, Stradlers, regular autos and trucks for support personnel, etc... They all burn massive amounts of diesel, bunker fuel and gasoline on a daily basis.In addition, the constant heavy use of the container yards causes the tires on equipment to wear quickly and this becomes a fine dust which is toxic over the long term. The massive amount of truck traffic to and from the complex create lots of pollution (both noise and air) both in the port and for the closely lying cities to the port. Our port is in the process of trying to go 'green'. It will force all truckers to adopt clean diesel trucks, cargo handling utility tractors will use an energy source other than diesel, ships will have have to stop idling for their onboard generators and hook up to shore power, etc. This will help greatly in reducing the pollution, but it'll still be there. It's the nature of the 'beast' so to speak

Originally posted by: Screwballl For me, the game is playable for around 2-3 hours, then I manually save, go back to planet, and then load the city again and good as new for another 2-3 hours. quote> Yes. Thanks Screwballl. From a similar post you made about this tip elsewhere...I can now at least play the game somewhat. Still slow but bearable. Also, I am only good for about an hour max before it becomes too slow and hangs constantly.

It's not just slow...the game 'hangs' up for moments at a time. This happens constantly while I'm trying to simply build a road or whatever. My computer meets the specs, though...I'm only at 1gig of ram with WinXP. Minimum specs...I'm sure that doesn't help. The 'hang up' and slow down is even more pronounced when I have a trade situation with another city going on. I just read what Screwballl wrote so I'm going to try his solution and see if that helps..

I've been giving CitiesXL 2011 a go recently and have only gotten a few cities to around 75,000 pop. The 'memory leak' or whatever, is causing a huge slowdown for me and it quickly becomes quite frustrating. Hopefully this will be fixed so that I can fully explore what this game has to offer and make an informed critique. As it goes now...it is just too frustrating for me to keep playing it with the constant slowdown, lag...

The following is just a copy of my post over at SimCity Central with some info you all might like to know: This is a quote from the 1up interview with Rod Humble, VP at EA. http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?pager.offset=0&cId=3160510 1UP: How would you address the concerns of the traditional SimCity fan base coming into this? How would you address their concerns and how would you invite them to give this a chance? RH: I would say, "Read the splendid coverage from you guys," which obviously will be unbiased and in detail. [Laughs] You know, "check out the previews and see if you like it." The bottom line is that I think we whole-heartedly agree it's a brand new direction and it's very risky. And I find that exciting and just as a game maker I like to do that kind of thing. You know, "Wow, thank goodness you guys aren't doing the same thing year after [year]." You know, if the SimCity player base doesn't like it, for sure they can expect the next iteration will be back to basics, I can assure you. And you know, this could end up being a separate fork. We could end up doing a SimCity Societies line in addition to our regular construction line. These things are really about finding an audience rather than just "it's gonna be our way or the highway." It's just bandwidth -- that's all. I hope he is sincere in this because imo SCS is not a true successor to SC4 at all. A fork yes, a successor no. Still hoping...

Originally posted by: Lightning War Back to the basics... That does not mean anything. Simcity 4 was not a back to the basics title anyway.quote> My assumption from what he means by this is that it's more a return to the roots of which the traditional SC games were founded upon. Not a return to a basic city simulation engine. At least...that is what I hope he means by it. After playing Sim Societies for awhile, I can definitely say it is NOT a successor to SC4 at all (to me anyway). But is rather a fork in the road for the simcity franchise. The game is not that bad if viewed from that perspective. But if the expectation is to fill SC4's shoes and then some...then disappointment reigns. Like I mentioned before, hopefully he's sincere about a return to what SC4, et al, is all about. The fan base is starting to speak loudly enough already.

If by green, you mean cash, then you could try obtaining lots of CS$$$ like Jerimiah did, or you could do what I did and put in a lot of toll booths. My total commute time was not really affected that badly by doing so and it generates thousands in cash due to the very heavy traffic...

Nice pics khs. I'm really impressed with your city's EQ score being above 160 without any high schools! In my own high density city it takes a lot of micromanaging of my educational budget to get it even up to 160 which seems to be the trigger point for HT demand. Though I've had other cities with an EQ of near 200, but that requires me to build some industry into the city along with a non-fluctuating residential pop... Looking at your traffic volume graph, do you get much use out of your monorail? It looks like the third line down is bus volume and I don't see any monorail volume if I'm not mistaken. With all that congestion and still having a commute time of under a 100...whew! Amazing. I guess that when it comes down to it, the most important thing of all is having jobs for the sims to get to. R$ sims are the easiest to please which makes things nice. You mention that it's possible to get over 4 mil pop by letting in R$$ sims. I'm very curious about this, since usually R$ sims is the only way to max out the pop in a city. For example; an 'Ong condo' population level goes: R$$$--5,039; R$$--10,391; and R$--20,778. So it would seem that unless more Res zones are provided it could only mean less sims. But if you have actually achieved 4+mil sims, the way you mention, then that would be something to see!

Those are great shots khs! Looking at your region shot...are you surrounding the medium map with industry? It looks like HiTech E & W with dirty/manuf to the south and is that commercial to the north? Just curious. Your commute times are impressive for a city of 3.5 mil. My city of 2 million on a large map is already in the 80-90 range. However all my industry is located in adjacent cities. looking at some of the closeups, do you use only freeways and monorail to connect to other cities? Surrounding your Ong towers with plenty of commercial and some industry seems like a good idea also to keep that commute time down as well. What is your congestion like? I can't imagine that you don't have any since those dilapidated (if not from pollution of course) Ong towers hold many thousands of R$$ and R$ sims, and they're surrounded by mere roads only. I noticed that your subway is connected to one spot on the city map. Do you get a lot of traffic on this short section to the other cities? I usually have to run multi-parallel lines of tube just to alleviate the congestion. Or do you use the subway mostly for intra-city commuting? That grid shot without the buildings and just the civic services is very nice, but it begs the question...Where are your High schools? Or do you even need them? Since I didn't see any in the shots you gave I was just curious. What is your city's EQ? Also would you be able to post a shot of your city's graph detailing jobs and pop.? Thanks. My main library is also WAY overwhelmed. It's the one thing that I can't see any way to fix...legitimitely anyway... Getting all Ong towers is the way to go for density though, that's for sure, and getting them dilapidated is very important and not too hard to do usually. If my quick count is right you have 28 Ong towers per 6 major blocks. If one 'Ong' tower can hold 20.778 R$ sims max., then you have a maximum town capacity of 3,490,704. But of course one of your shots shows greater than 3.5 mil so I must have missed it, or it hasn't been shown some extra housing or...it could just be another of Sim City's quirkiness. All in all it's a great experiment in High density for a medium map with very few mods and your efforts should be commended!

That's pretty impressive khs, especially for a medium map. Would it be possible to see some pictures close up? What's your transportation network like? And perhaps a region shot? I'm trying to build a large population city myself, without any mods, and am curious about high density designs.

Hi all, This is my first post here...used to play Simcity classic back in the day and have been playing SC4 like a crazy dog since I got it Right now I also have been experimenting with density as well. I like your design for density Jerimiah. Here's a picture of my own experiment based somewhat upon your grid layout. This picture shows my commute time still looking good for over a million sims. I also use no mods of any kind. Not that I'm opposed to them at all, but I just am still having fun playing with the game engine au'natural so to speak. Heh One big difference from yours is that I have a lot more residential zones, so yours is far more dense than mine and in my opinion much more successful. Based upon your numbers: 1 million+/ (90 4x4's)= ~11,111 per square. The only way I can see to do that is to encourage R$$$ stage6-8 development and then strategically alter the economy so that R$ or R$$ move into your Byall and Ong towers, etc. Dilapidation is your friend when going for high density Since most of your income seems to come from C$$$ taxes and mine is mostly from toll booths...Every avenue leaving/entering the city has one. The mass transit income is HUGE. I use a large subway system however and I suppose the combination is what is keeping the commute time down. Sigh...I wish this thing had a preview button so I could get this right...give me a little bit and I'll eventually get it... Yikes! I guess I don't understand how to put in clickable thumbnails. Can anyone tell me how to do that with Image shack? Thanks... Switched over to IE and that browser seems better at handling this forums software and/or input methods anyway. This link will take you to the full size image...sorry for the hassle... http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/8869/capture190120071914092sp.jpg