SongwindGlobal

I've been pondering this, and I'm having a little trouble coming up with a reason to build EL Rail instead of regular rail. The only advantage I can see is that the stations are slightly smaller. What am I missing?

I'm enjoying this CJ a lot. The use of sepia-tones really enhances the historical flavor.

I'd love a Mega Mall like the Mall of America here in the TWin Cities, complete with bus stop and GLR station functionality.

Date: 9/10/2005 8:34:33 PM Author: theprofessor172 I checked Prima's website a while back, they never made one. There's just one for SC4 original.quote> They did a version of the SC4 guide that covered changes from Deluxe/Rush Hour. I have a copy. I found it useful, largely for concrete #s WRT yimby/nimby effects, pollution, etc.

Good point! I always forget the puzzle pieces.

Great looking region. Your roads seem pretty wiggly. Do you find that it causes development or traffic problems?

Hello, all. I'm fairly new here, and fairly new to Sim City 4. I have been playing Sim games since the original Sim City, but only recently got back into them. With this journal, I hope to accomplish a few things. First, I want to keep a record of my city building to go back over later. Second, I hope I get some feedback from the members of the boards about how I could be doing a better job, or perhaps some techniques that I've missed. The Setup: I'm playing the game without cheats, on Medium difficulty. I'm starting with a custom region generated by Landscape Designer. I have a sketchy order of events I plan to follow, rather than simply trying to beat the game. I am using the NAM and a few additional lots but no other mods. Update Index: Update 1: This Post Update 2: Outreach Year 12 Lakedale Region As you can see, it's a fairly big region, but I don't intend to develop the entire thing. My plan is to have one really large city (if I can manage it!) and several suburbs and rural towns. Brayton's Hill: Farmers Come to Lakedale The first settlers in the region of Lakedale were farmers. The first one, a man named Josiah Brayton, found a pleasant rolling hill surrounded by a fertile valley floor and started the very first farm. Here it is after two years of growth. The residents of Brayton's Hill live on the hill proper, mostly around the middle of the slope. They want to put something really impressive on top of the hill, but so far the town council can't decide what. Some say there's no room for such foolishness and that normal shops and townfolk should live there. The city fathers were a bit overenthusiastic when they set aside land for the business district, but they hope that one day it will see full use. As you can see, some of the younger Sims were dissatisfied with the farmer's life, and convinced the council to allow limited industrial growth, but the powerful farmers' lobby is working to get that repealed, and the industry shipped off to neighboring Outreach. Outreach: Industrialism in a Can (Year 2) The original industrial zone of Brayton's Hill was actually larger than it is now, but some of those zones have been rolled back. In response, three of the most wealthy industrial groups moved outside the incorporated city limits and set up their own, purpose-built housing project: Outreach. Sims from Brayton's Hill who are dissatisfied with farm life, and immigrants looking for a fresh start at a decent wage have flooded in. As you can see, the much more powerful influence that Dao Chemicals and other manufacturers have over the Outreach mayor has allowed them to create a fair-sized industrial park in just two years: The residential and business areas started off as an obviously manufactured grid set up by the corps, but in the furor of building, some local character is starting to come out. The real sense of community began when the residents' civic center started to form around the local grade school and clinic. A wealthy benefactor has offered Outreach a private school, but so far there just isn't enough demand. More to come as Outreach and Brayton's Hill find a point of balance between their cultures.

Update 2, Year 12: Outreach Sprawls In the decade since the last post, things have really changed in the sleepy town of Outreach. First, the Brayton's Hill Farmers' Cooperative was able to put enough pressure to run all the dirty industry out of town and into Outreach. Second, the city planner was able to finish his residential area project, which we now affectionately call Company Town. I can't say it's a bad set of housing, but it's pretty dull. The company apartment experiment isn't really pretty, but it caught on pretty fast: You can see we have a real hospital now, but that came later. First off, the mayor took his political life into his own hands and stood up to the refinery collective. He had the backing of the Sims For Fairness in Labor local 202, and that group was enough to keep him in office even when the company managers started hinting that it was time to vote for someone else. First, he added some more amenities, like the hospital you saw before. He brought in better schools, more police, and a lot of recreation areas. A community favorite is Terrace Park: His boldest move was raising taxes on dirty industries, and passing a Clean Air ordinance. Not many of the old industries have moved out, but a lot more higher paying manufacturing jobs have come in. Once the corporate stranglehold was off the city government, private developers wasted no time coming in and setting up some more imaginative subdivisions, like Faireview, and the hilltop neighborhood of Ten Candles (shown here at sunset). Of course, it wasn't all bad for the company men. A lot of the wealthiest plant managers and executives live in Eastshore. You can see that the cul-de-sac area of the original layout is very popular with the ritzy set. All that money coming in attracted services for the wealthy, too. Here's our very first high wealth business, a realtor. We got our first four lane, too. Mostly it's to accomodate commuters from Eastshore, but it makes it easy to get to the new business district as well.

Hey, chocolate! Turn about is fair play, so I decided to come take a look at your region. Very nice stuff. I'm curious why you decided to set it up with the patchwork look of the trees? Or did you just leave blank the places that would have buildings?

chocolatemax: Ooops! I didn't even think about it. jacquilina: thanks for the feedback. Kwakelaar: Yeah, I don't know what happened, there. I'll probably go in with the normal godmode tools and make it a little nicer looking this weekend. Wrecks: I have some plans on ways to get away from that. The grid nature of the game is a little confounding sometimes. I myself live on a pleasant winding street, but there's no real way to model that effectively in SC4. I think. I have an idea to try, once my posh neighborhood by the lakeside has ground broken. amal: Thanks for the encouragement. Finding a balance between pretty and functional is always a challenge.

Wow! Great work.

Great stuff! I really like the background fluff you've come up with for your different city centers. I especially like the mountains with the zoned areas sprinkled among them.

I like your map. Is it from a geographical survey, or did you make it by hand? Also, are you using really large city areas, or is the map pretty small? Good luck!