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More than 1200 acronyms and technical terms explained Description This is a dictionary of the most common abbreviations, acronyms and technical terms around SimCity 4. It started as my personal notes and since I used the file format of a stand-alone wiki I am sharing it here. I hope it will be useful, particularly to new mayors who try to navigate the SC4 world. Installation The file is a zipped HTML file. Unzip it and open it with a browser, with JavaScript enabled. Suggestions and Corrections I am sure there is more work to be done. There are aspects of the game that I haven't explored yet and there will likely be things I got wrong. Please share your suggestions and corrections with me in this topic: Thanks to Cori and Cyclone Boom for your advice and input! simmering- 2 Comments
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SC4 Dictionary - Suggestions and Corrections
simmering posted a topic in SimCity 4 General Discussion
The first version of my SC4 Dictionary is ready. But I am sure it needs more work. So I hope, in this topic you will share what you think, what else should go into it and what needs correcting. Your input is very much appreciated. Here is the link to STEX: Thank you all very much simmering- 34 Replies
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So, recently ive started playing sc4 and ive been enjoying it a lot but im having some issues with getting a big city. I dont know how to get rich people living in my town and also i cant get high tech industries to get on my industry zones either and on top of that my town is super polluted and i dont know how to get rid of all of it... help?
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Hello, please help. I have just got City Skylines and can't wait to get into it. However, I'm stuck. I've gone for unlimited finance as I just want to build a town, that's all. How do I get houses, buildings, more roads, trees, flowers, cars, you know, things that towns have? Keep it simple, I'm old and bald. Keep well everyone. Alan
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Hello again Community (though in a different section now). Due to the fantastic GOG discounts I thought "Meh... Why not, I'll get myself a copy of SC4". I remember I liked the region mechanics in SC4 and a significant deal of control that one has over the terrain features. Still, it does not change the fact that I have never managed to build anything remotely successful in this game... Therefore, I'd like to ask - do you have any tips for the beginners? How shall I start a city? Why, for the love of gods, are there 20+ occupant types in this game? Why none of the urban strategies from SC3000 work in this game? Any help will be much appreciated.
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NAM36 Tutorial: RHW-4 U-Turns
Naomi57 posted a City Journal entry in Breezy Point, East New York: SimCity 4 tips and tricks (NAM36)
NAM36 Tutorial: RHW-4 U-Turns Sometimes sims need to do a U-Turn on the highway. This is particularly troublesome if their work and home is close, as the crow flies, but the great big highway is in the way, requiring that they take a very long circuitous route to get to the other side of the highway. That's the sort of thing that can lead to residential buildings being abandoned. The ability to do a U-Turn fixes that, with sims jumping on the highway, and using the U-Turn to switch directions ASAP and jump off the highway on the other side. There's four efficient and realistic ways to implement a U-Turn on RHW-4 highways ... The next interchange up the highway. This is the one we're all used to from Maxis vanilla highways (MHW). Most interchanges provide the ability to do a U-Turn ... but some don't, and sometimes the next interchange is too far away, so it's good to have some other options. A simple little compact diamond interchange, like this one, is a very effective way to accommodate U-turns. Draw across the two carriageways of RHW-4 using the Street tool (Alt+R key). This looks rather like an emergency vehicle turning lane ... and I presume commuters can use these, too, when they need to? Draw across the two carriageways of RHW-4 using the Road tool (R key). This looks like a higher traffic volume solution than Street (above), but I don't know whether this causes traffic congestion problems like at-grade highway intersections usually do? A FLUPs RHW-4 U-Turn, using a FLUPs underpass, with FLUPs ramps descending and ascending parallel and adjacent to the highway. Above options 2 and 3 are cheap, easy and effective. Whether they are effective in high volumes of traffic is something I haven't tested yet, which led me to come up with option 4. Follow this post if you'd like to know about traffic congestion, as I'll post back here in the comments when I find out. Further explanation on option 4 follows ... Option 4 – The FLUPs RHW-4 U-Turn This needs a minimum of 8 tiles adjacent each side of the highway, so while smaller than an interchange, it ain't small! Here's the ingredients list: FLUPs one-way road ramps, these are found on the FLUPs menu item, just rotate the FLUP road ramp (with Home/End keys), until it turns into a one-way road ramp ... make sure the arrows are pointing in the right direction! Here's an excellent video tutorial on FLUPs from @rsc204, if FLUPs are new to you. https://youtu.be/HpLGtqjjE8A?t=334 Type A1 outside ramps. Here's a link to a tutorial on creating those with DRI. https://community.simtropolis.com/journals/entry/29111-nam36-tutorial-starting-out-with-basic-rhw-highway-ramps-dri/ Diagonal underground route under Pedmall (shown in screenshot below). These are under the FLUPs menu item (framed with a red square below), but you have to use the Tab key many times to reach this piece, and then rotate with Home/End keys many times to get to the right shape and type. Straight underground route perpendicular under straight RHW4 (shown in screenshot below). This is a special FLUPs piece that is NOT under the FLUPs menu item ... instead you'll find it under the RHW/RD menu item (also framed with a red square in the screenshot below), the Shift+Tab three times to reach the "under straight RHW-MIS" piece, than rotate using Home/End keys until the "under straight RHW4" piece appears. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: See the full catalog of my NAM tutorial posts linked in the comments under this other Simtropolis post of mine ... NAM36: Starting Out advice for newcomers :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: PS. Really can't recommend this video tutorial highly enough. If you still have more to learn about FLUPs, and you haven't seen this yet, it's really, really good. Using FLUPs https://youtu.be/HpLGtqjjE8A?t=334 NAM Tutorial Part 3a (starting at 5:43 minutes) on the MGB NAM channel -
NAM36 Tutorial: Starting Out with RHW interchanges and Draggable Ramps (DRI)
Naomi57 posted a City Journal entry in Breezy Point, East New York: SimCity 4 tips and tricks (NAM36)
NAM36 Tutorial: Starting Out with RHW interchanges and Draggable Ramps (DRI) On a 6 point scale, the RHW-2 rates as Beginner and the RHW-4 and MIS as Intermediate: Beginner ► Intermediate ► Advanced ► Difficult ► Sophisticated ► Expert Some of the easiest Real Highway (RHW) features to use in the beginning are RHW-2 (single tile two-way), RHW-4 (two tile two-way) and MIS (single tile one-way). These are powerful features, with flexibility, ease-of-use, high speed limit, and high road capacity. The humble looking RHW-2 looks like a Maxis vanilla Road (RD-2), and acts like it in most ways, but it allows 3 TIMES the speed limit and 2½ TIMES the road capacity! Just be aware that there's no pedestrian access on RHW-2, so you'll need to connect it up to regular Streets, Roads and Avenues to zone residential, commercial and industry lots. The elegant MIS roads might look small, but they are just as powerful as the RHW-2, and are the foundation for high capacity interchanges. MIS roads are basically like a super-fast one way road ... but once again, there's no pedestrian access on highways! The RHW-4 is the RHW/NAM answer to the Maxis vanilla Highways (MHW), with the same speed, but 33% higher road capacity. IMPORTANT WARNING: The NAM36 RHW interchange tools are designed to work only in orthogonal layouts, not diagonal. If you're working on a diagonal interchange, you'll need the old vanilla Maxis Highways (MHW). That's one of the key reasons that I'll never install the NAM Project Symphony (Maxis Highway override mod). Highway Tools The RHW-2 is simple and draggable, accessed from the RHW-2 tool at the top of the Highways menu, just as easy-to-use as Maxis vanilla Road (RD-2). RHW-4 requires two Starter Pieces, from the Starters menu item on the Highways menu. Use Home/End keys to switch direction and orientation. Take careful note of the yellow line, which runs on the left inside edge of each carriageway (or right inside edge if using a UK right-hand drive installation of SimCity 4). Press the Tab key once using the same Starters tool to access the "MIS Starter Piece", with the same Home/End and yellow lines as the "RHW-4 Starter Piece". For both RHW-4 and MIS, once you have the starter pieces, you can drag them out using the all-purpose RHW-2 tool. Draggable Ramps (DRI) and a Compact Diamond Interchange Although the RHW-4 is one of the easier RHW features to work with, you will have to master on-off ramps, and the best technique to use is the Draggable Ramp Interface (DRI). It's worth investing some time in your Sandbox learning to use these features. The combination of this DRI Draggable Ramp Interface cheat sheet and the following short YouTube tutorial, will get you started. https://youtu.be/b2PeDUDlwvw?t=6 Network Addon Mod Version 33 Teaser 1: RealHighway Draggable Ramp Interfaces Extension, Part 1 by Ganaram Inukshuk For RHW-2, it's ease of use is such that you don't even need ramps! It can be used as an arterial road interfacing directly with other roads with 90 degree intersections, very similar to the Maxis vanilla Road tool (RD-2), but with high speed and high capacity. I talk some more about using RHW-2 as an arterial road and minor highway, on this other post of mine, RHW-2 and Traffic Management on an Island City. Even so, you'll find that ramps, coupled with the simple little RHW-2, delivers powerful options for high capacity suburban interchanges, like this very simple diamond interchange below. Be prepared that highways need lots of space! The above picture is as compact as it gets, with the A1 ramps starting 6 tiles from the Maxis vanilla one-way road (OWR-2) underpass. I used a pair of Maxis vanilla one-way roads (OWR-2) as the underpass for this little (18x3) feeder-collector interchange, but you can also use RHW-2 as the underpass in a similar configuration, for a smallest possible RHW-2 x RHW-2 interchange, only 13 tiles long and 3 tiles wide. The little MIS slip roads coming off the ramps are similarly high speed and high capacity, and can cross other roads at 90 degrees, as shown in the screenshot above. Whether doing a tiny little RHW-2 x RHW-2 interchange (13x3 tiles), or a slightly bigger RHW-4 x RHW-2 interchange (13x4 tiles), you'll need this other, all important tool, the "1-Level Flexible Height Transition", selected from the FLEXHeight menu item in the Highways menu, then press the Tab key 2 times (in NAM36). This piece will transform into whatever highway type you feed into it, and you can drag the transformed highway from it's ends using the all-purpose RHW-2 tool at the top of the Highways menu. The brown tile goes where the underpass is allowed to cross underneath the elevated L1 highway, taking 4 tiles to rise from L0 (ground level) to L1 (7.5 metres). This "1-Level Flexible Height Transition" is essential to building most RHW interchanges, and is one of the most flexible of RHW tools. :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: See the full catalog of my NAM tutorial posts linked in the comments under this other Simtropolis post of mine ... NAM36: Starting Out advice for newcomers -
NAM36: Starting Out advice for newcomers
Naomi57 posted a City Journal entry in Breezy Point, East New York: SimCity 4 tips and tricks (NAM36)
NAM36: Starting Out advice for newcomers One of the best NAM video collections for newcomers is the MGB NAM YouTube channel, because he explains carefully and moves very slowly. Thank you, @rsc204! Here's his best two videos for newbies, IMHO: Using FLUPs https://youtu.be/HpLGtqjjE8A?t=334 NAM Tutorial Part 3a (starting at 5:43 minutes) on the MGB NAM channel Using the NWM roundabouts and 2-tile networks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpLGtqjjE8A NAM Tutorial Part 4 on the MGB NAM channel He's using NAM34 (I think), but I found his advice worked well in NAM36, too. I'm also building a set of SimCity 4 tutorials on various topics, with many static pictures, right here on Simtropolis, and some of them are covering NAM36. Coming from a background in software development and corporate software application documentation, my tutorials are high quality. SimCity 4 Gameplay Tips and Tricks by Naomi57 on Simtropolis. I've got a particularly comprehensive tutorial there on using OWR-4, and another smaller one about suburban roundabout interchanges and the Avenue Y-Stack. This DRI Draggable Ramp Interface cheat sheet posted by @matias93 is also extremely useful, when you're ready to move beyond the most basic MIS ramps for RHW highway interchanges. It provided the all-important clues for one vital piece of my recent Canarsie Veterans Circuit Interchange. I actually only started on the NAM just recently, and there's two key pieces of basic advice I have for newcomers: Create a "sandbox", a large city tile which is completely flat, away from the rest of the active development in your region, to experiment with the NAM features. Use Ctrl+Alt+Shift and click the God-mode button to access Quick Level Brush tool, to ensure the entire city tile is completely flat. SimCity 4, and NAM, work easier on flat ground, and when you consider real-life interchanges, they mostly happen on flat ground, too! Start small. Choose a city tile on the outskirts, which is not that important to your region, with lower traffic levels. Even just start with the NWM features under the Roads menu for improved suburban transit solutions, as covered by the MGB NAM videos above. I started with my Breezy Point city tile, which is a little peninsula with just 1 highway Neighbour Connection. I found the Network Widening Mod (NWM) a great place to start, because it enhances the RCI Build Roads features. It's very versatile, immediately useful for better managing high-capacity suburban traffic flows, and improving the look of your urban and suburban neighbourhoods. I'm completely ignoring NAM Project Symphony (Maxis Highway override mod) and Street Add-on Mod and NAM Rail features for now, because they don't add anything to the basic SimCity 4 gameplay. With a thorough review of the NAM36 documentation before I started, I decided to not even install those three sets of features ... but I installed everything else. The features in the NAM are truly vast, an incredible development project for a volunteer team ... I'm guessing it's on the scale of 20-30 TIMES the feature set of the original Maxis vanilla SimCity 4 Rush Hour! Be prepared that it will take a long, long time, hours and months and years of enjoyable (and occasionally frustrating) play. The NAM has literally transformed my SimCity 4 experience ... but it's a steep learning curve. Starting small will balance your frustrations and joy! :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/758317-a-comprehensive-youtube-collection-of-NAM/?tab=comments#comment-1719932 :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: I'll be adding to this post in the comments below, as I come upon more resources that help NAM newbies. Click on the Follow button at the top of this post to get Simtropolis notifications when I add comments, NAM tutorial resources, and further info to this post. -
Hello all! I started getting back into SimCity 4 for the first time in over a decade a couple of weeks ago, and I have to say: Thanks so much for all of the work you've all done here, it's been an invaluable resource for me. I've learned so much, and found a bunch of great resources (the NAM especially rules). I could really use some help though, and I haven't been able to find the kind of tutorials that I need. There's great stuff for getting a city up and running, and great stuff for all kinds of more specific cities. But I keep running into problems whenever it comes time to start building up -- how do you transition from medium to dense? As soon as I start doing that, I end up with huge amounts of "no job" tags, mostly from high wealth people moving in and then not having a job. Are there any resources or tutorials that I haven't seen yet for making that jump properly (or maybe even just knowing when to do it)? At what point should I be adding a subway system? I have one in my 200k city, but hardly anyone was actually using it. Thanks in advance for any advice
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Hey I made this video as a tutorial for beginners on how to build their first city from scratch. It is not the definite answer for creating a city, it is a brief guide for beginners of the game. Perhaps you will watch this video and give me your thoughts and feedback about it. thanks
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Hi all, It's been around 10 years since I've been on here. I used to play a lot back in the day and am looking to maybe get back to SC4 since my interest in urbanism never went away (I now work in real estate development, in no small part due to SimCity). I have a couple beginner questions to help me get started. First and foremost, I saw that Steam carries SC4. Would playing on Steam impede my ability to use mods? Also, what have been the biggest additions since 2010 or so (BATs/mods)? Have there been any mods that change gameplay and/or the underlying mechanics of the game? Thanks!
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Acca's Inventions.. for Science!
accapulco posted a topic in Cities: Skylines Modding - Open Discussion
Hello everyone, thought I'd start a thread on my own so I can get some feedback and tips from the community. I've never used PS or modelling programs before so it's been a rough week but I'm enjoying it very much. I settled on Sketchup for modelling and 3ds Max for textures. Maybe some of you will hate that but SU is just too comfortable, fun and easy to use compared to the other stuff I tried although it does have several flaws, but I won't get into those. I got a lot of help from Ronyx69 so a big thanks to him first most. I've written everything down and am now able to produce assets, slowly mind you but something that works does come out in the end (can't make any promises about it's beauty but you gotta love your children ) I can start to experiment and learn about more functions and other methods if you recommend them so I'll be posting things here as I make them to get your feedback. Hopefully with your help I can become better and maybe start making some things that are worth publishing. If you also model in sketchup your knowledge and tips and triply worthy so please bestow upon me thy knowledge I've put a stop to Columbine, it's gone forever but it has taught me a lot about what I like and want to do and it's just not that. I thought the workshop could use some more rural and low/mid density buildings so I set out on this path with that in mind but everything isn't set in stone. I have an interest in making some Balkan and Mediterranean assets as I felt that most European buildings on the workshop are very German, big dark buildings which you don't really see that much along the Mediterranean. I wanted to make some buildings that represent those found around Albania, Bosnia, Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey and maybe I could go into North Africa & Spain later. I'm starting to make some small rural buildings but hopefully will get into 4-5 story apartments and more unique buildings like mosques, churches and bridges in the future but I'm not even going to think about those until I have 20 assets or so made and finalized. So that's just my vision, it may or may not go that far and all depends on how things go as I'm still a total noob. Here's the first building I made. It's a.. thing to learn how to model and texture. It's technically the second but we don't talk about "Project Alpha" 200 tris 512x256 tex And here's the second one 452 tris, 512x512 tex, added color variations on the stucco wall. I'm just experimenting with different things to see how they go and how necessary each detail is. I think I need to get better at textures for now I'm just using them as is with minor changes for objects such as stamping to remove things and outlining parts, very simple stuff. A "stylized while still realistic" theme may fit better than just using these textures outright and I hope I can make something like that in the future. It would also make things a bit more crisp, I feel these might lose detail as they get bigger. I think I will try to make one with windows on the texture as I'm losing tris for nothing for these. It's probably fine for small things but I need to know how to do it when I make bigger stuff. That will be after a while though since I modeled a couple more already.- 60 Replies
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Hello everyone, I started playing Cities: Skylines a while ago and now that I'm beginning to get the hang of it, I feel I really need mods to make an actual working city. In all of my tries so far I have had traffic congestion and other major issues which led to me deleting that entire save and starting over. My question to the community is: does anyone have a good modpack with more unique buildings, traffic lights removal, et cetera, that is not on the Steam Workshop? And do you have a download link to it, with a minor description? I would be ever thankful. Cheers, Laaf. PS: Mods that I am especially interested in are: Tunnels (for roads) Traffic light removal Unique buildings Additional leisure All tiles available
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I just recently started playing simcity 4 again. The last time i've played it was around 2005 when i was young and i can now appreciate the amazingness and scope of the game. My question is about mods. I have read about them for a while now before i just jump into the game in fear of having to start over if i install new mods and such. I have decided that i am going to install NAM, some of the fixes and some new buildings only to keep it light. Do i have to install any mods before i start a new region or can i install NAM, the fixes such as opera house and private school fix, and some new buildings or can i just add them at a later time? Thank you in advance i will reply to any posts and if you know of any essential mods or ones you highly recommend that would be awesome!
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Models uploaded so far : NA Medium density housing - 01 NA Medium density housing - 02 _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ OLD Hey guys first post here and first model for C:S ! I have a bit of experience with 3D modeling (followed some tutorials on DT, made a few models, and a made map on Source ) but i'm pretty much a beginner I just finished my first model for C:S, took some time (~7 days), got confused a few times but i'm pretty comfortable now and next ones will go much faster. I based it off the kind of houses you find around Toronto ( THIS house in particular). Heres the model on sketchfab and the model in the workshop you'll find it in parks plazza (don't know if I'll leave it up its just a test for now). 890 tris for the building and front yard thingy, no LOD yet, textures( D N A I S ) are 1024x1024, 32 tris for the 8m fence, 4 tri LOD, and 128x128 textures (which are temporary until I do a better one). For a few questions : I'm really unsure about how my normal maps turned out and have spent way more time than i'd like to admit fiddling with it, inverting re-verting, and getting more confused, would be appreciated if someone could go over it (the windows in particular look off ) : normals diffuse I also have some windows where the illumination will just be a white line PIC how do I fix that ? My textures seem fine to me illumination spec For the tris would it be fine to delete polys such as under the window trim and the ceiling of the porch ? I know some people like walking around the city in FPS view just as other people don't care so i'm not quite sure if I should leave them or not. I unwraped the uvs so that there is nothing overlapping for AO but I doubt i'll be able to do that with other more complex buildings. What is you guys stance on AO ? Important ? or is it fine just to let it aside ? Finally whats your prefered format for saving textures ? Right now its all PNGs. Edit : And the scale, does it seem fine ? PIC I'll probably make more of theses houses and maybe make a Torontonian collection if all goes well. THIS is what I expect a neighboorhood of theses will look like (containers = garages). Makes good practice!
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Why doesn't my city have any street lights and signal light? Can someone give some advice on this
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Trying to get into Cities: Skylines. Any tips?
AidanA2828 posted a topic in Cities: Skylines General Discussion
So, I played Simcity 2013 for a while. 500+ hours. I bought Cities: Skylines a while back and haven't played it or Simcity in a while. Never going back to Simcity after playing Cities, but does anyone have some tips for a new player? -
Mod buildings not showing up and other ?s
citizenstranger posted a topic in SC4 Bugs & Technical Issues
Hi all, So I am new to simtropolis and downloaded a bunch of mods last night; this was the first time I have ever put mods on sim city 4 deluxe. I did the standard extract and drag into doc/simcity4/plugins. However, only some of the mods seem to work most of them have no buildings or leave a transparent blue outline. I also downloaded the hov lane pack but it only lets me plop one tile at a time and it is impossible to connect the tiles, like ill set two next to each other but they will plop perpindicular, not connecting. Anyhow I probably have a bunch more questions but I will start with this and I am not a computer whiz, I am a novice at this stuff so any help would be great thanks guys. -
I bought a new computer with windows 8.It is Acer. How do I set up new computer for the first time? I really know nothing about how to set up a new computer. And I'm not joking. Please someone give me step by step direction how to set up my computer and the first things I need to do.
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All the talk and anticipation of the new Sim City game got me in a SimCity kind of mood, so I started playing this after buying it and not really getting around to it. I just have a couple of questions that I couldn't find answers to after browsing around here for a while. 1) Singe City or Mutli-City Region? I started a play making a single city be 100% residential, another city 100% industry, another city planning to be 100% commercial, ect. but is this at all viable? I seemed to start running into trouble with communte times and "no job" flags. I've since gotten the NAM, so I assume that would help some, but would I be better off just making one gigantic city to start with and then add offshoot regions once I get tired of that, or have multiple single purpose cities? 2) Do rewards affect other cities in the region? If I unlock the Farmers Market in a side city that's mainly agriculture, for instance, will the bonuses from plopping that affect my main city? 3) What do Alt and Ctrl do when placing zones? I noticed this causes the darker lines to seemingly disappear (making, say 2x2 or 2x3 blocks instead of 2x1) and clearly Alt changes the facing of the zones. What will this affect? 4) Is my city structure sound, or ridiculous and terrible? I was kind of messing around and came up with an arrangment like this (sorry for the box in the way, I used Steam's F12 Screenshot tool. You can still see the major outline): My intent is to fill the empty corners with clinics, fire stations, gifts that will fit, police, education, transit, ect, and the rest of the empty squares and corners with parks and/or transit stations. It also would leave room to turn the streets into roads, roads into one-ways or avenues, (some) avenues into highways, ect. I realise that this arrangment is probably more about personal preference, but I also feel as though I've left a lot of wasted space. Is this going to hamstring me later on? (I also just considered increasing the spacing on the borders by one square allowing for 4 blocks inbetween the avenues and streets instead of 3 so I can connect some 2x1 plots to the avenues. This would essentially make a universal grid of 4x4 areas following the same avenue-road intervals. Probably makes a better use of the space. I... I think I might actually do that instead. See! This forum is already helping!) Thanks for taking a look (and maybe helping? )!
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This is my first time playing a large tile. I typically avoid them because I found that all that empty space was overwhelming and I didn't know what to do with it. For this city I began in the way I used to, a large grid that would allow 3x3 buildings to come up. The left edge is connected to Lion's Beach by road and rail. The majority of this city is made up of commercial development. And there is still demand for more. Though there is industry - No one really works there. It's just for freight Most residential areas (apart from the original large grid) are shaped in 1x1 tiles around a center square. Traffic can become heavy, but it's nothing too serious now. Though I am worried about it. If you notice how the residential and the commercial (where everyone works) lay next to one another, there is no room for rail. Should I be thinking of subways at this point? Or should I really have thought ahead to plan for high traffic from these residential pods. Out of all areas, this one turned out the best. Again, it is my typical L shaped 1x1 residential around a cemetery The little European apartments look great! (IMO) Though I promised I wouldn't do this, I did it again and laid down double roads in preparation for 2 avenues that would run through the entire town. Every time I zone for more commercial, it seems like every single sim at the opposite end of town wants to work there! Also with the photo above, I was planning residential expansion with more of those round pods. They would be placed on either end of that area of commercial that juts out. Would you recommend any building strategies to keep the area free of bad traffic? Or perhaps I should put new residential elsewhere on this tile..... HELP!
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I was going to use Lion's Beach as an experimental city, but then I liked where it was going. The only thing, is that no matter what, there is always a huge demand for commercial. So I zone more commercial, and they want more. After a while I decided to ignore my sims and I made another little village off to the side and surrounded it by farms I connected the two sections of city by roads and rail. Few sims from the village commute into town because I began the little area with its own jobs nearby. Back in town, the mayor took the advice to use more custom content, and the results are ugly Also in this city, I tried using 2 separate rail lines that allow for freight and commuter lines to stay separate. Beyond that this city was just a stepping stone for it's only neighbor: Whistler's Coast
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This formerly little town south of Pegg Bank is the home to many of my experiments Here is an overview of my entire city of 18K sims so far: I have added an avenue going around my little city to experiment with the effect a high capacity road would have. My commute time went from 30 to below 4. (There are no busses or subways) One of the best residential areas is this here: It is right between two areas of commercial development, and there's quite a bit of traffic (hence the roads) but everyone seems to be happy living there The worst area is actually the old town center. This is the first development and it has the worst ratings overall: The best development really goes to the commercial area right by the new avenue. For some reason, all the traffic funneled right to these shops here, even before the avenue was built One area I am proud of is this area of residential. I modeled it after the area almost identical to this one that is located in Pegg Bank. Though this little areas has worse traffic problems. I am thinking it is because there is no bus system in this city And just for fun, here is a picture of my NAM disaster area:
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Odeon is the town north of Pegg Bank. These two cities share connections by road. Though there are cities north, east, and west of Odeon, I am hesitant to connect them due to the infinite commuter loop that I always fall into. Want to see how much of a beginner I am: There it is, my glorious attempt at avenue roundabouts. Since city planning failed me before, I have been trying to avoid preplanning roads and avenues. I don't think it is working looks-wise. The town as a whole looks like this: It is a little city on a medium tile. There are roughly 12K sims here and a budget of 1.4 million simoleons. You can see my major roadways. There aren't too many of them. The majority of traffic flows down to get across the border to Pegg Bank (even though there are plenty of commercial and industrial jobs within this tile) I always have the problem of commuters when I connect cities. Even if both cities are the same size, and have the same jobs, the sims will commute to the other city to work. They WANT a long commute time. They're stupid. The only area I am proud of in this city is this: The residential streets are in an L shape around the cemetery. All the buildings came in nicely and there isn't much of a traffic problem here. Attempts at duplicating this system have not gone well That being said, most of the residential areas looks like this and have major traffic issues: This place needs a major face lift, but I'm not a licensed doctor. I just don't want to end up injecting cement into the wrong places...
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Here is a view of the most recent addition to Pegg Bank As you can see above, the university was placed by the water in the narrowing of the land north of the river. If you look at the little overall map in the corner, you can see there is a little town on the south bank. They are not connected, though they do share power. I have kept them completely separate as an experiment in the 2 villages in the same city tile. Together they make a city of around 22K Sims. This was the original beginning of Pegg Bank. I started as I usually did with wider zoning and in a grid. As you can see, the majority of that land turned to mansions once water was introduced. The majority of traffic centers around this area: With sims commuting down to commercial or over to the high tech industrial area above the university. Traffic is not my strong point, though I would like to experiment with rail lines eventually. Here is the city overview: I'm not sure if I want to keep expanding or leave it for another tile...
