soldyne

Fire stations are not "needed" but it nice to have coverage IMHO. no fires will start within the coverage radius of a fire dept. and coverage also increases your overall saftey rating which helps boost desirability and demand. it does nothing for demand caps though. Museums are good at keeping your older sims educated but I only ever put in about 4 of them so I can get the major art museum and then I stop. Libraries on the other hand are excellent support buildings early on as they give a % boost to EQ in conjunction with elementary schools and high schools. if you manipulate their funding they can be very inexpensive and give a great boost to EQ. I use them everywhere I have a school. but they are not needed. as far as pollution, mass transit (subways and bus inparticular) are the best way to reduce pollution on the roads. even if you put trees inbetween your roads it would not do too much as it takes a lot of trees to reduce pollution significantly.

ah yes, sorry about that, I got carried away with ped malls I forgot you had other questions. I too have no experience with the landmarks with jobs mod as I do not use landmarks! yep, never, just dont like em for some reason. anyway, about the road question. It is really all about design if you want to use two one ways with a tile in between or an avenue. there are many reasons to use both infact and I have done both even in the same city. For the record I call two one ways with a tile down the middle a "Boulevard" just to help distinguish. If you are indeed going to use some kind of rail mass tranist (passenger rail, GLR, EL, or monorail) then the two one ways is a good choice to use for that. however, in parts of the town where the mass transit is subway or just not there avenue is the prefered option. the main important difference between useing avenues to one ways is that two avenues intersect and make one large intersection, four one ways intersect and make 4 intersections!!! the more intersections you have the more congestion you will have. now, one interesting thing you can do with oneways and avenues is that if you have an avenue running through your city and it runs into a blockade (hill, lake, reward building, landmark, etc) and you dont want to or cant destroy the blockade then you can turn the avenue into two oneway roads and "envelope" the blockade, then when the oneways converge again go back to avenue. <shameless plug> Boulevards can be good too if you like using parks and what not to decorate your city. I have created over 40 different plaza gardens for the purpose of decorating that 1 tile space between one way roads. check out the links in my sig! </shameless plug> hope that helps

Vester_DK gave some good info there, but I would like to expand on the Ped Malls: Ped Mall Tiles will allow pedestrian traffic to move across them and will allow commercial to be bulit next to them. Residential zones still need to have an actual street, road, one-way or avenue. The best way to use ped malls is to set up a subway or bus station next to the ped mall commercial area so that the sims can use the street to get to the station and then use the station to switch to pedestrian so they can walk to work. I have a excellent example of ped malls in action in my CJ Newtopia Valley. Posieden's Reef is a huge island in the middle of a large river that is 100% commercial and 100% pedestrian malls. the only way to get on the island is by pedestrian ferry or subway. check out the CJ if you want to know more. hope that helps.

yep, neighbor cities are paramount to creatinga thriving metropolis. even if you consider one city to be the main city you can't easily build it up to any great degree without developing your neighbors. as far as neighbor deals are concerned, no one ever said that a neighbor needed to have any Res, Comm or Industry. all it needs are connections to be effective. open up a small neighbor and plop two or three coal plants, a few incinerators, run roads and power lines to the main city, let it run for a month or two, and then save and exit to region, and you never need to look back. I llike to have sustainable neighbor cities myself, but that is because I am building a City Journal and I want the region to be as realistic as possible (with a little creative license thrown in now and again). it is just a matter of getting used to how the new game works. once you get used to it you will wonder how you ever played any other way. good luck and keep us posted on your progress.

demand caps are usually only a problem in younger cities before you start getting rewards. most young cities dont get alot of decoration because they are still trying to get a balanced budget but parks are essential for breaking past the initial 2000 R$$ demand cap. large flower gardens give about 7000 res demand cap relief and large plazas give the most at 9000 demand cap relief. I think that some of the best default parks are the small flower garden, tennis courts, gazebo, and BB courts. the first reward that gives a huge demand cap boost is the minor league stadium which I believe is at 200k after that your city should not have a problem with demand caps for quite a while. other rewards give huge boosts as well and it all adds up. just keep decorating and making neighbor connections and you should not have any demand cap problems.

if you want to learn the game properly and play without cheats then stay far away from ordinance mods, anything named "radical", and any of the demand multipliers. most of the mods I have installed are visual mods (street textures, ground and rock textures, tree mods, slope mods, bridge mods, etc). infact, I am pretty sure that the only mod I have that changes the functionality of the game is the NAM and I did not install any of the traffic mods that come with it (speed, time, capacity, etc). to enhance the answers given by shinnie02: props: these things are just all the little tiny stuff on a lot like flowers, benches, trash cans, cars, people, fountains, etc. if you down load things from the STEX or anywhere else you will need to make sure that the lot does not use some custom props. if it does and you do not have the custom prop file in your plugins, then the lot may look odd as it will not have all the props it was meant to have. custom props, textures, and other stuff is collectively known as a set of dependancies and all good lotters and BATers will list thier dependancies when they up load thier stuff LOTs - you have the right idea, these are buildings that pop up in your city or the ones you plop down like hospitals and fire departments. lots contain props and textures. on the STEX the term lot is generally used to describe a lot that contains only the default maxis buildings and props rearranged in a new way. a BAT is a lot that someone made using the Building Architect Tool and is unique to the game all together. both terms refer to lots in the game however. Ploppable RCI - this is a lot or BAT that you can plop in your city just like a civic building but it will act like a regular RCI building, just as if it were grown by either providing population or jobs. ploppable RCI buildings are used extensively by people who wish to create a city with a specific image in mind. not everyone does this for their City Journal (CJ) btw, I let my cities develop organically over time, and only plop the services. for tutorials, go to the very top of this page and click on the word "omnibus" and you will find a wealth of knowledge. very good questions, keep asking, keep playing and have fun.

ahem...you want to create a second NAM? do you have any idea the level of technical know how and time it took to make the one we have now? not only that, how did you "plunk" the whole thing in? it comes with an installer which asks you what you want to install, unless you are using an older version. if you are using an older version and you did put in everything then that would explain your wierdness, not everything that comes with the NAM is intended or should be installed at the same time. get the latest version and read the instructions. also, only go for the better pathfinding methods not the perfect. I used the perfect and got all kinds of abandonment, I use better now and my cities are very stable. also, there are many reasons why a sim could live next to a job and not have work. not every sim can work in every job. there is a lot that goes on when computing jobs, wealth level and education being the most important. it could be that all the jobs he was qualified for in that commercial zone were already filled so he could not work there. my final piece of advice is to not worry one lick about commute time. the average commute in most of my cities is above 200 according the chart and I have no or little abandoment anywhere. I only use the better pathfinding mod from NAM when it comes to commute times and traffic modding. the key is to set up your road and mass transit network in a well organized fashion. this takes time, patience and practice. I went through about 5 or 6 different designs before comming up with one that was both unique and that worked and now I have cities with 300k and growing which are stable and healthy, no abandonment. if you really want to learn to mod to post a request in the modding forums and I am sure you will get plenty of takers to be your tutor.

shivsood: if you have a 6x6 block you will have two roads going north and south and two roads going east and west. when you zone you can change the direction the zone faces by using a combination of SHIFT, CTRL and/or ALT. each of those keys will do different things when zoning, although ALT is the main key used to change zone facing. if you face all your zones toward the east and west or the north and south then the other two roads will have no zones facing them and so you can put road top mass transit on those roads and not worry about NRZ (no road zots) appearing on the buildings. RRRRRRRR R^^^^^^R R||||||R R||||||R R||||||R R||||||R RVVVVVVR RRRRRRRR here we have a 6x6 block with zone facing to the north and south. the roads on the east and west are open for road top mass transit with no ill effects.

ah ha, only medium and high density. IC now. unfortunately I never use streets for medium and high density, one high density building gives instant congestion on a street so I use roads or avenues. oh well, I guess I will never have parking bays in my cities... and I agree to a point that the trees do obscure the view a bit, but it is just a matter of looking for the right screen shot when making CJ updates, and I do that now anyway. thanks again and keep moding!

well I got everything to work, except for the parking bays. the cars are all parking off the street which is cool, but there are no bays to speak of, they are just on sidewalk or the grass which is tolerable i guess as I see it done all the time where I live. unfortunately I have no use for the sidewalk texture mod as it applies everywhere, not just the streets. in the suburb areas it looks ok as I have learned how to manipulate wealth levels in suburbs. but in my medium and high density i have a patchwork of wealth types and the sidewalks look very checkerboard like. this is why I dont use trolcas street mod either, patchwork streets are just unpleasant. if there were a way to just lay down one texture for an area and keep it like that, then I would love the brick texture for my cities. also, I just recently released my diagonal park lots on the STEX and they are designed to blend in with the default maxis textures. the new sidewalk textures just sort of defeat the whole purpose of the lots I made, so again no go with the sidewalk. other wise it looks very nice and I would have used it. is there any special way to get the parking bays to appear? should I zone in a specific way, commercial only maybe? thanks in advance.

big question, I already posted this in cycledoggs forum, but I just realized that it was an older topic. since this one is fresh and active I will repost my concerns. I really want to use your street mod but I have a concern about the CPT_No8 and CPT_No9 files you list as dependancies. There are some new NDEX BATs on the STEX that say they use CPT_No7 as a dependancy and when I go to download that file it says to delete and remove CPT_No8 and CPT_No9. will cause your mod to no longer work properly or is CPT_No7 a replacement for those files? please see the dependancy list for the new NDEX bats by Equinox and let me know what you think about how the dependancies should work if I or someone else wants to use your mod and his lots together. thanks!

ok big question. there seems to be a lot of new great BATs and LOTs and mods on the STEX recently using your CPT_No# files but threre are so many dependancies I am getting confused. the recent R$$$ NDEX houses say they need CPT_No7TreeControllers which, when I follow the link says to delete all other CPT files including CPT_No8 and No9 but JeroniJs recent street mod says to use those files (8 and 9). if I get the CPT_No7 mentioned in the NDEX sets will the jeronij mod still work? all of these CPT files everywhere is very confusing and there seem to be so many subdependancies as well. can you please clarify what is needed for what?

it was clear to me Triple_C_8, and I do believe that you have a plugin problem. that is the only explaination. even if you put in water, parks, demand cap relief, and low taxes you should have at minimum 0 demand, but not -5000, that makes no sense. if you think you know the culprit then take that mod out and see what happens. you may have to start your region over again. I hate to say it, but when you use demand mods you take risks with any city. sorry I could not be more helpful, but I do understand you dilema.

I like that plan. it should be fun to build. will this be a CJ by chance? it might be fun to create some rural areas on the outskirts, they really make a nice region view. I also like how you have your planned suburban developments and suburban commercial areas. good luck. and keep asking questions.

I use taxes purely as a tool to manipulate the developers in each of my cities. I always build my dense cities (medium and high density areas) mainly for medium wealth sims. High wealth sims dont like mass transit and low wealth sims have their place in the outskirts of town to help feed the ID sectors. Medium wealth sims are also the bread and butter of IHT and commercial demand. R$$$ are good once in a while to get some CO$$$ and CS$$$ but really are not as necessary as everyone thinks they are. I like to put high wealth in my suburbs where highways are more prominent (as R$$$ like to drive everywhere). essentially my tax rates are high (12%+) for those developers I dont want and low for those that I do. I usually dont have a problem with money and I dont use cheats so my taxes usually end up around 5% or so for the developers that I do want. In industrial zones for instance I set ID and IM to 20% if I want IHT and the other way around for cities with ID and IM. as I said taxes are tool for manipulating developer types.

well I think you have already taken the first steps to having a successful CJ. your idea of a wild west town is very unique (as far as I know), you have learned how to photoshop your pics (something I will probably not do as I spend so much time already on my CJ), and you are advertising in your sig. the advertising is, IMHO, the best way to get your CJ read and commented on. My CJ was dead for months and then all of sudden, bam, a comment came out of nowhere. the difference? I started to advertise my CJ in my sig. also, treat your guests as you would want to be treated. if your commenters have CJs of their own, go see their CJ and make comments for them. also, I have a policy of reading and commenting on CJs that are on the same forum page as mine. that helps other new CJer's keep their CJs from dieing, and it is more likely that they will comment on yours as well. just keep posting and replying to comments. dont expect your CJ to catch on, it will do that on its own, just play the game, create your masterpiece and let the pics do the talking. good luck.

I dont think his question is concerned with plugins, although your comments about plugins are good ones for anyone to follow. yes plugins will cause a slower load time, but I have over 600 MB of plugins and my cities dont crash any more than when I had no plugins. Darksoul: the number one reason why your city is not growing is mostlikely due to not having any developed neighbor cities as tolomar suggested. developed cities which have neighbor connections will feed off of and feed into each others demand levels. you can build enitre cities with all one type (all industrial, all commercial, all residential) if you want. you can even have cities dedicated to power and garbage (called dump cities) and sell the utilities to all the neighbors. region play is essential to a successful city. I have a large region (Newtopia Valley) and every new city I go into has maxed out demand almost immediately. I built a city with 300k population in less than a few hours becuase the surrounding cities were feeding it so much demand. my region started slow with farming communities but once things started going it has become very easy to get large cities really fast. be patient and learn as you play. welcome to Simtropolis!

Ok so I was playing SC4 just a few hours ago and was working on my biggest and best city to date; 270k, large tile, halfway developed, with a stable population growth with about 10 hours of work so far (I like detail). This is also my main downtown city for my CJ. I have not yet taken any pics of this city so it is a very important city for me. so I hit save and exit to region like a good player, and then I get an IM through Yahoo, and for some reason my game minimizes on me. I thought no problem, i'll just say hi to my friend and go back in and shut the game down (I needed a break anyway). So I alt tab back to SC4 and my city square is blank!!!!!! no development, not even terraforming, just wiped clean as though it had been deleted... My heart rate doubled almost instantly. I kept thinking "It must be a glitch, It must be a glitch, it must be a glitch" so I click on the city square, and to my surprise, there are all my city stats, city name, city population, and current funds all right where they are supposed to be, but still no image. I click play city. and in the load screen there is also a blank city...."retracting phong shaders" displayed ominously at the top of the screen. I stared with impatient fear as it loaded. the seconds seemed like hours and then finally..... my city was displayed right where I left it...phew! it WAS just a glitch. I saved and exited to region again and my city was back to normal. what a ride. just thought I would share that with you all.