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Welcome to the Sim City 4 thread! Sim City 4 is a City-building simulator published by Maxis in 2003. The fourth in the series, it expands on its predecessors quite a bit both in its scale and complexity: Sim City 4 is capable of simulating not only large cities but entire regions that can span many miles and house millions. It is a deep, powerful and complex sandbox game with a sense of realism unparalleled in its genre. These qualities have earned an enduring following with both goons and non-goons alike. EA's release of a new Sim City title has sparked renewed interest in this game; in addition, a great deal of new modded content has required a new OP. Sim City 4 is relatively easy to learn but quite difficult to master (depending greatly on your definition of mastery.) Hopefully this OP will cover the basics; for the rest, well, that's what this thread is for. But first, check out these pictures: These images show a lot of what you can do in this game, both modded and unmodded. They've been pulled mostly off the web and this thread. There are also a few sprinked throughout the OP to break up this massive wall of text. They are in no particular order.             Running the game Firstly, you'll want either Sim City 4 Deluxe or the base game plus the Rush Hour expansion (included in Deluxe.) It's fairly difficult to buy just the base game these days, so this shouldn't be too much of a concern. But for the sake of information: Sim City 4 shipped before a lot of very basic bugs were really worked out; many of these have been fixed with Rush Hour. Still more have been fixed through mods, but we'll get to that later. Sim City 4 is also a very old game, and newer hardware and software hasn't treated the game well. Still, for most people a little tweaking can make the game quite playable. Here are a few basic things you can do to help Sim City 4 run better. Depending on your operating system, many of them can be essential. Patches Firstly, make sure you're running the latest version. The steam version is up to date, so those of you running it through steam shouldn't have a problem. For others, the original Maxis website is unfortunately no longer available. You can get patches and fixes here: http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?page=7 or here: http://screwpile.wordpress.com/screw-pile-exchange-spex/maxis-files Multicore This game is unstable on more than CPU: the game will actually run slower on more than one core, and it will crash often. In your launch options, add the following to prevent this: -CPUcount:1 In addition, -CPUpriority:high can help optimize, but only in addition to the first string. Custom Resolutions Running a large or uncommon resolution? Well tough poo poo! Just kidding. Add a variation of this to your launch options: -CustomResolution:enabled -r1366x768x32 -f ( -f is for fullscreen.) Hardware versus Software Sim City 4 is capable of running off either your computer's actual graphics card - hardware mode - and emulating through your gpu - software mode. Software mode is generally considered a bit more stable on modern systems; however, this greatly depends on the user's hardware. In addition, some custom content (anything you see labeled as HD, notably the terrain mods in the Old Fashioned Pack) requires hardware mode in order to run. For some, either mode runs fine. For others? Well, we've got goons for that. hecko posted:For those having troubles using hardware mode , there's a fix to make it run faster and more stable Tired of seeing that same old splash video? Gets a little old, doesn't it. Add this to the launch options: -intro:off I hate sound and I hate music! Please let me roleplay a deaf mayor. The music in this game is awesome! How dare you! The sound on the other hand can be a little lackluster. Modders also put sounds into their building queries which are often completely unnecessary and terrible (and override the in-game sound settings.) Add this string to your launch options to completely remove it: -audio:off If you're still experiencing technical difficulties, there are also a few in-game options you can use to get things running smoother. By default the game is set to render in Hardware mode, but some graphics cards seem to have trouble with this; switching to Software rendering may alleviate some CTD's and stuttering. Shadows (like in many games) can be especially taxing as well, even on modern settings; switching them off can help as well. Please keep in mind that this was an extremely resource-intensive game, and a lot of computers couldn't run it at the time of its release. Even today, you might experience some stuttering when running the sim on higher speeds, and downtime when playing (and especially saving) large cities. Your mileage may vary.    Cheat Codes Directly above this sentence is the link you need. --- Modding and the Goon Packs The modding scene for Sim City 4 is both rewarding and exasperating in equal measure. Over the years modders have not only created impeccable individual buildings but also whole system overhauls that dramatically change how the game plays. However, Because Sim City 4 is such an old game, its early modders worked under the assumption that people would use 56k internet connections and small hard drives. Mods in general are optimized for space at the expense of usability. For example, take these sweet-lookin' buildings: http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/27457-contemporary-condominiums You may notice a list at the bottom of additional files: parking lot textures, props like awnings or additional cars. These are called dependencies. In order for the mod (in this case, the building) to work, you'll need all of these. Though documentation is generally pretty good, many mods have been shuffled around over the years and finding the right dependencies can be a nightmare. Fortunately, you don't have to! Over the years goons have worked very hard to thwart this idiocy in the form of large modpacks. The Modpacks Here's what the SA community has cobbled together. These modpacks were all made at different times and with a different focus. Some are more comprehensive and deviate from the base game more extensively than others. All of these packs include NAM and the other basic fixes detailed later in this post: if you want to play and not mess with mods, simply take your pick, unpack it, drop it in your plugins folder and enjoy. We'll get into piecemeal modding a little later, but know that these modpacks all include the common dependency packs, so they are fairly addition-friendly. They all come in .torrent form. The Original Goon Gigapack [I'm keeping this as a placeholder for now, but unfortunately no one seems to have a copy of this around at this time. If you do, please post in the thread and we'll figure out how to upload/host it.] This is the oldest pack we've got, dating back to sometime in 2008. It includes all the normal fixes plus CAM with most of its content. This pack can create giant cities, and includes most of the common dependency packs, so adding to it shouldn't be terribly hard. The individual buildings and mods in this pack have been compressed into several large .dat files, which means it's hard to take buildings out of this pack that annoy you. That said it is a very good pack. The Old-Fashioned Pack Version 2.0: oldfashioned2.0.rar Version 3.0: Oldfashioned3.0.rar This is my total conversion pack, designed to replicate the dense urban cores and rural communities in the Northeastern United States and parts of Europe. Its focus is a bit narrower than the other packs: it offers very little in the way of suburban stripmalls and the like, and has a particular focus in the beautiful older buildings that modders seem to enjoy making lately. It includes CAM but does not include its stock content (frankly, the buildings people are making these days are far better than what's in the CAM starter packs.) This pack also includes most common dependencies so adding to it should be fairly easy; in addition, it has not been DATpacked, so you can remove/change its contents as you see fit. Use it if you would like your cities to look like this:    One thing you should know about this pack: the very beautiful HD terrain mods unfortunately require the game to be run in hardware mode; if hardware mode gives you trouble, delete the folder “terrainmods” and it should run in software with little trouble. And.... There's a new version! 3.0 is a little bigger, which on some systems may require patching the Sim City 4.exe with a 4gb patch so the game can use more RAM; this is basically a three-click operation, and much simpler than it sounds. Revisions in version 3.0: - Added a bunch of new buildings; basically everything good and thematic that's come out on the STEX and LEX since February 11. - Added the new NAM. Please note that this version includes the "Extreme Network Controller" option, which supposedly increases stability. It also enables the top-tier elements in RHW, allowing larger highways. This comes at the cost of greater load times for cities and the transition in and out of subway mode. If you don't like it (completely understandable,) just delete the NAM folder and reinstall your own version; it's entierly self-contained and very easy to do. - Organized a little, deleted a few redundant files. The terrain mods that gave people trouble are all self-contained in the "terrainmods" folder and very easy to delete. The part which includes building/other content is still woefully disorganized and psychotic; I've kept it unpacked for moddability, so you can delete buildings/content you don't like. DATpack at your leisure for greater speed! - Added the HT jobs fix. The pack should now include all standard fixes! I'm still going to consider this a beta release; I haven't tested this one as thoroughly as the previous releases, mostly because none of the additions made were especially involved. That said, these are Sim City 4 mods, so bug paranoia is entirely justified. If you see something, say something in this thread and I'll try and figure it out. Enjoy, folks! [/quote] Tai's Pack https://mega.co.nz/#!u1cknZDY!JVND8NDo20iNQ9ZebIpzf6vU1LSCTDB5GBogT0H5rxI This pack is the pack de jour right now. Made by Tai, it expands enormously on an Old Fashioned 3.0 base, adding loads of new content while also removing duplicate files and DATpacking old content for faster loading and play times. This gives it the added advantage of being quite a bit smaller than OldFashioned, but sacraficing some moddability. It is by all reports quite stable. If you're looking for a powerful pack without any of the out-of-game fuss, this is the one for you. Tai's Pack is save-compatible with OldFashioned, and can be considered an upgrade or expansion pack. You can consider it Oldfashioned 3.5, or if you're feeling really spergy, Pathfinder. Killhour's Spergin' Gigapack [This pack has also been regrettably lost; once again, if someone has a copy, please post in the thread! We'll find a way to host it.] A pack for the inner obsessive lurking within, well, not a whole lot of us, really. This pack is very light on custom buildings, but very heavy on scenic options: highway buffers, retaining walls, rocks, trees, and other goodies. It's meant for people who like the original style of the game but enjoy sprucing up their neighborhoods with natural (and man-made) goodies. It includes NAM, and is the smallest pack we have available. Grand Fromage's Pack (with help from GodlessCommie GrandFromage-Plugins.zip A pack of plugins built by GrandFromage over some months, packaged with NAM and a few other goodies by GodlessCommie. I'll be honest, I don't know a whole lot about what's in here. But, looking at GrandFromage's long-running LP (http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3410697) I assume that this pack is a work of love and art. It's GrandFromage. Read the LP and I think you'll find he doesn't gently caress around when it comes to cities. Please note that this modpack is unsupported and unstable; you may or may not have luck running it. It's recommended for advanced users.    Tusen Taak's MacPack v1.0 This amazing mid-weight pack is designed to be mac-friendly! I'm just gonna quote this bad boy here: Tusen Takk posted:Okay guys, here it is: MacPack v1.0 --- DIY: Sliding deeper and deeper into dependency hell Don't want to take our word for it? Want to download mods individually? Think of yourself as one of them advanced users? Go on then. Take my hand, friend, and let's step into the nightmare zone. Don't fear the reaper. Together we ride.  The Must-Haves: There are a handful of mods that are absolutely essential to playing the game. Sim City 4 was rush-released with a number of bugs. Most were fixed in Rush Hour, but not all. Fortunately the community has filled in the gaps with a few basic mods. They are as follows: - The Operahouse fix prevents the operahouse (a late-game reward) from capping growth on your city: http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/21342-opera-house-fix/ - The Netword Addon Mod (NAM) completely otherhauls Sims' pathing (getting to and from work) and adds some other useful tiles and interchanges. It is quite essential. If you don't want your city to be a Mad Max gridlock of autocarnage and abandoned neighborhoods, you'll need this: http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/26793-network-addon-mod-for-windows-installer NOTE: As of this OP, the NAM version 31 is reportedly buggy. It's recommended to stick to version 30 until the bugs get smoothed out. Also, if you've bought Sim City 4 in the UK or elsewhere outside the US, you may have a left-hand drive copy of the game. In this case, it's best to delete the NAM that comes with our modpacks and reinstall it; NAM can configure left or right-handed driving during the installation. Location probably does not affect the steam version. The space port fix prevents the spaceport from doing the same thing the operahouse does: http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/27340-space-port-fix-mod/ - Hole Digging Lots: these can help you make tunnels for some underpasses. http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/3599-hole-digging-lots/ Why, god, why? Hasn't SOMEONE out there packaged all these dependencies together? Once again, gentle and kind-hearted goonkind has come to the rescue. The following pack is a collection of many common dependencies, and should cover your needs for most lots and mods you'll find. This list is, well, extensive; a full documentation is included with the download, which can be found here: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?n66339svskduc6k Beyond these, the sky is the limit. There are gigabytes upon gigabytes of content out there waiting for you. Here are some of the major community sites where you can find more buildings, textures and mods for the game: Simtropolis – http://www.simtropolis.com - Simtropolis is the largest community site and probably receives the most modded content. It also has some utter dreck; fortunately content on this site is user-rated, so you can generally avoid the really bad stuff. The search function on this site is a little less than useful, but you can find almost anything on here. The LEX – http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/Default.htm - This site is moderated by BSC, a prominent modding conglomerate. The content on this site is vetted (with varying levels of success) before it is released to the public, which means there's almost nothing on here that will break your game. The LEX and STEX (Simtropolis' mod database) overlap quite a bit. Overall, despite its dated design the LEX is a little easier to use and a little more comprehensive. It houses most of the dependency packs you'll need, and has some high-quality exclusive content as well. Please note that you will have to register and login for download links to show up. The PLEX – http://www.simpeg.com/forum/?action=downloads - This houses all the mods and content created by Pegasus, a prolific modder who is a little less active these days. Most of the content on this site is mirrored on either the STEX or LEX, but there are a handful of exclusives here as well. These are the three big sites; beyond this are individual modders' sites and various smaller international sites (most of which are defunct and mirrored on the LEX or other places.) Using these sites you'll quickly find yourself submerged in an acronym soup. Here's a quick guide of the more common acronyms you'll find: BAT - Building Addon Tool (I think), program used to make models for new buildings BSC – The modding team which runs the LEX. CAM - Colossus Addon Mod. This mod adds several growth stages for all buildings, including farms. It allows much larger cities and buildings, and also rebalances demand to accomate them. It is a fairly intensive mod and can be a little difficult to set up; fortunately most (if not all) of the goon packs include it. CAM content can be found on the LEX, with a scattering on the STEX. One thing CAM can cause is the double-demand bug, which can be fixed using this guide: http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=8269.msg303353#msg303353 drat - don't remember what it stands for, but it improves the menus LE - Lot Editor LEX (or BSC LEX) - Lot Exchange NAM - Network Addon Mod, as already covered. All our mod packs should include this. NDEX - a modding team PEG - Pegasus (a modder) PLEX - Pegasus Lot Exchange RAM - Rail Addon Mod RHW - Rural Highways (this comes with the NAM.) An extensive alternate highway system which allows a great deal of freedom in designing interchanges and on/offramps. You will spend hours sperging over a single exit. But the results are marvelous. RTMT - Road Top Mass Transit. This mod features subway and bus stations that are integrated into the road. Useful if you don't feel like plopping those stations and disrupting your beautiful grid, though it takes some of the challenge out of your transit networks. SC4D - SC4 Devotion forums SC4M - SimCity 4 Mapper SC4PIM – this is a tool used by lot creators to generate stats for buildings, like how many people/jobs they hold and how much power they require. I believe it calculates based off volume. You really shouldn't have to use this, but it can be useful if some modder screwed up and a tall building is popping up in a low-density zone. SFBT - a modding team SG - SimGoober (another modder) SPAM - SimPeg Agricultural Mod ST - Simtropolis STEX - Simtropolis Exchange TE - transit enabled (lots that can have traffic go through them like toll booths or NAM puzzle pieces) Now for some tools and utilities you'll probably need: SC4 DatPacker http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=26 Use this to compress your thousand plugins into one gigantic file. This will speed up your loading screens and your game in general, and is especially useful if you're running the game on a lower-end computer. It is a bit finicky. BSC Cleanitol http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=97 Use this to clean up old files when you're replacing them with newer versions. It is also quite finicky, and relies on lists of files that modders publish with their updated versions. Modders on the LEX are particularly good about this; others are not. SC4 Terraformer http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=731 For all your mapping needs. This one is especially tempermental, but also absolutely essential if you want to play on high-quality custom maps. Most maps that modders release are essentially image-based heightmaps with a bit more info. This tool converts those into a playable map. You can modify those maps (including the city sizes – if, like me, you like to play on large tiles) through this program as well. SC4 Mapper http://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2880 If you're simply looking to edit city boundaries or convert a map downloaded from the web, the SC4mapper is probably the better option. You will not actually be able to modify terrain with this, but for everything else it is probably the easier and more useful tool. While I've been able to get terraformer to work on vista and win7, SC4mapper officially supports newer operating systems. This program can also be used to make big region screenshots. Oh god just give me a pretty map to use If you don't feel like wrestling with the mapmaker, a generous goon has created rendered and hosted this map. It is compatible with the Old-Fashioned pack due to the trees; your mileage may vary with other packs. It is around 10x10 large tiles, and is very pretty:  http://www.dieanothertry.de/files/Fhuzo.zip Courtesy of the same noble goon, an unmodded, empty version for those of you running the stock game! Schorsch posted:Turns out, I had a backup. A little more on Regions and City Tiles The stock regions that ship with the game come with small, medium, and large tiles. Often the smaller tiles can seem quite limiting (a critique shared with Sim City 5.) However, unlike SC5, these tiles are readily modifiable. Here's a little more information to help you get the most out of your map. They are 3 sizes of cities: Small =64 cells x 64 cells = 1 km x 1km = .63 miles x .63 miles Medium = 128 cells x 128 cells = 2 km x 2 km= 1.27 miles x 1.27 miles Large city tile =256 cells x 256 cells = 4 km x 4 km= 2.54 miles x 2.54 miles In your SimCity folder on your My Documents there is a file called config. Tip: Don't do that while that region is in play, just change to another region while you change the config or exit the game. Config it's a .png file that you can modify in MS Paint, each pixel is a square km. You'll see that it has different color: Red: It's one one square and it represents a small city. Green: 2 x 2 squares, and each one is a medium city. Blue: 4 x 4 squares, and it represents a big city. Tip: If you use MS Paint you can turn on the gridlines, that help a lot. In this example I want to make a 3 x 3 medium city, so it will be a square of 6 pixels.  After loading the region this is our result:  You can see the change in tiles and size of the region. If you want to read more go to : http://www.simcitycentral.net/knowledge/simcity4/regional-customization-part-1-city-plot-layout/   Playing the Game Finally. Here's where the fun begins. Sim City 4 is a relatively simple game to play: quirky, a counter-intuitive at times, but straightforward once you understand what's going on. Here are a few basic tips for creating a successful city and region: - Start small. It may seem tempting with the amount of money you start with, but there's little sense in zoning huge swathes of land for one purpose or another. Doing this results in boring cities, but moreover mirrors a lot of the problems that come with uncontrolled growth in real life: traffic jams, forgotten blocks, long commutes, a lack of essential infastructure and eventual urban blight. I'm showing a little personal bias here – I like to build cities more like New York and Boston than Los Angeles and Houston – but there is good reason to back this assertion up. Try it and you'll see. - Don't build things until you need to build them. If you're building a simple farming town, there's probably little need for a full water grid or school system. When you're plopping down government services, keep a keen eye on how much they cost and if you need to expand more before you can build them. The services your government provides should grow with your city, not the other way around. - On this note, building services is important, but that doesn't mean you need to fund them fully all the time. Almost all services have a slider that sets how much money they spend and how much of the population they can serve. Adjust these to what you need. In addition, many of the modpacks (especially OldFashioned) have service buildings which are smaller but have a wider coverage radius; don't hesitate to use these if you're building a rural area. - Play as a region. If you're trying to build a city filled with shiny skyscrapers and upscale coffee shops, you can put all the dirty heavy industry in a neighboring suburb and not have the pollution bleed into your downtown. Sims will commute from one city to another for work, if they need to. There are even neighbor deals, so if you build a massive power plant in one city you can sell the surplus power to another. Don't feel you have to squeeze everything into one tile; there's an entire region out there to explore! - High-wealth zones, like Hi-tech industrial or commercial office spaces, often have a pretty high population and education requirement before they start to grow. You might have to build a factory town or two before a region will support this kind of development. - There is a particularly nasty bug called the infinite transit loop. If you're running into a lot of abandoned neighborhoods and sims complaining of impossible commutes, check that you haven't created a highway system that loops around “four corners” - rapidly making four right (or left) turns through four different cities. Sims will get on the highway to look for a job, not find one, go to the next city for work, not find it, go to the next city, and, well, you get the point. This is a pretty easy problem to solve: just make sure to break up this circle somehow by rerouting or closing part of the highway. Avoiding this bug can lead to some more interesting transit systems, anyway; perhaps it's a blessing in disguise. - As the last thread title said, the diagonal is a lie. You may notice that a diagonal road doesn't simply take up one diagonal line of tiles like a bishop in chess – it takes up two. When sims appear to travel along diagonal lines, they actually zigzag neatly along that illusory diagonal: up and across, up and across, like a staircase. This means taxicab math is in full effect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxicab_geometry. This shouldn't discourage you from creating diagonal transit options; they are a great way to spice up your city and break out of that boring orthogonal grid. Just be aware that the diagonal “shortcut” you just made might not be such a shortcut after all. - The two most boring systems in the game are water and garbage. For water: once your city gets to the size when you can afford it, just zone out the whole water grid at once and build pumps as needed; this way you'll never have to deal with it again. I recommend picking up a few “cheater” mods to deal with garbage: landfills are buggy and if you're not careful they can be really expensive. Here are a couple mods so you never have to deal with garbage again: http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/3143-geoignic-ingestor http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/4569-peg-garbage-chute - Industrial Areas: You've probably noticed through playing the game that industrial areas work a little differently than the other zones. GrandFromage discovered something rather interesting in his LP: all industrial buildings within a particular zone will route traffic through one road-connected building, so only one building in a given zone has to have road access. The building everything routes through is called an "anchor building." This gives you more leeway zoning-wise: there's no need for a grid. However, all the buildings which sprout off the "anchor building" will be of the same type (dirty, manufacturing, or HT;) so it's a little limiting that way, but also nice in terms of controlling what grows. A nice little trick if you're looking to build pristine hi-tech office parks. Charts and Graphs General advice is one thing, but if you're a spreadsheet fiend these will hopefully prove quite informative: - Staging: Building density is divided into various stages, which are unlocked with greater population in your city and region. Here's a brief guide for all the thresholds in the base game. CAM, which you'll find in the modpacks, adds several stages to each zoning type (15 stages for residential/commercial, 10 for industral, 6 for farming;) these add on to the original stages and have higher requirements.  (This section will be expanded later.)  For Advanced Players Hopefully with these tips you'll be able to avoid the various pitfalls this game can offer and get some healthy cities on their feet. Once you've done this the fun really begins. Sim City 4 is a neat game because of its potential for realism and its ability to simulate a lot of the same successes and problems cities have in real life. It can give you a great appreciation for urban planning and the challenges modern cities face. Grand Fromage's LP is masterful at this, and is a great example to follow; there are also many “city journals” on the various fan sites which help illuminate as well. Here are a few tips for more advanced players. Hopefully they'll inspire you to build better and, after you've figured that out, to build in new and interesting ways. - It's often helpful to plan out where the major urban centers and larger transportation networks (like highways and rail) will be in advance. Think of the land and how people use it: where mining towns and farming communities might be most successful; where different transportation networks merge and spawn an interstate town; or where rivers meet the sea and make room for a bustling port city. Older European and Eastern US cities often rest on the banks of major navigable rivers because the easiest way to transport goods and people before the railroad was by boat. Some cities in the Western US sprang up because of valuable mining prospects or fertile land (Telluride, Boise, Fresno;) others for leisure or due to the growth of a specific industry (Aspen, Palo Alto.) Still other cities have been fabricated entirely from scratch for a specific need (Washington DC, Canberra – some extreme examples include California City and China's unused metropolises.) Figure out the story of how and why your city came to be, and build it! - There are a lot of really great mods for dressing up semi-rural and rural areas. The various mod packs include a bunch of these, but there are plenty out there for you to find. It's remarkable how a stand of trees in a farmfield or a few boulders on a cliff can really spruce things up and bring your little area to life. Get your Bob Ross on! - Google Earth is your friend. Look at the way various cities have solved problems of space and traffic flow in the bast – be they the massive highway systems of Dallas and Houston or Boston's eternal big dig. A lot of cities started with a fairly basic grid which has slowly been morphed to accommodate new services and more people. For instance, there are a few European cities which consist of a tangle of confusing roads surrounding a small gridded inner core. That grid is the remnant of a Roman fort built two millenia ago that slowly expanded outward. Other cities have been limited by external forces: Boston's back bay is built on fill, which makes it unstable ground for the massive skyscrapers you'll find downtown. Again, the fun here is in making the story of how a great metropolis came to be. - Urban Planning is an academic field in its own right. If you find yourself really interested in how cities work and the thought that goes into them, there's a great deal of literature out there for you. Here are some links to get you started: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_planning http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2012/11/evolution-urban-planning-10-diagrams/3851 http://www.amazon.com/Death-Life-Great-American-Cities/dp/067974195X http://www.ted.com/talks/tags/urban%20planning http://www.sfgov3.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/shapeupsf/research_data/built_env_perception_safety.pdf http://www.asla.org/ContentDetail.aspx?id=23720 http://books.google.com/books?id=9HQrahmGeYoC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false (It's worth noting that urban planning is intrisically tied to politics both local and national; it's an interesting lens through which to view current affairs. By its very nature, Sim City 4 is also in a way political: Will Wright, the original creator, is apparently a libertarian. The infinite growth, flat taxes, and instant social mobility the sims experience reflect this. These qualities also make it a fun game. Don't take it too seriously. That said, urban planning threads seem to pop up over in D&D on a semi-regular basis; check them out if you're interested. The real world, as you might guess, works far differently.) Feel free to post urban planning-related stuff throughout the thread; it's all inspiration to build more interesting cities. Ultimately, play the game however you want, and make what stimulates you. Sim City 4 can be very educational, but more importantly it's very relaxing and a lot of fun. Remember to enjoy yourself! Also, people seem to periodically make great effortposts in this thread. I'm going to reserve a space below this post for those; if you see something really informative and extraordinary, PM me and I'll add it in. Credits As far as the modpacks go, we owe an enormous debt to the SC4 community, which represent both the best and the worst that the internet has to offer. I haven't actually created any content for this game; as far as I know none of the other pack creators have either. They aren't huge fans of modpacks on other sites (drama and tears have blown up in the past – though fortunately not with us) so please don't share them elsewhere on the internet. You can thank them for the individual buildings though – they've earned it despite themselves. Bits and pieces of this OP have been taken from posts throughout past threads. Furthermore, almost all the knowledge I have about this game comes from goons and this forum. Thanks so much to the SA community: you've made this game playable not only for me but many others! This OP is a work in progress. I'm going to spruce it up and add more content over the next few days; with a game as old as this, there's a lot to cover. Please let me know about any particularly glaring oversights. For the sake of history, here is a link to the old thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2783218 *PUNCH* fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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*PUNCH* posted:If you don't feel like wrestling with the mapmaker, a generous goon has created rendered and hosted this map. It is compatible with the Old-Fashioned pack due to the trees; your mileage may vary with other packs.  This makes me want to play SC4 right now. I got it on cd or dvd somewhere, but think it's probably best to get it on Steam to avoid hassle and problems. I recall playing the disc version some years ago and it was a bit pain on the rear end to get running properly.
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Mar 8, 2013 09:01
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Holy crap, a new thread. I'd like to note after 20 minutes of playing with NAM 31 - it's going to be awesome. ...once they fix all the bugs.
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Mar 8, 2013 09:08
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Punch, found this: http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/SimCity_4 Lots of good info could help for the OP. And for the others if you're like me. I'm not fond of the steam train so I found a replacement in SC4 Devotion, thanks to RippleJet's post: http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=7789.0. And a tunnel lift, to a more modern look.  I present Rivit's tunnel mod
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Mar 8, 2013 09:19
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Due to the Sim City 5 debacle I'm pretty interested in SC 4 again. Just a couple of things: I love making each city in a region pretty unique, so can I combine all the goon-made mod packs successfully while deleting the duplicates? And has anyone ran across any good slum tile-sets? I've always wanted to make a jam-packed, crime ridden slum metropolis before.
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Mar 8, 2013 09:55
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I haven't played SC4 since college, and back then I didn't have a clue what I was doing. In fact since Sim City first came out, I never had a clue. Didn't stop me from having a lot of fun. I love SC4's charm in its graphics and how it was displayed. I picked it up just now on Steam because of this thread, goodbye productivity...AGAIN.
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Mar 8, 2013 10:12
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I've got Sim City 4 on Steam (despite not remembering buying it), and I read the section with command line parameters to get it running on a multicore system. Does this play nice with Windows 7 (and 64 bit systems in particular)? If so, I can't wait to play this.  The new Sim City has giving me a real urge to play a good Sim City game.
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Mar 8, 2013 10:20
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Zaodai posted:Does this play nice with Windows 7 (and 64 bit systems in particular)? Yes I usually don't have any problems with it, sometimes it's more with some mod causing problems. If you've just change the CPU count to one.
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Mar 8, 2013 10:23
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Zaodai posted:I've got Sim City 4 on Steam (despite not remembering buying it), and I read the section with command line parameters to get it running on a multicore system. Does this play nice with Windows 7 (and 64 bit systems in particular)? I've got Win 7 64 bit and I can say it runs fine. Though for me, it crashes every two hours or so. But that's par for the course with SC 4 and not a problem so long as you save often. There is also an auto-saver program to combat this, however: http://www.thehobbykingdom.com/forum/default.aspx?g=posts&t=3621
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Mar 8, 2013 10:44
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The essential mods section of the OP should probably include the high-tech jobs fix, shouldn't it? And you should probably put in the basic Running The Game section a note of those essential 'patch' mods, for people who don't want to mod and just play vanilla, and will just skip over the modding section. MikeJF fucked around with this message at 11:06 on Mar 8, 2013 |
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Mar 8, 2013 11:04
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Zaodai posted:I've got Sim City 4 on Steam (despite not remembering buying it), and I read the section with command line parameters to get it running on a multicore system. Does this play nice with Windows 7 (and 64 bit systems in particular)? I can't explain it but I've had zero problems with SC4 since upgrading to Windows 7. Windows XP, on the other hand, started giving it poo poo after I got a new video card. Same card, Windows 7, problems vanish. 
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Mar 8, 2013 11:30
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The OP forgot to add: SimCity 4 does not auto save. EVER. Under any circumstances. You have a couple options. * Set a manual kitchen timer near your computer, or have an impeccable sense of time, and remember to save every so often. Crashes happen. Don't let a crash make you lose 4 hours of work. * Use a 3rd party program, Auto Saver. Start the program before running SC4, set the save interval you want, and away you go.
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Mar 8, 2013 13:23
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Thanks for the shout-out.  My pack is just my plugin folder gathered over a period of... poo poo, ten years now? My caveat for anyone who uses it is that there is literally no organization at all and some of the buildings don't work. It's a mess that was never intended for public view, but people requested my plugin folder so there it is. Buyer beware!
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Mar 8, 2013 13:52
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Absolutely awesome OP, major kudos to Punch. As an on-again off-again SC4 fan since its release, I find this game still the king of city-builders. Somewhat tragically so, given the steaming pile that is... well, best leave that to the bad thread.Dapper Dan posted:Due to the Sim City 5 debacle I'm pretty interested in SC 4 again. Just a couple of things: I love making each city in a region pretty unique, so can I combine all the goon-made mod packs successfully while deleting the duplicates? And has anyone ran across any good slum tile-sets? I've always wanted to make a jam-packed, crime ridden slum metropolis before.
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Mar 8, 2013 14:29
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Ah, the SimCity (5) that could have been  On the fence whether to pick this up or not, but I probably will if it's not too expensive. I wish the Aspyr OSX port hadn't been relegated to the scrapheap of history. That game actually ran worse the more modern hardware you threw at it. What amount of RAM would you guys say the sweet spot for this game is? Thinking of building a Win7 VM just to run this (and only this). Would I be better off with x64 or x32?
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Mar 8, 2013 15:01
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32 is fine, it won't use any of the fanciness from 64. It can't even handle multiple cores.
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Mar 8, 2013 15:04
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I don't believe that SC4 is LAA anyway, so more than ~2gigs of ram won't help much, except for OS overhead.
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Mar 8, 2013 15:15
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Great. Probably going to try picking a copy up, then. If I can find my old Win7 lic., that is. Thanks guys 
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Mar 8, 2013 15:24
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Martytoof posted:On the fence whether to pick this up or not, but I probably will if it's not too expensive. Just picked up the Steam version, it was 10 eurobucks. Are there any graphics packs I should get? I won't mod too much as it's been a long time since I played in the first place. Aside possible graphics mods gonna only get the bugfixes for worst things and that NAM 30 thing for now.
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Mar 8, 2013 15:38
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"Graphics Mods" are additional lots and things. None are required, all are optional. But let me make this clear: SimCity4 is not a game. It is a hobby, akin to a model train set. This is because once you figure out the mechanics, the "game" of simply expanding is so easy as to be boring. I understand SC5 emphasizes this game of expansion (as some call it, a "Land Space Management sim") but SC4 just lets you expand and brings about consequences (such as traffic, overcrouded schools and hospitals, leading to crime waves... and so forth) that you can try to fix, which is a lot more fun. But part of this "hobby" aspect of the game is that you are going to want to make it look the way you want it to look. That's where all the other mods come in to play. If SC4 is like having a model train set in your basement, then LEX and Simtropolis is like the hobby shop with all the interesting models you can stick on your trainset. I would say that modding this game... that is, putting in new buildings, or as you say "Graphical Modding", is actually PART of the game, and what makes it fun. You can "play" without it. But you're missing part of the fun if you do.
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Mar 8, 2013 16:13
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Wooh, new thread! For trash, you might also like this plasma gasification plant. It takes trash and produces electricity through plasma gasification. It's pretty similar to the waste-to-energy plant in game, except it produces much less pollution. Also, it looks cool.  (And I'm really, really afraid to catch up with the SC thread...)
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Mar 8, 2013 16:33
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Reading over the Sim City 5 debacle has made me really want to reinstall this, so I wiped out the various mods and plugins I've installed over the years and am starting completely fresh. I've never been able to get good, stable, satisfying regional play down pat, so I'm gonna try to start doing that now. My cities also tended to look ugly and vanilla, so I'm gonna try to go for some more cosmetic mods to make my city feel actually real and not just cookie-cutter. Is there a decent guide anywhere to avoiding boring, North American-style grids? That Fhuzo map in the OP looks simply phenomenal, but it seems waaaaay too mountainous. Is there really not a problem building on mountains or should I just build around them?
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Mar 8, 2013 16:43
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Drone posted:Is there a decent guide anywhere to avoiding boring, North American-style grids? I know there are some around, since I've read them when I was starting out, but the SC4 community being what it is, a lot of those have vanished and no one noticed, leaving a lot of dead links around. Here's a somewhat helpful guide with some concepts but no real details of HOW to do it: Suburbs. Here's a super spergy detailed guide with step by step instructions starting with a perfectly blank flat map (you need to read the whole thread): Realistic Cities for Dummies. In general though, I find that the trick is to use a lot of diagonals, and try to create WINDING, SNAKING streets/roads that lead to central artery avenues. Don't grid. So, start with an avenue, and in fact, make it a diagonal one. Then take a road intersection to it, perpendicular, and go a couple tiles, then dogleg back and forth a bit. Then take a couple streets and extend those off the road, but not too far away from the road. End the streets in cul-de-sacs (four street tiles in a square connected to each other, NAM will auto-generate a nice cul-de-sac for you). Then build zones facing the streets. Commerical zones can face the avenue directly. Once you have a neighborhood like that, make another neighborhood, but only connect to the avenue, NOT to the other neighbood road/streets. Once you're in that mindset, then you can go ahead and make horseshoe roads that double back to the avenue, and such things. Hope this helps get you started. Drone posted:That Fhuzo map in the OP looks simply phenomenal, but it seems waaaaay too mountainous. Is there really not a problem building on mountains or should I just build around them? There is a problem building ON the mountains, but what you need to understand is that the Fhuzo map is HUGE. I don't think you've grasped just how huge it is. For example, I've just started building on the very southernmost part of the map. See that little valley running north south? There is an entire LARGE map space there. The little bumpy part in the south-west corner? It looks a little horseshoe-shaped? That is an entire LARGE map space. That horseshoe part is flat enough to build on. Sticking to that bottom corner, skipping the first valley, the space between the big mountain range and that little hill? An entire large map. I spent literally 16-24 hours over the course of a week filling that square with just farmland. Think of all the mountains as places to stick windfarms, or as neat places to build highway tunnels through. Think about Pennsyltucky (western Pennsylvania) and all that empty space along the long highways... well, this map has places just for that. Not to say that mountain building is impossible either! You can definitely build little shacks along the peaks with some effort, and it looks really nice. The trick is to abandon the idea that all space must be filled, and embrace wilderness tiles. Iunnrais fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Mar 8, 2013 |
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Mar 8, 2013 16:53
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So just how bad of a debacle was SimCity 5, anyway? I never bought it after hearing about the always on DRM and multiplayer only crap. I read a little of the thread but it's just too much of a behemoth to sit and read all of.
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Mar 8, 2013 16:57
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ToxicSlurpee posted:So just how bad of a debacle was SimCity 5, anyway? I never bought it after hearing about the always on DRM and multiplayer only crap. I read a little of the thread but it's just too much of a behemoth to sit and read all of. Let me put it this way; Amazon pulled it for a while because it wasn't functional enough to sell, and EA just pushed out a patch that disables Cheetah speed and limits you to Llama or Turtle to lighten the load on their servers.
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Mar 8, 2013 16:59
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My fiance actually just bought this for me, but accidentally got the base game. Is it possible to find just RH by itself or would I have to end up buying the deluxe version?
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Mar 8, 2013 17:01
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Nice OP, OP. It's got me ready to dive back into the modpacks and create a fresh metropolis. Goodbye weekend... Question about the Old-Fashioned Pack: Does it include NAM or the opera house fix or any other fancy things besides CAM?
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Mar 8, 2013 17:02
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Looks that way, yeah:quote:All of these packs include NAM and the other basic fixes detailed later in this post: if you want to play and not mess with mods, simply take your pick, unpack it, drop it in your plugins folder and enjoy. Thanks very much for this. Great OP! I just installed NAM by myself, but I think I'll replace it with the Old-Fashioned pack. I bought a boxed copy of this a few years ago in a garage sale and hearing so much about SimCity lately had finally convinced me to install it. I've only really played the original though I did buy 2000 from GoG. odiv fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Mar 8, 2013 |
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Mar 8, 2013 17:13
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Thanks for writing the OP, this will finally get me to play.
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Mar 8, 2013 17:15
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odiv posted:Thanks very much for this. Great OP! I just installed NAM by myself, but I think I'll replace it with the Old-Fashioned pack. I installed NAM 30 and it keeps CTDing if I try to build something Might as well uninstall NAM and try that pack too as it looks nice.
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Mar 8, 2013 17:20
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This thread makes me wish I was better at SimCity 4. All I end up doing when I play is getting a medium sized city going and then it fails miserably.
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Mar 8, 2013 17:24
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Haven't actually really touched my copy of SC5. The only good thing is that it does look nice and it somehow sits at 4 gigs, but the current fiasco isn't doing it any favours. Also SC4 is just packed to the brim with mods that there is currently no contest. I need to start up SC4 again. I spent waaaaay too much time with all the puzzle-piece sets that modders made. Those were way too much fun playing around with.
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Mar 8, 2013 17:29
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Thanks for making for a new thread. The fallout of Simcity (5?) got me interested in digging out my old Simcity 4 Deluxe set and rediscover this game Hopefully it doesn't crash on me this time unlike in Win XP.
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Mar 8, 2013 17:30
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Someone posted a guide on steam to do "multiplayer" in SimCity 4 using a folder sync program to share your region with others and have it update whenever they save. I figure with that setup you could pretend your playing the new simcity without the really lovely simulation and bad servers. Guide here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=125255638
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Mar 8, 2013 17:33
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suddenlyissoon posted:This thread makes me wish I was better at SimCity 4. All I end up doing when I play is getting a medium sized city going and then it fails miserably.
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Mar 8, 2013 17:36
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I have boxed copies of SC4 vanilla and RH on my shelf. Does anyone know if those will activate on Steam? edit: Nope, just tried it. Time to do some manual patching
Ceyton fucked around with this message at 17:42 on Mar 8, 2013 |
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Mar 8, 2013 17:37
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Fewd posted:Are there any graphics packs I should get? I won't mod too much as it's been a long time since I played in the first place. Aside possible graphics mods gonna only get the bugfixes for worst things and that NAM 30 thing for now. They are some textures packs some of them are: Lowkee's: http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2753 Gobias': http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2834 There are also water, rocks, beaches and new trees. I use for example, as a water mode this: http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/27272-shk-brigantine-20/ and for the beach http://sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2840 Giving this look: 
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Mar 8, 2013 17:44
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I would suggest that instead of relying on the NAM included in the various packs offered here you just get the newest version, a while back I started a fresh game with a pack I got from here but unfortunately it caused some bizarre rail/road problems (couldn't have rail going over roads or the trains would stop running, so basically no rail). I wish I could be more specific about which pack I got but I don't remember which one it was. Anyways in traditional SC thread style everyone should post their most recent region; here is mine:  I kind of wish I new about that 'plasma gasification plant' someone linked to earlier, I could of avoided having to make that 'trash island' you see in the upper right hand corner of the map.
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Mar 8, 2013 17:47
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 07:44 |
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Well, Old-fashioned pack is working fine for me. I just knew that getting crashes with a 21 MB mod gets fixed by downloading 1.7+ GB more mods  Torrent was pretty good too, got almost 3 MB/s from the main seed.
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Mar 8, 2013 17:50
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