xxbydesign

Isn't there already a Burj Dubai on the STX? I really like your work, the custom textures and origionality of designs. What is the white one with the round room going to be; have you decided yet?

Your demand for dirty industry is down, so it needs more R$ workers, which is why R$ demand is high. Either zone for more residential near your new industrial sites, or selecte medium density residential and drag a box over your existing houses to upgrade the lots to allow for apartment buildings. You seem to be running out of relatively flat land anyway on your map, so you should start thinking about greater density soon anyway. Also, if you dont have a neighbor connection yet, you shoud set one up soon, and start a city the same way in the neighboring city tile. I can see your news feed at the bottom of the image is telling you the same thing. Subways are expensive to maintain, so pay attention to your budget. Also, you have a lot of wind turbines - this is good for the enviornment, but they take up a lot of area to create the same amount of power as a regular plant. Since you have large industrial areas w/o nearby residential, it would be fine to build a Natural Gas or Coal plant in these areas, better near the edge of the map; the pollution created will affect residential zones minimally and allow you to demolish all the wind turbines and save money in the long run, plus the freed up space can be used for more zones and new road connections. This is ultimately your city and you get to grow it the way you want. The rise and fall of demand should always give you a clue as to what to do next. Soon you will understand the pattern and be well on your way to making a great city. You already have a great start. Theres not much else I can help you with, but if there are any more big challenges, we are all here to offer our two cents. Good luck!

Thats Great!! I think its a great start with a lot of good bones, so to speak. It can really grow from here. You've done a really smart thing with your farms; You ahve the farm building which accepts the workers, but the farm grows inside the block while the residential lines the street. I do the same thing! You've also used the demand indcator great. You can clearly see that there is a correlation with R$, C$, and I$. You have postivie demand for all areas, whereas your higher wealth demands are very low. This is obvious looking at the city too, as it is predominatly R$. Great start. What I would do from here is decentralize where your citizens are working. You already have avenues because everyone in your nothern suburb is commuting to the dirty industry to work. Try making your next industrial zone on the norther edge of your city next to the residential you already have. This way, your residents will commute both directions instead of one; this will even out your traffic and you wont need to mantain expensive roads. Also, since you have commercial demand, I would place a few single commercial zones at the corners of some intersections in the residential areas. This will provide many local places for people to work, so more people will walk to work, further reducing traffic, and meeting demand requirements for commercial. Its win-win! This is of course my playing style; you clearly already have your own. I say youre doing great at this game, and yes, I'm in love with this game too, so i understand completely! Good luck and I look foward to seeing more!

Pictures like the one you posted earlier are a big help when trying to understand issues you are having with your city. What do you mean that the 'ghetto' sims are not needed? Year 6 is not that far into the game; the game will continue indeffinitely as long as you want to play. I had a roomate who always kept the speed at cheetah, so hed be up to year 100 by the time he had a population of about 2,000. I use the pause key a lot, so I can get 2,000 people by year 3 (i dont like to make my cities grow that fast and try to tackle issues before they occur). An early city does not need to be the biggest and best city ever. Cities take time to develop, and they need to develop out before they can develop up with appartments and skyscrapers and such. To start with dirtiy industry and farms is what the designers of the game intended. I normally dont even start to add schools until I have close to 5,000 sims, all R$ and C$ with Dirty industry. Don't get frustrated, you're doing fine. Just follow your demand meter to see what buildings your citizens want next and zone accordingly. Again, pictures would help in the future if youre having specific problems, and have fun with it. It is, after all, a game, and youll never know if a mistake you thought you made turns out to be a good idea that helps your city in the end; I cant tell you how many times thats happened for me!

It also looks like you're missing the city in the bottom right corner of the picture as well, but no, I have no idea how this could happen. I've accidentally deleted city tiles from regions and couldn't get them back. Maybe, when you re-render the region, save a copy of the city tiles in a seperate folder as a backup, and when(if) it deletes itself again, at least you'll have another copy

Just wondering if there has been any progress since the last post on this city? What has changed, what remains the same? The reason ID is so negative in the industrial city is because there are so many avaliable jobs and not enough R$ to fill them. If R$ is sky-high in the suburb, its because so many want to move in to fill the avaliable jobs. My guess is the R$$ and R$$$ replace the R$ housing first chance they get, so R$ never develops or lasts for very long. Changing taxes to favor R$ would help with this. Also, try increasing your R$ density to medium near your neighbor connection to the industiral city; you already have water if you have R$$$, so try to compact your R$ near the border to keep commutes quick. Could you upload an image of your intersections so we can see the changes? I'm just curious as to your solution. Id also be curious to know if your new adjacent commercial city tile helped the problem. If your sim is still complaining, maybe you could just move her to another R$$$ house!

If you have Rush Hour expansion, then the problem Dukat mentioned is solved with Ferrys, although this is not the case for Industry; they would need a Port. Ferrys are for Residential commuting. But this will solve most issues with settling an island, so it is possible and potentially rewarding. But building on an island raises many MANY design issues, because with such limited space you need to make sure everything is perfectly placed to maintan enough desireability; e.g. where do you put a landfill that services the island but does not take away so much desirablity so that no high wealth will later occupy the island (a very tough feat). You are relatively new to SC4, so I would advise working with a mainland city tile, but know that working on an island tile is possible, so long as you have the Rush Hour expansion pack, which comes with the SC4 Delux Edition (I'm not sure which version you purchased, but I can imagine they're selling the two games seperate anymore)

Well... the only disaster that happens on its own in SC4 is fire, but I can't imagine the WHOLE city caught fire in five min. Nonetheless, tip number one is use the Pause key when you step away. Tip number two is along the same lines as binobi's post; try to start close to an edge of a city tile so network connections are easier to start with; this will help growth. Just remember how demand works and experiment. You can get interesting ideas from a variety of different City Journals (CJs) in the City Journals section of the Forums here. Good luck!

Ok, first thing to you need to know is how to read the demand meter; thank you for posting it for us, because its a big indicator of what's going wrong with your city. The Demand indicator is broken up into Residential, Commercial, and Industrial, and each of those is broken up into subsequent catagories which correspond with wealth levels, such as R$ R$$ and R$$$. Now, for simplification's sake (altough it gets more complicated later down the road), a R$ resident wants to work for a C$ or a I$ job, that is either low-wealth commercial service job or either a Agriculture or Dirty Industry job. R$$ wants the next level up, either in Commercial office/medium welath services, or in Industrial manufacturing. See how this works? Each section of the demand indicator directly influences the other to which it's connected. SO, if you have postive demand for R$ it means that there are avaliable jobs for R$ employees and not enough current workers. THis is the case in your city. You have I-Ag and I-D, which are R$ jobs, but you have A LOT of R$$ for such a young city (02 years!). My guess is you built the high school to give your citizens an education, but what happened was all of the R$ housing was demolished to make room for the R$$ residents that were attracted by the school. So, with a sudden drop in R$ population, there were too many jobs in I-D, which is why demand is so negative. To remidy this, zone low density residential, let it grow into R$, and zone more as needed until R$ demand is met. I-D demand should recover. To make sure that you'r new residential zoning is not taken by R$$ you should raise the taxes on the R$$ housing (9.5 sounds nice) so the demand drops to near zero or negative; your city is too young for a significant number of R$$, therefore it is wasteful this early to have R$$. Once demand for R$$ is negative, buldoze the R$$ lots and rezone for R$ to move in. Also, buldoze the high school; again, its too early for this advanced building to be in your city, and it is wasting valuable taxes and attracting development that you currently cannot support. Also, the black roads may not be necessary in a city of only 200 people, but it would be a good idea to create a road to the edge of the city map and connect to the greater region; this will help your industrial demand return to postive as well. This should get you on your way. Feel free to reply again with more questions or PM me directly for any more help. Good luck, and Welcome to Simptropolis!!

I have a little constructive criticism about the base texture of the lastes tower you posted; it looks to 'busy' and distracting. What if you reduced the scale, or maybe even reduced the contrast of the texture so its a bit lighter and less defined as 'marble', cause thats what it looks like to me. Sidewalks of green marble? Whooda thunk it?! The rest looks great though; i like that the roof junk has actually been designed in a patten, nice touch.

Absolutely Beautiful, Nofunk; I love all your work and have downloaded most all of it. I can't wait for the Hofmann, although, I have a question/request: Can we see the two party walls so we know what texture you're thinking of applying, maybe old painted-on-advertising would be cool, or have you not decided yet? Keep up the great work!

OOOooo, I like the skeletel...ness (?) I dont care if its not a word, Nordstar is cool! Its not done yet, is it? Tell me there's going to be more facade detail on the right hand side and will there be anything on the roof of the lower portion??

I've never really found that noise pollution had a serious detriment to demand, at least for me. R$$$ still dont mind living in thier high-rises even though they're on an avenue. But typically, handle your traffic well, with plenty of mass transit options, and refrain from making every street an avenue or highway and you should be alright. But lets be honest: what city dweller doesn't enjoy the hustle and bustle of city traffic? You wouldn't live there if you didnt. I think sims are the same way, even though they're not real

asteconn has the answer. You could also try mixing things up, mix in commercial with residential so the monotony is broken. Or different lot sizes, so apartments form on corners while mid blocks remain a lower density. just a thought to add a bit more realisim

Often times this has nothing to do with commute times and may simply be a demand issue. Maybe there are just too many R$$$ for the city. If R$$$ demand is high, it means there are jobs for R$$$ to fill. If you'r ID demand is negative, there are too many jobs and not enough R$ workers. Also, don't bank on R$$$ to take the bus; they try to aviod it if possible.

no. this is normal in a new city. Education takes time, so you have to let the game play through for a while. And as another point, you should know that simcity is designed so that R$ can work for any wealth level industry, whereas R$$ and R$$$ require corresponding wealth levels to opperate fully. Therefore, your city can support more R$ than R$$$, which is good for you, cause it would be expensive to support all the R$$$ without a solid mass of R$ beneith. So do not fear the huddled masses; im glad you made the decision to develop a low income neighborhood alongside a wealthy one. Your city is on its way to being a healthy one!

Heh, amusing. I've never included River in any of my city titles, and in my mind at least have gotten along just fine. Who knows, maybe I should try it?

Taxes will help. Raise taxes on the wealthy so the demand falls; you dont need to lower R$ cause you already ahve a lot of positive demand. You should also try to do more medium density zoning, since you're approaching the water and the map edge. you can zone specificly for apartment buildings if you hold down ctrl when zoning, so it zones one large lot instead of automatically dividing it. With little medium development, yoiu should try to zone lots that are 2x3 tiles. but this means you need water to allow medium density to build. The main thing to do is to run down demand for middle and high wealth residential while providing jobs for low wealth residential. This will make them come flocking. AND, the more low weath residential, the better your city will acutally function, because it is the low wealth that are most likely to use mass transportation. Also, elementry schools serve the low wealth residents, so if you have an elementary school in a town full of medium and high wealth residential, its not going to be used, so youll be funding a uselelss building. Building coal plants and dumps to lower desireablity, if you ask me, is not the right course, cause when you eventually want to upgrade the neighborhood, or if you want your different social classes to be mixed nicely instead of ghettoed, it will be more difficult if the desirability of the land is poor.

its wierd, ive had the same thing happen AFTER i upgraded to a mroe powerful graphics card. Could it be that the card is too new??? I always thought this was a dumb idea, but i upgraed my RAM and my graphics card at the same time and only then did i get this problem, so i dont think its the ram

Jon never picks a house according to it's vulnerability. He picks them according to ones that he thinks looks good. Both of those guys were former thieves. Both of them pick houses the same way. The point being, a thief isn't going to pick a house just because it looks like it's easy to rob. They're going to pick houses that they think they want something from, and worry about how easy it is to rob afterwards.quote> I would pick the good houses, too, but I would think the combination of vunerable and valuable is more enticing. It's been estimated that as much as 70% of house robberies take place while the residents are therequote>. Wow. I did not know that, and that fact actually surprises me. Isn't that almost asking for trouble? Much too bold... One of the things I've said in this thread is that owning a gun was a method of preparation for self-defense. Self-defense is legally defined as fighting back when you feel that your life is in danger. If the guy just came to take your TV, he didn't come to kill you. Doesn't mean he won't try it if you stumble into your living room at 3 AM to find out what the racket is. The point of the gun is to be prepared in the event that he does try to kill you.quote> And the catch-22 rears its head, as is to be expected in a serious discussion of this issue. No one will deny the right to self defense. I just believe that having a gun is a greater threat to your safety and the safety of those around you when it is intended to be used as defense in a high-stress situation. Again, if a theif is eoncountered, as you agreed, its best not to resist the theif. My uncle saw the boy scouts as something he wasn't really interested in and didn't quite see the point in it. Now, with that said, he still follows the philosophy that there's nothing wrong with owning a gun for self-defense.quote> I don't see the connection between owning a gun and the Boy Scouts; to my knowlege I do not know if the BSA advocates gun ownership. I fear I've taken things a little off topic on this point. My intention was to conncet the concept of 'being prepared' to the paramilitaristic undertones of the Boy Scouts, therby attempting to illustrate an undercurrent cultural belief of the United States that argues being prepared means being armed. Again, I don't think EVERYONE should be able to get one. That should be limited to people who are mentally sound, a clean criminal record, and have passed instruction in how to operate, care for, and store a gun.quote> Humans make mistakes, and logistics and beurocracy can slow things down. Gun manufacturers out to make a profit do not want their sales slowed by government red tape. I can imagine that even the gun lobby would oppose this sensible measure. It is a comfort that we can all recognize that changes are necessary to the current systems; what is important is that we can make sure that average citizens benefit more than buisnesses that stand to loose from tighter gun control. There are also loopholes, such as if a man who is mentaly sound becomes unsound; what safety features could be in place, and how much more complicated and expensive will the system become? Should there be regular inspections that owners are following the rules concerning proper handling, use, and storage of thier firearms? The logistics seem to swell beyond applicable limits, and I can imagine more interesets may turn to the black market, which is also a major issue in the continuing saga of gun control in the US.

Preparation for home invasion should not be violent armament; It should be insurance coverage...Good for material loss - not if they came to kill you. ...good locks... There is no such thing as a "good lock." A door with a deadbolt on it is hardly any more resistant to being kicked in than if it just had the standard lock. The average house lock is also incredibly susceptible to a process called "bumping." Take a bump key, a small object to hit it with, and the security of the vast majority of homes can be compromised in a matter of seconds. ...perhaps even the expense of a security system... That's a good thing to have, but it can't actually do anything other than alert the police, and you're powerless to do anything until such time as they arrive, and if you live in a big city, the likelihood that they'll arrive in time is very slim. In the city of Houston, the average response time to a police emergency can be up to eighteen minutes. In Saint Louis, over twenty minutes. By this point, whatever the criminal came to do is already done. but above all personal fortitude to fall back on if the unlikely occurs. I know a cop that follows that philosophy. But even he admits that personal fortitude without some sort of weapon is pretty worthless if they want to do you harm. quote> By elaborating on the inadequacies of the listed alternatives to firearms, the point of my list of preparations becomes muddled, though perhaps I did not make the purpose of the list clear enough. So i will elaborate on the true nature of the list of preparations is provided: If a burgler wants what you have in your house, he or she has in all likelyhood singled your house out on some form of veunerablity, which means that you WILL be robbed. No questions asked. No matter your lock, no matter the security system; I agree full heartedly with you that the average house lock will not keep out a determined burgler, and a security system does little physicaly, but emotionally the expense may put one at ease. In this case, the lock and security system are not meant to keep the burlger out at all, just to make you feel better. The insurance coverage is in place for the loss of material goods, which, again, if your house is singled out, WILL happen, and your insurance is there for you to fall back on. The personal fortitude has absolutely nothing to do with actually resisting a burglury attempt; personal fortitude in this case is in reference to strength of spirit to overcome the setback of having your belongings plundered. After those facts, it is important to note that all the prepatory actions I listed were non-violent. That is the point of the list; these are non-violent actions that put one at ease and allow them to recover after an incident without injury or loss of life. They are not designed to resist the act of burglary in any forcefull manner. As another point, the likelyhood that the burgler will attempt to rob your home WHILE you are present is slim to none; if your house has been singled out, it also means it has been surveyed, which means by now the burgler knows when the house is empty and will pick that time as the most opportune. In the Discovery Channel show 'It takes a Theif', where a former house burgler helps homeowners prevent invasion by examining the home's current safety precautions, note that all perscriptions to the security of a home do not include instructions for resistance. These security features are mearly to reduce the likelyhood of a burgler selecting your house as a target, not to physically and even violently resist the process of burglary. I think we need to make quite clear what s

Voar Tok: every country has people in it that are willing to flout the law to get what they want, and that's what the guns are for - in case they try it on you. deadwoods: But that's my point. Every country has these people. In most western countries (Australia, Canada, UK, Europe) the risk to ordinary folks from these people is so low that average folks don't need guns. It's only in America that the risk of deadly home invasion is so high. That's the problem. Voar Tok: And also in the US, statistically speaking, the average person isn't going to have their home invaded. Doesn't mean that we don't believe in being prepared though.quote> Voar Tok, you admit that home invasion is just as unlikely in the United States as in other western countries, such as Australia, Canada, UK, and the rest of Europe. And yet you defend the right for average people, who are not at threat from home invasion as previously agreed, to purchase weapons as 'preparation.' Preparation for home invasion should not be violent armament; It should be insurance coverage, good locks, perhaps even the expense of a security system, but above all personal fortitude to fall back on if the unlikely occurs. The idealized image of preparation for the unexpected and unlikely seems to me to resemble the highly paramilitaristic dogma of 20th centry youth organizations, such as the Boy Scouts of both England and America, which were(and are), lets be honest, little more than institutions to prepare a nation's children in the ways of regimented dicipline typical of military service. These were organizations whose purposes coincided subliminally, or otherwise quite directly, as was the case with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, with issues concerning national security. The strucutre of these organizations is to get youths accustomed to orders, rank, and procedure, thereby instilling the value of dicipline. Is it any surprise, then, that the motto of the Boy Scouts of America is "Be Prepared"? These kids were trained to be soldiers. But what of the average Amercian? If it is the diciplined participants of the Boy Scouts who are expected to 'be prepared', what of the average man wanting to protect his home and family? Should he, undicpiplined and untrained in thier use, maitenance, and proper storage, purchased a firearm to prepare himslef for that unlikely scenario? In his strive to 'be prepared', what cost is the average American going to pay? Sure, you may protect your money, accuired objects, or even preserve a feeling of security, but that gun might ultimately cost the life of another human being, more than likely an innocent one. And at that point, all that was hoped to be protected by that gun is destroyed, outweighed by the deficit of a human life lost senselessly, which perpetuates itself into a loss of security for entire communities and eveuntally the nation as a whole, which is why we find ourselves in the conversation. All to 'be prepared'. No, I do not belive the average American has a right to own a gun. I do not belive that the aquisition of firearms as personal defense is a form of preparation; it is paranoia. I believe the black market on guns is a large part of the problem, and is indellibly linked to other criminal markets, perhaps most prominently the drug trade and associated warfare. And I do not belive that mear gun control will solve the issue; as long as these markets exist there will be death, and these markets will exist as long as we have

WHOA! I imagine the mayor went through a lot of NIMBY complaints to make that happen. I'd have built it closer to the train station for convinience factors; i cant see visiting buisnesspeople walking through small-town streets to get to their hustle, bustle modern downtown office. Denser development should begin near the train station next. Great start and really believable, love the feel and images. Ill be watchin this one