What are these "stages," anyway?

[displacementzero 2]

I've been playing the game for a while, but I'm just getting used to the nuances. And specifically, on the STEX, buildings can be considered in "stage 4" of the Chicago set or "stage 7" of the Houston set, etc. etc. I was wondering what the stages meant, how you can quickly move up the stages, what determines buildings being in certain stages, etc. etc?

[TV-VCR 15]

Stages are, well stages that cities go through, for example you start at stage 1 and work your way up to 8 (unless you have CAM installed). Stages are pretty much phases, determining what your city's needs are, what kinds of buildings grow, and so forth, i.e. at stage 1, you're not going to really need fire or police stations for a while, and you'll have only smaller buildings. At stage 8, you need all good services a large city would need, not to mention you can have skyscrapers.

[Adnoxaei 0]

Stages are kind of like the limits on what can build in your city. In reality, a town with a population of 500 is not going to build a skyscraper, but a city of 5,000,000 should be building skyscrapers. It's like the games way of keeping that idea in mind. As your city gets bigger and you add services, your city can build bigger buildings. I'm not sure of the details, but you start in stage 1 and stage 8 is the highest. Also, cities that can build stage 8 stuff don't build just stage 8 items. They still build lower stage buildings too.

What makes a building in a certain stage is usually the number of people living or working in it. I'm not sure if wealth has anything to do with it. Wealth also affects it.

Edit: There is a mod that changes the number of stages in the game. TV-VCR mentioned it.

Edit: Struck out and corrected the wealth bit. Thank you TV-VCR.

[TV-VCR 15]

Originally posted by: AdnoxaeiEdit: There is a mod that changes the number of stages in the game. TV-VCR mentioned it. quote>

Yeah, the CAM changes the amount of stages from 8 to 15.

PS: Wealth does have an effect on it.

[stormlover 16]

The question about stages is a good one. Unfortunately, the answers have shed little light on it.

Why are there 8 stages? What's the difference between them? What causes them to change? Why would one want a mod to increase the number from 8 to 15? Does that mod change how the original stages operate or does it leave them alone and add "super stages" above and beyond the original SC program?

Confused, bewildered....

Tim in NC

[SC4BOY 21]

Go to SC4Devotion and read the documentation for CAMeLOTS.. RJ does a decent job of explaining it.. no need to re-invent the wheel.. they answer most if not all of those questions

[stormlover 16]

Thank you and good morning. Indeed there is much benefit from using both sites; learn a bit from one then the other; back and forth it goes!

During the wee hours this morning I got so darned frustrated with all of it that I uninstalled then installed my Sim City Deluxe program. Am starting fresh - after by trial and error figuring out how to get some organization. I'm going to make a new thread about that shortly - hoping it may help others who've not already spent a zillion hours trying to figure things out.

Thank you for your good advice,

Tim in Cape Fear, NC

[NetPCDoc 1]

Hello displacementzero,

As others have already said - for complete details - check out the Collosal Addon Mod (CAM) over at SC4Devotion.

In short - Stages group buildings based on the Occupancy of the Buildings, with higher Occupancy Buildings being in higher stages; the stage your game (i.e. city) is in is determined by the city's population; while your city is in a lower stage - only lower stage buildings may appear (i.e. grow); as your city progresses to higher stages, buildings with higher Occupancy Ratings will become available - how-some-ever the stage-ing rules work as percentages across all (up to the current) Stage, meaning you should always have a certain amount of lower stage buildings around (i.e. somewhere in your region).

Enjoy the game,

-NetPCDoc

No detail is too small to be micromanaged.