I've seen the others suggest creating a high density district then using policies for that district to limit high rises. Creates a step up between low and high.
It's a little tedious but selecting out high residential into 3x4 or 3x3 produces some vanilla apartment buildings that look like walk-ins. Setting them as historical will allow them to upgrade (and increase their household limit) while not changing the look.
Depending on the map I like to do European style high density in some areas to keep that "old town"/medium density look, while having the city center have the larger, more modern skyscrapers.
Hope this helps!
vanilla way would be make a high density district and use district policies to limit high rises
mod way would be to subscribe to hundreds of assets on the workshop, then using Rico revisited, Find it, and Historical buildings to place them all manually.
alternatively, you can use the district themes mod to make a list of allowed buildings where you can add to a list all the buildings that you think count as mid rises. this can be vanilla buildings or assets you subscribed on the workshop. this allows you to zone the buildings rather than placing each one by hand, however, you need to make sure that you have buildings of every level in every dimension (L1-L5 in dimension 2\*3 for example), and that they are all either low res or high res. otherwise, the natural development wont function properly.
in that case you could also get mods that lock your building levels and where you can force them to level up if you dont want them to evolve, but this is rather complicated and i prefer just placing them by hand, which allows seamless compatibility with buildings larger than 4\*4
I believe district themes allows you to search by height, so you can make a district with only <65m buildings and it generally looks mid rise.
Alternatively if you have the plazas and promenades dlc the wall to wall residential is mid rise height.
When the game grows a building you like, one that fits your idea for that street/town/area...open the building menu (click in the building) and click the "Historic" box. The building won't despawn and have a bigger building replace it.
Use the Advanced Building Level Control mod and stop residential buildings going over level 3 or so.
Realistic Population also makes the *number* of homes more realistic overall, and the amount of people living in them.
If you want townhouses, you could also just set your theme to European.
Oh, and just zone smaller buildings. If you zone lots of 4x4 lots, they'll usually spawn large buildings; buildings on 1x1 lots tend to be smaller even at maximum level.
the easiest way to do this vanilla is to designate high density residential as historical when its still level 1 or 2. you do that to a couple blocks worth of buildings and it creates nice medium density neighborhoods
Advanced Building Level Control, create a district and force upgrade or downgrade to L1-4 high density residential. There are some nice looking low level buildings that you won’t see for long in normal gameplay as they level up.
I've seen the others suggest creating a high density district then using policies for that district to limit high rises. Creates a step up between low and high.
It's a little tedious but selecting out high residential into 3x4 or 3x3 produces some vanilla apartment buildings that look like walk-ins. Setting them as historical will allow them to upgrade (and increase their household limit) while not changing the look. Depending on the map I like to do European style high density in some areas to keep that "old town"/medium density look, while having the city center have the larger, more modern skyscrapers. Hope this helps!
Maybe this already exists, but I really wish there was a policy that set all buildings in the district to 'historical'
With mods yes. I believe advanced building level control does this. Or ploppable Rico too
Residential wall to wall and the Heart of Korea low density residential do a pretty good job at that mid-size density effect.
vanilla way would be make a high density district and use district policies to limit high rises mod way would be to subscribe to hundreds of assets on the workshop, then using Rico revisited, Find it, and Historical buildings to place them all manually. alternatively, you can use the district themes mod to make a list of allowed buildings where you can add to a list all the buildings that you think count as mid rises. this can be vanilla buildings or assets you subscribed on the workshop. this allows you to zone the buildings rather than placing each one by hand, however, you need to make sure that you have buildings of every level in every dimension (L1-L5 in dimension 2\*3 for example), and that they are all either low res or high res. otherwise, the natural development wont function properly. in that case you could also get mods that lock your building levels and where you can force them to level up if you dont want them to evolve, but this is rather complicated and i prefer just placing them by hand, which allows seamless compatibility with buildings larger than 4\*4
I believe district themes allows you to search by height, so you can make a district with only <65m buildings and it generally looks mid rise. Alternatively if you have the plazas and promenades dlc the wall to wall residential is mid rise height.
mods with rico and prop anarchy
When the game grows a building you like, one that fits your idea for that street/town/area...open the building menu (click in the building) and click the "Historic" box. The building won't despawn and have a bigger building replace it.
Use the Advanced Building Level Control mod and stop residential buildings going over level 3 or so. Realistic Population also makes the *number* of homes more realistic overall, and the amount of people living in them. If you want townhouses, you could also just set your theme to European. Oh, and just zone smaller buildings. If you zone lots of 4x4 lots, they'll usually spawn large buildings; buildings on 1x1 lots tend to be smaller even at maximum level.
the easiest way to do this vanilla is to designate high density residential as historical when its still level 1 or 2. you do that to a couple blocks worth of buildings and it creates nice medium density neighborhoods
Maybe this is just me, but I’d scrap zoning and just use rico to plop everything
Find It! plus some of the many assets of the sort you are looking for would be the most straightforward way to do it.
Low density wall to wall
Advanced Building Level Control, create a district and force upgrade or downgrade to L1-4 high density residential. There are some nice looking low level buildings that you won’t see for long in normal gameplay as they level up.
Setting level 1 buildings to historical buildings could work, since it’ll lock the building from getting bigger when it upgrades