Support NeoGAF

[Jintor]

Just got game! Is there a link to a post or page which has all the must have mods?

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=156154678&postcount=4451

So I went on a mod downloading spree and searched for functional mods to enhance the gameplay experience. In case anyone is interested, these are the ones I have currently installed:


Mod Achievement Enabler
Get achievements while using other mods.

Reddit for Chirpy
Every 5 minutes, chirpy will say the top message of /r/showerthoughts.

AutoLineColor
Public transit lines are automatically colored and given different shades, while still retaining similar color types for the same form of public transit.

City Statistics Easy Access
Adds a button to the task bar, allowing you to access the statistics without going through the menu.

Blockbuster Color Correction
Makes the colors pop more, I tried a variety of color correction mods, liked this the best, but subjective obviously.

Automatic Emptying
Automatically empties cemeteries and garbage dumps once they hit 100%.

HideUI
Press F11 to hide the UI (Screenshots!)

SimpleClock
Adds a simple clock to the task bar.

Ground Level Camera
Press tab to switch to first person mode.

Traffic Report Tool (Beta)
Click on any car/street/building to see pathways to/from that object.

Disable FilmGrainEffect
Disables said effect.

AutoSave - Configurable
Enables autosaves.

All 25 Areas purchaseable
Makes all 25 tiles purchaseable once you hit the last city milestone.

Tree Brush
Plant multiple trees at a time.

Automatic Bulldoze
Adds settings to automatically bulldoze burned or vacant buildings.

Extended Road Upgrade - One- and two-way roads!
Adds another road tool option that allows to switch between the road types, and even switch the direction of one way roads on the fly.

Text Scale Mod
Dynamically adjust the text scale you want to use.

Dynamic Resolution
Better anti-aliasing. Upscale/ downscale from any resolution.

I can personally recommend Road Upgrader, Text Scaler (a few issues but nothing major), Autosaves, Tree Brush, Traffic Report, Ground Cam and Reddit for Chirpy (it's amazing how much new content reinvogrates that lil birdie)

 

[P3P5I]

When I create a specialized oil district on-top of oil reserves, do I have to build low density industrial to take advantage of the oil or can I build office zones and those office zones will benefit from the oil district?

 

[Rentahamster]

Awesome idea. I'm nowhere near being able to compete yet though


Hmm. I wonder whether this sort of idea could be made into a mod somehow? That is, reach a certain export amount by year 50 (with easy, medium, hard and impossible challenge levels). The mod could probably even enforce the building restrictions.

Yeah that would be a good mod. It reminds me of the scenarios from SimCity.

No one replied to my challenge thread lol

 

[Ayt]

Talk me through Metro Design. I have a loop running from fairly spread out (usually about one tile-length distance) locations but I'm running about 120-140 passgengers weekly, which isn't exactly bad but a little less than I'd expect. Does the route query tool work on my stations? Is there any way to see when my metro is running?

My bus network is regularly pushing at least 1000 passengers weekly (feeder systems ftw)

Since you are using a feeder system for your buses, consider chaining the metro system into that. I'm assuming there is some overlap in the bus routes. Place the metros right next to the bus stops in key overlap areas so people can quickly travel from hub to hub then use the buses to get around in the smaller areas.

When I create a specialized oil district on-top of oil reserves, do I have to build low density industrial to take advantage of the oil or can I build office zones and those office zones will benefit from the oil district?

Only industrial zones will benefit. You'll now it is working because you'll get oil specific industrial buildings.

 

[Haly]

Here's the start of my latest city. Now that I have the power of Custom Assets™, I don't have to worry about messing up my city's aesthetics anymore.

Also learning more and more about traffic congestion.

 

[Jintor]

Ah I should've known the CORGI would be the one to lift my fantasy name districts too

actually mine are all dwarf fortress names. Long Live Throttlefish District!

 

[Rentahamster]

huh huh huh huh "bone" fields huehuehuhuehuehe

 

[Piecake]

Quick question:

I just bought my first area (oil tempted me), but I am having trouble getting it off the ground. My on and off ramps to my new area are an absolute mess, so any tips would be appreciated. My biggest issue is that I want to build an industrial park, but the businesses are complaining that there are no workers. Do I need to actually build residential over there or is there a good method to actually get all of my workers in my first square city over to the new square? About the only thing I have is buss routes (and roads).

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

 

[Ayt]

Quick question:

I just bought my first area (oil tempted me), but I am having trouble getting it off the ground. My on and off ramps to my new area are an absolute mess, so any tips would be appreciated. My biggest issue is that I want to build an industrial park, but the businesses are complaining that there are no workers. Do I need to actually build residential over there or is there a good method to actually get all of my workers in my first square city over to the new square? About the only thing I have is buss routes (and roads).

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Workers will travel a fair distance to get to work so as long as you provide some type of access -- even messy ramps -- you are fine on that. They aren't complaining that there are no workers nearby. They are complaining about the work force of your city overall.

The initial jobs created in the oil industry will be for uneducated workers. If you already have built up your primary city a bit and most of the people are educated, the people living there won't be interested in the oil jobs at first. Eventually overeducated workers will fill those jobs, but they will look for jobs that fit their education level first.

You may need to zone some new residential somewhere -- can be near the industry or just an addition to your main town -- to get an influx of new, uneducated workers. If you already have unemployed people in the city, you may just need to wait until the overeducated but unemployed in your city settle for the jobs.

You might try a new, smallish residential area near the oil industry and see if people move in there.

The issue you are having now is one you'll see plenty more for the same reasons as your city grows. The problem tends to sort itself out unless you have an extremely low unemployment rate or no new open residential zones.

 

[Jintor]

Quick question:

I just bought my first area (oil tempted me), but I am having trouble getting it off the ground. My on and off ramps to my new area are an absolute mess, so any tips would be appreciated. My biggest issue is that I want to build an industrial park, but the businesses are complaining that there are no workers. Do I need to actually build residential over there or is there a good method to actually get all of my workers in my first square city over to the new square? About the only thing I have is buss routes (and roads).

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

metro, roads, any form of public transport basically

 

[Jintor]

Since you are using a feeder system for your buses, consider chaining the metro system into that. I'm assuming there is some overlap in the bus routes. Place the metros right next to the bus stops in key overlap areas so people can quickly travel from hub to hub then use the buses to get around in the smaller areas.

Hmmm, maybe my buses are fulfilling the metro need too efficiently atm. Is there any way to tell when my trains are operating and how many are on my metro line? Maybe if I shorten my bus routes to JUST feeder systems I can force my metro to serve capacity better. But that's kind of pointless really...

 

[Giever]

Hmmm, maybe my buses are fulfilling the metro need too efficiently atm. Is there any way to tell when my trains are operating and how many are on my metro line? Maybe if I shorten my bus routes to JUST feeder systems I can force my metro to serve capacity better. But that's kind of pointless really...

Well, metro doesn't take up road space, at least. Buses have the capacity to negatively affect traffic congestion (even if your particular system is working out perfectly).

 

[Jintor]

Also, conjestion wise, heavy traffic isn't necessarily a bad thing so long as it's still flowing, right?

 

[Meier]

Have't downloaded any mods or anything yet.. still only bought one additional parcel of land, but I am up to 2025 now.

My Warehouse District has shrunk continuously as I transition to offices instead. All my energy is renewable at this point. Very pleased that although expensive to operate, my mass transit is almost solvent.. very minimal losses. I'm really only experiencing debilitating traffic at the connections to other panels I haven't unlocked. There's a few red spots but in general it's just at an intersection or two other than those. I think I need to build another bus depot though to utilize my bus lines even more effectively -- followed one bus on its route and it was at capacity for much of the time unfortunately.

 

[MarkusRJR]

I rarely play PC games beyond 2D indie games, but I suddenly wish my budget laptop could handle this game.

Any other good city sim games that could run on a budget laptop? I tried older Sim City games but felt they were too complex for me to understand entirely.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Also, conjestion wise, heavy traffic isn't necessarily a bad thing so long as it's still flowing, right?

Yep, which is also why traffic lights aren't necessarily a bad thing either. As long as everything moves along and there's no backup that lasts for more than a couple seconds, it's fine.

 

[Ayt]

Also, conjestion wise, heavy traffic isn't necessarily a bad thing so long as it's still flowing, right?

At this point traffic is mainly an issue in how it affects services. It really doesn't matter for citizens.

 

[Jintor]

Wish there was a way to space out buses manually but I'm not sure if that's just the way traffic works

my main street has like 15 buses on it at all times lol

 

[XiaNaphryz]

Wish there was a way to space out buses manually but I'm not sure if that's just the way traffic works

my main street has like 15 buses on it at all times lol

You can reduce your transit budget to lower the number of buses in the system.

 

[P3P5I]

Since you are using a feeder system for your buses, consider chaining the metro system into that. I'm assuming there is some overlap in the bus routes. Place the metros right next to the bus stops in key overlap areas so people can quickly travel from hub to hub then use the buses to get around in the smaller areas.



Only industrial zones will benefit. You'll now it is working because you'll get oil specific industrial buildings.

Ok thanks!

 

[danthefan]

Guys does this game run ok on a fairly ordinary laptop? I think it has integrated graphics, an i5 and 6GB memory.

I really want it and my PC is dead

 

[Jintor]

You can reduce your transit budget to lower the number of buses in the system.

There's like 50 people at this bus stop though :<

 

[Skux]

Newbie question - how do I take advantage of district specialisations?

Do I just zone industrial over fertile ground and then spec it for agriculture? When I tried that I saw farms would be built, but they'd quickly go short on workers and become abandoned (my general industry was still fine). Do they require a certain education level?

 

[Divvy]

Newbie question - how do I take advantage of district specialisations?

Do I just zone industrial over fertile ground and then spec it for agriculture? When I tried that I saw farms would be built, but they'd quickly go short on workers and become abandoned (my general industry was still fine). Do they require a certain education level?

Yeah farms use lower educated workers, but the bigger factor is that workers prefer to work close to their home so if you zone farms far away from the city, they won't want to work there.

 

[Xcell Miguel]

Newbie question - how do I take advantage of district specialisations?

Do I just zone industrial over fertile ground and then spec it for agriculture? When I tried that I saw farms would be built, but they'd quickly go short on workers and become abandoned (my general industry was still fine). Do they require a certain education level?

You can add some parks in your industrial areas, was having the same problem, now more people come to work in my farm and forestry industrials, even if they are over-educated.

I also added some useful bus and metro lines to ease their commute.

 

[Professional Enthusiast]

Wow, those pics you guys have posted and the impressions I've read made me purchase the game just now. Sale number 500,001! I don't expect to play it for over a decade like I did with Sim City 4, a year of solid playtime is all I ask for.

 

[Linius]

Have't downloaded any mods or anything yet.. still only bought one additional parcel of land, but I am up to 2025 now.



My Warehouse District has shrunk continuously as I transition to offices instead. All my energy is renewable at this point. Very pleased that although expensive to operate, my mass transit is almost solvent.. very minimal losses. I'm really only experiencing debilitating traffic at the connections to other panels I haven't unlocked. There's a few red spots but in general it's just at an intersection or two other than those. I think I need to build another bus depot though to utilize my bus lines even more effectively -- followed one bus on its route and it was at capacity for much of the time unfortunately.

You sure love your compact grids m8

 

[The Real Abed]

So I just did a last attempt to fix my city. I bulldozed all buildings with dead people in them to reset all my crematoriums. Just like I did for buildings with trash. So now I don't seem to have a trash or dead person problem and hopefully when a new person dies, the game will assign it to the closest crematorium. Plus I redid a few highway intersections. It's not perfect but it kind of works. Still can't get the hang of traffic flow for busy areas when going from highways to normal streets.

But it doesn't fix my problem of the city being stagnant. I have no demand for anything. I don't know what I am supposed to do to get people to want to expand again. And since nothing wants to build, all the holes I made make the city look like swiss cheese. That and the auto-delete mod. Come on, zone!!! Build!!!! PLEASE!!! How do I jumpstart interest again?

I really want to start over. But I don't know how to do my traffic better to avoid this problem again.

 

[AllenShrz]

How do you search in the workshop for buildings like the Tajmahal, eiffel tower, burj khalifa and so on? I cant seem to find anything like it.

 

[Skux]

Are you stacking them in the same area? Not a problem to me but I think some people might have that mentality with other services also.

Yeah I soon learned to not put all types of services in one place. The trucks/hearses will never get across the map before the garbage piles up. You have to think like a real city and have suburbs and smaller stations for utilities.

 

[The Real Abed]

Yeah I soon learned to not put all types of services in one place. The trucks/hearses will never get across the map before the garbage piles up. You have to think like a real city and have suburbs and smaller stations for utilities.

Yeah. I'm still feeling the drawbacks to centralizing things. It took me hours of real-time time to empty all my cemeteries to delete them as well as all my garbage dumps because I thought I'd just keep them in one place. You have to have a damn good road system if you plan on centralizing that stuff. I downloaded and loaded up that 404K city and he has all his incinerators in his industrial zone, but he also has a lot of highways and good road systems to make sure the trucks can get around. I opted to scatter them around the city and dirty up the ground, but at least it works.

 

[dejay]

Man, transit lines can be intense and a little frustrating, especially if you're working with multiple lines per station.

Still, I'll never get tired those little glowing people colour-coded to your transit line colours.

Just made my first custom prop and got it ingame. This game is great for modding. Here are some pics and links. Hope you like it.

A playhouse for kids prop(Asset):

A park with the playhouse in it:

Links for both: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=409262734 http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=409262200

Note that to get the playhouse to work you will need the prop to as an active asset.
Any other modelers or modders here on GAF?

Screw children! But I'll follow you to see what else you come up with. (edit) Actually I have an idea for a miniature village so I grabbed it...

BTW, you should have a snap shot on the actual playhouse in the workshop.

 

[Noaloha]

So I just did a last attempt to fix my city. I bulldozed all buildings with dead people in them to reset all my crematoriums. Just like I did for buildings with trash. So now I don't seem to have a trash or dead person problem and hopefully when a new person dies, the game will assign it to the closest crematorium. Plus I redid a few highway intersections. It's not perfect but it kind of works. Still can't get the hang of traffic flow for busy areas when going from highways to normal streets.

But it doesn't fix my problem of the city being stagnant. I have no demand for anything. I don't know what I am supposed to do to get people to want to expand again. And since nothing wants to build, all the holes I made make the city look like swiss cheese. That and the auto-delete mod. Come on, zone!!! Build!!!! PLEASE!!! How do I jumpstart interest again?

I really want to start over. But I don't know how to do my traffic better to avoid this problem again.

Are you using the default park assets with the Commercial demand bug? Which is to say, are you aware that there's a quirk in the game which makes parks satisfy Commercial demand, which can lead to stagnation (no shops open, so no demand increases for industrial)?

EDIT: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=409068574

 

[Durante]

How do you make icons show up for your custom assets? I can take snapshots and they show in the save/load dialogue, but not in-game.

 

[pureIsometric]

I really want this game but I don't think my macbook can run it . Life is hard bro.

 

[woen]

I really want this game but I don't think my macbook can run it . Life is hard bro.

Runs fine on a MBA 13"@2013 with low/med assets. At least in the first hours of the game.

 

[EVO]

I really want this game but I don't think my macbook can run it . Life is hard bro.

Yeah, same here.

Pretty sure mine meets the recommended specs but I have a feeling performance will dive once the population grows.

 

[The Real Abed]

Are you using the default park assets with the Commercial demand bug? Which is to say, are you aware that there's a quirk in the game which makes parks satisfy Commercial demand, which can lead to stagnation (no shops open, so no demand increases for industrial)?

EDIT: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=409068574

I installed the fix mod but I don't know if it requires a restart.

I really hope they fix that. I plan on starting fresh when an update comes out. Unless I can't wait anymore. Still, I hate that I shouldn't build parks just because of that. Can anyone confirm that the fix mod works at all?

 

[spiritfox]

How do you make icons show up for your custom assets? I can take snapshots and they show in the save/load dialogue, but not in-game.

Parks and intersections do not seem to show their icons right now.

 

[r1chard]

Hm. So I set up a couple of new bus lines to complement the one I already had - try to reduce the huge crowds at the stops.

But no buses ran on the new lines. I tried deleting them and re-adding them, but nothing. Only 6 buses on the first line I created (which I know I've seen up to 12 or so buses).

Tried upping the funding, nada. Nothing I did could get buses running on the new lines

 

[scitmon]

I'm enjoying this game a lot... my PC is rather out of date now, but its currently coping very well on high settings @ 1080p with my 20k city.

current spec:
Intel Core 2 Quad (4 cores @ 2.4Ghz)
4Gb DDR2 800mhz
AMD HD 7750 1GB

But I don't imagine this will continue as my city grows?

Was thinking of getting either getting the
i3 4160 (2 cores hyperthreaded @ 3.6ghz) or
i5 4460 (4 cores @ 3.2ghz)

along with 8gb ddr3 and sticking with my 7750... the i5 is £50 more than the i3, but will i see a benefit between the two in this game?

 

[funo]

been playing this game frantically for the last couple of days but there's one thing that I really don't get

I am using 2 different steam PCs and even though I specifically click "use steamworks" when saving my city on one Pc those saves won't show up on the other PC - any idea how to fix it?

 

[Unai]

I installed the fix mod but I don't know if it requires a restart.

It doesn't.

 

[Mengy]

No one replied to my challenge thread lol

It might be too early, the game is still new to most people and they are still learning it and messing with their cities. I know personally I'm spending every ounce of my game time working on my first and only city, I've not even started any others yet but I have so many plans to do so.

Hard to believe it's been just a tad under a week now, man what a week!

 

[Crispy75]

Hm. So I set up a couple of new bus lines to complement the one I already had - try to reduce the huge crowds at the stops.

But no buses ran on the new lines. I tried deleting them and re-adding them, but nothing. Only 6 buses on the first line I created (which I know I've seen up to 12 or so buses).

Tried upping the funding, nada. Nothing I did could get buses running on the new lines

I've seen a similar bug with metro lines that share tunnels. The number of vehicles would flicker to 1 from zero periodically, but no trains would ever spawn.

 

[U2NUMB]

Bought the game for a friend who I knew would love it... he now hates me due to the game eating up every hour of his life. Mission accomplished!

 

[Meier]

You sure love your compact grids m8

20+ years of training! Haha, I've dabbled with some non-linear roads as I've progressed. Especially in Forest East. It's unfortunate that it's such a pain to plant a bunch of trees to fill that white space that's left over.

In real life, you don't really see a lot of randomly undeveloped land but not building on a grid forces that which is kind of a shame. It'd be nice to add some small lakes or things to give it more realism but I haven't seen that capability yet.

 

[Mandoric]

Discovery: The Aquarium

Spoiler

and other special buildings, but that isn't as funny

is not affected by flooding.

 

[Unai]

20+ years of training! Haha, I've dabbled with some non-linear roads as I've progressed. Especially in Forest East. It's unfortunate that it's such a pain to plant a bunch of trees to fill that white space that's left over.

In real life, you don't really see a lot of randomly undeveloped land but not building on a grid forces that which is kind of a shame. It'd be nice to add some small lakes or things to give it more realism but I haven't seen that capability yet.

I'm a fan of fused grids.

This is not my screenshot, but I have tried it and it works really well. And it's easy to have room for pedestrians as well.

 

[Crispy75]

20+ years of training! Haha, I've dabbled with some non-linear roads as I've progressed. Especially in Forest East. It's unfortunate that it's such a pain to plant a bunch of trees to fill that white space that's left over.

In real life, you don't really see a lot of randomly undeveloped land but not building on a grid forces that which is kind of a shame. It'd be nice to add some small lakes or things to give it more realism but I haven't seen that capability yet.

Non-rectangular building plots would be the ultimate update for this game for me. Citybound (remember that?) plans to have this.

But it's the sort of thing that needs to be built into the foundations of the zoning mechanics. CSL has chosen squares parallel to the nearest road. I don't see an elegant way of using that framework for buildings like this: