Facelessman

SC4 isn't particularly difficult, but the learning curve is steep. It's very easy to fail when you're starting out, but once you get the hang of it, it's easy to build whatever you want. It's also very customizable (just look at all the stuff on the STEX) and will probably last you a lot longer than SC:Societies. If you do get it, and from what you said I think you would prefer SC 4, just know that it might take a while to figure things out. But there are plenty of tutorials and stuff here in the Omnibus section, so read those if you have trouble, or ask for help here. There are always lots of people willing to help. Societies is a very different game from other Sim City games. I won't say it's bad because I haven't played it and I am a fan of the developer, Tilted Mill. But it's not really Sim City.

If you want lots of commercial jobs, you're going to need industry. Manufacturing and high tech industries provide good jobs while boosting commercial office demand. Keep your sims educated and you dirty industry demand will stay low. The Industry quadrupler mod isn't necessary, but I find it's useful since industry tends to take up a whole lot of space, unlike residential and commercial which have the tendency to build up rather than out after your population gets high enough. If you want something less drastic I think there is the option to only double Industry jobs, maybe it's a different mod? I'm not 100% sure on that. The percentages may change over time, but you will definitely need both industry and commerce, as they help each other grow. Having I-HT is good for CO demand, which provides lots of $$$ jobs. And I-HT provides mostly R$$ jobs, unlike other industries and commerce which are mostly $ jobs.

A few years ago, a mod was created to allow exactly this. (you'll have to copy/paste the URL, links haven't been working) Get ready for a lot of scrolling, though. 450+ buildings are added to your landmark menu. Also, and this is very important: Residential buildings that are plopped will not generate traffic, meaning they will not go to work. The way to get around this is to first zone residential, let it grow, then plop over it. The new building will use the commute routes for the old one. Also, it is possible that it might not work. I'm about 95% it will work on SC4 without Rush Hour, but I could be wrong. One more thing: nobody's gonna flame you. Lots of people plop buildings...I mostly zone but I'll plop a few building here and there. Around here, nobody will flame you for how you choose to enjoy the game.

If you open the region folders, you'll see a config.bmp file. Here's how it works. It is X by Y pixels, each pixel representing the size of a small city tile. Each square is colored red, green, or blue. Red is small, green is medium, blue is large. The color of each tile must have a maximum value (255) of red, green or blue. Using other values for the other colors is fine. (255,0,0 works just as well as 255,200,75) Also, you have to make the city tiles the right size, like a blue (large) city tile is 4x4, a green (medium) is 2x2, and red (small) is just one pixel. Here is an example of a working config file. This is scaled up so it's easy to see, but the config.bmp is 16x16. So...make a config.bmp to your liking, then create a folder in the regions folder. Name your region, and save the config file to the folder. You should be able to open the new region, with the new config. (if I'm not forgetting anything) Well, if you have any questions, please ask. I'm not really good at explaining things, so if you're confused by my post, just ask! I'll try again.

Hah... yes... Yes, it does. I'm always forgetting the keyboard shortcuts that I don't use often.

Can you not zone the zones, or do they not grow? If you can't zone them: Holding down shift, control, and/or alt let's you zone differently. Shift turns off those annoying streets it wants to plop down, alt changes the direction the zone is facing, and control makes it all one continuous zone - no splits or lines or anything. These keys can be used in any combination of one, two, or three, and they make zoning so much easier. If they don't grow: You haven't built up enough demand. As your regions and cities grow, bigger buildings and larger lots grow more easily. Though in small cities, some lots, like the drive-in movies should pop up quickly on any 4x4 commerce zones.

On this page: https://www.sc4devotion.com/SC4D_Maxis_files_BAT.html There is a file called "Sim City 4 Buildings Update 14.4 MB", second download on the page. That should fix the problem. Hmm...links still aren't working, you'll have to copy and paste the link.

Sure you can. When you click on a blank city square, somewhere there is an option to Import a city. Then all you do is find the city you want, and it will be moved to the new region. Doing this will cause the city to disappear from its original region. However, if you want to just copy it, the easiest way to do this would be to go into the regions folder, copy the "Maxisland" folder, then rename it something like "Maxisland2." Then you can delete Maxisland2 after you've imported the city.

The amount of customers doesn't have anything to do with demand, actually. As combot said, it's all about the traffic. Having high traffic will increase desirability for commercial zones. That's about it, really. Don't worry too much about the customers, it's really not that important in this game.

Lots of mods? Heh, not really. I have over 300MB of plugins, and that's nothing compared to some people around here. Try this RCI Query Mod: https://www.simtropolis.com/stex/details.cfm?id=4243&v=1 It won't actually solve your problems, but it will let you see regional and city demand caps, and if you have met that demand (or are coming close to it) yet. I know you said you haven't hit the cap, but you don't seem to have a mod that shows the numbers so....maybe it will help? Other than that...make sure to give buildings time to find jobs. The faster you run the simulation, the more likely it is that buildings will be unable to find a job within the time limit. Also, did you try building more commerce and industry to see if that would boost Residential demand? I also find that building the neighbors for a while, or even just letting them run for a few months, can boost demand in the center city. I see you've been quite active here, so you may have heard all of this before...but I hope I can be of some help. Although, despite playing since 2004 or so, I've never actually had a region over about 800k residents. Yeah, I'm a slow builder, and easily distracted. So I don't really have a lot of experience with big cities. I have one region I spent many hours on...the population is less than 30,000.

You may have noticed an architectural style tool in the game. By default, the styles rotate every 5 years. The orange roofs are the "European-Modern" style buildings. So if you want those, you can set your city to build only that style. Otherwise, they should grow during years 16-20, 36-40, 56-60, etc. Of course, they need a place to grow, so make sure you have some zones for them to grow on during those years.

You'll have to use taxes or lots of pollution and NIMBY to keep R$$ sims away. Unfortunately, the game is way to eager to move out your R$ sims, I always have a hard time balancing my regions.

The sims need somewhere to go. If they can't find a place to work (or another connection, but be careful to avoid infinite loops-going from city A to B to C back to A), they won't show up at all in the destination city.

Is your entire region full, or just one city? Build neighbors if possible. Also, you can re-zone low/medium density zones to higher densities. This will not destroy any buildings on the zones. (as long as it's the same type: residential, commercial, industry) But neighbor cities are very important to the growth of all cities in the region.

1x1 lots will develop after you have a few thousand residents. (or maybe it's a few hundred, I don't remember exaclty when they'll start to grow) Until then, stick with 1x2 or bigger.