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Hi Any advice from those more experienced would be great. I do have the NAM installed. 1) Some large residential buildings say no jobs, yet I have put in all these new zones of all different types and sizes, right next door, yet they won't work there..........or insist on travelling so far, the building ends up being abandoned due to commute. Why won't they work next door when that is an area that has plenty of jobs? (and the RCI says we need these industries). 2) When the building is then abandoned, I demolish it - and either rezone or wait for a new residential to be built (and in the meantime, I add lots of new commercial close by, so they won't have a long commute when they return!!). So the new building returns, and yet these fussy Sims insist on STILL going to the other side of town, where the exact same industry as next to them is there. What is wrong with my sims.

My small son started a new city (with only 1 small city on adjacent tile). In this new city - when he places industry zones, the ONLY thing that will grow is Hi Tech industries. From the minute he has put in yellow zones, its high tech. He doesn't even have residents yet!!! Anyone ever had this before? I have added no new plug ins or anything that could have caused this to happen. Should I be looking anywhere for a fix to this? It IS pretty impressive to see - I don't think my cities have ever had so much Hi Tech industry !!!!

Potentially silly question, but here goes: My demand for business is extremely high (in a city with around 200,000 residents) , so I have zoned more to meet this demand as per normal, yet these commercial zones are not being developed - they just remain empty. These new zones have good transport, and residential sufficiently close by, demand for residential is strong (but not excessive)........but still nothing. I have even added more commercial in the booming areas of the city that has always produced great buildings, but this new zoning, doesn't grow either. What am I doing wrong? If they want commercial, why don't they use what I provided? Have I reached a "cap" (something I don't fully understand, but have read in a number of other posts). Thanks in advance for any guidance.

Hi, Sometimes when I am zoning commercial areas, and put down a row of say eg. medium density lots, when they grow. they frequently are all identical buildings, predominantly "Cox Family Court" as opposed to a mixture of buildings in the medium density range. So the issue is that I have building after building in one area, and they are all the same. Very boring to look at. Any suggestions on how to avoid this - apart from mixing up the size of the lots - sometimes this is just not the right option for my commercial block.......... If I see that Cox Family building again, I will lose the plot!

Hi Demand is high for agricultural lots in my current city (as I want it to be a farming community), and many farms developed very quickly and successfully, but now there seems to be a huge lag time in any more developing. The zone just sits there yellow for ages, with no development. If demand is there, why is the land not developing? Is it because we have enough Stage 1 or 2 farms? Should I bulldoze some of the early farms to encourage some "better" farms to develop? As I have always concentrated more on other zones, not sure about this farming business. Any advice or direction to a tutorial that covers farming issues would be appreciated. Thanks.

Hi, Hopefully someone more experienced can help me with this issue. I downloaded SimGoober SG Lots Agriculture and there were some dependencies listed that are no longer available (locked by admin on SC4 Devotion). These were SG Extras Agriculture and SG Extras. As I can no longer get them, is my only choice to delete SG Lots Agriculture (though there looks to be some great farms), as otherwise I am going to get those brown boxes. Or is there another way around this problem - can these dependencies be found in another file that I am not aware of?

Toroca, thanks for your detailed info on this problem. Will have to print out your answer and study it! I truly had no idea that this game was so complex. I have mistakenly assumed what you wrote - that $$$R Sims take $$$CO jobs. I have so much to learn.........

Hi, Yes, I do use NAM and CAM (and anything else I see that makes the game more enjoyable!! I stopped playing this game years ago because it got a little dull, but now rediscovered it thanks to sites such as these which have opened a whole new world!). But still with the NAM I have issues with commute and abandonment , but probably more due to my incredible uselessness at correct zoning. Thanks Splur for those screen shots - am working on 2 cities now and hoping for better results this time around. In your city, when they asked for industrial, did you just raise taxes so high so they stopped asking, or totally ignored their needs, or was a neighbouring city predominantly industrial?

Thanks for the suggestions. I have to admit I never have really worked on a neighbouring city, as I have so much work to do on my "main" one, so consequently, neighbouring cities are a little neglected. I am going to pay closer attention to them right this minute!!! I have to say, now that you have drawn my attention to it, the abandonment was only occurring in one section of this city.......... And Splur, thanks for tip on not demolishing those abandoned buildings. Will try to hold myself back from bulldozing!! I love idea of having the residential/commerical separated by a river, and will start a city up with that concept very soon.

Thanks for advice..............My sims who are abandoning their homes are a mix of R$ and R$$$ and I suppose I thought that the R$$$ would be overjoyed to have a nice CO$$$ so close to their residential towers, that they would work close.........but they prefer to travel all over the region and find OTHER CO$$ buildings!! Yet have the nerve to complain about the commute time I think I am going to start this whole city....again. Cannot seem to get a decent layout which also allows me to put in great mass transit options later on. But will save THAT issue for another post!

Hi, I have downloaded a couple of buildings from the STEX - "Little Reds Restaurant" and "Shmails Arms Hotel". I get the surrounds (trees, parking lot etc) but the building itself is not there and doesn't grow! There is no ReadMe file so I can't find the list of dependencies which will give me more info. Does anyone know if this particular designer (gshmails) has a file that I need to have installed? Thanks in advance.

I downloaded the NAM and all appears to be working as it should but then read about the CAM download at another site, and now not sure if I should install this one as well. My only fear is that it may cause corruptions/duplicates or some other unexpected conflict(s). What does everyone here use - NAM and CAM or just one or the other. Or are they basically doing the same thing? Appreciate any help/advice on the way forward with these add ons.

Thanks for reply.......have downloaded both now, and to get some of the CAM lots, seems to require so many dependencies, I have spent half the day downloading the required ones........with heaps more to go!! As yet, I have not seen any noticeable differences with the CAM, but possibly I am not up to the required growth stage before these CAM lots "kick in"?????? But the NAM had instant visible results in my tragic looking city!

New to game, so please bear with me............. A number of the downloads of buildings, refer to "available in Growth stage 4" or another number. What constitutes a growth stage please? I have downloaded a few buildings, but have no idea when they will then become available based on my game. Additionally, is there a guide/FAQ post for newbies on downloading from STEX, to better understand the terminology and what you need to know...........I am sort of muddling thru' and hoping for the best that the buildings will turn up at some point (except landmark ones or ploppables). Thanks in advance