EricN

I've been building cities in Simcity 4 for awhile now. One thing I can't ever seem to get quite right is the commercial zoning. The residential zones always seem to build upwards before commercial zones do.quote> Simplest solution: Don't zone medium or high density residential unless you really want the high-rise residential look. The way the game plays out, residential high-rises will just appear well before commercial high-rises of similar size. That's just how the stage-limits and demand-generation interact within the game. If you don't like the look of early residential high-rises, just zone miles and miles of low-density residential. Alternate solution: Take advantage of the fact that a single building will not build across the border of different-density zoning. If you zone residential like this: HMHMHMHMHMHM HMHMHMHMHMHM MHMHMHMHMHMH MHMHMHMHMHMH You'll end up with a nice-looking block of 1x2 rowhouses...and a much more realistic appearance than 30-story condo buildings next to a Walmart.

Date: 2/24/2006 12:48:03 PM Author: Keiran Halcyon Well, even CO$$$ is supposed to employ a certain percentage of R$ sims. Does anyone know, is that percentage per building, or aggregate? If it's aggregate, that could explain why the rich are refusing to take those jobs - they're 'reserved' for R$ sims.quote> Damn...never thought of that, but that could explain alot. I'm out of town this weekend, but here is an experiment to try: Build one nice long road in a new city in a new region. On one end of the road, plop 50 City Colleges. On the other end of the road, zone a bunch of residential. Set R$ and R$$ taxes to 20%. Power everything with windmills (provides no jobs), and give the residents water. Use parks to keep desirability up. Take out loans when the budget runs dry. Set minimal education funding ($10/month/college) Now we have a city with only R$$$ and we know exactly how many jobs are provided (and that number is static). Let it run for a while. City Colleges provide 220 jobs (80 $, 120 $$, 20 $$$). If your theory is correct, then the colleges closest to the residential zone will have close to 220 workers, while the colleges at the end of the road will have none. If each college has only 20 workers then the theory is incorrect. It's a quick and dirty test, and it doesn't account for the possibility of regular C+I jobs being treated differently from civic jobs, but validating this hypothesis could rewrite the book on dealing with the SC4 commute engine. I'll run this experiment and post the results if nobody does it before I get back.

For raising a mayor rating, landmarks provide the best effect per dollar. Big Ben provides a 7 point citywide rating boost for $150/month, and the 1x1 footprint lets you plop them anywhere. A few of these will keep your rating fixed at 100% regardless of any lacking services.

From an experiment :

Date: 2/17/2006 3:38:41 PM Author: Facelessman From what I've seen, police are very important, in larger cities - crime can have very negative effects on desirabilty. quote> Yes, lack of police coverage can have harsh effects on desirability. However, if you take all that money you are spending on police coverage and spend that on well-placed parks instead, you can completely offset the effects of crime and still have money left over. That's why police are just eye-candy. Parks are far more efficient at raising desirability on a per-dollar basis.

Date: 2/20/2006 7:43:34 PM Author: Bones1 I've seen that chart posted before (maybe it was by you?). Where did you get it from? I've been unable to find any exemplars that break down jobs like that. Is it built into the game code? Was that chart from a strategy guide, and is it still accurate? Thanks.quote> Simcity 4 chart I believe this is from the Prima guide, but I don't actually know.

R-(C+I) will not tell you the whole picture, as not all sims need a job. You need to factor in your Health Quotient. With a higher HQ, you have more non-working sims.

Date: 2/17/2006 1:00:05 PM Author: RiverCocytus I've at times observed a cycle-- involving creation of demand. When R$ demand is high, fulfilling it often drives up R$$ demand, when fulfilled may drive up R$$$ demand, which in turn when fulfilled leaves you with R$ demand again. The whole cycle isn't so simple, though-- since the demands are effected by way more than just the presence of other residents. But if you are also allowing for the development of all other things in each step, the economic growth can feed the cycle.quote> The R$, R$$, and R$$$ have no direct effect on each other. What you are seeing is indirect effects of R$ pop increasing your C+I demand, which sprouts C+I buildings that increase R$$ and R$$$ demand. I definitely recommend building a region with no Commercial or Industrial jobs at all...just civic buildings for jobs. Playing around without the interference of fluctuating demand from C+I job variance will give you a clearer picture on what is going on. For example, build a city that provides exactly 50,000 R$$$ jobs and evict R$ and R$$ with 20% taxes. You'll discover that all the hoopla about R$$$ needing fire/police/education/heath/cars/etc is a complete myth. It may be true in real life, but not in SC4. R$$$ have exactly 3 needs: R$$$ demand, R$$$ suitable jobs, and mediocre residential desirability. Contrary to real life, this is what SC4 services actually do: Fire: -Stops the occasional house from burning down and increases desirability. No non-aethetic benefit in Residential zones, because bulldozing rubble is cheap and parks provide more desirability per dollar Police: -Increases desirability. No non-aethetic benefit in Residential zones, because parks are a cheaper boost. Health: -Increases the ratio of Nonworking Residents to Working Residents and increases desirability. Good financial benefits; non-working residents are cheaper to support, and you can zone more space for residents instead of needing that land for jobs. Education: -Acts as a multiplier on HT and Co demand, which if fulfilled, will increase R$$$ demand. Also increases desirability. Barely pays for itself in the long run, but is necessary if you want to quickly transition your industry. In order of importance: Plazas, Hospitals, Parks, Schools. Fire coverage is worthwhile for powerplants, landmarks, and expensive rewards. Police are just expensive eye candy.

Date: 2/17/2006 9:03:30 AM However, what you say about the tax base is true. This mod will prevent R$$$ from growing all over your city, and that will tend to decrease your tax base (because rich sims pay more taxes).quote> I think you are missing something here...you don't end up with less R$$$ sims with this mod, you just cram them all into a few buildings that will be larger than what you had before. Just because you see less R$$$ surface area doesn't mean they went away. Having all your major taxpayers artificially crammed into a few big buildings is why this mod is unstable for large cities. Losing one building becomes a huge deal.

After testing this mod, I found that it can have a nasty destabilizing effect on large cities. By restricting R$$$ options for zones, they end up in fewer and larger buildings. When much your tax base is represented by an artificially small number of buildings, your budget can take some violent swings as your city grows, your computer bogs down, and the commute engine starts missing some calculation deadlines. If your computer hiccups when calculating the handful of R$$$ skyscrapers, your income can be halved. I don't recommend this mod if you are trying to grow large cities.

Peorth, You can see the desirability directly...just query the building. If a building or a workplace that could hold 100 people only has 78 residents/workers, the desirability is 78%. Dataviews: Increased Detail Mod v1.0 This mod somewhat helps with the minimap issue. The game stores desirability as a number from 0-127, but by default anything from 100-127 is bright green on the map. The mod shifts the color scale so you can tell the difference between 90% and 100% desirability, at the cost of no longer seeing a difference at the low end of the scale.

Hold down various combinations of Control, Alt, and Shift when you are laying zones. You'll quickly figure out how to get the zoning patterns you want with out having to each lot individually.

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Date: 2/14/2006 2:45:41 PM Author:madkingchris I've been playing SC4 for awhile now, but have just begun to successfully build a large city without losing money. I have a population of 50,000 on a large city layout. It is divided into quarters - 1/4th Industrial, 1/4 Commercial, and 1/4 Residentials in opposite corners. I'm noticing homes are not being built in the outer spaces of my Residential zones, even though the demand is high.quote> If your city is still growing, don't worry about undeveloped zones. The sims are just building bigger buildings instead of many more small buildings. 1) At 50,000K population, you have gotten past some important stage limits, so your city is really starting to grow up instead of out. 2) Residents will go for the more desirable areas first, and the fringes of a large zone are frequently less desirable for many reasons. 3) Consider that one medium condo building is equivalent to several dozen single family lots, and a Project Hope or whatnot is equal to several hundred undeveloped lots. 4) If you think the undeveloped lots are a serious eyesore, then raise the desirability...plant some trees, and possibly build some parks. Sims will grab them in no time if you have positive demand. As to your original question about Mass Transit, busses are nice to have from day one, but everything is mostly eye-candy, even trains. However, you can get some really good looking cities if you build first and then try to squeeze in a complex intermodal MT system. Just don't bankrupt your cities on the eyecandy. Hospitals and Parks are far more crucial to the economic livelyhood of your city.

With just one city in a region, 100K residents in 10 years is a reasonable target. Using neighbors just gives you the 20% bonus from extrapolation and boosts your effective credit limit, but it's not necessary.