GrandpaKim

Hmm, guess I opened a small can of worms here. To me it is mostly about the way they chose to balance the game. Think of school radius alone. Did they really need to make it that restrictive? I find myself building my cities centred on schools and in fact crowding things together in a most unnatural way so I don't leave those outlying houses out in the cold. Building a school for 3 students because the bus doesn't quite make it to their door is galling. The game/simulation is littered with unnatural inconsistencies like this. After playing for a while now, it does indeed seem that Maxis "programmed themselves into a corner" and ended up doing whatever it takes to make the game playable. Result: poor simulation. Both philosophies are legitimate, though I phrase it differently. Do you play the simulation or do you play the code? I remember many years ago a player of Civilization II telling how he won the game by the 13th century while still in Ancient phase. He was playing the code, beating the programmers at their own game. I have no interest in playing that way but I do know many people play exactly that way. Whatever floats your boat, it's only a game. Nonny, I am not a programmer, but what you say makes perfect sense. Keep in mind though, Maxis chose to make this game, nobody forced them. They made decisions that basically said, "We want the money and don't really care how well it works." The programmers may have wanted to do better but marketing won the battle. (BTW, you can remove Maxis and insert any other software company you like and it will still be true.) <<(bigger can of worms)

Compdude, will this lag last indefinitely or will things go back to normal once the farm is established? Since this region is in the early stages I may have to change my theme and use smaller (hobby) farms. Edit: Looks like the large farms were the problem. After splitting 3 large farms into about 30 standard sized farms, everything is working happily again. Looks like Maxis was never interested in building a simulation, just something that actually worked in some fashion.

After a couple months of better than expected performance from SE4, I have developed a nasty problem. I did several searches without even coming close to a solution. I've started a new region. Building it went well, then I laid out a basic transportation network. My theme is to start small and grow slowly in an agricultural area. The first couple tiles are now 1 year old and I am now on the third city tile. On 4/4/00 the game came to near standstill. I only noticed when I used the query tool on a house and nothing happened. I then noticed the date was stuck. Because I could still move the mouse pointer and the sound (wind) was still going (but nothing else worked) I decided to wait and see. About a minute later the info pop-up appeared and the date had incremented to 4/5. I clicked on the close box and again nothing happened. 3 or 4 minutes pass and the box disappears and date moves to 4/7 and there it froze for 15 blessed minutes! While waiting I decided to hit pause and when I finally got action, it did indeed pause and I was able to use the UI again. I saved to region and there I sit. Naturally the game is unplayable at that speed. What could cause it? The only thing I have done radically different is farm size. I live in western Canada and anything under a quarter section (about half a small city tile) is considered a hobby farm. I wanted real farms. You cannot build these in one go. You need to zone several contiguous pieces to get a really big farm. As for game playability they really suck. They provide a huge number of jobs but pay next to nothing in taxes. Result, one or two farms grow and the rest just sit there empty. Those two farms provide more than enough jobs for a brand new village but the infrastructure costs way more than the taxes received. I'm willing to live with that till the towns grow and if they stay empty, so be it. It occured to me the game code may be having trouble with this arrangement. As I said these farms are several zones joined together. Also, I've allowed only one possible location for the farm house. Have I confused the poor code with my mammoth farms or is it something else? Like I said performance has been nearly perfect for a couple months and I've added nothing new in that time so I seriously doubt the error is in my configuration.

AH! Okay, like building an interchange, it's best to be perfectly flat. As you suggest, the area is not perfectly flat but does have the occasional .1 or .2 metre variation. Thanks rsc204!

I'm trying to put in a Flup underpass going under a an 8S highway. This is a long straight stretch of highway. Very long. It is nothing but a long dragged highway on flat ground, no ramps, no transitions, nothing and there is no development nearby. When I try to place the Flup it refused to go in some of the locations I might want it. It just flips to the next tile, an effect we've all seen. I would say about 40% of the tiles just won't accept it. It is not critical where the Flup goes so I can make this happen, but I do wonder what is going on. SC4 is working perfectly for me after taking advice from these forums. I have very few mods installed. NAM, of course. Bug fix mods, like the Opera House. Two small lots in the Power menu.

Thanks guys, these responses fall pretty much in line with what I have been observing. I have a couple similar questions: 1. Will Dirty industry give way to Manufacturing and will Dirty and Manufacturing give way to High Tech, when the demand is right of course? 2. Lot size is important. What are good sizes and what are they good for? What are some bad sizes? I have a pretty good handle on everything up to 2x3 but after that I'm really not sure. In one city, I think I have zoned myself into a corner because I see a few 1x4 med density commercial. They are empty of course. In the same city I also have some 5x5 med density comm. These have not filled up either. Too often I use real life as a guide. Sometimes it works, but most often not.

I still consider myself to be new at this game. Unlike most players, I play the game very slowly and am gaining a grasp on how the game works and its deficiencies. Since I am often not sure what to do I will set a policy and see what happens. One policy I'm using now is to let abandoned properties try to recover on their own. This has had mixed results and I can see it could be some time before it proves to be either a workable or disastrous policy. Has anyone tried this and with what results? On a related note, properties are often upgrading or at least changing in some manner. In general low density upgrades to a slightly denser low density building etc. A low density building on a medium density zone can upgrade to medium density but some types, notably mansions seem resistant to this. So, quite simply, will a mansion ever upgrade to R§ apartment, or any any apartment for that matter?

Nonny, I handle my downloads much the same way. Though SC4 suffers from overload, it is still easier than MS Flight Simulator. After a long hiatus I have to relearn the program and add ons; the flying part is easy.

Hmm, fascinating subject for which I have no expertise. I am continuing making my own slopes and finding some shortcuts of my own. Creating a smooth slope on a diagonal is still a horror story, though. Frankly I'm amazed at what the modders can do. Keep it up guys. I will never dis you but I will continue to ask questions. As you may realize, I'm new to SC4. Early on, I created my first region. It has now turned into a sandbox. Working with it I found it much too rugged so it's an excellent place to learn about slopes, and everything else about the game for that matter. I thank you all for all your patience.

Definitely happens when building roads and avenues including NWM types. Seems if I spend more time building roads. it is more likely to occur. If I just make a quick change, it dosen't seem to happen but when laying out networks it is a constant annoyance. As a side note, I spent my life in construction and I grew to detest those backup beepers. I often had to wear hearing protection to save my ears. Yes they can be that loud. And yes, I was wearing a safety device to protect me from a safety device. So I have a special hate on for that "construction" sound.

Thanks guys, this is more or less what I surmised from the many threads regarding slopes. It does seem odd though that I can create (painstakingly to be sure) any slope I want using the default tools and create any height hill with the raiser/diggers but a variable slope mod is not possible. Could it not be done the same way the raiser/diggers are done? Have menu selections of various grades? I know nothing about the code. It just seems odd this one-at-a-time slope limitation. Rsc204, you say "each network can have but one set of slope settings" but I'd rather my slope had no connection to any network. Hell, I might want to create a ski hill! Now that I think of it, I do have roads etc at many different slopes so it appears my networks have multiple slope settings. Another thing just occured to me: if you are building down or up a gentle slope how do you prevent the mod from taking over and increasing the grade? For that matter how does it react on flat ground? I think I'm sounding argumentative. That's unintentional. I just want to understand. (BTW rsc204, loved your YouTube tutorials)

Please excuse me for bringing this back to the top, but Ihrob is wrong. I have the endless road work sounds that continue forever and ever despite the road work being a distant memory, but I have no slope mod! I only have NAM. The only way I can silence this is to return to region. When I reopen the city it's fine... till the next time I build a road.

I've been resisting getting a slope mod mostly because I don't think they will do what I want. I shouldn't say that. I've never used a slope mod so I don't really know what they can and can't do. What I am looking for is better described as a grading mod. I want to set a slope to any angle, any direction or multiple directions, and I want to put any transport network on top of it. I do not want to build a bullet train line, destroy it and put in a road. That's just offensive. The way I envision it I would drag a line x tiles wide from some high point to some lower point any distance away and have the mod create a steady slope between the two with appropriate rounding at top and bottom. It might be 12%, it might be 2%, as long as it lays out the way "I" choose. Also I want to be able to turn it on and off at will. I would like it to chop through small hills and fill small valleys while creating a steady slope. It would also be great if it did a nice job on traverses like you would see on a switchback road. I realize there are limitations and some of these ideas may just be a pipe dream but like I said, I don't know. Is there anything out there that might come closing to filling my order?

Thanks Compdude. I didn't know about the 1 tile gap.

I have checked the manuals and the forums with no luck. This kinda surprised me since someone must have run into this problem before. I am running an RHW 8S across a river. Of course I can't do that, I must split it, so it is now set up with 2 MIS and 2 RHW 6S. I can run any one of those bridges across without a problem but if I try a bridge immediately beside it, it won't go, just won't play the game. I can run two bridges across if they are not adjacent. For instance, i can run the southbound 6S and the northbound MIS or vice-versa. No way can I build all 4, not even 3. I saw it mentioned that one-way roads must be run in the correct direction, so I tried that. No soap. Is this normal? Something "everybody" knows (except me)? Or do I have an unusual glitch?