soldyne

there are a few topics about this already in the game experiments section. the latest topic on this concept is here . it is possible to build a city where very few people use cars to get around. I have a city of about 250k and only 60 people travel by car. I dont know if it is possible to get 0 car traffic but my design is still rather experimental. if your question is about not having any cars show up on the roads then that is not possible (I dont think) unless you fiddle with your graphics settings somehow. you will need the NAM from the Modding Files section to use pedestrian mall tiles and you will need a really good mass transit setup. visit the link above and do some experimenting. let us know how it turns out.

I continued my experiment with a roadless city and discovered a big snag. if your commercial zones are not somehow connected to a road/street/avenue network then there is no way to get an airport to work. although I was able to build a city with over 200k residence with a roadless design and there was plenty of commercial zones with lots of demand. so, perhaps an airport is not really needed.

you might want to try adding more neighbor connections. If you have 300k comm already then you probably have a lot of connections. the problem though is that comm demand caps can only be raised with neighbor connections. try to use lots of different types of transit to connect with. the demand cap bonus for connections lessens if you use the same type over and over again. example: the first road connection to a neighbor gives you 10k commercial demand cap relief but three road connections only gives a total of 20k relief not 30k. try connecting with subway, rail, road, avenue, highway and anything else you can get to connect. the connection in the neighbor city does not need to go anywhere it just has to be an official connection. there are very few rewards which affect commercial demand caps and plazas only affect desirability not demand. plazas actually increase demand caps on residential not commercial. the only rewards which affect demand caps for com are the convention center, university, and TV studio and then only for Co$$ and Co$$$. Airports also affect demand caps but even a large international airport will only give you relief of about 90k. also realize that airports only affect the city they are in and will have no effect on neighbor cities so you will need an airport in every city square that has a large commercial population. if you want more realistic airports there is an airport pack on the STEX which has an airport tram. the tram acts like a large international airport as far as demand goes but gives the illusion that your sims are using the tram to get to an airport which may be in another city. it is mostly just eye candy but can give the working illusion of having a regional airport. hope that helps. let us know how it all turns out.

a word of caution though, the PEG seasonal trees are very addictive and you will want to cover the entire map with them. the problem though is that they all cost maintenance. I suggest learning to use ILive's Reader and tweak the maintenace costs to 0. to help balance the lot I suggest also lowering the park effect and radius. how about posting some pics of your new cities with the seasonal trees installed!

sorry to steal your thunder adume, but, your topic put a bee in my bonnet (so what if I wear a bonnet, wanna make something of it?), so, I actually ran a test city, and here are the results: this is an overall pic of the city. Population is about 14k. medium density all around (high density industry). the main design is that res needs to be facing a street (at minimum) so I placed a bunch of streets down and used buses to connect the res streets to industry streets. the only way to get to industry work is by bus. then I placed a row of ped mall tiles between the res and com. I also put a subway station within the ped mall tile strip. now the only way to get to comm is by walking or taking the subway: http://img318.imageshack.us/img318/8049/successfulcity5kl.jpg align=baseline> here is a zone data view. I have to admit that I did not know that com could build facing a ped mall tile until I tried it out. so for the most part my comm zones all face a street which does not go anywhere except the very last strip I placed which was actually an accident on my part. now I know!: http://img318.imageshack.us/img318/5286/zoning9ml.jpg align=baseline> here are some pics of traffic data. you can plainly see pedestrians win out with bus and subway neck and neck. I did not use passenger rail or any other kind of transit as this was just a quick experiment done in about 30 minuets. future experiments with this will get more complex and have more planning involved: http://img318.imageshack.us/img318/3184/pedswin5dq.jpg align=baseline> Here is a pic of the car traffic volume. only 12 people in a city of 14k use thier car. I guess they are new to the city! lol: http://img318.imageshack.us/img318/7137/wherearetheygoing8pu.jpg align=baseline> average commute time is about 45 minuets. I am sure I can lessen this using an acutal plan for layout. like I said I just through this together really quick, no tile counting or anything: http://img318.imageshack.us/img318/1229/commute3nu.jpg align=baseline> one of the things I brought up earlier in this thread was the idea that garbage needed road access to pick up trash. I let the trash pile up and then plopped some of simgoobers new trash incinerators (less pollution due to filtering technology) and to my pleasing surprise garbage does NOT need road access: http://img318.imageshack.us/img318/5647/garbagepiles9fq.jpg align=baseline> http://img318.imageshack.us/img318/3374/nogarbage2vj.jpg align=baseline> this is an astounding idea and one which I will explore further. the only problem is that the idea is just not realistic. no real city would ever have the authority to make personal vehicles useless. although one idea I can think of is that the city is taking place in the future when global warming has gone too far and fossil fuels are totaly used up. then a city with walking and mass transit only makes a lot more sense... If more people think this experiment deserves more time then I will post more pics. I will be continuing this experiment for my own sake but I will only post if others are interested in the findings. thanks for the idea adume and I may even try to squeeze this design into my CJ, Newtopia Valley , take a look!

I find it odd that so many of you have trouble with subways. when I build big cities subways are usually used more than car and in fact are usually the number one form of transit used. perhaps the reason for lack of subway use is that your city has too many R$$$? R$$$ mostly prefer to drive. when I build big cities I keep R$$$ taxes high to discourage them from moving in. my big cities have about an 80% R$$ concentration and R$$ love the subway. but, to keep the spirit of the post alive (if I understand the post) I usually plan my big cities with transit and mass transit in mind before I build anything. I usually run all my transit lines first then I zone, then I place civic buildings when needed. I feel that placing the transit first is how a city is really built anyway. just my 2 cents...

wow, nooneatall, that region view is spectacular. thats the kind of region scene I am trying to accomplish in my CJ. metasmurf, your pic is amazing, no, breathtaking! the use of different kinds of trees is what my areas are lacking. I will try to incorporate that in my future designs. sendarrow, I would agree that farms are low income and take a lot of space. but, when building with region play in mind farms can add a lot to a prosperous and growing region. That is one of the things that makes SC4 so great; there is a plethora of possibilities which anyone can make a goal out of. So long as you are enterained then the purpose has been served! Thanks for posting everyone. when I get more farmland in my CJ going I will have more pics to post.

great CJ. I love all the photoshop effects you use and the U-Drive-It tours are quite unique (at least it is the first time I have seen them used anyway). this CJ is very entertaining. keep it going!

I like this concept so far. great pics too. here's my vote: F, I, L, O, Q, P, K, E - residential C, B, A, D, G, H, J, M, N - commercial no industry at all sounds like it might be difficult. good luck! Date: 12/21/2005 7:23:10 PM Author: nealos101 cool so far! Look like you have a problem witrh that plane... its gonna crash! ahh! nooo! Too late... all the passengers died... Nealos101 quote> lol, that must be why that ghost plane is there, it crashed into a tree earlier! lol!

I think a good way to make a republic/democracy would be to involve the readers of CJs. present an issue to the audience about your current CJ and have the readers vote. treat them as though they were residence in your city. its been done before with some success. Infact I am holding a vote right now in my CJ, Newtopia Valley , about which direction the region should be explored in, and consequently which direction the region should develop in. I dont have a lot of votes right now but it is a young CJ and needs more exposure.

My game must be bugged. I can't get sims to go more than 20 tiles in any direction with any form of transit (bus, subway, rail, car) without it registering as a long commute. I even have sims walking across the dang street and calling it a medium commute. I am using Rush Hour with NAM and perfect pathfinding. every time I get a city of 100k or more the pattern is always the same: 30% commuters using car 70% using mass transit (half of them using subway) 30-45 minuet average commute (as per the charts and graphs) no congestion on any line but, 50% of my buildings are abandoned due to commute time and it just gets worse from there! if I cant get this resolved in some way then I will just have to stop playing this dang game. what is the point of playing the game if all my cities are doomed to cap at 100k?

ok, just so I feel like I have finished this experment in mass transit I will post a quick pic of my last city in this experiment: http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/5492/500k5ad.jpg align=baseline> I feel that this is a decent size for most cities and in my CJ, Newtopia Valley , I plan on having 9 such cities as the center anchor for the region. I have not totally forgot the other posters ideas and am still doing some small experimentation with different zone layouts, but the main design pattern is still the same. It may not be 100% efficient or ground breaking but it is different and unique and that was also a goal of mine from the beginning. thanks for all the support everyone, and remember to visit Newtopia Valley whenever you get the chance! btw, you can see pics of the suburbs in the Show Us Your Suburbs thread! take a look!

I have been working on a new city design lately and I want to incorporate lots of mass transit into the design. I am posting this thread in this forum because my question is more about mass transit and RH than it is about city design. anyway, I want to use many different forms of mass transit and road types to include: roads, oneways, avenues, highways, heavy passenger rail, subways, busses, and monorail. But is that just overkill? I usually dont use rail or monorail and have very rarely used highways, one ways or avenues in any of my designs. unfortunatley most of my cities collapse due to commute time around 200k population or so, which is what is triggering this desire to redesign. Busses and subways are so versitile. They have a small foot print and go everywhere and anywhere. Busses of course use the road that is already there, and subways are underground and out of the way not taking up valuable space topside. I am using Road Top Masstransit and the foot print for a buss/subway station is even smaller now that I can combine them and put it on the road tile instead of taking up valuable zone worthy realestate. I never used to use the other forms as they take up a lot of room not only in station foot prints but also in laying down the tracks. you cant build facing a rail and you cant build under a monorail. they just seem to take up space. <edit> I forgot that RTMT does cause no road zots infront of the zones where they are and so it is almost as bad as actually ploping them on the zone. however, it is possible to zone a 2x2 (3x3) footprint or larger zone area which allows the building to still have at least one road tile of access so RTMT still takes up less space </edit> What I am ultimately seeking is for some expert advise about using multiple forms of mass transport; is there a point at which using more forms (or even all forms) in the same city just becomes overkill and no longer adds to the efficiency of the network? There is the idea that multiple forms reduces station congestion, but I can just add more bus and subway stations to reduce congestion, I dont really need a whole new form of transport to solve that problem. I am sure you can show me all kinds of cities which are prosperous and use multiple forms of mass transport, but could those same cities also be prosperous with just a good bus and subway network? I have heard people talking about certain forms of mass transport catering to different types of sims, like R$ will take the bus and rail, R$$ will take rail and subway, and R$$$ will take monorail (but prefer their cars). this might not have any truth to it but that kind of information would be useful. Thanks in advance for any info.

I feel that I should make a post here about this particular experiment. the experiement was actually continued in a different thread, even a different forum located here https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=71271&highlight_key=y sorry for skipping forums like that. hope it is not too much trouble.

this sounds like a great experiment. but may I ask why GLR makes such a difference. my understing was this it was simply an extension of the el-rail which most people will agree is the least used of the mass transit. otherwise it sounds great. I may even try my own version of this experiment as you have sparked a few ideas in me already. also, similar experiments have been attempted before trying to make a city with all subway and other forms for mass transit but they did not use pedestrian tiles or GLR. good luck. <edit> as I was reading the other topic about a subway dominated city, one of the posters mentioned some problems about a roadless city namely how do you send out fire trucks and collect garbage! some of the built in aspects of SimCity require the presence of roads (streets, avenues, etc). there may be ways around this but that is what an experiment is all about i guess</edit>

as I have told simtropolis_mayor in a another post, you have one of the largest cities anyone has ever made (or told us about anyway) here on Simtropolis. you should not be asking for advice, you should be giving it! when you are talking about a city and region who's population is at such a magnitude you have to start thinking about the limitations of computer software. the game is only capable of making so much. the software and your computer has real limits as far as numbers go (perhaps you have reached the limit of number of buildings, lots or population) and you may have reached the edge of those limitations. any advice that you can get from people here on the forums is going to consist of basic stuff like; improve mass trasit, add parks, develop neighbor connections, manipulate taxes, reduce congestion...blah, blah, blah. the only way you could have gotten a city that large is if you mastered all those things already. the real question you should be asking with a city that big is one you can only answer yourself. that is, what is my purpose in building this city so large? what is my main goal with the game? when will I feel satisfied that I have 'built' my city? perhaps it is time to accept that you have finished this city. take some snap shots, start a CJ, and create new goals. congrats on getting such a large population but there are not many people here that can help you.

I hate to bump my own topic ( thus double posting) but someone out there must have screen shots of farmland. I dont care if its basic, realistic, funny, wierd. post anything. I have always seen these show us your topics as the epitome of the city building concepts thread. what better way for other people to see how to develop cities than to look at pics posted by others. I have gotten tons of ideas and inspirations from topics like this. I just wanted to post something new and maybe help some one out there that was having trouble making realistic farming communities. Its not like I am asking for something that is rare or never used am I? IA is one of the fundamental building blocks of a successful SimCity4 region! I know lots of you with CJs out there have tons of farm shots. Heck it does not even have to be farm land, just some rural city out in the middle of nowhere will work. plus you can use this post to advertise your own city jounal! I am doing it for mine, Newtopia Valley. see how easy that was!

hmmmm, well, your topic sounds a little vague. as it is for the show us your topics I am going to have to request that you post an example of what you want. in fact, I am still a little foggy about the difference between a planned city and a gridded city. apparently there is a difference but they sound like the same thing to me seeing as how a grid is a kind of plan.

You should be happy with a city that big!!!! I have only ever gotten cities to the 500k mark. what is your goal in this city? how big do you want it to be before you stop and move on? I would have to say that you have one of the largest cities ever developed by anyone here on the forums. so really you are in new territory. you should be telling us how you got a city that large not looking for advice, lol. any advice we can give, you have probably already implemented. yes give us screen shots we must see this marvel of a megalopolis!

I said yes because I just graduated with a BS in Computer Science and need a job badly....and I would love to develop the next incarnation of such a great game.

very nice farming community indeed. I like the use of trees to off set the different patches of farm land. are those PEGs trees or mayor mode trees? either way they look very nice. Nice job in planning your region like that. I forsee great things for this CJ. can I make a request for a region view of your develped area? I like to see how things look as cities develope together. thanks. I know you have a mosaic of the entire region (nice job on that btw, I know how time consuming those can be) but I would like to see more of close up of the developed parts. CONGRATUALTIONS you are the winner of my 200th post!

yep I got one. I have recently been doing some experiments with mass transit and achieved my highest population ever, approximately 500k in single city. here is a pic of the city with a small suburb of about 33k to the west and an industrial center to the south. no cheats were used in the making of this city. (silly name I know but like I said I was expermenting): http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/5492/500k5ad.jpg align=baseline>

I really like the opening, it reminds me of seeing a pamphlet in a travel agency advertising for the city. very nice pics all around. is there more comming?

what an amazing region, so lush and green. I also like how you have named the families. Can't wait for that voice narration to kick in!

The detail is amazing. The mosaics are breath taking. The depth and scope of the story are seemingly boundless. If I did not know better I would swear you were just recording the true history of a real city in a far away land. your CJ is an inspiration to us all. thank you.