sgdleeuw

Lessatle Town (6k population) , with a view from Beacon Hill:

A request i made a while back regarding the 'mini-landmarks' we got in update 9 (the lama statue, garden gnome, maxisman, giant ball of yarn.). I like the idea of having these road-side attractions with less tourism then a regular landmark, but havent used them because the current ones are to cartoonish for my taste.. would love to see them replaced with something like a lighthouse, an old castle, a botanical garden and/or maybe a museum?

Really? I've never succeeded in making students from connected cities commute to my university town. Sure, from the 3000 students at the university a few come from outside the city (or so the info-panel says) , but i've never gotten that number above 50 students: community college or not.

The train stations don't work very well, but it isn't necessarily so that the long train-waiting times are the cause for your sleek casino not running profit. Gambling towns depend on a whole lot more then just the train. The lower casino's (gambling house + sci-fi) run on primarily on low & medium wealth, which travel by mass-transportation, incl. trains, busses and trams. The higher casino's, for example the sleek casino, also needs high wealth gamblers, which do NOT travel by train or any other form of mass-transportation (besides cruise-ships, airplanes or air-ships) Also you'll need more then just a casino to attract these medium & high wealth gamblers. Try and place some landmarks with high attraction rate near the sleek casino, and also make sure that traffic around there or the city entrance isn't jammed: especially high-wealth travel primarily by car and if they're stuck in traffic, they're not gambling.

Why would there be no need for trade between cities? And why do suggest that online play would have some alternative? Trade works (or in this case does not work) the same for both online and offline play: From a city i can only export or import to the global market, not to/form other cities in the same region. The only difference is that in offline the import/export prices are fixed.

Maybe because trade between cities is currently not in the game? Online nor Offline?

I agree, i also cant think of a reason to why this isn't in the game. Especially because Maxis so clearly promoted the whole online, regional , cooperate with other cities - part of the game. Trading a cities local resources with other cities is the first and only reason why one would consider working together in a region. Maybe it has something to do with the whole syncing process between cities: commuting workers and students also doesn't seem to work.. Perhaps a future update or MOD could adress the issue? The latter of which i already posted in the Modding forum: I have no idea if it is do-able, but who knows..

Just saw a question in the general discussion forum about trading between cities which, as you all know, is mysteriously missing in the core game: This did however trigger a question: would it be possible to MOD this? It may sound a little advanced (or downright impossible) to do, but consider the following two options: A. Apply the game logic from the Great Works building phase to a city: You set a trade port to local, and in the region view of the GW you set the required material to 'delivery'-mode. If applied to a city this could work in same way (e.g. City A is producing plastic, City B is producing processors which a.o. need plastics. From City A, go to region view, select City B and set plastic to deliver'. B. Extending the 'Gift' functionality with an automatic repeat function. Currently the gift function is for a single transaction, but why not extend it with a 'repeat' function? (e.g. from City A, i select City B and in the 'Gift' tab i select the material (plastics), the quantity and i can select the interval: single transaction, hourly, monthly (in game time). If this could be done both for materials and cash, we could also, in return for the plastics, set City B to pay an x amount to city A using the same interval). I realize this would require both some hardcore modding and also UI adjustments, but it would make a great fix for the game: some actual Region Simulation and cooperation between cities!

Short answer : No, trading between cities is not in the game. Long answer : Currently trading exist only between a single city and the 'global market'. Although it would be the most logical way of cities cooperating together in a region (City A producing plastic, City B producing alloy and City C with a processor factory (requiring both plastic and alloy) there is currently no automated form of trading between cities. You can however 'gift' resources to a neighbouring city, very much the same way you can 'gift' cash to another city. But that would require doing it manually every once in a while. I dont know about the drones, haven't played CoT much yet, but i guess the same "rules" apply..

I know that modelling new buildings for Simcity 2013 is a time-intensive activity, but what about re-skinning current building models? The reason im asking is that i've recently started a tourist/casino city with lots of commercial space for Hotels. The medium/high wealth hotels look quite nice and realistic, but the low wealth-high density hotels are just UGLY... The main cause is that all of them have the same brown-brickstone walls. I would love some variation on this (other colour pallets, plaster- or concrete walls, etc.). I remember that in one of the official game updates they kind of did the same thing with the RCI buildings (no new models, but colour and height variations on existing models). If anyone has more information on re-skinning/re-colouring building models, and how to do this: i would love to hear from you!