[Megathread] SimCity 5

[Pachycrocuta]

Yeah. My 4-square is on a part with not a lot of water... Both my cities are on the verge of running dry but I can't take water from the bountiful cities in the other part of the region. Can't import water globally. What am I supposed to do except abandon city when I run out? =\

It's kind of like playing Majora's Mask. Play for a couple days then whatever you do it's game over. When your 4-square runs out of water what are you really supposed to do?

Do you have a river or lake or other body of water connected to your city? Put some water towers near there and it will never run out. Or, if you don't, there's a way to get unlimited water by filtering sewage with either a water treatment plant or sewage treatment. Not entirely sure which one it is. Put them next to each other (with the filter pumps) and you will have an unlimited supply of water, unless your sims don't shit as much as they drink.

[Deleted]

Do you have a river or lake or other body of water connected to your city? Put some water towers near there and it will never run out. Or, if you don't, there's a way to get unlimited water by filtering sewage with either a water treatment plant or sewage treatment. Not entirely sure which one it is. Put them next to each other (with the filter pumps) and you will have an unlimited supply of water, unless your sims don't shit as much as they drink.

I just youtubed a video of it. Novel way to fix the problem and will be using that.

Just glad it's not me living in that region, that's all.

[Ashnazg]

So, I found out the rather interesting way that Sims will continue to work in a city even with 20% taxes, no fire coverage, rampant crime, no parks, clinics, etc, etc, etc. They stayed and worked for about an ingame week before I started lobbing meteors and summoning Bob.

I sent off a few hundred thousand to my neighbors (Candlekeep, Gaia's Commons, and Cirque's Noob City ), while keeping a few hundred thousand for whomever picks up the town (no debt).

The geography and traffic were just driving me mad. Oddly, buses were making my traffic worse. As soon as I got rid of all of the stops, it went from half red to no red and only some yellow traffic. I think I've learned where NOT to place bus stops.

Thanks!

And where did you remove the bus stops from to improve the traffic? Everywhere completely?

[Deleted]

My city's been rolled back 3 times in the last hour now. Losing the will to play completely.

[r3d3mpt10n]

I cant say i've ever had my city rolled back... but thanks to the Earthquake that just took out alot of my money making productions (coal/ore mines) im thinking of saving up about 1m simoleons demolishing the whole thing and restarting... i think i have kinda figured out traffic now aswell.

Either way, i managed to jack my taxes up to 20% without much of a consequence, although my population did start to drop after a few days, so i think if you plan on saving cash for a rebuild, best to jjack taxes a few hours, drop them a few, then raise them a few and so on.

[Hulari]

My city's been rolled back 3 times in the last hour now. Losing the will to play completely.

I cant say i've ever had my city rolled back...

Had all except 1 city need to be rolled back and I have never been able to get back into one. It either says it's still being rolled back or the city has disappeared completely. Lost the will to play it at the moment because whenever I start to get somewhere it needs to be rolled back and I can't get back on to them.

[rhorle]

I cant say i've ever had my city rolled back... but thanks to the Earthquake that just took out alot of my money making productions (coal/ore mines) im thinking of saving up about 1m simoleons demolishing the whole thing and restarting... i think i have kinda figured out traffic now aswell..

Yeah disasters suck. I just had the lizard run through my small city and knock my population in half and it destroyed my Maxis Manor. Luckily it missed my power plant and sewage treatment but he spawned in the one spot that would go through the most of my city. On the bright side at least I have no more garbage to pollute my land.

[r3d3mpt10n]

Those dinos seem to go to the trash dumps... the one i had rampage through mine came in the opposite corner of the map to my trash dump, and tore a massive chunk out of my city... when i say massive, i mean things like fire dept police dept and even my airport... however that was on a different map.

[Deleted]

Anyone else had a bug where buildings would stack on each other?
http://imgur.com/Y9C6IJP,OrJs7cE#1

not had that one, but i did have one where buildings were in the middle of the road...

[Deleted]

So I watched Talutha's max population attempt thingy Twitch VoD. My SimCity skills skyrocketed. Started a new city (in MMO-Champion1) this morning - now sitting steadily at 180k residents, making huge profits selling processors and just about to move up to TVs. Arcology incoming!

[r3d3mpt10n]

So I watched Talutha's max population attempt thingy Twitch VoD. My SimCity skills skyrocketed. Started a new city (in MMO-Champion1) this morning - now sitting steadily at 180k residents, making huge profits selling processors and just about to move up to TVs. Arcology incoming!

Sly devil... might have to take a look at that myself... i've actually seen one or two videos about high population, basically saying that using avenues, T junctions and side streets or L shaped roads, will actually make traffic flow ALOT better, Since the sims use some kind of "shortest route" system, the main idea is to keep them going on the main roads using side paths for anything they usually wont travel, if you get my meaning.

[Deleted]

Sly devil... might have to take a look at that myself... i've actually seen one or two videos about high population, basically saying that using avenues, T junctions and side streets or L shaped roads, will actually make traffic flow ALOT better, Since the sims use some kind of "shortest route" system, the main idea is to keep them going on the main roads using side paths for anything they usually wont travel, if you get my meaning.

The things I mainly took from it is:

1. Sims get very confused by 4-way intersections (which were indeed the major congestion points of my previous cities).
2. Traffic lights tend to only allow traffic to flow one way all the time, and creates long stops that could mean the difference between a sim coming to work or not.
3. You should keep zones to one side of the road, especially in a grid type city - when low density, only zone on one side and they will upgrade and still be on that side.

So, I use alot (and I mean ALOT) of 3-way intersections, I rather have two 3-way intersections right next to each other than one 4-way. I also pop a single piece of medium density road at the end of all my grids to prevent traffic lights.

[-aiko-]

Yup, intersections are tricky. Here are a few things to know about them.

1. Priority at stops is done by density. So if you have a high density road intersecting with a medium density road, traffic at the medium density road will wait for the high density traffic. Avenues take priority over any road. This is important so you have traffic flowing where you want it. Putting only high density roads creates problems as at any intersection there is no priority. This congests areas.

2. At intersections, high density roads create traffic lights. This also creates problems if you have only high density roads, because you'll have lots of unnecessary traffic lights. Use high density roads for the "main" connections between areas, mixing medium roads in otherwise.

3. Poor AI leads to many problems at intersections, particularly with 4 way intersections. Avoid them at all costs.

4. This isn't really about intersections, but cars traveling down an avenue cannot make a turn mid-avenue. In other words if a Sim is on one side of the avenue, and wants to get to a building on the other side of the avenue, she has to drive to the end of the avenue, do a u-turn, and travel down the other side to her destination. For this reason you don't want your avenue strips to be too long. A work-around does exist, however. Putting a dirt road on the side of the avenue creates a "gap" in the avenue, that lets cars do a u-turn early. Keep in mind that this wastes real estate, and can potentially cause traffic jams at the gap (because cars will take the dirt road even though it leads nowhere, then be forced to wait until the avenue is clear again before turning back onto it).

[Deleted]

I see a lot of this intersection discussion, but when i tried a few things. I came up with the idea to make a city with NO intersections, and it works fine. Its called NO Traffic Jam City on europe 2 region portugalia.

Got 155k population.

Only short jams i get is when a fire truck is blocking the road.

[Deleted]

I heard some talk of this, too. Any chance you could show us a screenshot?

[Deleted]

Well, you just make a long snake, from the entrance, dont use the road with a rail, but 1 lower, and make corners using the curve tool. Not to sharp or it will make an intersection.

btw: I find it hard to keep playing more the 30 min. The game is not challenging enough imo

[-aiko-]

It's not just city population that causes traffic issues. On the Asia server I was getting 150-200k visitors. All around me I had populated cities who were sending shoppers, students and workers to me. Right next to me we had built the Arcology Great Works which sent even more shoppers, workers and students to me. To top it all off I was involved in heavy trade between cities. DieFichte alone was sending me tons of TVs via delivery trucks.

A single snake of high density avenue wouldn't have worked for my city setup. Earlier in this very thread even I discussed using a single strip of avenue. I reported success, but as I reached higher numbers of population (just shy of 200k) and as I started getting tourists/visitors from other cities it got overwhelmed. It also wasted a lot of real estate, which is something that is hard to stomach given the small size of the plots.

If your goal is to push the boundaries of what you want to do in your city (as was mine), these traffic tips are fantastic ways to let you squeeze in as much as you can.

[Deleted]

It's not just city population that causes traffic issues. On the Asia server I was getting 150-200k visitors. All around me I had populated cities who were sending shoppers, students and workers to me. Right next to me we had built the Arcology Great Works which sent even more shoppers, workers and students to me. To top it all off I was involved in heavy trade between cities. DieFichte alone was sending me tons of TVs via delivery trucks.

A single snake of high density avenue wouldn't have worked for my city setup. Earlier in this very thread even I discussed using a single strip of avenue. I reported success, but as I reached higher numbers of population (just shy of 200k) and as I started getting tourists/visitors from other cities it got overwhelmed. It also wasted a lot of real estate, which is something that is hard to stomach given the small size of the plots.

If your goal is to push the boundaries of what you want to do in your city (as was mine), these traffic tips are fantastic ways to let you squeeze in as much as you can.

yeah, that arcology has fucked me over, wish i could stop it from sending me people. i have 30k population and somethng like 200k visitors

[Deleted]

yeah, that arcology has fucked me over, wish i could stop it from sending me people. i have 30k population and somethng like 200k visitors

So I basically pull the effort to build an arcology entirely out of my own pocket in my region, just to shut the bloody construction worker up about needing workers - and now you're telling me the arcology is bad?

[Deleted]

My snake road, covers the whole map. I waste very little land. It is the best traffic handler for sure. The only thing what is slow my cars down is going from 3 lanes to 2 to leave the city. It;s really lame u dont have 3 lane in and out.