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How To Go Regional

Started by GrindPepper, February 29, 2008, 08:46:57 PM

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GrindPepper

This will be a quick tutorial on how to 'go regional' in simcity 4, and how to keep your region working and also look realistic.

Chapter 1: Going Regional
Going regional in SC4 really improves realism. It allows sprawl, to have separate districts, to have a bigger area to terraform, etc. First, I will define the different kinds of regions.

Multi-City Regions:
This regions have many different cities within them [note: these separate cities usually cover more than tile, but not too many.]. A good example of this is Nemonos, by Giligone, at ST. These can be good if you don't have the patience to develop a full region or want to have many different themes in your region.

A good idea would be to put rural space between different cities, if applicable, like farms and villages. It's also good to connect with transport.

Single City Regions:
Single city regions are regions that have a city that sprawls all of, or most of, the tiles. This is good for a long term project. [note: A good way to practice for these is to create small, two - four tile regions and build in those. Slowly increase region size until you can create a full, big city]. Aleking's CJ Brastoval Bay at ST show his great ability to sprawl huge cities.

A good idea would be to put farming or mountains on the edge of your region to have a definite boundary.

2: Infrastructure
Now that you know what kind of region you want, it would be a good idea to plan the layout of zoning and infrastructre.

Most RL cities follow a pattern of zoning similar to this:


And it would be a good idea to follow this in your region, in some way. I call this the full circle zoning. Ofcourse, if land doesn't permit that, or you wish to have your downtown next to a body of sea, you can do the half circle zoning, like this:


Although, these plans don't mean you can't be creative (especially once you get to suburbia). Your city  infrastructure can be in any shape, can go anyway. Just keep this in mind: make sure the place where most of the jobs are in is central.

TRANSPORT:
Now that your sims know where their jobs are, they need to get there somehow. Most major cities have a motorway system. These motorways are like arteries that travel people to the centre of the city and back even from the outermost suburb. People are inclined to use highway as they are quick, systematic motorways that are meant just for travel to and from the downtown. These same highway link to outside the region.

Every suburb should only be a few (4 or less) city tiles away from a direct link to the downtown. There should also be onramps/offramps every so while.

Highways are not your only regional transport options. Other options include rail, e rail, monorail, etc.
Here is a guide to regional transport, divided up into city tiles [note; this plan is of a region with no body of water, just plains].

Key:
Grey: Rail or mass transit
Red: Highway

You can customize as much as you want, with highway layout etc, especially if your region is larger than the pictured on.


That's all for now! if you follow these rules for infrastructure and planning, your region should usually work.

If anyone has any suggestions of Cj's or MD's that show examples of great regional work, please tell.

yogosun

nice tutorial it works good, but it is not so good for a CJ
i like fish fish GLUB GLUB!!

MandelSoft

Well, most of the time I build my cities that way. And for an example multi-city MD, check out mine (link below). Especially Guilliano, because I show there how the city is build up from the ground.
Lurk mode: ACTIVE

boom_box

One question..

how should I distribute power, water and garbage management in a region.. or should I use cheat..?
ILIGAN CITY
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io_bg

Quote from: boom_box on April 08, 2009, 07:10:05 AM
One question..
how should I distribute power, water and garbage management in a region.. or should I use cheat..?
For power I use Peg's geothermal plants most of the times. They're not expensive and they don't pollute the air. Here are the links for them: click here and here. For water I use the maxis' water towers and pumps and for garbage I use Peg's garbage chute (link). I just don't like wasting space for landfills when I can plop these chutes. Hope this helps!
Visit my MD, The region of Pirgos!
Last updated: 28 November