Ghetzi

Another way to do it is to build a small tree row ($$), click to edit it, and then build another row on the end of the first one. Use the rectangle/box road tool and build a road that fits just on the other side of the double tree rows. Works great to allow HD buildings while eliminating wasted space.

I'm with you on the auto-pause. I wonder if Maxis implementing it has something to do with leaderboard rankings? Build a self sufficient electronic specialization city that produces $8-12M and let it run on its own for a few days, you know? Not a hard thing to do and the auto-pause certainly prevents it now.

Great tip. This is a major key to rapid development. If you grow your city and keep it in the green with 7% on R$, once you reach your population goal (whatever that number is) you can hike them up to 12% and run a very profitable city without significant population loss. I highlighted the tax comment, but this assumes you've met all of the other points that 12thDoctor brought up. You've got a lot of hours in the game, so just in case I want to pass aong that I have not seen any recent issues with HD R$ development if you're wondering about server/techinical issues.

Wish I was here to answer the question, but I'm just as confused about it as you. I'd really like to know exactly how this is calculated as well, because the numbers don't add up for me, either. At least you know you're not walking alone...

The problem you are having with the Great Works is a known sync issue that Maxis acknowledged and say they are working on. It shows up in different forms, take a look around on the net and you'll see the various issues. No time table for a fix, but they are aware. I feel your pain - I've lost a few decent regions to this issue. Instead of deleting, hang on to them for when the bug is patched. It may resolve issues without having to start all over. In the meantime, I'm designing and developing cities and regions with certain GW projects in mind. I just won't begin the construction process on them until the patch is applied.

This is what I've seen, as well. Perhaps not an extra 500 out of thin air, but helps push over the top for the upgrade.

I've run a couple of these types of cities and pull down decent profits by importing raw materials (alloy, plastic) and exporting the processors and computers produced. Dedicated trade ports handle importing and exporting separately. Build a sufficient number of processor factories and you will be able to adequately supply your computer factories enough to keep production rolling and still turn a profit on the processors as well. Balance it right and on the leaderboards you can reasonably expect ~10M in trade and ~25M in electronics with little effort, usually good enough for a rank in the top 10. Depending on how you run the rest of the city, expect to see up to $100k/hr in the red while you do it, so don't worry about that part of the budget. I guess what I'm saying is instead of bringing in processors, I'd have kept producing those to keep your computer factories stocked and sell the excess. I've never counted how many of each, just build slow and plop new factories as demand dictates. Have fun with it - these cities are a great way to fund an entire region.

There are regional performance issues that will hurt you if you are not aware of them. I suggest looking around here, EA Answers, and even reddit (if you can filter out the negativity.) I have spent a lot of time working on trading and electronic specialization, see how far up the leaderboards I can get. Stay away from tourism and Great Works for the moment. They slow the system or don't work as intended yet. I am running a couple of different regions privately to work on technique in anticipation of future updates that will address the issues that prevent ideal development. If you keep the limitations in mind the game can be entertaining, as odd as that sounds.

One million? I'm seeing serious lag at 50k. Core i7, 12GB, nVidia GTX680 and it's only an issue with tourists, nothing else. Am I missing something?

The game is not what I expected but I'm finding the challenge of figuring out ways to work around the agent issues (amongst other things) is keeping me interested in the game. Ironic? Sure, but works for me. I agree that the game has an awful lot of issues with it to really be considered release worthy. For a product that was designed based on a vision dependant on cooperative play, it's an obvious concern that they haven't worked out the regional functionality yet. It's just not enough of a tragedy to shake my fist in the air and express outrage, you know? To be fair I never ran into the connectivity and roll back issues that so many others have. Must be frustrating. And I can certainly understand why so many people who have played previous SimCity titles over the years are disappointed with both the technical issues and the direction the intended gameplay has taken. I've bought some real clunkers in the past so I feel their pain. Eventually I'll get bored and hopefully by then the updates will have fixed the problems. As far as DLC goes, I know two seperate teams are working on different components. A DLC team and a bug fix/update team. So I understand why DLC is being released even if there are still issues to be handled with the original product. But I won't purchase any until I see some stability, if ever. Good news? By that time perhaps some of it will be bundled together with some new features a la Rush Hour. One can only hope.

I'd advise against it. If the GW isn't showing up at another city, the game will still allow you to initiate a build. If you do so, it will take the million but the project will remain in pending endlessly. I learned that the hard way. Built an Arcology in one city, the project completed but didn't show up in some of the other cities in the region so I initiated another Arcology from a different city. That was about a week and half ago and that city has still not synced up with the Arcology and I don't suspect it ever will. That issue may resolve once a fix is implemented, but I've seen other bugs get fixed by EA at the expense of bulldozing and replopping. If that's the case here, then it's possible the GW will remain in pending even after the fix is distributed. Why risk it?

It's a known bug that the GW projects are not syncing properly. In some cases they are not showing up in every city in the region at all, regardless of how long you wait. Very hit and miss, which is an obvious problem considering the time and investment it takes to get one going. Recently one of the dev's acknowledge the problem on the EA Answers board and said they were working on a solution, but there's no timeline on when that might happen.