Is there a way to see a Layout Grid in Sim City 5?

Is there a way to see a Layout Grid in Sim City 5? - From above full body of cheerful girl and boy strolling on walkway along metal fence and green bushes on street

Is there a way to enable a layout grid, or a mod which would allow me to view the city using a layout grid?


In Sim City Classic, all zone types (residential, commercial and industrial) were 3x3 units. Regardless of your road layout, as long as it is a grid there were always six units of space between roads.

Sim City 5 sorely lacks a grid outline, which makes it extremely difficult to determine the maximum size two fully developed buildings of a zone type could end up using. Build too little of a zone and those larger buildings won't appear while buildings too large of a zone will end up wasting lots of space (you can't put parks between buildings like in older versions).

I don't care if the largest RCI buildings are measured upwards of 20, 30 or more units, I would simply like to be able to get the most out of the city layouts. Thus, I am looking for a way to enable a layout grid, either through a in-game setting, or even a mod.

Is this possible?



Best Answer

The built-in road guidelines, which appear after mousing over two existing roads, will position themselves as necessary for the biggest possible RCI building to fit (not guaranteed to fit all ploppable buildings). So if you only ever draw straight lines and 90-degree angles, you'll end up with a perfect grid shape that has no wasted space (until you have to fit parks etc in, and there's not much you can do about that). This works for curved roads too, though it's only for parallel roads (not the spokes that cross them) and gets progressively more out of whack as you chain them together.

However, there's a catch - the guidelines assume you'll never mix roads and avenues. So drawing a road off an avenue's guidelines will give you too much space, while drawing an avenue off a road's guidelines will be too small. There's not much you can do about this unfortunately (or at least I haven't found one).




Pictures about "Is there a way to see a Layout Grid in Sim City 5?"

Is there a way to see a Layout Grid in Sim City 5? - Cheerful siblings walking on sidewalk
Is there a way to see a Layout Grid in Sim City 5? - Unrecognizable children walking on footpath
Is there a way to see a Layout Grid in Sim City 5? - Cute little siblings wearing hats with fallen leaf in hand standing on pathway with dried foliage on street with metal fence



How do you make circle roads in Simcity?

Circle Road: A cross between the square road and arced road tools, you can create oval road patterns with this tool. By holding Shift while dragging, you'll create a perfect circle.

How do you build the perfect Sim City?

You can quickly change your game by toggling effects on and off or by adding a quick cash infusion using the corresponding keyboard shortcuts below.
  • ALT+W - Add $100,000 to City Budget.
  • ALT+F - Toggle Fire On/Off.
  • ALT+C - Toggle Crime On/Off.
  • ALT+M - Toggle Health Issues On/Off.
  • ALT+A - Toggle Air Pollution On/Off.




  • SimCity: How to get High Density Buildings Back to Back




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