Do you need cheats such as the money tree mod or "you don't deserve it" to make a good CJ?

[Pipcard 20]

read title

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

Depends what your objectives are. If you want to make a CJ based on the simulation and building a functioning city (No cheating), then no, you do not. If you want to make a purely stylized city, like the ones in my CJ, then one is generally less concerned with "cheating" and may use those options. I, however, do not use the money tree and only rarely use the "you don't deserve it" cheat.

So, in short... no.

Also, if you are going to start a thread, try to add something a little more insightful to the conversation than "read title". It really doesn't make very good small talk.

[Z77 3]

You can. There are plenty of CJ's out there that are created without money cheats. I dont remember exactly some that do, since i havent been on here in quite some time, But there are.

A CJ is simply a journal of how you created your city or region. It is used to show off your hard work, no matter how you did it. A CJ could consist of everything from 100% Vanilla content, to not a trace of vanilla content. It is used to showcase your abilities and, like i said, your hard work. Also, there are no such thing as a 'Bad CJ'. Well... if you post repeated pictures of the same thing and all you say is I Liek Mudkips! then it would be bad, but A CJ is what you can do, and how you do it. 

Like many have said...You are an artist....And Simcity is your Canvas. Stick to the rules of an artist. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

I see no real problem in using whatever capability you need to make your CJ or city work.  However, I don't use youdontdeserveit except in desperate situations.  If you want to avoid distractions while you are being artistic, I would suggest you use moolah to eliminate money problems.  You can always reset the treasury to a proper value when you are ready to show your results. 

My trick, as I have explained many times, is to operate as a Heavenly Development Corporation and to grant an initial two million simoleons at the start.  One the treasury gets back over two million, I just take 2 million out of the treasury using moolah again.  I usually don't want the military base nor the prison nor the hot waste facility. 

There are very few, if any, rewards you can't get if you start out on hard difficulty.  If you want the State Fair, start out with a lot of farms.  Later on, they make good subdivisions and other useful urban pods.  Think of farms as a land bank.  I think rewards taste better if you've made some effort to earn them.

If you want a good CJ, showing the growth of a city from a rural environment is not a bad scenario.

[Pipcard 20]

So, I thought of this: if you use cheats, don't treat SC4 as a game; treat it as a piece of art, limited only by your imagination (and your computer specs).

Make it look really, really good to make up for the fact that you cheated.

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

Yes, that is quite a good summary. I use cheats to the point where I don't want a big city, rather an artistic one.

[Pipcard 20]

Do city recreations use cheats most of the time?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

It depends on what you call a cheat.  Some people photoshop the backgrounds and other parts of the snapshots.  Why not?  You are doing art, not illustrating the game.  The game is like a tool that gives you part of your final palette.

I don't have the patience to make a CJ, but I do appreciate good workmanship.  Some CJ's have taken months if not years of creative thought and expression.

[Reikhardt 50]

As the above have said, it's not essential at all. I personally use 'My Cousin Vinnie' so I don't have to look at the bank balance when I'm working on my regions, but usually my books balance. I find if you want a semi-realistic look to your CJ, the economy should function ok!

[nathanthemayor 1,261]

I use cheats sometimes in my CJs....

[Nardo69 51]

Well, on the hand there are quite some really nice CJs out here that are a pure pleasure to see but pure eyecandy,  no micromanagement, no taxe income, nothing. Good if you can do this. And there are also some really nice CJs out there where the author provided everything but didn't  care about taxes. Good if you can do this, too. There are also some marvellous CJs where everything is plopped and static, also a pleasure to see. 

But then again I have the feeling that those kind of "cheating" CJers did understand the game mechanics, played it for a while and then switched to the pure asthetical part of the game. Because I also saw what these cheats did with to beginners who did NOT understand the game mechanics, who switched to cheating before they understood how SC4 works. And most of the time this is not a pleasure to the eyes. 

Me personally I try to keep the game's balance, get the buildings I want grown as much as possible, adjust all the micromanegement and have a positive balance sheet at the end of the sim months. Sometimes it doesn't work, e.g. if you have a large highway connecting two big cities on a map with a 500 soul village. For these special situations I do have my helpers.

This way I have most of the fun with the game. And that's what really counts to me. 

[Simbourgeois 139]

I used to play by the "rules" and wait while I could do things I wanted... Although I was successful in managing the budget and everything, as I had less and less time for SC4, I started using more and more cheats, so that I could focus on things I enjoy most in the game - making nice places for my simcitizens to live their lives to the fullest

Regards,

Simbourgeois

Mayor of Belleville