Whats the difference between low density and high density zones?

[Ondjage]

Are high density zones better variations of low density zones? As in, I should just build high density zones once I have access to them? Are low zones still valuable? I'm still building low res zones, but if high dense one are better for the space/accomidation, then I may be wasting my time with low zones.

Also, is there a limit to how much yellow industry do I need? Are offices better than yellow industry once you have highly educated workers?

Can I pause the game to upgrade the roads without destroying everything in the process? I wanted to ask before I did it.

Thanks for your time community.

[bgnewhouse]

(1) The difference between high and low density is the difference between apartments and houses. Houses are nicer for families, but single folk can live perfectly happy in apartments. You need both.

(I2) Yes, offices are generally preferred over factories by highly educated workers. There is, however, a policy available that can make factories in certain districts only hire highly educated workers. Again you need both.

(3)I don't know about general limits on industry, but I can say from experience that you shouldn't make yellow industrial zones too big. It's not good for traffic.

(4) Yes, you should pause whenever you like for building things and upgrading roads. However, upgrading from two-lane to four-lane roads will make the roads wider, destroying what's along the road in the process. This does not happen when you upgrade from four-lane to six-lane roads.

[ThisHero]

High-density residential and commercial are better per square in terms of their output, simply because they build very high up. However, before you begin zoning a bunch of high-density, you should make sure your public transportation can handle the huge influx of traffic that will follow.

Also, if you zone a bunch of offices instead of "dirty" industry then your commercial space will have to import goods from outside your map instead of producing and receiving it locally. All things to consider.

[Ondjage]

Thank you both, your answers have helped me greatly.

Originally posted by bgnewhouse:

(3)I don't know about general limits on industry, but I can say from experience that you shouldn't make yellow industrial zones too big. It's not good for traffic.

I just learned that lesson! In fact, That's why I asked if I can pause and upgrade my roads - my dirty industry is congesting my roads, no doubt about it.

Originally posted by ThisHero:

High-density residential and commercial are better per square in terms of their output, simply because they build very high up. However, before you begin zoning a bunch of high-density, you should make sure your public transportation can handle the huge influx of traffic that will follow.

Also, if you zone a bunch of offices instead of "dirty" industry then your commercial space will have to import goods from outside your map instead of producing and receiving it locally. All things to consider.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥... If I'm understanding this correctly, just putting an office in one one square is probably more beneficial at the beginning than making big skyscrapers.

Question: When it says Raw Material needed does that mean my dirty industry trucks can't get back to the dirty industry? How much yellow industry is needed and how can I tell if I need more dirty industry than office?

[ThisHero]

Originally posted by ThisHero:

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥... If I'm understanding this correctly, just putting an office in one one square is probably more beneficial at the beginning than making big skyscrapers.

Question: When it says Raw Material needed does that mean my dirty industry trucks can't get back to the dirty industry? How much yellow industry is needed and how can I tell if I need more dirty industry than office?

i think you may have misunderstood what i was saying. i dont understand the first part of what you said about one square of office space being more beneficial than skyscrapers. in what sense do you mean?

as for your raw material question, your industries need whatever amount of ore/oil/lumber/farmed materials to then convert into commercial goods. if you are receiving a lot of raw material shortages, it usually means the freight is not being received because it is not receiving its shipment in a timely manner. train and car gridlock are the usual suspects, so while the raw material shipment it needs very well may be en route, it is taking too long to slog through traffic to deliver its payload on time which leads to production delays / inefficiency, and raw material complaints.

it can be perverse because while industrial demand will show as being strong, if this problem is hitting someone hard they will have high demand -and- failed factories because of a supply breakdown.

hope that helped.

[Ondjage]

Originally posted by ThisHero:

Originally posted by ThisHero:

i think you may have misunderstood what i was saying. i dont understand the first part of what you said about one square of office space being more beneficial than skyscrapers. in what sense do you mean?

What I mean is: One square of high density commercial zone would be better than 2x2 square of low comercial zones, no? Even 3x3? Or am I understanding this incorrectly.

Originally posted by ThisHero:

Originally posted by ThisHero:

Question: When it says Raw Material needed does that mean my dirty industry trucks can't get back to the dirty industry? How much yellow industry is needed and how can I tell if I need more dirty industry than office?

as for your raw material question, your industries need whatever amount of ore/oil/lumber/farmed materials to then convert into commercial goods. if you are receiving a lot of raw material shortages, it usually means the freight is not being received because it is not receiving its shipment in a timely manner. train and car gridlock are the usual suspects, so while the raw material shipment it needs very well may be en route, it is taking too long to slog through traffic to deliver its payload on time which leads to production delays / inefficiency, and raw material complaints.

it can be perverse because while industrial demand will show as being in strong demand, if this problem is hitting someone hard they will have high demand and many failed factories because of a supply breakdown.

hope that helped.

Thank you! It was a traffic issue. I'm really starting to like the game now because I realize the biggest culprit in the game is managing traffic, and the struggles of good road management come a long way in creating an effective, auto money generating city. Good road management, good free transportation and all its all good. Setting up a good bus transportation system really came a long way in reducing the amount of vehicle on the road while simultaneously boosting happiness, especially among my industrial workers.

[ThisHero]

Originally posted by Baruch:

What I mean is: One square of high density commercial zone would be better than 2x2 square of low comercial zones, no? Even 3x3? Or am I understanding this incorrectly.

There are different ways of answering that question. First, how many jobs are created. You can check on that easily by selecting a 1x1 HDC to see how many jobs are available compared to a LDC of whatever size. If I remember right one square of HDC is on par with similar sized low density in terms of jobs available. Revenue (or, for you, taxes) generated I do not know how to measure on a per-business-level within this game - a mod, perhaps.

[Sol]

Don't zone too much High Residential. If too many people move in and are born at same time they die at same time, which has chain reaction - your deathcare services spam traffic, people can't get to work, zones can't deliver/receive goods, demand plummets, etc.

Then they all move back in again and restart a cycle.

Pace yourself in your zoning. You want to try to keep a similar number of workers in each age category. You want to have enough Deathcare to process your current Seniors.

Offices create jobs without creating Freight traffic or Customers. Great stuff there.

Keep industrial and commercial near one another but not too close to residential.

Generic Industry uses Raw Materials to make products for Commercial Zones. They will import them. However, if you have Ore, Oil, Agriculture, Forest resources - you can zone special districts to create special district themed factories and warehouses that will Extract and Process raw materials into stuff Generic Industry will use to create Generic Goods to be sold at Commercial Zones.

So you want to have the following:
1. Commercial and Total Generic Industry in a size that you're not importing or exporting too much.
2. Specialized Industry is not overproducing (and over exporting) raw materials above the capacity of Generic Industry and Commercial Zones.
3. Offices are great for creating jobs without meddling with your current Supply Chain Industry to Commerce situation, and without putting too much traffic on your roads.

Offices used to produce less noise so people would put them in Residential Zones as a buffer in between Commercial Zones. I don't think this is a very good idea anymore, because they produce more Noise Pollution which makes Cims sick and require Healthcare services.

[~\\Savarast//~]

Don't want to create any confusion but here's some more info to chew on:

1) Death waves are pretty much mitigated since the Sunset Harbor DLC from what I was able to gather on my new city of 140k. Still you should expand any of the high-density zones with care since a little can go a long way and if you aren't careful you can create massive swings in the RCI.

2) Dirty industries are an art to perfect if you are making large zones of it. If you have the Industries DLC I find they have much more manageable traffic requirements and easier to master and set up overall. Industries are almost always what I find kill young cities for newer builders since if they get choked up, the whole city gets choked up.

3) I tend to phase out dirty industry as much as feasible once I have access to offices and the IT specialization. Regular offices provide a good amount of jobs, work fantastically as sound barriers for residential zones, don't complain about noise themselves and tend to be super easy to keep happy in comparison to the other zones. IT specialized offices actually produce goods for your city which can effectively make obsolete dirty industry all together.

4) Once you start building high-density commercial zones, noise will become an issue if you have residents adjacent or near enough. Any roads with trees will help mitigate the noise in addition to raising land value.

5) Pausing is almost necessary in this game given how much tweaking and re-tooling that gets done, though I'm sure there's a lets play out there of someone doing it without pauses. Thats probably a harder "hardmode" than the one offered in the game IMHO.

6) As stated before, low and high density areas are valuable throughout the game to meet demands, plus suburbs make a city really feel "real".

7) Free transport is pretty much one of the mandatory policies in my cities. The benefit of people preferring transit is amazing and it aligns with what I think ought to be in real cities. Park Boost, Recycling, Recycle Plastic, and Parks and Recreation are also ones I pretty much have on as soon as they are available.

[MarkJohnson]

Originally posted by Baruch:

Are high density zones better variations of low density zones? As in, I should just build high density zones once I have access to them? Are low zones still valuable? I'm still building low res zones, but if high dense one are better for the space/accomidation, then I may be wasting my time with low zones.

Also, is there a limit to how much yellow industry do I need? Are offices better than yellow industry once you have highly educated workers?

Can I pause the game to upgrade the roads without destroying everything in the process? I wanted to ask before I did it.

Thanks for your time community.

High density residential can have up to four times the cims per building than low density residential.

High density commercial has much more jobs and freight demand as well as noise pollution than low density commerce.

In general, I never pause the game. It slows progress on maturing your city. It is easy to build faster than your city matures and you can have a lot of issues. usually traffic. I always play at x3 speed so my city can mature quickly, and I still build faster than it can mature. I have to let it sit and idle a lot and wait for it to mature before expanding my city more.

Industry and commerce are optional because shopping is optional. You can build offices only if you want, and you can avoid a lot of the freight traffic of commerce and industry.

If you do build commerce and industry, it is a very good idea to build them next to each other and on the highways, so their freight vehicles can make quick delivers and import/export directly. Cargo planes, trains, and automobiles can help a lot. as well as, cargo ships.