Grimhood

That city is awesome! I want to make something like that.

Demolish some residential and replace with industrial or commercial until you have all of your people employed.

You install the Origin client and download with that.

My fire trucks often go to more than just one fire at the same time, so i don't think it's 100% bugged. But I do think it would be better if only one truck was dispatched if only a single building is on fire.

Or an old water tower?

I think high rent occurs when you have low income on med or high wealth land value (or med wealth on high wealth land). There's no way to have too little housing since housing and population are basically the same thing. You should be able to fix this by reducing land value or bulldozing the offended property so it rebuilds with the correct wealth level.

Does anyone have real numbers for the number of jobs and goods that commercial buildings provide? And does a shopper need 1 good from a shop to become satisfied?

That doesn't sound right. I think shops should satisfy more shoppers than the number of workers they require. In any case, parks and libraries also satisfy shopping demand without creating many jobs.

That answers my question, thanks.

Even with a depot, I can have little or no industrial, tons of unfilled freight orders, and everyone's happy. I know that industrial is happy when they have a depot to ship to, but nobody seems to care about unfilled freight orders. That's why I ask. If commercial doesn't need freight, then who does? Where are these orders coming from? The demand doesn't seem to really exist.

TuPhat, I like your layouts. I made an oil city last night using your design and its working very well. Traffic is quite light even at 60k population so far. Question - could you connect your residential and industrial roads on the north side of the map? It seems that would aid in getting people to work in the refineries and oil rigs without affecting your trade connection on the south end.. I was thinking of trying this on my city, just wondering if that is something you tried already yourself.

Do freight orders have an effect on anything else in the game besides the yellow bar? If filling orders doesn't increase happiness for anything or anyone then it can safely be ignored, right?

This thread has changed the way I play the game. I started a new city last night, and played for about 5 hours, mostly on Cheetah speed, just to get up to about 60k population. That's a much slower pace than I am used to, but my city is solid, I would not be afraid to let it run unattended for a while. My approach was as follows: - I limited myself to about 1/2 of the available grid at first. I found that as I grew and added services, recycling, etc, I grew into the rest of the space. - Start with a small amount of residential (10-15 buildings), a windmill, water tower, and sewer pipe. 12% taxes to start with, I lower it as I go along. - After they move in, check unemployment and unsatisfied shopper numbers. Slowly add 2-3 commercial buildings at a time until things get in balance. - At this point I want to add a school, but I need $400/hr surplus revenue first. I don't have the tax income yet, so I slowly add more residential. - Check the unemployment and shopper statistics again and add more commercial to balance. - Once I have enough income, I plop the school and wait until the next day to check the numbers again. All the while looking at the population map, traffic flow, etc, and tweaking as necessary. - Decide on the next service I want to add, and SLOWLY increase population as necessary to get the tax revenue to pay for it. Balance shopping and employment with commercial zoning. You have to go slow, because it takes time for the zoning to have an impact on your statistics. - When I reach a point where shoppers are satisfied, but I still have unemployed workers, I add one industrial building and see where things stand after it is up and running. This adds jobs without creating unsold goods. - When I've spread out enough, I start increasing density rather than adding more zones. I increase one building at a time! First, dezone the street, then upgrade it. The buildings won't increase in density if they have no zoning. Then I add back the zoning for two buildings, which will combine into a higher density one. Check the numbers and adjust. I try to increase commercial buildings first, then residential, so that the shopping and jobs are available before my population increases. If anyone else plays this way, I'd like to hear about your experiences. If you don't, give it a try!

Clean water comes out of the sewage treatment facility unless it overflows. Nearby industry can also create ground pollution. In either case you can selectively bulldoze basic pumps and replace them with filtration pumps as needed. Filtration pumps are bigger and need more space than basic ones, so leave some extra room around your pumping station if you think you will need them.

Try to put water pumps on both sides of your sewage plant. He sewage plant adds water in a circle around itself, so if you have pumps on both sides you can grab more of the water. Try importing sewage from your other cities, I assume that will make more water.