»SimCity 4
»Harrisburg PA
»Negishi
»Wataru
»Wuphons Reach
»Atashi
»Bayview
»Blue Bottle
»Blye
»Dartmoore
»Dee Five
»Diesto
»Doogiezop
»Eaton Gorge
»Faven
»Greenleaf
»Jenza
»Kebsun
»Kirkenes
»Montessa
»North Bend
»Oestrang
»Ollissary
»Orange Seven
»Ossia
»Oyster Bay
»Patrilii
»Reikishi
»River Bend
»Saotome
»Scelle
»Shinobu
»Slade Canyon
»Socksville
»South Bend
»Tulinick
»Weedzuck
»Westview
Wuphons Reach - Dartmoore
Design for the initial portion of the city is going to be a mirror image of River Bend, with the industry along the south and east edges of the tile. Hopefully I can avoid prior mistakes.Initial Terrain
Pictures of the city tile prior to the start of development...
City Building - first 21 months
The first thing I did again was laying out the key rail lines to connect up with the neighbor connectors from River Bend. Total cost was almost $9,000, but the monthly maintenance fee (total) was only $10/mo; so it's not a real budget breaker.
Getting a balanced budget was much easier then in River Bend. Probably because I started smaller and with a coal-fired electricity plant instead of depending on wind power (see table of efficiencies). The initial zone layout went pretty easy as well, and I hit a population of 2,800 by September of the second year with a surplus of almost $200/mo.
The first quarter century
Since I was running a $500-$600 per month surplus and holding steady at 4,000 pop., I chose to take a pretty much hands-off attitude for 5-10 years at a stretch. (Go go cheetah speed!) Every few years I'd check my clinic, elementary school, water and power levels to make sure they were adequately funded for up to 4,500 pop. I quickly built a bank balance of $140k by around '18 and then spent some time running at turtle speed while I zoomed in and explored, looking for unconnected roads or rail, dropping a park or two in on zone tiles that weren't developing, and seeing whether my train stations were well placed.
Some general notes:
- Passenger train stations need to be smack dab in the middle of your industrial belt, maybe one every 30-50 tiles. One of my passenger stations that is in the middle of a 20x50 swath of medium density industry handles passenger traffic of 900-1200 sims (around 50% capacity).
- Slow growth is A-Ok! Once you run a surplus, let it go on auto-pilot for a bit and resist the urge to tinker until you get back above $75k or $125k (I rested up until $125, then started planning and was at $140k before I had made decisions). For instance, while re-laying a section of track that was not properly joined, the terrain tool decided to wipe out my power plant, and assorted other industrial tiles (including some landfill), plus buildings all along the edge of the zone (the power plant was 50-75 tiles away, and my terrain tool as a diameter of 1...). Since I always pause the simulation when I do stuff like this, I had time to correct it without losing more then a few hundred population. But the project turned from being a $2k effort into a $20k effort. A smarter mayor would have saved the city just before undertaking such a project (live and learn).
- The 5,000 population mark is a tough hurdle and can bust the budget if not handled properly. This is because getting from 4,500 to 5,500 seems to always require adding additional municipal services (a 2nd clinic for instance) that adds a few hundred in monthly costs to your expenses. In my push to break 5,000 pop., my budget surplus is down to $300/month. Currently, my population is fluctuating at 4,800-5,000. I think I need to go back and tackle the budget problems in River Bend and grow that city tile some more in order to start supporting more growth in Dartmoore.
Jan '21 - 5,000 pop
The cheering sims came running when I built the statue reward for hitting the 5,000 population mark.
Fixing a traffic snarl, cleaning the water
Hmm... I found a hot spot of traffic. Looking at the roads, it seems that I could use another route or two around this hotspot.
My next trick was to install a water treatment plant and watch my water polution levels get cut in half.
Playing with bridges - whoops!
Well, you see, there was this crazy idea to try and build the tallest bridges that I could muster... except, you see, um... SC4 decided to write those changes out to my city's save file so I was unable to roll-back the changes. (I thought I had been very careful, but I might have hit Ctrl-S save instead of Shift-Ctrl-S camera on the last screenshot, which is missing.)
Destruction
So... after goofing up the city with the bridges, I went ahead and did the Obliterate City thing and will restart this city as North Bend. I also did the same to River Bend and will restart that city tile as South Bend. However, I took a bunch more screenshots in order to document where I planned to lay rail lines to Montessa up in the western mountains.
