LGMizzell

Honestly, this should be FREE, especially for those of us that bought the game at full price in the first few days of release...

There's a level of complexity I was hoping for that's missing. I really wanted to be able to get down and be able to tweak stuff on a really small level. I'm a bit disappointed because of that. The perfect game would be a (100% bug free) version of this combined with Cities in Motion perhaps. The bigger problem I have though - once you've sorta got the formula down, other than road layout, everything sorta looks the same. I'm really wishing for more diversity. You can recognize the composer of a piece of music you're not familiar with, the artist of a great painting, or the singer of a good song because of their "signature". That's really missing here. I would really love a little more personality - something that lets my cities be more distinctive "me", instead or "meh"...

To see wht I thought of 2.0, I set up a new sandbox city as the only city in a region. Once I got it where I wanted, I had: Fairly sparse layout. Approx 13,000 population good balance of everything, no unemployment, very few open jobs ... a happy place that's running fine without further tweaks. two solar plants for power (a nice 'green' oriented city) Good education and tech levels Very little industry, and all of it in a tiny corner of the map where the wind carries all pollution immediately of the map and out to sea. Boat load of parks and trees. Two small police departments, zero crime Two clinics - no sick people or injuries 1. Overall, traffic seems better than before. 2. Garbage trucks are still clumping up. I maxed the trucks at the dump, and they followed each other around like a blue caterpillar for the first half of their run. They slowly split up a bit, but even after that, why do I need 5 trucks on one street that has little trash to pick up when there's NO trucks on other streets. This still needs some adjustments in my opinion. 3. School bus behaviour is better now and aren't clumping up as much. I would have expected the garbage trucks to do the same though, huh? I let everything run a bit, and then hit the pollution problem... Problem started immediately after I got the first "air pollution levels are rising" alert. Germs (air pollution) seemed to almost spawn towards the CENTRE of the map, rather than blowing in from a particular direction, though I can see small amounts enter the map with the wind. I watched it for awhile, looking for a cycle of some sort. Didn't see one. Worse at specific times of the day/night? Nope Tied to rush hour - caused by traffic? Doesn't seem so. It's random All my industry is DOWNWIND of the problem. Once it started, it just got worse and never abated. Clinics filled up, sickness everywhere, deaths stacked up. Planting trees like a demon isn't doing anything and not stopping it. My findings correspond with that of others. This is definitely a bug, and once it starts, you can't stop it and the city becomes unplayable, unless you like sick and dead sims. Conclusion: 2.0 needs 2.1 to fix some problems still there and perhaps a few new ones introduced. When I have time, I'll try to load some previous cities that had problems and see what happens. Will report in on those as well...

That's someone parachuting over the Playa at Burning Man, correct?? Attending Burning Man one year is definitely on my bucket list. I need to hurry up though. I'm getting old....

My method is to move very slow as well, and try to keep the balance of workers/jobs as close as possible. I've also had very good luck with NOT zoning a full block of just residential/commercial, but mixing them instead. So, a long rectangle New York styled block will be mostly residential, but will have a couple clicks worth of commercial mixed in. Mixing this way seems to help with traffic problems somewhat as well, since agents aren't driving distances from one area to another to get to a job. I only start running into problems when things start upgrading, as low density to medium or high vastly changes the population per square ("per square" - is that the appropriate term?) and starts throwing your balances off. Slow rezoning adjustments are done to compensate as things progress. It gets more difficult as the population grows, because the numbers get, uhhh, interesting, past a certain population point as has been previously discussed here. These numbers seem to work a little differently after 2.0 by the way. If I take my time, I usually have no problems getting a city exactly where I want it ... At first, I was into the GROW GROW GROW MAKE IT BIG thing, but I'm finding it more interesting/challenging at this point to try and create a place I'd actually want to live myself, which usually involves much less density and fewer towering claustrophobia-inducing tall buildings. Of course, to do this, you've pretty much got to ignore the zoning guy, who's trying to force you to cram as much as you can on the map...

Also observed just now ... I don't know the exact amount of time, but I left the house to walk the dogs. When I returned, the game was in pause. I've confirmed this with a few others as well. I've had several successful cities that were stable enough that you could just go to lunch and let them run. Not now. It "auto-pauses" after a certain amount of time....

In addition to the other stuff I've previously discussed ... 1. Recreated the pollution issue in a residential only city 2. Ran into a render bug I've not seen before a couple of times where I could see a grid extending into infinity off the edge of the map 3. I won't call this one a problem yet, but I've set up train and bus stations in the residential city, plus train and bus stations in a neighbouring almost industry only city. So far, almost nobody in the residential city is commuting over to the industrial city to fill jobs. I've spent limited time letting this one run just yet, so it may not have had proper time to work out the region interactions just yet. We'll see after letting it run a bit more...

Revisiting the pollution issue once again... I thought it might be related to having an incinerator at the dump. I can recreate the problem at will without an incinerator. That's not it either. However, Maxis is aware of the problem and a fix is already in progress. New stuff I just had a building go abandoned. Reason? "Couldn't get to school". But, it was NEXT DOOR to the school! Uhhh .....

Tried a 2nd city just to be sure about the pollution issue. I was able to recreate it again with no issues. Once you get *just* enough industry to get that first "air pollution levels are rising" alert, it basically spawns from off map somewhere with zero relation to anything you've got in your city, and it does not go away, regardless of what you try. Once you've got it, there's nothing you can do but watch the decline. There's no way to keep up with the sickness, deaths, and "too many germs" abandoned buildings.

Garbage is fine ... I set up the dump and maxed the trucks before I zoned anything at all. 100% of garbage being collected. Sewage is all being processed properly as well with no backups anywhere. Water plant has a filtration pumps. It's clean there too. In theory, this city should have almost zero pollution anywhere except maybe a small part of the sw corner where there's only 3 or 4 factories total - all downwind from everything else. It's got to be a bug. I see no other logical reason for it.

As to as new stuff - give me the ability to define one way turns please! Plus, if/once basic stuff is fixed, I'd love some of the complexity put BACK that was taken out because they said was making the game less fun. I think most players are smarter than they give us credit for and for one, I WANT to be able to fine tweak things...

Actually, and this shouldn't even be possible ... You can grid out a city, zone the whole thing residential, provide it with ZERO services ... no water, no electricity, no healthcare, no garbage, no sewage, no police, no fire, nothing sharing with another city in the region, in fact, this can be the ONLY city in the region .. provide your residents with NOTHING but streets and space to build ... and the trucks will show up. And they will build. And they will expand, and density will grow .. Sit there with your bulldozer to take care of fire rubble abandoned buildings and what not, but they will KEEP building regardless. (note construction in the foreground) Request for services? Ignore it all. Homeless? We don't care. Education? Why? Nobody has a job anyway! Sewage? How can there be sewage if there's no water! Parks? Those cost money, you've got to be kidding... We're talking ultimate slum lord here! Less than 30 minutes after setting up the grid ... I've got over 400,000 residents. If I had sat there longer, it would have kept growing. Like I said, this shouldn't be possible to do, but it is... Tax rate? 1%.

Two region mates and I *carefully* coordinated everything so each city in a region would only have to bear the expense of one or two upgrades. But, the benefits of some of them did NOT carry over from one region city to the next , and duplicates had to be added anyway in a different city just to get something working correctly. Anybody else experience this?

Is there a way to trigger/start specific disasters on purpose in sandbox mode?

Found it. Thanks. Was thinking of editing some video of the lizard doing what it does for a piece of music I'm considering ... but after watching it work its way through a dense map, it's kinda cheezy close up. Wasn't what I was hoping for... Stuff catches on fire BEFORE the lizard even breaths fire on it. Odd... Sims just stand around, even when engulfed in flames. They are absolutely indifferent to it. Nobody runs. It's like the lizard isn't even there. Car's don't panic and try to get away either, although some catch on fire and are flung into the air. Drivers have the same indifferent attitude as pedestrians. With everything else that causes traffic jams in the game, you think this would be a major cause with sims trying to flee, but the sims and the lizard seem to exist in two different, but simultaneous planes and ignore each other. Hmmm ......

Well, SOMEBODY had to try it ... Isn't perfect, but for my first effort in experimental road drawing ... was an interesting exercise. I'll zone it just for fun later and see what happens...

But does not the overall region population, which in theory is the combined population of all cities, affect this? Low region population - less available outside shoppers/workers/tourist to visit your city? For example, if I have a lot of unfilled low wealth jobs, the jobs could be filled by unemployed workers from other cities in the region who would commute in. But if my region partners did a better job balancing their cities than I did, and all their low weatth workers are gainfully employed, my jobs will go unfilled. Tourist don't work the same way?

I've had this happen as well and had a thought or two... Some of this depends on the other cities in your region. (... and this is assuming regional play is functioning while you're playing. Sometimes it doesn't) If you've got a ferry, and none of the other cities do, then there's no passengers from the other cities. Same with train, bus terminal, airport. Your transportation might be perfect, but if they've got crappy transportation there's nobody coming to visit except by car. Conditions in the other cities can affect the number of tourist. If conditions are bad, nobody has money, they're not as likely to travel (or am I giving Glassbox too much credit?). If the other cities are traffic jammed, can folks even GET to transportation? Likewise, they might be stuck out on the highway just trying to get in/out. I've also had a theory that I can't prove, but I've wondered if "been there, done that" applies to scenic attractions? Will a tourist only come to see a specific sight a certain number of times before they're bored with it and not coming back? If so, region population counts a lot too. You need enough overall population that NEW people keep coming. Anybody have thoughts on this point?

Hello Kitty update. Despite the negative tax income, recycling is making a nice profit, so everybody's tax rate has been kept at 9%. Traffic has worked out OK so far too ... only yellow on the roads... Found a bug - the eyes and nose were unconnected circles. My garbage collection suddenly stops working. Huh? All the trucks are STUCK going round and round in one of the eyes and the nose!! How did they get there? No idea? If I put it a dirt road for them to escape, then delete the dirt road, they'd be stuck again later! Thusly the dirt roads connecting the nose and left eye so they don't get stuck. Weird..

I'm running two cities in a region with a cooperative region partner running two others. Up until today, trade has been mostly OK and the main source of income for my two cities. Today however ... City #1 Two recycle centers: recyclable material storage maxed. No processing happening Two processor plants: processor storage FULL Three trade depos: mostly FULL and nothing happening Couple of trucks moving about between facilities, but since everything is mostly full, dunno what they're doing. Nothing leaving the city or coming in... profits went from approx 2 mil a day to zero traffic out on highway - moving pretty good traffic inside city between highway and my "trade zone" - moving pretty good checking trade in the now RED specialization menu "ADD MORE TRUCKS" it says. I can't. I've added all I can. What more do they want? Looking around - not a single truck in sight in any direction as far as the eye can see out on the highway. Patiently waiting a couple of full game days - still no trucks in sight. Not a one. They're not coming Mary. Sorry. We're gonna have to do without that paycheck this week. City #2 Pretty much the same thing - except NOTHING moving between the recycling centers and the trade depo, which is only 1/4th full at the moment. No traffic in the way, inside or outside the city either. No trucks coming. None. Bob and his family are going to have to do without checks too. Both cities are losing their collective financial butts now as their profit centres have ceased functioning. Mary and Bob's wife (didn't catch her name) aren't too happy. Stuff I've tried: Shut down everything, waited a game day or two, turned them back on. Nope. Same thing - in a different order. Nope. Shut down just truck garages, waited, and started them back up one at a time. Slowly. Nope. Bulldozed truck garages, waited, and rebuilt them one at a time. Slowly. Nope. Bulldozed EVERYTHING and rebuilt from scratch. Nope. Where are the trucks? Have I been indicted for violating some sort of international trade law and now I'm off limits? Bob, are you sure you have enough money to keep rebuilding these things? Maybe you should just go home and watch some TV until the trade guys up at city hall straightens it all out. Admit it, you might be a big recycle trading guy, but you've never missed an episode of Glee. Let's visit my region partner's cities and see what's going on. Bet they're not watching Glee!! Partner City #1 Holy crap, look at his taxes ... almost $30,000 loss an hour Holy crap, it doesn't matter, he's MAKING almost 1 million AN HOUR from processors and TVs. Wait - there a steady stream of trucks coming in and out of his city and he's making a killing ... Bob wonders if my region partner has bribed all the truck drivers... Thoughts: 1. Is there a FINITE number of global market trucks per region? 2. If so, is it possible for one city to totally dominate all the trucks once they become overly successful? If it makes anybody feel better - he can barely play that city. It's crashing on him at around the ten minute mark every time he tries to play ... and maybe his crashes have borked something in the region and that's my problem too. Dunno. Yea, I get long winded. Sorry. At least I'm amusing. Thoughts?

Same here suddenly ... Lizard takes out university, hospital, two recycle facilities, three trade depos, police precinct... I'm not even finished rebuilding that ... meteor shower ... takes out highschool, university again, sets fire to tons of other stuff ... Working on getting that fixed ... tornado tears half of it up again ... Everything back and running (sorta) ... i log off, come back less than an hour later, the above repeats itself ... edit - had enough of that - at least I moved the university to another location. The lizard COULD be a little more random... Thank goodness I've got a ton of funds sitting there (for now...) What's up with that?

After letting things run for awhile and just watching ... something seems amiss.. My two recycle centers now are at 100% strorage of recyclable materials, but don't seem to be converting them. What little has been converted, is just sitting there. Trade Centre next door has almost zero plastic/metal/alloy in storage, none is being delivered, and though I've got export on for everything, there's not a single truck showing up to take anything. It just sits there. So the whole system, which I was planning on profits for financing other things (it's working great in a city elsewhere...), is just sitting there costing a fortune every hour and producing nothing in return .. Also, my recycling collection trucks are finally moving to shared cities in the region, but I'm not sure what they're doing either. 10 trucks will go to a city overflowing with recycle bins (over 28,000 of them). Out of the ten trucks, ONE will fill up and return full, the others just clog up traffic for a bit, and then return empty! ... and leave over 15,000 bins of recyclables untouched. I've shut all the facilities off for several game days, then turned them back on. No change. I've also bulldozed all of them a time or two and rebuilt. Same result. Luckily I've got the funding to do that, but it's getting expensive... Meanwhile my idyllic seaside residents that weren't planning on having to pay any taxes are getting nervous about the city budget...

I have this massive influx of traffic at weird hours that seems odd and might be related ... why would somebody drive from a neighbouring city at 3:30 am to "purchase a doughnut" when the city they came from has pretty balanced R/C and probably plenty or worthy doughnut shops? No idea... Probably the same reason my school buses are out running around at 1:30 am, but my garbage trucks REFUSE to operate after a certain hour and go hide in their garages whether they've got all the garbage or not ... It's a mystery!

Trying an experiment in a new city I've just started. Region is highly populated and educated Region has more total recyclables that can currently be handled by the existing cities, even with multiple recycle centres, processing plants, blah, blah... New city in progress has very low population ... almost nothing there yet. No industrial zoned. Very little R/C ... a one store town! I plopped a recycle center and maxed the collection trucks. Went to region menu and shared every last one of them with another city I know to have more than enough recyclables. Watched a number of collection cycles to see what would happen - every last truck went to the few houses I have, NONE of them left my city to go to the other. Less than one hour (game time) and they're all back in the garages while uncollected recyclables in the city I shared my trucks with continue to pile up. Ideas?

Having a major crime problem!! My police expense is KILLING me! It's the highest priced column in my expense I've got! I have a precinct, almost maxed with a tower and two maxed stations. No gambling halls or casinos. city population only around 75,000. The majority of my students are enrolled. Almost zero unemployeed. Was earning good money from taxes - which I've never placed above 9%. But, I've also got: Jails full!! Cop cars snarling traffic EVERYWHERE like crazy! And did I mention the expense?? Fuuuuuu!!!! Citizens leaving because of too much crime! Businesses closing because of too much crime! Losing taxes like crazy trying to get enough police to stop what's happening! So what's going on? Checking my city stats: I've got over 900 criminals a day!! Checking the crime statistic panel, I've only got approx FIFTY local criminals!! My police force can certainly handle those. In fact, I've got WAY more police coverage than I should need. That means I've got approx 850 REGIONAL criminals!! In fact, there's enough of them coming into my city that they're helping snarl traffic at the city entrance! Where are they coming from? Checking the first 5 or 6 coming in - all from one city in the region! I visit the other city to check their stats. They should be overrun with crime too, right?? NOO! They have hardly any criminals at all!! Less than 50 and they're keeping it under control easily with a small police station placed dead center so it has coverage on the entire city? (It's a pretty efficient circle layout). What's going on??? What can be done locally/regionally to stop this before the city in question goes bankrupt due to crime? Has anybody else seen this happen? Suggestions?