Developing a city Doesnt anyone ever reads the posts and actually answer? Well, heres the problem I had the game for nearly 8 months now, and I have tried sooo many different ways to build a city. I usually build on the large maps, and have only once succesfullt created a city with more than 300k. My problems is, that some where along the way suddenly people move out. Their jobs are too far away. I normally build industrial cities around the large maps, so the citizens can commute. It works great for along time, until I reach a certain size. My question is this: What is - in your opinion - the best way to build the roads(Im thinking about a Washington inspired theme, with big boulevards early on). Ive heard some say, that there are buildings available that fills an entire 5x5 square and even bigger. How do I get to them? And if Sam Lawrence sees this post: On the collection thread you have a cool image of a city with huge scyscarpers. Please help me with reaching above the 280- 300k mark. P.S. I normally start with low density but rich people moving in. The tax for the rich is 7,4 and for the poor its 10,5. So no poor people in my city.
You know, I only bought this game (SC4) to create neighborhoods for TS2. But, I got it back out tonight and played it and had a great time. I have a similar problem, Jack. My cities go very well for awhile, and then things fall apart and I can't figure out how to keep the town in the green! People move away, buildings become abandoned, there is too much water polution and air polution because factories keep coming in, I let them build a missle range and I have protestors, it just all falls apart. I can't get any skyscrapers, either!!
The secret to SC4 is to use the regional economy tools. Once you have city growing nicely, put on the sideburner and start new ones around it. I try to work to rough sort of plan where one or two cities have all the dirty industry (and trash burners) while the clean cities have the water pumps or fusion power plants so they can afford to export their garbage. I also lay out my cities in 6 by 8 blocks and avoid developing the short sides where bus and subway stops can be placed and also space is built in to allow for avenues when needed (needless to say small "neighborhoods" need to be laid out at right angles to each other as otherwise all the potential avenues will run parallel to each other ... the upside of this is a prettier layout that also includes larger plots suitable for placing universities and other rewards. )
If I want to do single cities, I just lay about 2-4 8X6 Industry lots, then I buffer that out with about 4-5 spaces of trees, and to buffer that out further, a belt of 4X24 of Commercial (I don't lay all the zoning immediately, its a waste), then I make 4X4 lots in a circle formation with schools/firestation/police in the middle. If you want a trick to make money, make ONE single ground-highway to the industry area, BUT, put a tollbooth on it, Sims will HAVE to use it, but the highway's speed balances out the time comute.
I've always loved the SimCity games but I had a lot of trouble with 4. I've noticed a lot of people can't get viable cities going. Does this version require you to build numerous cities? I never develop neighboring towns. If this is why I can't build one fabulous city, I might be willing to dig the game back out and play it differently. The highway with tollbooth is interesting. I haven't been able to get a city large enough to get to that stage.
Yeah, Zy. SC2000 introduced invisible neighbors, SC3 let you (well made it more or less compulsory) to trade trash, water and power with them, but SC4 .... SC4 makes you build and play the neighbors as well. Each city is a boro of the larger regional metropolis and if your city has no neighbors it won't thrive.
Thank you. SC3 allowed you to trade with computer generated cities. I assumed that it would do that in SC4. Now if I can only find where I pitched it after the last frustrating attempt at playing, I'll give it a go.
Getting Development I think you should start building cities on a medium grid and when you get to about 50,000 sims build public transport so they don't get stuck in traffic then move out of your city
