palmejoe

I have a question. What is the point of this thread? Rixlie and Anteater, did puclear power plants explode in your game? Is that what you are so upset about? This game isn't entirely realistic to begin with. Some complain that it is too much in favour of the hippy element, some enjoy to torment and kill their sims by causing perpetual catastrophies (which is sad). You seem to want to argue for the perfection of Nuclear Power while at the same time discussing the details of incidents where Nuclear Power, maintained by incompetent people, has caused major catastrophies. I think that everyone will agree that the game has quirks that are irritating, but we all learn to work around them because we enjoy it. I tend to ignore the unrealistic issues so that really bug me. Forget about it.

Ah, thank you for the information NetPCDoc, and the clarification. I've discovered what my problem was with the stagnated residential growth. All along there was huge demand for residential, but no sims were willing to build on the plots I zoned. Almost all of them were 1x1 size plots with just a few 1x2 exceptions. Well, I redesigned one entire sub-division with 1x2 plots and, presto, sims started moving in by the droves (I wonder why this happened to me and not in the tutorial I used? Is this some kind of quirky behavior of the application?). Just by rezoning that one sub-division, the rest of the 1x1 subdivisions also started growing. Now the matter at hand is employing all of these new residents. On the topic of the industrial city, thank you for the insight on which land is better suited for it. I really picked this particular city block for industrial because it was small and because it was in the center of a land mass (with 4 large cities and 1 small one on its borders). Anyhow, as I was playing last night, I began to expand the residential up the hill using a winding road with slight inclines in different places. I ended up kind of liking the idea of making this a residential city instead of an industrial one, or simply hoping that this city eventually becomes more of a manufacturing one. I had initially carved out an entire section of hill/mountain and flattened the land for industry, but now I have the sudden urge to return the area to it's natural beauty. Unfortunately, that means reconfiguring my plans again! I wonder if this game is really for me; I'm so indecisive. I may include pics next time so that I can get some more advice from you on where to start a next city, infrastructure improvements, what industry focus each new city should be, and ways to exploit the natural beauty of the landscapes. The Ag town is situated in a bay area and has a mountian on the northern shore, separating flat developable land on the east and the west. The east has a long shorline (cliffs) and the west is the side that is connected to the other city(s). From the north west corner of the city to the southern tip of the mountain is farmland. Along the western border are the low density residential sub-divisions. Crossing avenue infrastructure is in place with commercial zones next to them... that seems to be the standard judging by other cities I've seen in city journals. I was thinking of turning the east side of the city along the coast into a fishing villiage, begin creating a train (passenger and freight) network that will be part of a larger loop encompassing all of the other neighboring cities (when I get to them), but for now it would connect the east and west side (either passing through a tunnel in the lowest part of the mountain or hugging the mountain-side all the way around) and also create connections with at least two neighbors. Ideally, I'd like this city to eventually turn into a picturesque fishing villiage not directly connected to the farming half. The passenger train could deliver tourists to the boardwalks and residents to other cities or work on the other side of town, and the freight train would have one freight station in the fishing villiage and one in the farming villiage that would deliver fishing/farming goods to the neighboring cities. Basically, I envision keeping this city divided into two villiages without too much expansion, but I don't know if that is fiscally feasable. The support of the infrastructure alone seems like that would put my cash balance in the red without a large population to support it. These are the kinds of topics I'm going to need lots of advice on as I continue. It would probably be easier to start a city journal and have people comment, but I'm not seasoned enough and I'm sure that my ci

Hello SC4Boy, I'm unfamiliar with the term "commuter loop". Can you explain that to me? Also, are you suggesting I create more than two cities at a time and connect them all?

Thank you, prophet42. That's the kind of encouragement I believe is helpful. I do believe that it is more realistic for new communities to begin with agriculture and, over many decades, to evolve into something more urban that becomes reliant on outside agriculture for it's produce (or in Ag towns that remain that way for generations that become support for larger urban settings that have their genesis later). I believe that being patient and letting my actions be driven by current demand is a better solution instead of trying to force artificial growth in certain sectors. Unless anyone has better advice, I think I'll follow yours for now and reconfigure my plans for infrastructure. I'll let my sims decide when it's the right time to build up and build out and create more than farming villages. Now, I do have that dirty industry village which was meant to be the power/garbage disposal source of which you speak. It is also in a fairly central location of my region. That is one of the reasons why I picked it for that purpose. Not to mention it is in a higher elevation and hilly area more difficult for development and there is absolutely nothing that is attractive about its geography. What should I do with all the sims that moved in there? I want to be a good mayor that provides clean air, water, and good healthy living to my sims so I would rather not have these sims battling the pollution produced by the incinerator or the power plant. On the other hand, I don't want to level my only flourishing community at the moment. Do you think I should redesign my sub-divisions in my Ag city (one of my thoughts in an earlier post) and, if sims begin to move in, go back and slowly level the residentials in the industrial city (which I am think could rather just be a power/garbage disposal source for surrounding cities like you have done)? Or do you think I should leave those sims in the industrial city regardless of what I do to the Ag city? I can't imagine that life could be enjoyable for those in what I'm going to make my new "nerve center". But, what do I know? I expected them to want to work in the factories and I was wrong.

Thank you, Robert W. I played a bit last night to experiment on what do do. I left the tax rates low for dirty industry in both towns to attract it anyway (it can't hurt for what I'm trying to do). The sim population in what has become a rural farming city (originally meant to be a suburb of the dirty industry city) had completely stagnated. I decided to raze the elementary school because it only had a few students and it wasn't worth paying for bus coverage. I left the library for now because it is getting some use and, merely by being there, the education level of my sims has increased somewhat and a slight increase in demand for manufacturing has occurred. I'm hoping that if they don't like dirty industry, perhaps they'll like manufacturing? I don't know if this is the wisest of paths. Regardless, they are still hungry for more farms and I can't seem to create them fast enough. I think I've accepted the fact that this particular city will become a rural farming city. The only bad thing is that now I have to alter all of my plans for infrastructure, which may take some cash to demolish and rebuild in areas (things like adding frieght/passenger rail and street/road/avenue infrastructure). I'm also converting some of the residential sub-divisions that stagnated at 30% occupancy over many years to more farmland, in effect pushing the residentials further south. Another interesting development. Because my sim population would not increase in my "agricultural" rural city no matter what I did, I decided to see if adding residents to the "dirty industry" city would create demand for dirty industry. Well, after zoning two sub-divisions at medium (already had water piped in the area that was being supplied to industry), sims instantly started moving in. Within a year almost 1000 sims built homes (medium wealth in many cases, no less). Did a demand for dirty industry increase? No. Instead, they all commute to the agricultural city for work (aside for a sporadic few)! NetPCDoc, thank you for the response. I do not have police coverage in either city. The only real difference between the agricultural city and the small dirty industry city is the layout of the residential sub-divisions. In the agricultural city, I have realistically layed out subdivisons with cul-de-sacs, interesting streets (no dull grid system), and two connectors to the surrounding avenues, one to the north and one to the east. Each low-residential is 1x1 and occassionally 1x2. Lots of trees and enough space for future parks. In the smaller industrial city (which isn't even much of that), my subdivisions are also not perfect grids, however, they do not have cul-de-sacs like my agricultural city. Also, I zoned them primarily with 2x2 medium residential and gave them water as part of my experiment. Houses popped up like hotcakes, but instead of these newly uneducated sims, who happen to live in a small city that is half-covered in polution (by design), running to the steel mills a couple of miles down the road for work, they started jumping in their cars and driving to the farms next door even though the commute is longer! I accidentally saved this city after the experiment, so I will probably have to re-zone to low-residential (it isn't realistic to have condos and apartments next to farm country... and i'm kind of anal about realism). Based on what I've described, my next experiment is to redesign my sub-divisions in the Ag-city and see if that has an effect on how quickly sims move in there. Do you think that is a possibility? As far as the demand for industry goes, I'm none too confident that the problem can be solved, and now I have sims living in the dirty city who commute to the fresh air of the farmlands for work and a stagnant and small sim population living in the Ag-city who commute to the dirty city (sometimes) to work... Huh? Why would they rather live in a small dirty city when they can li

Thank you for the responses. Things have gotten worse recently. I adjusted the taxes to make it more favorable for dirty industry in BOTH cities. I even started educating my sims with the idea that they may like manufacturing better. As it turns out, it appears that they don't even want to work. Demand for every type of industry has gone down, even farming. My population is >200. I looked at the charts and I found out that they NEVER worked in Dirty Industry! Umm... so who's been working at the plants in my Dirty Industry town? There aren't any other sims living anywhere else! I'm really getting frustrated now. Nothing seems to be working, including my sims. Any suggestions? Did I download a bug while downloading all of these BATs? One more thing, the BAT lighting doesn't seem to be working at night.

Hello, I'm having a strange issue. I've followed many of the tutorials on regional planning, one of which utilized the excellent idea of creating a dirty industry neighbor next to a residential/commercial city and having your sims commute to work, thus eliminating the problem of pollution in the residential/commercial city. Well, what happened is that the dirty industry demand stagnated, followed by a stall in growth in residential demand. After letting the simulation run for a while, sims started to leave the city due to "commute times" even though they literally had to drive 5 minutes to the dirty industry neighbor (or take the bus, from one of my many bus stations provided to them out of desperation). I hopped over to the dirty industry city to find that growth had literally stopped. Then, demand plummeted into the negatives for dirty industry and spiked for agriculture. The first time this occurred, I thought that I may have zoned incorrectly. So, I destroyed the cities and started over. I suffered the same results. Now, to get some enjoyment out of the game, I've abandon the use of the tutorials and have begun to fulfill the wishes of my sims by zoning for agriculture within what was originally my residential/commercial city... just to get my city back into earning a profit. My dirty industry city is also screaming for residential demand but absolutely no demand for dirty industry (agriculture as well), so I'm thinking of building some homes in that city, just to get that city to earn a profit as well. The original residential/commercial city has now become quite a quaint farming community (which I'm definitely not opposed to as I'm not obsessed with creating a mega metropolis). However, residential growth is slow amd my zoned residential sub-divisions (originally in suburb-like design with 1X1 to 1X2 plots) are hardly filling up. Meanwhile, the farmland is beginning to consume much of the available land while not providing very many jobs. I'm just about to turn a profit once again, but my community is still quite small (<500). For the challenge and the "realism", I'm allowing the demand guide my decisions rather than destroying my city and starting from scratch again. I like the quaint farming town that is forming, but I can't help but think that I'm either doing something wrong that is causing everyone in my community to want to persue a life of farming or that there is some bug in the application. Whatever happens is fine, but I'm just wondering if this is part of the normal growth process and if eventually, the demand for other industries will start to rise. I also want to avoid using farming mods that increase the amount of workers at each farm, but it is tempting. Is anyone of the opinion that using a mod such as this detracts from the realism? Or does anyone believe that I should keep doing what I'm doing and see what happens. My city doesn't earn enough to install a rail station and tracks (something I may need eventually) and I'm concerned at the rate of growth, I won't even have enough to offer the proper services when the time comes. Any suggestions (I can provide screenshots later if need be). Thanks.

Hello, My name is Joe. I'm a self-employed Banking Systems Analyst/Programmer. I just started playing SimCity4 for the first time. The last SimCity I played was 3000 Unlimited. This site is great. Apparently, I stink at SC4 however. It seems that my attempt to create an industrial city according to the tutorial on this site fails every time. My Sims want Agriculture only?!

You've probably been asked this one million times, but I've been looking for the Mod that gives the water surface ripple/wave effect. I'm dying to have it but can't find it anywhere. Can you help?