- Jan 4, 2001
- 41,596
- 19
- 81
Yes, I have Simcity4 Deluxe, yes, I'm trying to play it. That aside....
I've grown a sizable city in a large spot. It was my second city in fact, next to a mid-sized one that was a little bit of a mess. I've also started a few cities in the surrounding sections.
City pic (206KB, change extension to png for the lossless version, which is close to 1.5MB)
Anyway, the big one has hit the "Peanut butter point" that some online strategy guides mentioned. At least I think it's that. Population is about 220,000. The RCI indicator has gone negative in every category. And this has become the case in every single city except one city which is a barely-profitable farming city. That city has demand for agriculture and manufacturing industry, but little else. Its only service is a single small fire station, and it gets a profit of §6/month. Nearly the entire map is filled with farmland.
The other adjacent cities include:
- One normal city, low-income, dirty industry, with trash-burning power plants, and import deals for trash, plus a landfill to act as a buffer so the power plants don't go down for lack of fuel.
- My first city, a mix of everything. Landfills, trash-burning, wealthy sections, dirty industry, high-tech, everything.
- A decent city, with 2 seaports, healthy manufacturing industry, medium-wealth residents, and good services. Only problem: It's §2000 in the hole per month, which is financed by selling organs, and stealing tanks and warheads - I built the army base right by the city borders, and away from residential zones, so it is easy money that doesn't seem to affect my mayor rating.
So anyway, the big city: I have tried the "Ground Zero" technique to restore growth to the city. It merely resulted in the reduction of the population by 50,000, with no change in RCI Demand. I demolished hospitals, schools, and every park and recreational structure in the area. Ground Zero in this case was the residential section on the right of the city.
People did move out of that section, but they left the city entirely, instead of going to the little "colony" like the strategy guides online said they should. I don't know where they moved to either, since my other cities have no demand for anything, and are also losing people.
I've also demolished most "unpleasant" things:
- Federal prison
- Casino
- Missile Testing thing
Did so the fun, cheap way - attack helicopter and tank.
One bonus: My mass transit system is crazy, and is being revamped a bit. Maybe half of the monorail stations are used to at least 300% capacity, with some approaching 500%. I've tried to provide alternate routes, but the moronic route-finding algorithm seems to be shortest-route only, not "best" route. If your Sim's choices are between a crowded street and an empty avenue 2 blocks away, they'll take the crowded street.
Or, instead of using a highway to quickly get somewhere, they'll take the congested overpass.
I've also got a subway system that's used to capacity.
Update
First off, old news: the forum's search function still sucks. It couldn't find this thread by searching for "Simcity" or "Simcity4". Well done, Search.
Second, there seems to be progress.
I created another new city on a midsize plot of land, built one avenue connection, and started zoning for industry. It's a filthy city. It's got a large section of land, then some water on one side, and a small island beyond that. There are a few residents on the island, as well as my water pumps. On the large land chunk are coal power plants, and lots of dirty industry. The pollution maps are mostly red. Smog covers most of the map. Dr. Vu's Area 5.1 resides at the edge of the map. And lots of freight trucks barrel out of the avenue to make their way to the next city.
Meanwhile, back in Kuun-Laan, the largest city, things are looking up. Demand started to increase again. I was making a healthy profit, and the new colony was growing slowly. So I reconnected the water to Ground Zero, rebuilt the local attractions such as the stadium, and put back the services like hospitals and schools. Oh, one other factor: I lowered the tax rates for residential and commercial zones, from 9.5% to 9.2%. Industrial Manufacturing is at 9.5%, and High Tech is at 9.3%. Dirty Industry remains at 12% - they tend to stay away from this city. Damn pollution.
Where it stands now: The city is over 200 years old. There are 300,000 residents, I've got over §2,000,000, life expectancy is back around 90 years, education is high for all age levels, mayor rating is at 80, got multiple landmarks and I'm still getting a profit each month.
And their route choosing algorithm is really pathetic. Two monorail stations, side-by-side, with a connected rail system so both can get Sims to the same places. One is used to about 350% of its capacity. The other sees about 1% of capacity. The great thing: The traffic map shows that the Sims will park at the garage, walk past the one monorail station, and board the overcrowded one.
So hopefully I'll see an upswing in my other cities. Maybe I'll have to create yet another city for dirty industry.
Update, 11-02-2006:
The region is finally doing better, but it takes a lot of careful balancing. I'm treating the entire region as one big city, only with distinct save-game files. The regions are becoming very interdependent. For instance, if I see demand for dirty industry in one city skyrocket, I head on over to one of my dirty cities and start adding more industrial zones.
Another thing that seems to be key: VERY good intercity connections. Avenues and railroads just won't cut it. I've upgraded to multiple monorail, rail, and subway connections. I've also got a true intercity highway system in the works, with plans to connect all of my cities together with one system. Thus far I've got at least 3 different cities hooked together with highways. The increase in traffic allowed me to also get rid of some toll booths, and still wind up with more money.
Other issues: The Grand Railroad station. Unless you've got a pristine, fully interconnected rail system, it seems impossible to get. And I NEED it. I've got several passenger railway stations used to more than 500% capacity, and it still won't unlock.
I'd also really like it if there was a way of building railroad bridges over roadways and avenues. The elevated rail that they have is kind of pointless as far as I'm concerned, since it only connects to the subway system. The subway lets you use rail without the problem of surface congestion. Why put it above ground at all? To let everyone behold in sunlight the grandeur that is a subway car?
There is also no way of creating bridges at will. I'd love to put a bunch of bridges over a rail system, to allow rail traffic to pass without interfering with the roadways. Can't do that either.
I'd say that I hope Simcity5 is better, but given what EA seems capable of, I wouldn't count on it. It'll probably look really pretty, but the graphics engine will be slow, the interface will be even buggier, and the route-finding system will still be utterly braindead.
For the record, I didn't technically give EA any money for this game, since I bought it used on eBay.
Update, 11-04-2006: The region is continuing to grow. The highways are getting overloaded, with nearly 15,000 cars passing through some cloverleafs. Intercity mass transit systems are used to several times rated capacities. Even the poorer cities are still seeing profits. Kuun-Laan has about 350,000 people now, has a monthly budget closing in on §100,000, high health, high income, and high education. The University has nearly 3,000 students in attendance. The airport has a current passenger volume of over 100,000. Quite a fine city if I may say so myself.
Thumbnail pic
3424 x 2528 2.1MB image
Still more room for growth.
The region in the lower left corner is the industrial district. It initially was set aside like that to be all dirty industry. But I gradually shifted that stuff to other cities, and turned it all into High Tech. Its only connections to the rest of the city are by mass transit methods, no cars, which does of course keep traffic way down, and allows for shorter freight times.
Another thing to add to the list of disappointing things: The monorails cause air pollution. No love for electric monorails?
One other - no large-scale "painting" ability for tree-planting in Mayor Mode. Hey EA, ever think that a city's mayor/dictator-for-life may want to plant more than one damn tree at a time????
Update, January 7th, 2007
I nearly forgot about this thread.
I broke down and bought the strategy guide, which really should have been included with the game. It's a very complex simulation, and the little pamphlet-excuse-for-a-manual that they include hardly begins to cover it. It talks about capacities of the various transportation methods, speed limits, demand caps, demand cap relief, tax brackets, and just about anything else you could possibly want to know.
Some solutions to city stagnation:
Demand caps. Each developer type starts with a demand cap, meaning that you can only have up to that many residents/jobs of a certain type. For example, a city will start with a R§§§ demand cap of 1,000, meaning you can only have 1000 high wealth residents, unless you do build some structures that bring demand cap relief. Parks, flower gardens, tennis courts, etc all bring varying levels of demand cap relief. And some give relief according to wealth level. The City Zoo provides 8,000 R§ relief, 16,000 R§§ relief, but no R§§§ relief. Stock Exchange - 125,000 R§§§ relief. Tennis court - 4,000 for each residential wealth bracket. Landmarks give no residential demand cap relief, only commercial relief.
Neighbor connections are possibly the most important thing though. One highway connection brings 100,000 commercial demand cap relief. Each successive one brings about 58% of that. Other structures like airports and convention centers also bring commercial demand cap relief.
With neighbor connections, you can set up a filthy city right next door, and use a little trick for garbage disposal. This neighboring city can have dirty or manufacturing industry, coal power plants, no residential zones, and best of all, garbage burning power plants. The coolest thing about the garbage burners is that you can reduce their funding to §0, and they'll still burn trash. You just won't get any power from them. Result: very cheap garbage disposal, without the wasted space of landfills. You can then earn money for the city by importing garbage. Sure the air and water pollution is horrendous, but with no residential zones, there's no one around to complain. No residential zones also means no crime, so no police stations are needed. This also means that you can legalize gambling with no ill effects at all. (Enabling the gambling ordinance increases citywide crime by 20%. But 1.2 * 0 still equals zero.)
The pamphlet does say something that you should heed - start small. I recently started this city as my new central hub, to be my newest, best city. What you see there is just low density commercial and residential, with lots of neighbor connections to cities of high tech and manufacturing industrial zones. As yet, no water system is needed, and all this is powered by one natural gas power plant. Monthly profit was close to §10,000. Within 100 years, the entire map was covered with a grid like this, funds were approaching §4,000,000, with a small population of just under 30,000 people. The entire city was blanketed with police, fire, hospital, and school coverage.
The city is now undergoing growing pains, as I am slowly changing the zones to high density, adding highways to cope with the drastic increase in traffic, a subway system, and more expensive power (hydrogen fusion). People seem to be having trouble getting to work in time right now, so I'm trying to alleviate that issue.
I mentioned my other grand city, Kuun Laan. I don't know what to do about that - the game froze once while I was saving. I've discovered now that whenever I load the file and go to a certain area of the city, the game simply exits. So I guess the file is damaged. Problem is, if I demolish the city, all the surrounding cities will go to hell, because they are dependent on the 500,000+ people in the city, as well as its many connections that allow intercity travel.
I've grown a sizable city in a large spot. It was my second city in fact, next to a mid-sized one that was a little bit of a mess. I've also started a few cities in the surrounding sections.
City pic (206KB, change extension to png for the lossless version, which is close to 1.5MB)
Anyway, the big one has hit the "Peanut butter point" that some online strategy guides mentioned. At least I think it's that. Population is about 220,000. The RCI indicator has gone negative in every category. And this has become the case in every single city except one city which is a barely-profitable farming city. That city has demand for agriculture and manufacturing industry, but little else. Its only service is a single small fire station, and it gets a profit of §6/month. Nearly the entire map is filled with farmland.
The other adjacent cities include:
- One normal city, low-income, dirty industry, with trash-burning power plants, and import deals for trash, plus a landfill to act as a buffer so the power plants don't go down for lack of fuel.
- My first city, a mix of everything. Landfills, trash-burning, wealthy sections, dirty industry, high-tech, everything.
- A decent city, with 2 seaports, healthy manufacturing industry, medium-wealth residents, and good services. Only problem: It's §2000 in the hole per month, which is financed by selling organs, and stealing tanks and warheads - I built the army base right by the city borders, and away from residential zones, so it is easy money that doesn't seem to affect my mayor rating.
So anyway, the big city: I have tried the "Ground Zero" technique to restore growth to the city. It merely resulted in the reduction of the population by 50,000, with no change in RCI Demand. I demolished hospitals, schools, and every park and recreational structure in the area. Ground Zero in this case was the residential section on the right of the city.
People did move out of that section, but they left the city entirely, instead of going to the little "colony" like the strategy guides online said they should. I don't know where they moved to either, since my other cities have no demand for anything, and are also losing people.
I've also demolished most "unpleasant" things:
- Federal prison
- Casino
- Missile Testing thing
Did so the fun, cheap way - attack helicopter and tank.
One bonus: My mass transit system is crazy, and is being revamped a bit. Maybe half of the monorail stations are used to at least 300% capacity, with some approaching 500%. I've tried to provide alternate routes, but the moronic route-finding algorithm seems to be shortest-route only, not "best" route. If your Sim's choices are between a crowded street and an empty avenue 2 blocks away, they'll take the crowded street.
Or, instead of using a highway to quickly get somewhere, they'll take the congested overpass.
I've also got a subway system that's used to capacity.
Update
First off, old news: the forum's search function still sucks. It couldn't find this thread by searching for "Simcity" or "Simcity4". Well done, Search.
Second, there seems to be progress.
I created another new city on a midsize plot of land, built one avenue connection, and started zoning for industry. It's a filthy city. It's got a large section of land, then some water on one side, and a small island beyond that. There are a few residents on the island, as well as my water pumps. On the large land chunk are coal power plants, and lots of dirty industry. The pollution maps are mostly red. Smog covers most of the map. Dr. Vu's Area 5.1 resides at the edge of the map. And lots of freight trucks barrel out of the avenue to make their way to the next city.
Meanwhile, back in Kuun-Laan, the largest city, things are looking up. Demand started to increase again. I was making a healthy profit, and the new colony was growing slowly. So I reconnected the water to Ground Zero, rebuilt the local attractions such as the stadium, and put back the services like hospitals and schools. Oh, one other factor: I lowered the tax rates for residential and commercial zones, from 9.5% to 9.2%. Industrial Manufacturing is at 9.5%, and High Tech is at 9.3%. Dirty Industry remains at 12% - they tend to stay away from this city. Damn pollution.
Where it stands now: The city is over 200 years old. There are 300,000 residents, I've got over §2,000,000, life expectancy is back around 90 years, education is high for all age levels, mayor rating is at 80, got multiple landmarks and I'm still getting a profit each month.
And their route choosing algorithm is really pathetic. Two monorail stations, side-by-side, with a connected rail system so both can get Sims to the same places. One is used to about 350% of its capacity. The other sees about 1% of capacity. The great thing: The traffic map shows that the Sims will park at the garage, walk past the one monorail station, and board the overcrowded one.
So hopefully I'll see an upswing in my other cities. Maybe I'll have to create yet another city for dirty industry.
Update, 11-02-2006:
The region is finally doing better, but it takes a lot of careful balancing. I'm treating the entire region as one big city, only with distinct save-game files.
The regions are becoming very interdependent. For instance, if I see demand for dirty industry in one city skyrocket, I head on over to one of my dirty cities and start adding more industrial zones.Another thing that seems to be key: VERY good intercity connections. Avenues and railroads just won't cut it. I've upgraded to multiple monorail, rail, and subway connections. I've also got a true intercity highway system in the works, with plans to connect all of my cities together with one system. Thus far I've got at least 3 different cities hooked together with highways. The increase in traffic allowed me to also get rid of some toll booths, and still wind up with more money.
Other issues: The Grand Railroad station. Unless you've got a pristine, fully interconnected rail system, it seems impossible to get. And I NEED it. I've got several passenger railway stations used to more than 500% capacity, and it still won't unlock.
I'd also really like it if there was a way of building railroad bridges over roadways and avenues. The elevated rail that they have is kind of pointless as far as I'm concerned, since it only connects to the subway system. The subway lets you use rail without the problem of surface congestion. Why put it above ground at all? To let everyone behold in sunlight the grandeur that is a subway car?
There is also no way of creating bridges at will. I'd love to put a bunch of bridges over a rail system, to allow rail traffic to pass without interfering with the roadways. Can't do that either.
I'd say that I hope Simcity5 is better, but given what EA seems capable of, I wouldn't count on it. It'll probably look really pretty, but the graphics engine will be slow, the interface will be even buggier, and the route-finding system will still be utterly braindead.
For the record, I didn't technically give EA any money for this game, since I bought it used on eBay.
Update, 11-04-2006: The region is continuing to grow. The highways are getting overloaded, with nearly 15,000 cars passing through some cloverleafs. Intercity mass transit systems are used to several times rated capacities. Even the poorer cities are still seeing profits. Kuun-Laan has about 350,000 people now, has a monthly budget closing in on §100,000, high health, high income, and high education. The University has nearly 3,000 students in attendance. The airport has a current passenger volume of over 100,000. Quite a fine city if I may say so myself.
Thumbnail pic
3424 x 2528 2.1MB image
Still more room for growth.
The region in the lower left corner is the industrial district. It initially was set aside like that to be all dirty industry. But I gradually shifted that stuff to other cities, and turned it all into High Tech. Its only connections to the rest of the city are by mass transit methods, no cars, which does of course keep traffic way down, and allows for shorter freight times.
Another thing to add to the list of disappointing things: The monorails cause air pollution. No love for electric monorails?
One other - no large-scale "painting" ability for tree-planting in Mayor Mode. Hey EA, ever think that a city's mayor/dictator-for-life may want to plant more than one damn tree at a time????
Update, January 7th, 2007
I nearly forgot about this thread.
I broke down and bought the strategy guide, which really should have been included with the game. It's a very complex simulation, and the little pamphlet-excuse-for-a-manual that they include hardly begins to cover it. It talks about capacities of the various transportation methods, speed limits, demand caps, demand cap relief, tax brackets, and just about anything else you could possibly want to know.
Some solutions to city stagnation:
Demand caps. Each developer type starts with a demand cap, meaning that you can only have up to that many residents/jobs of a certain type. For example, a city will start with a R§§§ demand cap of 1,000, meaning you can only have 1000 high wealth residents, unless you do build some structures that bring demand cap relief. Parks, flower gardens, tennis courts, etc all bring varying levels of demand cap relief. And some give relief according to wealth level. The City Zoo provides 8,000 R§ relief, 16,000 R§§ relief, but no R§§§ relief. Stock Exchange - 125,000 R§§§ relief. Tennis court - 4,000 for each residential wealth bracket. Landmarks give no residential demand cap relief, only commercial relief.
Neighbor connections are possibly the most important thing though. One highway connection brings 100,000 commercial demand cap relief. Each successive one brings about 58% of that. Other structures like airports and convention centers also bring commercial demand cap relief.
With neighbor connections, you can set up a filthy city right next door, and use a little trick for garbage disposal. This neighboring city can have dirty or manufacturing industry, coal power plants, no residential zones, and best of all, garbage burning power plants. The coolest thing about the garbage burners is that you can reduce their funding to §0, and they'll still burn trash. You just won't get any power from them. Result: very cheap garbage disposal, without the wasted space of landfills. You can then earn money for the city by importing garbage. Sure the air and water pollution is horrendous, but with no residential zones, there's no one around to complain. No residential zones also means no crime, so no police stations are needed. This also means that you can legalize gambling with no ill effects at all. (Enabling the gambling ordinance increases citywide crime by 20%. But 1.2 * 0 still equals zero.)
The pamphlet does say something that you should heed - start small. I recently started this city as my new central hub, to be my newest, best city. What you see there is just low density commercial and residential, with lots of neighbor connections to cities of high tech and manufacturing industrial zones. As yet, no water system is needed, and all this is powered by one natural gas power plant. Monthly profit was close to §10,000. Within 100 years, the entire map was covered with a grid like this, funds were approaching §4,000,000, with a small population of just under 30,000 people. The entire city was blanketed with police, fire, hospital, and school coverage.
The city is now undergoing growing pains, as I am slowly changing the zones to high density, adding highways to cope with the drastic increase in traffic, a subway system, and more expensive power (hydrogen fusion). People seem to be having trouble getting to work in time right now, so I'm trying to alleviate that issue.
I mentioned my other grand city, Kuun Laan. I don't know what to do about that - the game froze once while I was saving. I've discovered now that whenever I load the file and go to a certain area of the city, the game simply exits. So I guess the file is damaged. Problem is, if I demolish the city, all the surrounding cities will go to hell, because they are dependent on the 500,000+ people in the city, as well as its many connections that allow intercity travel.
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