Sim City 4

quarryman

hmmm. could have sworn i saw a thread on this a while back, search doesn't seem to find it.

Just wondering has anyone got into this game. Picked it up for €15 the other day and so far its great - just really hard. Its so difficult to actually get the city making a decent profit. The last sim city i played was the original and things have come on a bit since then. instead of one type of industrial or residential area there's 3 of each and then there's different types of wealth. All sorts of roads and public transport are available and then there's water and electricity to consider. Thankfully power lines don't have to be connected between every block.

The graphics are excellent and the ability to zoom right in on the streets is great. I also like the feature of adding a Sim into the city that will report on new jobs or houses they acquire.

All in all a great game but the difficulty setting is very frustrating. Is there a patch out to adjust this?

Stephen

There is an expansion pack - which you have to pay for - that apparently reduces the difficulty level. Its a bastard isn't it.

Deadwing

I got it the other week myself, tis bastard hard. The best i could do was a small little town, and by hiking up taxes left right and centre i managed to make a cool $6 profit at the end of every month.

quarryman

its fairly hard but i discovered that you have to reduce the funding on almost EVERYTHING if you want to turn a profit. I've got a city of about 2000 at the moment and the funding for the schools and medical centres is at the absolute minimum.

Basically if a school only has 10 students i reduce the funding until it can cope with maybe 15. Same with the power grid. As more people move in i gradually increase the funding while keeping the output at 95%. it works well and saves me loads but needs a lot of micromanaging. Its also a fine balance between demand for housing and taxes.

So far i'm getting a profit of about €400 on the city, but i have a lot of monthly water pipe repair to do

bizmark

The games crap its very hard and you have to buy an expantion pack to fix it :rolleyes:

Roller Toaster

Just because its hard doesn't mean its crap.

Quarryman, you're on the right track. Just keep funding as low as it can be without compremising services and you should be fine. Expansion is slow and steady throughout unlike the previous games which is something a lot of people seem to have a problem with but I just found that it makes it all the more gratifying.

As for the expansion pack it really is a must. It makes and already brilliant game awesome what with the ability to drive cars around your city and the wealth of new transport options. The great thing is that mass transit actually gets used in Rush Hour, my subways barely pulled 2000 a day in my old cities but now I can get up to 75,000 people using the El Train daily.

dubhthach

I prefer simcity3000 still simcity4 is good enough i've had it for over a year now, one thing i miss that was in simcity3000 was that it was possible to start a city from a template (ie. small new-england town, industrial city etc. etc.) still i should get my hands on the expansion pack, having stuff like elevated trains, ferries and dual carriageway (it was either single carriageway or raised motorway) should add to it alot.

bizmark

no a game isnt bad just because its hard but sim city is nearly impossible that makes it fairly crap and it only gets worse when you start getting those huge 2,000+ buildings as they pritty much need a school every second bloody building :rolleyes:

flogen

only €15? hmm, might get a copy of it, then.

I didnt like sim city 3000, though... It kinda bored me, and i didnt give it much time either, ive heard 4 is much, much better though.

Will have to pick it up (and the exp. pack)!

flogen

Roller Toaster

bizmark wrote:

no a game isnt bad just because its hard but sim city is nearly impossible that makes it fairly crap and it only gets worse when you start getting those huge 2,000+ buildings as they pritty much need a school every second bloody building :rolleyes:

It's not nearly impossible, just because it doesn't take a day to build a world class city doesn't mean its impossible. It's not that hard to get a max rating and full population just as long as you stop worrying about traffic.

Fine the schools issue is a big problem pre-expansion but by the time you get those population levels you should have plenty of money for extra schools. Proper placing of private schools also stops this problem.

quarryman

Well i got my hands on the expansion I can say it definately rounds off the game.

Firstly its easier. You start off with more money and its much simpler to get a decent sized city up and running.

Secondly the advisors will actually inform you when stuff is overfunded. When I started the original the schools and power stations were sucking up loads of the cash that they didn't need.

Also the added tutorials in the expansion really explain how to make a profit. I was throwing in police and fire stations straight away with parks and waste disposal. None of this is needed at the start of the game. In the tutorial it states that no service is required until the Sims complain.

The frame rate seems better and i think it lets me zoom in another level. All in all with the expansion its well worth buying. Pity it seems so unfinished without it.

Deadwing

How much is the expansion? I bet its probably still 40 quid, those rip off ea bastards!!

Mac daddy

Seen it the shop the other day for 30 squid hehehe and the game cost 15 quid
:eek: :rolleyes:

Tellox

I can remember having one succesful city, which was churning out a good 45k/year when I had the map 33% or so full. Thing is, once you start making a decent profit and have funding up high(ish), it gets a bit.. boring. All theres left to do after that is..start over

SprostonGreen

€15 is a bargain. I love this game. The best thing to do is build up some neighbouring towns, and run some of them into the ground. The citizens will leave and go to your favoured city, reducing the medium and high income tax will encourage them.

V1llianous

Play.com have it for:

Sim City 4: Rush Hour (Expansion Pack)
In stock.
Usually dispatched within 24 hours.
our price: EUR 23.99 Delivered

or

Sim City 4 Deluxe Edition ( Sim City 4 & Expansion Pack )
In stock.
Usually dispatched within 24 hours.
our price: EUR 41.99 Delivered

Or Game online www.game.uk.com

Have
Sim City 4 Deluxe Edition ( Sim City 4 & Expansion Pack )
Out of stock.
our price: £19.98 ( approx. €28 )

Tusky

I Got it yesterday and have tried to make a city twice...and failed! Its fukking hard, If I lower funding everyone goes on strike yet Im miles off making a profit and cant see any other way to make money other than raising taxes...tis good fun apart from that though.

astrofool

its great. I first made a standard city with all 3 types. Then tried the commercial/ind/res only cities, and they're all basically maxed out, running off a fusion power plant Might do a farm city if i ever get back into it.

SprostonGreen

Tusky wrote:

I Got it yesterday and have tried to make a city twice...and failed! Its fukking hard, If I lower funding everyone goes on strike yet Im miles off making a profit and cant see any other way to make money other than raising taxes...tis good fun apart from that though.

It takes a few goes to get the hang of things, but its worth it, in the long run.

Whack in loads of parks and playgrouds into your Res areas, and some plazas into the commerical areas.

jank

yea its hard at first but im getting the hang of it but my clinics always go on strikes and hospitals cost so much is there a way around this plus i always get fires in my industry zones

At the mo i have my city maxed out but my pop is only just under 70,000 and i cant seem to get it any higher at the mo.

I get back to ye and ill let ye know how i get on

PS do any of ye use landmarks? are they worth it?

SprostonGreen

jank wrote:

PS do any of ye use landmarks? are they worth it?

Yeah, landmarks are necessary for improving com and res areas. But you should only put them in if your minted, dont do it if you have only the price on the landmark or thereabouts in your account.

Also, put cemetaries in Ind areas as they and trees soak up pollution.

quarryman

like i said above this game is much more enjoyable with the expansion.

i've managed to build a city with about 50,000 sims. problem is most of them are low wealth. what's the best way to increase the population without building more residential areas? more recreational features i take it?

the other BIG problem is traffic. I've replaced all the bust streets with roads and now they're getting clogged up. so i bulldozed a large area and put in some avenues. most of the roads are still lit up red in the traffic overlay. also when i click on the residential areas most give a long or medium commute time despite being quite close to industrial and commercial areas.

i tried to put in highways but they're not the easiest to construct, especially corners and its a bit expensive to be making mistakes with.

lastly i gave the underground rail a go but the usage for it seems to stay around the 6% mark and the roads are still clogged up.

any advice on my traffic woes?

SprostonGreen

Try some one way systems.

Subways are great, but they are more effective for High Density Res.

Do you have High Density Res, with skyscrapers, they are the way forward?

quarryman

i don't have a whole lot of high-density residential. well, a bit.

one-way roads? there's gonna be a whole lotta bulldozin' me thinks.

i'll dig up some screenshots later to show some of my cities.

article6

I bought the game a few weeks ago, and after a few hours' playing time, it's now behind my desk, possibly never to be retrieved.

Bring back SC3K.

simu

To get dense development in a residential zone:

It has to be zoned for high density,
Has to have water and electricity supplied,
Has to have big roads or even avenues rather than the small roads that are built by default,
Has to have good services i.e. a big hospital rather than a clinic and a big primary school rather than small ones (I wouldn't bother with high schools - they don't seem to make much of a difference),
A few parks and amenities help to increase land values as well.

You'd also need to have good fire coverage and keep an eye on crime if youwant the neighbourhood to stay good.

******************************************
As sb already said, there was a thread on this before but I can't find it wither. But, yes, as i said in that thread, the game is far better with the expansion pack.

I love Sim City! I'm going to Berlin soon and can't wait to see the Fernsehturm and the Gedaechtniskirche that I've been putting in my Sim cities all these years!

SprostonGreen

simu wrote:

I love Sim City! I'm going to Berlin soon and can't wait to see the Fernsehturm and the Gedaechtniskirche that I've been putting in my Sim cities all these years!

I think you can get the Brandenberg Gate as a download from one of the SC4 websites. Thats in Berlin, isnt it?

simu

Aye, tis. I'm gonna take a look at that too!