distance shouldn't matter. Can you post a screenshot of your water pump's status?
edit - also make sure the pump isn't near water pollution/Industry. Putting pumps near residential areas is safest.
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GAF Plays: SimCity 4 (with mods)
- Thread starter Perkel
- Start date
distance shouldn't matter. Can you post a screenshot of your water pump's status?
edit - also make sure the pump isn't near water pollution/Industry. Putting pumps near residential areas is safest.
Sorry, I figured it out, as ever I was just being dumb. From the angle I was looking at the pipes it looked like they were connected to my pumping station, but they stopped just short... So I had the capacity in spades, it was just not going anywhere, the water pressure behind the taps in that pumping station must have been lethal!
I figured something else out that I didn't realise last night. For many, many years I've had demand for High-tech Industry (I've only ever built wind farms and taxed Dirty Industry out of existence), but I couldn't get it to grow properly even when I put fire and police coverage down for them. Finally thought, maybe they'd like a plaza and plopped one down, cue a huge explosion of high-tech growth... picky bastards.
Does high tech grow any differently on high density industrial to medium density does anyone know?
encephalon
Member
Vundo variants showed up in my SC4mapper files a while back. Other trojans appeared in my previous dependencies. I'm not sure if any of these are false positives, but taking action didn't disable SC4mapper ... Bad interfaces is one thing. But getting back into SC4 made me realize that you're really at the mercy of what some of these people have on their computers. I've been taking my chances and hoping malwarebytes, superantispyware, and avast can protect me recently, however.
That's happened to me too. that's why I wanted to see the screenshot.
I've never had a problem like you describe with the plaza. that's an odd one. I suspect if you had de-zoned and re-zoned the industrial area, they'd have grown as well. might have just been a bug.
As for your second question, I think you can get different buildings (with more employees, but also using more power/water) in high density than medium.
Hmm, now the stuff has grown I might destroy the plazas and save money then, see if it makes any difference.
Ah right, I tried zoning both types but seemed to get the same buildings, maybe the demand just isn't there yet.
I did get my first high rise residential last night and it was a $$$ building rather than some dystopian nightmare I was expecting, looks really cool and I was stupidly proud over it, felt like I'd nurtured it into being
Red Blaster
Member
had a couple pms asking for my plugins when designing the seaport, i'll see if I can collate them into zip file when I find some time
Setvan2734
Member
Does anyone have a mirror, or can create a mirror to the pack of the plugins mentioned in the OP? For some reason I cant get the download to go past 1%
The link mentioned:
https://mega.co.nz/#!TcQ3HKjY!XL_CQkpYGwmwqSkqTK_oLgLvNgUjm_NFzn2RGG99jDY
The link mentioned:
https://mega.co.nz/#!TcQ3HKjY!XL_CQkpYGwmwqSkqTK_oLgLvNgUjm_NFzn2RGG99jDY
encephalon
Member
Anyone know what could cause this?
This is supposed to be my el-rail, btw. I'm running the latest NAM. Wonder if that has anything to do with it ...
This is supposed to be my el-rail, btw. I'm running the latest NAM. Wonder if that has anything to do with it ...
It has arrived!
Here's what I've done so far (30 min)
And this is how I feel:
I'll learn.
BTW, I'm playing in software mode with one CPU but the framerate is all over the place.
When I'm moving around the city is 60fps, but when I stop it drops to 30. Any way to avoid this?
Here's what I've done so far (30 min)
And this is how I feel:
I'll learn.
BTW, I'm playing in software mode with one CPU but the framerate is all over the place.
When I'm moving around the city is 60fps, but when I stop it drops to 30. Any way to avoid this?
tip - if you're going to use coal, stick you plant far away from your development and run a power line to it. coal plants are great power:$ ratio, but pollute like hell. neither residents nor farms like to be anywhere near pollution. Dirty Industry doesn't care, however.
Ace Harding
Member
Is this available for Mac as a download anywhere (for purchase obviously)? I had a hard copy somewhere but no idea where it is now. I would love to jump in to SC4 again.
Good, I moved it away.
Is there any site where I can find some guide on the basics? I played the tutorials but I didn't really understand much.
I put a guide to running a profitable city with all major services a couple pages back.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=50474973&postcount=414
also read through the thread - there's a lot of good advice in here. Generally speaking, it's easy to keep low density development profitable. A lot of high density can spiral into a lot of problems in a hurry - I'd avoid it until you learn how all the services work and how to manage budgets.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
I also like to draw the roads myself rather than rely on the auto fill zoning thing.
Hold shift when you zone to get rid of the streets.
Hold ctrl when you zone to increase the block size.
Hold alt to alter the direction.
Hold shift when you zone to get rid of the streets.
Hold ctrl when you zone to increase the block size.
Hold alt to alter the direction.
Thanks you.
But something I didn't understand (and I can't restart the tutorial <_<), how do I make people to come to my city?
I tried to build something like this:
Everything is low densitiy, some little shops popped out but still no citizen.
What am I doing wrong. :lol
And I have some question:
1) I basically only have to build residential zone and "work" zone, and they will be automatically filled, right?
2) Why sometimes even if a slot has streed on a side, it still says that it is not connected to any street? Like, in the screen above I had to build all those roads around the school because it kept saying that it wasn't connected.
Try building some bigger plots. 1x1 plots have some restrictions before they'll grow.
The little arrow on the plot has to have street access. (And yes, the game will sometimes try to build a plot with the arrow facing the wrong way.) You'll learn to manipulate the zoning tool the more you play.
Don't build 2 wind plants right off the bat. Only one is needed. Build more as you fill the capacity of the ones you have.
Some times I've found that I need a police station, power, and trash to get people to start coming.
...
In one of my current cities, workers refuse to work in my industrial zones. Its connected by rail, and the rail to subway, bus and road. But nothing doing. Occasionally three or four people will decide that manufacturing or high tech industry is alluring enough...but rarely. Thoughts?
My smaller farming town is coming along nicely.
It looks like the industrial areas are staffed. They're not greyed out. Are the workers there coming from other cities in your region?
Maybe people don't want to take the trains, or the train stations are too far from them and they don't want to take a bus. Try putting an avenue between them. Stick a toll booth on it if the plan was to make money with your transit system.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Don't use 1x1 tiles.
All you need for people to move in is to look at your RCI demand bars. If any bar is in the positive, that means that you can zone it, and it will pop up, providing that the desirability is positive too (desirability map. Don't worry about it too much at this early point. For low wealth stuff, everywhere is desirable, they don't give a shit lol).
Here's a simple start. Zone a single road. At the end make a perpendicular road so that your road network looks like a "T". Zone some industrial along that perpendicular road, 4 tiles deep. Just a little for now.
Now, make another perpendicular road at the other end, so that your road network looks like an "H". Zone some residential on that perpendicular road 2 tiles deep.
Now, zone a small bit of commercial zones on the middle road, 2 tiles deep.
Add a wind turbine somewhere to provide power. Stuff should pop up no problem. When your industry emerges, make a road connection to the edge of the border so that the industry has somewhere to ship its freight.
Unless you have people complaining about unemployment, don't worry about it. All the buildings are magically staffed with workers made from thin air if you have a surplus of available jobs.
The only time you have to worry about jobs is if there aren't enough, at which point you zone more industrial or commercial.
or
Your sims can't make it to work on time, which means you rework your traffic layout/provide more mass transit options, or you have to provide more jobs closer to where the sims live.
Mr. Luchador
Member
Post more screenshots, I've enjoyed seeing SimCity4 cities again.
Red Blaster
Member
gotta get back into this, bioshock infinite and school getting in the way
This seems to be it. Jobs and population are roughly equivalent, and no one is out of work. Commute times are nice and low. Just wanted my transit to be actually used haha. Ghost trains will do for now.
edit:
And in this city, I've got a nice neighborhood of medium density.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
If they're not being used and no one is complaining, they're just sucking up money. Might as well bulldoze 'em, unless you like the aesthetics. Or zone more residential so that you have more people who need jobs and then they go work there.
"Jobs and population are roughly equivalent, and no one is out of work."
Actually, if you're looking at your total population count, that's not entirely accurate. Your workforce comprises only a fraction of your total population. The rest of them are babies, students, elderly, or freeloaders. Your actual number of people looking for work is lower.
Yes, I reckon that nobody wants to live in a single tile house. Everybody wants a backyard, with a pool maybe. :lol
Talking about the RCI graph, could someone tell me what every bar means and what I should do to lower the demand of each?
This is mine right now:
Yes, I reckon that nobody wants to live in a single tile house. Everybody wants a backyard, with a pool maybe. :lol
Talking about the RCI graph, could someone tell me what every bar means and what I should do to lower the demand of each?
This is mine right now:
the R$, R$$ and R$$$ are low, middle and high-wealth residential.
For Commercial, it's divided into Shopping and Office businesses, again, divided by wealth levels.
Industrial, the bars are as follows - Agriculture (must zone this explicitly), Dirty, Manufacturing, High Tech.
For everything except Agriculture, you zone RCI at any density and any of those things can potentially move in and claim that space. Obviously, the ones with the bars the furthest into the positive are the most likely things to move in.
$$$ level and Zoning Density have nothing to do with one another.
As far as demand goes, everything depends on your overall city and services. Generally speaking, you want the bars to go up, not down. You'll need good utilities, education, etc. services to attract high-$$$ residents and jobs. And obviously, $ residents tend to want $ jobs, $$ residents like $$ jobs, etc. So there's a symbiotic relationship between the different tiers. If you get a lot of $$$ residents, they're going to want $$$ jobs and $$$ shopping.
Forsaken82
Member
Yes, I reckon that nobody wants to live in a single tile house. Everybody wants a backyard, with a pool maybe. :lol
Talking about the RCI graph, could someone tell me what every bar means and what I should do to lower the demand of each?
This is mine right now:
$ = Low wealth
$$ = Medium wealth
$$$ = High wealth
I don't recall what the differences between the other commercials and industry are though off hand. Its been a while
DOH! beaten
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Yes, I reckon that nobody wants to live in a single tile house. Everybody wants a backyard, with a pool maybe. :lol
Talking about the RCI graph, could someone tell me what every bar means and what I should do to lower the demand of each?
This is mine right now:
That means you have a demand for about 8000 low wealth residents, about 500 medium wealth residents, about 4000 high wealth residents. Your job creating industry and commercial zones need more workers from those wealth classes. Zone more residential to fill those demands.
In order to see what kind of wealth class will spring up, go to your desirability map view. You can see, according to each type of class, what areas in green are the most desirable. Low wealth can grow anywhere so it doesn't matter. But, look at the high wealth desirability map and see where it's dark green. Put residential zones in that area in order to encourage high wealth growth. Remember that high wealth sims desire low pollution, and good access to health and educational services.
The commercial demand means that you have slightly negative demand for low and medium wealth services, which means you already have a lot of them in your city and don't need any more. You do have some demand for medium and high wealth office space, so zone commercial in areas that have green commercial office desirability. This is because your workforce is gradually becoming more educated and richer, so they'd rather work in an office rather than a dirty factory.
Your industrial demand shows that you have lots of demand for farms, but you can ignore that.
You have negative demand for dirty industry, which means that you have lots of dirty industry and not enough jobs to fill it. That's also kind of why your low wealth residential demand is so high. The game is telling you to get more low wealth workers to fill those dirty jobs.
But, the game is also telling you that you have a demand for manufacturing industry. That means your workforce is getting more educated, so they'd rather work in a manufacturing plant rather than a dirty industry. Similar to the commercial office thing. That is why your medium wealth industry and your medium wealth commercial demands are of similar values.
So I don't have any kind of control on what industries are in my city?
I just create Industrial/Commercial tiles and what will be will be? :lol
This means that I have to generate 13000 citizens?
So, basically, if I only want low wealth citizens, I have to "degrade" a residential zone (like, by building an High-pollution building or by increase criminality, right?) to a red status, and low wealth people will fill in those spot. The other way around for medium and high wealth. Right?
The same thing goes for jobs? If I generate jobs in a red-zone, they'll be taken by low wealth people?
My city is green everywhere, so I have to zone commercial until the demand starts to diminish?
But right now I have 3 farms and 1 other thing. I had a coal plant, but I destroyed it and now I'm using wind turbine.
So, how do I generate manufacturing industries? :lol
Sorry for all these question, it's just that the tutorials are really barebones, they don't explain much.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
So I don't have any kind of control on what industries are in my city?
I just create Industrial/Commercial tiles and what will be will be? :lol
You do have control to a certain extent. If you were to simplify the game down to basics and just merge all 3 red bars into one red bar, all 5 blue bars into one blue bar, and all 4 yellow bars into one yellow bar, the basic gameplay is as follows: Zone some red if the red bar is positive, zone some blue if the blue bar is positive, zone some yellow if the yellow bar is positive (so in that sense, yes, you just create I/C and what will be will be...BUT). The complexity comes in then differentiating between the different kinds of wealth classes and knowing how to balance all of them with each other.
This means that I have to generate 13000 citizens?
Yeah, basically, although I don't remember if that means you need to create 13000 overall citizens or 13000 workers. Remember that workers actually comprise a fraction of what your total population is. Like in the real world, not everyone is looking for a job.
The simple answer would be: zone more green until the bars lower. The tricky part comes in zoning in the appropriate spaces and in the appropriate quantities. Also, zoning properly to encourage the growth of high wealth sims, since you have a demand for them.
So, basically, if I only want low wealth citizens, I have to "degrade" a residential zone (like, by building an High-pollution building or by increase criminality, right?) to a red status, and low wealth people will fill in those spot. The other way around for medium and high wealth. Right?
If you want only low wealth citizens, you could do it that way: provide less than optimal living conditions via pollution, crime, or lack of health or educational services.
Or
Just go to your budget panel, and raise all the taxes of medium and high wealth sims to 20%. Then they won't want to move in anymore, and the ones that are there will probably move out.
My city is green everywhere, so I have to zone commercial until the demand starts to diminish?
It's green everywhere for commercial offices? Make sure you are checking the right one. In the desirability data layer, there is a check box for each kind of class you wish to analyze.
Anyway, yes, the gist of the game is to zone commercial until your commercial demand starts to diminish. Notice, however, that your demand is for medium wealth and not low wealth stuff, so even if you zone commercial, it might not grow if the environment is not ideal for medium wealth commercial growth (e.g. too much pollution, too much crime, not enough traffic, too far for sims to get to work, etc).
But right now I have 3 farms and 1 other thing. I had a coal plant, but I destroyed it and now I'm using wind turbine.
So you dont' have any dirty industry at all? OK, then the negative dirty industry demand means that your sims are educated enough that they'd rather work at a manufaturing plant than a dirty industry plant.
So, how do I generate manufacturing industries? :lol
Just zone some yellow somewhere. You have negative demand for dirty industry, so they won't grow. You have positive demand for manufacturing, so they will definitely grow. If you want to be even more selective, use the tax strategy I mentioned earlier to fine tune your plan.
My city is growing!
I'm in high-positive, probably because I'm taxing Agriculture at 20%, but just because I want them to stop spawning. I'm planning to expand the "living" area for High-Medium wealth people, and then I'll tax the more(right now they are around 5%), to increase low-wealth population. When can I start to use higher density houses? Looks like that medium density Industries are being used, but not medium density houses.
I have another question though.
I have I demand for Tecnology and Medium-High income Sc/Com, but yet, I placed yellow and blue zone in place they find attractive, but not many are spawning. Any ideas? Maybe I need more workers? I lowered their taxes already, medium is around 5%, high around 4.5%.
And, it's ok to have elementary school and high-school in the same range? I figured that sims would go elementary first and high-school after, but maybe I'm wrong.
Edit: Played another hour or so (Man, turn-based game really suck you in), and now I have 7500 citizens.
I had to face my first crisis, the garbage was flooding the streets. :lol
Now, I have many citizens, and I'm using high-density tiles for everything, but they keep building low-medium density houses.
They will automatically switch to an hight-density house once full?
And, should I demolish old low-density houses to build new high-density? Will I lose citizens?
I'm in high-positive, probably because I'm taxing Agriculture at 20%, but just because I want them to stop spawning. I'm planning to expand the "living" area for High-Medium wealth people, and then I'll tax the more(right now they are around 5%), to increase low-wealth population. When can I start to use higher density houses? Looks like that medium density Industries are being used, but not medium density houses.
I have another question though.
I have I demand for Tecnology and Medium-High income Sc/Com, but yet, I placed yellow and blue zone in place they find attractive, but not many are spawning. Any ideas? Maybe I need more workers? I lowered their taxes already, medium is around 5%, high around 4.5%.
And, it's ok to have elementary school and high-school in the same range? I figured that sims would go elementary first and high-school after, but maybe I'm wrong.
Edit: Played another hour or so (Man, turn-based game really suck you in), and now I have 7500 citizens.
I had to face my first crisis, the garbage was flooding the streets. :lol
Now, I have many citizens, and I'm using high-density tiles for everything, but they keep building low-medium density houses.
They will automatically switch to an hight-density house once full?
And, should I demolish old low-density houses to build new high-density? Will I lose citizens?
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
My city is growing!
I'm in high-positive, probably because I'm taxing Agriculture at 20%, but just because I want them to stop spawning. I'm planning to expand the "living" area for High-Medium wealth people, and then I'll tax the more(right now they are around 5%), to increase low-wealth population. When can I start to use higher density houses? Looks like that medium density Industries are being used, but not medium density houses.
I have another question though.
I have I demand for Tecnology and Medium-High income Sc/Com, but yet, I placed yellow and blue zone in place they find attractive, but not many are spawning. Any ideas? Maybe I need more workers? I lowered their taxes already, medium is around 5%, high around 4.5%.
And, it's ok to have elementary school and high-school in the same range? I figured that sims would go elementary first and high-school after, but maybe I'm wrong.
For higher density stuff to pop up, you need to have zoned higher density zones (medium or high density zones). You also need to provide them with water. You also need to have a high enough demand to convince them to pop up.
You have high enough demand for offices and high tech, so it's something else that's keeping them from coming. I think it's maybe because they don't have water? I don't see a water pump anywhere. Also, High tech needs low pollution, so zone some medium to high density industrial zones away from your manufacturing factories.
Elementary and high school cater to different demographics, so overlapping is fine. If you go to your education graph, you can see each age range of your population and how educated they are.
My city is growing!
I'm in high-positive, probably because I'm taxing Agriculture at 20%, but just because I want them to stop spawning.
Acriculture will only spawn in areas you zoned Agricultural. If you want to get rid of them de-zone or re-zone the area.
Do you have medium density residential zoned? If so, make sure they have water. (also make sure you have enough pipes for coverage)
Those types of businesses hate pollution, so check the pollution view and make sure the areas are clean. Also water, as above.
In addition, just because you some demand for these things, doesn't mean they'll be the first to show up. Are they they highest demand on the RCI chart? sometimes others beat them to the punch. If Dirty industry gets to an industrial zone before high tech does, it will drive the HT industry away. (tax the shit out of dirty and Mfg. before creating zones where you want HT industry to grow)
This is definitely ok, and encouraged. You can also use private schools, libraries, and museums in the same area to further educate your population.
If you demolish a development, you will lose those citizens, yes. As long as your demand is high, more will move in to replace them.
Generally speaking, I would recommend against using high-density zoning for everything. High Density creates a lot of problems. Once you're familiar with the mechanics, trying to overcome these problems is a fun part of the game, so I won't tell you to not do it ever, but be aware the high density creates problems with schools, traffic, jails, hospitals, power, everything.
For Garbage, there's a few tricks. Landfills are an ever-growing monster. One trick is to make a garbage incinerator power plant and turn the funding on it down to 0. It will produce 0 electricity, but will still incinerate trash. (The $-to-power ratio on the incinerator is HORRIBLE) Once you have an incinerator in a city, any adjacent city you make can send its trash to that one for a fee. Sometimes it's worth it to create a dirty industry/incinerating city for the benefit of its neighbors.
Been playing region I picked from OP bit over week or so. Building cities along the coastline and growing up the region. I started this city New Cali just to build airport and highway to connect my city from a far but things are getting out of hand.
But it's pleasingly going out of hand. Finally I'm stretching steps towards megacity and my time is spend on controlling traffic and building routes for workers.
There seems to be nothing that bus+subway can't handle. Also monorails seem to handle any amount of traffic without complains from the game.
What I'm worrying now, is when will I hit the cap on current city and have to redesign whole infrastructure with the city and it's neighbours.
Oh dog. I love this game.
Yeah, I just noticed that medium and high density yellow tiles prevent agriculture. :lol
Yes to both
I'll try that.
All right. I think I'll keep the center low/medium density at this point, with the outer zones high.
Thanks you, landfills are really expensive. :lol
Edit:
By the way, how does communication with other cities work? I mean, if I build another city, I connect them, what happens? People from other cities will come to live and work in the first?
Like, if I want to make a city with houses only, and another with workplaces only, what would happen?
I know that I can buy water or pay other cities to take my garbage, but that's it?
And, when will I need highways? For now, the basic road(not the first one, the cheaper one) doesn't have any kind of problem, even with 10.000 citizens.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Demand is shared between connected cities. So if you have demand for residential in one city, and you build residential in the city next door that is connected by a road or something, your demand for residential in the first city goes down too. Basically, once you have multiple connected cities, the RCI demand bar shows not just the demand in your city, but the demand in the entire connected network of cities.
If there's a way for people in the next city to work in your first city, they will. If the commute is reasonable, and if they need the work.
also, under the finances page, you can set up Neighbor Deals. You can sell or buy electricity, water, trash pickup, etc with neighbors, in addition to obviously being able to build road/rail connections
So the region is basically a giant city? Wow.
But taxes, budget and everything else is independent, right? But, to put it simple, the population/economy is shared between cities, so if they want more of something in 1° city, they'll want it too in 2° city?
correct. So for instance, if you want to create a city that's all R$$$ and Co/s$$$ you can starve those demands in your other cities, and start a new one to specifically target those types of sims.
I'm playing on W7 x64 and I'm not having any problem.
I just added -cpucount:1 to make it use one core and it never crashed. I also disabled shadows, to increase perfomance.
Another thing I did is installing the game in Program Files instead of Program Files (x86), I read this on Simtropolis.
Awesome! This explain those screen/video with cities made only of residetial zone and no shops/agriculture whatoever. :lol
Aaand, another question, sorry. :lol
Is there a difference between "single slot" zone and "multiple slot"?
I mean, sometimes when I zone something, three slots become one bigger slot, and usually it gets used much faster than one-sized slot.
I had custom resolution and cpucount in the target window. Basically everything you're supposed to have, but crashed every time I tried to save, so I uninstalled.
Another thing I did is installing the game in Program Files instead of Program Files (x86), I read this on Simtropolis, people say that should solve problems related to folder authorization.
Also, have you tried software rendering? It should solve any problem (afaik). The trade off is that things might look worse.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
The region can be thought of as one giant city, yes.
Each city has their own individually controlled tax rate and budgets, yes.
Yes, if city 1 wants something, then city 2 (as long as it's connected by road or rail) will want it too.
That's how R cities and C cities are created. You have one city that is mostly R, and you let that grow for a bit. Soon the R demand is zero, and the C demand is high. So, you go to the next city and make more C. The C demand will go down, and then the R demand will go up again as the new C zones demand more people to work in their stores.
Rinse and repeat.
It's just kind of a pain in the ass to keep switching back and forth between them.
One of the main advantages of multi city play is that pollution does not cross over. So, you can have one city that is all polluting industry and have your garbage collection burning all day long with the coal power plants, and that city's pollution will not effect anyone else.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
Are you talking about buildings of various tile size? Like, when you have 3 small buildings combine into one bigger one?
It's mainly a visual difference and a numbers one. Sometimes the larger building has a combined total of jobs or workers that is more or less than the sum of the smaller buildings. It depends on the buildings.
Larger tiles are also somewhat easier (but not that much) for traffic management since sims can enter and exit from any part of the tile that is touching a road, not just the front. Larger buildings tend to have more sides touching roads.
No, like, you know, one tile is a square, if you stretch it, it becomes a rectangle with a little arrow. If you stretch the rectangle, you create another one, divided from the first by a line, and if you keep going, eventually 2/3 sperate rectangles become one single rectangle, without borders and with 3 arrows. What's the difference between a single rectangle and 3-rectangle-in-one?
Maybe it's what your saying, I don't know. :lol
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
It sorta is.
You make the different sizes if you want to restrict the growth of that area to large buildings only.
The largest size tile that will allow growth is 4x4 and any variation smaller than that.
Can you explain this? You mean that 1x2 tiles won't spawn skyscraper, and for a skyscraper to spawn it'll join 4 1x2 separated tiles?
I remember seeing divided tiles with different houses being joined to one because some high-wealth person bought them and built a mansion on them.