The devil on my shoulder...

[Docsubster 0]

Hi guys! First post from a newbie here, and I am hoping to hit some of ye Masters of the Sim for some opinions/answers.

Basically I've been playing SimCity on and off ever since it came out, and the 'offs' were mostly due to frustration. All the cities I built maxed out at about 150,000 population - and then epic transport problems, lack of demand and whatnot always caused a terminal decline in funding and eventual catastrophe.

I got totally sick of this cycle last week and finally cracked - after eight years (!) - and downloaded a full demand and improved legalized gambling mod. With ever-growing zones and plenty of teh monays, I've set about building the region of my dreams.

But the devil on my shoulder won't shut up.

The problem is, it kind of feels a little too easy now. All I have to do is zone, and presto! a lovely little burg. I introduced five rules to keep the game interesting:

1. City must run at a profit.

2. City must have 100% employment - no 'no job' signs etc.

3. Legalise gambling ONLY when reserves fall below 50,000

4. All ordinances must be active.

5. Ploppable commercial lots banned, except for in two central 'commercial centres'.

...but still the devil babbles.

What do you guys think of this? What is your approach to compromising between building successful and beautiful cities, and keeping the game challenging? Any and all opinions appreciated!

[Helepolis989 0]

To me, asking for money and stuff like that in my eyes is cheating. Downloading mods, BATS, and other buildings to fix problems, to me is fixing what the creators didnt. I hate pollution, traffic problems, all that stuff. That seems like its just overkill, so i download the stuff that helps these, i dont do the fix all type stuff. where the demand is extremely high, just things that i feel should have been fixed by the creators before the game was released, basically just balancing things. Thats my opinion though, im sure Moose and everyone else will help you, as they helped me.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, first let's assume you have the fully update (build 640) version of the game.

Now, there is nothing wrong with having profit. You just have to take it slow and steady. There are some bug fixes around in disguise as plugins, namely the Opera House Fix that stops the budget slider problem, the Crime Doesn't Pay mod that fixes the lousy police effectiveness, and a few more I don't remember off the top of my head.

Now, if you load up the "extra cheats .dll" (see the pinned thread above) you will unlock all of the developers' debug commands. Since they are built into the game, they can hardly be called cheats.

Now if you want to turn off most of the advisor babble, play on hard. When you start a new city, use the moolah command to set the treasury balance to 500000. Hard mode really is underfunded, so this is just a correction.

If you want a more diverse travel network, get the NAM (version 30, see the front page), and its friends, the NWM, RHW, and the SAM to make your streets prettier. Thise constitute what I would call extra expansion packs. Conscience doesn't enter into this.

Currently, I am exploring what can be done with PEG's CDK3 and OWW2 shore line stuff. This just gives an old player like me something new to explore. For example, here is one of my recent mud pies.

This is a complete city with a recreation area, a fishing pier and an industrial settlement. Note the lack of skyscrapers. You might be interested in exploring something like this. Cities are not the only thing you can paint on this canvas.

There is a lot of custom content in these tiles. In the illustration above, for example, you will finds some of the PEG CDK3 stuff and my cheap, heavy production utilities that also eat an entire large tile's pollution. Are these lots cheats? Sure, but what they do is reduce the amount of micro-management you have to do, while leaving you free for more artistic expression. It's all in what you want to do.

[lloyd cousins 4]

hey, i dont think there is any need to try and justify your cheating to either yourself or anyone else, it's only a game, you need not feel insecure about your cheating.

[jacksunny 741]

You can also use these "cheats" and sort of cancel them out later. For example, you could use moolah to get some extra cash when you need it, then at a later point in the game, you can use moolah to pay back this. It's sort of like a loan.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

You can also use these "cheats" and sort of cancel them out later. For example, you could use moolah to get some extra cash when you need it, then at a later point in the game, you can use moolah to pay back this. It's sort of like a loan.

I agree. It is a kind of "development grant" provided by the god, and easily taken back at his discretion. Interest free, too. The game proclaims that the player is "god".

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Many players might not be aware of this, but as soon as you start using custom content, the threshold between "normal" playing and "cheating" begins to fade. Why? Because downloads may or may not have their stats adjusted to match the default buildings. The creator may not have intended this, and the player may not have wanted it, but still a downloaded building might have cheat properties because it grows too early, generates too much tax income, boosts education/health/police coverage/fire protection too much, has too little costs in relation to its coverage radius, increases desirability too much considering its costs, or holds too many jobs/occupants.

The same applies to traffic mods: One could argue endlessly whether these mods are fixes that merely correct what Maxis goofed up (or left out to ease CPU strain) or whether they are cheats that give the players far more possibilities than Maxis ever intended to give them. Issues like this can lead to almost religious debates...

Bearing in mind all this, a realistic approach to the question "cheat or no cheat?" may consist in deciding for yourself: Do I feel like I'm chickening out, bypassing problems, clicking away problems instead of solving them? Does the game give me a sense of challenge and satisfaction when I overcome this challenge? What should the game enable me to do in my opinion? Can I achieve it by playing with the game mechanics instead of cheating against them? Is it possible to expand/change the game mechanics in a way that the possibilities are increased, but the way to explore them to their full extent is still challenging and pretty much in line with the vanilla game?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

^ A very good answer.

We all know that the vanilla game has flaws and bugs, some of which are fixed by custom content (the Opera house for example). No one should load any custom content of any kind, even from the Maxis site without the Bldgprop_Vol1, Vol2 files because these are expected to be present.

So, this program is really an open canvas. Most gaming programs are not quite so liberally constructed. At the time of original programming, I am sure there was no thought of gigabytes of custom content (it didn't exist), but turn a thing like this loose on the Internet and look what happens, eh? The programmers must have been aware of Moore's law, but I think they built better than they could have planned in their wildest dreams. Are there any other game programs around that have such a huge set of available custom content?

There are some Rembrandt van Rijn's among us, but many of us are just art lovers. Let us all enjoy this without regrets.