Nielsen

I think I formulated this in an inappropriate way. I meant to say is that the numbers don't match on the final road piece in each city. In one city, the number is more than 3000 car commuters, in another city the number is roughly 800. Where did the remaining 2.200 commuters go? It seems that they simply disappear. Am I misunderstanding what these numbers tell? That's what I believe too, so why don't they take the jobs in their own city? As indicated in my previous post, there nothing in the other city that their own city can't fulfill, yet they commute much longer. They go to the other city for jobs in dirty industry but their own neigbourhood is bordered by similar and plenty dirty industries. There's no manufacturing or high tech industry in neither of these two cities. While that could explain it, this is a pretty straightforward scenario that doesn't make sense.

Thanks for your inputs so far, here's an update. I decided to start another region without doing any changes to my plugins. In this new region the commute time problems were seemingly non-existent. I know that this is the case because I later observed the unfortunate effect of uninstalling NAM, i.e. abandonment due to the commute time instantly became apparent. This made me wonder why my previous region did not seem to recognize NAM? Remember that I made no changes to my plugins prior to starting the new region, which manages to avoid abandonment due to commute time. Can the problem be related to the config.bitmat that contains the map info of the old region? As mentioned earlier, I did make manual changes to this file in Microsoft Paint after originally having created it from within the game. Back to this new region, I still bump into a couple of things that puzzle me. In this region I have two relatively small cities, again with an uneven amount of car commuters between city A and city B. In city A, the number of car commuters going into city B is +800, from city B to city A the number of car commuters is roughly +3000. I compare the numbers by highlighting the very last road pieces, which singlehandedly connect both cities. Why such a big difference? The number of pedestrian commuters passing this connecting road is roughly similar in both cities. Again, the commuters do travel longer than they need to. Why do they commute to distant jobs in a neighbouring city when there hardly are any commuters to similar jobs in their own city - jobs that obviously are within closer reach? I figured that it was a pathfinding issue so I decided to uninstall and reinstall NAM but the commute numbers still don't match between the two cities, and commuters still go farther than they need to.

That's what I might just do. I have removed the mods that I do not normally use but it has not solved the issues. I wonder if some other mod could have left a permanent mark on NAM, even after being removed from my plugins. I'm not really a genious when it comes to these game files so every possible clue is welcome. First, I'll reinstall NAM and maybe even then entire game.

It means that it degraded to a lower wealth level. It will look clean again if it reaches its previous wealth.

Sim City 4 Deluxe.

As mentioned several times, I do have the NAM but something tells me my install is not working properly anymore. Another weird issue I just came across. I have one city that has about 3.500 car commuters going into the neigbouring city. In the other city, only 780 commuters from the first mentioned city actually enter. Where are the remaing 2.700 car commuters? Furthermore, the 780 car commuters that I do see entering go to work in an industrial area that is farther away than similar industrial zones in their own city. In other words, they commute a distance , which is greater than necessary, and, for no good reason, add to congestion in the other city. Is this another indication that my NAM traffic simulator installation is having a problem? I wouldn't call this a case of proper pathfinding.

About subways, this city is in its early stages and only has 30.000 inhabitants. I can try adding subways but only to see if it changes anything. It would seem like an exaggerated solution for such a small city. I have also noticed that the commuters from the neighbouring city take an irrational route to their jobs. Specifically, they enter a highway that goes through their shortest route, thereby taking a big detour through two other tiles before reaching their destination. I can tell that this is the case because the two other tiles have no commuters to the city in question. In other words, I actually have two issues that NAM is supposed to address. I decided to install the NAM 30 hotfix but to no avail and, as I'm not used to these issues, I do not think the problems are directly related to NAM version 30. However, I wonder if the NAM simulator could be affected by something else? There are no other mods in my plugins folder that have anything to do with traffic simulation. I have had other questionable issues with this region. At first, stage 3 farms did not develop naturally in accordance with agricultural threshold, and now these commute time problems. The only unreasonable thing I have done to this region is that I initially created a default map from within the game. Then I built a small region, consisting of 6 interconnected cities, in which I tested some different mods and gameplay elements. Eventually, I deleted all the cities and later I edited the same region map in Microsoft Paint, i.e. overwriting the default map layout with blue colour in order to get large tiles on the entire map. After this, I started new cities on the same map, again for testing purposes, and that's the one I currently struggle with. Is it possible that these radical actions might have corrupted this region, thus affecting how the game works? I'm clutching at straws but I can try the subways. --- Alright, I placed a few subway stations and it actually helped. Why is that the case? As mentioned in the OP, I tried placing some bus stops, but they seemed to take my sims out of town. I'm baffled that these high density sims don't just walk or drive, not to mention take the bus, when the jobs are within close reach. I have never had this issue, even in cities with more than 100.000 sims. --- Merged double post, please use the edit-button in the future! -timmie

So far I still terraform rivers in-game. It's a little tricky to make the transition between tiles look natural but I think I have managed to master it.

I'd also prefer if games were thoroughly tested before being shipped, but bugs are still inevitable. The problem is how the current gaming industry is using patches to outsource beta testing to the consumers instead of a last resort. Meanwhile,I have no problem with DLC if it makes a game better. I don't think it has something to do with age, I'm also in my twenties.

The only connection with SPAM would be the fact that SPAM allows all residential wealth levels (R$, R$$ and R$$$) to work in I-Ag zones. So if you have a large areas of farmland, this will increase the demand for all residential types because there are plenty of jobs available. Yes, this in one of the reasons I decided not to use SPAM. I kind of appreciate that I have to focus on civic services in order to bring in R$$ and R$$$. Also, I actually think that Maxis farms, despite the low variety, look consistently better than SPAM farms.

A bug free game is impossible and I don't see the logic in paying more for less. All I want is that the developers start to focus more on the actual product rather than the marketing of it. Then I'd happily buy it at a standard price.

Sometimes I experience something similar but it usually works if I click the same park again in the menu.

I finally managed to get Pedriana Plants and in order to identify the possible cause, I tested it twice. I increased the presence of dirty and manufacturing industries. A few more industrial zones and dirty was raised from 1.200 - to +2000 jobs and manufacutring from 500 to +1000 jobs. Both times I could get stage three farms to appear after doing this. So, is agriculture stages tied to the stages of dirty and manufacturing industries? It would seem so.

Is there info available about specific zone sizes that can develop on low, medium, and high density residential, commercial, and industrial areas? For example, it's possible to create a zone that is 6x6 low density commercial if you want to increase the likelyhood that a city gets a mall with a big parking lot, or 4x2 if you'd rather see a flea market. I ask because I just had a rather nooby experience, i.e. I accidentally zoned 4x4 high density residental and I got this huge and dirty looking project that can house more that 5.000 sims. I was rather suprised by this so I wonder how many other #X# zones that I have not discovered. In short, is there some kind of list available, which tells how the different zone sizes will develop certain buildings if the demand and wealth level is being met? If I'm not mistaken, if a single zone is too big for any of the in-game lots, nothing will ever develop and that's wasted time and space. By the way, I only use Maxis lots.

I tried SPAM but I couldn't get used to the feel of it. As indicated above, I have huge farm spaces, some of which reach the limit of how much agriculture that can be zoned with a single mouse drag + shift. Could my region be affected by traces of mods that later have been uninstalled?

I didn't even assume that it is copyright material. Most of the custom buildings I have checked out did not have signatures attached to their in-game stats so I was rather suprised to see it.

I will definitely try these tools out when the LEX exchange is back online. I assume that this great guide, thanks for that, is universal when it comes to altering anything relating to custom and default Maxis buildings? I ask because I was using these custom buildings on which the creator had left his signature and some random stats, which Maxis buildings don't show when clicking them with the in-game query tool. Stuff like that I would like to remove for consistency.

I have had good experience with this mod: It removes the side effect of traffic and there is no severe air pollution in my cities. I have a couple of congested roads that create a little air pollution but it's nothing that affects desirability. After all, my farms desirability factors indicate that pollution is low. I have seen the side effect that traffic has on farms, hence I installed the above mentioned mod, which does work with all farm stages 1-3. For some reason, I just can't get Pedriana Farms in this region.

As mentioned, demand is through the roof. Desirability is great and all green in both cities. Low pollution, low garbage, low crime, and short freight trips. Also, I use a mod which removes the negative effect that traffic has on farms, stage 3 farms usually do appear when I use this mod. Zone sizes are all relatively big. Actually, I press the shift key in order to remove roads that the game wants to put in between my zones. That's what I usually do and I have seen stage 3 farms on zones that were far smaller than those I currently struggle with. About mods, I removed all the mods that I did not use when I last managed to grow stage three farms. I have a standard combination of plugins that I always return to when my game starts to act weird with new mods. The only thing that I have done differently this time is that I have a standard ground highway which goes through both of the two city tiles. I just don't see why that should make a difference as long as it doesn't affect desirability. I have had cities that have had worse conditions for argriculture that did manage to grow stage 3 farms. This issue puzzles me. I should have reached stage 3 when I receive the farmers market and state fair, right? I don't use any of the two mods you refer to.

Instead of creating a new thread I'd rather bump this. My question is somewhat similar. Can someone please tell me why my new region doesn't grow any stage 3 farms? According to the quoted post, I should be able to do so. I'm referring to those relatively large black silos, which I don't remember the name of. I have two cities, both with farmer's market and state fair. Agricultural demand in the region is +5000. It's usually not a problem for my farming communities to grow stage 3 farms, and I have removed all mods that did not belong in my usual and well tested setup. Am I overlooking something? I don't use SPAM or CAM.

Could be related to SimCity. I'd recommed Will Wright for the job.

Go to the Jobs & Pop graph. There you can toggle every RCI wealth class / type.

EA is brave to offer Sim City 4 Deluxe for free to SimCity owners. It may very well convert new players who suddenly no longer feel constrained by DRM, small tiles and you know the rest. The news will eventually spread and potential customers might buy the old game instead of the new one, thus harming turnover and maybe even future DLC plans. I'd have no problem with that outcome whatsoever.

Don't worry about your small city without high density. It's time to create a neighbouring city on a bigger tile. The new city will still thrive on the things you did in the first city so you are not really starting over. The cities you create contribute to the bigger picture that is region play. Edit: And as stressed above, be careful with adding CAM to an existing city.

Thanks for the replies, really helpful! I have been trying to narrow down my search for custom buildings and so far I'm interested in using the creations by cobb32118, ks_JPN, mathatter106 and DuskTrooper. It seems that they offer a nice selection of fictional commercial and residential buildings. Maybe some of you have experience with their content? I'm not really interested in adding too much custom content, otherwise I'll just be overwhelmed. In fact, there are Maxis buildings that I still haven't seen and I'm quite happy with the selection offered by SC4 Deluxe. I'd just like to spice it up with more variety and taller eye catchers for the region satellite view. If everything fails, I'll just try the tools you guys refer to.