JJogurt

A single 4-lane road starting from the highway works well. Then I'll zone residential at the far end of the road, industry near the highway, and commercial in the middle. Everything else comes as your city develops and you get more money.

You are semi-wrong =) From my experience fulfilling the transportation requirement for offices isn't just about spamming bus stops nearby, but about effectiveness of your transport system. Your network needs to make sense and it needs to be able to take you to as many destinations as possible. In other words, office wants to be near you transportation hub, and putting a train station nearby helps. And besides, train stations produce a ton of sound pollution. I makes sense to place them near your commercial/office zones. Also, offices don't exactly employ fewer people than others. Level 3 office employs the most people per square in the game. A 4x4 Lvl 3 industry building employs 32 people while its office equivalent employs 48. The thing is that Lvl 1 office starts with few employees, but then gains much more with each level up.

It has the biggest effect on industry I would say. Industry will level up immediately once you build a freight station near them.

Can someone explain this further please? What effects wealth? What happens if I have lots of highly educated people working on farms for example? Will their wealth be low despite their education? Will they live in lower level houses?

I tend to redevelop, but slowly to avoid "shock". The first places to get high density are high land values ones.

Level 3 industry could pass as high tech. It employs highly educated people and looks kinda futuristic. It still pollutes though.

Here's a nice article about transportation in case some of you haven't seen it: http://www.cimexchange.com/page/index.html/_/articles/exclusive-csl-inner-city-transport-r124 The more I learn about this game the better it gets. Unfortunately I won't be buying it right away because I'm not sure how my well over 5 years old PC will run it.

They said in the AMA that terraforming will be possible in the external map editor.

I don't think you know Paradox well enough. Their games are anything but casual. Their "map painting" games have enormous learning curve and attract very specific audience. Then there's Cities in Motion which is a subganre of a subganre. I think Paradox is making this game with avereage Simtropolis-goer in mind.

I'm impressed. This does look promising. The only fear I have is milking players through DLC's. Another Paradox game, Crusader Kings 2, in notorious for this.

If you check the requirements for University you'll see that you need to have School Grade of at least 95. This is not E.Q. I assume it's a measurement of how well funded your schools are, with a value of 100 meaning that all your schools are adequately funded. Unfortunately, there's no way of checking your School Grade in game. Same thing with the "Number of good Public Libraries" requirement for the Main Library. In this case "good" means that they should be adequately funded.

School grade =/= E.Q. School grade is determined by your education funding. You should check if any of your schools are over capacity.

I think our friend is making a common beginners mistake. He's confusing density and wealth.

If you're looking for a simple building pack I suggest you check out some of the madhatter106's submissions. He made a some nice that can really brighten up your downtown areas. EDIT: Damn, I see Compdude787 already suggested the same.

I organize my cities with small school districts. I then always try to put a railway station into every district. If I have 5 small schools in my city that means I'll also have 5 railways stations.

Your cities are in a line, so no, you can't get the commuter loop bug. Here's my illustration of the bug. The residentials (green) always take what they think is the shortest route to their workplace (yellow). They think the shortest route is to go to the neighboring city, but they don't really know anything about that city's layout, so they end up spinning in an endless loop . You can identify the bug by getting enormous traffic on your neighbor connections. To avoid it, you should should branch out your regional transportation network like a tree. I hope the image makes any sense to you.

Think of railways as mass transit versions of highways. Just like highways they are meant to transport sims over large distances and across to other cities. However they have many advantages over highways. They take up less space and are much cheaper. A highway tile cost 1,00$ per month, while a rail tile costs only 0,03$. That is less than even a street! Additionally, good rail usage will provide you with income from fares which can make the whole system pay for itself. For these reasons railways can be used early on without too much impact on your finances. Usually my first connection to other cites is by rail, not road.

1. They would. 2. The farmhouses will have to be right next to the tracks for this to work. I'd still recommend you to use a freight station. 3. They're both fine. However, "A" will get you a more accurate passenger statistic when you click on the station. 4. I doesn't matter at all.

Hard. Simply because it forces you to watch your budget. Playing on easy is almost like using infinite money cheat. It takes important part of the game away.

With NAM installed Sims take the fastest route, not the shortest one. The road offers higher speed limit than the street and is therefore faster.

It is doable, but I wouldn't say it's a good way to do it. My preferred way is to start a region with a capital city where CBD will eventually be located. I just place a normal commercial zone at a good central location and eventually it will grow into a full sized CBD by cannibalizing the surrounding residential and industrial zones. Other towns in the region also have their CBDs, although much smaller. I would't worry too much about that. Just place your initial commercial zone at a busy road, such as between your residential and industrial zone. Even the game's tutorial uses this layout if you remember. As it grows it will eventually create so much traffic that it will start sustaining itself with customers.OneWay roads are perfect for CBDs because they spread the traffic over a larger area. Use them if possible. As I said I prefer to have my cites mixed, so a city with CBD will always have residential and industrial zones as well.

Does health have any effect on demand? I know higher education will attract better businesses to your city, but what about health? Are longer lives and less nagging form your advisors really the only effects of good health?

Dirty industry is only necessary if you desire rapid growth. Otherwise you can do without it. I often start with a small town of about 2000 people all working on surrounding farms. After about 2 years my education will usually be high enough to attract I-M. Then I'll tax I-D to 20% and have my first industrial zone entirely as I-M. Farms are very expensive for the number of people the employ, so this is not always the best idea though.