SimCity 4 Deluxe

[DrSpike]

Re: SimCity 4 Deluxe

Originally posted by Eli
I finally got the game, after forgetting that my computer can play it.

Any tips?

Play Civ4.

[Eli]

Doesn't run on this computer, for some reason. I can't get the disc to autoplay.

[Adagio]

Originally posted by Eli
Doesn't run on this computer, for some reason. I can't get the disc to autoplay.

Why do you need the autoplay function?



... and why do you need the disc in the drive?

[Wiglaf]

Yeah you dont need auto play.

Also: SC 4 blows. Abysmal scrolling rate -- I have no idea why -- and just general crap feel to it. I'll mail anyone my copy of SC4 Deluxe for free if you want it. Waht a piece of crap it is.

[DRoseDARs]

SC4 doesn't blow, your computer does. Get more RAM, a better video card, and quit yer b*tchin'.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Eli
Thanks snoopy, it's seems that the problem just sorted itself out.

And was replaced by another problem, of course.

So in my residential city the IM,ID demand is very negative, because I've built a ****load of stuff in the industrial city.

The C demand is negative, but not very.

Still, half of the city is jobless.

How can demand for C be negative with so many unemployed?

And no, I haven't hit any cap.

I believe the answer lies in your high unemployment. Though you could get a better answer on a SC4 forum. I think that C demand lies largely with higher average incomes, and if many of your citizens are unemployed you will not have a very high income

Raise income (R) taxes until your population drops, and/or increase available I jobs (lower I taxes and/or build more I) to help your R get jobs.

Overall, the hardest thing I found in SC4 was indeed raising C demand. I consistently had low C demand most of the time... but when I did, usually it was due to unemployment. It's also possible it's related to property values - this I remember only very vaguely but there should be a relation in C demand in a particular area to its property values, with mid-range I believe being best, though I'm really not sure I remember correctly. Low values are bad for C, and high values are bad for all but the most expensive C (and thus there isn't that much expensive C, so too high of values doesn't help it). But that's from two years ago now ...

[Eli]

Originally posted by Adagio


Why do you need the autoplay function?



... and why do you need the disc in the drive?

I can't install it. Autoplay doesn't work, so I try to press the setup thingie on the cd(an image actually) and nothing happens.

Only on this computer though. It works fine on the laptop, but there are other problems there.

[Blake]

Here's the basic guide to a rocking economy:

* Always give full access to health and education.
* Never fund bus or ambulance - buildings have a minimum "walking" radius.
* Dial down the funding for each building to the minimum required for the population using it (Raise it as population grows).

For a start the civic buildings provide a lot of jobs (jobs provided is independent of funding, it's as if it's state subsidized), what's more rather than only being crappy low paid jobs they have high wealth jobs too, which attracts wealthier sims.

Educated sims and wealthier sims attract higher wealth commerce and industry. So the civic buildings firstly attract wealthier population and secondly further educate the entire population, which means wealthier industry and commerce.

This higher wealth industry and commerce will attract more higher wealth sims.

In SC4 residential population ONLY moves in when there are jobs available, it's that simple. And the quickest way to get jobs in the city is civic buildings. For the "normal" strategy it's the Coal Plant providing the jobs which seeds the economy (a minimal amount of industry will also move in), whether or not you systematically exploit this gameplay quirk it happens in all games.

That's the basic key to getting a very profitable and prosperous city going. There are also strategies for getting a profitable and impoverished city, in that case the key is to provide a bare minimum of services (power and roads only), it's not as nice but if you have a thing for slums it works. Heavy Industry also effectively provides jobs, but since it's 100% R$ jobs it takes a lot lot longer to get the wealth feedback cycle going.

[Eli]

So I should give as many services as I can to my residential city, zone a lot of C, zone a lot of I with high taxes on all I but I-HT? And slowly, my sims will become wealthier, abandon the ID and IM in the adjacent city and move to the C and IHT in my main city?

[Eli]

Here are the two cities, FWIW:

http://apolyton.net/upload/link/6238_Fairview.rar

[Eli]

I'm an idiot.

I installed NAM, but only the part that adds more transportation options. Not the part that does more effective path finding and increases capacity.

Now everything makes sense.

[Blake]

As far as NAM goes I would be inclined to recommend only using improved pathfinding and not higher capacities, the game is easy enough as it is. However it does depend on how much of a sandbox environment you want.

Here's some more economic advice:

Set taxes to:
R$ : 9%
R$$ : 9.5%
R$$$ : 10.5%

The higher residential taxes are not for better profits - it's because otherwise too many high wealth sims will move in, they can't find jobs, they then move back out. The higher taxes gives a stable equilibrium. Lowering taxes for rezzies is a Bad Idea, it doesn't create new jobs for them.

ID : 20%
IM : 9%
IHT: 9%

Keep industrial parks small and intermingle them with the rest of your city, a small (~6x6) IM block will generate sufficiently little pollution that IHT can later move in. IM is a good job type (wealth-wise) so it shouldn't be neglected.

Build plenty of "green space" - parks, forums and such. Raising land value does awesome things, allowing higher wealths to move in and encouraging higher density buildings (skyscrapers and such).

Busses are awesome. A sim needs a bus stop at both their home and workplace, most sims will walk about 3 tiles at each end, meaning you need to space bustops about every 6-8 tiles throughout your city. Such a bus system will greatly reduce traffic & air pollution and more than pay for itself via fares.

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by Wiglaf

Also: SC 4 blows. Abysmal scrolling rate -- I have no idea why -- and just general crap feel to it.

I found having shadows on medium or high slowed me down most.

Generally all you need is high city details and high textures for it not to look like ****.

[Eli]

Originally posted by Blake
As far as NAM goes I would be inclined to recommend only using improved pathfinding and not higher capacities, the game is easy enough as it is. However it does depend on how much of a sandbox environment you want.

Here's some more economic advice:

Set taxes to:
R$ : 9%
R$$ : 9.5%
R$$$ : 10.5%

The higher residential taxes are not for better profits - it's because otherwise too many high wealth sims will move in, they can't find jobs, they then move back out. The higher taxes gives a stable equilibrium. Lowering taxes for rezzies is a Bad Idea, it doesn't create new jobs for them.

ID : 20%
IM : 9%
IHT: 9%

Keep industrial parks small and intermingle them with the rest of your city, a small (~6x6) IM block will generate sufficiently little pollution that IHT can later move in. IM is a good job type (wealth-wise) so it shouldn't be neglected.

Build plenty of "green space" - parks, forums and such. Raising land value does awesome things, allowing higher wealths to move in and encouraging higher density buildings (skyscrapers and such).

Busses are awesome. A sim needs a bus stop at both their home and workplace, most sims will walk about 3 tiles at each end, meaning you need to space bustops about every 6-8 tiles throughout your city. Such a bus system will greatly reduce traffic & air pollution and more than pay for itself via fares.

Thanks for the taxes advice. Especially the residential part.

About the Industrial taxes - I noticed that ID employs more people than IM. I'm not sure if it's actually true, but this what seems to happen when I query around random factories.

As for buses - I've been using them quite a lot, I have close to 100 stations in a 50k people city. My only problem with them is that there are 2-3 stations in specific locations that have 300-500% traffic, and I'm not sure how to handle that.

It's too late for intermingling I with R, I have the RC area separated from the I area by a river, to stop some of the pollution. Although as I slowly transfer to IM the pollution is dropping.

I'll have to force myself to put more parks and stuff. It just seems such a waste of space.

[Blake]

As for buses - I've been using them quite a lot, I have close to 100 stations in a 50k people city. My only problem with them is that there are 2-3 stations in specific locations that have 300-500% traffic, and I'm not sure how to handle that.

This is usually caused by a bug where bus traffic which is just "passing through" will use up the capacity of the station. This can be avoided by not having busstops on corners.

ID may employ more people than IM, but it's ALL R$ jobs, meaning it does nothing at all for city wealth, while sucking up a whole lot of power and water - in fact the services requirements are so steep that ID taxes don't even really cover the expenses.
C$ is also all R$ jobs, but it requires next to no water, little power and is inoffensive.