# Sim City 4: Why the dirty buildings?



## Dave Perry (Feb 24, 2005)

Hey guys,

I gave up on Sim City 4, though I like most things about it, because I couldn't get it to stop generating _lots and lots_ of dirty buildings. And I don't mean a little shop worn, I mean basically looking like they're covered in _soot_. And no, they didn't catch on fire.  I'm a good mayor and get plenty of fire stations out to my people. 

I was convinced that it was punishing me for dirty industry so I moved all the dirty industry into another city and the problem was close to being just as bad. I then switched to all solar power. Still just as bad. If it's just from cars then there's not much you can do about it since you can't build your city with no roads, highways, etc.

Any way to defeat this aggravating little feature?

I'm going to give the game away if I can't get this thing resolved since I only like playing it for the beauty of the graphics and the soot covered buildings kind of defeat that purpose.


----------



## Super-D-38 (Apr 25, 2002)

Uh.. just a guess.
How is your city growth? IE: rich sims or poor sims.

Click the ( ? ) and see if they are inhabited... it sounds to me like it was built big then no one lives there any more.. 

Empty buildings is all I've ever seen in sim city that look "dirty"

Raise taxes on the poor and lower it for the middle/rich that will bring in biger better buildings... I know it sounds harsh but poor people have poor houses.. thats just the way the game is.

Just something to try... Hope it offers some help.


----------



## Skivvywaver (Mar 18, 2001)

Super-D-38 said:


> Uh.. just a guess.
> How is your city growth? IE: rich sims or poor sims.
> 
> Click the ( ? ) and see if they are inhabited... it sounds to me like it was built big then no one lives there any more..
> ...


 Why you dirty rat.  That is terrible. Tax the poor right out of the slum.


----------



## Super-D-38 (Apr 25, 2002)

Right, it works for me..  
Well my game that is..  

Tax the poor to another state!!! :up: 
( still mean the game..  )


----------



## Couriant (Mar 26, 2002)

Yeah, I was going to suggest to find out what type of people you have living there, if you do. In the previous versions of SimCity it usually means either the poor lives there or there is no tenants in the buidings anymore. 

Also check your utilities, making sure that you have power and water going to your buildings. Also a factor would be traffic and pollution, and also school buildings and recreational ones. 

HTH


----------



## Dave Perry (Feb 24, 2005)

So maybe I should zone less residential if they're building buldings that no one lives in. When I stop blowing off time at work and go home  , I'll crank up SC4 again and see what's going on in these dirty buildings.

It also does it to businesses too, and to all manner of buildings, both rich and poor. I've seen it happen within a couple of real time minutes to a brand new high class apartment high rise (in cheetah mode).

Maybe it was happening to the high class buildings because they built them but the rich population was too low. 

Does anyone know what the factors are that cause SC4's sim engine to decide to build a building within a zone? You'd think if it was purely based on demand that the building would stay occupied for a while after being built unless your population suddenly plummets. I've had this happen while my population is either staying steady or slowly rising (I think), and, like I said, it will happen to buildings that have just recently been built. I'll have to follow your suggestion and see if these buildings are vacant when this happens.

Thanks much,
Dave


----------



## Couriant (Mar 26, 2002)

like I said, usually SimCity goes by many factors. If you query the building it will tell you whaats wrong with it

Crime
Water
Fire Hazard
Pollution
Traffic
School for Residential(I think)

Also look for the demand, like if you have 100 commerical zones but only have 10 industrial zones, then the commericals are not getting their demand. Like wise few industrial zones and plenty of residental, there will be a lot of unemployed people.


----------



## Dave Perry (Feb 24, 2005)

Tidus4Yuna said:


> Like wise few industrial zones and plenty of residental, there will be a lot of unemployed people.


That may be it, ironically. I was restricting industrial development because the only thing I could think of was that the industry was causing pollution, so I tried to get only high tech but there are limits to that. It seems odd to me that buildings will spring up when you zone but then remain empty, so I didn't check to see if they were occupied. I will try a more balanced approach to zoning next.

Thanks,
Dave


----------



## Couriant (Mar 26, 2002)

It's a vicious circle 

Usually I do a 3x3 zone for each 'block' I do. So technically each section would be 6x6. But it depends. suppose each letter represents a 3x3: (u is utility of some kind)

u c c u pd i i i i i
c r r c fd
c r r c
u c c u

Like i said you need to find the equbrillium for all three sections. Residental is dependant on commerical and industry, as commerical is dependant on industry and residental, as industrial is dependant on resdential and commerical (and maybe railroad for light industrial (farming) and a seaport for exports)


----------



## Couriant (Mar 26, 2002)

daveyboy said:


> I could think of was that the industry was causing pollution


If I remembger correctly, high density traffic causes pollution (need a railroad or subway or even a bus terminal) and maybe if you don't have water treatment plants.

I forgot to say, when I build heavy industry, i usually place about a 5 square deep filled with trees, to help lower pollution


----------



## Dave Perry (Feb 24, 2005)

Tidus4Yuna said:


> If I remembger correctly, high density traffic causes pollution (need a railroad or subway or even a bus terminal) and maybe if you don't have water treatment plants.
> 
> I forgot to say, when I build heavy industry, i usually place about a 5 square deep filled with trees, to help lower pollution


Thanks for the suggestions.

---daveyboy


----------



## Couriant (Mar 26, 2002)

:up: no problem. Now I need to figure out how to stay out of debt and I have an awesome city


----------



## Super-D-38 (Apr 25, 2002)

Debt,.... ha same here. I get so involved in building I run out of money befor I even get 5000 people.

So I just cheat with a trainer, I know thats not playing the game right, but hey the extra money is real nice.

I would also recomend the "Rush Hour" add on. It gives you more road choices and it seems they are easyer to build. Plus the fun driving missions.

I've also noticed with the add on you get rewards faster.. Like if you do two train missions it will give you a space shuttle launcher... 

Glad we could be of service.. Happy Siming!


----------



## Dave Perry (Feb 24, 2005)

Tidus4Yuna said:


> :up: no problem. Now I need to figure out how to stay out of debt and I have an awesome city


I had one city that just took off and never looked back and I still haven't figured out what I was doing right. There was all this investment and I ended up with over 1,000,000 simolians and not even enough space to spend all my cold cash. 

I think it was a success in large part because it was small and so I didn't put too much money into zoning, roads, etc. Just built a highway interchange and connected to some neighboring cities. Then I had money to quickly build a university and big hospitals, put in tourist attractions, etc., and it kind of snowballed form there.

I think starting small and then connecting quickly to other cities is one of the keys to staying out of debt, though I've found that the actual exchange between one city square and adjacent ones is kind of unpredictable.

The big land areas are the hardest to make successful, but only if you try to think big too quickly.

One of the things that irritates me about this program is that they give these awesome terraforming tools but then the land areas are so small that you can't put too many mountains, canyons, lakes, etc. or there's not enough area to grow the city.


----------



## Dave Perry (Feb 24, 2005)

Oh, by the way, it was in fact that those buildings were empty that was making them dirty, in many cases they were highrises that were totally vacant.

It's kind of confusing, though, because the residential demand bar always stays pretty high, so I keep zoning residential and there is quickly development there, but then no one moves in, so I'm kind of clueless about that, but I guess maybe it's building for the wrong income levels in terms of demand. That's what I don't like about those demand bars---they are not specific enough. For instance, if you raise taxes on dirty industry, the industry demand bar goes to, like, negative 100  , but there may still be manufacturing and high tech moving in.

I wish it would only build buildings which correspond directly to demand, and not build any if they are not going to be occupied.


----------



## Couriant (Mar 26, 2002)

are you sure that you are reading the demand bar correctly?


----------



## Dave Perry (Feb 24, 2005)

Tidus4Yuna said:


> are you sure that you are reading the demand bar correctly?


What do you mean?

I said demand bar doesn't divide demand into income levels. Is there a way to do that I don't know about?


----------



## Couriant (Mar 26, 2002)

If its the same as SC3K, then the top represents in demand, lower half, no demand. Unless they changed it...


----------



## Dave Perry (Feb 24, 2005)

Tidus4Yuna said:


> If its the same as SC3K, then the top represents in demand, lower half, no demand. Unless they changed it...


I'm breaking it down beyond that. "Industrial" as a catch-all (since there's only one bar on the graph for industrial demand) doesn't distinguish between "high-tech", "manufacturing", etc. Same with different income groups in residential, etc.

If there was a separate bar representing demand for high wealth housing, middle wealth housing, and low wealth housing, it would be easier to tell what kind of residents were likely to move in (high, middle, or low). There is no way to tell that based on the demand graph, so you just have to wait and see who is moving in and who isn't, which makes it hard to plan ahead and much of making Sim City work seems to be about being able to plan ahead so you don't spend money that just goes to waste.

Same thing with the three divisions of industrial, and the three divisions of commercial demand. You have to wait and see how they break down as the game progresses.

Example: you can have heavy low wealth residential demand, and nonexistent high wealth residential demand, and the demand bar for residential will still just read as "high demand", even though no high wealth residential people want to move into your neighborhoods.


----------



## Couriant (Mar 26, 2002)

it usually doesn't matter about the zones... just the demand of the zone. One thing to keep in mind is that the higher the land value, the denser the zone should be (for residental and commerical), and thats usually in the middle of the map and on the coastline


----------



## Dave Perry (Feb 24, 2005)

Tidus4Yuna said:


> One thing to keep in mind is that the higher the land value, the denser the zone should be (for residental and commerical), and thats usually in the middle of the map and on the coastline


Interesting factoid, thanks.


----------



## Couriant (Mar 26, 2002)

Let me rephraze, I meant to say in the middle of the city, but ultimatley it will be in the centre of the map if the whole map is covered. The coast lines are 99% of the time very high land value.

I miss playing SimCity... might need to install it


----------

