SimCity 2.0 Patch Released!

Hello mayors!

I am so happy to announce that SimCity 2.0 update is released! At the moment (21:26 GMT -1hr), login is currently disabled whilst servers are being updated and patched.

Community Manager Michael Donahoe said:

We have an update for you, Mayors. An update about our next Update, in fact – this Monday, April 22 starting at 1pm PST we’ll be releasing Update 2.0, which contains a number of top-requested bug fixes and improvements. Here’s the full list of changes included in the Update:

What’s New

• Mayors Mansion: Mayors will now drive their fancy cars to work. Mayors will take their helicopter, limo, or sports car if the modules are present.
• HUD: Now color-corrects when in a colorblind mode.
• Data map: Data maps show the filtered color when a color filter is enabled (unless in a colorblind mode)

Fixes and Updates

• Cities not Processing: Mitigates some of the issues that were causing cities not to process. We are continuing to work on and improve this issue.
• Region Filters: Now sorts regions with available cities to the top.
• Invitations: Invitations to join a region should be sent and received more quickly.
• Tourism: Fixes for unexplained fluctuation of tourists. Tourists more smartly counted on transit.
• Cruise ships are now more effective at bringing medium and high wealth tourists in coastal cities.
• New tourists will now decide to come into a city once leaving tourists reach train stations, bus depots, or cruise ship docs instead of waiting for those tourists to go out to the region first.
• This change will reduce the downtime of tourist buildings.
• Casinos: Casinos tuned so that Gambling will be a more profitable specialty. Players can bulldoze and replace existing casinos to see effects of tuning.
• The larger casinos now invite more tourists into the city which helps keep them full.
• Note that existing casinos will need to be replaced to take advantage of this change.
• More Casinos: Raised module limit on Sci-Fi and Sleek Casinos to 6 modules.
• Region Play: Cash gifts can now be received in a bankrupt city.
• Education: Fixed school buses getting stuck at the high school. Existing Schools will fix themselves.
• Education: Fixed school buses picking up students at neighboring cities that didn’t have school bus stops.
• Education: Fix to more accurately track regional student population.
• Education: Fix where kids leaving the school bus stop would teleport to the nearest pedestrian path instead of walking directly into the school.
• Education: University wings now give the proper bonus.
• Recycling: Fix for the Recycling Center where it would sometimes stop working, recycling services will visit other cities.
• Air pollution: Fixed issue where air pollution would appear to come from nowhere. Fix issues where your regional air pollution would be reflected back into your box for a double penalty.
• Fire Service: Fire Trucks don’t clump, dispatch to fires more efficiently.
• Water: Water pumps are now capable of pumping water from rivers at a larger radius so they can take better advantage of the water table in a city.
• Disasters: Cooldown for random disasters: Some players were getting hit too frequently with random disasters, this introduces a cooldown where no random disasters will occur.
• Trade: Fix for trade ports that suddenly stop shipping.
• Transit: Street Cars and Buses go to high volume stops first.
• Transit: A city with residents and public transit will now provide the accurate amount of workers and shoppers to its neighbors.
• Transit: A transit vehicle stuck in a pick-up or drop off loop will now go back to a garage instead of trying to pick up more people.
• Transit vehicles should recover automatically after the update. If players want to force the recovery, turn off the stops that are having looping issues, wait a few game hours, then turn them back on.
• Transit: Neighbors buses will now come in lower numbers into the city and do a better job at picking up local passengers first.
• Residential Tuning: Residential-only cities have failure state.
• Buildings are prevented from going up in density when they don’t have power or water.
• The amount of happiness gained from low taxes, police, fire, and health outreach has been lowered.
• Fixed some cases where buildings would not go abandoned when they should have.
• Higher density residential buildings are no longer blocked from going abandoned due to not having enough money.
• Happiness from low taxes does not double up every time it is given.
• Losing happiness due to not having a job is more impactful.
• Budgets: Fixed bug that prevented systems like fire, abandonment, garbage, and sewage from turning on when they were supposed to.
• Audio: Fixes issue where audio will stop working after creating a large city or where phantom audio sounds play in a city.
• Demolish: Fixes issue that occurred when players demolished buildings that had service vehicles, delivery vehicles, or agents out in the city or region. Previously, the agents would be in a state of limbo and would not recover when new buildings of that type were placed. This will no longer happen.

Because this is our first significant Update, we wanted to inform you in advance that we’ll be taking down all servers for a few hours while these changes are being issued. Choosing a time to issue a major Update is never easy, but after looking our peak player time, we’ve concluded 1pm PST is the best window for us to make these improvements. As you can see from the list above, the wait will be worth it.

Thanks, Mayors!

Now that this patch is released, there will be many more articles to come! If you haven't already, sign up for our forum!

I cannot wait to play SimCity with these major bugs fixed!
Keep reading!
~JMR 

2.0 is coming on the 22nd & forums are back!

Greetings mayors,

Today, I have 2 great announcements!

2.0 is coming on the 22nd! View all the details here: http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/0/9453148.page
To see what is currently in development, go here:
http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9437292.page


Also the forums are now back! Click here to go to the forums.

Now that a great deal of fixes have been done, you'll be seeing more of me!

~JMR

Bridge... Madness?

Hello mayors.

I was experimenting with roads, I thought I should share you what I ended up with.

Interesting huh?

I will post more as I experiment with roads more.
~JMR

More fixes on the way!

Greetings mayors.
Just a short news update.

Many of us have been experiencing these many, horrific bugs. The worst of them being loss of work. When your city crashes and fails to process, or when a roll back happens, causing you to loose many hours of hard work.

Well keep your hopes up! SimCity senior producer Kip Katsarelis, just did an update on the official SimCity website on what state they are at, as far as fixes are concerned.

"Keep in mind, if you don’t see a particular fix present in an Update, this doesn’t mean we’re not working on it, or we’re not aware of it. Our team is constantly getting reports about the top issues being raised and this is helping us prioritize what we need to address."

said Kip as he emphises how hard the team are working.

Kip also mentions the team working hard, heads-down to bring cheetah speed and the leaderboards back as well as many other issues.

Want do you want most? I personally can't wait to see no more city crashes and loss of data.

I recommend you check it out, I read it just after experiencing loss of work myself. I found it refreshing to know that the team at EA are hard at work, right now. So go ahead, click here and refresh yourself, more fixes are soon to come!

This was just a short update, to let you know that more fixes are coming.

Thanks for reading mayors,
~JMR

How freight works - Understanding industry

Hello there mayors!

I have learnt a lot in the past week. I thought I'd share with you in how freight works. How to make sure freight gets shipped correctly and why freight shipments are important.

Freight is produced by industrial zones. This freight is then shipped to commercial zones and also shipped outside of your city. Freight shipments to commercial zones is not a must, but however, does provide more profit to your industry.

Industry also, is not a must, but is capable of providing a nice income.

Freight shipments make your industry money, no freight shipments = no industrial income. Commercial zones sell the freight you produce.

So better industry = more freight  = more commercial zones wanted = more profit. Simple.

Freight icon graphic by JordanMRichards

So how do you get better industry? Well, industry is based off a few things, I will explain them and how you can improve on them.

Tech level

- Build more schools | libraries and try to increase the amount of sims that enroll.

• School

  - Max-Tech level: 1 

• High-School

 - Max-Tech level: 1 

• Community College

 - Max-Tech level: 2 

• University

 - Max-Tech level: 3 

How many available places to ship freight

-  You could build an airport and place the cargo terminal extension

- You could build a trade port and place the freight shipping warehouse and ship freight via rail (freight rail terminal) or by ocean (cargo ship dock)

- You can also build a trade depot, but it will only be shipped by road.

- You could zone more commercial
- There are also specialization buildings that freight can be shipped to.

How freight is shipped

- All depends on traffic.

I try to separate my residential traffic from my freight shipments|worker traffic.

Hint: they will always take the shortest route, if that route is highly congested, they will take the next least-congested shortest route.

Density - Workers' Happiness

- Density of industrial zones are based off the workers' happiness. 

To make the industrial workers happy, they want enough places to ship their freight, as explained above.

Here's what your industry workers care about generally in the day:

- They want to get to work on time

- They want to produce and ship the freight they have made to a location

- They want to finish shipping all their freight before the end of the day

- They want to arrive home at least for a few seconds before the next day starts.

 If you accomplish all of these things, your density will shoot up & you won't find many industry building being abandoned.

If your industry is high tech though, they will want skilled workers, if they don't get enough skilled workers, they density can fall and if you leave them moaning for too long, the industry building will get abandoned.

To make it easier to understand, I spent a while making this algorithm illustration. (Click for larger|easier viewing)

Success
- Potential upgrade in the density of the industrial building
- Potential increase to sims' happiness.
- Potential increase in hourly industry profits.

Ok
- Potential decrease of sims' happiness
- Potential decrease of  hourly industry profits
- Things may stay as they were from the day before

Bad
- Definite decrease of sims' happiness
- Potential abandonment of building
- Definite mid|minor decrease in hourly industry profits.

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, you should visit our forums.

~JMR

3/22/2013 Patch Notes! 1.8

Greetings Mayors! Our governmental body (EA) has passed a bit of legislation in attempt to make our lives easier. 

General 
Police station can no longer hold more prisoners than the capacity.
Added missing roof texture for certain commercial building.
Added completion moment cinematic for Great Works.
Visiting police cars have avatar of neighbor above them.
Arcology Population reflects the population of the Arcology, not the city.
Fixed a clog in the pipes where sewage would sometimes get backed up and act jittery.
Region Wall will pop up when a new chat message has been received.


Road Improvements 
Improvements to cases when connecting a new road to an existing road that goes over uneven terrain.
Tuned some of the road snapping priorities to address some edge cases where it wasn’t behaving as desired
Fixed a case where a new road would sometimes cause an existing road to change its shape drastically.
Made Upgrade Roads mini-tutorial appear at appropriate time.
Fix to four lane bridge to improve divider line placement.


Text Improvements 
Clarified alerts about residents not moving in because of high taxes to state if it is residents, commercial businesses, or Industry that won't move in because of high taxes.
Improved text and icons on cities in region view.
Updated text for "Become a Suburban City" mission to improve clarity.
Updated requirements text for HazMat garage for clarity.

Frenzytoast's Thoughts
The EA Government is definitely trying to improve the way our cities function but there are still a few issues that need addressed to allow certain city specializations to function better. There is a major issue with Recycling Plants. It seems that if they reach 20/20 tons of recyclables they will freeze up and stop processing recyclables altogether. 

What results from this is a plant costing 2,900/hr (fully upgraded) and a city complaining about trash/recyclables piling up. It also causes a major break in production of processors/televisions/computers unless the city map has an abundance of oil/ore/coal. 

Traffic is also still behaving irrationally. I've watched a car change lanes 4 times before going straight through the intersection. 

I don't mean to sound ungrateful for the changes that are being worked on and I do want to praise EA for frequent patching.
They have been releasing patches every 2-4 days which shows they are diligently working at improving our world.

Keep it up EA, we can't wait to see what you do next. 

The solution to an endless supply of water!

Ground gone dry? Desperate for water? The solution to an endless supply of water!

Hello mayors,

Just thought I'd post this quick tip. As it has helped me and my cities a lot.

Have you got to that point where your water pumps have taken the last drop from the ground? Have you got to that point where the tap icon keeps going yellow, explaining that the ground is going try?

Well I know I have, quite a few times and well, it's very annoying! But not as annoying, when you know the solution to getting, basically an endless supply of water.

The trick - SEWAGE TREATMENT PLANT:

Yes, yes, yes, I said it. All that poop can be worth something.

Plop a sewage treatment plant. Then give it some time. Next open up the water data layer. You'll notice that there is a patch of water right where the sewage treatment plant is! Fresh clean water!

The reason of this is because, when the treatment plant, treats the sewage - it lets of fresh clean water into the ground. Because of this, you can easily just plop a water pump right next to it.

& There you have it, an endless supply of water. But bare in mind, you need to keep that plant going and enough people going to the toilet! Maybe some commercial curry shops near by will h... Anyway.

Thanks for reading!

The long way - waiting for rain

You could wait for it to rain, which does fill the ground back with water. But I don't think this is a reliable way to make sure that your cities water supply is under control. Unless of course, you had H.A.A.R.P in your city.

~JMR

Detailed Building Info: Jobs and Other Bonuses

Many Mayors don't realize that the different buildings provide not only public services but they also create jobs and in some cases provide housing and freight orders.

Remember, with freight orders your industry creates the freight and your commercial/placed buildings will consume the freight.
Something to consider: If your commercial is complaining about not having enough shoppers, it may be that there are plenty of shoppers available.

Instead of generating more shoppers, try to make sure that all the freight orders for your city are being fulfilled.
This theory is based off of the question, "How can a shop have shoppers if they have nothing to sell?"

Below is a list of the SimCity buildings that provide jobs:
The numbers inside the *( )* correspond to wealth levels
(Low wealth/Mid wealth/High wealth)

Unless Mentioned Otherwise, any extra addons for buildings (Buses, Departments, Extra Classrooms etc) Do Not provide additional Jobs.

Power Plants:
Wind Power plant: (20/6/0)
Coal Power Plant: (20/6/0) Creates 1080 Freight Orders
Oil Power Plant: (40/12/4) Creates 1080 Freight Orders
Solar Power: (20/4/0/)
Nuclear Power Plant: (200/600/240) Creates 4320 Freight Orders

Water Utilities:
Water Towers: (0/0/0)
Water Pumping Station: (80/40/12)

Sewage:
Sewage Outflow Pipe: (0/0/0)
Sewage Treatment Plant: (140/20/12)

Government:
City Hall: (40/20/8)
Mayors House: (6/4/2)
Mayors Mansion (15/10/2)

Waste Disposal:
Garbage Dump:(20/6/0)
Recycling Plant: (100/40/12)

Fire:
Fire Station: (20/6/0)
Large Fire Station: (140/20/12)

Health: Clinic: (12/8/4)
Hospital: (40/20/8)

Police:
Police Station: (10/4/0)
Police Precinct: (60/16/0/)

Education:
Grade School (40/10/0)
Bus Stops: (0/0/0)
High School: (320/100/40)
Public Library (10/3/0)
Community College (40/10/0)
University (320/100/40)

Transportation:

Buses: Shuttle Bus Depot: (20/4/0)
Park and Ride (0/0/0)
Bus Terminal: (60/16/0)

Streetcars:
Streetcar Depot: (60/16/0)
Passenger Train Station: (40/20/8)
Ferry Terminal: (60/16/0)
Municipal Airport: (40/20/8) Each Cargo Terminal generates 1080 freight orders

Parks:
All Parks provide (5/2/0)

Specializations:

Mining:
Coal Mine (140/20/12)Creates 1080 Freight Orders
Ore Mine (140/20/12) Creates 1080 Freight Orders
Metals HQ (600/100/10)
Smelting Factory (1400/200/20) Creates 4320 Freight Orders
Advanced Coal Mine (1400/200/20) Creates 4320 Freight Orders

Drilling:
Oil Well: (80/40/12)
Petroleum HQ: (400/200/70)
Oil Refinery: (800/400/130) Creates 4320 Freight Orders

Trading:
Trade Depot: (20/6/0)
Creates 1080 Freight Orders with the Freight Shipping Warehouse it comes with
*Additional Freight Shipping Warehouses will create an additional 1080 Freight Orders EACH*
Trade HQ: (400/200/70)
Trade Port: (40/12/4)
Creates 4320 Freight Orders with the Freight Shipping Warehouse it comes with
*Additional Freight Shipping Warehouses will create an additional 4320 Freight Orders EACH*

Electronics:
Processor Factory: (20/60/12) Creates 1080 Freight Orders
Electronics HQ (200/300/120)
Consumer Electronics Factory: (200/600/240) Creates 4320 Freight Orders

Culture:
Expo Center: (40/20/80) Creates 1080 Freight Orders
Pro Stadium: (400/200/70) Creates 4320 Freight Orders
Arc De Triumphe: (20/0/0)
Cinquantenaire: (40/20/0)
Dutch Windmill (10/4/0)
Edificio Copan (0/0/0) No jobs but provides housing for 2,650 population
Empire State Building: (400/200/70) [u]1440 Freight Orders
Giralda: (40/20/0)
Globe Theatre: (40/20/8) Creates 24 Freight Orders
Kolner Dom: (10/4/0)
Leaning tower of Pisa (10/4/0)
Oslo Opera: (40/20/8) Creates 24 Freight Orders
Rundentarn: (40/20/8)
Statue of Liberty: (40/20/0)
Basil's Cathedral: (10/4/0)
Stockholm City Hall: (26/24/16) Creates 1440 Freight Orders
Sidneys Opera House: (40/20/8)
Tokyo Tower: (40/20/0)
Washington Monument: (10/4/0)
Zamek Krolewski w Warzanie: (10/4/0)
Willis Tower (300/300/120) Creates 1440 Freight Orders

Gambling:
Gambling House: (120/32/0)
Gambling HQ: (200/300/120)
Sci-Fi Casino: (600/100/10)
Sleek Casino: (400/200/70)
Elegant Casino: (200/300/120)

RCI Gauges Explained!

Hello, I am frenzytoast, co-author to this blog :)

It seems many SimCity players are trying to find a balance between RCI. Unfortunately its NOT so simple to say take 3 parts residential, 2 parts commercial and 1 parts industry for a balanced city.

SimCity 2013's use of street density and wealth levels can make balancing a city difficult. Below are the conclusions I've come to based on experimenting in sandbox mode.

  **RCI Gage Explained** 

The RCI gauges will rise and fall depending on the information that is present under the Population Panel.
The Residential gauge will increase if there are jobs available for those wealth levels.
The Commercial gauge will increase if there are shoppers of that wealth class that are unsatisfied.
The Industrial gauge will increase if there are unfilled freight orders coming from the commercial zones.

***Be aware that there are certain buildings (Example: Power Plants and Specialization Buildings) that also create freight orders***

A note on the Details Panel found under the population Panel: Many SimCity players have been wondering what the Total Freight Orders and Unfulfilled Freight Orders relate to as its not really explained. Basically, commercial zones are what causes the Total Freight Orders number to rise. The Unfulfilled Freight orders is then the amount of commercial buildings that are not receiving freight.

***These two numbers are what causes the Industrial Demand gauge to rise.***

 A final note on RCI Gauges. The amount that each individual bar increases for wealth levels is a bit off. With 6 standard city blocks of dirt road zoned with commercial, I have 290 low wealth jobs, 116 mid wealth jobs and 0 high wealth jobs. Yet when I look at the gauges, they are filled with the exact amount despite the difference of actual demand for low and mid wealth workers.
These seem to be the only factors that affect these gauges. Beyond that, it seems that they can generally be ignored for the duration of any game.

If Residential demand is high, either cut back on commercial/industry to reduce the number of available jobs or provide more residential zones/workers.
If Commercial is high, provide more shops for your residents or remove residential zones.
If Industrial is high, provide more Industry to fulfill the freight orders from present commercial or cut back on commercial.

**The Industrial gauge will generally be full if there are 1000+ unfulfilled freight orders**

 ~Frenzytoast

Our forums are here!

Hello everyone!

Check out our new forums! Why not register an account?
http://scjmr.blogspot.co.uk/p/forum.html

I spent a lot of time and effort to it, so I appreciate it. :)

Hello everyone! Welcome to a community of passionate, ambitious mayors, who all like to have fun! Feel free to discuss anything and everything related to SimCity here.

Want to be promoted to an ambassador mayor? Advertise this forum in your signature at any other forums you visit. Then message me with a link to that forum profile and I'll promote you.

Can't wait to see this place bursting with discussion.  :D

Thanks mayors! :D

A dead city - the key to revival

Hello mayors.

I have witnessed many people hitting a dead state in their city where they are loosing masses of money from services and operating costs. In the end, the city becomes dead, people move out and everything begins to go down hill. Just as things were seeming perfect, too!

I myself, have come across this issue. So I thought I'd share with you, tips on things that helped me getting started back up. Reviving my dead city.

---

Things to do to get your income in balance.

I have made the following to-do list, so you can visit here and check-box things to do when your city goes dead. Mostly aimed at cities where the income is at a big downfall. Even if you have loads of Simmons  it's the future direction of your city that is important, so that means your hourly income is too.

Turn off least important services
- I find that there are peaks to which services sims want most. For example, if there is a flu going around, it is good to keep a hospital running, Etc. But there are also those services, that aren't always needed for a particular amount of time. A good way to check if it's worth paying this much for that service, is to click on that plopabble, and see how it's doing. Like clicking on a hospital and seeing how many patients are being treated there.
Turn off parks
- Depending on how dead your city is, large parks can eat into your income. Don't worry about land value for now, you can turn the parks back on and sims will move back in, in no time!
Turn off specialization that makes a loss
- Although you may be earning 100k+ a day from processor sales. Your income per hour may still be very bad. You can continue specialization when your city is stable again. Do not turn off any specialization that is increasing your income.
Bulldoze any abandoned buildings / rubble

- Sometimes, it's just one of those things that gets lost in the pile of things to do.
Ensure unused space is filled up with commercial & residential 
- This can help you make more money from taxes
Ensure taxes are at least 9% and below 12%
- You can lower taxes afterwards when your income gets more stable. But do not raise the taxes too high, you could make a larger loss if too many sims move out. 
City has enough power 
City has enough water
- This includes clean water.
City has adequate sewage treatment 

---

Once your income is in balance, then you need to gradually turn things back on. Be careful though & make sure you are not on llama speed or cheetah speed.

Turn things on, starting one by one.

First start with services, then work your way to parks.

Now, you should see your population gradually rising, but be careful. Do not rush things.

A good way to check how much a plopabble is going to cost you, is by turning it on quickly to check the -$x/hr . Make sure you make at least $x + $500 before you turn that particular plopabble on.

---

If you get -$$$ hourly income again, immediately pause the game and analyze the budget panel. If you see any un expected losses, for example on parks. Then close that and keep it closed, until your city gets a higher population.

If you find yourself not going anywhere, repeat the checklist. Eventually, you'll figure out where you went wrong. This method does take time, but it's a lot better than leaving your city to die and get into a lot of debt.

---

Thanks for reading! 

Hope it helped.

Sandbox Mode - An issue

Greetings Mayors!
I'd like to share with you all an issue I have found with sandbox mode. A lot of you probably already have thought about this issue, but I'm just going to highlight it and why it's an issue for me.

I was doing some design maintenance on this blog and thinking of some cool ideas that would make this blog worth coming back to each day. Then I was thinking about things that could get users of the community involved more! Well, I then came up with the idea of contests! It was a total win in my eyes. Until I thought about the process to which the contests would work, then I hit this sandbox mode issue.

The issue
Well, if I were to host a SimCity contest, how would I determine if that city were legit or not? Even if they had to make a video of their city, they could still fake it in sandbox mode with ease.

Here's a comedy strip I made for you all, to explain what I mean. ;) (click for a larger image)

My 'solution'
I'd have to visit the cities entered in the contest 1-by-1 which would be extremely inefficient  Also bare in mind that if the server which their city is on, is full I'd have to wait a good 20 minutes just to judge their city. Let alone, how hard it would be to find their city in the first place. It's not a good solution and it still gives me issues, like the ones I've stated above. But if I host a contest, it's really my only hope to knowing if a city is legit or not.


What there could be to solve this
An official screenshot uploader to an official simcity sub domain (E.g http://www.shots.simcity.com), where images cannot be tampered with and a watermark is placed over it if the city was created in sandbox mode. Not only would this make the game more competitive  but it would allow me to create contests which would make the game more fun!

Anyway, I highly doubt that this would be in Maxis' to-do list, but if it was... I'd be very pleased.
Thanks for reading!

Post your opinion in the comments and/or in this thread: http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/0/9356855.page#27577414

Guide to a successful road layout

Hello Mayors!

In this guide, I will explain some key concepts behind a successful road layout. I will also explain good ways to place your road when you first start a new city. Then tell you how to improve on that layout, as you earn more money and population.

The concept
Okay so, first of all. Lets think of what makes a successful road layout.

• Smooth, clean traffic
• Efficient bus system
• Roads placed so that you can accomplish everything you want in your city.

---

So then, firstly : Smooth, clean traffic. How do we accomplish this? Well, there are a few things you can do to improve on this.

• Make multiple routes to certain places, so it spreads out the traffic more.
• Make sure not to place upgraded services (E.g fire stations) on: low-medium density roads.
• Have a high density streetcar avenue system.

- You will need the department of transportation and purchase a streetcar depot. Along with streetcar stops. This can be quite costly, but very effective 

• Spread out popular buildings, don't place schools, services or high traffic specialization close to each other. This can build up to many traffic jams on that one road.

---

Next, an Efficient bus system. When making a bus system, I like to pick a street, then pick a building & just sit there for a moment and think about where there people living there would like to go. Once this is covered I think about how can I make the bus route faster. Well the solution to this is having MAIN ROADS. What I mean by MAIN ROADS, is basically - placed out high density roads that are designed specifically to get from point A, to POINT B. For example, a lot of people like to put one main road from the connection to the end of they're city.

Having a main road not only makes it easier to place bus stops, but makes sure that you don't waste your money on excess bus stops! I know I've done it in the past where you place bus stops until everywhere has that green shade of color on it. This is non-efficient and will result in higher waiting times due to people going to a needless bus stop, as well as needless expenses.

---

Lastly, Roads placed so that you can accomplish everything you want in your city. Obviously it's not possible to do some things with your city. But I am talking about realistically here. Do you want a mining city? Electronics? High education? Etc.

If you DO, then you need a successful road layout in order to do so. It's best to plan sooner, than later. So before you start your city. You need to take into account everything you want to do in your city, before you
start building roads. I recommend writing on a note pad, what you want to do in your city. Then you can access it with ease in-game.

Once you know what you want to accomplish in your city, you can now think about HOW. This can be very tricky, but can also be very simple! It all depends on your approach. Just think about it in simple form. I'll give an example.

I want to build a city where the education is great and I specialize in mining lots of coal and sell it over the global market

- if so I'd need to:

• Layout roads, so that I can fit all of the educational buildings. I'd make sure there was enough space for excess classrooms too!
• Place the department of education in my city, therefore I'd need to make sure NOT to box-in my town hall.
• Have enough space for a coal mine and place the mine at the side of the city, to the direction of the wind. This way, the pollution would not harm my land value. But I'd need to make sure that I didn't box the coal mine in. So I'd have room for the three types of modules.
• Have efficient services. I'd need a good health clinic, as mining can result in quite a few injuries. So I'd need to place roads so that the health clinic can easily access the main road, to send off ambulances. Also I'd need to do the same with a fire station and fire trucks

That would be enough for me, to start building my city TOWARDS, the right direction. I'd know where I'd need to make sure something went, therefore I'd know how to layout the roads, in order to complete them four bullet points.

I would like to quote this member of the forum: GamefaceAA  , as he stated some good key things to remember.

"When you have things that have vehicles that come and go you need to try to understand where they need to go and the path they need to take to get there. For instance, I started a city that had a large blob of oil off to one side. There is ZERO residential on that side of the map. That entire half of the map was used to set up oil wells and to provide a clutter free path from the wells to the trade depot. The trade depots were set up so that the traffic from the wells and from out of city trucks didn't mingle with residential traffic. THAT IS CRUCIAL! There are a limited number of vehicles to transport goods within your city and there are also a limited number of vehicles that will come to haul those goods off. If they are stuck in traffic it will limit the productivity of the entire system as oil well storage fills up and the whole thing shuts down until it can get rid of the supply build up.  

From that foundation of a functioning oil industry, with all the trading infrastructure and transportation layout I eventually converted through a multi-stage evolution to a TV and Computer producing empire that is generating over 8mil/day in profits. On days when delivery vehicles get hung up it can drop profits below 5mil. On days when everything is super smooth I can make over 10mil. That's how big a deal traffic is. If it was completely hosed I could have all the same electronics factories and all the same trade ports but all the resources needed to make it work would be stuck in traffic and the factories would shut down until the resources they needed would arrive. "

Thanks GamefaceAA for that helpful information, I'm sure many people - including myself find it very helpful. 

---

Starting out - How do get money in to build your city

I'd also like to point out, that the beginning process of starting out a road layout can be difficult. Unless taking out a bond. But we want to avoid bonds if we can. So the best thing to do, to get money in at first, would be to go to the road connection to your city from the region and place standard to medium density road.
 Then zone it with residential and some commercial. This is just temporary.  Here's an example:

From this (click for larger image):

Once that is complete, build up a small community and place your town hall. This is all temporary and later on after this, you will probably demolish most of that mini-community. Once you have enough money, build a high density avenue (which can later be upgraded to a streetcar avenue) across and 'move' your community to that area.

To this:

This community would now be the central part of the city. You can then move your town hall there and build up a larger population. Which you can then upgrade to a city hall.

You can then expand from there and build up a huge population.

---

More about roads
Before, I go into the methods used to design road layouts. I'll state some key facts about roads.

• There are 7 types of road

- Low density dirt road, 1 lane, costs $1, (low density shops, houses and industrial only)

- Low density street, 2 lanes, costs $2, (low density shops, houses and industrial only)

-Medium density street, 4 lanes, costs $4, (medium density shops, houses and industrial at max)

-High density street,4 lanes, costs $7 (high density shops, houses and industrial at max)

-Medium density avenue, 4 lanes (medium density shops, houses and industrial at max, it acts as a main street for established towns)

-High density avenue, 6 lanes, costs $9 (high density shops, houses and industrial at max, for high population central areas)

-High density streetcar avenue, 6 lanes, costs $12 (high density shops, houses and industrial at max, for high population central areas & supports streetcars to relieve some transport congestion)

• You can upgrade roads by pressing the upgrade button. Note: you cannot upgrade streets to avenues, you'd have to demolish the road and replace it.
• You need road to build zones upon
• The guides on the floor show you the maximum space between roads to achieve the maximum density of zones for that road type. If you don't lead enough space, no matter how high the land value, the zones cannot reach they're full capabilities for that road.
• You can toggle the guides on the floor, by checking/unchecking the checkbox next to 'Guides'.

---

Methods
I will state the pros and cons of some common road methods used. As a guideline to help you choose what method you would like and what ones to avoid. I will be adding more as I learn.

The grid - method

I have seen this system used so many times, often in industrial cities.

Pros

• Compact and does not waste space
• Park advantage, the park's effective radius covers the grid system well

Cons

• Can produce terrible traffic
• Hard to maintain
• Limits the space available for modules
• Cheap

I personally think this system is good to avoid, but experiment with it yourself. You probably could build a pretty good city with it, if you just placed everything right. Including a good transport system.

Curved branches - method

Pros

• Easy to maintain
• Looks presentable
• Plenty of room for modules and upgrades
• Efficient traffic system as the roads are long and plenty of spaced-out routes. If done positioned correctly ( Have around 2-3 main roads ), there will be no traffic jams.

Cons

• Can become costly
• Takes up more space than the grid method
• Wider-spaced area to cover for parks Etc.

I myself, use this method a lot. But it takes quite a lot of work to cover areas with the services and parks, it's also pretty costly and very hard to use at the start of a new city with a budget of only $50,000.

---

Thanks for reading mayors! As I learn more I will continue to upgrade this guide.

Feel free to post a comment and/or reply to this thread to allow others to discover this post:
http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9353857.page

Server Updates!

Good morning mayors,

I'd just like to quickly inform you all that EA has been working to get more people being able to play the game. In order to do so, they have added more servers.

Here's a quote from the community manager:

Saturday March 9th 
Update: 2:19am PST New Servers and Maintenance - http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9348373.page 
Friday March 8th 
Update: 11:19pm PST We have added 3 new servers, EU East 4, NA East 4, and EU West 6 
Update: 7:30pm PST We have added the new servers EU West 5 and NA West 3 
Update: 5:06pm PST We have added the new server NA West 4 
Update 4:23pm PST We have added the new server North America East 3 
Update 1:16pm PST We've added the new server Oceanic 2. Please note you may experience a waiting room while we allow new players to join 
Update: 900am PST We are currently aware that some servers are not performing optimally and are actively working on them.

Also SmCity's official twitter account posted a tweet regarding server updates:

"Server Update: We're still working on EU 4, good availability on others especially our 8 new servers, so try playing on one of those!"

It's great that now it's much easier to get into a server as more are available. But if you take a look at The Server Slip-Up  article I wrote, you'll see why there are still server issues. You'll also see why adding more servers isn't the best solution. One of the main reasons being that if your region is on one server & that server is full for hours and hours. Leaving you bored waiting to get into your main server you use, to play in your region.

Thanks for reading.
~JMR

The Server Slip-Up

Greetings Mayors!

In this article I will be explaining why I think the SimCity servers have had a slip-up and also things which I do not like about the server-system. I feel the need to write this article in a response to my Can EA Servers handle the UK Launch? article.

So, at first, the UK launch was not at all as bad as the March 5th launch. However the UK launch has defiantly grown much worse over the last few hours. Many people are getting server-related errors, bugs and city-sync problems. Some users have even lost all they're work (cities, regions and achievements) due to server issues.

The servers have also come to a stand-still point. Where most of the servers are busy, the ones that aren't have authentication and connectivity issues.

Well, what can I say? I am very disappointed, that's for sure. But thinking about it, it could be far worse. I have had about 3 hours of gameplay, which I really enjoyed, but as people started coming home from school and approaching mid-afternoon, things started getting busy, very busy.

---

Major slip up:
Although things could be worse, things could be a lot better too! I really dislike the fact that all a user's data is stored on one particular server! So if that server goes down, or has to be replaced, you loose everything you have done. Any cities, regions achievements and leaderboard rankings! That is why I think this is one of their major slip-ups, in my honest opinion.

A part from possible data loss, there are other reasons I do not like the fact that all a user's data is stored on one particular server, they are:

• If a server is busy and your friend wants to come and play in the same region as you, he'll have to wait, most probably a while to even connect to the server.
• Leaderboard rankings are only for that server, which makes the leaderboard not really worth looking at.
• Hard to find what server your friend is on
• Instead of just saying 'My region is called:', when informing people about your region. You also have to include server details.
• If the server you've been playing on all the time, has got too busy, you are then held out of the server until it is available again

With all these things baring in mind, there isn't really an easy solution. But given all the time EA had to think about they're choices, I think a lack of wisdom came into this choice somewhere.

---

When you slip up, you've got to get back up. But mayors, the question is, how long will it take for EA, to get back up, from this server slip up?

Thanks for reading! Feel free to post your opinion in the comments.

Can EA Servers handle the UK Launch?

Hello Mayors and wanna-be mayors who have yet to get into an actual server.

It is 00:22 and loads of people from the UK are now downloading / installing and connecting to the EA servers!

I was on the forum and I thought I'd add a bit of humor by rushing up a fail-drawn illustration  Well, lets just say... it worked.

I will be making more funny SimCity pictures in a few days, make out of that picture what you can & enjoy the humor!

Link to original forum thread: 

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9343056.page

Post in the comments how you think the UK launch will go! :D

UK preload is now available!

Just a short update I thought I'd share with you all.

UK users are now able to preload SimCity! I am a UK user and I am very exited, but also very anxious. What do you think the UK launch will be like?

Share your thoughts here:
http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9342599.page#27490383
and/or in the comments. :)

Why you get banned for chargebacks on origin

Hey Mayors!

Today I was strolling along the forums when I came across a thread that stood out to me: Gamezone article on EA threatening bans.  After reading this I was shocked by that article by Gamezone. Their lack of knowledge of EA's reasoning really made their article quite the slander-type.

If you read it at first, like me and thought "Hey that's dumb, banned for a chargeback? That's NOT FAIR!" Then this article here, is perfect for you. As you'll soon realize EA's reasoning behind chargeback bans.

Firstly though, I would like to comment that: You are NOT wrong for wanting a chargeback, I totally understand why you would want one, having been given what you call a 'broken product'. The ban system when getting a chargeback is purely because of people who ruin it for YOU. That's right, if no one abused the refund system, EA would be handing out refunds with no bans!

Anyway, now that that is covered lets take a dive into the depths of why EA have decided to ban users who get a chargeback.

Having done research into selling online goods. I have been enlightened by how this system works, I am also working on my own kids website, which on there - I will be selling online goods. I will try not to make this too hard to understand, so I'll put it into simple terms.

First, think of a restaurant. Okay, now think of their sauces that they provide free of charge. If someone abuses that and takes, for example 30 tomato sauce from the trey, the restaurant now has to refill the tray, eating into profits. Because of this, they would have to resolve this issue. There is no way they could tell when someone is going to abuse the system, so they have to put LIMITS in to place. (So for a restaurant, they'd charge __ per each tomato sauce.)

Okay now think of this from the selling online goods perspective. When you sell online goods, there is NOTHING YOU CAN FULLY DO, TO PROVE THAT YOU HAVE GIVEN THE CUSTOMER THE GOODS THAT THEY HAVE PAYED FOR. So, keeping this bold fact in mind, anyone can go to paypal, or the service used to do the billing and say 'Excuse me, I have not received my online goods from EA, I would like my money back.' By law, they would have to get the money back & although EA knows for definite that they got they're goods (whatever game they purchased) and they could show for example - paypal they're origin account with the game they bought. For all paypal knows, they could of added that game to the account AFTER the requested money-back. Now then, think what would happen if you didn't get banned for money back on online goods. Someone could easily get every origin game for free, whilst people like me have payed a lot of money. THIS is what you call unfair and that is why EA bans every account that has had money back. Yes, they could just remove the game from the origin account, but for all they know, that person may be trying to steal games from origin, so this is just a 'just incase ban'. Which I think is pretty sensible.

I hope you now have a more clear understanding on EA's reasoning. I know I do and I see why they have done it. People have ruined it for you, if you wanted a chargeback it's not EA's fault that people abuse the system. So if you are looking for someone to blame, blame the system abusers! :D

I do however, see this has a very nasty situation for people who really want a chargeback for their broken goods. I do see how it can seem unfair, but that's just how it HAS to be. You should of expected issues with the launch before you bought it and also read origin's terms of use policies. You agreed that you read them, that's your fault if you lied.

Please do not slander EA for banning users for chargebacks, they just have to do it. It's the only solution to preventing users doing this time and time again. Staff at EA have to monitor these things, without a ban, wasted time and energy on the staff with a person who keeps trying to get games for free.

Thanks for reading mayors, link anyone on the forum to this post if they have doubts about EA's reasoning on the ban.

~JMR (Origin:jordan-m-richards, twitter:@JordanMRichards)

Forums Erupt with Fury - SimCity 5 Launch

Greetings Mayors,

Due to the launch, I have been very intrigued to see what's happening on the forums. As I have not yet been able to load the game until the 8th, because I am in the UK and well, lets just say, 'no surprise'.

Considering how much hype there was to get pre-ordering the game, which led to many doing so. SimCity's employees weren't the only ones under pressure, as the servers would have to cope with loads of excited avid gamers, grasping for that play of the game they may have waited months, maybe years for! All this pressure on the servers, or what EA calls 'stress', quite frankly, I was not expecting a smooth launch.

And to no surprise, YEP, quite an unsteady launch by EA. Numerous of threads were posted on the forum on the day of release with players claiming that they had:

• Trouble creating a city
• Creating a region, then leaving, then not being able to rejoin
• Unable to log in
• Unexpected crashes
• Not being able to connect to the servers at all

...and many more complaints flooded the EA community forums of SimCity.

OriginInsider's twitter account stated:

" Due to the high demand for SimCity, Origin has experienced delays impacting a small percentage of users. We’re working non-stop to resolve."

source: https://twitter.com/OriginInsider/status/309045923248480256 

For the unfortunate 'small percentage of users' who had experienced great trouble in trying to experience this game that they have been waiting for. The forums were the ultimate rant area, where they decided to flood the forums with they're opinions and complains of the launch.

Thinking about it though, we do not actually know how many players actually ARE being able to play the game smoothly on the launch. We are just seeing an emphasize on the problems with the launch on the forums.

Take a step back for a moment, have you noticed how many new members have joined the EA community forums because of the SimCity launch problems? Well if you have, like me, you'll realize that many, many users infact did join because of launch problems.

In a way, this can be seen as a positive. A whole new addition bundle of members flocking into the forums to post! Also, a member of the forums who posted on my A positive to the launch issues  which made me realize that this is also giving SimCity a great SEO boost. Just think of the amount of users who have searched "SimCity Launch Problem _Insert_stuff_here".

Although the negatives outweigh the positives. I think it would be a good idea for users to calm down a little, not saying they shouldn't be mad. But EA GET IT now. People are also giving the moderators a pretty hard time by posting pointless rant threads acting as troll bait. As an active moderator of the forums told me:

" Moderators are working on cheetah speed at the moment :)"

And judging by the flood I have witnessed, I can certainly most see how much them moderators have had to work. So hats off to them, for they're endurance during this rant-like launch.

So, what do I think of the launch? It was as I expected. That's all I can comment really, as not being able to play the game until March 8th. It's also the reason why I haven't been able to post much actually about the game yet, but trust me mayors, I'll be working hard on bringing you entertaining-packed blog posts as soon as I get the game!

Thanks for reading mayors, & I would appreciate anyone who would promote this blog in their forum siggy, it would mean a lot!

~JMR (Origin: JordanMRichards, Skype: jordan-m-richards)

Welcome!

Hello & Welcome to my new blog!

Thanks so much for coming! I appreciate it a lot. I only run this blog because I like to benefit of the SimCity community and enjoy blogging about SimCity very much. Every pageview brings me joy!

I have a lot to learn about blogging and organizing my posts, along with touching up my grammar. I am deeply sorry for any grammar errors.

I will post progress on any cities I am working on and give an in-depth description of what happens, Etc. I may also do livestreams too!

I will be looking for active writers, who play SimCity a lot to become authors of this blog. Like our motto says "By Mayors, For Mayors"! I will be looking for people who have a passion for the game and enjoy it.

This blog will also bring you tips and the latest city trends. I will also be holding awesome contests for example "Region/City of the week!"

Thanks for dropping by Mayors!
I look forward to bringing you this blog at my best.

~JordanMRichards

On a side note, I would appreciate it if you guys could promote this blog as much as you can. Twitter, facebook and the forums themselves. Thanks :)