Need Help

[jacksunny 741]

Ok im not sure how to widen an avenue.

The NWM puzzle pieces don't use avenues to extend them, they use roads. What you will have to do is destroy all the avenue that is currently there, then plop the NWM puzzle piece. You will have to drag a road out from every tile and it will automatically convert to the network you chose.

But i do have some problems with it, everytime i try to use one of the new road builds my game crashes.

You might be hovering a puzzle piece over a TE lot (Transit Enabled). There is no fix for this, you can only take extra care to make sure it doesn't happen. Zoom in all the way and move the piece around carefully. Save before you even attempt to place the puzzle piece, then save after.

i have been trying to figure out how to put a tram on my avenues, cant figure that out either.

This can be quite a lengthy process as it requires plopping a different puzzle piece in different situations. For some of the pieces, you might have to destroy any avenue currently in place. Also make sure the ground is level or it might not build. And again, save often!!!

I am losing alot of my buildings as well, nearly half my buildings are being half used. I cant figure out what. I took a picture of one to see if you guys could figure it out.

It appears people are leaving because of the traffic noise. You have 2 options:

1. Get the Sims to take a different route to work. I'm not exactly sure how one would go about doing this though, so maybe somebody else could help you.

2. Get the Sims to walk or use Mass Transit. Place subway stations and bus stops, or use Ped Mall tiles.

When i first read stuff on SC4, back in 05 or something, it said if you want sky scrapers to put your tax for high level houses really low, that way itll increase the potential for higher houses..

That is true for all building types. Just be careful when raising taxes after the decrease though, too big of an increase may cause some bad, unexpected results.

Also, i am wanting to increase my airport size, will this help things out at all? Or should i just keep it the same size.

It depends on how many people are using it. Use the query tool to check.

Before upgrading things though, you should always check their funding. Simply increasing the funding is much less expensive then destroying and rebuilding something.

Good luck!!!

Jack

[Helepolis989 0]

Ok, that all helps, I went ahead and started another city next to my main one, a real one, not one that is just industry. It is growing rapidly. Im trying to get a elevated rail system going through the majority of it. i am TRYING, not succeeding at going through the city without an industry. So i dont have any pollution and stuff like that. My housing and commercial is way down in demand. Which is disappointing. I am getting pretty big, put some eye candy in there just trying not to do any industry.

[jacksunny 741]

Are you avoiding industry because of the pollution? You could attempt to get High-Tech industry which doesn't produce pollution. Just raise the taxes for all other industries except for High-Tech. You might have to lower the taxes for High-Tech as well.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The very first thing you do when you are ready to use puzzle pieces is an in-game save (CTRL+s).

You need to be aware that if you pick up a puzzle piece and cross or touch any transit enabled lot or tile you will crash. Therefore, work at the highest magnification and when you've done something tricky, save again.

The greatest care is needed doing this work, and it can be rewarding as well as frustrating. To find out how this all works, spend some time with the documentation files. They are relatively well-written if a little condensed, and do tell you how to do what you need, and what all the toys are for.

[Helepolis989 0]

Im still confused on all of these puzzle pieces and stuff, ill just have to practice or something. My girlfriend has seen me playing, i think she wants to start one. Gonna be tough since i dont really know what im doing anyways.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Im still confused on all of these puzzle pieces and stuff, ill just have to practice or something. My girlfriend has seen me playing, i think she wants to start one. Gonna be tough since i don't really know what I'm doing anyways.

It is time for both of you to RFM (Read the Famous Manual). In our case, this is called the Omnibus.

You should also spend time with the readme documents in all plugins as well as the relevant download pages.

If you want a second user on the game, create a second user account and just start the game. The game startup will create the necessary user structures in the Documents directory. You can't both be on at the same time.

Take is slower, and walk up the learning curves. You need to consolidate your knowledge.

  Edited September 1, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[Helepolis989 0]

Ok well after playing for 2 hours or so. She has started a city, still hasnt figured out the what to do everytime type of stuff. Move water pipes farther out, connecting the road correctly. She build a ton of bus stations and parks at the end of the street. So when she added more houses the bus was in the middle of the way. However her mass transit with her roads and rail, makes me very jealous. She isnt getting any complaints about her roads.

Anyways, we were having trouble with the adviser pop-ups. Is it as simple as turning off emergency notifications in the settings, or is there something else to do

Also we are using the Mercy Hospital, however they are still complaining like they dont have any. And when we go to the health chart, all the houses are red, like the hospital isnt working.

  Edited September 2, 2011 by Helepolis989  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Ok well after playing for 2 hours or so. She has started a city, still hasnt figured out the what to do everytime type of stuff. Move water pipes farther out, connecting the road correctly. She build a ton of bus stations and parks at the end of the street. So when she added more houses the bus was in the middle of the way. However her mass transit with her roads and rail, makes me very jealous. She isnt getting any complaints about her roads.

Posted image omitted.

Anyways, we were having trouble with the adviser pop-ups. Is it as simple as turning off emergency notifications in the settings, or is there something else to do

Also we are using the Mercy Hospital, however they are still complaining like they dont have any. And when we go to the health chart, all the houses are red, like the hospital isnt working.

Ha! Beginner's luck. Also women are more meticulous than men. Do you have the RTMT? Makes bus stops easier.

The best way to get rid of pop-ups is to play on medium or hard. On hard you very seldom get any except for rewards. If hard doesn't give you enough money, use the extra cheats .dll moolah command to give yourself 500000 when you start a new city.

If your hospital is working, you will get a circle around it on the health display showing its radius of effect. If it isn't, take a look at its properties with the query operator (/).

[Helepolis989 0]

i dont know what the RTMT means. And where is the journal thing you were talking about previously. I downloaded the cheats .dll but when i typed in Moolah into the ctrl C/X cant remember what letter. Nothing happened. In my city, my buildings are still going down the drain. I cant keep people happy, even though their commute is not that long, maybe i need to connect the subway lines between my two cities, but i dont think any of them are going over there to the other city. I guess its just the traffic noise however everywhere that, that is high, i have a subway within a block and it still a problem.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

i dont know what the RTMT means. And where is the journal thing you were talking about previously. I downloaded the cheats .dll but when i typed in Moolah into the ctrl C/X cant remember what letter. Nothing happened. In my city, my buildings are still going down the drain. I cant keep people happy, even though their commute is not that long, maybe i need to connect the subway lines between my two cities, but i dont think any of them are going over there to the other city. I guess its just the traffic noise however everywhere that, that is high, i have a subway within a block and it still a problem.

The city journals are here.

RTMT is the Road Top Mass Transit modd that lets you put bus/subway stops in the road tiles and not on the side. It is here.

The syntax of the moolah command is CTRL+xmoolah 99999999999Return. You can have any amount up to 9 billion and it replaced the balance of your treasury (not incremental). You can right-click the cheat box to get a list of all commands then pick one.

If your population is small (under 100,000) you probably don't need subways. I don't even put in bus stops until the pedestrian traffic gets unbearable. Subways will eat up your treasury and have to be laid down carefully with mal-eyes aforethought.

  Edited September 2, 2011 by A Nonny Moose  

[Helepolis989 0]

Well i know i have my problems. no matter ho many roads, how well they are put. i always get complaints which is why i have been trying to work on getting better at using the others. She is the one who wanted to know if they had city bus's, i showed her so she started putting them out. I tried right clicking the box, nothing showed up. I feel i didnt install it right or something. Does the cheat.dll go straight into the plugins like the others?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well i know i have my problems. no matter ho many roads, how well they are put. i always get complaints which is why i have been trying to work on getting better at using the others. She is the one who wanted to know if they had city bus's, i showed her so she started putting them out. I tried right clicking the box, nothing showed up. I feel i didnt install it right or something. Does the cheat.dll go straight into the plugins like the others?

The extra cheats .dll file must be in the C:/<user>/documents/simcity 4 deluxe/Plugins folder without any subfolder. If, after pressing CTRL+x, nothing happens on a right click in the box, you haven't got it installed correctly.

[Helepolis989 0]

Out of curosity, is there any underground powerlines?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ Subways, of course. I seem to recall one on the STEX, but don't have a reference. There are also some different towers.

[Helepolis989 0]

Ok i guess i have my girlfriend hooked on this game. So much so she wants to get this for her Mac. I know i saw when i first started using these forums that someone figured out how to connect people to play by using DropBox. I cant seem to find that anywhere though. I do have some questions though.. Is it hard to get this working? The big question is, is a PC and Mac compatible enough for us both to use a Dropbox and it work well enough?

[jacksunny 741]

I remember when the Times Of Troix staff tried to set up a dropbox account. It didn't work out so well. We couldn't figure out what to do and there was little explanation as to how it actually works.

As for an alternative, I don't know of anything.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

If you have a MAC with the latest version of OS/X you can run the regular PC version of SimCity using the wine windows application support layer. This is not an emulator but an on-the-fly API call converter. The program runs on the x86 processor directly but the system calls are intercepted and converted to native mode.

[Helepolis989 0]

Well i know i read it somewhere, just cant seem to locate it now.

Edit: Found it!

https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=11945.0

  Edited September 5, 2011 by Helepolis989  

[Helepolis989 0]

Ok so this is where im at. I managed to get the dropbox set up correct, where both of us can see the files. I had tried to get the game to save the regions into the dropbox. Only that wasnt working. So i figured out if i save the region, copy it and save it into the drop box she could move it into her mac and get it. There is one problem though. When i save a game and she gets it, the entire region is blank and full of grass.

When she saves it though and i get it, it works. So i can only think of two solutions, maybe you guys can help. She has the deluxe edition for mac, but when she starts it, it runs Rush Hour. So maybe her running rush hour would mean i can run her files because its somewhat older, and thats why she cant run mine cause rush hour can see deluxe edition?

Or the other option, is that i have about 10 plug-ins for the buildings i wanted, and she doesnt. so that is messing up the game. Other than this i think we have it figured out,Which one do you guys think it would be? Im siding with the rush hour/deluxe edition, which means ill have to find my separate copies lying around here.

[CaptCity 4,677]

Deluxe and Rush Hour are identical provided both have been updated with the game patches and should run regions created by each other. Also, the amount of plugins or the types shouldn't affect how regions are opened.

You mentioned, opening the regions on the Mac results in flat green terrain. Is the city layout correct and just the terrain missing, which would indicate something is wrong with the image file properties? Or is the layout not what it should be, which would indicate something is wrong with the config file? Have you tried more than one region?

[Helepolis989 0]

Yea we tried Berlin, London, and She wanted to try Paris so i downloaded Paris too. All end up being the same region, 2 big ones surrounded with medium sized around and a row of small cities on the top of the region. Cities arent there anymore, no water nothing. When she sent her tutorial one, her city was there, i started a city next to hers, built some avenues, sent it back. She got her city back, but what i had done was no longer there. I had updated hers to 1.1 and mine to 1.1 the only thing i can think is maybe it wasnt updated right on one of ours. Im not sure how to check the version in game, or if there is a way.

[CaptCity 4,677]

All end up being the same region, 2 big ones surrounded with medium sized around and a row of small cities on the top of the region.

You're saying that all regions open in the same layout configuration? If so, sounds like something isn't where it should be. I'm not familiar enough with running the game on a Mac to know if the file structure is similar to a PC, but are you sure the regions are in the proper place? There are two region folders - one in My Documents and one in the Program files (this is on a PC). The one in My Documents must be used.

I'm not sure how to check the version in game, or if there is a way.

There is a way for a PC, but I'm not sure how it translates to a Mac. For the PC, you can check the properties of the game's exe file in the C:\Program Files\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\Apps folder. If all updates have been applied, it should be 1.1.640.

[Helepolis989 0]

Ok well after looking at the versions. I have the 1.1.610 for my computer and the only thing i found for hers was 1.1 Rev A I couldnt find an Apps folders on her mac,so thats all i could find.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Ok well after looking at the versions. I have the 1.1.610 for my computer and the only thing i found for hers was 1.1 Rev A I couldnt find an Apps folders on her mac,so thats all i could find.

Wow! You are really out of date. You need EP1 for your world purchase location and the BATupdate. Go to SC4Devotion and pick up the EA Support tab in the left frame at the bottom. If your girlfriend is running the Aspyre version, expect trouble.

You should both be running the same version with the same fixes and she should run either a virtual windows PC or wine.

[Helepolis989 0]

So is the EP1 and BATupdate make it 1.164? Cause i already downloaded one thing, and i thought that was the right thing. And how hard is it to get the mac to run a virtual windows, what all do i need?

[Helepolis989 0]

woohoo!!!! i got it working, it was my plugins, Mainly the NAM, she didnt have it, i did. I took them all out, saved a new city in the london region, sent it over, started it up on hers. And it was there. Im so excited, i now have to figure out how to get a new region in the game to use, im not sure how cause those are coming up blank too.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

1,1,610 + EP`1 => 1,1,638 + BATupdate => 1,1,640

[Helepolis989 0]

Ok I'm still really confused about regions. I downloaded two. They only have .png pictures in them. I put them in the regions folder but it's still just all grass regions.

[CaptCity 4,677]

Ok I'm still really confused about regions. I downloaded two. They only have .png pictures in them. I put them in the regions folder but it's still just all grass regions.

Which two were they. When the site was upgraded, there was some necessary changes that had to be made for standard map downloads. Perhaps you're trying older ones that haven't been modified yet. Just a thought...

[Helepolis989 0]

I have tried to do two Paris maps.

Also I copied all my plugins to her mac and when we try to use one it's coming up as boxes. I know this means something but how do I fix it?