soldyne

very cool, I like region views. here is the latest region shot from Newtopia Valley.

you bring up a lot of good points hawaiibill, and your talk of revenue neutral buildings has been brought up before (in a disscussion I had with frndofyeweh). the biggest thing to remember about SC4 or any simulation is that it is just that, a simulation, and to make it truely realistic would be a nightmare, although it can be fun to disscus the differences between reality and the game sometimes. I have already said before that I am not ready for SC4. I have a large CJ in the works right now and I have a lot of work left to do on it. If SC5 came out right now or in the near future then the SC4 community would die out and eveyone would want SC5 CJs and pay no attention to SC4. also, there are so many new mods and bats comming out all the time SC4 is practically SC4.5! any more mods and we would have made our own SC5 already. but to keep in the spirit of wishful thinking I will say that I would like to see multipurpose RCI buildings. not all buildings in a city are segregated into Com and Res. there are many buildings which act as apartments up top and businesses (usually CS) down below. I also like the idea of different terrain styles like dessert, snow, swamp, plains, rocky, etc. and the abiltiy to paint different terrains all within the same city. this includes ploppable water at any elevation as well as flowing streams and rivers. I would also like to have irregular city boundaries so I can make a more realistic region view. thats it for me.

ok, I am a little confused. Is this CJ actually going to contain any SC4 cities or is this just another photoshop story thing. good luck either way but I don't think this is my thing.

these parks are overwhelming, I feel as though I dont measure up to posting here, but, I will let the others decide that. These pics are all a part of the same park system located in Northern Orientalis of Newtopia Valley. Each major park center is connected via underground pedestrial tunnels. for a complete tour visit Newtopia Valley.

great developments everyone! this thread is an inspiration and guide to making great and realistic suburban developments. I have a mosaic of my own from my latest update to Newtopia Valley hope you like em!

well KT3, I finally have some of my own pics to post in your topic, hope you all like em. If you want to see more pics like these then please visit Newtopia Valley!

this thread is beautiful and an inspiration to all who play! I hope to add to that with these pics from my latest update of Newtopia Valley:

dougied, welcome to simropolis! The best tool is found in God Mode (CTRL+SHIFT+ALT and click on the tree icon in mayor mode). I just use the quick level brush at SHIFT+2 setting. it takes practice to get the cliffs to be shear but it is worth the time IMHO.

this is a wonderful CJ. simple, rural, original lots. It is all very nice. I actually like all the fences, I think it is much more realistic. very pleasing to see.

Ok, this topic is nearly dead, so, I think I will revive it with some select pics from my latest CJ update! (see link in sig below) anyway, as some of my fans know, The Newtopia Industrial Complex was working on building a major port. The port is now complete and is fully operational. Take a look! for more close ups and details about Port Newtopia check out my CJ. While your at it, post some pics of your own industry here in this thread.

my biggest and current region is my CJ, Newtopia Valley. it just hit the 800k mark last night. I have a few cities over 100k with my biggest large tile city at about 300k. most of the rest of the region is rural and industrial cities. actually the region is only about 1/5 built. I figure I could have well over 3 million by the time the region is full, but, I am not going for numbers I am going for realism and aesthetics.

I have posted a topic with my "menu organization" tutorial. It is also pending a review for omnibus submission. give it look and let me know what you think. https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=77896&enterthread=y

cityhawk your parks are not noobish at all. heck most "noobs" dont use parks at all because they "take up tax payer space". I really like your use of green and heck, waterfalls are always nice.

Thanks greyveil, that does clear things up. I have been telling people that it "loads" so I have to watch what I say from now on. Kippis05 - I will post my method for reorganizing the menus eventually. I am at work right now and dont have access to my SC4 tool box (folder with all my lot manipulation programs). when I get home I can get a precise step by step procedure for reorganization. I may even make a seperate thread on it as I am sure others will want to know as well.

I have to ask if everyone with gigabyte plugins folders has any readmes or jpgs in those folders. the game will load EVERYTHING in your plugins folders including files that have nothing to do with the game. if you have a long load time then perhaps you guys need to clean out all the .txt, .doc, .rtf, .jpg and other files. I did that recently and cut my plugins folder size down by 100 MB. I only started with 700 MB (now 600 MB) but it made a noticeable difference. not only that, I have to ask, how much of your downloads do you all use? I only download what I know I will use. if I find that I have no use for a certain bat or lot anymore, i delete it. I may have a small plugins folder, but, I know that every single file in there is being used to a decent degree. I dont download and install every mod, bat, lot or file just because it looks cool. My menues are big enough as it is. just wondering. on a side note, there is a way to organize your menus. It requires some fancy work with ILives Reader program and a lot of time and patience and planning. I completely reorganized my parks and transportation menus and I am much happier for it. Basically I moved all the lots that I use all the time to the top of the menu and the lots I use less (but still use) to the bottom. If anyone wishes to know what I did then I can post the steps later.

Wow, I am humbled that my lots would have sparked a thread about beauty in Sim City! I want to make sure that every one knows that I am not a batter though, just a lot designer. I must say KT3, that is a beautiful Urban Garden you have designed there. I am actually quite pleased at how modular my plaza gardens turned out to be. My Urban Beautification Pack Volume 2 actually has a set of diagonal Urban gardens for use on the sides of diagonal avenues. I will be showcasing my lots in my next CJ update (hopefully this weekend), but until then I dont want to post any pics of how I have used my lots yet (dont want to spoil the surprise!). great urban gardens everyone, keep designing! <edit> ha, blackmailed the mayor! what could virtual sims possibly find against a real mayor who also happens to have the powers of a god! I would be afraid to even suggest blackmailing the most powerful person in my universe! </edit>

ok, i just did a quick experiment with my CJ region. I have a region population of 700k with nearly 100k high tech jobs. I also have quite a few farm jobs around as well. I started a new city square with connections to both an agriculture city and a suburb with 100k people and 180EQ. I had maxed out farm demand. I then started another city square with connections only to cities with high population and high EQ but nothing in the city square itself and still had farm demand. I also started a city square out in the middle of no where and it had basic demand (little res, comm, ag and ID) (no connections anywhere). I did however start up a city I had already started playing (large map, 20k pop with medium density res and com) and it had no ag demand as I would expect mainly because the majority of the 20k pop is R$$$ and they dont like ag no matter how dumb they are. the theories of no ag demand after a certain population size or the presence of High Tech no longer holds water. although I do believe that the trick to keeping ag demand is to first start with some. I started my region with ag towns on the outskirts and grew more urban as I went inward. miromanager, if you are still reading this thread, if you have any cities left in your region that have no neighbor connections and have not yet been started then you may be able to build an ag town there and then blend your ag demand with your city demand as you move closer to the city center. I dont know what you region looks like though so that is the best advice I can give. and I am assuming that you are trying to start an ag town in a fresh city square and not in one that is already established.

very interesting. I dont think the round shapes will be easy. I tend to do a more irregular, random pattern myself. at first I thought the pics were a close up of some kind of crystal!

I think it is important to mention for new downloaders to the STEX that you will need to start a disciplined organization strategy for your plugins folder. DO NOT under any circumstances, put naked files into your plugins folder. use subfolders like "Residential", "Commercial", "Industrial", "Parks", "Civic", and so on. this will help out immensly when you start to get a large collection going. the reason for this is that you will eventually, with out a doubt, download a file that will cause your game to do something wonky or un wanted. if your plugins folder is not organized then good luck trying it find it to have it removed! The only wrong way to organize is not to organize! also, when you move files to your plugins folder, try to remove or delete any readmes (after reading them of course) and picture files. The game will load EVERYTHING in your plugins folder and subfolders into your memory. the more stuff you have the longer it will take to load the game. My final piece of advice for you and anyone else reading this is that many files on the STEX require other files called dependancies. dependancies are usually things like props, textures, or custom user interfaces or sound files that a creator used to build the lot with. at first it will be a daunting task to make sure you have all the dependancies but after a while you will have them all and, if you have a well organized folder, you will be able to check really quickly if you have a dependancy already. good luck and let us know how you are doing.

ag demand is actually a combination of education and wealth levels. only stupid R$ and R$$ will demand ag jobs, sounds bad but thats the way it is. If you have not totally given up on the ag areas then try this: start your ag city with low density 1x1 res lots. this will guarentee R$ and R$$ only. do not provide any education and you dont need water, fire or police coverage either. you may provide a hospital but that is not needed. once you start getting enough people you should start to see some ag demand. I actually have no idea if this will work in a region that is already established but its what I would I do. Heck, give it a try and let me know what happens! good luck.