SimCity 4 Rush Hour

Alferd Packer · Post by **Alferd Packer** » 2003-10-05 10:36pm

As requested, here's my transportation network:

http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~jhenes/ksc12.jpg

As you can see, the highway only serves the core of the metropolis. The rail lines are highly decentralized, serving only to bring commuters in from the burbs and haul freight to market. Anus Town, being the largest city by at least 300,000 Sims, has, of course, the worst roads out of all of them. Particularly bad is the southwest quarter, which is the first part of Anus Town ever built. The traffic is so bad that the large high-rises are almost invariably abandoned after a few years due to commute time.

To improve this, the mayor currently has plans to build a highway spur into that quarter of the city to improve commute times into the commercial heart of the city. Also, to better service those living in the eastern half the city, a highway extension project is slated for the near future, which will make Anus Town home of the region's first business loop. Centralization of the rail system is currently in the initial design phase.

CmdrWilkens · Post by **CmdrWilkens** » 2003-10-06 04:07pm

Looks excellent, still only 1 seaport? I'm actually suprised that you've got that little with as much industry as you probably have.

Alferd Packer · Post by **Alferd Packer** » 2003-10-07 01:28am

CmdrWilkens wrote:Looks excellent, still only 1 seaport? I'm actually suprised that you've got that little with as much industry as you probably have.

You know, I've never even considered that. And now that I've expanded with a massive industrial sprawl on the horizon, some improved shipping would probably do me good. I mean, the transportation network should help the goods reach their final destination.

But then again, I'm all excited about cracking three million, soo....

Post by **fgalkin** » 2003-10-07 03:33am

That's it, I'm getting SimCity 4.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Robert Treder · Post by **Robert Treder** » 2003-10-07 07:18am

I'm definitely going to pick up SC4 now. This expansion pack has all (or at least most) of the crap that I wanted them to put into SC4 in the first place.

Some other things I think they should add (correct me if they're already there and I just don't know about them):

cemeteries
rail yards
expressways (intermediate between groundlevel highways and regular roads...perhaps you can use the groundlevel highways to achieve this effect anyways)
bridges not over water

Eh, I'm sure there's some more stuff, but that's all I can think of now.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-10-07 08:51am

Robert Treder wrote:cemeteries

In the game.

expressways (intermediate between groundlevel highways and regular roads...perhaps you can use the groundlevel highways to achieve this effect anyways)

They have Avenues to do that.

bridges not over water

In the game.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2003-10-07 12:03pm

phongn wrote:
Robert Treder wrote:cemeteries
In the game.

bridges not over water
In the game.

Yeah these have always been in SimCity 4 even before the expansion. You get churches and cemeteries alternately when the population grows. And you can make a bridge over a canyon, the only requirement (I think) is that it must be too steep for a road.

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2003-10-07 12:45pm

Hint: Check out the Graveyards in the month of October. (credit to phongn.)

I picked up the expansion pack at Fry's, with the rebate it is only 10 bucks.

The game seems a little slower now, Im not sure if the expansion pack does a lot of extra calculating or it reset of default settings to something a little slower on my machine. But it is so cool to have signs again.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-10-07 04:58pm

It's likely the SC4RH engine is going extra transportation calculations. The backend for that game is immensely complex.

Alferd Packer · Post by **Alferd Packer** » 2003-10-07 05:28pm

phongn wrote:It's likely the SC4RH engine is going extra transportation calculations. The backend for that game is immensely complex.

Exactly. Which is why in large cities, time passes verrry slowly if the game has to re-think commuter routes for 100,000 sims.

Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi · Post by **Asst. Asst. Lt. Cmdr. Smi** » 2003-10-07 07:54pm

Alferd Packer wrote:
phongn wrote:It's likely the SC4RH engine is going extra transportation calculations. The backend for that game is immensely complex.
Exactly. Which is why in large cities, time passes verrry slowly if the game has to re-think commuter routes for 100,000 sims.

I haven't noticed much slowdown in my city of over 900,000, but there are times where it stops at one day for several seconds, even on cheetah speed, and then continues going.

CmdrWilkens · Post by **CmdrWilkens** » 2003-10-07 08:27pm

Alferd Packer wrote:
phongn wrote:It's likely the SC4RH engine is going extra transportation calculations. The backend for that game is immensely complex.
Exactly. Which is why in large cities, time passes verrry slowly if the game has to re-think commuter routes for 100,000 sims.

Actually that is now incorrect. The computer now assigns a sinlge job to each sim. the only time it recalculates is if something disrupts the commute (i.e. congestion ebcomes unbearable or a route to work is broken). In other words there are now individual persisten day and night commutes (the two CAN be diferent, especially if you use 1 way streets). This is what enables the "Route Query" tool.

Alferd Packer · Post by **Alferd Packer** » 2003-10-07 10:14pm

CmdrWilkens wrote:
Alferd Packer wrote:
phongn wrote:It's likely the SC4RH engine is going extra transportation calculations. The backend for that game is immensely complex.
Exactly. Which is why in large cities, time passes verrry slowly if the game has to re-think commuter routes for 100,000 sims.
Actually that is now incorrect. The computer now assigns a sinlge job to each sim. the only time it recalculates is if something disrupts the commute (i.e. congestion ebcomes unbearable or a route to work is broken). In other words there are now individual persisten day and night commutes (the two CAN be diferent, especially if you use 1 way streets). This is what enables the "Route Query" tool.

Well, what I was talking about was if you massively overhaul your transportation network while the game is paused, like I did. I pretty much forced the game to re-think every single commuter's route for a city of 750,000.

Needless to say, it was stuck on the same day for a while. So long, in fact, that I pretty much canned two hours of work and quit without saving. Ah well. I'm a busy mayor. I've got 20 other cities to attend to.

CmdrWilkens · Post by **CmdrWilkens** » 2003-10-08 04:14pm

Alferd Packer wrote:
CmdrWilkens wrote:Actually that is now incorrect. The computer now assigns a sinlge job to each sim. the only time it recalculates is if something disrupts the commute (i.e. congestion ebcomes unbearable or a route to work is broken). In other words there are now individual persisten day and night commutes (the two CAN be diferent, especially if you use 1 way streets). This is what enables the "Route Query" tool.
Well, what I was talking about was if you massively overhaul your transportation network while the game is paused, like I did. I pretty much forced the game to re-think every single commuter's route for a city of 750,000.

Needless to say, it was stuck on the same day for a while. So long, in fact, that I pretty much canned two hours of work and quit without saving. Ah well. I'm a busy mayor. I've got 20 other cities to attend to.

True enough. Mine has enough backlog time when I rebuilt the downtown section of one city with avenues instead of streets. I mean the city is only about 200k (almost entirely commercial) but the time after I took it off pause was a long one waiting for the sim to pick back up. Still once you've got the routes worked out the workload is reduced somewhat since it doesn't have to constantly recalculate.