Re: OT: Nothing More Frustrating
 

TerranC,

How's the public transport in your city? If you make sure there's enough other modes of transit around, it can reduce the road traffic.

Another thing to consider is creating one-way streets. They take up as much space as a normal main road, but have twice the capacity.

Re: OT: Nothing More Frustrating
 

Is there actually any way to get public transport to work? Maybe it's just me (in fact it probably is) but I can't spot any pattern, I have subway stops running at 200%+ capacity next to stops my transport adviser won't stop complaining about.

So how does anyone else lay out a working public transport system?

Re: OT: Nothing More Frustrating
 

Public transport is rather tricky to get working correctly, but if you do manage to get it that way, it will actually pay for itself (and make a nice profit too, in larger cities).

I think it's a bit too complex to discuss it in detail here, plus I'm not really an expert on the matter myself, but may I suggest the forums at http://www.simcitycentral.net/ (although the DoD/DHS seem to have seized that one...) and http://www.simtropolis.com/

Re: OT: Nothing More Frustrating
 

I'm starting to construct a subway system. My attempt for highways was a big failure, probally due to the fact that I can't build highways through skyscraper zone, else I end up paying hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Got commercial skyscrapers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif All it took was a quarter of a million people squished into a 4k by 4k zone http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif. I'm going for even more, by promoting low-wealth citizens. I hope to have more city density than Tokyo. I don't suppose there's a very high density zone?

Re: OT: Nothing More Frustrating
 

now THAT's cheating. one of the things i saw on there was a money tree. plop down a tree that generates billions. I'm just using official Maxis buildings. I might miss some neat stuff, but im not making the game easier than it should be.

Re: OT: Nothing More Frustrating
 

Some new landmarks that aren't too imbalanced might be nice. Does anyone know if the Empire State Building and Bank of Tokyo generate jobs? I got both of em http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: OT: Nothing More Frustrating
 

the route-query tool is infinitly helpfull. if you have a traffic mess near a certain area, you can use it to see how people get to and from buildings in that area. then you can put mass-transit stops near their homes or businesses.

the public parking lots are great. stick one near your residential suburbs, and then put a subway and/or bus stop next to the public parking lot. people will drive to the parking lot, then ride mass transit to work. make sure you've got bus stops or subway stations within 5-8 squares of everything downtown.

Or, go for broke. replace your downtown roads with a monorail.

the most frustrating thing though, is when you've played for a few hours developing some high-proffit slums to feed your massive industrial park in the town in the next region over, and the power goes out. and since the power is out, you cant play your PBW turn that is due, because even though the laptop with SE4 on it has a battery, the wireless network you were using is also affected by the power outage and you cant get to PBW.