New to SC4 & this site, requesting a little help !

[Anhedonia 0]

Hello everyone, I was told about this site, that it was the most important third-party development community for the game, so I thought it  best to ask for a little startup advice on here, rather than trying to police up the random bits and pieces myself and missing something important !

I would like to ask, considering that I've bought the SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition, what I should download/buy to begin with;

Patches

Official Add-ons

Any large mods

'Essentials' from this/similar sites ?

Thanks in advance - as an aside I'd rather get stable add ons/mods than unique ones that crash the game after an hour.

Thanks again guys, I hope someone here has the patience for an utter newbie !

[pipelad 6]

 Welcome! and you came to the right place!

well for starters there are a few thing you need to download that will help gameplay and are not mods.

---

Originally posted by: Boggy1

Nightlights and Updates

Often, you might find that the nightlights on the buildings you downloaded do not show up when you switch to Night Mode in the game. To solve this issue, you need to download the two game updates, so follow the instructions below.

If you haven't already, you need to download the EP1 Update for the game.

Go here: http://www.sc4devotion.com/SC4D_Maxis_files_EP1.html

For whatever region you live in, download the specific SKU file. For instance, if you live in North America, only download the file marked "sku 1".

Then, you need to download the SC4Update4BAT, which is here: http://www.sc4devotion.com/maxis/SC4Update4BAT.zip

Install the EP1 Update first by double clicking it and following the instructions. Then do the same for the SC4UpdateBAT file. A box will pop-up with "This program will apply changes needed to support the Building Architect Tool. Before you install this update (build 640) please make sure that you have applied SimCity 4 EP1 Update 1 successfully.". You can safely ignore it; just press OK.

Then you're done!

Remember you need Sim City 4 Rush Hour or Sim City 4 Deluxe for these updates and most downloads to work.

---

That update will fix a few things, and also will make night lights more vivid. Also as an aditional plus, all the buidlings you might download in the future need that update in order for the night lights to work. If you download custom content with nightlight and dont have the update they will simply wont work, so this update is quite important.

Next step, go to the omnibus [Here], its a group of tutorials that will help you get started! they are very organized and they give all the links to custom content if any is needed.

After that, well there is a lot of custom content out there, and many of them "crash" the game to desktop, but  not because of them but because the game has a bug that makes the program crash if you hover any puzle pieces over a transit enabled lot, so if you take care of not hovering any puzzle pieces over transit enabled lots you wont suffer any crash due to custom content. Almost every custom content is thurally tested so they are all stable.

Also the game is not compatible with dual core processors, so if you have one you need to set the affinity to only 1 processor, with 2 procesors the game randomly crashes to desktop.

All that being said, you need to decide what style of cityes your going to build, looking in the city journal [Here] and [Here] for the forum section, you might find a lot of inspiration, why do i tell you this? because there are literally thousands of mods out there, so in order to find and filter what you will like to download is a good idea to plan ahead, that way you wont end up with a 4GB plugin folder full of stuff you never use. 

Having that in mind, you can search for custom content in the stex [here], where all the custom content is uploaded. 

if you see something in a pic or city journal and you can't find it in the stex, you can post a request to see if some one else has the link for it [Here].

Besides that i would personally recomend you that if your in to downloading mods, the best one you can download is the NAM, it is a reall upgrade from the basic transit networks that the game comes with, it adds lots of new stuff to traffic and its a good tool that will help you alot! 

Hope this helps! if you need anything else joust ask

[Mayorm 14]

my advice is to look in the CJ section of the forums for some inspiration, also numerous downloads are displayed in pictures there, I have found downloads that are nice and I like just by reading city journals.

[thefunktopus 1]

NAM!!!

TERRAIN MOD!!!

BUILDINGS!!!

(Sorry for the shouting, I get excited about the NAM)

[Anhedonia 0]

Thank you so much, pipelad - I'm going through the official updates at the moment - I hadn't realised that the game needed any heh, perhaps I'd have noticed over long association ! I'll certainly keep in mind your comment about ending up with a 4gb folder full of stuff - I got into that situation with Neverwinter Nights - loads and loads of custom content that was never used !

Mayorm - I'm going to head over there next, when I'm all patched up and have had a look at this NAM & the other things suggested - care to reccomend anything in particular that I should look at ?

thefunktopus - I've already got the NAM down - what terrain mod do you mean - there appear to be loads, textures, gradient changes etc ? 

Thanks again guys !

[Red Lightning 8]

my advise is, make sure you have the nam, nwm, rhw, extra bridges, high speed rail.

these are my essentials,

RED

[Aktof 2]

Canals and Seawalls are two of my favorites that have not been mentioned, peg does them well I suggest to download from them Best of luck in your city building!

[Allstillwell 77]

Follow what pipelad said and The NAM + RHM +SAM are a must download in my opinion. Also maybe the CAM. ( Network add on mod, Rural Highway add on mod, Street add on mod)

[Anhedonia 0]

Hello again,

I've been having a rather good time with the game - downloaded the NAM, some stations for the avenue trams, el-rail-over-road systems - they're a nice thing to drop into an overcrowded city that won't grow any more, I've found ?

Couple of questions - I've discovered the official Maxis update (638 is it ?) - applied that through their in-browser update thing - Just curious if there's any way I can check if it's worked ? There's no very obvious differences in-game you see.

Second - what does the Rural Highway Mod do for me that a well-laid out rail network doesn't ? (I've got my cities connected by a fairly extensive system of railways at the moment, with SimGoober's 'Central Station' lurking in the biggest to handle the traffic). 

Finally - Would anyone mind offering a little advice on the pedestrian paths included in the NAM (forget their proper name) - I'd like to use them to create 'pedestrianised' streets around important civic buildings, as I see in the real world, but the engine seems to sulk about this, and register some buildings as having no access, and showing that 'no car' zot.

[jim 546 43]

You should update the game to 640 by using the Update4BAT patch. This will allow you to see custom nightlights. You can check which version you have by right clicking on the SC4 application and checking the properties.

Rural highway is mainly there to provide realistic highways, with features such as custom interchanges. It can also provide some traffic relief in large networks by using extra lanes. It can't really replace a rail network as the two are different networks, but it can support road systems.

Ped-mall tiles usually require a transit converter point near them to work properly, such as a parking lot or a bus stop. The best thing to do with ped malls is to build the street first with roads, wait for the area to develop then replace the streets with ped mall tiles. Note that you can't place ped malls in front of residential buildings, as they need car access to function and will abandon wit no road access, but commercial and industrial are fine without it. I'm not sure about certain civic buildings like fire stations, I assume if you put ped malls in front of a fire station, the fire trucks wouldn't be able to leave the station?

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Welcome.

As you can see from the various responses everyone has their own playing style.  This is something one develops over time.  My style has changed about four times in the eight years I've been playing.  Here is a review of what I consider essential:

EP1 from the home site.  Be careful that you get the one for the version of the game you have.  The correct one depends, not on where you are now, but where the game was purchased.

BAT update to allow buildings from the Building Architect Tool in lots to function properly

Two plugins from the Maxis (EA) site which are also available elsewhere:

bldgprop_Vol1.dat

bldgprop_Vol2.dat

These are essential for your lots to work properly with things like flora and fauna

Some out and out fixes available on the STEX:

CityHall_fix.dat

OperaHouse.dat

Plugin_landmarks_and_other_missing_props.dat

These fix known problems

For myself, I consider that certain things are needed to help the game along.  However, none of these could be considered mandatory.

ExtraTerrainTools.dat

Network Addon Mod (latest version) with the Network Widening Mod (NAM+NWM)

Street Addon Mod (SAM)

That's enough for a preliminary group.

The Real Highways Mod (RHW) formerly the Rural Highways Mod involves some civil engineering aspects that I am not prepared to cope with, but you may find it useful.  I also use rail, extensively.  In this day and age, I am tending to not cater to the automobile.

I hope you will enjoy playing this 'game'.  It is really one of the best simulation programs I have ever encountered, and I used to teach writing simulations when I was a college professor.

There are other sites that you should look at:

The SimCity4Devotion Site and their LEX.  You have to join both, but it is free.  There is a link at the bottom of the page.

Pegasus Productions and the PLEX, which is also free.  Pegasus does theme work, and is quite an interesting site.

And, of course, the SimCity4.com home site.  Do not download anything from the exchange on that site.  It is unmoderated and full of viruses.  However, the downloads created by Maxis and EA in their "good stuff" pages is OK.

 

 

[tungston 19]

Originally posted by: Anhedonia

Hello again,

.......

Couple of questions - I've discovered the official Maxis update (638 is it ?) - applied that through their in-browser update thing - Just curious if there's any way I can check if it's worked ? There's no very obvious differences in-game you see.

.......

quote>

You can right click on the SimCity4.exe file, then click properties, that will have the file version that includes the 638 number.

[paulmc 393]

I include airport addon to make realistic airports, be welcome.