SimCity V: Coming March 5!

[bluemoon_19]

Oh no the zombies have come back. The city I made yesterday had them and they ate over half the city before the morning. I wounder how bad it will be this time.

EDIT: Good job I got some police in early in my city they shot most of the zombies and only about 60 house had to go.

 

[somebody]

I bit the bullet and bulldozed the whole city. Good = I will now start with $1.5M to try again. Bad = My map is half brown with ground pollution from the first attempt.

Wardez - Only 30,000 pop? You need some medium density housing my friend.

 

[Wardez]

Don't really know how to "build" that, or influence it.

Tried parks, not much changed.

 

[Sharky.]

Increase land value and happiness.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Don't really know how to "build" that, or influence it.

You need to upgrade your roads. Most of the stuff you lay down to begin with will be low density, but you can upgrade it to higher densities to allow for larger buildings.

 

[Wardez]

My streets and avenues are maxed out.

Are you saying I should bulldoze streets for avenues?

Edit:
Well I guess I missed some, 'cause after I upgraded the streets in between the big ones the apartments really started piling up, now I'm heading into the 50,000s with population, thanks guys.

btw, has anyone been able to get sims to stop protesting about "germs"?

I've started three cities so far and it's a constant problem in all of them.

Started up a new town, much better:

 

[mattythedog]

EA are giving everyone who has bought Sim City a free game. Basically buying everyone off. http://www.ea.com/news/a-simcity-update-and-something-for-your-trouble

 

[Joey D]

Hey at least they're giving people something, it's better than what many other gaming companies have done during a botched launch.

 

[Encyclopedia]

Wow, the city sizes really are laughable.

 

[Earth]

EA are giving everyone who has bought Sim City a free game. Basically buying everyone off. http://www.ea.com/news/a-simcity-update-and-something-for-your-trouble

In the end, I doubt it is "free". What I've learned about businesses, especially ultra greedy businesses, is that they dont do handouts, and never, ever expect them to take a hit without passing the cost onto you. They money they lose on giving out "free" games they will get back by raising prices on other games, or raising the price of future Sim City DLC.

Its like the bank I use to be at. They got hit with a multi million dollar lawsuit and what do you know, suddenly they start charging a monthly $5 "service fee" to all those who bank with them. Greedy oil company needs to maintain their machines? What do they do? Use money out of their large surplus of profit? Nope. Jack up fuel prices and make the consumer pay for it, while continuing to rake in a massive profit.

 

[Joey D]

Wow, the city sizes really are laughable.

They are the same size as the medium city tiles in SimCity 4 so they really aren't that small. I'd like some bigger ones, but when one fills up I just jump to the next city square in the region. Since you can share many of the resources it's like having one giant metropolitan area.

In the end, I doubt it is "free". What I've learned about businesses, especially ultra greedy businesses, is that they dont do handouts, and never, ever expect them to take a hit without passing the cost onto you. They money they lose on giving out "free" games they will get back by raising prices on other games, or raising the price of future Sim City DLC.

Its like the bank I use to be at. They got hit with a multi million dollar lawsuit and what do you know, suddenly they start charging a monthly $5 "service fee" to all those who bank with them.

It'll probably be the same list of games they've offered for free before for various issues. They'll be slightly older and be under $19.99 retail.

Game prices won't be raised either, the industry standard now is $59.99 and I highly doubt you'll see it climb much more than that for a long time. DLC might be more expensive but the beauty of that is most DLC isn't worth any price to begin with.

 

[somebody]

btw, has anyone been able to get sims to stop protesting about "germs"?

I've started three cities so far and it's a constant problem in all of them.[/IMG]

Check the ground pollution. If you're sitting on dirty ground and/or pumping dirty water, you'll get a lot of germs.

 

[Gooner SJ]

They are the same size as the medium city tiles in SimCity 4 so they really aren't that small. I'd like some bigger ones, but when one fills up I just jump to the next city square in the region. Since you can share many of the resources it's like having one giant metropolitan area.

Are the tiles able to touch though? I heard they couldn't. It seems like that would make the region feel less like a metropolitan area. I really don't understand why you can't have side by side cities.

 

[ZohsixGT5]

So, it sounds like this is sort of working now? I'm holding off on purchase until things are fixed.

 

[Wardez]

Yeah, I've been able to play with no hiccups at all since the updates a couple days ago.

And true that about stretching out your resources to other cities.

I just start up another town and send a few hundred grand to the new town from my old town. If you zoom in you can track the little armoured truck delivering the money from city hall to city hall xD.

You can't make the tiles touch though, there are some regions that have the cities a lot closer together than the others though. That one Whitewater one can look really awesome when it's filled up and thriving.

 

[Joey D]

Are the tiles able to touch though? I heard they couldn't. It seems like that would make the region feel less like a metropolitan area. I really don't understand why you can't have side by side cities.

They're connected by highways and rail, they don't touch but they are pretty close.

 

[Omnis]

Germs go away with wellness vans and high tech industry. Not sure if you can get rid of ground pollution though. I'm thinking of turning my city into education, refining, and sleezeball casinos once I've exhausted the land.

I wonder if there's a water great work, because pretty soon everyone is going to run out.

Also, pro tip for everyone. Rail is ESSENTIAL for your city if you want it to not be in constant gridlock. And it's super cheap to maintain. However, place your rail stations and rail lines asap and then build your roads around it. The rail station spawns with a medium street tacked onto the front of it, so it's impossible to connect if you place it next to an already-established street.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Who says EA are evil?

I was down at JB HI-Fi today, picking up a copy of Tomb Raider. The salesperson asked me if I'd purchased Sim City yet, because EA have apologised for all the bugs and are offering a free EA game to anyone who purchases Sim City before the 18th.

 

[Keef]

Also, pro tip for everyone. Rail is ESSENTIAL for your city if you want it to not be in constant gridlock. And it's super cheap to maintain. However, place your rail stations and rail lines asap and then build your roads around it. The rail station spawns with a medium street tacked onto the front of it, so it's impossible to connect if you place it next to an already-established street.

Have the streetcars proved useful at all? I'm using a traffic design that worked in SC4 (and let's be honest, traffic was damn near impossible in SC4) but I'm still having trouble managing it. I recently added buses (which don't seem to be doing anything yet) and am planning a loop of streetcars around an area which will eventually be very dense. But I'm thinking I'll have to redo my roads inside the loop so I can upgrade to streetcars later.

 

[MeanElf]

...Game prices won't be raised either, the industry standard now is $59.99 and I highly doubt you'll see it climb much more than that for a long time...

At least two new games have been considerably cheaper now due to the PS4 coming out this/next year. Tomb Raider was 75% of full retail and Dead Island: Riptide announced the same quite some time ago. There may be more but those are the only ones I know about for sure.

 

[somebody]

Ground pollution does clear itself over time. Mine has all but completely gone. The water table refills over time, however it seems to take longer than the ground pollution.

I had germs all over the place too, caused by air pollution. It seems to have cleared greatly once I put some bus stops around the place. Having four rail stations probably helps a bit.

This is my city after the rebuild. I've still made a mess of the zoning, but I'm now supplying the GTP region with some high wealth workers. Spending a fortune on park maintenance though.

I forgot to write down exactly who's who but in the first pic the fledgling town, top left, is Keef's and the top right is Mark II Blit's city I think. MIIB has millions in the bank, so he's obviously doing something right.

2nd pic shows Omni's two cities on the horizon.

 

[toospiciecc]

I'm thinking of getting Sim City 5 on PC soon as my 1st ever PC game and even know I've never played Sim City before,I've always wanted to build my perfect city.
I was wondering if their is a variety of stadiums to build and if so can you increase the size of the stadium? For example,I want to build a Olympic Stadium that has a 100,000 seat capacity with a retractable roof and some soccer stadiums as well for my city and surrounding cities that I will build.
I appreciate some advice.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

That's ... a very specific request.

If that isn't in the game exactly as you describe it, would it turn you off playing the game entirely? Even if there is a similar alternative that doesn't meet your exact wishes?

 

[TJ13]

Who says EA are evil?

I was down at JB HI-Fi today, picking up a copy of Tomb Raider. The salesperson asked me if I'd purchased Sim City yet, because EA have apologised for all the bugs and are offering a free EA game to anyone who purchases Sim City before the 18th.

There is a bit of a catch, You have to register the game by the 18th, and you will get an email with instructions on how to redeem your free game. You don't actually get to pick the game right away.

 

[Keef]

the fledgling town, top left, is Keef's

Woot, that's meeee!

The first strange thing I ran into with this city was that there was no trash. I'm like, what the hell. Trash never built up. I figured I would need a dump at some point so I started looking for places to put one and then I noticed that Omnis is taking my trash for me.

It's taking me a while to grasp this whole specialization thing. I'm so used to playing isolated cities in the older games that I'm always trying to balance everything for my own town. And this particular city is an interesting case - I chose it because it supposedly had massive oil deposits but there's not a single drop on the map. I have no natural resources but a decent wind and lots of water. I would specialize in trade but I have nothing to trade but freight. I do have a trade depot but nothing enticing to expand it with.

I'm considering upping my power generation to sell some electricity (wind farm is rather productive as you add windmills), water, and plot a recycling center.

I've no idea how you guys made your cities so big so quickly. Days of work? I just spent six hours non-stop last night and I haven't even finished designing roads!

 

[Mark II Blit]

I've been focusing on trading goods from the earliest phases of my city planning. Starting with a healthy ore-mining industry, I soon got the funds to expand my business by smelting the ores into alloys and metals, and lately I'm beginning to use these resources to make processors. If all goes to plan, one my mines will make way for a new processor factory, and then I can soon start making consumer electronics.

Of course, all this comes at a cost. All the necessary buildings have taken up a lot valuable space that could have been used for residential buildings, so I'm running dangerously low on workers, not to mention the fact that the industry is a heavy polluter. My water supply is waning, too. On the flip side, the economy is excellent. Although my budget is running at -§35.000/hour, trading profits easily compensates and gives my bank account a healthy size.

I've just tried sending monetary packages of §400.000 to each city in the region this evening and there's probably more to come. I don't know if you have to accept the gift for it to reach you, but hopefully it'll get there.

 

[Omnis]

I built ResidentialShoppington because there was no way for me to keep enough residents living in the city without (A) clogging up my streets and preventing my delivery trucks from making it to import/export before I ran out of money, and (B) keeping my tax rate high enough to survive the time between export deliveries. I'm still inviting more people, but if we get full and someone wants to take over that city from me, let me know and I'll abandon it for you.

Some suggestions for the region: maintain wind farms since I'm pumping out a whole oil plant. Also, pollute one side of your city and pump water from the other. When your clean water shelf runs out, clear some space and pump filtered water over the polluted space. Make sure to delete the standard pump that comes with the building and replace it with a filter one. If you have a trade HQ, don't buy the petroleum upgrade. I'm working on getting my PetroHQ up, so that will cover the region. For City Hall, I already have a Dept. of Education, Dept. of Safety, and Dept. of Utilities. We need a Dept. of Finance and the other one.

Have the streetcars proved useful at all? I'm using a traffic design that worked in SC4 (and let's be honest, traffic was damn near impossible in SC4) but I'm still having trouble managing it. I recently added buses (which don't seem to be doing anything yet) and am planning a loop of streetcars around an area which will eventually be very dense. But I'm thinking I'll have to redo my roads inside the loop so I can upgrade to streetcars later.

I'm in the process of re-doing my city as I exploit more resources, and my taxes are jacked up so high that everyone moved out. I'm shifting to a commuter industry city. Once I unlock the petroleum bays on the trading port, I can shift back to having more population, and maybe even some gambling since I have a cracking police force. (Get it? Cracking?) That'll keep my delivery trucks on the industrial periphery and they won't have to cross the city.

Anyway, my streetcars are turned off most of the time. I only turn on street cars and my bus terminal when my population booms are having enough in the bank to lower taxes. Once the traffic gets clogged, I send out public transport and it doesn't work all that well. Trains seem to work MUCH better, and they're cheaper to maintain as well. Someone on reddit has a population of hundreds of thousands with zero traffic, and it's because they have rail running in an S pattern across the grid in between all of their avenues. And it's funny because when you add streetcars, some of your industrial business owners and workers will get thought bubbles complaining about the city adding prissy street cars. "HEAVY rail is what we need! YEAH ****IN HEAVY!" (emphasis mine)

Quick question: does anyone have market data on all the other trading goods? Fuel trades at 21k per lot, and plastic is 5k/lot.

 

[bluemoon_19]

Well servers are still a mess I was playing and it said failed to connect or something like that in the top corner. I'm also afraid that means I lost the city I was doing which was the first I had made that had High wealth residents in the highest density property. Don't know if anyone remembers when GT5 launched and it had trouble loading due to overloaded servers? Well PD fixed that in about 2 days by increasing max people online from 500,000 to 1Million. Now compare that to EA and nearly a week from launch still S**T

 

[MXH]

2nd pic shows Omni's two cities on the horizon.

[pics]

I've heard about limitations regarding the size of the cities, but is that really it?

 

[somebody]

And this particular city is an interesting case - I chose it because it supposedly had massive oil deposits but there's not a single drop on the map.

I almost fell for that same trap. When you're checking out city areas before you claim them, the symbol you think is for oil is actually water.

I've no idea how you guys made your cities so big so quickly. Days of work? I just spent six hours non-stop last night and I haven't even finished designing roads!

Making a city big, quickly, is pretty simple. You need to keep adding residential to scoop up the tax dollars, and keep unemployment low.

The downside is you have to plan it well in advance or you create a mess like I did. I'm still bulldozing whole sections of my town at a time just to re-lay the streets and zoning.

Although my budget is running at -§35.000/hour, trading profits easily compensates and gives my bank account a healthy size.

I've just tried sending monetary packages of §400.000 to each city in the region this evening and there's probably more to come. I don't know if you have to accept the gift for it to reach you, but hopefully it'll get there.

Ah, trade. That's one thing I don't have in my city. Thanks for the money; it's nice to be in a region where people are trying to work together. I abandoned a city in another region because everybody was trying to do their own thing and it was making life annoying. Maybe when I'm better at the game I will try to play competitively, but not yet.

I've heard about limitations regarding the size of the cities, but is that really it?

My city reaches all it's boundaries, so yes, that's it. While I would have liked something about 50% bigger, it's not as bad as you think. To build a self sustaining city you will have to make sacrifices on population, and you will not be able to be a jack-of-all-trades. However, if you choose to play a private region by yourself (single player mode essentially) you could build a successful region using three cities I believe.