gadge75

I'm not currently on a machine where I can check this, but there are 2 sliders for taxes, correct? So we're talking about reducing the taxes on citizens while leaving industry taxes alone thus allowing the population to spend more within said industry and increasing their profitability thus dropping more cash into our pockets, yes? We're not talking a wholesale reduction in both tax categories, (I'm assuming)

This early in the game, to me at least, success comes from having a good balance or services with a positive cash flow and a population density i'm comfortable with. So long as I've zoned properly and to my liking (residences over here, businesses over there, shopping and tourist traps over that way, etc...) I will consider my city balanced and successful and then I can begin work on the aesthetics. A beautifully successful city will look good AND be well balanced... But I haven't been able to make it look good at the same time that i'm trying to maintain balance. More sprawl then I like. Here's to hoping for a good looking skyline when it's done.

I personally would rather spend my time on traffic flow, efficiency, direction problems than on manually demolishing each block of buildings to upgrade. I understand that buildings have to be removed and I would never argue that. But I would like to be able to demo the old road, place the new road, and leave the demolishing of the affected structures to the AI demolition Union. That said, because of this inconvenience, I do spend more time planning future routes for my roads for freight, passengers, etc. and leave ample space for entering/exiting zones that will be affected during future growth. So far it's ok, but i'm not the best at planning and still have to spend time in my dozer taking care of structures. (MASS EXODUS!!!) Love that warning when I doze out entire neighborhoods for my intergalactic freeway, err, large avenue...

My first city grew to 1mil, then went flop because of the elites/execs crying for more. What I found was that turning on expert mode was a bad idea. Once I started adding high density jobs and factories I needed more and more elites and execs as well as more resources for my industry. (Trading was also borked at the time so I ran out of water and manufacturing goods real quick). What I found was that at first I would see we needed homes, so to tossed out 6 blocks (of 6 zones each) of said residence (figuring i'd "think ahead" so homes were available). Then i'd do the same with some form of industry when they were crying for jobs. It wasn't balanced and kept see-sawing back and forth until it crushed itself. The same began to happen when I added med and high density industry. It all fed of some other resource I wasn't producing enough of. Anyway, I began fresh, left expert mode off, and went slow. I didn't throw down 3 blocks of offices when unemployment was high, nor did I throw down 6 blocks of residences to attract more tenants at once. One block at a time until jobs/houses were satisfied, and then left them alone until they were called for again. My new city now rakes in about 10k per tick and has a population of 50k with $4mil in the bank. If I need heavy industry, I add 1 square (not a full block of 6) light or medium. This works well, at least until I start to have air pollution concerns. At which point I will turn to the market. Taking my time has also allowed me to focus on my traffic to keep goods flowing. Better flow = happier people = more profit from the businesses. Biggest thing to take from this, don't add higher density areas of industry until your city is large enough to accommodate the crybaby elites and until you have enough manufacturing/heavy industry/utilities to supply those higher density zones. And traffic control is a must to keep folks streaming in. Hope this is a decent start and helps out some. And I hope more tips get added from some more experienced city builders.

There seem to be a lot of bugs that give no user feedback both with the game and their website. Signing up is a hassle if for some reason the security code doesn't take because it doesn't like your browser (entire form clears forcing you to retype everything over again, rather than just presenting a new security code). After sending a support message it takes you back to the original form, blanked out again, leaving you to wonder if it had actually been sent (Though in all fairness they do have a small notification at the top of the screen thanking you for the message that fades away after a few seconds). There needs to be better feedback from the game when something goes awry so that we can submit informative reports for the devs. Sorry about the tangent... Just a little frustrated after all the crashing I had going on when trying to lay out 3 qualified worker plots.

I've noticed similar happenings with road placement as well. After demolishing some buildings to make way for a fancy avenue (Or whatever it was called), the road would randomly tell me it didn't fit, even though I cleared out 4 lanes worth of space for it. It was like it was hitting something that didn't get fully demo'd.