SeeSpotSplat

I believe that the demand for each zone type are much lower on hard, which makes your city develop slower and makes it harder to get by without satisfying people fully.

What is the best way to build farmland? Do you get more revenue/population if you build a bunch of very small farms(getting many farm houses with small plots of land) or is it better to build very large farms? Which method gives you more jobs? Thanks, SeeSpotSplat

Duh... I should have noticed that. a quick check proves the total job count MUCH higher. So the number of jobs is directly related to the number of tiles. However the tax amount is only related to the size of the farmhouse. For instance a lot roughly 40x40 tiles will always give just about 200 jobs in the RCI graph. However the amount of taxes depends on the type of farmhouse that builds (Which means that the 40x40 tile lot only produces one farmhouse of income which is only a few $.) Also having a freight route doesn't seem to change the amount of tax received. Just doing a really basic test using the same area(including spacing between multiple farms): FARM SIZE & COUNT JOBS FROM RCI INCOME COMMENT 1 farm @ 20x20 tiles 62 $10 Income with a large farmhouse 16 farms @ 4x4 tiles 47 $61 With only smallest farmhouses due to 4x4 tile size 9 farms @ 6x6 tiles 60 $87 Many large farmhouses provide more jobs due to high "workers/tile" as SC4BOY pointed out So it seems that you want many medium sized farms with large farmhouses which works well for my aesthetic style so woohoo!

So far my methods have been similar to that of zwr100 and the tutorial posted by bigthing, just making the farms look good. But I want them at max efficiency too =) I did some testing the last few days and have noticed that the largest farms only provide 10 jobs(I am assuming that the jobs you get when you query the farmhouse are the only jobs added to the final count.) These seem to build only when you get above a 5x5 square. However when I go below that (like 4xwhatever) I can get anywhere in between 2-8 jobs. I still don't know how to control the size of farmhouse that builds. Two pieces of farmland the same size will have completely different job numbers. I have no idea what factor controls this. I would like to have all 8-job farms. Another thing is that even if I make a very large farm(like 20x20) It still only produces 10 jobs in the query. Does that mean that most of the land is wasted? It looks like the tax amount doesn't even change. If I delete half the farmland the amount of taxes I get doesn't change. It really seems like you want to get the farms as small as possible and the farmhouses as large as possible for max tax/jobs.

What is the best way to build farmland? Do you get more revenue/population if you build a bunch of very small farms(getting many farm houses with small plots of land) or is it better to build very large farms? Which method gives you more jobs? Thanks, SeeSpotSplat

What is the best way to build farmland? Do you get more revenue/population if you build a bunch of very small farms(getting many farm houses with small plots of land) or is it better to build very large farms? Which method gives you more jobs? Thanks, SeeSpotSplat

I still play the game mostly unmodded. I have one mod, which is PEG Seasonal Woods. I have tried others, but always go back to just the regular game. I don't really have problems with how it runs. Also it takes a long time to figure out what you need to do to get plugins to run, what dependencies you need and then to include the new things in cities. I feel like when I actually have time to play, I want to just play, not install mods. Just my two cents

I always end up with one hospital in each city where the ticker keeps warning me that I have low funding at one hospital. However that hospital is always above its needed capacity. If I raise the funding really high for a while and then lower it again, the message comes back. Even if I delete the hospital and rebuild it, the message comes back for the same hospital. Here's a picture:

When you query the airport it should tell you how close to capacity it is. Maybe you can try zoning more commercial to get capacity over the top? It might just be that demand is at that point where it is about to upgrade but it doesn't have enough travelers yet.

Another interesting way to do it which is fairly realistic is to have one highway split into two at one side and then rejoin on the other side. This acts like a bypass around the very center of your cdb. Then you have most of your streets served and also don't lose as much space, since 3-way clovers are smaller than 4-ways and also you only need two connectors. Hope that gives you ideas!

Something I have noticed is in the underground view when you look at where a graveyard is you can sometimes see zombies walking around. It only happens sometimes and Im not sure when.

Hmm, yeah 3.5 should be enough. I only get 2.5 from my laptop and it works fine. The one thing I would check is if you have any firewalls enabled on either computer and also add simcity.exe to the exceptions list in the windows firewall. Also if you have access to another computer/laptop, you could try it and see if that works. I really can't think of anything else =(

What are your transfer rates over the network when you just transfer files? similar to mine, higher, or lower?

Wow that is a very long time. My wait is only 20 seconds max and that is over wireless. It should not be that bad. When I copy a file from one computer to another through wire it is at about 10Mb/s(or so vista says during the copy) For the laptop through wireless it is about 2.5 Mb/s. I usually use the laptop to play and have not had any long waits on load. How long does it take to load on the XP computer? Either way, I'm glad to see its working =) Oh I just realized something.... Is your region largely developed? I only have like 8 developed cities in my main region so that the whole region folder I am opening is 55.8MB. If your region is significantly larger, that may be the reason it takes so long to load.

See if you can wait through it. I know that on mine it takes a little longer to start up than normal since it has to load the region from a network location(which is slower than local).

Well first of all, the region on the XP computer should be the one locally in the "C:\Documents and Settings\xpuser\My Documents\SimCity 4\Regions\" . So that one will run locally. Then you need to make sure that on the VISTA computer you get rid of your regions folder(Rename it to regions local). So that when you make the link it can make a new folder called regions. I'm sorry I forgot about that! Then when you are making the link (Still on the VISTA computer) make sure you are in "C:\users\VistaUser\Documents\SimCity 4\" before you use the mklink command. A good way to check if it worked is to go to that folder in windows explorer and see if when you click on the regions folder(which should have an arrow icon overlayed), if it takes you to the networked folder. I really hope this works for you! I know it has become complicated and I'm sorry I didn't explain it better the first time!

It is in fact this one: mklink /D "Regions" "\\xpcompter\Regions" The problem is that you are not logged in as administrator. I forgot that I just always log in as that. Instead of typing cmd to open command prompt, find the icon in the start menu(should be under accessories somewhere), right click it and choose "Run as Administrator" It may ask you for your password and permissions. I hope that helps!

Well somebody has to work at the sewage treatment plant otherwise noone can use their amenities. =)

Don't replace the bus stations, instead make a second subway system that works parallel. Figure out where your sims are going and set up a subway or el rail that follows that path. In my largest cities I end up with subways that run under elevated rail along the major travel paths and then use busses to branch out around each sub/el train stop. Hope this helps!

Or if you don't want to kill your schools, you could try to tax the R$$$ out. Aside from that, you could try building more plazas in your Commercial areas to try to help them move in.

That is not a problem. That is exactly the setup I have now: one computer has XP and three others have Vista. On the XP one, all I do is share the "C:\Documents and Settings\#User#\My Documents\SimCity 4\Regions" Folder as "Regions" with full permissions. Then on the Vista computers I use the mklink trick to set the shared regions folder as that computers regions folder. This will not work with the Vista computer as the host because XP does not have the mklink command integrated into the shell and the substitutes for the program that I have found can't make links over the network. Good Luck!

Its a bit sneaky and works only in Vista. In essence you trick SimCity into thinking the network location is actually "C:\Users\#User#\Documents\SimCity 4\Regions" So what you do: 1. Backup your regions! 2. Move your Regions folder to a network location (lets say \\homecomputer\Regions) 3. Make sure you give the folder full permissions for everyone. 4. Go to the command prompt(Run and type in cmd) 5. Navigate to C:\Users\#User#\Documents\SimCity 4\ 6. Type in mklink /D Regions "\\homecomputer\Regions" That creates a folder in your simcity 4 folder that links to the networked folder. This way two computers can access the same region at the same time and create parallel cities. When the cities get saved, the regions are updated. You can even both have the same city open, just not save(since the file is in use). I've been using this on my home network for a month now and it works flawlessly. You can do the same with the plugins folder so that everyone shares the same plugins.

I know that my favorite cities are the ones that I spent hours on a single interchange making sure all the terraforming and roads work perfectly and then getting trees to grow right and integrating it into the rest of the map. When I spend a lot of time on one map it tends to have very cool details that don't come out if I just lay down a fast grid. Aside from aesthetics, it also looks like land values are higher when you zone slowly and let those zones develop. Also it gives you time to figure out funding perfectly.

Cool! Thank you! I'm slowly adding these to my entire region! They're great, especially PEG's

Does anyone know of any seasonal trees that don't require lots? (like the regular trees which you place one by one on empty space or like the God Mode trees)