Sim City 4

[Mr Light]

I just got this game last week but apparently it came out in 2003 I just got a new computer and now I can finally play recent computer games!

Anyway every single time I start a city, it goes wonderfully until the population hits around 20,000 I believe and then I hit a brick wall. Demand plummets, and at this point the costs are so high I can't drop the taxes any. And I filled up the entire screen a long time ago.

What am I doing wrong? I've been perusing FAQs but haven't really found the answer yet.

I build all the power in the far corner from residential. I put commercial between industry and residential. I put the water pumps at the opposite end of the power.

I'm trying to work on better traffic, the last time I put a highway through the center of the map, but I still had red streets all over, even after I put in a subway system.

 

[Canadave]

The best way to keep taxes low (and demand higher) is to build services slowly. Wait until you can pay for things and micro-manage the budgets... so, for example, don't build a school right off the bat. Wait until you have a couple thousand people and a decent tax income, then build a school. Once you do, wait and see how many students there are, and bring the budget slider down so you just cover the number needed. You'll have to keep an eye on it to make sure they don't strike, but it's the best way to keep costs down and avoid raising taxes uneccessarily. You should follow that same pattern for police, hospitals, etc.

Oh, and build lots of parks, in all of your zones. That makes them much more attractive, and when they're in industrial zones can really boost your chances of getting high tech.

As for traffic, two things. First of all, visit Simtropolis and download the NAM (Network Addon-Mod). It makes Sims much smarter when it comes to their commuting habits, and will give you more transportation options, should you chose to dive into them.

Second, build bus stops EVERYWHERE. I recommend downloading an on-street bus stop mod, but the default will do if you don't feel like seeking one out. Ideally, you should have a bus stop covering every block of your city. You'll pay for it, at first, but once you get big enough and dense enough it will begin to pay for itself and even start making a profit. Have good enough bus coverage (and combine it with a good subway) and you get get about a 40-30-30 split between buses, the subway and cars for transportation choice of your Sims.

And finally, use regions to your advantage. Cities can be interconnected, and they will work much better if you remember that Sims can live in one city tile, but work in another. Here's an example of mine, so you can see what I mean:

Phew. Hope that helps.

 

[Roberto]

I bought Sim City 4 when it first came out and enjoyed it but I haven't played it in years.....there is a new city-building simulation coming out soon that looks very interesting:
http://www.citiesxl.com/

Anyways, I think I'll dust off the old Sim City 4 box and install the game....I hope it works with Vista 64-bit.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Man, I haven't played this game in a while, but Canadave is right. The quickest way to exhaust your budget is to provide too many services too quickly. Build out your city slowly, and sell your excess capacity for extra cash (power, landfill, etc.)

 

[bigdaddy]

SimCity 4 Cheat: More Money
Hold down CTRL and press X. When the box pops up, type in moneyeo and hold the SHIFT key. Alternate between hitting ENTER and the UP arrow. For each time these are both pressed, you get 10,000,000 Simoleons.

*wink wink*

 

[Mr Light]

I thought you needed to provide education on the get-go or nobody would move into the city. Maybe that was part of my problem! I actually had been using bus stops a lot, though not one for every block. ... The FAQ I was reading talked about "demand busters" which I didn't completely follow. Apparently when you reach a certain population the city will self-destruct unless you put down an expensive reward/monument?

 

[Gertch]

I just got this game last week but apparently it came out in 2003 I just got a new computer and now I can finally play recent computer games!

Anyway every single time I start a city, it goes wonderfully until the population hits around 20,000 I believe and then I hit a brick wall. Demand plummets, and at this point the costs are so high I can't drop the taxes any. And I filled up the entire screen a long time ago.

What am I doing wrong? I've been perusing FAQs but haven't really found the answer yet.

I build all the power in the far corner from residential. I put commercial between industry and residential. I put the water pumps at the opposite end of the power.

I'm trying to work on better traffic, the last time I put a highway through the center of the map, but I still had red streets all over, even after I put in a subway system.

You have to leave the services pretty lean until you have a good income coming in.

Also you might want to get the Rush Hour expansion and visit http://www.simtropolis.com and get the network addon to correct some of the vehicle pathing. You can also use their optional scripts and increase the amount of traffic each road can handle and commute time each worker will drive. I also like the Middle Earth map someone put on that site.

 

[MyCylon]

I agree with what others have said: Go easy on the services. It's VERY easy to kill your budget and sink the town in no time otherwise.

A question concerning the network add-on: Is it an official extension of SC4 or a community development?

 

[Canadave]

I thought you needed to provide education on the get-go or nobody would move into the city. Maybe that was part of my problem! I actually had been using bus stops a lot, though not one for every block. ... The FAQ I was reading talked about "demand busters" which I didn't completely follow. Apparently when you reach a certain population the city will self-destruct unless you put down an expensive reward/monument?

Yeah, annoyingly, some things like the City Hall, stadiums, opera house, etc. can cause demand to bottom out and your city to stop growing. It's usually a good idea to build rewards as soon as you can.

As for the NAM, it's a community development, though it uses the game's existing architecture, so it's not a mod to the source code or anything like that. The thing about SC4 is it was a little broken when it launched. EA kind of rushed it out the door, so it was only about 85-90% done, really. Much of what the community has done with the major mods like the NAM is plug in some the holes that were left behind when the game hit shelves.

 

[MyCylon]

^
Interesting. Thanks for the info!

 

[Mr Light]

I just started a new city and it's going like gangbusters so far. I don't recall my pop but the map is maxed out and I still have a ****load of money and demand hasn't plummeted yet. I've been doing the "bus stops everywhere" and "tiny grids with black roads not a single gray street" thing. Traffic is a thing of the past!

 

[Gertch]

As for the NAM, it's a community development, though it uses the game's existing architecture, so it's not a mod to the source code or anything like that. The thing about SC4 is it was a little broken when it launched. EA kind of rushed it out the door, so it was only about 85-90% done, really. Much of what the community has done with the major mods like the NAM is plug in some the holes that were left behind when the game hit shelves.

I found it really helpful.

The tunneling tools are very nice and the wide variety of restaurants and other buildings available on that site add to the fun of playing. But it took forever to load after a while as I added a couple of gigs of addons.

I did try to make a house of my own and it came out okay.

 

[Canadave]

I just started a new city and it's going like gangbusters so far. I don't recall my pop but the map is maxed out and I still have a ****load of money and demand hasn't plummeted yet. I've been doing the "bus stops everywhere" and "tiny grids with black roads not a single gray street" thing. Traffic is a thing of the past!

Your next challenge will be to learn how to break away from the grid.

 

[Mr Light]

So I can now successfully build a city up to 350,000 without anything crashing and burning. I have all black road squares with a bus stop on every block. I'm finding two problems though.

--I don't have any high tech industry at all. I have zero tax on it. What am I missing?

--There's a lot of air pollution from the roads. How do you get rid of this? Subways?

--Why do some hospitals and schools get ridiculously high use, and even when you build new ones, they retain those high numbers? I've even tried building a new one across the street from it... and it still happens!

I just tried that "moneyeo" cheat and it doesn't work. The weaknesspays gives you a mere $1,000 though.

 

[Gertch]

Subways will help with the smog but so wont parks and lots (and lots) of trees. You can download trees from the STEX if you want more variety. Be careful to read the descriptions as some people do put anti-pollution cheats in some trees. (There is also a park that gives you something like $4B every month if you want a money cheat. But only run it for a couple of months and then delete it.)

I think the hospital and school usage problems are related to the network traffic problems (code wise) as I ran into that many times. Some times I would have to raze who neighborhoods and redo them just to get away from the problem.

High tech requires many of the higher learning buildings and lots of them.

 

[Mr Light]

I put in one university but it never reaches even 10% of its capacity. Should I bother building more at that point?

 

[Gertch]

Perhaps your city is too young or sparsely populated? It does take quite a long time to be able to place a shuttle and thats after quite a few university and museums.

Man, you're getting me wanting to install it again. At least with FIOS it will be quick to download the 2 gigs of addons.

 

[Braxton]

I never build schools until the citizens start demanding them (and even then I ignore it for a while). I've also downloaded schools/colleges/universities from Simtropolis that have higher capacities and larger radius than the standard ones, this saves a lot of money. The NAM is a very good addon to the game and I suggest you look at all the options they have for you to use, it really does help the game and allows you to get larger populations without massive traffic problems.

Definitely micro-manage your budget, it will save you. Build more cities. Not all cities need to have schools. Build one city with only low density residential zoning and tax the higher densities absurdly. This allows a steady base of workers for the low density industrial zoning. You can have one of the smallest city maps as residential only, while having a city next to it to have nothing but manufacturing. There are many combinations you can use so explore.

 

[Csalem]

I haven't played this game in years. I use to have the same problem and got a bit frustrated with it. I always remember subways were no good if the population density was too low, and they were very expensive. Also I always found it hard to get commerce to develop where I wanted it. It's a game that requires great patience.

 

[LightningStorm]

I bought Sim City 4 when it first came out and enjoyed it but I haven't played it in years.....there is a new city-building simulation coming out soon that looks very interesting:
http://www.citiesxl.com/

Anyways, I think I'll dust off the old Sim City 4 box and install the game....I hope it works with Vista 64-bit.

Oh wow, Cities XL does look pretty cool. I haven't played a SimCity in forever, I might have to take up city buidling again when XL comes along. Though I'm a tad concerned about this http://www.citiesxl.com/index.php?/content/view/75/2/lang,en/ I hope that's not their idea of typical high-way interchanges.