Re: How to Build High Density City with High Value (Max) Help/Tips Please
by BlackjackWidowOriginal Post
Hi Prophet! Getting a High Density, High Wealth city can be a challenge, but it can be done! Congrats on building the Arcology; that will definitely help in your goals. One of the challenges in getting HD HW commercial buildings is all those buildings want low wealth workers. They will commute in from the Arcology, so that will help with keeping your commercial open and happy (which in turn keeps your HW shoppers happy)
Seems like you've got the basics for getting HW residents; here are some other tips that might help:
- Be patient! It takes a while and you have to keep those hoity-toity residents happy. They are very fickle; if you don't have all your services running smoothly, they will leave for greener pastures. Start with dirt roads and upgrade as they become ready to expand. You have to have HD roads, or avenues, to get HD buildings, but it works best if you start with low and keep them happy, then upgrade until they're building HD.
- HW parks and most services will raise your land value. Things like garbage and industrial zones will lower them. Check your land value maps often to make sure you're placing residential and commercial strategically. Also watch indirect things, like wind direction - have your garbage dump, sewer services, and industry downwind from your HW residential and commercial
- Traffic! HW residents do NOT ride buses. They drive their cars. Help this alot by placing your commercial inside your residential areas so they walk to shopping. Try a ratio of 3:1:1 for RCI - so 3 residential for every 1 commercial building on a street. I like to zone the grid so that only the right side of the block has zoning, with about a third in the middle of the zoning being commercial and residential on either side of the commercial. (having them zoned on the right side means they don't have to wait for traffic to clear to turn into their building). Avoid 4-way stops that back up traffic; go with 3-way stops, they keep traffic flowing
- Taxes - the lower the taxes, the better they like it. Keep it at 7% while you're building up, lower it a bit at a time and they will love it.
- Education - any city benefits from education, but HW really loves it. If you have problems with fires or crime, raise your education instead of adding more fire trucks and police cars. Payoff is huge. I like community colleges placed around the city instead of universities. Put them in walking distance of the residents. The education levels will still be high, but less traffic and expense.
- Services - Get clinics, police and fire stations in as soon as you can afford them. If you're building education along with the city, you won't necessarily need hospitals and huge additional services; it is possible that the region can send arsonists and thieves to your HW city, though, and you need to keep up to keep your residents happy. Never let garbage or sewer services close or overflow. That will cause a mass exodus of people and those wealthy citizens get sick really easily. Could take months to recover!
Since you're having so much fun, I think you would like Skye Storme's 60 second tips. I learned a ton from his videos. If you enjoy those, I've learned a lot from his Let's Play series; it was created when Cities of Tomorrow expansion first came out, but there are tons of tips scattered around in there, too.
Hope this helps! Have fun 
