Just a quick note, the $ signs aren't correlated to density at all. You can have $$$ Low-density development, and $ high-density development, and any other combination. (big mansions are an example of $$$ low-density Residential)
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GAF Plays: SimCity 4 (with mods)
- Thread starter Perkel
- Start date
Just a quick note, the $ signs aren't correlated to density at all. You can have $$$ Low-density development, and $ high-density development, and any other combination. (big mansions are an example of $$$ low-density Residential)
Yeah. I'll add that you'll have high rises with high density $$$ residential AND commercial. But they're a bitch to maintain.
Even though my demand was high, I still have issues with wealthy residents coming over here.
High density is basically like a concentrated area for people generally. High density $ residential is an apt complex instead of a family house.
Even though my demand was high, I still have issues with wealthy residents coming over here.
High density is basically like a concentrated area for people generally. High density $ residential is an apt complex instead of a family house.
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
Ah - OK. I assumed that's what that meant.
And question...Why don't my 1x1 plots develop??
And question...Why don't my 1x1 plots develop??
You Are Viewtiful
Member
What's your population? You need to have reached a higher stage of development to get 1x1 and other more compact lots.
negreenfield
Member
I think it won't happen until you have a certain population or something, I looked that up on Google and it took me I think to the Simtropolis forums where they talked about your city being at certain levels that I didn't quite understand, all I know is that I couldn't get them to develop early in the game but I tried when I had a decent population, maybe 50k, I really can't remember, but suddenly they would develop, I'm sure someone else knows the specifics.
nicoga3000
Saint Nic
Oh, this is very interesting! I never thought 1x1 plots would require certain pop to develop. In that case, I'll just continue my larger scale development! Thanks guys!
It's true the organic design promoted and illustrated by OP enhances the game a lot in my opinion, since the city looks impressive or charming or really busy - what pleases the player. As said before, it adds a puzzle side to the strategy and management : one has to assemble pieces, draw by little actions an object/system both functionnal and esthetic.
I'm building a new "main" city focusing on my budget balance. I'll hope it will pass the 15k inhabitants cap without overheating (so I can post pictures !).
A little more micro-management (checking who's employed where, accurately adjusting the area effect the buildings have) and a slower growth, especially public services growth, did wonders so far, since citizens are pleased and I still have almost all my initial budget to invest with ; sooner than later, I try to "cash back" (sorry if my english is improper) every penny I invest.
I'm quietly growing past 10k without any trouble so I guess it's the way to go for my city !
I'm building a new "main" city focusing on my budget balance. I'll hope it will pass the 15k inhabitants cap without overheating (so I can post pictures !).
A little more micro-management (checking who's employed where, accurately adjusting the area effect the buildings have) and a slower growth, especially public services growth, did wonders so far, since citizens are pleased and I still have almost all my initial budget to invest with ; sooner than later, I try to "cash back" (sorry if my english is improper) every penny I invest.
I'm quietly growing past 10k without any trouble so I guess it's the way to go for my city !
Still wondering about this. There are several types of plugins .lot, .bat, .dat, .SC4Model, .SC4Lot, .SC4Desc.
I've read about it, but I haven't been able to figure out if some of these types *could* also be nothing more than models for creating lots with, for example, depending on the specific files. Reason I'm asking is because I've downloaded *a lot* of plugins.
Do all of those filetypes serve a specific purpose, and will show up ingame regardless?
It is in OP. Read it.
Hm, I think I got the knack back.
I built a farming community, it started to demand In-D, I built an industrial area, the demand for R-§ shot up, I built some medium R near it, it shot up fast and boom. +§1,000 per month. That worked out okay. Now the trick is how to keep a rural community in the green, I really have no idea.
And suddenly I've seen a rural community transform into a small town, and I'm not sure when that happened. Sim City 4 is still great.
Now to find out what all this NAM is and how I use it...
I built a farming community, it started to demand In-D, I built an industrial area, the demand for R-§ shot up, I built some medium R near it, it shot up fast and boom. +§1,000 per month. That worked out okay. Now the trick is how to keep a rural community in the green, I really have no idea.
And suddenly I've seen a rural community transform into a small town, and I'm not sure when that happened. Sim City 4 is still great.
Now to find out what all this NAM is and how I use it...
Trick how to earn money is in OP.
You simply do not build services. You can even build 100k people city without schools or any service. Mayor ranting is broken either way so they can't fire you. When you feel safe with money then you build service.
I always start with 0 cash and max 10k credit and yet after a while i have +100k. SC4 after a while is very very very easy game. This is one aspect that i wanted to be improved in SC5. Building for example roads should be very very very costly same as destroying buildings.
Grassclipper
Member
I bought this off of steam and started to play from a guide to get a good economic going in my region. I just bankrupted my city so I don't think it went to well.
This definitely works but it's kind of boring. The better plan is to slowly build services.
You have two (real) choices of power to start with. Wind (pollution free) or Coal. Oil and Gas are viable but more expensive, and if you're going to pollute, you may as well go all the way. Dirty Industry doesn't care if it's next to a coal plant, so if you're going to go dirty, go dirty. Just stick it off in the corner somewhere and don't build anything but dirty industry nearby. If you build a wind plant, keep in mind that you're going to need to build a lot more of them eventually. If you go coal, slide the funding slider way down. You won't be able to max out the plant for a long time. whenever the game complains, move the slider on the plant up a bit to cover the amount of power you're using. Waste Incinerators are a good way to get rid of trash later, but their $-to-power ratio is terrible.
When planning out your residential development, pick a spot for schools. Leave enough room for both a high school and an elementary school in the middle, but don't build either one yet. Look at the radius of the small elementary school. That is the radius of your residential development. (don't place it yet though, or if you do, cut all the funding)
Once you have a couple thousand residents, you should be making at least a few hundred bucks a month. Now is when you want to put down your small elementary school. The bus funding will cost 100, which should cover your residential area. Adjust it if you're covering too much space. Set the teacher budget low. After a month, you'll see how many students you have. set the budget so it covers the students, and add just a little room for growth. Be careful with the high capacity schools. Their student funding cost isn't bad, but the bus funding is very expensive.
Once your school is stable, add water. Use water towers at first, as pumps are expensive and you can't adjust their output like power plants. build pipes to cover everything except farms.
If you're still making more than 400 a month, go ahead and build a high school using the same slider guidelines as the elementary school.
After that, add a Hospital. I never place the small clinics, I just go straight to the big hospitals. Again, adjust the sliders like the schools.
After that comes Police. I usually use the medium-sized stations unless I'm building a very big city. Build another one when the game complains. If you get more than 2, it's time to build the big station.
Build a small fire department if there's a fire. You can destroy it right after if you want, but I usually leave them there as I'm rarely pinched for cash.
If you're really having money problems, Separate your Residential ares from your commercial/industrial areas. Build a couple avenues between them (or a highway) and stick toll booths on them. A single well-placed toll booth can generate hundreds a month.
I don't mean no services at all. Simply you build services when you have good income. Buiding school when you have 500 or 1000+ income can quickly make you poor.
You can, actually. You just don't see the numbers in the budget section. You have to take a look at the graph and adjust the output accordingly.
where ?
You can manually change the output of water in the utility section in Budgets, just lower it until usage and capacity are around the same on the graph.
EmCeeGramr
Member
Been having quite a bit of fun building up a couple of cities.
Someone needs to set up a Dropbox region for a Gaftopian Nation of multiplayer.
Someone needs to set up a Dropbox region for a Gaftopian Nation of multiplayer.
Just started and thought I'd play through the tutorials. All going fine until the Rush Hour tutorial and placing the tracks after the elevated train station. It... doesn't work.
It turns red and says you can't place the tracks there - you'd think they'd ensure the tutorial works - looking online it seems quite a few have had this problem and nobody knows the solution except "keep trying and it might eventually work".
Think I might just start my own city.
It turns red and says you can't place the tracks there - you'd think they'd ensure the tutorial works - looking online it seems quite a few have had this problem and nobody knows the solution except "keep trying and it might eventually work".
Think I might just start my own city.
The tutorials are nice, and should be played by new players, but this is where you're going to learn the most. I've still very new to SimCity but I have learned a lot from two small cities I started.
The biggest change for me was when I noticed that there's really no need to panic if your city is having issues. You're not constrained by a goal, so you've got plenty of time to fix what you need to fix along the way.
Don't use plugins which i provided if you want to play Tutorial cities. If you want to play tutorial do that vanilla sim city and after than copy paste plugins to plugin folder and start a new city.
What you described is slope plugin working. You can't build roads/streets on steep hills or rough terrain. First use terraforming to flatten ground
Seems like it's better just to have a 100% output be pretty much what you need rather than building a lot and downing the percentage.
Lowered percentages cause pipe breaks, IIRC.
I think it is NAM specifically that causes issues in the tutorials.
There's a similar effect for power lines too I think where they're more prone to fire. This is why you'll see sparking/smoking power lines in your city sometimes.
There's a similar effect for power lines too I think where they're more prone to fire. This is why you'll see sparking/smoking power lines in your city sometimes.
Interesting, I didn't know that. It never happened to me though, or at least I don't remember happening.
This too, but I've seen sparks/smoke quite a lot. Makes sense.
Why? I've never had pipes break and I've played hundred of hours of SC4.
edit: I guess making Water Pumps at start and lowering to 10% would really make them break often. I usually don't go under ~65% for water funding.
If i remember right reduced funding will mean:
roads - holes in roads which will cause traffic jams
pipes - pipes will clog up so some zones will not have water
80-90% is safe but anything lower than that will cause effects.
I don't think they come with NAM. I remember downloading them separately.
Red Blaster
Member
i've become consumed with the detailing metagame, spent my weekend making this:
getting the seawall perfectly level was a bitch but the final product looks incredible
super helpful tip: when you're terraforming in god mode, use shift + the number keys to change the size of the circle
getting the seawall perfectly level was a bitch but the final product looks incredible
super helpful tip: when you're terraforming in god mode, use shift + the number keys to change the size of the circle
fizzelopeguss
Banned
Aye.
I have it set to 1 core and save every 15 mins. Spot on so far after about 8 hours play.
One easy way to get that done is using the Hole Digging Lot. Basically you raise the whole region by one level, than use the monorail (or any other deep enough) lots and using roads terraform the part where you want to make a port, then just lower the level and bam, you have a perfectly terraformed port.
i've become consumed with the detailing metagame, spent my weekend making this:
getting the seawall perfectly level was a bitch but the final product looks incredible
super helpful tip: when you're terraforming in god mode, use shift + the number keys to change the size of the circle
That looks amazing.
If you are using downloaded mods and my pack please share your plugins pack on this forum. Pack it and share it. MEGA is good choice of sharing content.
Ah, that explains it, I was using the plugins.
Yeah I think this'll be the best strategy, I'll start my own city tonight and see how it goes.
God fucking damn it. If there is really modding community that makes everything to not download their mods its SimCity 4 community. Each fucking site beside simtropolis is just plain bad filled with probably the worst downloader scripts and shitty UI, shitty login/registration structure. Even fucking capcha they use is nightmare. Sometimes i wonder how the hell this community produced so many mods and addons where most of content is blocked by shitty design for absolutely no reason.
SC4 modding sites are comparable to IT idiots which set up protected Wi-fi network with 32key password which must contain 4 numbers, upper/lower cases and ; ' [ .. . @#! used at same time in gas station at the fucking mohave desert.
Dependencies and how they are handled are just tip of iceberg.
SC4 modding sites are comparable to IT idiots which set up protected Wi-fi network with 32key password which must contain 4 numbers, upper/lower cases and ; ' [ .. . @#! used at same time in gas station at the fucking mohave desert.
Dependencies and how they are handled are just tip of iceberg.
Mr. Luchador
Member
Reading this thread only reinforces the fun I had with SC4 over the last 10 years.
I don't have any problems with SC4Devotion. That and Simtropolis are the only 2 sites I still use for SC4 mods, and both are enough to fill up my plugins folder.
Dependencies suck, but once you have the basic stuff, you basically don't have to worry about them anymore, other than some special cases.
Mengy
wishes it were bannable to say mean things about Marvel
Yeah, those two sites are the only ones I use too, as they tell you about any dependencies right there. Never had any real issues, at least none that I couldn't solve quickly myself.
I personally like LEX a lot more than Simtropolis. For one, it has dependency linked in all the plops, unlike Simtropolis, where sometimes you only get a readme along with the file for dependencies. And usually there are links or they don't really work. Internal linking yes, it NEVER works. It always takes me to the first page of ST/Exchange on it. The only downside is that there aren't that many plugins there. Not to mention how slow Simtropolis is.
i've become consumed with the detailing metagame, spent my weekend making this:
getting the seawall perfectly level was a bitch but the final product looks incredible
super helpful tip: when you're terraforming in god mode, use shift + the number keys to change the size of the circle
Wow, not only does that look amazing (I actually tried to right click on the picture to look around! Been playing too much), but that terraforming tip is what I've been missing all along... thank you!
I wonder if someone could help me with a water problem I have? I've discovered that I have way too much water supply after I put a pumping station down, but if I remove some water towers then the water supply doesn't reach all the areas it used to, even though the total supply is still more than enough. Do water towers add pressure to the system or something?
Are your pipes connected properly? Or maybe demolishing the water towers brought your water supply total below what is needed. Find out where the water supply stops and check your pipes there.
Yeah, the pipes are all connected, my towns are quite spread out but they're definitely linked and the total is definitely still enough it's really strange. If I put another water tower down it increases the area served by each pipe again.
Yes Lex and al those sites are working. I didn't say they don't work.
Problem is for people who are not that much experienced going to BSC is nightmare. Even registration took me 15 minutes where i had to fill 5 different antibot checks and then again capcha which always was not like i typed (in the end i had to listen to capcha !).
Next. LEX BSC or other use this weird site login to download management. When i first tried to download some dependency i couldn't download it. There was simply no download button anywhere and no information that was easy to read what you need to do in order to download file. It should just say with bold font that you are not logged in and you can't download !
Next is how sites manage their mods. Most of those sites search and ratings don't work as it should.
Then there is dependencies which often mean for every mod you need at least 2-3 of them and sometimes it is spiderweb where in order to download mod A you need also to download mod B but since mod B have it's own dependence you need to download mod C and sometimes it means even D.
Poor communication between modders is what happened. Case of NAM which consist work of many people is something amazing considering how many people do not share their work or simply doesn't want to even make any agreement to use his work in some other mod.
If Nexus community would be the same most of mods shouldn't exists on Nexus sites.
Hey guys, I found my deluxe copy last week and installed the nam mod. Played on one mid size region until it was decently sized, self sufficient and profitable. At that point I realized it looked horrible. It looks like a grid of concrete and that is it.
Do you guys look online for city, real life or otherwise, layouts to create the more organic, better looking cities? I thought of it but I kind of thought it seems a bit like cheating and copy pasting.
Any thought process on how to build organic and efficiently on my own?
Do you guys look online for city, real life or otherwise, layouts to create the more organic, better looking cities? I thought of it but I kind of thought it seems a bit like cheating and copy pasting.
Any thought process on how to build organic and efficiently on my own?
If there are pipes and they aren't filling in the full area until you put down another tower, you're over capacity.
The water graph thinks I'm thousands over though? Is there something about distance from the water tower/pump?