Any tips on how I can learn to build none square cities?

[towerbooks3192]

Any tips/advice on how to build a non square city? Most of the time I just end up starting squares and it feels kind of boring. I do love it when my city grows and I have to rebuild/rezone parts of it but personally I don't feel like most maps force you to build around challenging terrain and thus ending up with square cities. I would appreciate any tips from veteran city builders.

Just in case any devs read this, some side notes:

Any chance we get randomly generated terrain? I am not a huge terraforming fan and I would rather build around terrains than choose to terraform it since I end up doing more harm than good.

Any way to add my own music library to play on the radio feature? I would love to add my Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Beatles songs as I listen to Gold FM. Gold FM is so good and the ads are so funny it can give GTA's radio ads a run for their money.

 

[Simcity5]

I'm not good at this either, Try to pick some nice maps that encourage you to draw around it, I pick maps that try to force me not to grid, Ive downloaded a few nice ones, follow rivers or forests or beaches, and look at the gradient view on the maps and build round that, (it would be nice if you could keep that on screen while you road.)

But theres not really much reason not to grid, youre actually better off not none gridding, apart from for looks and being boring, the zoning doesnt react well to none grids and none perfect layouts and theres no real reason you have too other than for the fun of it..

Would be nice if we had a reason not to grid other than looks, to plan around resources, natural beauty sites, historical buildings, costs of building, I dont know, anything than just for the fun of it. I need a reason or be forced not to use the most efficient methods.

Better roads system with the ability to turn off a roads zoning so it doesnt break or interfere with another joining road, would help as well.. I dont know.

 

[Sanny]

Look at some of the major cities in Britain, we don't really have entire city blocks here. A lot of roads are on top of ancient roads. The problem with Cities Skylines is that building city blocks makes logical sense. Need to try and make more green space in my cities.

 

[Simcity5]

Most cities in real life dont have a blank canvas like we have, most cities are built for a purpose and a reason, like natural resources, having to build round existing structures, little villages merging together in a none planned way, to form bigger towns, growing over 100s of years, that if they could see into the future wouldnt have put that church or castle there and would have made space for 6 lane highways. We dont have any of this to worry about. If real cities didnt either I'm sure they would all be grids too.

 

[towerbooks3192]

I guess this is a problem with me and city building games in general. The only time I don't feel that they are too griddy is on Tropico and Banished but I guess it is due to its scale. I am hoping once transport and traffic starts being a problem I will be making some changes to my griddy layout.

 

[Abnwtwtud]

I guess this is a problem with me and city building games in general. The only time I don't feel that they are too griddy is on Tropico and Banished but I guess it is due to its scale. I am hoping once transport and traffic starts being a problem I will be making some changes to my griddy layout.

Banished feels a bit griddy to me. Tropico though, I agree, especially Tropico 5, as it forces you to organically evolve your city based on technological development. Sim City 2000 sort of did that too.

 

[Kedryn]

I usually try by building three or four 'villages' with different road plans near different features at the beginning that end up growing together. Also, when expanding, I try not to build right next to existing development sometimes which, as long as I don't measure and line things up, also seems to help.

 

[Pico]

Historically, there are two main types of cities. Which type was chosen basically depended on how safe people who were building them felt. For example:

- Romans at the height of imperium felt safe so they built their towns in open spaces, using a standard grid based on two main axis. A notable exception is Rome itself - when it was started its inhabitants did not feel safe at all.

- medieval people were nor safe so they were looking for a place that could be defended easily, ideally with a hill on which a castle could be (and in most cases already was) built on one side and a river on the other. In such cases, the town would conform to the contours of the hill and the river. Later on, after situation changed (certainly by the 19th century), new parts were, once more, built on a regular grid. There are some exceptions (like the English 18th century crescent) but not many.

Since Cims are safe (natural disasters don't count, of course) it is logical that they use grid which is, after all, the most effective. And dull.

 

[esteboatan]

stop yourself using the straight roads and only use the curvy option

 

[towerbooks3192]

stop yourself using the straight roads and only use the curvy option

Well I started to unlock the beach side of the map. I might try and trace that and see how it will go. So far it is grids for me.