XpirAment

Here's an option... Commercial Services Doubler Wow, thanks for the speedy reply. Downloaded it and about to play.

Here's what I've done for a few years now: Author+County. I have a bookshelf in front of me. And since the cities are square, I treat them like counties. So in my regions I end up with, e.g.: Irving County Rand County Sinclair County Butcher County King County Mumford County Orwell County Camus County Dalby County you get the idea

My number one of all time is the Industry Quadrupler. I'm wondering if anyone knows how to get something that will take care of my CS$ and CS$$ demands in the same manner? An additional mod I like the Sarah Bingham Hospital. It takes up the same amount of space, but can handle 12,000, which saves space in my densest cities. I don't understand the OP's reasoning for using the GodModeInMayorMode mod. Is "CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+god tools" really too much to do?

Suddenly Connecticut! Looks amazing.

You realize this thread is nearly 6 years old, and the newest post by crybkeeper is already 3 years old?

I will not be giving up my SC4. After playing the CXL demo, I only have one thing to say: all the lot sizes are the same. 1x1 for every res, com, and ind. There is little variation. And somehow I doubt Montecristo will be opening up their code for us to make extensions and add ons. The whole MMO bit bothers me the most. It's a chat room for avatars. And every city is its own chat room, so one explorable city per user, in which you may never see anyone. The only way to make the avatars interactive is to pre-arrange a meet up in one virtual city. And the trading resources thing didn't work for me in the demo at all. I'm sorry, but even if MC could improve CXL, there's nothing it has over SC4's region play, and STEX add-on-ability.

Woot! The final codeword was "finale". And I got it.

Also, increase the distance between intersections. Sims are annoyed by travel time. I've seen Sims bypass boulevards in favor of streets just because of the stoplights. By using one-ways you are increasing the intersections as opposed to using two-ways. Not every block has to have a one-way going up and down. Put up-roads every other block and down-roads in between. You'll cut down some of those intersections.

Mr. Beer (who has commented above) has recreated 3 cities I have lived in. Perhaps we know one another? But to recreate your hometown, it helps to live in the midwest, because of all the gridded streets. Boring? Nah, just easier that way. You can't get lost in Omaha. Follow that up with downloading all the bats/lots from your city on the STEX first (if there are any, I don't think Omaha has a bunch...) and play them in a blank city before setting them permanently in your final city. Forget perfection. Omaha has 12 city blocks per mile, while Lincoln has 13. It's odd that I know that, but again, you can't get lost in Omaha. While most American cities have 12 blocks per mile, you should use Google Earth/Maps to find some pattern in your hometown. Last tip: fake it. Most of us aren't from your hometown, so you can get away with some fudging of the zoning, roads, airport/seaport/spaceport, and/or skyline. Remember it's just a game. (Mr. Beer, watch out though, I am from Omaha-Lincoln-CB,IA, so I will do some judging...) - Bryan

There's two routes to go for this: 1) helpful downloads that change the way the game is played, or 2) which BATs and LOTs I like in my cities. I'll just answer under category number one. Pedriana Plants Killer (if you build a lot of farmland), or any farming variety pack. Industry Quadrupler - makes the RCI ratio a little more playable Stage Limits Mod - also makes the game a little more playable Underground Depth Mod - not necessary, but helps cut down your frustration with realism issues Stupid News Ticker Mod - cuts about half of the messages in your news inbox Black Hole Water Works, Power, and Waste Management - clean up your dump of a city... And if you are not going to use iLive Reader to tweak your buildings outputs (like increase hospital capacity from 3000 to 30,000 or increase water treatment plant's treating capacity, etc...) then you should search the STEX for larger capacity items. There are numerous schools, hospitals, fire stations, and what have you that increase some variable. Just surf the STEX, download and unzip, and play SC4. If you don't like something, delete it from your plugins folder and move on.

I have a new computer and a fresh install of SC4, so none of my ten cities are old. But back in the day... Oh man, let me tell you what. I played a region called Barrington Woods for about four years. Every tile in that region was nuked at least once. I topped out at 10 million people (region was medium-ish sized).

Hmm. Where did my post go? I will now reattach the picture that wrangled up this old thread... Just another example of why I love the Pedriana's Plant Killer mod.

Wow, really? Has it been four years since I started playing SC4? I've even been on ST for three years now... Thanks ST for the many years of wonderful downloads.

So many factors come into play (as was intended by the game designers...) when making your cities. We all play differently, and we will all get different results. If I tell you that something works for me, it might not work for you. So much depends on what type of city you are trying to build (realistic, experimental, urban, suburban...). But here goes anyways: 1) I always zone medium or high density, thus saving me the expense later on of having to upgrade my zones. Low density buildings will be the only thing that builds until you add water underneath. So when I want to grow my population, I just add water! I usually do this in developed areas of town (ie, my core areas) when the demand for R or C is high enough. Otherwise, I just keep building low density out from the center. 2) I also play the trick of putting my polluting industry in neighboring cities, which is handy, but creates a lag for low-wealth sims in finding their jobs. So you have to be careful. But mostly what I've come to discover is that every city tile that you play benefits from having R, C, and I all on the same city tile. The greatest improvement from SC3 to SC4 was region play, so explore, experiment, and build away. (I choose my screen name "XpirAment" because I liked experimenting with the game play. Try it.) 3) I only use taxes to encourage or discourage certain types of development (usually taxing ID about 20% to keep it out of my cities). I don't use taxes as a means of making money. In the beginning of a city's life, I leave the percents all at 9, and lower the medium wealth a little, and the high wealth some, as the game goes on, just to encourage more those types of residential and commercial establishments. Seems to do the trick for me. And finally, I don't see any problems with having R$ demand. I like all kinds of demand, because in reality, I'm not a discriminating guy (okay, I do discriminate when it comes to coffee, bad coffee is just bad.) Hey Krontron, welcome to ST and have fun playing SC4. I have for four years now!

I have the complete oppie-canal set (straight, narrow, diagonal, curve, barge, and bridges). I simply grab an empty city and start playing around. If I start running out of money, I exit the city without saving and open it back up and try again. My particular favorite is to place landmarks in the middle of canal-made islands. Using the tunnel sections back to back creates a pedestrian bridge. Wish I was home right now, I'd make you a picture. But basically, experiment a lot and don't save. Then go implement those experiments in your saved cities.

I don't know if I understand your problem enough to help. You can't simply have a residential demand and think that somehow you are owed residents. SC4 will build what it needs to where you zone for it. As far as I can tell you have R$ demand of about 5000, but I don't see anywhere the game could put them. You mansions are taking up a lot of valuable real estate. My best advice is to unzone a few mansions and rezone. If you bulldoze a mansion, you'll leave a 3x4 or 4x4 zone. Not a lot of buildings will spurt up on bigger zones. Break it down into a couple of 2x2's or 2x3's. I can't tell you how to play SC4, but personally, I think the super demand mod sucks. I can't build a decent city with it either. So I deleted it and found game play much easier. If it works for you, that's great, but it didn't work for me.

Remembering that bigger commercial buildings show up on high traffic roads, I build culdesacs with dense residential zones, forcing the car traffic to pass the commercial zones. More or less, I force most of my residents to drive past most of my commercial zones, putting commercial between residential and industrial zones. Otherwise, when building cities, I spend most of my time "XpirAmenting" with figuring congestion, wealth, demand, cost efficiency. I'm currently working on a large city with only one road to each of the 16 small cities adjacent. The large city has over 250000 industrial jobs. Then I'm playing the 16 small cities with different residential and commercial settings just to see what happens. I love it when one city steals 50000 residents from the next! We all play differently, I guess.

Heya sickfoto, Sometimes, regardless of what you design, the game will dump whichever kind of residents it wants into your zones. You have to watch your RCI demands, and you have to watch it per city. One thing I like to do is to play my connected cities off of each other. In pursuit of the iconic tall building downtown, I ban dirty industry and low wealth by raising taxes (15% does it for me). And in other cities I encourage only dirty industry so that adjacent cities will grow high wealth commercial and residential. You also have to know what game play options will create RCI in your favor (you're asking for medium wealth residential, if I understand correctly). Medium wealth residents won't move in next to factories or coal power plants, and usually parks and trees aren't enough to curb pollution. After a while of playing, you'll understand the effects of police stations, schools, parks, hospitals, landmarks, and what not. Just pay attention to what happens after each addition to your city. The mayor's house reward is a good way to get medium wealth, for example. Happy gaming.

HisUnholyness, did you seriously just bump your own post after less than one hour? Like mistershnerples said, pictures would help us all understand your problem. If you are starting a new city, there's no need to build a complete road system. It's nice to lay out parts of the grid, but save the complete system for when you have the money or the demand. Just a tip.

I suppose this is more of a question on game playing than about efficiency. I build small schools and clinics in my small towns, but since they are used to raise the wealth of your sims, it's a matter of if you are trying to design a small affluent town or a small poor town. My farming villages don't get schools or hospitals or police stations, but get fire stations (just because I hate having to deal with fires every ten minutes). My bedroom communities get a little of everything. The small schools and clinics come in handy.

Well, obviously, beauty is in the eye of the be(er)holder. My cities feature a lot of Marrast's embankment set and the banner walk set.

@suomi2005 Your pics remind me of Michael Wolf's photo series, Hong Kong. http://www.photomichaelwolf.com/hongkongarchitecture/

What a strange problem. But the suggestion on this page worked for me, too. I downloaded the Dornelles map and couldn't get ctrl shift alt r to work. I opened the image in Photoshop, grayscaled the image (click yes for discard color information), then saved it. Now the map is working just fine. But unlike FFVImaster, I didn't darken it at all.