sim city 4

[Overlag]

i really like this game but i have two issues

1: time.... im not 12 anymore i used to spend days in SC2000 making cities and destroying them... these days i can rarely get a few hours in.

2: when i DO get the time, i make a great city only for the game to crash......

 

[V4NT0M]

i really like this game but i have two issues

1: time.... im not 12 anymore i used to spend days in SC2000 making cities and destroying them... these days i can rarely get a few hours in.

2: when i DO get the time, i make a great city only for the game to crash......

Play SC200 its much easier to build a big city.

 

[Overlag]

Think its time I stared my own city from scratch, I always liked to build a city with a river going through in SC2000, not only was it easier to segment industry and res/com its looked nice, rivers dont look nice in SC4.
Anyways I do go on...

so true... i used to use that city called "lakeland" i think it was... on a seafront sort of thing... Id improve transport by putting a freeway in, id expand outwards with a urban sprawl and expand upwards in the central part of the town. once i run out of room, id start reclaiming land japanise style... adding a airport in the sea with good links to the land... i had great fun doing this sort of thing...


.... i preferd the idea of improving a city, than building it from scratch (SC3000 and SC4), and that was what made SC2000 so good. It was EASY to make a big city, but it was hard/fun trying make a great city.

Play SC200 its much easier to build a big city.

doesnt run well on my pc.... even with dosbox installed etc

its either too fast or too slow. for instance my mouse only needs 5mm movement to move from one side to the other.... oh and it CTD's a lot too lol

 

[Byron5184]

Finally got Rush Hour and gave the new tutorials a spin, pretty cool Just gotta get that NAM addon for things like roundabouts etc.. Does anyone recommend any other addons that are fun? I dont want cheating ones etc..

 

[joffy]

I asked before but got no answer...
Is there a sandbox mode in the game, where you can just build a cool city with no restrictions?

 

[Overlag]

restrictions?

you mean like funding?

get some money cheats or money lots (you build the lot, and it gives you money).... then you can build as fast as you want.


or so you mean some other restriction?

 

[sniffy]

I installed this last night *shakes fist in anger at OP for starting this thread so close to exams

I used to really suck but I followed a tutorial on one of those sites posted and my little town is growing steadily but surely! Making bout $600 profit a month which ain't bad considering I'm a noob and the town is small

 

[joffy]

restrictions?

you mean like funding?

get some money cheats or money lots (you build the lot, and it gives you money).... then you can build as fast as you want.


or so you mean some other restriction?

Well build n place what you like?

 

[tomanders91]

occasionally i just you a trainer to give me 64 billion $, then ulock everything cheat (enter'you don't deserve it' into the console thing) and place away.

 

[joffy]

occasionally i just you a trainer to give me 64 billion $, then ulock everything cheat (enter'you don't deserve it' into the console thing) and place away.

Cool and it doesnt nag you that you've not enough zones etc?

 

[Byron5184]

Heres a few questions out of curiosity. What kind of cities does everyone like to build?

Do you prefer grid based cities with city blocks that make for big profits and easy setup and expansion?
Do you prefer really beautiful looking cities with a slightly more random transportation network of roads/rail etc.. with no set structure?
Do you prefer a massive bussling metropolis over the entire region, or smaller towns and villages on each tile?
Do you prefer building a city primarily on one of the large tiles instead of several smaller ones? (to keep it feeling like SC2k/3k)

Maybe people could post examples of smaller cities they have made that havent developed into massive skyscrapers yet rather than their super cities to help other people design their own cities

I myself like to create non grid like cities but i have major trouble with traffic when i do because of the layout. I try and prefer really nice looking cities as opposed to city block type cities but i find it really hard to make money or make them look nice.

Overall i love the style of Sim City 3000 of having just one humungous grid and making the entire city on it. So i normally make a region, alter it so its all large tiles and make small towns on each tile with connections so it looks like an area of the county, not a massive city. Little villages on tiny maps or in the corner of big maps rock

EDIT - does anyone have the direct link to the mod that adds european roads with the while lines and driving on the left? I cant seem to find it on simtropolis

 

[Posty]

i like to build large cities across all the tiles of the region with all roads/rail/subway linked together, i try to avoid large grid areas of roads but is hard to avoid when you want to populate large areas of the map

 

[BoomAM]

@ BoomAM


Tbh the power, water and garbage deals between city's are rubbish, offers too little and you have to contstantly update it, just start with a coal plant in corner and powerline to residential on other side of the map, add a forest in between if distance is short between res and power plant...

Once coal is oevrloading and you need more watts: Get a windmill park open and look @ power graph to have exactly how many u need.

By this time you should have unlocked solar, if not nuclear power, either of them will do: Clean power and not as expensive per watt as windmills, drop funding on windmills or destroy em if you get a nuke plant...

So play it like Sim City 3000? Ie, treat each area of a region as its own self contained area?
Its a pain because unlike SimCity3000, making deals seems a right pain in the rear to do.

 

[snowdog]

So play it like Sim City 3000? Ie, treat each area of a region as its own self contained area?
Its a pain because unlike SimCity3000, making deals seems a right pain in the rear to do.

No the idea to seperate industry tiles with residential is good, saves you a lot of polution, but for power, water and garbage isnt worth doing it...

I hardly ever mix a lot of industry with residential/commerial city's.
The cities I make are:
Deticated residential ( suburbs)
Deticated commercial/residential( true cities)
Deticated industry ( industry area's )

There are a few small exceptions, ie a small commercial bit in industrial tiles, or a tiny industrial area in *** corner of a residential city, but these are exceptions... I generally stick my tile in a region to one of the above 3 types of cities/area's...

Heres a few questions out of curiosity. What kind of cities does everyone like to build?

Do you prefer grid based cities with city blocks that make for big profits and easy setup and expansion?

No, wheres the fun in that ?

Do you prefer really beautiful looking cities with a slightly more random transportation network of roads/rail etc.. with no set structure?

yep

Do you prefer a massive bussling metropolis over the entire region, or smaller towns and villages on each tile?

Depends on region, sometimes i like 1 big city, sometimes the 2nd...


Do you prefer building a city primarily on one of the large tiles instead of several smaller ones? (to keep it feeling like SC2k/3k)

I build on both large and small tiles, all linked together, ie a big tile for my commercial/residential bits, surrounded by several smaller industral tiles...

Snowdogs got many mods in that pic, like the crazy upside down Y building and the horse shoe type laybys and roundabouts. Also the freeway underpass is a mod as I'm sure you want do that in the game as well as the sloping sides up to his main land level fromthe freeway. Tasty looking mods I may have to investigate these.

Its not that great looking really, To make it look that nice you jsut gotta keep redeveloping and improving, mix and match is the key.

If you build it they will come !

The roundabouts are part of the Network add-on mod (NAM).
Freeway underpass isnt a mod, it's a default ingame maxis tunnel...

 

[V4NT0M]

I know this is all I will be doing on my 3 days off work...

In answer to the city styles, I dont know yet... Have yet to make my own city in SC4, but in SC2000 I liked to centralize all the big commercial and residential, but thats where I found the fun in SC2000, making cities different every time.

The only ones that come to mind (was so long ago) are one with a river running through the middle (custom map) had lots of hydroelectric dams, something which I miss a lot in SC4, they were good, clean energy and they only took up space that you couldnt put buildings on anyway. I had all the commercial along the shorelines and some small industry at the very outer edges. Looked really nice.

The other I had a river seperating 1/4 of the map with industry on and commercial/residential on the other side, had a main street crossroads which was the centre of the city block, which was on a large flat hill, lots of commercial and some big residentials. The further from the main street I got the less dense res/com i had and the more light res/com, with a big ringroad type higway around the central hill. It was really good for the dynamics of the city and it looked really good and realistic

Tried other cities with no rivers and just packed them full of high density everything and archologies, massive population. Hope I can have the same fun with SC4, though it seems probably in the time it took me to make those 3 cities I would just about have made one in SC4.

---

Something i've not read about, but regions in SC4... Can I do somethnig like this... Build four regions around a central one with a lot of agricultural, industrial and residential, then build a main city in the middle square with lots of commercial/residential and no industrial? Will it work this way?

 

[BoomAM]

No the idea to seperate industry tiles with residential is good, saves you a lot of polution, but for power, water and garbage isnt worth doing it...

I hardly ever mix a lot of industry with residential/commerial city's.
The cities I make are:
Deticated residential ( suburbs)
Deticated commercial/residential( true cities)
Deticated industry ( industry area's )

There are a few small exceptions, ie a small commercial bit in industrial tiles, or a tiny industrial area in *** corner of a residential city, but these are exceptions... I generally stick my tile in a region to one of the above 3 types of cities/area's...

Thats my problem.
I did have two zones linked, but nothing would go through, leaving one completely without power & water.

 

[Byron5184]

Something i've not read about, but regions in SC4... Can I do somethnig like this... Build four regions around a central one with a lot of agricultural, industrial and residential, then build a main city in the middle square with lots of commercial/residential and no industrial? Will it work this way?

Yes you can link them all together so you can have residential in one area, commercial in another, industrial in another etc..

 

[BoomAM]

Ive had another quick go on it.
Im doing better than before, but im finding it really hard to make money.
And for some reason i deleted the fairview region thinking it'd only get rid of my city, but the entire region has gone!

The city i have at the moment has a population of about 2000, but im finding it hard making money. My income is about 1100, but outgoing is about 2900!!!

I make about 1000 a month in residential taxes, but commercial taxes only makes me about 36 a month.
My industrial region has only a few things in it, but has more than enough zoning for a lot of expansion, yet there is continued demand in both cities for industrial.
Ive tryed everything to get things going. Ive improved healthcare & education in my main city to make my sims smarter, ive got subway stations and links between in both cities.

Nothing seems to be working!

I might give up again and start over.

 

[ste_bla]

Ive had another quick go on it.
Im doing better than before, but im finding it really hard to make money.
And for some reason i deleted the fairview region thinking it'd only get rid of my city, but the entire region has gone!

The city i have at the moment has a population of about 2000, but im finding it hard making money. My income is about 1100, but outgoing is about 2900!!!

I make about 1000 a month in residential taxes, but commercial taxes only makes me about 36 a month.
My industrial region has only a few things in it, but has more than enough zoning for a lot of expansion, yet there is continued demand in both cities for industrial.
Ive tryed everything to get things going. Ive improved healthcare & education in my main city to make my sims smarter, ive got subway stations and links between in both cities.

Nothing seems to be working!

I might give up again and start over.

Have you lowered funding of the hospitals/schools so that capicity equals usage?

Also bigger is better IE cheaper to have a big hospital and lower funding (keep ambulance same though) than 3x small medical centres

Dont use subways, only ever use them once you have a v dense city use busses or railroad works out a lot cheaper

 

[V4NT0M]

I find it quite easy to make money in my smallsh 70,000 pop town, just make sure that police, hospitals and education arent overfunded, underfund them until them complain, then very slightly overfund...

Usually take in about 1k - 5k

I also decided to get together a bit of money, so i increased the tax on dirty industry to 20% and raked it in for a little while, got about 200,000 with no impact on my city