SimCity 406: Measurement and the Simeter

If I asked you to build me a shed out of wood without using a ruler, you'd think I was batty. And you certainly wouldn't stand inside the thing for fear it would kill you. The game mechanics of SimCity 5 do not provide a ruler. How, then, are we supposed to build our cities? How big is a city site in SimCity 5 anyway? How do we measure such things? Can we ever say, "make your road thirty foot/meters/whatever long?"

Well, that's a complicated question to be sure. Any attempt to measure space in your city site requires us to compare something in real life to something in the game. The word from Maxis/the Internet is that the cities in SimCity 5 are exactly 2km by 2km. That equals four square km or 1.544 square miles. So I decided to test that. How, may you ask? I got tricky.

Traditionally, we measure things by using rulers. However, when a ruler is unavailable, we use landmarks. There are many landmarks in the game that represent real buildings and structures. I combed through all of them until I found one that was perfect for the job: The Sears Tower (it's not the Willis Tower, ask anyone from Chicago).

From SimCity to Reality

The Sears Tower in real life is 229 feet x 229 feet at the base of the building. What I did was ring the building with dirt road, leaving part of the road unconnected. I took the above photograph to show you exactly what I did. I then completed that road again using dirt road. This cost me 147s.

Now I know the gap in the road is 147s long and -- when I crunched the numbers -- I discovered that if the edge of the Sears Tower is supposed to be 229 feet, then the missing section of road was 252 feet.

So 252 feet of dirt road costs 147s. Easy-peasy. That's just over one and a half feet per simoleon.

So to get the size of the entire map, I simply ran a dirt road from one edge of the map to the other. I came up with 4,037s in dirt road. That works out to 6,288 feet -- roughly 1.2 miles. Since it's the same high as it is wide, that's 1.44 square miles for the Clearwater city site.

How Big is Clearwater?

The 1.44 square miles of Clearwater is not the 1.54 that Maxis was telling us about. But here's why. It turns out that Clearwater is not the same size as most of the other maps. The other maps ARE 1.54 and Clearwater just happens to be slightly smaller. I suspect this has something to do with why it was the board of choice for the beta test.

But back to the question. How big is 1.44 square miles? In Oregon, there is a town called Phoenix -- population 4,538. It is exactly 1.44 square miles.

If that's too vague a comparison, here's another: Central Park, in NYC, is 1.317 sq mi. Clearwater is just slightly larger than Central Park.

For what it's worth -- since I happen to be something of an expert on such things -- Clearwater is also five times the size of an Xbox Minecraft seed.

Introducing: The Simeter

I conducted an experiment in which I set up a city and spaced the streets apart by varying distances. The first two streets were 50 simoleon of dirt road apart, the next two 100s of dirt road apart, 150s, 200s, and so on. I then zoned the streets in residential, commercial, and industrial -- then ran the city to see how the zones developed.

The streets that were 250 simoleons of dirt road apart were the perfect distance for low-density buildings in all three zones. The buildings in this range abutted each other perfectly leaving no wasted space.

As for medium- and high-denisty buildings, we're going to have to wait on that until I can get back into my city -- the server shut down.

Between now and then, I propose to you the following idea. It's called the simeter (SIM + METER). It's very simple. Using roads and how much they cost to lay, we can measure our cities and generate quality building standards that will allow us to create amazing designs and efficient grids that will propel us to the top of the leaderboard.

While I am interested in the medium- and high- density results (I'll be revisiting this topic again soon), I feel confident that 200 simoleons worth of dirt road (the same as 400s of low-density road, 800s of medium-density road, etc) should be a standard simeter. If your grid is laid out in rectangles that are 1 simeter wide by however long you want them to be, your RCI buildings will be as packed in at the start as they can possibly be.

Elevation

Changes in elevation disrupt the process of measuring perfect grid cities unless you're willing to do that math. I was able to work out the numbers for Clearwater because that city site has no hills or cliffs. If I had tried the same in Norwich Hills, to compensate for the ramps and cliffs, I'd have needed to know how high they were and there's no way to know that...

or IS there?

SimCity 208: Pollution Planning

Pollution occurs when our quest for more money comes at the expense of common sense. Having people live two blocks downwind of a coal burning power plant is going to cause problems for everyone involved. But the positioning of those two entities may make some kind of financial sense that can cloud your judgement in the moment and cost you in the long run.

So combating pollution is about two things: planning ahead to anticipate future problems and ignoring shortcuts in time or money that might tempt you into abandoning your well laid plans.

Types of Pollution

There are several types of pollution -- some of which you may never have considered. They are as follows:

• Water Pollution
• Air Pollution
• Ground Pollution
• Value Pollution
• Time Pollution

Preventing Water Pollution

Once water is contaminated, only a water filter can clean it. So the object is to prevent water pollution in the first place. From the very first road you place, you should have a view of the water table and anticipate how industrial zones, sewage outlet pipes, and power plants will contribute to contamination and how far that contamination will spread. Then, build accordingly.

Clearing Air Pollution

The air we breathe is essential for life in the same way as water and food. The number one source of air pollution in your city starts out as factories but will promptly be dwarfed by the smog pouring out of the back of people's cars. Your best defense against poor air quality is a mass transit system that is easy, convenient, and planned around stops at key strategic areas.

Stamping Out Ground Pollution

Industrial zones and garbage dumps are the two chief causes of ground pollution. Theoretically, you can burn your garbage and pull in recycling to solve that problem after the fact, so don't worry about that one. Instead, focus on industrial zones as they will be laid out at the start of your game. Spread out your industrial zones as much as you can. Sprinkle them around the board and place other zones like low-wealth residential and parks in between to break up the smog.

Understanding Value Pollution

When you plop down a park and upgrade a neighborhood to mansions, that's an almost immediate example of positive land value. But it's still value pollution because now there is less space for poor people to live. By definition, pollution is an exchange of something you want for a side effect you probably didn't see and certainly don't want. A factory produces crates of goods that will someday become money but belches smoke that will someday kill the workers, neighbors, and probably the guy who owns the joint.

Value pollution occurs anytime you don't consider the downside of increasing the value of something. For instance, cramming your downtown with rich and famous people will dramatically increase traffic and drown your streets in gridlock. Why? Because rich people don't take buses or street cars. And they certainly don't walk places. That just leaves cars. Adding parks to your downtown area will increase traffic.

Preventing this is about designing a city in pockets. As early in the game as you can, identify where you want your rich folks, where you want your poor folks. Keep the rich near the highway to limit their smog and keep them out of the downtown area -- which should be all middle-class. For the poor people, make sure there are bus stations nearby and that you don't put any bus stops in rich neighborhoods as this will be a waste of time, gas, and planning.

Combating Time Pollution

Time stuck in traffic. Time waiting for a bus. Time looking for a medical building to cure a sliced forehead. Everyday -- at every fraction of every second -- your citizens spend their time doing one of two things: either spending their time richly or spending their time poorly.

As mayor, you contribute to time expenditure in ways you may have not considered. Every traffic light is time that could be better spent doing something else. So limit your intersections by having long streets. Cramming industrial zones in to a corner downwind of people's homes is perfect planning -- unless there's no direct road laid to get to that corner. Then you have people snaking their way through your city to get to work. Every day.

The question you should always be asking is: how can I help my citizens do what they do -- only faster. Then, build roads, bus stations, rezone, and re-plop as necessary.

SimCity 205: Industrial Planning

Mousing over the information button on the zoning HUD will give you the following tips on industrial zoning:

• Zone industrial to attract factories
• Factories provide jobs and make freight
• Factories ship freight to shops, trade depots, trade ports, and cargo terminals at airports
• If a factory can't ship enough freight, it will go abandoned

Industrial zoning is one of the easiest aspects of the game. Though handling pollution can become a problem if you don't take that into consideration while planning your city, all other aspects of industrial development are handled by the Sims.

Jobs

Your low-wealth residents will need places to work so they can live off the money they make and industrial zones fit the bill. Industrial zones will flourish when they have an adequate population of low-education, low-wealth residents. In return, they pump money into the local economy and that money generates happiness and, of course, tax revenue that you as mayor can use to expand and grow your city.

Freight

The movement of goods is, in and of itself, an industry that generates tax revenue. Installing airports, sea ports, trade depots, and other freight-movement ploppables will greatly increase the effectiveness of your industrial zones.

Abandonment and Crime

One of the key problems with industrial zones is that they are a magnet for crime. The dirt and low-wealth nature of these businesses -- not to mention that they are generally unoccupied at night -- makes them prime targets for thieves and arsonists. If an industrial factory goes under and the building sits abandoned, this is an even more tempting target for kids who like to play with matches. Stay vigilant when hunting for abandoned buildings so that your fire department doesn't have it's hands full.

SimCity 204: Commercial Planning

Mousing over the information button on the zoning HUD will give you the following tips on commercial zoning:

• Zone commercial to attract shops
• Shops create jobs
• Shops sell goods to shoppers and tourists
• Higher wealth shops cater to higher wealth customers
• If a shop can't sell enough goods, it will go abandoned

So commercial zoning is about four things:

Jobs

The people who live in your town need places to work. The have two choices: commercial zones and industrial zones. It's the combination of the two that provide a wide array of money options and maximize your city's operating revenue.

Happiness

Happiness is provided by parks and purchases -- namely trips to Simkea and Sim, Bath, and Beyond. In this way, residential and commercial zones feed off of each other, so you want to keep them near to one another. Ideally, you want to interlace them together to minimize traffic. In addition, neither zone pollutes. So if you segregate your RC neighborhoods away from your industrial, you can prevent illness: a key source of unhappiness.

Boutiques

Catering to the rich and famous, upscale boutiques are the first step in advancing toward skyscrapers. This crucial first step is accomplished by placing parks near low-density commercial zones. This will increase their land value, encourage the construction of boutiques, and then attract high-wealth Sims to your city.

Abandonment

If a shop goes abandoned, you need to remember to demolish it so it doesn't become a haven for crime and firebugs.

SimCity 203: Residential Planning

Mousing over the information button on the zoning HUD will give you the following tips on residential zoning:

• Zone residential to attract houses.
• Residents (workers, shoppers, and kids) live in houses.
• Workers earn money at factories and shops.
• Shoppers spend money at shops to buy happiness.
• Build parks and services to attract wealthy houses.
• If a building can't pay rent, it will go abandoned.
• When Sims abandon their homes, they become homeless if they have no money. Otherwise, they leave town.
• Mid- and high-wealth Sims leave town when they abandon their home.

So residential zoning is about four things:

Establishing a Citizenry

Especially important at the beginning of the game, your primary task when zoning residential is to give that first wave of citizens a place to live. The first wave is actually quite demanding. About half of them want to live as close to the factories as possible so they don't have to commute too far to work. The second half want to live as far from the factories as possible because they are wealthy enough to commute.

Given a clean board with only a single huge factory (powered and watered) right at the base of the exit ramp from the highway, if you do nothing else but extend the medium-density boulevard that attaches to the exit ramp all the way across the board and line it with residential zoning, about half of your people will cram themselves in right next to the factory/ramp and the other half will shoot across the board to start their new lives as far away from the riffraff as possible.

Now, I did that just as an experiment; that would actually be a horrible way to begin your game. But the point is clear. Given two types of residential citizens, when you plan your city, you're going to want a high-density, low-wealth neighborhood near the factories and a low-density, high-wealth neighborhood far away from the factories.

This works best if they are cattycorner.

Generating Wealth and Happiness

Wealth is generated by plopping down parks in areas where you want to gentrify the buildings. It doesn't get any more complicated than that.

Slightly more taxing, happiness is an incredibly complex task based entirely on minimizing the things that annoy your Sims (crime, fires, illness, sewage, power outages, garbage, etc.) while simultaneously maintaining enough commercial property to satisfy their unquenchable lust for baubles.

Two rules of thumb when trying to make your citizens happy: have at least one of everything (garbage dump, power station, fire department, etc) and make sure you don't see any blue in the zoning demand indicator at the bottom of the screen.

Balancing Low-, Middle-, and Upper-class Populations

If you have a city with all super-wealthy mansions, that's not a bad thing. If you have a city with all lower-class row homes and slum apartments, that's not necessarily a bad thing either. The reason is because super-wealth citizens can take the highway (or train) to go work in other cities, so you could conceivably have a city just dedicated to mansion storage and rake in big money on residential taxes. You can also have a ghetto slum area full of factories for the reverse reason.

But -- if yours is the only city in the region, you are forced to balance your city to accommodate both high- and low-class citizens. Failure to do so will result in severely stunted growth. The key to ending this problem before it begins is planning, and here's how:

Manipulating Property Values to Generate Revenue

Pick a corner. In that corner, you want one residential neighborhood -- one tight little packet of low-density streets -- abutted with many parks. You will christen that neighborhood the home of the filthy rich and plop a police station at the entrance.

Then, you can shift your focus to the rest of the map and the task of satisfying the needs of your low-class citizens -- who will need everything from grade schools to cops.

If you fail to give wealthy citizens a place to call their own -- forcing them to intermingle -- you will increase your workload exponentially and risk driving them out of your city and away from your skyscrapers (not to mention your coffers).