bobucles

Haha! That is one insane region! With a tower forest that big, it sort of makes you wish for an arcology or two, doesn't it?

Without using cheat mods, you can't fix it, it costs way too much to try, and it doesn't do much harm anyways. Besides, why not leave a little green space around your airport? I'm sure your sim pilots will appreciate it.

IIRC, SC2 tiles were 64x64 meters, right? And SC4 tiles are about 16x16 meters? That would make those arcologies 16x16 tiles big! One of those things would be at least a kilometer tall.

Here's the ultimate secret to saving money, that the government won't tell you about: DON'T SPEND IT!! It sounds simple, and it is. If you can not afford to build something, do not build it. Remember to go to your taxes menu, and click on every eyeball there. It will let you adjust your funding for buildings that are underused. Sims are very resiliant, and will tolerate all sorts of trouble. As mayor, it's not your job to create a utopia, it's simply not possible. It's your job to budget your taxes, and to spend them where they'll do the most good. A small town does not need an airport. A small town does not need solar power, or fusion power. A small town does not need a 30 acre park, when it is surrounded by open land. A small town does not need recycling centers, a gigantic school system, or a martial law police force. It is a waste of resources, and the town can not afford it. So don't build it. Okay, then. What does a town need? What is vital to keep the town running? A small, low density town NEEDS: - Electricity. Pick your favorite- coal, oil, windmill (for really tiny towns) - A main road. That's it. A small town can afford: - Water towers. - Garbage disposal. Landfills will work for now. - A fire station for industrial zones. - An elementary school, if there is spare money. A fair sized town, with a little medium density NEEDS: - Electricity. - Enough water for the medium density zones. If a few water towers can't cut it, then get the pump. You can not lower pump funding without causing disasters. - Garbage disposal. If landfills aren't cutting it, get a waste to energy plant. Even though it's $1K a month, it'll still save a ton of money over a large landfill. - Main roads, side streets. - A fire station for industry. The same town can afford: - An elementary school, or two. - A college, or university. The upfront cost is big, but the upkeep is cheap. - Healthcare. The big hospitals have the best overall value, all the time. - A few rewards to expand. A large town, with lots of medium density NEEDS: - Electricity. - Water. Water pumps are fine. - Garbage disposal. Waste to energy is king. - Main Avenues, side roads. - Some mass transit to ease up congestion. - A fire station for industry, and thin coverage for residential zones. A large town can afford: - Some elementary schools. Upgrade to a large one if needed. - A college, or university. Cost should not be an issue, if you've skimped until now. - Healthcare. Big hospitals rule. - ONE layer of police coverage. - The rewards needed to expand. Some other tips: - Zone far and wide! Low density residential zones are a gold mine for small towns. - Run power plants at 75% capacity. It will keep them alive the longest, and power plants are expensive to replace. - Run water pumps at 90% or more. NEVER change the water funding. - You should eventually burn all of your trash to save the most money. Keep a tiny landfill so the incinerators won't overflow, if you like. - Always keep a healthy profit. Buildings will need replacing, so you will need a constant profit in order to replace them. - Always keep a healthy reserve. There may be some times where you have to suffer losses for a while. A healthy reserve beats paying a loan any day. - Don't take a loan that you can't pay off. Heck, if you don't know how to handle a loan, don't even bother with them. Just play slower and save up more money.

Make sure you're doing the results when your zoning is finalized. New zones start with a new education value, while old zones pass down their EQ across generations. Don't forget to check out your health rating and age demographic charts. IIRC, the school systems are meant to work most effectively at specific age ranges. Elementary schools may be working really well with new towns because all the sims are young and have young kids. New zones may also start with young sims, so it's something to try out there. There may be a constant decrease in EQ going on no matter what. Some school systems may seem innefective, because they aren't providing knowledge faster than it is lost. But when it's all added together there could be a big difference.

Woah, you were running the game with 128MB of RAM? I'm suprised the game started up at all! That's such a critically low amount, that the game is likely to crash if you try to do anything. Just about every store-bought computer is completely inadequate when it comes to RAM. There's only enough RAM to explore the internet, and nothing when it comes to playing games. That's why I always recommend upgrading your RAM. For reference: 128MB- (5%)- AAHH!!! RUN! Many modern games won't start up, or even install with such low RAM. If your computer came with this much RAM, you'll likely need a new computer anyway. If you have XP, you'll free up much needed RAM from downgrading your OS. 256MB- (15%)- is inadequate, even for running XP. Performance is horrible. Some games may refuse to play at all. Upgrade! 384MB- (30%)- is very good for exploring the Web, but not much else. SC4 game performance will still be choppy. At this level and below, you're likely a master of closing programs to free up RAM to run your games. 512MB- (50%)- is the modern minimum. You'll quickly appreciate why people say not to go with less. Good, but not great for SC4. Fine for multitasking in XP. (games excluded) 768MB- (75%)- is the modern sweet point, and what my PC has. I recommend it for most gaming, including SC4 and MMORPGs. Very good for multitasking in XP.(with games) It's the best and most cost-effective upgrade to make from 256MB. Most modern systems now have dual channel RAM, so it can be more trouble getting DC 768MB then it's worth. Just go for the next step, you'll need it sooner or later. 1GB -(90%)- for awesome SC4 performance. Any more upgrades won't do much at this point. Great for MMORPGs, adequate for HL2 and Doom 3. Don't buy a modern gaming machine with less than 1GB of RAM, unless the extra RAM comes separately, or you simply hate FPS games and MMOs. 1.5GB- (98%)- for perfect SC4 performance. A very solid amount for playing HL2 and Doom 3 at high settings. SC4 will always appreciate more RAM, even if it won't do anything at this point. 2GB- (99.9%?) - Maybe you just like having every setting in your HL2 or D3 game at the max. This amount of RAM will last for a long time, but it may be best to get 2GB only when you need the upgrade. Waiting for prices to come down and all. 4GB- (WT.F%) Well, you're just planning for the future, or do a lot of video and 3d rendering stuff. Either way, you keep a game of HL2, Doom3, and SC4 running at all times, just to anger your friends. At this point, you've likely broke off all contact with the world, or vice versa. All comptuers will have a different RAM limit that you can not pass. If you have a pre-built computer, check the manual, or go to the company website and check the computer model number for the RAM limit. If your computer is home-assembled, check the motherboard manual, or the motherboard web site. If the RAM limit is too low for a good upgrade, then it's likely you'll need a new computer anyways. You can't go wrong with the upgrade! RAM is the easist thing to upgrade, so I recommend it for any computer, new and old.

If you have so many people taking cars on the highway, that's a failure of your mass transit system. IRL, highways are not made to move city populations. They couldn't even if you had triple deck highways. Have you seen the news report when the north-east US cities lost power? Entire bridges were flooded with nothing but people trying to walk home. They weren't even in cars, and the highways were still flooded. Highways are only capable of letting people take their own trips that aren't covered by mass transit, and for luxury. Do what a real mayor does. Build mass transit. Big city subways can and do move hundreds of thousands of people each day. Busses takes tons of cars off the road. That's a huge relief for highways. Monorails are ultra high speed, capable of going the longest distance, and railways are dirt cheap. With each mass transit station you add, you take a few more people out of their cars and on to better modes of transportation. The eastern US and old cities have relatively poor road systems. That's because many roads were established 10s of years ago, back to the early colonies. The buildings and people are far too ingrained, and it would cost tons of money to smash so much to improve the roads. In newer, more modern cities, you will see immense pre-planned roads, and I've heard of California superhighways as large as 14 lanes. You could build skyscrapers on that kind of pavement acreage. If you want your roads to carry that many people, you'll have to do the same. Unfortunately, SC4 doesn't have roads that large, and they can't be made very effectively. I don't know of any mods that will give you huge mega laned or modular roads, either, which is what big SC4 cities really need. Increasing the highway capacities is cheating, IMO. Build more roads, or improve your mass transit. The best solution is to mix hi-density residential with hi-denisty commercial. They mix very well, and I strongly recommend it. The closer the sims are to their jobs, the less time they'll spend on the road.

Make sure all of your schools have the best rating, by having more capacity than students. The private schools tend to be a problem here, since you can't increase their capacity when they become flooded. If that doesn't work, try the Organs for profit mission. It's a hospital helicopter mission. You need 50+ tiles of industry to do it, as well as the big hospital. You'll be able to build the university as a reward.

If the airport is far away, you have nothing to worry about. Just check the desirability map view. It will show just how little that airport crime affects your city. Chances are it won't even reach past the airport. You can simply cover up the bad effects by planting trees on the airport. You may not only undo the negative effects, you could actually make the land around the airport popular by doing it. Try not to put too many trees on the runway, it's bad for traffic. Don't waste money on policing the place. Police stations are only worth it if their coverage radius is filled. They won't work better if they only cover a few buildings. For a general tip on police, don't bother with more than double coverage, that'll be more than you need. Make sure you have enough jail room, and if needed place a jail on the city outskirts. You can drastically reduce crime with a good education. Education is expensive, and should be approached slowly. As your sims get smarter, they will become richer and give more money, so you can add more schools and such. It'll take 10's of years before you will find a major difference.

Does it really matter? Crime at the airport isn't going to change anything in the city. You can't squash all the crime in the city anyways, even with a police station on every corner. The airports must be such a haven for crime, because of all the criminals trying to skip town.

Ah, there's nothing quite like giving your sims a complete refund of their garbage. What, you didn't read the fine print? All of your personal garbage can be returned to you at any time the mayor feels it's necessary. All 80+ years of it. Very cool, and has great potential to be absolutely evil.

HAM-TARO!!

Bites people, and runs for hours on treadmills.

It looks like you have a few places where mass transit is hard to come by, so your sims use cars. Maybe if you get those areas going, you can get rid of even more red congestion. I also wonder, do you have enough room for commerce? It looks like it's already full, and you have so much more to grow. But the city looks great so far. Keep the pics coming!

Whenever you destroy anything, expecially civic buildings, you make your sims angry. It'll take a while for them to calm down. Certain ordinances will also make the people angry. I don't know how many do, but the youth-curfew act is a big one. Have you tried placing mayor statues and mayor houses? They have an incredible positive effect on your city. Also to consider, are the court house, and maybe jail cells, if your jails are overcrowded.