Dependent on region size. Up to 16 (Largest region).

You can play on your own or with friends. You set up the region and choose for it to be private or public. Private ones, only those invited can join.
You can't do anything about that. You just need to follow the road building grids to maximise for the space to be filled up.
Same size. Money is really easy.
No save/load. If you DC from the internet and you don't get connected, whatever you do will not be saved. We do not know when the server will save/sync. In other words, it's a gamble.


The game relies on the GlassBox engine for almost everything. The engine is broken as it is, and therefore, making the game broken. Utilities, Emergency Services, Trading, Manufacturing, EVERYTHING relies on it.. and it's broken, does not work... so after a while things just break down due to a lousy system.

no. I prefer the 7-player region as all cities are connected. not all cities are connected in the 16-players region.

also, you don't really need everyone to play. if you've played SC4 before, you'd know this trick. you make your own cities are connect the dot. Actually buying now shouldn't be that bad, as I guess they were actually preparing the bugfix to be released by the time they release the Mac version. Duh...EA

Just something that i have made.

i start with low density road. I don't put my main buildings (city halls, police station, etc) along that road, instead I put it at the branch of the main road.

I use avenue, then dirt road. I don't use guide, i use parks to measure the length so i can squeeze every inch of land. Temporary build small city > mining to earn money. Use money to roughly plan using parks to guide. Start figuring out a 300k pop traffic scenario then build road infrastructure that includes roads, tunnels and bridges. After then only zoning and build services (hope i did not mess up). Temporary city is slowly demolish, and replace by new city. Yup try to anticipate the traffic.

nope, low density roads and eventually upgrade to high density road.

Nope. Temporary reduction of income (unless you are almost bankrupt). No penalty to happiness. Avenue don't guarantee skyscappers, only happiness. The idea of getting skyscappers on avenue is a bad idea. Avenue are like highways with few intersection. After a lot of restarts, I don't zone buildings on avenue. Cause people will take U-turn, mess up traffic. Although you can build street cars, it will not work on high wealth. I tried 100% avenue city, 50k pop can cry already.

Notice those tiny gaps between buildings? I measure so that i can fit exactly with no empty spaces between. (Road guides not accurate). I also measure like a street will always contain 1 high density residential. All the house must be high density. No small building or medium size. If they grow in a wrong way, like 2 high density when it can fit 3, just groom them into 3 big ones.

Road is Far more better and effective compare avenue.

If you ZONE RCI along Avenue, you should go re-study about the basic of Traffic.

For Avenue to start working, only place High traffic building, important building eg-Fire,Hospital, or Tourist Attraction Spot along Avenue. If you place too many building, RCI aloing Avenue, it actually make it malfunction. Too many exit.

Advance Guide for using Road :

Avenue - Works like PLUS Highway
High Speed, 6 Lane, Street Car Possible.
if they need to switch direction, they need to U-Turn from next exit....
Avenue Cost Too much Space

Road - Flexible, Space Saving.
For RCI Zone, use High Density Road for max advantage,

Seperate Your RC and I Zone, Connect it with Avenue + Street Car

The only traffic you need to solve is, 9am-5pm, mostly between your Utilities and Industrial Zone.
Mix Commercial and Residential Zone.

I can only speak from experience. My city's garbage collection is something like 25% and recycle about 50%. Population 350k. I have two landfill with maxed out trucks and two recycling centers with maxed out trucks. Ground/Air pollution not too much of a problem atm. It was previously due to the water contamination, but after slowly clearing it out with tress, it's back to good levels. Only thing producing pollution are manufacturing + power plants. With regards to the inefficiency, I would say it's just the game being badly designed. The maps are so damn freaking small and they expect me to have something like 8 landfills and 4-5 recycling centers? Yeah right..

Traffic jam can cause power plants to fail, which in return will cause utilities to fail,

10% high wealth is okay not 30% (unstable city, needs constant supervision). High wealth more = less population. I would estimate around 400k if zone all low wealth.

even as they start recycle doesn't mean that garbage goes away. a lot of players were trapped with this.

Skyscrapers = less pop. What you need is Flat housings not Condominium. What you need is low wealth high density (Flats). You are building high wealth high density (Condominum). Remove $$$ parks, put $ parks instead, then you will see your population grow. I know a lot of people like nice tall-tall building but.....

Like pixielot say, you will need your neighbor student to completely upgrade your Uni.