Yet another city

[ItalianGuy]

Hello everyone, I started a new city to post some screenshot in this area.

I use a lot of mods. These are the mods I use for help during the development of the city:

• Automatic Bulldoze
  
• Extended Public Transport UI
• TransportLineColorMod
• MoreSimulationSpeedOptions
• Extended Building Information Mod
• Persistent Resource View
• City Vitals Watch

These are for traffic control:

• Traffic Report Tool (I never use it actually)
  
• No Pillars (I love freedom while building elevated roads/rails)
  
• Toggle Traffic Lights
  
• Lane Changer (most useful for freeway/road interchanges)

I use some mods to change gameplay:

• 1/4 Citizen Aging Speed (this is because when I follow cims with Citizen Tracker they die too often)
  
• Improved Transport Capacity tool (bus 105, plane 407, ship 2056, train 60 to make mass transit vehicles realistic)
• PopBalanceMod (this changes building capacity to make the game more realistic, and difficult!)
  
• Infinite Oil And Ore (the city i'm building will have 0 industry but this mod is active, i use it in other cities for realism)
  
• Fill The Houses (I don't want to zone more if there is space in existing buildings, so this mod is useful)
  
• Slow Trash Production (because if trash vans are too many, i can't track traffic issues properly)

Then I use some other miscellaneous mods:

• Enable Achievments
• Pause on load
• FontSelector
• Citizen Tracker
• ChirpFilter
• Disable Clouds
• Kill the Seagulls!

My city will be a 0 industry city. It will have only offices, commercial and residential. I'll use a road pattern that should alleviate traffic. I usually create bus and metro networks, so I guess it won't be different this time.

Of course at the beginning I'll have industry, until offices become available, then I'll convert.

Graphic settings were low while I played and the first screenshots are not so good looking, I will see how much I can increase settings without losing too many fps.

Here is the diary of first day:

The first to join my city! Howard Gray (Howard The Grey)

This is how I'm starting: industry near the freeway and a temporary location for commertial and residentical, with everything near the water.

After the first milestones, I start moving everyone farther from the industry.

Residential area gets bigger and bigger, while commertial buildings keep up with customers. Industry is content of its good spot near the water and the noise of the wind plants.

My firefighters just leave the trucks in the middle of an intersection.

A lot of new people came in the city, and commercial buildings struggle to keep everyone happy.

I complete the road network, zone some more commercial and a lot more residential, and wait for the city to grow.

I reworked the main freeway connection.

Then I add an alternate connection for industry...

... and a new intersection far away, that will be useful in the future. This is based on a real intersection, and can work properly only if I tweak it with Lane Changer mod's features.

This is the end of day 1. Traffic is awesome, people are happy, 6500+ cims and offices are getting closer and closer...

Stay tuned for news!

 

[Person012345]

... and a new intersection far away, that will be useful in the future. This is based on a real intersection, and can work properly only if I tweak it with Lane Changer mod's features.

Why not make this a proper trumpet? It looks like one except with odd road choice.

 

[ItalianGuy]

Actually it is a trumpet, thanks to Line Changer mod.

 

[Person012345]

I was just wondering why you didn't do something more like this:

 

[ItalianGuy]

I think I'll do that if the traffic gets heavy. Anyway, building it was really quick.

 

[simonmd]

Yes, having a 6 lane bridge seems a waste, you only have one lane sliproads so 2/3 of that bridge will never be used! Anyway, interesting to see how the town is progressing, are you going to break away from your rigid grid system in the future? It's very square so far.

 

[ItalianGuy]

I'm still experimenting to create a good base grid. When I get to HD residential and tweak it a little more, I'll use it in different shapes.

 

[ItalianGuy]

New experiment session! The city population grew quite a bit (last milestone was Capital City), but I didn't expand it a lot. I didn't convert to offices yet, that will be done the next time. Here are some images:

I added a new mod: first person view, to create curious screenshots. Here I followed one of my busses.

I reworked the HD grid. I added pedestrian paths next to the avenues, and used only one-way roads to connect the inner grids to the outer avenues, let's see what happens.

This is the most important milestone! High density unlocked!

I filled the grid with offices on the edge where it touches the commercial area, so that residential buildings are shielded from noise. The idea is to zone offices on the whole perimeter, but that is not necessary now.

Here I went for a walk near the new offices, on one of my pedestrian paths.

And they threw tomatoes at me from the windows, so I plopped a University and while the cims got educated, I barricaded myself in the city hall.

Then they found me and try to put the building on fire... But firefighters are on my side.

Mr. Brown, are you leaving the city? That was a bad idea...

The experiment goes well, traffic is all right in the HD grid.

Then traffic begun to increase, so I tested some changes, like this (that was a failure) or converting two-ways into one-ways.

I zoned some high density commercial and I made this screenshot when I noticed the first skyscrapers

Here I was experimenting with pedestrian paths. The cims had a great time!

This is how I left the city. There are a couple of issues to solve, then the HD grid can be used to expand.

When the HD grid is fully formed, I'll give you the details, then you can derivate your own versions, based on what you need. I must remember you that I'm using PopBalance mod, that gives HD buildings a lot more capacity, so it's very difficult to keep traffic under control.

Stay tuned for news!

 

[ItalianGuy]

I finished the grid pattern, and divided it in 4 independent parts. Each of these parts has a road for vehicles and perpendicular pedestrian paths to let cims reach 2 bus stops. One part is also connected by a pedestrian path to the surrounding avenue where othere bus lanes let cims move to a metro station.

I took an idea from a post and I built pedestrian paths at the avenue sides so that it doesn't allow zoning. Then I tweaked these paths making overpasses and ramps. There is a massive amount of cims on the paths, and this tells me that the mass transit is working all right.

I added a mod to show you the one-way roads' directions. When I took these screenshots I didn't place the metro yet.

I found a giant tree! It's taller than that building! I unzoned the tile where it's on to keep it.

I'm expanding the railways to serve the new commercial area.

Cims begin working to the metro stations, let's get ready for the masses!

The time has come for electricity overkill.

I love this trick! Vans flow freely and quickly from the cargo station!

And here they are: a lot of cims invade the new commercial area!

I followed one of them because their destination had a fantastic name!

A tipical day in the main city, reading newspapers, sitting on benches and lazily overseeing firefighters... OMG A FIRE!!!

A tourist left the city by train, but her car is still here!

This is my city when I left it.

I installed the new patch and will use this city only when I'm sure there won't be problems.

Bye!