Need some help with my attempt at natural growth

[Soverntear]

Hi, thanks for looking.  So as the title says I'm a bit lost with natural growth.  I get the basic ideas, keep it small scale, the RCI graph dictates  what to place, always start low dense and build up as needed.  But my areas are still looking really artificial.  I restarted playing last night pretty late so ive only got  a really small town started. ill post some pics when i get to around 1k

[Soverntear]

and we have pics

this is when i just started




and at 1k






ive just been trying to follow the growth as needed. I stopped upping residential once i hit 700 to add more farms in, which brang in 300 more people

[Lowkee33]

First off, the city looks much better with shadows on high and no grids.  Shadows are processor intensive, so I only use them when I am taking a break from building to critique (admire) myself.

That being said there are a few things you can do.  First get a terrain mod.  I see different water and trees and NAM in there.  I would look into a maxis farm blocker and DL some farms.  There are also some very cool fences and stone walls out there, which may make functional farm land, but they look very nice.

You seem to get the point though, try to break that grid.  Check out what can be at the Corsica MD.  There are others that are great too, and as you learn your way through the possible mods, it is informative to see how other people use the same ones.  We are all trying to make this game less artificial (mostly).

[Soverntear]

Any suggestions on good terrain mods? I've got Columbus running but its kind of bland. Also thanks for the tip about the farm DL's I will look in to them now

currently im running
Namm
CPT trees
brigand water
a small area commercial shop mod
A slope mod
and maxis rock v2

I've been debating on getting fences to make the farms more permanent but the odds are this stretch of coast will one day become downtown and the farming will be more inland


Heres the updated photos im sitting at around 3k now

the whole city:



The residential area:

[Lowkee33]

   For what you have that city looks good.  I will warn you about those r$$$s though.  The demand for them is from the power plant, and the commute time is too long.  That is why they have no jobs.  The big problem is that when they are abandoned the land value goes down and demand goes back up.  They then will build another house that is also too far away from the PP, and eventually your city will be a bunch of degraded r$$$ houses.  There are ways to resolve this: make water go only to places you want r$$$, have no 3x3 residential zones, or do what I do and make every building historical.  I dont bother with the first two solutions anymore, because then r$$ are still a problem, and then you still have to deal with cs$$ taking your well placed cs$.
   Natural growth is a beast to control.  I have gone the route of a maxis blocker and then only using custom content.  You can find other posts of mine that describe what I do, but basically I modify the CC so that only one building will grow, so when I zone for that building I know that is what can grow there.  I have recently learned about modding, Check out my MD for my progress with city control so far.  http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=11168.0

[Soverntear]

So within natural growth, why should i be controlling the R$$$ coming up? also why so much control in the growth?  i figured one the ideas is letting it come to a natural evolution.

[Lowkee33]

Well, its all a matter of play style.  For me, SC4 natural growth is not realistic natural growth.