Stage Caps Mod

[kwackwack 0]

I used to think stage caps were only per city, but I have noticed for agriculture they seem to be for the entire region. The reason I believe this is because of the following:

I started a region and created four cities to start off with. They were heavily weighted to agriculture, and when I started them off I saw tons and tons of pumpkin acres which I'm pretty sure are stage one. After developing these cities for a while, and created two more new cities, zoned agriculture, and immediately began getting lots and lot of petriana's plants, which I know are stage 3 IRs. One of the new cities is only buiding petriana's plants, right from its inception, and it only has about 500 IR jobs. So the regional population of farm jobs must contribute to stage cap.

I'm not sure if this applies to the other types of zones, but if it does to farms then it would seem likely that it applies to the others as well. But then stage cap percentage and population don't seem like the only thing that determines how large buildings get, because I also have seen that desireability and commute time affects that too. Seems like the higher the desireability in a place, the more likely it will grow to a large building, and if sims can find jobs easily from a location, it will more likely grow large too.

[DaveParker 0]

kwackwack, you recently installed the new Rush Hour patch? Because that seems to make petriana's plants appear everywhere instead of pumpkin acres after that has been installed. If you have, it's almost certainly that which has caused what you're seeing.

[kwackwack 0]

You're right, it could be something to do with this new patch. I still wonder, though, if this is a new problem that the patch introduced, or if the problem was something before that was preventing industry to fully apply the stage cap percentages that now is 'fixed'. In other words, is the reason that petrianas plants keep popping up because they are the only stage 3 farm buildings, and that at 100,000+ regional pop (my region is that large now) they are set to 60% for all farms, or is it just a new bug that makes them pop up even on brand new cities? Anyone find petriana's plants to pop up like that on a brand new region?

Still, I do remember before I applied the patch that other farm buildings like Llama Ag & Bartlet Stables appeared with more frequency on my 3rd & 4th city than in my 1st & 2nd city (all my cities started off heavy on the agriculture). My first two cities were almost totally pumpkin acres. So, I still wonder, but it could be true that stage caps are only city wide and that there's something else going on. That was my original belief, anyways.

[The Great Chozo 34]

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On 12/1/2003 12:14:05 PM kwackwack wrote:You're right, it could be something to do with this new patch.  I still wonder, though, if this is a new problem that the patch introduced, or if the problem was something before that was preventing industry to fully apply the stage cap percentages that now is 'fixed'.  In other words, is the reason that petrianas plants keep popping up because they are the only stage 3 farm buildings, and that at 100,000+ regional pop (my region is that large now) they are set to 60% for all farms, or is it just a new bug that makes them pop up even on brand new cities?  Anyone find petriana's plants to pop up like that on a brand new region? 

Still, I do remember before I applied the patch that other farm buildings like Llama Ag & Bartlet Stables appeared with more frequency on my 3rd & 4th city than in my 1st & 2nd city (all my cities started off heavy on the agriculture).  My first two cities were almost totally pumpkin acres.  So, I still wonder, but it could be true that stage caps are only city wide and that there's something else going on.  That was my original belief, anyways.

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I get them all the time now. Look at this shot, the funny thing is, it is worse than this in some other cities.

[chunkymon24490 6]

Well, its an OK idea, but the problem is is that I want commercial and residential skyscrapers at the same early time, and a high population. I think maybe you should change the idea slightly.

[DvdGStwrt 5]

I don't know, I have thought about it, but I also just go with what takes place refraining to use HD residential that much sticking with Medium Density mostly until I start getting the taller com buildings.

I suppose if it was offered I would try it.


Cheers

David

[Mallozzi 0]

Well I like the idea. I just don't think players make much use of the lower and medium density and stick to zoneing high density lots.

[phenphen 1]

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On 10/27/2003 4:47:14 PM toroca wrote:

I said a long time ago that I was going to create a mod that changed the Stage Caps to be more realistic, but I never got around to actually doing it. After playing with the Reader today, my interest got reawakened in this, and now I'm trying to find out if there's still interest for the idea.

Here are my basic thoughts on how I'd set this up:

1.) Stage Caps on all forms of commerce would be lowered somewhat, so you'd start getting the larger commercial buildings earlier.

2.) Stage Caps on all residential would be increased significantly, so you'd have to get a higher population before you'd get the biggest buildings.

With these two changes, you would see less of the 'downtown hole' problem that is common now, where your commercial core (assuming you have one) is dwarfed by the residential buildings around it. The idea is that commercial skyscrapers would appear LONG before residential ones, making for a more realistic city. I wouldn't be able to completely eliminate the problem of residential buildings being taller than commercial ones, for the simple reason that Maxis for some stupid reason made most of the game's tall towers residential, contrary to almost every real world city. But I could significantly reduce that problem by keeping the tall residential towers out until your population has grown very large.

Note: This mod would NOT be for people who just want to get as high a population or as many skyscrapers as possible, because by making it harder to get the big residential buildings, it would by default become harder to get a high population and the big residential towers. This mod would be for people who want more realistic looking cities.

So, what do you think? Would this be worth my effort to produce? If you're interested in this, please post here with comments and suggestions that I might be able to incorporate into this mod, assuming I actually do create it.

EDIT - For those who don't know what Stage Caps are, they are controls Maxis put in the game that prevent you from getting towering skyscrapers when you first start a new region. They're meant to make your region grow more realistically, but they don't really work that way because of the size of the big residential buildings and because the commercial office stage caps are set the same as the residential stage caps, which ends up causing big residential buildings to appear first. The reason for that is that the Stage Caps are based on residents/jobs of each wealth level. So a city might have 50,000 people and thus be past the Stage Cap for Stage 8 (big) residential buildings to appear, but that same city may only have 20,000 commercial office jobs, so it would still be limited to smaller commercial buildings. Ask if you still don't understand.

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Hrm. Now, I know I'm probably going to be laughed out of this thread but, one quick, small, simple question. How exactly would I go about changing the stage caps to my own personal prefrences and what modding/editing tool would I use?

[toroca 160]

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On 2/20/2004 3:51:22 AM phenphen wrote:

Hrm. Now, I know I'm probably going to be laughed out of this thread but, one quick, small, simple question. How exactly would I go about changing the stage caps to my own personal prefrences and what modding/editing tool would I use?

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You would download the reader and edit the same properties I did.  You can look at my files to see what I edited.  I will warn you, it's a painstaking process.

Chunkymon24490, this mod obviously isn't for you then.  Don't tell me to rethink an idea just because it's not the kind of mod YOU want.  Other people want it, obviously.

I've been using this mod for some time now, and I consider it finalized.  When I finish another mod I'm working on, I'll release them both as finished mods instead of just betas.

[the Monkeys Uncle 35]

I don't really like that you raised Res stage limits, so I'm going to see if I can do just the CO ones myself.

[toroca 160]

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On 3/1/2004 2:54:45 PM the Monkeys Uncle wrote:I don't really like that you raised Res stage limits, so I'm going to see if I can do just the CO ones myself.

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/images/smilies/2.gif border=0>

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*sigh*  This is why I told you to read.  In one of my posts above, I specifically said that I did Res and Com separately.  You can use either one or both together.  This is also documented in the readme file that I made sure to include.

[Marc Collins 36]

I have now been using this mod since it came out and I can say it seems to work brilliantly and is definitely more realistic. So after many months of testing...get it everyone!

[jonhktuenmun 0]

What reader do I have to download to edit the stage limits?  There are so many different tools on this site that everything gets confusing.

[Hordijk 18]

Dear jonhktuenmun,

 

You would have to get this  tool (That is what they mean with the reader)

 

-Good luck modding

[IGGYMAN 101 1]

Thats great. Please! show the image of Stage Caps Mod.

[IGGYMAN 101 1]

Stage Caps can stop to growable building structures in Simcity 4 map. I cannot mention the building cannot rise up. I can see, when playing SC4, only few stage 8 commercial buildings...

even you plot RCI zones....