Tips for a newcomer to SC4?

[Olav Grey]

So as a kid I played a TON of SC2k. I put in 100+ hours of SC5 and a tons upon tons of hours into Skylines on Steam and PS4.

But jumping into SC4 I feel extremely lost and very confused. Placing zones also places roads now? No power lines anymore or pipes? There's just this region with some empty places and some cities already existing? Can I make a new region?

Honestly I'm just looking for any and all tips because I just feel really lost with SC4. Thanks!

[Fulano]

You don't have to place roads with the zones, it's just a feature to help simplify things, though I never use it. One of the keys like shift or ctrl will remove them.

It is important to note where the zones point though, as they need to be pointing at road rather than just so many tiles away from road.

Power just automatically transfers so many tiles away from zones, so you just put in less of them, but they're still important when connecting distant areas or a distant power plant.

You need pipes still, but again, they water so many tiles away so you don't have to place as many, think of it as just placing the main line and the people put in their own connection to it.

Yes you can make new regions, and the cities in the region are connected, like demand for certain zones will be region wide, so you can put the polluting industry in one small square and keep the less polluting industries in large zones, because pollution doesn't go between cities in the region.

[Olav Grey]

Originally posted by Fulano:

Yes you can make new regions, and the cities in the region are connected, like demand for certain zones will be region wide, so you can put the polluting industry in one small square and keep the less polluting industries in large zones, because pollution doesn't go between cities in the region.

Is there a distance that they will/will not travel?

Is traffic accurately simulated or is it just for show?

is there an "ideal" block size for the different industries? Like 3 deep ect?

[Fulano]

There is a limit to their travel time. You can use the route tool that is right below the "?" tool on the left to see the exact paths the the sims take and give you an idea to how far they will travel. It's a blasted epic tool that I use all the time to optimize public transportation. There is also a commute graph that shows the average time it takes them to get to work.

Ideal block size is tricky... Industry basically works like SC2000 did of building X number of tiles away from roads. I see in one guide they say industry will build 8 squares away from a road. I've never tried building larger than 6x6 plots for industry myself, time to go test that theory!

Residential and commercial zones are more about the size of the individual plots than distance from roads. For example you can press 'ctrl' and make a single large 4x4 commercial plot but not many businesses can fill that big of a space until the city is pretty developed and has high demand. Smaller plots are the easiest to fill so I usually try to make my residential and commercial blocks full of 1x2 or 1x3 plots. Then as the city develops bigger buildings they just build over multiple plots.

[Olav Grey]

Thanks for the help! Mind if I send you a friend request in case I have more questions?

[Fulano]

Sure, but I actually only sign into the app like once a week. I check the forum notifications on the website much more often.

[Bfloo]

The traffic sim is pretty good. I took congestion and commute time down 30% after putting in a subway system, and it has ended up profitable.

[Eigyriel]

Hello !
When it comes to power, it is transmited from zones to zones if they are at 3 blocs appart or less.
When it comes to water. Each pipe cost monney so making a main line crossing the map and then add pipes perpendicular to the main one to provide water.

For transport it's highly recommanded to download NAM (Network Addon Mod).
Trafic is calculated and default engine makes the sims take the shortest path.
For instance they if you have a highway and a small road. Sims WILL use the small road because it's 1 bloc shorter even if it takes them 3 hours to get there because of the traffic jams.

When it comes to zones there is a few things to know :
- Residentiel :
Sims DOESN'T like traffic because it creates pollution and air pollution.
So... design your residentiel area so they are easy to get out from for your sims.
- Commercial
They need traffic to grow. For them traffic = custommers.
They don't give a ♥♥♥♥ about noise.
They don't like polution and don't like crime.

- Industry.
Low = agriculture only
Demande for poluting industry lowers when you have high educated sims.
High Tech and manufacturing industries DOESN'T like polution.

In my city people are going from there homes to trams and bus.
Then use monorail to go closer of where they work and then bus and trams ones to finish the trip.

The monorail is making a grid, each square is filled up almost the same way.
The center is for utilities. (schools, hospitals, police,....)
Then comes residential area.
And commercial are next to the monorail track. Since it's traffic counts as traffic for commercials.

Highway : Having one is nice, making it huge... takes too much space and cost a lot.
Elevated train (Deluxe / Rush hours) : uses the same space as a monorail, goes slower and as less capacity.

Monorail (Deluxe / Rush hours): Very fast, high capacity, perfect to carry people far away.
Trains : good for beginners because it's cheap. but it won't carry sims at max range I think.

trams : nice to reduce traffic jams exept when used a bit to much it can be jammed too xD
Bus : Count as traffic if NAM installed (setting option to check in TSCT) so good for commercials and lower the amount of cars.

Cars : you ennemy. But commercials love those since they make a lot of traffic.

When it comes to asphalt :
I strongly advise to watch this tutorial :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl7d4T-OOFw&ab_channel=Rob%27sRedHotSpot

Skyscrapers :
they need a 4*4 area. (the game merge / split tiles on it's own depending on land value)
Only grow in High density tiles.
I've seen people put a lot of packs to get them. Sure it increase the land value to do that but you won't need 20 packs just a few ones is good enough.

Water pollution :
building as to be placed close enough from the polluted area to clean it.

Air pollution :
Reduced with trees and packs (modded trees do exist they are way more efficient)

Crime :
Totally bugged. The bigger the area (airport, stadium,...) the higher the crime rate.

Traffic noise:
Reduce traffic to reduce it xD Shows up as "air pollution" wich is.... true since it's a sound.
Trees are useless against it.
(a mod exists to solve a issue with R$$ showing high when it's actually medium or low.)

Energy, water, trash:
Trade to or from another city. Since the other city is paused while you build your main city the building producing those won't loose efficiency over time. but ALWAYS keep some monney when building because if you get broke, they stop the feed or stop buying.

RCI demand :
- if you have negative demande on all of them, lower taxes by 0.1
Sometimes you get close of making any monney per month, lowering taxe can solve this. (late game issue)
The bigger the city the lower taxes get in sim city.

I hope I helped you.
Have fun on Sims City 4