Spinmaster

Don't regard that radioactive city as wasted though. Sure, it's nasty... no sim will build anything there, not even the poor, not even dirty industry, not even at 0% taxes. But you are not a sim - you can still use that otherwise useless space for landfills, power plants, or business deals. You can even put civic buildings in there if you want - they'll still function just fine (though with few if any residents within a civic building's radius, it might not serve much purpose to do so). Bottom line is, the radiation drops desirability to nothing for all groups... but it doesn't stop you from plopping buildings there. The sims are just stupid enough that they will go work in those buildings, too. Don't plop RCI buildings though, they can and will abandon due to low (very very very low) desirability. Heck, the land is already radioactive anyway - go ahead, put another nuke plant there! The next time it blows up, you won't even care!!

Curious... has anyone tried to put a parking lot (actual lot, not SAM texture) on a road... then a ped mall along the parking lot? Then the RCI zone behind the ped mall? Haven't tried this myself and can't at the moment, but should technically work. Though being set back rather far from the actual road, I don't imagine commercial would see it as highly desirable, for the "high customers" aspect anyway, it would be at least 3 tiles away from the real road depending on the size of the parking lot. Edit: Scratch all of that... duh. I should know better than to post before 6am. Parking lots aren't used as "parking for work" - only for mass transit usage. So the notion that "workers" will drive to the parking lot and walk to work... no. Will the buildings grow? Yes - thanks to the ped mall. Can any workers get to them? Nope - the parking lot is (ironically) in the way.

If it was plopped residential, that's the problem - not sure if it's a "bug" but definitely a known issue, plopped residential can't generate traffic, so your would-be commuters can't get out. It's not any individual building, all plopped residential is affected by this issue. Solution: don't use plopped residential. Ok ok, if you must... there have been some reports suggesting if you plop a residential building on top of an already-developed grown residential zone, it'll work. Maybe one of the folks who's tried that will happen by and provide more details.

But once a building grows, it does not get upgraded to a larger building - not even a larger stage - until another building comes along with higher occupancy and demand requires it (and the game happens to choose to replace that particular building). Result: that smaller building, with higher-than-it-should-have occupancy, may end up staying there long after buildings around it have upgraded to higher stages. It may look very out of place by then. This is the reason why most non-CAMpatible stage 8 buildings are to be avoided (or edited) if using the CAM. CAM lowered the occupancies of most/all in-game stage 8 buildings. If you download a new one, and it still has its non-CAM occupancy, that building could grow at stage 8, but then not be replaced until stage 13 for example. Until then it'll look quite odd against the larger stage 9 through 12 buildings around it.

I've been very critical of SCS myself, and EA's handling of it. But two points do stand out: 1. For profits (duh)quote>Duh indeed. They are a business, after all. To be blunt, they're not supposed to care about "us", they're supposed to care about profits, period. And I'm sure their shareholders would agree. Yes, I know the age-old philosophical debate, "but they have to care about fans to get profits"... simply put, that's correct. But business isn't always so simple. They certainly took a bad turn with SCS, making a game so miserable it's still being outsold by its 5-year-old predecessor. It's already cheaper than, or at least the same price as, SC4 in many stores. Profits? They certainly missed the potential, with SCS. And I'm sure their shareholders would agree. But was it a bad decision? Hmmm.... 4.Maxis is too busy with Spores and the Sims, EA realize to keep SimCity alive, they have to create some kind of SimCity game (in this case, EA killed the real SimCity).quote> Did they? We are still talking about it, after all. Bad publicity is still publicity. I'm not saying there's big hope for a new true SimCity sequel. Maybe, maybe not. But continuing to talk about it might be all EA was really looking for with SCS in the first place (particularly with all the talk about Cities XL et al) - to keep us talking about EA and SimCity. Good, bad, or ugly... we are still talking about it.

Cogeo and SC4BOY nailed it for you. Except a minor correction to "it will take very little advantage of multiple core cpu's" ... it will take no advantage at all of them, not by itself. But Windows can shunt other threads to the other core(s), which will free up cycles for SC4, so indirectly you will get some boost. I read a rumor that Maxis is working on another SimCityquote> Umm... wha?!?

The answer may lie within this link. There is a command-line option to relocate the user "SimCity" folder (the one that's usually within the My Documents folder or other-OS-equivalent, by default). I've no idea if it'll work with an external drive, however I don't imagine SC4 is sophisticated enough to care and check. Some programs (not usually games) do.

NAM is the answer. Without it sims commute by shortest distance, which means using streets a lot, and often ignoring mass transit completely - they won't go out of their way to get to a higher-capacity road or transit station if it's not directly in their path and goes directly where they want to go. With NAM the paths are chosen by time (not exactly but effectively). Be sure to read the full documentation that comes with NAM to ensure you select the options you want during installation, how to use everything, etc....

Well there's all the answers... now in sequence: 1. Check the graphics settings as NetPCDoc suggests. It's a much more common issue than you might think, and it's the fastest possibility. They get reset for various reasons... updates mostly, but other glitches sometimes cause it to happen. 2. Check what you've downloaded recently as SC4BOY suggests. Could be a conflict with something you downloaded not so recently. First, take out ALL of your plugins, open an empty scratch city and plop a park. If it's still messed up... check 1) again, then try reinstalling. If all is well then you have a bad plugin. Put half back, try again. Problem? It's in that half... no? It's in the other half. Keep doing it by halves, you'll find it eventually. (Dependency packs are in the plugins so Newsimaddict is covered). 3. If you still have a problem... mightygoose is dead-on - we'll have to see it to know what you're talking about. 4. Wait for a miracle that one of a few people who happened to have the exact same problem - and it wasn't one of the first 2 things - happens to stroll by and notice this thread. Oh it happens, and somewhat often... but I'd try the other 3 things first.

There are lots and lots of larger - and smaller - hospitals and clinics on STEX, some with far more than 6000 capacity. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't share yours. If you think it's good, upload it. If we agree, we'll download it. If you're not so sure, then I might suggest creating your own thread under Custom Content for it, where you can discuss it, show pictures, and get opinions and advice, and in some cases even direct help with your creation, from people who thrive on creating new content. Granted for some people who already have 20+ custom hospitals to choose from, yours will have to be one heck of a gem for them to even notice it, but some will, some won't need it but will critique it anyway (usually constructively; but don't be put off by the few bad apples that aren't, it happens), and there are always people looking for a new something-or-other, including hospitals.

Just curious, but does that somehow delete the thread if it's the only post in it? Never tried it myself (almost never made my own thread before actually). Anyway, to the original question... assuming it wasn't answered in one of the redundant threads... the roundabouts are installed with the Network Add-on Mod. Be sure to read the documentation and make sure they're selected when you install it. Street, road, and one-way road roundabouts are created by basically making a square with whichever network, 2x2 for streets and roads, 3x3 for one-ways. The avenue roundabouts have to be plopped and are found in the highway menu (I think... or is it road pieces? eh one of 'em).

Maybe I'm wrong, but this sounds like a similar misconception I had once about what the RCI demand graphs really mean. High residential demand means a lot of people want to move in? High dirty industry demand means a lot of factories want to come in? Nope. Demand isn't about who outside your city wants to come in. It's about who is wanted by residents/jobs already in your city or region. Jobs demand people demand jobs demand people.. there's your "cycle," and it's perfectly normal once you realize where it's coming from. If you have a lot of low-wealth, uneducated residents they'll demand a lot of dirty industry, agricultural, and some low-wealth commercial service jobs. If you have a lot of such jobs, vacant, they'll cause your low-wealth residential demand to increase. That's the "cycle" you're seeing. It's not a problem, just the way things work, even in the real world. Do you need education? To break that cycle, yes... though "break" might not be the right word, actually. Just brings the other RCI sectors into the simulation machine. It will educate the sims, they'll demand higher-wealth jobs which require educated workers, and the simulation will become more complex. Now comes the other common early mistake - don't overdo it. No, you don't want all gold-lined cities full of nothing but rich geniuses. Many folks learned here the hard way, sometimes it can be a challenge to keep them out, if you're "nice" and prone to providing every service you can afford to everyone. Simply put, someone has to do the grunt jobs, and you're the one that has to decide who by denying amenities such as parks, education, maybe even water, to oppress enough people to keep your city functional. Sounds mean, but welcome to Sim City. High-wealth commercial offices employ the most high-wealth residents, but just because the company is rich doesn't mean the workers are. They are only 15% full of high-wealth residents. High Tech (high-wealth industrial) is 10%. The rest is all mid- and low-wealth workers. Moral: you will always need a large number of low-wealth sims, an almost as significant proportion of mid-wealth sims, and just a smattering of high-wealth ones. You may be able to rid your city of most of the low-wealth jobs, but never the low-wealth sims.

And for future reference, SC4D does help you find dependencies quite easily. Sign in, and look in the left frame under "exchange info" ... click the "Dependency Help" link. Gives you a list of "what it was" and a link to what pack it's in now.

Note that all freight takes the "shortest route to the nearest edge, period." And it's quite thick-headed about it. Meaning no matter how close your freight station and/or seaport is to an industrial building, if the rail or water doesn't go to the edge nearest that building, the trucks will stay on the roads instead... unless a) you don't have any roads going to that edge either, or b) you use one of a few truck blockers like this one. And yes, agriculture is industry... thus it does generate freight trucks. Also like industry, if you run a rail in direct contact with a farm, it'll load directly to rail without trucks (if as mentioned the rail goes where the freight wants to go... or has no choice). As for where the rail goes on the other side of a neighbor connection... for freight, doesn't matter. Unlike passengers, freight does not persist between cities; once freight reaches an edge, doesn't matter how it gets there, it's gone.

godjcjk12 has a valid point. Nobody here is going to be able to tell you "for sure" how to fix your specific issue, as there's no way to know exactly how you installed NAM - or what you might have missed when you did. There are many options, and many ways to miss something. Making sure you haven't left behind any conflicting shrapnel from prior releases of NAM is something you should check, unless you know you've never installed NAM before. In such a case, read the documentation carefully and see if you missed anything. For one, when installing NAM you have to select the turning lanes. It's an option during installation, and if memory serves it's not selected by default (not for roads anyway). If you did that... then the next possibility is indeed godjcjk12's suggestion - read the documentation and make sure you don't have any of the conflicting older files from prior NAM releases (note: the newest NAM does require some files from older releases; but other files can cause conflicts if they're still in your plugins folder when you install the newest NAM module)

Well, that mod might "happen" to get around whatever your issue is, but it's hardly the answer. I'm not saying don't use it, but read what it's really intended for, and decide for yourself... don't use it just to fix this issue. It will affect *how* you play the game forever after. If this is the first city in a clean region, then you may well have just run into a bug which hits everyone once in a while. Open a city, start building, and for reasons unknown, demand tanks to negative for no apparent reason. The ones who mentioned the caps are correct (except I think it's 30,000, not 20) but if you're nowhere near caps... I'd suggest obliterating and restarting the city. I haven't seen a way to save a city when this happens (thankfully I've never seen it happen beyond the first few months of running a new city, so not too much lost). Or you can start a new city and see there if your farm demand is ok.

Check out this thread at SC4Devotion, explains the "large lot = crime problem" issue (the University, the Country Club, and Airports are among the most notorious). The simple summary is, the in-game stations - and most built off them - have a very limited radius of effective for the patrol cars, themselves (i.e. "dispatch radius"). Such that it's literally impossible for any crime reduction effect to reach completely into the large lots. The thread I linked goes into more details. Actually even for non "mega" lots it could still be an issue, as the effect of crime reduction does decrease the further away from the center you get... if this is true for the dispatches as well, then even a building within that radius, but for which the center of the building is right at the edge of that radius, could drive crime up a little. Now multiply "a little" by however many "sorta-large" buildings you've got.

I don't remember exactly, but what little I do recall... it has something to do with rendering a region in-game with a high or custom resolution... or something like that. Aside from being ugly, it has no functional effect on the game. You could try to re-render it with the game running at a standard resolution (you'll have to backup and re-import the developed cities). Again I'm not 100% sure if this is what caused your issue, but I do recall seeing it myself before and since, as a rule if I render a new region, I always use a standard resolution e.g. 1024x768.

Folks keep trying this argument - and it falls flat. For me anyways. Answer: yes, I do remember SC4 without RH, without ST, without a PC powerful enough to really handle it well. And I for one LOVED it. Played it religiously for nearly a year. Even played hookie from work on more than one occasion just because I wanted to play SC4, or I had stayed up 'til dawn playing it the night before... not proudly mind you, but I did it. Then I stopped. I stopped because I had seen everything, and far as I knew there was nothing to be added to it. Even with RH, added a few things... but still, I did inevitably come to the end of the "new content." I've been a member here since 2003 but I joined right about the same time I was feeling "done" with the game. And some real-life things began taking priority (no, I didn't lose my job ). I only got seriously into it again about a year and a half ago (and even now not "too" serious... I like to go to REAL beaches and parks, too, after all). All the wonderful stuff on ST and other sites has extended my enjoyment of the game. But let's get this straight - all the wonderful stuff here is NOT the game itself, and would mean nothing if SC4 itself wasn't a good foundation to build upon. People continue to create great content for it, because other people still want it. Many people even still create BAD content for it, but bless them for trying. To me that just shows it's still catching the attention of new players, and even the best creators here uploaded at least one piece of junk early on. All this custom content has extended the enjoyment of this game for many years after its release. But it would be a lot of wasted server space had the original SC4 been as limited in its original scope as SCS is. Could SCS become great with lots and lots of custom content? Sure, maybe. But who's going to stick around long enough to care, when out-of-the-box it loses its appeal within days? And if nobody wants it, nobody will create it ... sorry, but SCS is not "Field of Dreams." SC4 made me wish there was more... and so it came to pass. SCS just makes me wish there was something else.

When you install NAM be sure to select one of the pathfinding options, by default you're left with non-NAM pathfinding... which is abysmal. Shortest route by distance, period, even if it means clogging residential streets. With NAM - if you select a pathfinding option - the simulator evaluates travel *time*, thus sims will travel a little out of the way to take faster routes, mass transit, highways, etc....

Each small square (grid) within a city is 16m x 16m. A small city tile is 64x64 of these small squares ~ roughly 1km x 1km. A medium tile is 128x128 small squares ~ about 2km x 2km. And the large tiles are 256x256 ~ about 4km x 4km. You can fit 4 small tiles within one medium tile. You can fit 4 medium tiles, or 16 small tiles, within one large tile.