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Using full user made BAT = shoot yourself in the foot?

Started by mightysword, March 07, 2012, 12:29:13 AM

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mightysword

Hello everyone, I'm having some serious problem running a city using custom made contents. Prior to this I built a city using just stock building, and played it until I hit a pop of 30k with about 25k jobs. I run it pretty tight, and even when feeding the city all it needs, I have a balance 6000/10000, aka a 4000$ surplus. In fact, thing goes so well that I was sitting on a 1.5mil budget at this point. This is not to brag, but just to say I have been playing for years, and know what I'm supposed to do to run a city.

Now, building another generic city can get boring sometime. So I went to SC4D and Simtropolis to check out the mods, and my jaws immediately drop to the ground at the wonders the modders made. So, I set out and get myself everything I need to build a Asian theme city. After a few days I manage to get everything I need ... I think, so I set out to build my city, which is tonight.

- Thing goes well at first, and I did manage to build a beautiful oriental town to my imagination. Again I keep everything tight just like I did with my normal cities.
- Still, I noticed quite early that I'm having a hard time keeping up my budget. My demand are always high so I keep expanding, hoping it will balance out, but then it only got worse.
- Once I hit 30k pop, my balance is already below 50k, at this point I started looking at the problem by comparing to my other city (in the other region). The result is:

+ Same Population
+ 30k jobs as opposed to 25k in the other city.
+ Land value is much higher than other city.

So on paper, this city is actually running much better than my old one. So why is the difference between 1.5 mil surplus and bankruptcy? I look at my tax and immediately know why. My oriental city is giving "600$", yes, six-hundred residential tax  :-[ while my normal city is giving me 4k$. At 30k population, a 600$ tax is as good as non-existence. They both have the same population, classes ($ and $$) , same rate (9%) so what gives?

I started think and make a guess ... could it be because the BAT doesn't have full growth state? (Not that I'm using the Growth version, I never plob down any thing) So I reactive the stock building, starting demolish the oriental one and resize the zone. I lost abour 2k pop doing this, but behold, my tax shoot up to 3500$!!! And that's only replacing like 1/4 of the population so far. Another problem is that my education/health/utilities cost also got cut by about a third using stock building. It also appears to inflate my RCI. Even when a lot of them are screaming for job my Residential demand is still in the air. No joke, but with this being the first city of the region and only at 30k, I can get sky scrapper if I zone high density residential right now, which is ridiculous.  ()what()


So the conclusion is: Growth BAT doesn't have enough yield, doesn't house enough people. And the BATs I'm using are from famous creators like SOMY, NOB ...etc... At this point I start to think these mods might be good to create a little corner of eyes candy but you can't actually support a whole region using just them. But then I have seen people posting about recreating entire region like Tokyo without using any of the stock Maxis building. Am I doing something wrong here? Anyone who have build large and beautiful asian town, can you share me your secret?  :'(


gn_leugim

I fear the problem is that your custom content has a very low "building value", which is subject to your taxes. It is very frequent to see not good values such these, but that as bad as you describe this case.

Also, I can tell you that (maybe) most Asian towns (and others too) you can see on MD are not played the regular way, are just set using cheats to have enough money just to keep laying out the city.

mightysword

awwww, I thought those cities are built the conventional way. I feel like a kid having his childhood's idol destroyed  &ops

I think I can change the value of the building so it's close to the original Maxis value. But I hope I can still build fantastic cities without using cheat. Now I think of it, a lot of the fantastic layout I see doesn't seem very feasible as far as in game goes. (Like a five track parallel rails). I thought there is a secrect behind it. &cry2

gn_leugim

well, sorry to ruin your dream and idols  &mmm

but that is how many people do it. Also, you must have seen many mds with no streets/roads, there almost everything is a landmark plop for example.

But "old fashion" gameplay with custom content is possible ofcorse. I do it ;) so dont get  :'( because you can manage to do it too :)