EvilTom

Or if when you spawn the lizards as a disaster you can click and control its direction. I'm sure that's was available with the giant robot attack in SC4. Otherwise the full control is a bit excessive and there are probably more pressing issues than mini games... although on the other hand Maxis are know foe their easter eggs and sillyness.

Do you have significant traffic issues in your city? Have you watched the behaviour of your refuse lorries? Are they getting stuck in any areas? I find the pathfinding or priorities of the lorries to be very poor, often going past houses with rubbish and then driving around in circles or in a strange path just to get to another place nearby. But that is a discussion for another post and is probably something we gave to live with until they sort it out with a patch

Would the tile size be such an issues if the cities were treated like neighborhoods and were park of the checkerboard we used to have in SC4? If they were next to each other with more links between each other, perhaps it wouldn't look so disjointed. I have never in my life seen a 2km by 2km city full of high rise only with another similar city only about 2-4km down the motorway. I do however realise this is a game and people can do things however they want. Just my preference is the build low density outskirts with a taller CBD in a central point, just like most cities in RL. I think also the size of the buildings does seem to give the illusion that the areas are very small.

Cheers again for your professional and informative reply. It's much appreciated. Your findings appear to lean toward my suspicions. I had suspected that only the minimum amount of workers of any wealth were required to have the facility run at full capacity. This would lead one to build a city with large numbers of empty jobs as your economy will keep being productive as long as the minimal are filled. This does tend to happen in my cities as I normally can never fill all of the jobs, but does seem counter to how the real world works. As you say there is no information on the minimal numbers and it would take someone far more committed than myself to sit down and work it out. This makes it hard to figure out, especially as I've read that the figures on population are 'fudged'.

I have to say I agree with the option yo turn off disasters because it is just that... optional. I guess for those people who want more of a challenge, they have the option of selecting a disaster at will. I would want better ways to combat disasters as I quite like the change. Perhaps hazmat units to deal with radioactivity, using a space centre to launch missions to stop meteorites, calling in the army to fight the lizard/ufo. Having a nuclear disaster can seem devastating as this is only a game and is being played for fun, can ruin someone's city to the point of them wanting to abandon it or the entire region. I suppose this might be Maxis giving a commentary on nuclear power, but if so why aren't there equally devastating oil spills which would ruin tourism and coastlines for miles. That last bit sounds a bit more serious then I'm sure the game intended to be. Haha. On a slightly side note... the hurricane was awesome. I'm sure there used to be riots too, which could be cool.

Fantastic. Thanks for the input. That will add to my understanding. I was thinking of using libraries to replace parks and shops (at least in some part) as a means of getting happiness to sims, but looks like I will need another means for my sims to become happy. I guess they were too good to be true.

Thank you for your reply. Its especially good to learn of the priority when it comes to government services. I had assumed every building was in the same pool. If all of the low wealth jobs are filled in a building (services or C/I), but none of the other jobs, will the building run at diminished capacity?

To me, the public library seems a good alternative to parks. For example each one has 200 user capacity, costs $100/hr (much less than a large park which has less capacity) and also educates shoppers whilst satisfying their need for shops. Sounds too good to be true! Has anyone else come up with any downsides or other ways of using libraries in this way?

I've built cities that are mainly low wealth, yet there is usually a requirement for some medium and high wealth workers. This is understandable but I notice even though the $$ and $$$ jobs are never filled (as a result of a choice by me) the work places always appear to function normally. Therefore, I have to ask if they actually need to be filled for the businesses to work correctly? I've never seen one close down, but they do complain about not having good managers. Edit: Is there a threshold where say 10% of jobs have to be filled no matter what wealth?