Any Tips?

[Crackers5199]

I am an avid Sim City player, and playing this last installment has me used to being small and slowly expanding. That doesn't seem to really work here, because after many days, my population is still very very small,

A few questions to ask:

1. Is it a bad thing to destroy small density buildings to increase density?
2. Should I use up the least amount of the map as possible in the early stages? I am affraid of like pollution and such early on.
3. Traffic seems to be a bother, I noticed a locked road, is that road an interstate that doesnt put stop signs down?

[NetPCDoc]

1. yes - bad to destroy low density buildings in attempting to increase pop - chases your citizens away.
2. no and yes ... unless you have found a budget that allows you to jump into 'expert mode' you need to zone res, a little commercial, and some type of industrial - the 1st two prefer not to be too close to the the dirty/polluting types of the last; but do save some area(s) for high density later on.
3. In cities - 'buildings' (a.k.a. construction tools) start locked up - and unlock as you place/grow the requirements ...

Mainly - XXL requires a balance of jobs and pop to start - pay attention to what class of pop (1=unskilled, 2=skilled, 3=executive, 4=elite) is employed by each comm/ind and zone enough res for that class of pop (don't zone comm/ind for those classes that have their res zoning 'locked'); you can toggle zone/buildings so that you are 'plopping' particular buildings instead of zones (zones allow the citizens to chose from the currently available buildings ... while 'plopping' gives that choice to you - but they will still grow at their own speed, and pop moves in as soon as a res is grown!)

Try the tutorial(s) for general ideas ...
and pay attentention to the location of resources (farmland, oil, water and holiday areas) available on the 'map' you are playing ...