Natural Growth In Cities X(x)l

I like to play this way too and you can ofcourse demolish and build up, which may be the most 'natural' way. However if your town grows into a big city, upgrading to wider streets and avenues may prove difficult and make your CBD look weird and unnatural. With this city I am doing now I lay the grid first, then zone when I need to so that resources etc. are correct while building my city.

This is definitely something I miss from SC4, but I guess the variety between tjese games also bring a lot of good stuff with them as well

 

In some ways I think the "growth" in CitiesXL s more realistic than SimCity. I mean in the real world, it's more common for the rich people to move to other, more affluent neighborhoods, rather than having the poorer neighborhood spontaneously upgrade. Gentrification does happen sometimes, but it's often very difficult for a neighborhood to shake off a bad reputation, even if the council tries things like beatification projects or improved amenities.

Same with density - People don't just spontaneously decide to demolish their detached homes in order for an apartment block to be built, no matter how happy they are and how great the city utilities are.

I play Cities XXL and SimCity differently. In SimCity, I start with a small district, and then nurture it until it expands and improves, then move on and expand.

With Cities XXL, I usually start with a small "suburb" in the corner of the map and then expand inwards. By the time I reach the center, most of the higher-tier stuff will have unlocked

 

I find if I start with the CBD I get disinterested with the outlying areas and might not finish the map. I always try to plan ahead with major transportation: highways, boulevards, airports, ports, mass transit. I'll do large parks and reserves/open areas during this phase too. Sometimes I don't even connect my CBD, especially if I have a more complicated 'downtown' plan in my head. However, then I build the more 'local' roads as the city grows. I do place individual buildings or CBD districts within downtown as I go along; it's kind of inspiration to keep on with the map.

 

I added back the 'Zone' upgrades to the XXL Community Mod (UIM has it too), this allows you to upgrade any T1 Firm or Residence. (Office,Industry,Manufacturing, Residence etc) to a T2, once they are unlocked.

 

I just bulldoze the T1 firms or residences I want and plant T2's in their place. 1) More people or bigger businesses in the same space, and 2) it's a lot cheaper than zoning a new area. Sorry, that "mod" doesn't sound like a big deal or a "must have" to me.
How does it handle the old T1s?

 

Actually that mod is a must have. Almost all mods require that one to work.

There is only the option to upgrade T1 into T2 (with the Community Mod). So you have to destroy a lot of stuff. But that is like reality... For instance when you want to make a two lane road into a four lane, most of the time and resources will go into destroying stuff to make room for the new wider road. Same goes for buildings.

I don't like to use zoning. I place every house/building/structure manually, one by one. I start a city by first deciding where I want the Downtown / suburbs / industry / airport / sea port (both the freight and passanger) etc. and then lay down the main road network (highways, boulevards etc.) or at least a big part of it. Then I start making the suburbs and an office area somewhere near where the downtown will be. And sloooowly expand everything because I like to make everything very detailed.
I always play with a money cheat and full building unlock. I'm not really interested in the simulation part (although I try to keep all city needs in the green and traffic as good as I can), I just want to build a realistic and nice looking city with as many details as possible. This means that it takes me months and months to complete a city. But the final result is worth it.

There is no correct way to play Cities XL. And that's the best part. You have the freedom to do what you want and how you want it. It's something like Lego's, all you need is a little imagination.

 

I love these types of threads. There wasn't any "absolute right way/wrong way"... no egos. : )

 

This thread highlights the fundamental flaw of cxl as an immersive simulator. The lack of an RCI demand based progression. Having the player zoning specific zones gives the player total control in a limitless sandbox way, but it takes away the feeling of the city being alive and thinking for itself. This is why cxl is a poor simulator and has a dead sterile feeling to it. This is the main thing that needs to be addressed for the series to be anything other than just a city painter.

 

I agree with your line of thought, it is a lot of what you say. However, I think a lot of us might agree that we relish the 'painting' side of it. There really isn't another 'city painter' out there like XL/XXL. XL can be intensely beautiful, incredibly versatile (Inan's Cuva Cavelio CJ is a great example, hell, many of his cities are wonderfully diverse in my opinion) in city style, and it obviously spawned XLnation, which is about the only 'online community' I actively partake in. I think it's incredibly flawed, but much like Star Wars 1 2 and 3... it is what it is.