The really big skyscrapers are landmarks cost a bit... But they also boost the profile of the area nearby, you also need good transportation and enough sims to fill the big buildings, I held off on developing the rest of the map and the centre of it developed higher and higher. It was touch and go for a while was finding it hard to make money and went down as low as $2,000 at one point, now got a healthy surplus of about $1,000,000 and 100% mayor rating anyone have any tips on highways, got a lot of traffic in the centre of the city and have a lot of avenues, one way streets bust stops and subway, just not sure where to put the highway and it means losing a lot of real estate too..
sim city 4
- Thread starter Andr3w
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Been working on it some more... Almost double the population, more ploppable skyscrapers 
(this shot is from a different angle) love this better than SC2000 now 
And check this out;
http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3160151&sec=PREVIEWS
(this shot is from a different angle) love this better than SC2000 now 
And check this out;
http://www.1up.com/do/previewPage?cId=3160151&sec=PREVIEWS
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industry
Though mixing and matching can be fun, especially building a spaceport or two in the middle of skyscrapers.
I've manged to get 2 cities up to ~400,000 with a third of the land still available for new construction but just can't seem to push it to that half a mil.
High industry demand is pretty normal. I usually try to cooperatively manage cities. So one dedicated to industry, one to commercial and one to residential.
Though mixing and matching can be fun, especially building a spaceport or two in the middle of skyscrapers.
I've manged to get 2 cities up to ~400,000 with a third of the land still available for new construction but just can't seem to push it to that half a mil.
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The skies the limit
Skyfall: Unless you want to lose your real estate I would increase the efficiency of your subways. If need be maybe put in a elevated railway or monorail on the busiest commuter routes. I find that even with the improved traffic AI in Rushhour that its touch and go as to whether the highways get used efficiently, the sims start using them but then revert to their old ways on roads causing even more congestion.
Keep an eye on the demand for R,C & I. I usually find the skyscrapers appearing when you don't expand the amount of residential areas; if what you have zoned is high density, as soon as the buildings are full to capacity and demand remains high the buildings will get bigger until suddenly you have a city full of them, the trick then is to keep residential demand high
Skyfall: Unless you want to lose your real estate I would increase the efficiency of your subways. If need be maybe put in a elevated railway or monorail on the busiest commuter routes. I find that even with the improved traffic AI in Rushhour that its touch and go as to whether the highways get used efficiently, the sims start using them but then revert to their old ways on roads causing even more congestion.
nicksource said:Skyscrapers require time, a few pointers to achieve them:
- Good health care/hospitals
- Good education (colleges/unis a must)
- Good access to subways/avenues
- Airport or seaport help (these boost commercial demand like crazy)
- At least 4x4 minimum zones, otherwise they won't fit
You forgot 3:
High density zones
City stage of at least 7 ( 80 k pop)
Commercial office demand
Cool
How about high wealth homes?
I seem to get a max of 10 build then thats it!
I have high density residential, water, uni, school, library, healthcare, police, elementary, wind power, no pollution @ that spot... But I don't get an influx of wealthy sims as I expected
There's a few high wealth commercial.
Also, High Tech Industrial? How do I build an industrial zone without dirty industry coming in to make pollution in my posh areas where I want I-HT?
How about high wealth homes?
I seem to get a max of 10 build then thats it!
I have high density residential, water, uni, school, library, healthcare, police, elementary, wind power, no pollution @ that spot... But I don't get an influx of wealthy sims as I expected
There's a few high wealth commercial.Also, High Tech Industrial? How do I build an industrial zone without dirty industry coming in to make pollution in my posh areas where I want I-HT?
I tried some highways in my current city (which was 200k pop, now 400kFrogskin said:
) but they didnt like it at all. Increasing the subway and more busses seems to do more than highways.I think the problem is that highways arent too accessible, avenues seem better in general, intersecting roads meet more easily with it. I guess it takes more forward planning when starting your city to leave room for onramps and to make roads/streets meet up with each other better meaning that if you want to change an avenue into a highway its going to get used more... But again its not easy... I have yet to tackle a large city (only done small and medium towns/cities) but i think forward planning of highway will be one of my main challeneges...
It also doesnt help that I only just found about ctrl+zoning
Which is why I like this game, learning things from city to city and incorporating them into a new one, think I will make a few more industrial tiles around my big tile before I tackle it
I have made other industrial tiles around my city which helps, but I also use taxes to eradicate dirty industry, i moved straight from farming to manufacturing and high tech. Landmarks also help... They will raise the profile of your city so more high wealth sims and more high wealth business will want to move in. Also build universities and any learning rewards like private schools as often as possible. It took me a while to get my pop and some good $$$ residents and commercial without losing money, i had my population hovering around 70 - 80k for a very long time and kept the centre of the city moving to more high density and improving the school grades etc, its not a quick or easy thing to do.furnace said:
In general, if you keep your main res/commercial centralised its easier to manage schools, unlike the tutorials in the game suggest I find it better to build up than out... Once you have built a good centre to your city its much easier to expand with the commercial and residental needs that will come with having a centralized population.
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If you don't want to tax them out of business (i.e. you want to keep some dirty industry in select zones) just plop some parks or plazas into industrial areas, this reduces the pollution and increases desirability. Also using the clean air act in the ordinances area helps to keep dirty industry away.
furnace said:Cool
Also, High Tech Industrial? How do I build an industrial zone without dirty industry coming in to make pollution in my posh areas where I want I-HT?
Raise tax to 20% on both manufacturign and dirty industry, will bring down demand for them thus making it impossible for them to grow...
I've got back into playing this again recently. I pick it up now and again and play it solid until I'm sick of it, but I can never get a decent sized city. I think the biggest I've ever had was a population of about 30,000, and I've never seen a single high-rise building
I'm playing it again now and I've come across a bit of a problem I've never really encountered before. My money is ok (my outgoings are about the same as my ingoings at the moment, but I was well up on my finances), I've a population of about 11,000, air and water pollution doesn't touch the central residential and commercial areas and traffic is ok. However, people are starting to move out because of the lack of jobs. Also, the only demand I have is for low wealth residential, low wealth commercial and farms. Industry doesn't develop (I assume) because of the lack of demand.
At this size of city, there's negative demand for everything else. I'm not sure how to go about fixing it.
Anyone have any ideas?
I'm playing it again now and I've come across a bit of a problem I've never really encountered before. My money is ok (my outgoings are about the same as my ingoings at the moment, but I was well up on my finances), I've a population of about 11,000, air and water pollution doesn't touch the central residential and commercial areas and traffic is ok. However, people are starting to move out because of the lack of jobs. Also, the only demand I have is for low wealth residential, low wealth commercial and farms. Industry doesn't develop (I assume) because of the lack of demand.
At this size of city, there's negative demand for everything else. I'm not sure how to go about fixing it.
Anyone have any ideas?
I'd make sure you have police, fire, school and hospital cover, but with a population so small you should only really need one or two of those at most to start attracting more business.elkdanger said:
Even with low disireability you should have no problem growing industry. I would suggest more medium/heavy residential to bring in more population $, $$ mainly, they should create more demand.
If you have good positive cash flow try pumping that into more facilities or some good city ordinances.
Even on a small sized city tile I had no problem getting the population to 90,000.
Skyfall said:
Yeah I have those covered. 3 or 4 clinics at least, 3 schools + a high school and about 2 police and fire stations each. The safety meter is still pretty low.
Skyfall said:
See, I just can't get how that is done. Do you manage 2-3 regions at a time? What would you set taxes at when starting a new tile?
The city i'm talking about is only linked to one other tile and its a farming tile of about 1000 pop, so its not making much difference.elkdanger said:
Taxes... Depends how I want to approach it, sometimes I start out with a farming town and then slowly develop the residential outwards. This current one I set taxes on dirty ind high and left the rest default and went for dense residential and commercial first and got some high tech and manufacturing industial in. By just using high density tiles and having 1 school/fire/police/clinic it quickly went from 0 - 15,000 in a matter of minutes... I really dont know what your problem could be... Maybe garbage? Have you laid a water supply? Med/Dense tiles wont grow properly without it.
Skyfall said:
Yep I've got garbage and water covered
When you set dirty ind. taxes high, what kind of values are we talking about? Usually I adjust them a little bit from the default, but not wildly so.
You say a matter of minutes - I've been playing this tile for about 4 hours in total and I've amassed a population of 11,000
I've got things like parks and other YIMBYs covered aswell However, I've just re-read your post. I just realised that I've been zoning mainly low-density res and comm zones, which would explain the lack of population. But, in my experience if I started off using high-density zones, then single houses and other small buildings get built anyway, and worse still don't progress to taller and higher capacity buildings.
I think that's actually the way i've started off all my sim city games, with low density zones and then re-zoning later.
Hmm.. I'll give this another go tonight.
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elkdanger said:Yep I've got garbage and water covered
When you set dirty ind. taxes high, what kind of values are we talking about? Usually I adjust them a little bit from the default, but not wildly so.
You say a matter of minutes - I've been playing this tile for about 4 hours in total and I've amassed a population of 11,000
However, I've just re-read your post. I just realised that I've been zoning mainly low-density res and comm zones, which would explain the lack of population. But, in my experience if I started off using high-density zones, then single houses and other small buildings get built anyway, and worse still don't progress to taller and higher capacity buildings.
I think that's actually the way i've started off all my sim city games, with low density zones and then re-zoning later.
Hmm.. I'll give this another go tonight.
Download the Radical mod from Simtropolis and watch your city grown !
Pop is about 260k now and I've got loads free space, bring in about 25k per month and spending about 18Kish.
YorkshirePadd26 said:
I'll look into it, but I'm determined to do this without any mods, if possible. I'm using NAM, that's about it.
From reading Simtropolis this afternoon, I've got some ideas to try; hopefully I'll fare a bit better tonight.
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elkdanger said:
Yeah tis boring after I've done this actually, but this game swallowed up all of my weekend ! too slow ! we need lightspeed option !
furnace said:let us know if your successfull, elk. I'm not finding it particularly easy, either!
Well, I certainly got on a bit better last night. I think the main point I took away from playing last night is if you want a big city, you have to approach it like so (that seems so obvious to say now).
For example, previously when starting a city I would choose a corner of the map and start developing some low density residential. I'd also create a few farms, some low density ind. and some low density commercial. I'd connect them with roads and then let that run for a while. Once it became somewhat populated, I'd add a school and a clinic in there and let that run some more. I'd basically keep building up like that, and if I played for long enough I might get 11-12,000 people living there. However, the traffic system would be a mess and there'd be too much traffic noise for people to be there.
Last night, however, I planned ahead how I wanted my city laid out. Straight off, I placed a couple of stretches of avenues which crossed over each other, the idea being that the center of the cross would be the center of that 'district'. I'd place a high density ind. zone out of the way towards the edge of the map and stretch an avenue out to it. I zoned high density residential and commercial in the centre, placed bus stops everywhere, connected up water and power, and also placed police/fire/school/clinic in the middle. Finally, I lowered medium wealth residential tax to 5%, and did the same for high wealth comm and high wealth ind. I also raised dirty ind. taxes to 13%.
After letting that run, it immediately developed quite quickly. After playing for about an hour last night, I ended up with a population of 36,000. During that time, more schools (of different sizes), a hospital and a landing strip were added. High-tech industry is developing well, and there's quite a demand for commercial.
My finances aren't in great shape though - I've got practically nothing and my outgoings aren't much less than my incomings. I spent about $520,000 getting the city in this state, so my strategy obviously needs tuning. On top of that, I've got some traffic problems (people taking funny routes to get to work, etc).
All of this was on a quater of a medium region tile, so plenty still left to develop.