General Getting Started Guide

[donarumo 0]

I'll be honest, I haven't looked into the Simtropolis community in about three years.  After the announcement of that new game, I decided to reinstall SC4 and came up here to see what was going on.

Wow, have things changed!  I'm a little confused about all the options available.  What I'm looking to do is design my own city from scratch using a lot of custom content available here.  Is there perhaps a guide on how to get started with lots, props, and plots and what the difference is and how they should normally be used?

Also, any help on how to go about customizing a city or region?  Or what should be some of the first downloads for a new user.  Are there any downloads one should not get started without?

I looked around the forums but could not find a getting started guide.  It's entirely possible I missed it, let me know.

Thanks ahead of time.

[tirhascragoo 0]

I also would like to know this...All this talk of props, lots, etc. is mind-boggling to a newbie...

[Jazzmaster 716]

You may have noticed teams of BATers that have teamed up to produce high quality lots on the STEX (such as BLAM, NDEX, MAPP, PEG Productions, and BSC).  Obviously, these are some of the most popular lots there.  Some creators seem to focus on certain aspects of the game.  If you want eye candy lots designed for specific cities, I suggest Pegasus' lots, especially the CDK, Mountain Series, and Seaport village collection.  If you want brand-name commercial buildings and other awesome goodies like that, you'll want to look at Simgoober's and Kevdan25's creations.  Now, if you want awe-inspiring skyscrapers, look out for NDEX's and BLAM's jaw-dropping BATs.  If you haven't already seen it, go check out the NAM (Network Addon Mod).  The most recent version (June 2007) is at SC4 Devotion.com.  It's an awesome expansion on your transportation network, including Ground-Level Rail (GLR), avenue roundabouts, and new-highway interchanges, to name a few.  Also take a good look at the the great Mods in the Modds and Downloads section as well as the STEX.  Finally, there's a STEX collection DVD, you can get by donating a minimum of 30$ to this site with the "stuff to build your dream city".  The props you'll hear about are usually dependency packages found  in readme files with links provided, and are required for the lots to function 100%.  Hope this helps, and sorry for the long post!

Mods I recommmend:1.)NAM 2.)No One-Way Road Arrows 3.)Street Cul-de-Sac 4.)Annual Farming report 5.)City Tracker

Top:Seaport Village by Pegasus

Middle:Suburban Mall by Simgoober

Bottom: Several BLAM, NDEX, as well as other buildings are showcased here.

[gshmails 536]

There are too many quality things to list, but my suggestion would be to go to the stex, click the popular button to see the most downloaded lots and bats, and the use the menu on the left-hand side to go through each of the categories.  This will show you the best of the best first.

What you download depends on how you play, what you want your cities to look like, and also how much stuff you are willing to put on your hard drive.  Other that actual bats and lots, you should check out the new modds to help with gameplay and game speed, such as the DatPacker at SC4Devotion which will allow your game to run smoothly no matter how many files you have in your plugin folder.

Good luck, and welcome back!