SimCity V: Coming March 5!
- Thread starter Joey D
- 336 comments
- 25,438 views
- 20,145
- Australia
- VIPERGTS01
I am rather dissapointed about how Simcity 5 has turned out, but I must say I did see it coming when early information of the game was released. The forced online connectivity is bad enough but the small city sizes really put the nail in the coffin for me. This reason I haven't bought it yet and not sure if I want to.
I think I will wait until it is in the bargin bin which is somthing I normally never do for a game I want to play.
I think I will wait until it is in the bargin bin which is somthing I normally never do for a game I want to play.
Keef
Premium
- 25,025
- Dayton, OH
- GTP_KeefRacer
- GTP Keef
I'd be glad to take you up on the Dept. of Finance (I was planning on that eventually) and the Dept. of Trade...or whatever it's called. I already have the Dept. of Tourism despite having no seaport yet.
You mean to tell me that you don't have a stable population and whatnot? Weird. My goal in SC4 was always efficiency and stability. Also, my traffic isn't too bad and I have no mass transit yet. I'm not big on trains even though I don't think the game models the unhappiness that trains cause in real life.
How much money are you guys working with? I left my game with about $20,000 and when I got back earlier I had over $400,000. What the hell? I'm not sure how I'm making $7,000/hr but I went on a spending spree.
EDIT: Hey, who the hell got the recycling center? That's my only way of making resources dang it!
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- 6,092
- Phoenix, AZ
I'd have joined your region by now since I have Omnis added, but the NA West 2 servers haven't been open for me lately.
So after getting frustrated with my 15k population sort of ritzy suburban spread out city with lots of windy roads that had an insatiable demand for more plumbing (I didn't know that placing ten run off valves or whatever they're called was actually a valid solution), I went and founded another city just down the highway, this time with a heavy emphasis on industry. The city grew by leaps and bounds quickly and filled out (though I built around the forests so there wouldn't be awkward 2 km squares of population scattered throughout the region). It remained quite profitable and survived a wave of zombies who devoured most of the city's middle class, but bounced back quickly. There was plenty of public transport, though like my last city people were damn persistent about complaining there was too much crime, even though both of my police stations were more than sufficient. I saved up and placed the expo center near the edge of town, which although was rocky at first went on to become a major cash cow, as did the casino I placed near it. Because my tax rate was 13%, commercial developers would annoyingly build a shop, bitch about taxes then abandon it, then I'd bulldoze it and the cycle would repeat. Finally when the city had grown a lot more (50k population or so), I lowered taxes to 9 or 10% in an effort to not only save myself from constant bitching about high taxes, but also to draw more people into the city. So far it's looking like a losing solution, I'm losing thousands per hour and although the expo center still makes bookoo bucks, I'm barely breaking even.
Hmm...
So after getting frustrated with my 15k population sort of ritzy suburban spread out city with lots of windy roads that had an insatiable demand for more plumbing (I didn't know that placing ten run off valves or whatever they're called was actually a valid solution), I went and founded another city just down the highway, this time with a heavy emphasis on industry. The city grew by leaps and bounds quickly and filled out (though I built around the forests so there wouldn't be awkward 2 km squares of population scattered throughout the region). It remained quite profitable and survived a wave of zombies who devoured most of the city's middle class, but bounced back quickly. There was plenty of public transport, though like my last city people were damn persistent about complaining there was too much crime, even though both of my police stations were more than sufficient. I saved up and placed the expo center near the edge of town, which although was rocky at first went on to become a major cash cow, as did the casino I placed near it. Because my tax rate was 13%, commercial developers would annoyingly build a shop, bitch about taxes then abandon it, then I'd bulldoze it and the cycle would repeat. Finally when the city had grown a lot more (50k population or so), I lowered taxes to 9 or 10% in an effort to not only save myself from constant bitching about high taxes, but also to draw more people into the city. So far it's looking like a losing solution, I'm losing thousands per hour and although the expo center still makes bookoo bucks, I'm barely breaking even.
Hmm...
- 38,916
- Application hell
- MP-Omnis
Keef, that's because you got some Norwegian gift capital from our pal sitting on $300 million. And I have the recycling center, although it seems to not be doing very much. I'll stop sending my trucks to your city if you want.
Without his help, I'd be sunk. While redoing my city, I went from 60k to about 500 citizens and was totally bankrupt in between fuel shipments. My refineries were keeping me afloat, but the game stops play once you hit $0 and doesn't let you continue until you have positive income.
Now I need to figure out how to flesh out my electronic manufacturing business because my city can't stay afloat with all of the services I've provided. I turned them off and made a couple million, but I want my sims to be healthy and smart to support my industry so I need to run my expensive hospital and university.
I made a great, game-saving discovery though: Select a place for your water pumping facility and a place for your sewage treatment plant. The key to not running out of water is to alternate between these two locations when your water runs dry. The treatment facility is what restores the dried-up water table! Bulldoze your pumps, build new sewage treatment there, and rebuild your pumps on the old sewage treatment site. If you use filtered water pumps, you don't have to worry about ground pollution at all, and, as a bonus, the water will be clean when you cycle through sites.
Also, MarkII, go into edit mode on your oil power plant and bulldoze that crappy oil burner stack and replace it with the double-stack combustion burner.
Without his help, I'd be sunk. While redoing my city, I went from 60k to about 500 citizens and was totally bankrupt in between fuel shipments. My refineries were keeping me afloat, but the game stops play once you hit $0 and doesn't let you continue until you have positive income.
Now I need to figure out how to flesh out my electronic manufacturing business because my city can't stay afloat with all of the services I've provided. I turned them off and made a couple million, but I want my sims to be healthy and smart to support my industry so I need to run my expensive hospital and university.
I made a great, game-saving discovery though: Select a place for your water pumping facility and a place for your sewage treatment plant. The key to not running out of water is to alternate between these two locations when your water runs dry. The treatment facility is what restores the dried-up water table! Bulldoze your pumps, build new sewage treatment there, and rebuild your pumps on the old sewage treatment site. If you use filtered water pumps, you don't have to worry about ground pollution at all, and, as a bonus, the water will be clean when you cycle through sites.
Also, MarkII, go into edit mode on your oil power plant and bulldoze that crappy oil burner stack and replace it with the double-stack combustion burner.
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Keef
Premium
- 25,025
- Dayton, OH
- GTP_KeefRacer
- GTP Keef
I just plotted one and saw a few trucks driving around. I sent some to that stinky town next to me that you've been garbage diving in. As far as I can tell, that's my only way to make any resources and I'd be more than happy to service the whole area.
I'm doing well enough on money and am continually making more. Because of my resource problem I'm not dependent on anything but I'm also not hugely profitable. Right now I'm just trying to get my education reasonable by expanding my high school and maybe I can get some mid-tech manufacturing.
I haven't run into this problem yet but I'll keep it in mind. Are you suggesting that simply moving water towers around doesn't let the water table replenish fast enough?
- 38,916
- Application hell
- MP-Omnis
Nope. Not when you're cracking crude oil for a living like my city is. Oil biz uses tons of water. Well, now I have a problem that I can't quite figure out. I'm bleeding money now that I've expanded my manufacturing business. Like, losing a million dollars a day importing alloy and stuff. I don't know why --- [10 minutes later] OH DUH!-- Somehow my fuel got set to "Use locally". HELL NAW JIMMY, EXPART THAT FYOOL! Money coming back in, yay!
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- 1,410
- Canberra
- Unwired-Eddie
I also put in a recycling center to go with my trade port; it's the only way to make a reasonably large income. I won't be increasing it's size though, so I shouldn't step on anyone's toes more than I have.
Thanks for the tip about water/treatment sharing - I'll have to try that soon or start buying water (I'm already buying power).
I can see that next time I start a city there will be a lot more planning involved, and physical growth will happen a lot slower.
Thanks for the tip about water/treatment sharing - I'll have to try that soon or start buying water (I'm already buying power).
I can see that next time I start a city there will be a lot more planning involved, and physical growth will happen a lot slower.
Keef
Premium
- 25,025
- Dayton, OH
- GTP_KeefRacer
- GTP Keef
My recycling center is making plastic, woot! Now what do I do with it?
Also, I have a tourist seaport but nobody is coming in. What the hell. Somebody build a seaport or something...and a department of education so I can start my high school back up!
Also, I have a tourist seaport but nobody is coming in. What the hell. Somebody build a seaport or something...and a department of education so I can start my high school back up!
- 11,969
- Christchurch
I see EAxis has added an 'Antarctica' server (for the comedy factor, I bet) and the server list now shows which servers you have regions on... but have they sorted out the truly monumental lag between inter-city regional interactions? I made a city comprising nothing but a solar plant with 240MW capacity, let it power up for a few minutes and switched back to my main city in the region, ten minutes later the game still hadn't recognised that the 'solar city' had excess power to sell... makes multi-city play almost impossible when your 5000 workers find themselves out of jobs because 1) the game doesn't recognise that you've just generated another several thousand jobs in a commercial city and 2) businesses in that commercial city keep going out of business because the game doesn't know there are 50,000 residents in another city that can buy their stuff 
- 38,916
- Application hell
- MP-Omnis
****ing server rolled back my city to before it was profitable. Damn it. Took me forever (again) to get profitable again.
And there's this little crap in the middle of my industrial zone that's keeping me from plopping stuff on a snap point. I can't bulldoze it. I think it's freight from a delivery truck that was on a road when I deleted that road. So mad right now. Hopefully quitting and going back will make it work. Gonna try now.
And there's this little crap in the middle of my industrial zone that's keeping me from plopping stuff on a snap point. I can't bulldoze it. I think it's freight from a delivery truck that was on a road when I deleted that road. So mad right now. Hopefully quitting and going back will make it work. Gonna try now.
- 1,410
- Canberra
- Unwired-Eddie
You need to build a trade depot so the plastic can be sold to the market. Otherwise the recycling centre stops production and collection.
Nope! The cities supposedly update to the server every three minutes. If the next city doesn't then update for three minutes that makes six minutes for gifts etc.. to go through. It's definitely taking longer than that.
Yep, happened to me too. Luckily it only took 5 minutes to redo the rollback-lost items.
As for the crap in the ground, I've got about 5 of them stuck around my map. Zoned buildings ignore them but I can't 'place' an item over them. I also have 4 ninja-esque criminals standing at my highway connection, frozen in the middle of the road. I'm kind of sick of hearing complaints about crime in the region.
Oh, and my traffic problems have worsened despite heaps of buses and rail. The queue to get in to my city stretches more than halfway back to Keef's city.
- 11,969
- Christchurch
I think I see your problem - you have a set of traffic lights not far from where the highway joins your city. Having a set of lights that close screws up traffic flow in a massive way as you end up with a backlog of traffic down the highway, which you have.
Something that I think I've noticed is instead of having one big avenue running into the centre of town and several tributary avenues intersecting it (which you would expect to be able to carry a massive load of traffic; you'd be half correct), have one main avenue with lots of stop-sign controlled streets coming off it. Traffic lights on roads with high traffic loads do nothing but cause a backlog, but with medium density (and high? Not sure if high-d streets have lights or not) streets you only get stop signs on the street side; traffic is free to flow unabated as far down the avenue as it wants to. If you need more traffic capacity you might be able to lay down multiple streets parallel to each other.
On a semi-related note the AI pathing is completely moronic, every fire truck and police car in your city heads to the same dispatch call as every other one, which means if you have six fire trucks and six fires you'll have six trucks go to the first fire, then six to the second fire and so on sequentially as a pack instead of one truck going to each fire individually and simultaneously :|
Something that I think I've noticed is instead of having one big avenue running into the centre of town and several tributary avenues intersecting it (which you would expect to be able to carry a massive load of traffic; you'd be half correct), have one main avenue with lots of stop-sign controlled streets coming off it. Traffic lights on roads with high traffic loads do nothing but cause a backlog, but with medium density (and high? Not sure if high-d streets have lights or not) streets you only get stop signs on the street side; traffic is free to flow unabated as far down the avenue as it wants to. If you need more traffic capacity you might be able to lay down multiple streets parallel to each other.
On a semi-related note the AI pathing is completely moronic, every fire truck and police car in your city heads to the same dispatch call as every other one, which means if you have six fire trucks and six fires you'll have six trucks go to the first fire, then six to the second fire and so on sequentially as a pack instead of one truck going to each fire individually and simultaneously :|
Keef
Premium
- 25,025
- Dayton, OH
- GTP_KeefRacer
- GTP Keef
Feel free!
I accidentally claimed another city that I don't really want and haven't started yet. It's got one glob of oil and not much room for anything else. I kinda want to abandon it but dunno how yet.
Yeah, you definitely need to get rid of that intersection. In fact, I'd recommend a heavy overhaul to spread the traffic out. I spent tens of hours in SC4 figuring out how to outsmart the dumb AI routing by forcing them to drive where a real person wouldn't just to spread the load.
If I were you I would run the entrance road forward into the city for a few blocks without any intersections. Then you can make a perpendicular road, and curve them around backwards to serve the skipped blocks. From the entrance intersection you can then build a typical grid or whatever you like. Picture a tree with heavy branches. The trunk goes straight up uninterrupted but the heavy branches hang low so you can't even walk under it. A bug has to climb up the branch before it goes down the trunk.
Then again, you've only got one highway entrance while I have two. You need some rail...or a ferry! I have a ferry but nobody is using it.
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Keef
Premium
- 25,025
- Dayton, OH
- GTP_KeefRacer
- GTP Keef
Yeah, they're small and get even smaller depending on the terrain. Some of them are so tiny it's hardly worth building on them. In SC4 I never played anything smaller than the largest maps because I wanted it to be like an actual city with a downtown, suburbs, forests, etc.
I'd be satisfied if these new regions over three times the land area they do now. I think they should design and offer us regions specifically made for larger city sizes.
But despite the small maps it's still taking a while to build up my city...but I'm slow like that. Everybody else in my GTP region has towering buildings while I've got a bunch of boutiques and bi-level houses.
I'd be satisfied if these new regions over three times the land area they do now. I think they should design and offer us regions specifically made for larger city sizes.
But despite the small maps it's still taking a while to build up my city...but I'm slow like that. Everybody else in my GTP region has towering buildings while I've got a bunch of boutiques and bi-level houses.
- 38,916
- Application hell
- MP-Omnis
Yep, happened to me too. Luckily it only took 5 minutes to redo the rollback-lost items.
As for the crap in the ground, I've got about 5 of them stuck around my map. Zoned buildings ignore them but I can't 'place' an item over them. I also have 4 ninja-esque criminals standing at my highway connection, frozen in the middle of the road. I'm kind of sick of hearing complaints about crime in the region.
Oh, and my traffic problems have worsened despite heaps of buses and rail. The queue to get in to my city stretches more than halfway back to Keef's city.
Luckily, I figured out a way to get rid of it. Place a road over the junk, then zone next to it. Wait for a building to spawn on top of it. Then exit to main menu, reload your city, and it'll be a crapshoot as to whether the junk goes when you bulldoze the road. The junk's boundary isn't a normal rectangle like all the other zoned buildings. Mine was some weird parallelogram/polygon thing that extended all the way under my adjacent PetroHQ. Stupid bugs. How do you report them?
Give your Origin names and people will invite you. Keef, you can abandon cities from the main menu. Click on Play instead of Resume, then click our region, click the city tile in the region view, and finally click Abandon to leave the city.
- 9,684
- Portland, OR
- Jump_Ace
- JUMPxACE
I picked this game up yesterday and named my region Westeros and my city Hyrule. I can't seem to figure out how to get power and water to everyone like I could in previous simcity's. I dont see a power line or water pipe option *shrug* And I don't think I'll ever come out of hiding in the sandbox mode 
Jerome
Jerome
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