SimCity 4

[spycatcher34]

Can't say I didnt warn ya.

Here's a nice little tipsy, if you make one city you really like but are having trouble with money make a few neghibor cities w/o any garabage collection or a very small insuffectiant amount and make deal with your good city, garabage may not be the most expensive thus profitable resorce but it is the easiest to manage.

And about taxation, keep it low for what you want to devolp. For example: I have one city that I consider my "commercial centere" I have an airport and alot of commercial and NO industrial in the city, it does quite well BTW. Anyway I charge high like 11% on poor residentail and low on high, so I get high class people and it makes for a very fine city. That in general is another way to play, haveing an industrial city, residentail towns, and big commercial districsts. Axully it's the only way to play if you want to get the huge skyscrapers and the like they misleadingly place on the box. Ofcourse I've had the game a couple of weeks and have yet to get a tourist trap yet so don' think of me as having the answers to this ridiculously hard game.

If anyone happens to get the S-Guide please tell us about it!

 

[cgannon64]

The learning curve in this game is very high, but I'm starting to get used to it. My budget problems are pretty much fixed - taxes starting at about 6% and slowly rising and microing schools and hospitals does the trick. I'm makeing about $20 a month!

Making a Region is VERY fun, but its also very long. I wish there was some way you could generally sculpt the entire region (mountain range here, water here) and then do it for each one, rather than make a region in each city.

Just a question about your style of region play: how do you get each city to develop. Making an industrial city, a residential city, and a commericial city all sound great, but how do you get each one to develop on its own? You can't just make all commericial from the start, unless I'm missing something.

One final problem I'm having is getting my city to grow. Not literally grow - I've filled up an entire map in a few years - but getting it to grow beyond suburban sprawl. How? I try to tax low, give them water, power, nice neighborhoods, schools, etc but they stay suburban! I even zone Dense and it still comes out suburban. Its bugging me...

been playing for hours

 

[spycatcher34]

Get a lot of Industrial going and get a good 50k population.. you haveta have a demand for it but suprisingly I am able to have a lot more commercial than I was in the previous games starting off. Mostly $$ and $$$ work at commercial. About the subrban sprawl thing... Density. Zone Dense and make sure there is alot f acsess to the zones and it isnt jammed up with traffic ie MASS TRANSIT.

 

[Switch625]

CompUSA has the SimCity 4 Prima Strategy guide for $9.99. That sale ends TONIGHT. The regular price is $19.99. I just ordered it, and including shipping and tax, the damage is $10.62. I hope I'm not getting screwed by buying the strategy guide, but I just can't get a handle on this game. Perhaps the strategy guide will help me out.

 

[spycatcher34]

From what I'm reading people say that not only does it have the strategies in it, it also has the stuff that should have been in the manuel as well.

 

[cgannon64]

Originally posted by spycatcher34
Get a lot of Industrial going and get a good 50k population.. you haveta have a demand for it but suprisingly I am able to have a lot more commercial than I was in the previous games starting off. Mostly $$ and $$$ work at commercial. About the subrban sprawl thing... Density. Zone Dense and make sure there is alot f acsess to the zones and it isnt jammed up with traffic ie MASS TRANSIT.

I can't tell if this is advice for making specialized cities or for making a dense city, but either way it works. That's probably the reason I'm staying suburban - I'm impatient. I haven't been waiting for the demand for commericial that comes around 50,000. Zoning dense before that is really a waste of time. I just have to play more.

back into the breach my friends

 

[cgannon64]

Oh, and to answer someone's (I think Switch's) question about how to put in Custom Songs:

They hid this quite cleverly in the game (hopefully not on purpose... ). I figured it out by holding the cursor over the "Custom Tunes" option. Anyway, here's how: Go to Maxis/SimCity4/Radio/Stations/Mayor/Music. In there should be 17 Maxis songs. Take them out if you want (I did, less songs, less confusion) or leave them in, it doesn't matter. Copy/paste some of your mp3s into there. When you get ingame, check "Custom Tunes" in the Audio options. While you have no direct control over them (you can't fast foward, change tunes, etc) it is still a nice option. Enjoy.

you can get some pretty odd moments

 

[cgannon64]

Sorry for the triple post, but I have a stupid, yet necessary question: how do I make neighbor deals? Southeast Side of Manhattan's garbage is filling up, and I figured Southwest Side could be a nice dump/industrial wasteland. Even my advisors are telling me to export, but I can't figure out how!

Oh, and one last question: can Sims commute to another town? If so, how do you coax them to do so? I'm starting to finally get middle/high wealth residential, but the Industrial is ruining it!

thanks in advance

 

[GenMarshall]

Originally posted by cgannon64
Sorry for the triple post, but I have a stupid, yet necessary question: how do I make neighbor deals? Southeast Side of Manhattan's garbage is filling up, and I figured Southwest Side could be a nice dump/industrial wasteland. Even my advisors are telling me to export, but I can't figure out how!

Oh, and one last question: can Sims commute to another town? If so, how do you coax them to do so? I'm starting to finally get middle/high wealth residential, but the Industrial is ruining it!

thanks in advance

That is Ok Cgannon .

Ok listen carefully on how to make a neighbor deal . Go into your budge thingy and expand it. You should see a thing labled "Neighbor Deal". Click on it and you are set . You can only trade with Neighbors that you have a Road, rail, Power line, and/or Pipe cconnection in the edge of your city.
The awnser to your second question: It is possible to do this

 

[WillJ]

Hello all, I'm having loads of fun with this game. My current city has almost two million simoleans (I got that much by letting a city that made about a thousand simoleans a month make me a bunch of money), and now I'm starting to actually build the city. I can't decide whether or not I should buy the strategy guide. I'm not really having any problems yet, but still it might come in handy. (I've always liked Prima's SimCity strategy guides in the past.)

Also, to all the people here who want to discuss or ask questions about SimCity, here's an excellent forum for it, that has lots of helpful advice: SimCity Central.

 

[Perfection]

The strategy guide is great I highly recomend it!

 

[cgannon64]

Originally posted by CivGeneral


That is Ok Cgannon .

Ok listen carefully on how to make a neighbor deal . Go into your budge thingy and expand it. You should see a thing labled "Neighbor Deal". Click on it and you are set . You can only trade with Neighbors that you have a Road, rail, Power line, and/or Pipe cconnection in the edge of your city.
The awnser to your second question: It is possible to do this

I tried that, but it didn't work! I have a road connection to my other town, my advisors are telling me to sell my trash, the other town has a garbage dump connected to the road, and when I got to Budget and Neighbor Deal, it says, "No neighbor deals are availible."

Oh, and about my second question: Is there any in depth way I hav to do do make them commute out of town? Or will they just do it if the other town has lots of jobs?

so fun

 

[WillJ]

Originally posted by cgannon64
I tried that, but it didn't work! I have a road connection to my other town, my advisors are telling me to sell my trash, the other town has a garbage dump connected to the road, and when I got to Budget and Neighbor Deal, it says, "No neighbor deals are availible."

Oh, and about my second question: Is there any in depth way I hav to do do make them commute out of town? Or will they just do it if the other town has lots of jobs?

Hmm... So you have a road going from a part of your city (not just starting in the middle of nowhere), to another city's landfill (not just to the middle of nowhere), which is functioning and connected to the rest of the city? I can't see why you couldn't make a neighbor deal; maybe you should just give it time and keep on checking to see if the game ever lets you make one. Also, the landfill has to have a certain amount of free space, although I don't know how much.

Second question: For intercity commuters, it's best to force them to use highways or passenger trains to go from city to city, not roads. Remember, FORCE them, don't just give them the option, because if it's possible for them to use roads, they just might use them, and then complain about the long commute. (Sims aren't always very smart traffic-wise.) Besides that, as long as there are places to live in one city and places to work in another, they should commute and be happy little Sims.

Edit: About the neighbor deal: The advisor has to offer you the deal; you don't make one by going to the neighbor deals panel. (I think.)

 

[cgannon64]

Originally posted by WillJ
Hmm... So you have a road going from a part of your city (not just starting in the middle of nowhere), to another city's landfill (not just to the middle of nowhere), which is functioning and connected to the rest of the city? I can't see why you couldn't make a neighbor deal; maybe you should just give it time and keep on checking to see if the game ever lets you make one. Also, the landfill has to have a certain amount of free space, although I don't know how much.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I have all that. Does it have to go directly to the landfill? Because I think my landfill is a few blocks in, although that shouldn't matter. Either way, I got sick of garbage piling up and no deal, so I just built a dump in my town. Far far away, of course.

Second question: For intercity commuters, it's best to force them to use highways or passenger trains to go from city to city, not roads. Remember, FORCE them, don't just give them the option, because if it's possible for them to use roads, they just might use them, and then complain about the long commute. (Sims aren't always very smart traffic-wise.) Besides that, as long as there are places to live in one city and places to work in another, they should commute and be happy little Sims.

Oh OK. I was afraid you would have to coax them to commute. I still seem to have one problem with specialized cities - if I have a city that has lots of industrial, and the neighboring city has lots of residential, and they are communiting (ex - the two prebuilt cities in London) and I build more Industrial in the industrial town, it doesn't grow! Should I build more connections, or what?

My one main problem with this game so far is money. Not losing it, as I don't have much trouble staying in the black anymore (read: $20-50...:michief: ). My main problem now is that I keep on losing money. Not because I'm overbudgeted, but because I'm zoning faster than I am taking money in. Should I slow down my growth, or is there another answer? I only have 5,000 people in 3 years, so I get the feeling that slowing growth down is a bad idea.

so many questions

 

[cgannon64]

*BUMP*

Patch is out! Its supposed to unlock all those perty Houston skyscrapers that were mysteriously blocked by some bug...

 

[TrailblazingScot]

Cool!


I am finding this game easier than Sim City 2000 to create a city properly (not creating a core, switching off disasters, waking up in the morning to a very rich town), but I REALLY hate the auto-laying of roads and am still unsure of the best sizes of squares to make for getting certain buildings.

Oh yes, how to make money? Legalise Gambling helps of course as does creating a GHETTO with virtually NO services


Apparently the old "before you build city place taxes to max" trick works still if you want loads of money. Haven't tried it personnally I rely on mere hearsay

 

[cgannon64]

Originally posted by kittenOFchaos
Cool!


I am finding this game easier than Sim City 2000 to create a city properly (not creating a core, switching off disasters, waking up in the morning to a very rich town), but I REALLY hate the auto-laying of roads and am still unsure of the best sizes of squares to make for getting certain buildings.

Oh yes, how to make money? Legalise Gambling helps of course as does creating a GHETTO with virtually NO services


Apparently the old "before you build city place taxes to max" trick works still if you want loads of money. Haven't tried it personnally I rely on mere hearsay

After you download the patch, you can toggle autoroads off by holding SHIFT while laying them down. A very helpful feature, I must say.

I agree with you on your points. It just feels like a good city; my city grows slowly, but not too slow, and medium wealth people are moving in. Its filling up nicely with one story buildings, I think in about a decade skyscrapers while start popping up.

I got the Prima Guide (GET IT IF YOU DON'T) any questions?

 

[damunzy]

Looks like I might have to break down and buy the strategy guide....man, I would rather spend the 20 bucks on computer hardware though....does anyone know of a good web site for SC4 strategies?

 

[cgannon64]

Originally posted by munzy
Looks like I might have to break down and buy the strategy guide....man, I would rather spend the 20 bucks on computer hardware though....does anyone know of a good web site for SC4 strategies?

simcitycentral.net. Great site.

I reccomend the guide totally, though. I just bought it yesterday; it has every graph you could ask for, ALL the info about every building, its effects, info about mysterious game workings like caps, etc.

GET IT!!

 

[philippe]

or illegally download it from the internet
oops did i say that up loud?