I wouldn’t mind playing a different region. Send me an invite to Lute’s region or start a new 16-city region.
While it’s a nuisance the 16-city regions are divided into clusters, it really is better to be in a bigger region. Region-wide unlocks are a lot more effective. Cities can trade resources and money (just not services). Sims can fly, rail or ferry between most cities, so commerce and tourism is much easier.
But there’s something nice about a smaller, closely-linked region too.
I also wouldn’t mind switching to a different server. NA East 2 has been a lot of trouble. In comparison, I’ve been playing on NA West 4 and it’s problem free as far as I can tell. Maybe they’ll fix our current server, though.
By the way, I’ve been reading about the problem of traffic backing up onto highways. Part of the problem is where the highway ramp connects to. Apparently, connecting directly into an intersection is bad. It’s better to give traffic a block or so to spread out before the first intersection off the highway.
That’s counter-intuitive. How is the traffic going to spread out if there are no intersections? But it’ll be easy to test just by bulldozing small segments of the roads leading off that first intersection.
That highway traffic leading all the way back to the neighboring city is a bitch. Takes forever for services and gifts to arrive.
BTW I started a brand new city yesterday where the highway went all the way through the city zone (as a high-density avenue) and out the other side, continuing as a highway on the other end. Much, MUCH easier to deal with than one that dead-ends into the edge of your zone.
The inbound traffic is one-lane. It takes some distance for Sim vehicles to change lanes. If a vehicle slows down for a turn before the vehicles behind it have a chance to change lanes, you get a backup.
Can I join Slugworth too, please? Cecilia is in all sorts of trouble. She’s verging on broke and is unable to source coal for her major power plant so she’s shedding citizens rapidly.
In Slugworth, the town of Creosote has been incorporated. A small town of just over 1500 residents, Creosote has a large and popular downtown shopping district bringing in bargain hunting consumers from across the region. Creosote’s main economic activity, however, is tied to its nascent coal industry which promises to provide a steady stream of income into the civic coffers for many years to come.
Perhaps due to the environmental effects of the clouds of coal dust in the air and the miles of underground mines, Creosote is plagued with very frequent fires and earthquakes. The fire and emergency services department has received heavy investment for such a small town and it is hoped that soon this epidemic of conflagrations will abate.
Come pay us a visit, and bring your simoleans!
ETA:Seriously, why am I having 6-8 fires a day in such a small town?
Bravtswana is coming along nicely. I’ve got a few gambling houses that are bringing in decent cash, and right now my economy is in the green despite no natural resources that I can exploit. We just hooked up our department of tourism, so y’all can thank me for access to attractions (and god bless whoever set up the department of transportation).
Due to poor planning, I had to bulldoze my only clinic temporarily in order to properly hook up my train tracks. That was a setback, and several businesses closed because all their workers died. Also it turns out that sims get freaked out when their neighbors drop from the plague (“I’m surrounded by death!”), so I had a bit of a population dip.
Holding steady at 10,000 citizens right now. I’m hoping Maxis goes ahead and fixes casinos soon, though, so that I can look into investing in some of the more lucrative ones.
The citizens of Creosote express their gratitude toward Bravtswana for their intermittent assistance with our confoundingly excessive sewage disposal needs.
Shouldn’t two outflow pipes be enough for a town of 1500? Not in Creosote, the land of fire!
Terminus Power is open for business in the land of Slugsworth! Come buy your power from me; we’ve got plenty of juice!
I’m running an export-based economy in Petrol Terminus. My budget’s in the red but oil sales more than make up for it. Then it happened: I got too overzealous in upgrading my roads and my treasure chest fell to zero. BAM! Game pauses while I fix the problem. Well, game, why don’t you unpause so that the delivery truck can get through? C’mon, just one truck will solve the fiscal crisis. WHY WON’T YOU LET ME UNPAUSE YOU? Stupid game.
I couldn’t take out a bond since I had maxed out all the bonds (building oil wells is expensive). I didn’t want to overtax my citizens as that would just make things worse. So I was forced to shut off city services just to get my budget in the green. Sorry I couldn’t send my fire trucks to Creosote.