CAM - General Discussions

[xxdita]

No matter what traffic simulator you're using, Commericial is best zoned in between Residential and Industrial, in order to get the most traffic past it, and thus the most business to it. Your Sims will choose their preferred job type by the Workforce Drives, which is based largely on the Education in your city, and then base the route to their job of choice on that decision. The actual number of your workforce will vary dependning on your Health Quotient. Commercial buildings will be drawn to areas of high traffic, in order to have a good customer base from day one. Industrials just want to be close to the nearest neighbor connection, freight station, or Seaport. Everything is intricately balanced, and dependant on something else, so with high populations, it can be like walking on a tightrope.

Even the highest capacity versions of modern Traffic Simulators will be hard-pressed to keep up with the traffic of a grid-based Metropolis with Stage 15 Residential and CS/CO skyscrapers dominating the land. And too much traffic congestion can prevent further Residential growth, as well as cause some buildings to delapidate or abandon entirely. So you need to make sure your street & road network can not only sustain current traffic, but provide for the growth of new/upgraded buildings as well.

A solid mass transit system can certainly help, although it should be laid out very carefully. Remember that each Sim taking the subway or HSRP straight to work in an industrial zone will not contribute business to any commercial buildings along the way, which may decrease the desirability of the commercial district, especially if the mass transit preference in the Traffic Sim is set too high.

Without seeing a photo or two of your city's layout, I can't say for sure what we're dealing with. But consider how real world downtowns are laid out, with Condos and apartments in the same buildings as offices and shops; or at the very least, some commercial buildings mixed into the residential zones. Even the suburbs are designed so that shopping is convenient, placing stores along the main routes, while residential neighborhoods are usually built on the block behind the businesses (or maybe a little further back). This style of play in SC4 allows for shorter commute times (on average), less traffic congestion citywide (though it may still be high in localized areas), and more potential for growth, especially when using CAM.

[deecee]

the city i'm having trouble with that caused me to write has very little industrial - i started with some but i gradually moved it to the city next door that only has industrial.  this city is mainly medium density residential and commercial with a couple areas of high density res and comm mixed in.  i have little city-like areas outside of my rhw exits - the highway itself is sort of a ring around the city and when i make an exit i build res and comm outside those.  my goal is to have all the little cities meet up and form one big mainly medium density city.

surprisingly, the high density res is NOT the area that's highly congested - although there is quite a bit of vehicle traffic through that area - it's the med density res that's all backed up.  i'd like to take some pictures to show you - some traffic screens and zones - but i don't know how to make the camera open on those type of screens.  i'll take some regular ones until i figure the other way out - which would be really nice then you could see what i'm talking about.

but what about demolishing?  should i demolish or rezone the high traffic res areas for comm?  screenshots to come - thanks for the replies.  DeeCee

and oh yeah - my problem city isn't strictly laid out in a grid - although there are many straight avenues i have a lot of curving-type streets as well.  that's all.


one more thing - what about the all cs$ city to meet the sky-high demand?  do i have to have res in that city?  i already have an industrial only city with no sims and it's doing great and meets all the industrial demand for one of my cities (it could maybe support another small or med city too i'm thinking) but i didn't know if i could do the same with cs$.  that's really it this time.

[Boerentoren]

Hi all,

Below are 2 pics of my 73k population city. My region pop. is only 145k. I use CAM and only CAMelots.
Now I've been building cities in SC4 since 2003 but I have never had such a sprawling CBD in such a (relatively) small city.
Also, I only have a handful of tall/ big residential buildings compared with those many CO$$ /CO$$$

Is this caused by CAM, cus I thought that development should be slower when using CAM???

Now don't get me wrong, I love well developed CBDs in my cities, i'm just surprised by this 

[rooker1]

Download the CAMeLot Counter by Ripplejet and the Census Repository Facility, Ver. 3.1 by Ripplejet click on them and post the information here from both and Ripplejet will come around when he has a chance and analyze your info.

Robin 

[Boerentoren]

Download the CAMeLot Counter by Ripplejet and the Census Repository Facility, Ver. 3.1 by Ripplejet click on them and post the information here from both and Ripplejet will come around when he has a chance and analyze your info.

Robin 

Please tell me, how do I take pictures when one of these overviews are opened?? I can only take a picture when the window is closed so how do I post the info from either one of these??

[rooker1]

Print screen and paste into Photo shop or I use IrfanView, crop if you need to so the picture stays as large as possible, resize to 800, save as JPG and than host it and post here.

Robin 

[Boerentoren]

Print screen and paste into Photo shop or I use IrfanView, crop if you need to so the picture stays as large as possible, resize to 800, save as JPG and than host it and post here.

Robin 

Call me a noob but i have no idea how to 'print screen' I tried the printscreen key on my keyboard but I guess that's not it.

If doing this requires going back to desktop while keeping SC4 running, then that could be a problem. My game tends to crash if I minimize to desktop..

I have never used IrfanView nor Photoshop. I do have (Windows 7) Paint. LOL

Sorry for your trouble, appreciate your help though 

[rooker1]

Okay, run the Census Repository Facility, Ver. 3.1 by Ripplejet, push the "Print Screen " button, save game and exist.  Open your paint program and and push Ctrl and V at the same time, this should paste a picture of your game.  Now follow the rest of my instructions above.

BTW, you can down load IrfanView for free, LOOK HERE.

Robin 

[sc-4]

You can use Clip2Pic too , it's aviable on the lex and you don't have to use paint just hit "print screen" I think it's after F12

[Boerentoren]

Yes! I did it 

[rooker1]

OKay, this on is the CAM Counter, can you get the other too, please.  It's the one with all the real info.

[Boerentoren]

Even smaller size this time 

[rooker1]

Perfect, I'm sure Ripplejet will be around soon.

[rooker1]

 Just from what I can tell, I think your distribution of CAM res. and CAM comm. looks about right.  What CAM does is extends the range of developement to 15 stages and gives a better growing curve for all types, res. comm. and indust.  I can see that you only have two stage 9 res. and 3 stage 9 comm. and 3 stage 10 comm.  This looks about right for the CAM as it will grow higher stage commercial before residential....it's to hopefully make things look more real life like.
As for the CRV, I'm still not so good at reading and analyzing that, so we'll just have to wait for Ripplejet.

Robin 

[RippleJet]

Below are 2 pics of my 73k population city. My region pop. is only 145k. I use CAM and only CAMelots.
Now I've been building cities in SC4 since 2003 but I have never had such a sprawling CBD in such a (relatively) small city.
Also, I only have a handful of tall/ big residential buildings compared with those many CO$$ /CO$$$

Is this caused by CAM, cus I thought that development should be slower when using CAM???

Due to the doubled regional residential capacity and workforce that the game erroneously reports with CAM 1.0.

As you can see both from the CAMeLot Counter's query and from the Census Repository's query,
you've got a regional residential capacity of 315,384 and a workforce of 180,776.

These numbers should be half of that, 157,692 and 90,388 (which also corresponds to your actual population).
However, since that error is in there, you will have a lot more jobs (C and I) growing in CAM than in RH.

Now, let's compare what you get in CAM (with a regional commercial capacity of 128,067)
to what you would have gotten in Rush Hour (with a regional commercial capacity of 64,034).

This is the distribution of CO$$$ that you would have had in RH and get with CAM 1.0:

Stage	Rush Hour	CAM 1.0
1	2 %	32 %
2	4 %	13 %
3	6 %	10 %
4	19 %	9 %
5	22 %	8 %
6	25 %	7 %
7	16 %	6 %
8	6 %	5 %
9	-	4 %
10	-	3 %
11	-	2 %
12	-	0 %
13	-	0 %
14	-	0 %
15	-	0 %

CAM still develops a lot more low stage buildings, than you would have seen in Rush Hour.
However, CAMeLot stages 9 through 11 already have a small chance of appearing.

[Boerentoren]

Tnx a lot Ripple Jet and everybody else for your replies! You guys are great! 

I can conclude that my city has normal stats under CAM right?

Now I assume that most of you use CAM 1.0 yourselves right, and that you're happy about it? Because I thought that CAM was the SC4 'holy grail' but this error is kind of 'game breaking', or not?

[Korot]

Tnx a lot Ripple Jet and everybody else for your replies! You guys are great! 

I can conclude that my city has normal stats under CAM right?

Yes, you can.

Now I assume that most of you use CAM 1.0 yourselves right, and that you're happy about it?

No, we don't use CAM 1.0, as CAM 2.0 is currently being beta-tested, and most of us here, talking to you, are beta-testing it. However, double capacity bug aside, I was happy with the old version.

Regards,
Korot

[Boerentoren]

Yes, you can.

No, we don't use CAM 1.0, as CAM 2.0 is currently being beta-tested, and most of us here, talking to you, are beta-testing it. However, double capacity bug aside, I was happy with the old version.

Regards,
Korot

Hmm so when do you expect a 2.0 release? And will I be able to change from CAM 1.0 to 2.0 without difficulty or will I have to start a new region?

[Korot]

Hmm so when do you expect a 2.0 release? And will I be able to change from CAM 1.0 to 2.0 without difficulty or will I have to start a new region?

IWBRWIIR
And: You need to carefully watch the demand graphs, and probably alter some COM and IND to RES, but it is doable. Well, that is, according to those who tested the transition. I haven't, don't have the time, to busy testing CAM 2.0 on a new map.

Regards,
Korot

[rooker1]

Boerentoren, you could always ask to be a tester.  Not really sure if Ripplejet needs more, but it never hurts to ask.