Do office buildings get any taller?

[Bugsbugme]

I have quite a few tall comercial buildings but the offices, even at level 3, don't seem to get much taller than something considered "Medium Density" in Sim City 4.

Infact, the commercial buildings overall seem to be much bigger than the office buildings. It feels like maybe they were all switched or something.

[rovaira2]

Yes, but they seem to take longer to level up. I think Education and land value has a lot to do with it.

[minusthedrifter]

They need to be covered by public transportation to max out.

[Black Jade]

Other services help too, for examples hospital, police headquaters, parks and fire offices! Education buildings such as universities provides some addition to the slow bar of level 3 offices. For me, a huge city around 130,000 people, there are only a few level 3 offices even if i try to have multiple bus route/metro and the service i mentioned next to them. However!, I manage to get most of them to level 3 after I build the hadron collider and project eden monument, most of them just level up. My advice is to hold on spamming those expensive services until you get those monuments, since you don't need so many services if you have them! In addion, to building services everywhere, try to increase the budget for services, it widens their support area.

[Bugsbugme]

It's not that they aren't leveleing, I meant do the actual buildings get any taller. I already have level 3 office buildings but they aren't very tall, not as tall as I was expecting anyway. I was expecting sky scrapers.

I think I was expecting this game to be more like Sim City 4 than it currently is. I think I'll wait for some DLC and more mods before I play anymore.

[LinkToReality.ttv]

This has irked me a bit too, was sorta expecting skyscrapers from high density commerce and offices.

[Black Jade]

some of them are sky scrapers!

[LinkToReality.ttv]

Originally posted by Black Jade:

some of them are sky scrapers!

They are? when I pan my camera down to see the skyline my building seem rather medium height and also quite even i height... maybe I'm missing something :P

[Black Jade]

here is a screenshot of my city just to illustrate my point! I'm pretty proud of it! Yes, all of them are level 3 offices, some of them are "short", some of them are "tall", i guess you have only a few and you got unlucky

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=410681411

[ommahead]

looks nice, but on what land value do skyscrapers appear? i have many level 3 offices but not a single skyscraper, only these six stories buildings. or does it depend on population?

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198088237761/screenshot/32997039182840594

[Daveyboy]

There's always Transport Tower which seems to unlock far too early. I'm always put off placing it though because it looks so out of place being about 5 times taller than everything else.

[Tankfriend]

Originally posted by ommahead:

looks nice, but on what land value do skyscrapers appear? i have many level 3 offices but not a single skyscraper, only these six stories buildings. or does it depend on population?

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198088237761/screenshot/32997039182840594

Judging by the style of buildings in your city, you're playing a "European"-themed map. The European theme doesn't have skyscrapers by default, so you won't get to see any unless you add some with mods.
Any other map theme except the European one has skyscrapers.

[Painful]

Originally posted by Tankfriend:

Originally posted by ommahead:

looks nice, but on what land value do skyscrapers appear? i have many level 3 offices but not a single skyscraper, only these six stories buildings. or does it depend on population?

http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198088237761/screenshot/32997039182840594

Judging by the style of buildings in your city, you're playing a "European"-themed map. The European theme doesn't have skyscrapers by default, so you won't get to see any unless you add some with mods.
Any other map theme except the European one has skyscrapers.

Wow That makes perfect sense! Thanks m8!

[Colin]

I kind of agree with this. I haven't been to every major city in the US, but I've been to quite a few. And in my experience, the tallest buildings are office buildings and residential buildings, not commercial. When I think commercial, I think of town centers, wal-marts, malls...big box retail stores and restaraunts, nothing that requires a 50+ story building. We need parking lots and parking lot roads and parking structures. I know there are mods for parking lots and parking structures but they just look odd when you put them on normal roads. Not to mention, the normal roads would make traffic behave that would be illegal IRL. For instance, you can't just drive through a parking lot because it's the quickest route to your destination.

Also, there should be zones that contain both residential and commercial since a lot of major cities have commercial on the bottom floor or couple of floors and the rest of the building is residential. But since this game thinks that commercial building create noise pollution, this doesn't seem likely to work. Which also doesn't make since, because also based on my experience people want to live near commercial areas. Some of the highest land values are near town centers. And why does noise pollution make people ill? This seems odd also. I consider living near a freeway or an airport as noise pollution, but it doesn't make people ill, it's just not ideal.

Anyway, I got off topic, but yes, commerical buildings need to be smaller or more spread out...like maybe 10x10 instead of 4x4, and office buildings need to be taller.

[ommahead]

Originally posted by Tankfriend:

Judging by the style of buildings in your city, you're playing a "European"-themed map. The European theme doesn't have skyscrapers by default, so you won't get to see any unless you add some with mods.
Any other map theme except the European one has skyscrapers.

hm, if that's the reason i urgently need a mod, i mean wtf! as if in europe no building had more than 6 stories, that's ridiculous! don't get me wrong, i don't expect a city full of skyscrapers like in the us, but a few would be appropriate. by the way, somebody knows a mod to do this?

[Neww_]

Unfortunately the vanilla buildings are indeed a lot smaller than expected, at least compared to SimCity 4's vanilla skyscrapers. However, I think Green Cities DLC adds pretty tall offices with the "IT Cluster" district specialization, and of course, the free workshop assets contain significantly taller ones!