"Let the terrain be your guide"

[Apopplexie]

yoyo.
I have played this game for some time now, and im getting sick of grids. I have been trying to brake it up by using curves ect.
I recently saw a thread on reddit, on someone asking for tips to building more interesting looking cities, and several people suggested when building your roads, to follow the terrain.
Also, i have seen some youtubers about this topic.

I might be a complete idiot, but what does that EXACTLY mean?
Pictures/videos would be a great help.
Thanks.

[James Blonde]

Using the terrain heights view, you'll see the contour lines in the hillier parts of the map - not so obvious in the less hilly parts. basically what they mean is that the roads (and therefore the zones) follow the curves contour lines along hills (rather than grids straight up and down hills, which isn't entirely realistic in most parts of the world (except maybe San Francisco or Glasgow?) , and use the contour lines to dictate your development, as you would see in most normal towns where rows of houses go along a hill.

City Planner Plays and Biffa do this a lot in their YouTube videos.

[Stealthy]

Choose the road type you want to build, then enable terrain overview from info panels to see elevation curves and then follow the same heightline. This way you curve around how the terrain curves and won't need massive earthworks or won't create poor looking grids & buildings (half sunken into ground etc)

[Imhotep]

I am very much a disciple of this philosophy, since it's real-life philosophy. Following the philosophy will produce more realistic-looking cities.

Here are recommended gradients from the Indian Road Congress:

Plain or Rolling Area:

- Ruling gradient: 1 in 30 (3.3%)
- Limiting gradient: 1 in 20 (5.0%)
- Exceptional gradient: 1 in 15 (6.7%)

Mountainous Area:

- Ruling gradient: 1 in 20 (5.0%)
- Limiting gradient: 1 in 16.7 (6.0%)
- Exceptional gradient: 1 in 14 (7.0%)

Steep Area:

- Ruling gradient: 1 in 16 (6.0%)
- Limiting gradient: 1 in 14.3 (7.0%)
- Exceptional gradient: 1 in 12.5 (8.0%)

https://civiljungle.com/limiting-gradient/

Exceptional gradient should only be used for very short stretches of road.

Steeper slopes than this do exist, and there are some examples here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grade_(slope)#Roads

The way I build road networks is that I use the Planning Roads mod first to build roads. These are no-cost, non-functional - or to be more precise, barely-functional - roads. Since they're free, one can demolish them at no cost if not satisfied. The colour of the Planning Roads also makes it easier to see the gradient underneath. Move It can be used to raise/lower roads to get acceptable gradients. Also essential for this is Toggle It! mod, so one can show contour lines and zoning grid while working with roads.

Other very useful mods for this work include:

Node Controller Renewal (to restore slope to flattened nodes), Network Multitool, Zoning Adjuster, Precision Engineering, Fine Road Tool and Fine Road Anarchy.

When satisfied with the road layout and gradients, I upgrade it to normal roads.

In addition to road layout, gradient should also affect land use. Industrial areas like flat land as freight vehicles carrying heavy loads are better-suited to shallow gradients. Same with high-density areas. Steeper slopes are best-suited to low-density residential.

[Imhotep]

Here are Planning Roads at a 1 in 20 (5%) gradient, with contour lines shown by Toggle It!, for reference:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2738352458

[SievertChaser]

Without any fancy mods, or straying too far away from the rectangular grid that's convenient for ploppables, it looks like this: https://imgur.com/a/c5MxOzp

[Imhotep]

Here's my city so far. I went for a grid in the city centre. One can't really see the topography, but I've tried to work with it as much as possible:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2738373658

[Imhotep]

These wiggly roads are all because of gradient:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2738405292

One can see the road in the bottom-left is probably around 5% gradient.

[Tsubame ⭐]

Basically try to build your roads parallel to the contour lines.

This is not really needed if the terrain is kinda flat or not very hilly, but still have some height variations. After all even gridded roads can go up and down in elevation. That comprises the majority of the ingame vanilla maps, most of the time.

This works best on very hilly or mountainous terrain.

More important than just blindly following the terrain is, in my opinion, having an awareness of why roads are built curved in the first place. Elevation is just one piece of the puzzle.

Another reason, very easy to omit in CS because players have total control, is that roads are often built to skirt around local-specific properties. Often roads cannot be built straight due to obstacles such as buildings, parks, etc. In this case, roads can be build by following along the limits of these obstacles.

Also, it is very easy to overlook that speed limits, on which the angle of attack of the curve is important too. It is very easy to do sharp angles - i.e. two straight roads meeting at an angle - when a gentle curve is much more appropriate and realistic, due to the above and also vehicle speed limits. This is much more of a problem in rail networks, from what I see, but also happens all the time in road networks.

[Imhotep]

Originally posted by Tsubame:

Basically try to build your roads parallel to the contour lines.

Or one has to curve/spiral the road to increase/decrease elevation.

In this screenshot, I want to take a road up the hill in the top-right. I think a road straight up the hill is too steep, so the road will have to bend and spiral up the side of the hill.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2738619309

[OneJasonBradly]

I mainly follow the terrain, it much easier for me. The clip below is a prime example of attempts to follow the terrain and design/street layout for the different terrain areas.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=935041955
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2738664374
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2738666456
May it inspire.

[Imhotep]

Originally posted by OneJasonBradly:

I mainly follow the terrain, it much easier for me. The clip below is a prime example of attempts to follow the terrain and design/street layout for the different terrain areas.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=935041955
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2738664374
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2738666456
May it inspire.

Looks good!

Nice to hear Sim City 4 music again. I might try and get it into Skylines.

Another good thing about realistic gradients is that it makes for a much smoother ride when driving around in first-person view.