1. Plan. And then plan again.
Do you want districts? Eg all shops together, all houses, all mansions?
Do you want a forest? (They take a lot of room, but tend to look good)
Have you visited the Showcase section in here for inspiration and ideas?
2. Buy land. As much as you can (within budget)
Nothing worse than running out of room - and you will!
I nuked because I had to (disappearing sections glitch with rail pieces)
Although there was very little which I had stored in my inventory prior to nuking, when putting it all back out, I ended up buying about 10-15 extra squareS to fit it all in...
I don't know if this pointing out the obvious but when it comes to building your monorail, have a general idea where you want to place your terminals but don't lay out your station pieces or decorate around them until you've laid out your track pieces end to end.
I'm running into this issue now where it's off by a quarter of track length (one track length width) and ended up having to the move the station and all connected track pieces to get them to line up.
for me i work in themed areas when i do a redesign. for instance, i really like my "apartment buildings" area next to the pier entrance, so i start there. I also plan to have the town "square" as the landing so i figure out where center is and try to put it there and then build around that. as the areas start merging together i fit in buildings/decorations that seem to fit... right now i have my "downtown/town square" area merging with my "rich people mansions" area, using spiffanys and the sushi spot to ease that transition.
but make sure you do your buildings first.... multiple decorations are a pain to pick up and move if you change your mind, like fences or rows of shrubs, so make sure you're happy with your building placement before you lay that stuff down.
also hide any ugly decorations with multipliers behind tall things.
In my past towns I had a forest area but it took like 25% of my town.
I'm now looking for a way to get shops and such together without making a mess. I always put them together and it looks too cluttered. Way to much together.
Just to not make any more new threads about this... but, when you design your town just do it randomly or based on some criteria?
At the beggining I was just putting stuffs everywhere and expanding lands such a crazy and desorganized person, but few days ago I started to redesign the whole town and if you have the chance to visit me you'll see (at least what I tried) to make a part of the town residential, other part industrial, other part commercial and so on and on.
You really have to plan it. When I nuked my feeder town, I knew roughly where I wanted everything to go. I didn't draw it out, but I did have a pretty clear image in my head. The hardest part was the monorail. Because the tracks end up blocking other stuff and it's frustrating, so you have to play with where you put them so they're in town, but not directly blocking anything. The other thing is, don't worry too much about decorating around buildings at the beginning. Just plop them down where you think you'll have enough room to decorate around them, and move on. The buildings are the most important things to get out first, because that way if you do end up running out of room and having to move stuff around/squeeze it in, you won't have to put away a bunch of decorations first.
Joined: May 2014 • Level: 563 • Favourite Characters: Lisa & Ralph
It's easier for me to start with a specific area or building. Trying to add the monorail as well and it's made me quite unhappy with an existing design. Will take some time so I'm only doing a few things at a time.
To design a specific area I normally start with:
- picking colours
- then look in decorations to see what will match
- i normally place all of them out beside the building then narrow them down to a few items
- then I place roads/pavement to see where everything will fit.
Just did this with the fortress of lonelitude (wanted purple and white to go with the green, then felt like some gold would look good too). Pavement wouldn't fit how I wanted, so just paved the whole thing. Might add gold torches...
An important question....do you plan a full road network which looks great but can be a nightmare when tappable eventthings are running round, or do you plan a single defined road area and the rest using concrete as roads?......
Just to not make any more new threads about this... but, when you design your town just do it randomly or based on some criteria?
At the beggining I was just putting stuffs everywhere and expanding lands such a crazy and desorganized person, but few days ago I started to redesign the whole town and if you have the chance to visit me you'll see (at least what I tried) to make a part of the town residencial, other part industrial, other part commercial and so on and on.
How do you do it?
I prefer the more realistic, "city zoned" method as well.
So as i add new properties to town, i shuffle things to stay "in code".
The latest addition was the bowling alley, which i wanted on the divided highway along the outskirts of town. Also in that area is the strip club, drive-in, and giant castle-themed restaurant (something i made to utilize all the bonus wailing walls).
The launch pad is being built on the most expensive squares of real estate out in the really rural area.
I've also got industrial zone, waterfront zone, old town square zone, mountain zone, residential zones, medical zone, and of course SH. So factories, higher-end houses, lower-end houses, commercial buildings, govt buildings, each are in appropriate zones.
I prefer to integrate new stuff into their zones, rather than have items grouped by when they were released in-game. Looks much more realistic, which is my primary design goal. I want things to look like they "FIT". You have to feel it.
All my designs look unfinished because i can't place as many plants, streetlights, and fences as i would like. PLEASE REMOVE THE LIMIT, EA!
An important question....do you plan a full road network which looks great but can be a nightmare when tappable eventthings are running round, or do you plan a single defined road area and the rest using concrete as roads?......
I think using concrete as roads looks really really bad. I mean, to each their own...if you really prefer the "convenience" of having only one strip of road over having a nice town, by all means use concrete. Frankly the eye-sore bothers me more than finding the characters (which I really don't think are that hard to find anyway).
Actually during the last event, a few of my friends had their one strip of road far away from their landing zone, so finding characters there was a real pain. If you're going to only have one strip of road, please at least put it in your LZ. :roll:
Joined: May 2014 • Level: 563 • Favourite Characters: Lisa & Ralph
When i re designed my town from cluster crap to something kinda organized and nice i moved all the buildings out of my way to bottom of the map and stored all decorations. Then i layed out a gride of 10 x 10 road squares across the whole map. Then ran a river and improvised through the top row of squares to accomadate some nature type outdoor stuff. Then just kinda modified my roads as i a saw fit to fit the pattern that unfolded by moving things around.
happy with out it turned out in the end, got 3 streets of all the shops running through town with town hall and expo center hotel and city hall stuff etc in the middle to break up the monotony of long streets. Still a work in progress though but i find the grid layout really helped me to get things situated and kinda flesh out the town.
Hope this made any kind of sense at all, suppose my main point was laying out a grid at first using 10x10 road squares. Not much stayed as a 10x10 square but think it gave it good symetry in the end
I'm going to nuke soon myself and my plan is to set up districts or blocks of land, like houses, various shopping centers and themed areas. The thought terrifies me. I have a lot of areas I really like but most of my Springfield is just a hot mess.
I really like the suggestion of laying out all the track first and building around that.
Just to not make any more new threads about this... but, when you design your town just do it randomly or based on some criteria?
At the beggining I was just putting stuffs everywhere and expanding lands such a crazy and desorganized person, but few days ago I started to redesign the whole town and if you have the chance to visit me you'll see (at least what I tried) to make a part of the town residential, other part industrial, other part commercial and so on and on.
How do you do it?
I prefer the more realistic, "city zoned" method as well.
So as i add new properties to town, i shuffle things to stay "in code".
The latest addition was the bowling alley, which i wanted on the divided highway along the outskirts of town. Also in that area is the strip club, drive-in, and giant castle-themed restaurant (something i made to utilize all the bonus wailing walls).
The launch pad is being built on the most expensive squares of real estate out in the really rural area.
I've also got industrial zone, waterfront zone, old town square zone, mountain zone, residential zones, medical zone, and of course SH. So factories, higher-end houses, lower-end houses, commercial buildings, govt buildings, each are in appropriate zones.
I prefer to integrate new stuff into their zones, rather than have items grouped by when they were released in-game. Looks much more realistic, which is my primary design goal. I want things to look like they "FIT". You have to feel it.
That's exactly what I'm trying to do with my town. I think it really looks beautiful and also help me to find stuffs pretty easy.
I just nuked a few days ago. I put my 5 mono stations where I wanted them, connected the track and then built the rest off the station (add ones). After that my goal was to pull out all my buildings and deco with multipliers as quickly as possible, as I just bought the sit and spin and need to replenish my in game cash. So I used the mono stations as sections, and put city and higher end stores/stores found in a mall in my area by the mail station. I wanted a Christmas town type attraction and zoo near the North Pole station. The original station is by my houses, Cletus's station by my dump and run down area, and the Krusty station is by my park/camp grounds. SH is upper class stuff, plus a large dealership and airport/space station. I set the buildings out quickly, but laid roads as I went and put the buildings where I thought I wanted them. That took a few hours, so I quit for the day.
The next day I started decorating around a few things, shifting things and then got really aggravated because I felt like it was all just....there...and set it aside for a few hours. I looked at a lot of threads in showcase here, at a few friends towns and then went back into the game and decided to focus on one shopping center and get it how I wanted it. I didn't put anything back in storage but started moving a building from where I originally put it to a spot where I felt it fit better, putting the building I was replacing in the other bulidings spot. I've found that focusing on one or two bulidings at a time and putting together a city block/shopping center around that as been much easier than thinking about the whole town. I'm not done yet, I think today is the fourth or fifth day, but I've made a lot of progress and ultimately am really happy with the areas I have "finished".
I'm sure I will find something hiding in storage or something that doesn't fit in where it is now and have to shift things again, but looking at it as a work in progress over a week or two is much less daunting this time compared to the other times I nuked.
I wouldn't nuke my town if Donald Trump said he was changing animal hair toupee's. I buy all the land when available. If I feel something needs to be changed, I move things, but i've read, that some that have nuked, regretted their decisions, based on the fact that, it becomes overwhelming to rebuild. I've been working on my town since 2012, and have no plans ever to nuke. That's my story and i'm sticking to it.
Replies
1. Plan. And then plan again.
Do you want districts? Eg all shops together, all houses, all mansions?
Do you want a forest? (They take a lot of room, but tend to look good)
Have you visited the Showcase section in here for inspiration and ideas?
2. Buy land. As much as you can (within budget)
Nothing worse than running out of room - and you will!
I nuked because I had to (disappearing sections glitch with rail pieces)
Although there was very little which I had stored in my inventory prior to nuking, when putting it all back out, I ended up buying about 10-15 extra squareS to fit it all in...
I'm running into this issue now where it's off by a quarter of track length (one track length width) and ended up having to the move the station and all connected track pieces to get them to line up.
but make sure you do your buildings first.... multiple decorations are a pain to pick up and move if you change your mind, like fences or rows of shrubs, so make sure you're happy with your building placement before you lay that stuff down.
also hide any ugly decorations with multipliers behind tall things.
In my past towns I had a forest area but it took like 25% of my town.
I'm now looking for a way to get shops and such together without making a mess. I always put them together and it looks too cluttered. Way to much together.
At the beggining I was just putting stuffs everywhere and expanding lands such a crazy and desorganized person, but few days ago I started to redesign the whole town and if you have the chance to visit me you'll see (at least what I tried) to make a part of the town residential, other part industrial, other part commercial and so on and on.
How do you do it?
In the 4 corners the monorail offcourse
Still dreaming of a "Mall" area **** no inspiration enough for the moment...
I think its nice :P
To design a specific area I normally start with:
- picking colours
- then look in decorations to see what will match
- i normally place all of them out beside the building then narrow them down to a few items
- then I place roads/pavement to see where everything will fit.
Just did this with the fortress of lonelitude (wanted purple and white to go with the green, then felt like some gold would look good too). Pavement wouldn't fit how I wanted, so just paved the whole thing. Might add gold torches...
After that, you're on your own. :thumbup:
I prefer the more realistic, "city zoned" method as well.
So as i add new properties to town, i shuffle things to stay "in code".
The latest addition was the bowling alley, which i wanted on the divided highway along the outskirts of town. Also in that area is the strip club, drive-in, and giant castle-themed restaurant (something i made to utilize all the bonus wailing walls).
The launch pad is being built on the most expensive squares of real estate out in the really rural area.
I've also got industrial zone, waterfront zone, old town square zone, mountain zone, residential zones, medical zone, and of course SH. So factories, higher-end houses, lower-end houses, commercial buildings, govt buildings, each are in appropriate zones.
I prefer to integrate new stuff into their zones, rather than have items grouped by when they were released in-game. Looks much more realistic, which is my primary design goal. I want things to look like they "FIT". You have to feel it.
Actually during the last event, a few of my friends had their one strip of road far away from their landing zone, so finding characters there was a real pain. If you're going to only have one strip of road, please at least put it in your LZ. :roll:
happy with out it turned out in the end, got 3 streets of all the shops running through town with town hall and expo center hotel and city hall stuff etc in the middle to break up the monotony of long streets. Still a work in progress though but i find the grid layout really helped me to get things situated and kinda flesh out the town.
Hope this made any kind of sense at all, suppose my main point was laying out a grid at first using 10x10 road squares. Not much stayed as a 10x10 square but think it gave it good symetry in the end
I really like the suggestion of laying out all the track first and building around that.
That's exactly what I'm trying to do with my town. I think it really looks beautiful and also help me to find stuffs pretty easy.
The next day I started decorating around a few things, shifting things and then got really aggravated because I felt like it was all just....there...and set it aside for a few hours. I looked at a lot of threads in showcase here, at a few friends towns and then went back into the game and decided to focus on one shopping center and get it how I wanted it. I didn't put anything back in storage but started moving a building from where I originally put it to a spot where I felt it fit better, putting the building I was replacing in the other bulidings spot. I've found that focusing on one or two bulidings at a time and putting together a city block/shopping center around that as been much easier than thinking about the whole town. I'm not done yet, I think today is the fourth or fifth day, but I've made a lot of progress and ultimately am really happy with the areas I have "finished".
I'm sure I will find something hiding in storage or something that doesn't fit in where it is now and have to shift things again, but looking at it as a work in progress over a week or two is much less daunting this time compared to the other times I nuked.