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Introduction
This is a continuation of Part 1. Read that first, then come back
Previously on Simcity Tutorial...
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ZfvhvIA.jpg?1)
This was the state of our starter city, Mar Sara, as we last left it.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/mzp7adw.jpg?1)
Here is Mar Sara, after a few more improvements, and then letting it settle down. The population hovers around 65k, which is a big boost from the 40k where we left off in part 1. What did we do?
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/WCs5mLH.png?1)
Let's take a closer look. The left side (west side), looks quite a bit healther than the right side. Some on the right do not have jobs, as seen by the little red briefcase icons. There are more dark and abandoned buildings. So what's the difference?
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/BC0Tg0Q.jpg?1)
Ah ha. We built out our commuter rail network along the west side of the main avenue, greatly increasing transportation capacity on the west side, resulting in higher potential population density. Always remember, simcity is a game that responds and reacts to your actions.
You can also see the zoning distribution on the map. We've added a lot of commercial since the beginning, and re-zoned most of the low-density residential to high-density. Without neighbors, Mar Sara cannot grow much more than this.
Time to Expand
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/oRg7sZR.jpg)
Remember our plan. Now it's time for phase 2, The Docks, which I've given the Starcraft-themed name "Hangar Bays".
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/sZqKeCw.jpg?1)
The nice thing about starting a new zone next to an established zone is that there is a great deal of RCI demand just waiting for us from our neighbor to the north, Mar Sara. Look at those demand bars, we can build anything and it will grow here.
So we can go pretty crazy with our building. I did some cosmetic smoothing of the coastline in God Mode, then went into Mayor Mode and just started building some avenues and rail networks into something I thought looked pretty good. Then I added a big chunk of dense industrial, jacked up taxes on dirty to choke them out, and here's what I got.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/tyImJ5C.jpg?1)
In just a few years, the industrial zone needed expansion, and I added more, as well as a seaport. But you can see that I added too much. There is a lot of unused industrial-zoned land, and I-M (industrial-manufacturing) demand has gone negative. We've used up all the pent-up demand for industry from the neighbors. Let's go back and check on Mar Sara.
Back to Mar Sara
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/k5X0lYx.jpg?1)
A quick regional overview. We can see the airport, the seaport, and the rail and avenue networks.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/B80cJpv.jpg?1)
Without doing anything to Mar Sara, it grew quite a bit, particularly in low- and middle-income sims, because the city is slowly adjusting to its neighbor, which is providing a lot of industrial jobs. You can see the bump in the population graphs. Although it has been cropped out, Mar Sara now has 77k sims.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/k97bfwJ.jpg?1)
Now we can clearly see the reason. 6850 sims are traveling to Hangar Bay to work by train. We can also see the effect of the NAM mod, which allows sims to walk further, and take better advantage of the available public transportation. As we can see, on the west side, sims generally walk to the train station, whereas on the east side, they take the car to the train station, adding to their commute and decreasing the desirability of living there.
If you don't have the NAM mod, this will still be true, but the effects won't be as great.
Quick Look at Hangar Bay
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/cr5FM4l.jpg?1)
We can see the sims pouring in from the train, and walking from the train stations to work. The number of daily passengers fluctuates, but we see 5530 passengers today. Also, you will notice a couple new factories as Hangar Bay "catches up" to the new demand from the bigger population in Mar Sara. By bouncing back-and-forth between zones, we can sync up the cities and let them grow symbiotically.
What's Next?
I'll be taking a bit of a break, real life will prevent an update for a while. But I plan (currently, at least), to keep this tutorial going until the master plan is complete!
In the mean time, these two parts should give you all the basic concepts you need to build a multi-zone city, which is the heart of Simcity 4. Experiment and have fun.
Continue to Part 3
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T.O.P.
Hong Kong4685 Posts
I played quite a bit of Sim City but I never touched a mod. I guess I should get the NAM mod so my cities don't get population capped due to commute time?
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any tips for a player who wants to build 1 city and never bother with the region feature?
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On March 12 2013 10:48 T.O.P. wrote:
I played quite a bit of Sim City but I never touched a mod. I guess I should get the NAM mod so my cities don't get population capped due to commute time?
It's not just commute time, but NAM will allow much larger, more realistic cities. However, even vanilla SC4 will let you build up to some extent. I've heard of 200~300k, 2 million regional. Can't confirm.
On March 12 2013 11:09 Lavitage2 wrote:
any tips for a player who wants to build 1 city and never bother with the region feature?
Well, your city will stay small, unfortunately. I'd be surprised if you break 100k on a normal-sized map. I'd play on the largest map, and just see how far you go. It will be harder, and in my opinion, less fun. But you should play however you want.
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T.O.P.
Hong Kong4685 Posts
On March 12 2013 11:19 YMCApylons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2013 10:48 T.O.P. wrote:
I played quite a bit of Sim City but I never touched a mod. I guess I should get the NAM mod so my cities don't get population capped due to commute time? It's not just commute time, but NAM will allow much larger, more realistic cities. However, even vanilla SC4 will let you build up to some extent. I've heard of 200~300k, 2 million regional. Can't confirm. Show nested quote +On March 12 2013 11:09 Lavitage2 wrote:
any tips for a player who wants to build 1 city and never bother with the region feature? Well, your city will stay small, unfortunately. I'd be surprised if you break 100k on a normal-sized map. I'd play on the largest map, and just see how far you go. It will be harder, and in my opinion, less fun. But you should play however you want.
I got to up around 150k before my city stagnated on a normal sized map. I use subways though. The other methods of transport requires me to kill my own buildings. Monorail just straight up never works.
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Spent about a good hour into the game. Maybe a bit more:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/cwjBdAr.png)
- I have this issue where this one powerplant keeps going on fire, so I replaced it with Oil (lol).
- This bitch keeps complaining about the clinics needing more funding (I have one Deluxe that covers the whole area and is over-funded (more capacity than actual patients). She still complains.
- Can't seem to get more commercial structures to really grow.
- I put in a train to run through my industrial area. No commuter train yet.
- Making about double my expenses + 2-3k more.
Advice?
edit: just put in a Subway system, didn't change much.
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1. Do you have buses?
2. Look at the whole map with the health coverage, sometimes just a bit of zone gets left out
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No, no buses. I put a subway system, but I dunno how to use it efficiently or that well.
I have two hospitals that cover both residential major areas. Do I need it for industrial or commercial?
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thanks so much for this blog, I've been trying to learn the game
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Russian Federation3631 Posts
to the OP:
one issue I see with your city setup is the possibility of an endless commuter loop due to having A->B->C->A city connections, if that makes any sense. I guess the problem can be mitigated with good city design, but if you put a region exit too close to an entrance the sim job finding algorithm tends to decide to leave the region rather than finding a job.
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On March 12 2013 13:39 Torte de Lini wrote:
No, no buses. I put a subway system, but I dunno how to use it efficiently or that well.
I have two hospitals that cover both residential major areas. Do I need it for industrial or commercial?
I'm pretty sure Sim City wouldn't be Sim City if there wasn't always someone complaining about something.
At least it was the case in SC3KU. You can go well over 1 million inhabitants in 3KU by the way; someone even went all the way up to 5.3 million.
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I know you are doing vanilla + nam, but with all of the mods this game gets even better.
Ill ss some of my stuff when I go on lunch, but I have been toying around with the San Fran region as well, but I started where actual SF is and have been working back towards where oakland would be. My main one in SF is like 220k now. buses are terrific for fixing traffic problems, and subways second. I typically always have at least an avenue/highway and a rail/subway connection to each city.
in Hangar city, why'd you dump the Power Plant over by the water?? That takes up space you could either put docks at, or either more expensive housing if you put a nice buffer between the industry (that really depends on what you want, and going by your master plan that doesnt seem to be it)
The other comment that I have is that for your master plan, I would switch your sleep suburbs with the docks, and make that an industry/power city. In region play (which is the best way to play, btw, lavitage, and not hard at all) you can use neighbor connections to sell power to adjacent neighbors.
Based on how the cities line up there, the burbs (3) will have the most connections to other cities, so it should be your power center. Since you dont have the mod that gives you geo thermal power (cheap and clean) you def should be making that your power/industry. You could always put an avenue connection to the southern end of what is now the docks, and make that primarily a upper class waterside community, with the southern portion having a port (segregated by trees, parks, etc to create a buffer and drive up your $$/$$$ demand)
I am sure you know, but if you wanted to fix to do what I just said, just make the third your power/industry, and once you get a couple thousand there, just go and replace your dock city slowly with residential and parks and it will clean up over a couple years
I love sim city 4. So much fun.
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Just wanted to say that I appreciate these blogs, though I got my first try city to 130k sims without too much difficulty (though now there seems to be some flight)  Keep on trucking, this game is awesome.
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On March 12 2013 19:06 419 wrote:
to the OP:
one issue I see with your city setup is the possibility of an endless commuter loop due to having A->B->C->A city connections, if that makes any sense. I guess the problem can be mitigated with good city design, but if you put a region exit too close to an entrance the sim job finding algorithm tends to decide to leave the region rather than finding a job.
Is this a known game issue, or are you saying it might be true? As I said, I'm not a simcity expert, always looking for advice.
I hope it won't have A->B->C->A issues, because only A and C will have residential, while B has only industrial. The demand won't be circular.
But if you could point me to some resources analyzing this problem, that would be great.
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On March 12 2013 23:34 QuanticHawk wrote:
I know you are doing vanilla + nam, but with all of the mods this game gets even better.
Ill ss some of my stuff when I go on lunch, but I have been toying around with the San Fran region as well, but I started where actual SF is and have been working back towards where oakland would be. My main one in SF is like 220k now. buses are terrific for fixing traffic problems, and subways second. I typically always have at least an avenue/highway and a rail/subway connection to each city.
in Hangar city, why'd you dump the Power Plant over by the water?? That takes up space you could either put docks at, or either more expensive housing if you put a nice buffer between the industry (that really depends on what you want, and going by your master plan that doesnt seem to be it)
The other comment that I have is that for your master plan, I would switch your sleep suburbs with the docks, and make that an industry/power city. In region play (which is the best way to play, btw, lavitage, and not hard at all) you can use neighbor connections to sell power to adjacent neighbors.
Based on how the cities line up there, the burbs (3) will have the most connections to other cities, so it should be your power center. Since you dont have the mod that gives you geo thermal power (cheap and clean) you def should be making that your power/industry. You could always put an avenue connection to the southern end of what is now the docks, and make that primarily a upper class waterside community, with the southern portion having a port (segregated by trees, parks, etc to create a buffer and drive up your $$/$$$ demand)
I am sure you know, but if you wanted to fix to do what I just said, just make the third your power/industry, and once you get a couple thousand there, just go and replace your dock city slowly with residential and parks and it will clean up over a couple years
I love sim city 4. So much fun.
Hey, great suggestions. Old habits die hard. I use rails and avenues because I'm used to it, but I'll try out buses and subways.
Not to get too philosophical on you, but one of the great things about Simcity 4 is that people can have different goals. I'm not trying to have the most efficient, or the most wealthy, or most dense city possible. I don't know how to do that.
My goals are simpler:
1. Build a big region. I want pretty skyscrapers.
2. Have it "look good". There's going to be a lot of sub-optimal, useless shit and strange building placement just because it looks good, to me. For example, I know that coasts attract high-income sims, but I want some industry on the coast, even if it's less optimal, because that's what cities in real life do. Same with powerplants. They tend to be stuck on the docks, next to the LNG terminals and whatnot.
3. Try not to exploit any game mechanics, at least not too much. Stuff like air-pollution not carrying from zone to zone, I'm going to try not to exploit that. If a border area is full of pollution, I'll try, as much as possible, to treat the adjacent area in the next zone as if it had the same pollution.
I don't want to knock on what you said. If I started over, I'd say your overall plan sounds better than mine. I'll incorporate your advice as I go along, but I probably won't be doing major renovations for now. But who knows, the game may have a different opinion, and I'll just have to adapt.
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Yeah I usually have the subways switch to rails for more residential areas just because I like the look and it's an easy way to make a dividing line between zones. Highways work well for this too. The two places I was working on just before, one was kinda the industry/power/lower class suburbs on the mountain and water and I am using highway and rail to divide up the neighborhoods a bit
and yeah that's the coolest thing about SC4, that there are many ways to play! But I was remarking about the placement of your cities not for what is optimal (I don't think mine is either, acutallY) but that the power one in the center there will allow you to power more cities rather than having plants in every city, or two industry/plant cities. Which may or may not be what you are going for  I assumed it was since you were doing region play. Correct me if I am wrong, but even with NAM, utilities can only be shared with adjacent cities, and sims will only commute to adjacent ones even if a highway is there??
I snapped a few pics of my stuff to show later. But yeah I do a lot of the same stuff, trying to make there be a more natural transition rather than going from towering skyskrapers to sprawling burbs in what would be a block if the cities were connected.
What does NAM come with btw? Because I downloaded that within a megapack and I am not sure if the same docks that pack has are in nam because there's some cool stuff. I am working on an industry dock in once city and a commercial one in another. It's a bitch lining stuff up.
http://imgur.com/vV8PLqv
hahahaha
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Russian Federation3631 Posts
On March 13 2013 02:18 YMCApylons wrote:Show nested quote +On March 12 2013 19:06 419 wrote:
to the OP:
one issue I see with your city setup is the possibility of an endless commuter loop due to having A->B->C->A city connections, if that makes any sense. I guess the problem can be mitigated with good city design, but if you put a region exit too close to an entrance the sim job finding algorithm tends to decide to leave the region rather than finding a job. Is this a known game issue, or are you saying it might be true? As I said, I'm not a simcity expert, always looking for advice. I hope it won't have A->B->C->A issues, because only A and C will have residential, while B has only industrial. The demand won't be circular. But if you could point me to some resources analyzing this problem, that would be great.
I think it is a fairly well-known problem.
Here is a fairly decent explanation of it, at the link (its written for CAM mod, I am quite sure that the problem exists even in games without that mod): http://www.wiki.sc4devotion.com/index.php?title=Colossus_Addon_Mod#Eternal_Commuters
Eternal Commuters is a situation caused by sims thinking that the nearest job is always in a neighboring city, and consequently getting trapped in an endless loop. The easiest visualization of this is to imagine four cities sharing a common corner. If each city is connected to each of its neighbors near that corner, residents in that part of a city (City A) may find that the edge of the city is closer than any job within the city. Because sims always assume that the neighboring city's jobs are always at the edge, they will cross to the neighboring city in search of work, commuting to the neighbor (City B). The sims get to City B, and find that in fact, the jobs are not at the edge, and the edge of a third city (City C) is closer than any of the jobs in City B. These sims make the decision then to commute to City C, along with all of City B's sims that are also headed there for work. The sims get to City C, find the same situation as before, and along with City C's unemployed, commute en masse to City D. City D is no better than Cities B & C, and so the entire horde commutes into City A from City D. Upon arrival in City A, they see that City B is closer than any of the jobs in City A, and the cycle repeats. In each one of these cities, the commuting horde picks up new commuters, but never loses any, including when it passes back through the same cities again. The end result is a stream of sims, eternally commuting around the corners of a city, never finding work - and creating tremendous traffic jams in the process.
The one way to surely solve the problem is make sure that none of these circular possibilities exist. In other ways, the transport must branch out from a single city (instead of A->B->C->A, have A->B and A->C connections, and not the B->C one). I think there are ways to mitigate this issue with good city design (in the ABC scenario mentioned before, make sure that the entrance to B from A is not close to the entrance C from B (and that the sim can find a job closer).
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Hey, I'm bumping this topic!
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/n3TqhPs.png) Tea Drinker's CurbThis is my second city. It imports all garbage from Meatball Sub and exports them to my other city (third one, not shown here). It has a Train for Freight and Passenger and also a subway system. Kept some agricultural and just added a solar plant for electricity :D Airport just got upgraded!
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i see the same pic twice you crazy frenchman!
question: if you have a freight rail line, can it be used on subways as well?? i did that in a city because of the stupid terrain was being uncooperative even after tryign to level with roads, mod leveling tools, stock leveling tool etc...
or should i just have a dedicated freight line. and how long should that be? and does it matter if there isnt an end to the line on one side of a station??
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![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/fOLJnYZ.png) Meatball SubSubway and Upper-road Tram. Mostly commercial with double research center and stadiums. Kept agricultural in the deep corner and having trouble getting industry to grow ):
Fixed (:
I just improved on this city for an hour today. Basically, my overhead tram also works through the subway system. I think this is a NAM feature, so get it. I have an underground subway system that circles the city and I connected it with my circular overhead tram system as well (both need stations, but the Tram is within the track, so it doesn't take any plot of land more than your tram circuit.
I just switched to all solar and wind power and my city is growing pretty large. 225k and I upped the funding for power, police and education.
I'm having real trouble with health, I have like 5 large hospitals (all close together) and 2 research centers and they're getting full too fast. It's like everyone's a diabetic or some shit.
or should i just have a dedicated freight line. and how long should that be? and does it matter if there isnt an end to the line on one side of a station??
You can connect them both if you want. It's not a huge deal. I keep them both connected, but make sure to network the subway system onto other regions/cities!
Doesn't matter if there isn't an "end" to the line. Just make sure you have frieght and passenger stations.
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EPT
