Associate
- Joined
- 24 Dec 2007
- Posts
- 736
Here's my city at the moment on our Antarctic server:
If your entire goal is to make a crap load of money and thus feed your neighbors/great works, I'm convinced the only real way to do it is with a mining->smelting city.
The profits are just stupid good:
It takes a little while to get going though while you gradually get more and more ore/coal mines while exporting said ore/coal until you can afford smelters. Once you get a smelter you're on course. If you have both coal and ore in your city it's easier, as you aren't constantly buying in the one you don't have and depleting your funds, which is what was happening to me earlier.
Another good thing about this strategy is that you don't need industry for jobs. I have zero industry zoned at the moment because all the mines/trade depots/smelters need so many workers. Eventually I'm going to zone some for High tech industry later with my High wealth citizens, but for now it's so much easier not even having to worry about it.
As to the guys who don't quite understand density, I've taken some screenshots for you which might help explain it.
There's a few things going on here. First, look at the window there. The top collection of green bars is the Land Value and thus the wealth of the citizens living there. If land value is at 1, you have low wealth citizens, 2 for medium etc. It's important to note that increasing land value of commercial and industry works similarly, so be careful there as if you have all your commercial at wealth 2 and lot's of citizens at wealth 1 you're going to have low happiness among them because they have no shopping potential. I've listed here what you can use to get wealth levels.
Low Wealth: The basic parks increase happiness without increasing land value, which is about the only thing I've personally noticed which doesn't do middle wealth increase also. You have a bit of wiggle room before things start to go Middle wealth tho, so you could plop a Grade School down and it would only increase land value by a little bit. Schools throughout your city, so long as they have access, increases low wealth happiness. I've heard that more educated sims don't like to work menial jobs tho so I've stayed away from full education for now, but I think I'll give it a blast, see how it goes. Oh and lowering taxes obviously helps also, but if you're dependent on tax income that doesn't really help.
Note that you want your Community College and University in your industrial sector because they increase the tech level there.
Medium Wealth: The next 2 parks, sports and nature. Also, services increase this one so fire, police and health services. Mayor house, Grade School and City Hall are Medium Wealth too.
High Wealth: Plaza and Formal parks and Mayor's Mansion I believe.
The second bar is the Density of the building. This changes based on the happiness and on time. Roads are the most important factor, thought. Having only low density roads completely prevents zones from increasing in density, which can be useful if for whatever reason you don't want that particular zone to increase. For example if you wanted low wealth commercial in a high land value area, you could leave the roads as low density roads and they wouldn't increase. Density can increase slowly, so it might not happen instantly just because you chucked some stuff down. I was annoyed earlier because it was taking ages for me but eventually it'll happen.
As you can see under the window, the white and light green highlighted areas are low wealth, the medium green is medium wealth and the very dark green is high wealth.
Phew, think I covered everything there.
If your entire goal is to make a crap load of money and thus feed your neighbors/great works, I'm convinced the only real way to do it is with a mining->smelting city.
The profits are just stupid good:
It takes a little while to get going though while you gradually get more and more ore/coal mines while exporting said ore/coal until you can afford smelters. Once you get a smelter you're on course. If you have both coal and ore in your city it's easier, as you aren't constantly buying in the one you don't have and depleting your funds, which is what was happening to me earlier.
Another good thing about this strategy is that you don't need industry for jobs. I have zero industry zoned at the moment because all the mines/trade depots/smelters need so many workers. Eventually I'm going to zone some for High tech industry later with my High wealth citizens, but for now it's so much easier not even having to worry about it.
As to the guys who don't quite understand density, I've taken some screenshots for you which might help explain it.
There's a few things going on here. First, look at the window there. The top collection of green bars is the Land Value and thus the wealth of the citizens living there. If land value is at 1, you have low wealth citizens, 2 for medium etc. It's important to note that increasing land value of commercial and industry works similarly, so be careful there as if you have all your commercial at wealth 2 and lot's of citizens at wealth 1 you're going to have low happiness among them because they have no shopping potential. I've listed here what you can use to get wealth levels.
Low Wealth: The basic parks increase happiness without increasing land value, which is about the only thing I've personally noticed which doesn't do middle wealth increase also. You have a bit of wiggle room before things start to go Middle wealth tho, so you could plop a Grade School down and it would only increase land value by a little bit. Schools throughout your city, so long as they have access, increases low wealth happiness. I've heard that more educated sims don't like to work menial jobs tho so I've stayed away from full education for now, but I think I'll give it a blast, see how it goes. Oh and lowering taxes obviously helps also, but if you're dependent on tax income that doesn't really help.
Note that you want your Community College and University in your industrial sector because they increase the tech level there.
Medium Wealth: The next 2 parks, sports and nature. Also, services increase this one so fire, police and health services. Mayor house, Grade School and City Hall are Medium Wealth too.
High Wealth: Plaza and Formal parks and Mayor's Mansion I believe.
The second bar is the Density of the building. This changes based on the happiness and on time. Roads are the most important factor, thought. Having only low density roads completely prevents zones from increasing in density, which can be useful if for whatever reason you don't want that particular zone to increase. For example if you wanted low wealth commercial in a high land value area, you could leave the roads as low density roads and they wouldn't increase. Density can increase slowly, so it might not happen instantly just because you chucked some stuff down. I was annoyed earlier because it was taking ages for me but eventually it'll happen.
As you can see under the window, the white and light green highlighted areas are low wealth, the medium green is medium wealth and the very dark green is high wealth.
Phew, think I covered everything there.
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