AmpsterMan

A limit level district option would be nice. We already have high rise ban, why not go the full route

On the other hand, I've built a 75k city so far using ONLY the interstates so your mileage may vary

Cargo stations ( ship and train ) are not a necessity per se; they only help in getting trucks and vans off of your highways and main throughfares. You still need vans and trucks to deliver the final products so you will always encounter the "last mile" problem. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_mile

My solution to the "death spiral" issue is the same one i had for brandished. Build more houses than you need. Eventually after a few death cycles births/deaths will stabilize and you'll get a constant stream of both instead of spikes and dips.

Aye, at first i got scared too! The best way i have noticed is by enacting policies on a district by district basis. My CBDs have a lot of policies activated because I want high density. However, because i provide so many services, i also have the higher tax rate policy. My poorer neighbourhoods, consequently, usually get tax breaks (though few services). About the only policy i have city wide is the Water policy. This is because i was draining my river very rapidly and my coast line was expanding.

My attempt at building the magic roundabout. It works very well, though it is very big. Other junctions I am proud of

Unfortunately, of you want to keep your industrial Demand in check you either have to build more industry (potentially leading to over saturation of your export roads/trains/harbors) or build offices. Though i would think that Commercial should theoretically drop your industry demand (assuming Industry demand is no more than jobs demand) Commercial offers too little employment per unit area and you would have way too many unpurchased goods (unless you get lots of tourists which doesn't seem too be viable atm)

Remember that oil and ore eventually run out and you will be importing many raw materials. Having a train depot or harbor nearby will help make sure your highway connection isn't too congested. My personal rule of thumb is to look at how many goods i am exporting. If i have an oversupply of goods exports, it means i am not consuming what i have produced. With major Industrial demand, this is my cue zone more Offices. The import/export data view is key to msximizing your effectiveness when it comes to tax revenues from businesses.

I love this CJ and am amazed by how precisely you curve the roads. I've been getting better, but i still struggle with the road placement tools. What tricks do you use?How do you set up your reference points? Either way this is beautiful!

So i read on Simnation that Elementary and High Schools convert kids into students whom then increase the education level of a building. That i get. However, from there, it says that college and universities only accept kids that have already been converted into students. Is this true? I have never seen anything like this to suggest this is the case,but if it's indeed the case, it would mean having high schools mixed with college/university to not be a bad mix. Can anyone here back that claim?

I don't think Roundabouts are effective one may think in game; cars always go to whatever lane they need to turn. Moist of the time, you'll see them stack the right hand side even if they have make a left turn because once they get out of the roundabout, the building they need it's on the right. They need to lead into either one way streets or two+ lane roads for them have any practical effects on traffic.

Aye, aye. I just thought since i read that from Sim Nation that there was an actual use for the primary schools. It's a shame. Those buildings only have a use at the beginning of the game or when limiting yourself a dirty town. Otherwise, out is strictly better go Community College or University

Thanks. That's what I thought. My understanding is that "kids" and "students" are essentially the same agent. The only way to increase education is to have students return from some sort of schooling (doesn't matter the kind) and "shoppers" returning from a library.

I would like to give this region a shot; AmpsterBoy Origin ID. I'll make a school of engineering and will try for a net export of workers. With a uni my industry will be high tech though so I'll try not to build any and just import excess freight if needed.

I think it's one of those decisions made for marketing purposes. There is no way you can have a million people in a 4 km^2 area in real life or otherwise. I think this was done because Maxis anticipated the issue people were going to have with the smaller cities and so tried to inflate the number. I for my part prefer the actual population numbers as they are more representative of what is actually going on. So what if my city only has 4km^2 of land to work with and I only have 10k sims. Simnation has extremely strict zoning laws and sims have 1/60 the time to do things we do in real life xD In fact, I imagine my sims live the same lives they would under a "The Sims" life

I know this isn't a direct answer to your request; I find that generally balanced cities to be best. However, one CAN have somewhat specialized cities. Oil and Ore cities should generally be focused on low wealth residencies and industry because the buildings require a LOT of those sims and a lot of freight. (smelting facility requires 1400 low wealth and 360 freight, which is one HD IND which also requires similar numbers) Electronics cities generally do well with Med/Low wealth with College Education. Again, electronocs requires lotsa freight, so it should be I focused. Gambling, and Culture generally do well with Commercial and high wealth. Consewuently, should be focused on both Education does well with all three types and high wealth Industrial. These are subjective analese so please take with a pinch (handful) of salt

MD and HD residential and comercial are as wide as they are deep. Furthermore , tree rows have the same size as either. Therefire, a good measuing tool is to build treerows and use them for measuring. Furthermore, if you build them along your main thoroughfares, you can have medium wealth buildings rise while have nice avenues lined by roads. I often do this for my low density residencies as well. I'll provide pics if you want them.

If drones work for residential the same way freight works for commercial, the density of the building doesn't matter, only its tile size. To elaborate, a Med and High Dense building use the freight numbers if they are both the same tile size (4x4) I tend to agree with you; SimCity doesn't do smaller cities well. Also, just noticed this may be the same town you were refering to in your other thread in General discussion xD

Heh, it seems I answered the post after yours rather tham discusd the topic . I don't understand much how CoT works because I don't have it; if there is a low supply of industry in the region though, you may have an opportunity for profit by exporting freight. High Tech, High Density Industry gives the greatest tax per tile AND employed sim. If you can somehow build an University, or Dr. Vu's tower, then you can really rake in the cash. In your position, I would have a relatively wealthy city ($$ and $$$ making up the majority) with a Basic Uni all working at the numerous high wealth plants in your city. I'd have a relatively small CBD with enough comercial to get by. If this sounds good to you, you might even be able to to build a nuclear plant and provide power to the region. I think the key to running a city such as this is to focus on tax revenue. Since you won't really have a specialization, you have to keep your social programs low. $$ & $$$ actually require less upkeep than $ because they are less cars on streets, less fires, less crime, etc. meaning you can downsize you police stations, hospitals, etc. This might go against your original intent though. Still, if it's a region you want to play in, I'm sure the other mayors would appreciate it

I would like to add: it seems like the population numbers on the bottom are also scaled exponentially. That is, your last 600 sims represent many more people than your first 600. That said, even using the agent numbers you end up with pretty normal levels of people. I live close to one of the densest population centers south of New York City. Building a city with 20k agents per sq kilometer is a mean feat. I always found the million pop cities disingenuous and immersion breaking.

The "happiness" system works on a scale. That is, everytime a comercial site doesn't have freight for the day, it loses happiness. However, everytime it makes a sale, you gain some. If you are able to sell enough to offset the freight mallus, then eventually (albeit, slowly) they will grow. A good way to do this is to make sure you don't build much commercial; make sure you always have dark blue in the demand bars. Next, get tourists. Build a cheap landmark or expo/stadium; have adequate transit and you should be fine. Further, lower com taxes. This helps offset the lacking freight mallus. Finally, the gambling specialty has good synergy with a comercial focused city. The profits can more than help offset the costs of lowering taxes.

So after a hiatus of sometime, i started playing again. I have been continuing with my old habit of medium res with low ind and com. Reasoning is that ind produces freight depending on the size of the lot it occupies (10 freight per square) Half way, i decided i would allow for my low comerce to go medium and high density. I prepared to have a giant demand for industry; it never came. I soon realized that higher density comerce, unintuitively, doesn't use more resources per square. It seems it is modeled similarly to Industry. It seems I might have to change my strategy for a bit. Instead of low density comercial spam, perhaps a small, med/high density CBD will help eliminate my shoppers' woes. Is this so? Am i just seeing things? Please share your thoughts. Thanks for being an awesome community

I find it best to combine any rail transit with buses. That is, have rails take sims from the residential areas to the industrial/comercial areas, and then have them take buses from there. This helps in many ways, first rails are faster than other forms of transport, and in the case of comercial zones, the added bus traffic increases land value. Also, for eye candy effect, tend to use Trains for industrial areas, and subways for Dense Comercial areas. As for monorails, I tend to have those be Intercity travel. P.S. If you don't have them, NAM and roadtop mass transit help A LOT with subway and bus systems.