So you want to build a European city...

[Robineus 1]

I've been meaning to start working on some cities with more of a European feel to them, in particular Germany. I downloaded an Autobahn mod for RHW but that's about it other than some Euro landmarks and such. So far most of my cities have been very block-oriented and square, something typical of most American cities, and I still utilize much of the original Maxis in-game buildings in my cities. If there are any suggestions to urban planning, mods, BATs, really just anything to give an authentic European look, feel free to give them below. I am especially looking for buildings to replace the Maxis ones, since they too are heavily based off of American architecture.

Thanks!

[bojoloko 1]

Here, mate, couple of beautiful German bats.

[Cefien 361]

I am especially looking for buildings to replace the Maxis ones, since they too are heavily based off of American architecture.

Well, it's not actually a building, but since you said something about replacing the Maxis ones, you might interest in this mod:

[cogeo 960]

Why don't you simply choose the Euro-contemporary (-only) tileset? You will be getting euro-style R (all) and C (stages >5). Commercial buildings up to 5 stage, as well as I buildings are somehow "universal" (they grow under all tilesets). This is not right, as C buildings (of any stage) do have an architectural style, but Maxis made them growing under all tilesets, because otherwise you would be getting a very repetitive look.

As for the "block" and "square" look, it's all up to you, isn't it? You can design zones etc the way you wish.

The only prob is custom content creators. They want their creations growing everywhere, and therefore they enable all four tilesets. This is wrong, because it troubles players who want to grow cities of a specific style (they get unwanted buildings). They should instead enable only the tilesett that matches their architectural style (players who don't care, can enable all four tilesets, and get the building anyhow).

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

A good point, cogeo. I wonder if this might set a new style in BATting for specific tile sets.

One of the biggest problems in setting up a European style town is that the streets often curve all over the place. In older towns these streets grew up from hunting trails and cattle trails, and the grid kind of militates against that. To this end we need some curvy streets and roads that are perhaps even more extreme than the ones in the NAM. Also some streets/roads converge at funny angles and you get a multipoint intersection, sometimes with a square or open space, and sometimes not.

For a rather humorous example see the car chase after the party in The Pink Panther. Only the older townsman knew all streets led to the square.

It also occurs to me to look at the switchback streets in St. John's, Newfoundland. I was there this summer, and there are some places where "you can't get there from here".

[Cefien 361]

A good point, but i dont think that's enough. Maxis buildings are limited. In the end we will only see repitition and repitition. That's why our friend here asked for some additional european buildings. Some custom buildings out there in STEX or LEX only fit in european tileset, and i guess that's what he needs.

[Robineus 1]

A good point, but i dont think that's enough. Maxis buildings are limited. In the end we will only see repitition and repitition. That's why our friend here asked for some additional european buildings. Some custom buildings out there in STEX or LEX only fit in european tileset, and i guess that's what he needs.

Thank you, my point exactly. The Euro-contemporary set is a good start, but I'm looking for something more antique, something specific, at least in terms of BATs and such. The Maxis sets are extremely repetitive, especially over large cities, and I'm looking for custom content to give my cities a little flavor, something more authentic and in my case, German. Regarding the grid, oh well. NAM helps to some degree, but not perfect.

[jason leo 485]

The only prob is custom content creators. They want their creations growing everywhere, and therefore they enable all four tilesets. This is wrong, because it troubles players who want to grow cities of a specific style (they get unwanted buildings). They should instead enable only the tilesett that matches their architectural style (players who don't care, can enable all four tilesets, and get the building anyhow).

Well, at least, that thing is not happened with me. I think some creators is actually can't edit the tilesets because they don't know about the tileset slot (Both for they who use SC4PIM and PIM-X) instead of wanting their creations everywhere. I hope someone will make one more tutorial in Omnibus that tells all creators about where to edit the tileset.

Thank you, my point exactly. The Euro-contemporary set is a good start, but I'm looking for something more antique, something specific, at least in terms of BATs and such. The Maxis sets are extremely repetitive, especially over large cities, and I'm looking for custom content to give my cities a little flavor, something more authentic and in my case, German. Regarding the grid, oh well. NAM helps to some degree, but not perfect.

Btw, your best bet is Euro style because all Euro-style buildings (Modern, Medieval, Baroque, Georgian, Prefab, etc.) will be available in that tileset. Just some suggestion for German BATs :

Erdmoebel BATs : http://community.sim...loads&mid=14939

Haarlemergold also has Dutch, German, and Hungarian BATs, I suggest you to look at his content, the link is here.

Also don't forget to check SFBT Team creations that uploaded by Andreas, the STEX link is here, the BSC link is here (You must login/register first, to register, click this link and then, click the register link)

And one more, Debussyman's BATs, the STEX link is here and the BSC link is here (Most of his german style BATs is in the BSC, most of his BATs in STEX are Mexican and Spanish BATs)

Use the search tool and insert word 'German' and I'm sure if you will find more.

[kergelen 727]

I recommend these two sites: Simcitypolska.pl where you can find great w2w buildings

and SimcityKurier where you can find Andreas stuff and much more.

Also have a look to if you want German Old-style or if you prefer greener look at Tagone's Lots

[FrenchThom 27]

I've been meaning to start working on some cities with more of a European feel to them, in particular Germany. I downloaded an Autobahn mod for RHW but that's about it other than some Euro landmarks and such. So far most of my cities have been very block-oriented and square, something typical of most American cities, and I still utilize much of the original Maxis in-game buildings in my cities. If there are any suggestions to urban planning, mods, BATs, really just anything to give an authentic European look, feel free to give them below. I am especially looking for buildings to replace the Maxis ones, since they too are heavily based off of American architecture.

Thanks!

You see ? What an idea to be born in the U.S , moreover in Virginia ! It is because you didn't put enough of sweat in your past life so you have been punished by your nowaday birthplace !

The next time , try to work and pray harder and maybe you will have the chance to be born in Europe ! Oh , not France or Germany immediately , of course , but maybe Spain or Italy ...

I'm getting in crazy delirium tremens ... Agaaah ...

__________

To be more serious , keep in mind that as the contrary of America , what you're calling CBDs are out of the city ! For exemple , La Défense is at 5 miles from the core of Paris ! It's because the center of the metropoles are occupied by an " historical center " ! As Paris , Clermont-Ferrand , Arles or Orange !

If you want more help , Give me an Private Message because I will probably never be at the same time of you in this forum because of the " décalage horaire " ...

Post-Scriptum : I think I can help you because I live in a small town near Toulon , on the French Riviera !

[libellibicus 396]

How exactly do make your city Euro tileset only?

[jason leo 485]

How exactly do make your city Euro tileset only?

Six tabs that you can see from the mayor-mode are :

1. The city coffer

2. The advisers

3. City Graph

4. City map

5. TIleset tab

6. City opinion polls

If I'm not wrong th location of the tileset tab is beside City opinion polls tab.

You can then set the time when the tileset will change and tilesets that you like.

To set it to Euro only, simply check only the Euro-Contemporary but don't check all other tilesets.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

If you can't find enough content for your city, you can always learn to BAT.

[madhatter106 3,903]

The only prob is custom content creators. They want their creations growing everywhere, and therefore they enable all four tilesets. This is wrong, because it troubles players who want to grow cities of a specific style (they get unwanted buildings). They should instead enable only the tilesett that matches their architectural style (players who don't care, can enable all four tilesets, and get the building anyhow).

If a person downloads something from one of the exchanges and drops it in his plugins folder, he wants that building to grow in his city. If he wants to restrict the tile set, then by all means do so; but that restriction may or may not override the intent for the downloader to have any or all downloads appear. The situation would vary, depending on the building(s) downloaded and the downloader.

As for unwanted buildings that don't match a particular tile set, there's two ways of dealing with them on the user end. In-game, the player can use the bulldozer if the "speck of dust offends thine eye," so to speak. Out of the game, the player can remove that download from his plugins folder. If someone is so specific in his tastes as to enable the Euro tileset (or any other for that matter), then he's probably specific enough to begin with to seek out BATs and other mods that enhance and add to it, and will probably go to the trouble of weeding through his plugins folder to eliminate stuff that doesn't fall within those parameters.

The same could be said of any player who sees something growing in his cities that he doesn't like, even someone who has clicked "grow all styles at once." Bulldoze or edit the plugins...tile set restricted or no.

As for myself, I've never considered sorting my buildings into tilesets, as it's something that doesn't interest me. And besides, it would turn into debates as to whether to add this one to Houston or Euro, or that one to New York or Chicago...debates and discussion which I could care less about. And then what happens when a BAT doesn't fall neatly into one of those four categories? Then what tile set does it end up in? If someone likes the BATs, they're going to download them, and they're going to want to see them in their cities. That they might be restricting their tileset is of no consequence for me...the BAT will grow regardless.

It may be "devil may care" as far as modding in some peoples' eyes, but if someone is so fanatical (for lack of a better term) as to want everything to go Euro (or Houston, or Chicago, etc.) then they can feel free to open up the Reader and do tweaks on their end; my files aren't datpacked, so they can use the model file and do their own plug-in managing, etc. It's exactly the same freedom the downloader has when it comes to relotting something to suit their tastes.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Well, tileset is something that cannot be adjusted beforehand, right when you're using the Plugin Manager to get your building into the game.You need to create the growable desc and then edit it afterwards with the Reader - something few BATters knew how to do back then.

Nowadays there are more user-friendly tools, and there's more knowledge. Still, sorting BATs into tilesets is as potentially useful as it is difficult. Take, for example, NYBT stuff. One player will want to follow the logic: It's NY-related, so I want it to be in the NY tileset. The next one will say "Hey, I'm building a ficticious city, and I don't want any modernist stuff to grow in the NY tileset; it's NY 1940 after all!"

Then there will be buildings that cannot be sorted into any particular tileset easily. In fact, madhatter, your stuff often belongs into this category because it tends to be rather generic. However, I must confess that I do distribute most of your BATs over the tilesets the way it seems most appropriate to me. Some end up in all tilesets as before, some in Houston and Euro only, others in Chicago only, some in three tilesets... if in doubt, I often look which tileset has few buildings of any given kind (yes, I keep a huge overview spreadsheet of everything!) and try to fill the poorly equipped tileset a bit.

In the end, it's best if the player does the final sorting, but of course it helps if BATters make a sensible pre-selection. If anyone makes the Woolworth Building and puts it into the Chicago 1890 tileset, I guess few people will complain.

[bxbb 0]

I've been meaning to start working on some cities with more of a European feel to them, in particular Germany. I downloaded an Autobahn mod for RHW but that's about it other than some Euro landmarks and such. So far most of my cities have been very block-oriented and square, something typical of most American cities, and I still utilize much of the original Maxis in-game buildings in my cities. If there are any suggestions to urban planning, mods, BATs, really just anything to give an authentic European look, feel free to give them below. I am especially looking for buildings to replace the Maxis ones, since they too are heavily based off of American architecture. Thanks!

As for BAT, I recommend Ferox's BAT (since most of my BAT in Euro subfolder consisted of them). Not sure if it's fit German-style city, since I'm living in Indonesia

Back then when I never know the existence of NAM, use estate-style layout, with limited access to each estate to make sure my Sim will always use highway and avenues and I still be able to upgrade my network gradually. Aside from it's usefulness (despite the fact that my highway just go 'bleeding' after I hit 200k pop) I find that this layout also give a better looks. And with NAM in hand, it's just getting better (SAM, FAR, roundabouts, cul-de-sac, etc). For street layout, here's some of them which I take as reference.

In the end, it's best if the player does the final sorting, but of course it helps if BATters make a sensible pre-selection. If anyone makes the Woolworth Building and puts it into the Chicago 1890 tileset, I guess few people will complain.

I wonder how could one assign specific tileset to BAT, I've sort my BAT (based on uploader's description). But some of them will just mix up in-game. For example, can I assign JMyer's BAT to Chicago and Ferox's BAT to Euro?

If I remember correctly, there's a wiki which explain most of properties used in Reader. too bad I lost my bookmark on a recently-happened HD crash. I should staru to believe in cloud

[jason leo 485]

As for BAT, I recommend Ferox's BAT (since most of my BAT in Euro subfolder consisted of them). Not sure if it's fit German-style city, since I'm living in Indonesia

Back then when I never know the existence of NAM, use estate-style layout, with limited access to each estate to make sure my Sim will always use highway and avenues and I still be able to upgrade my network gradually. Aside from it's usefulness (despite the fact that my highway just go 'bleeding' after I hit 200k pop) I find that this layout also give a better looks. And with NAM in hand, it's just getting better (SAM, FAR, roundabouts, cul-de-sac, etc). For street layout, here's some of them which I take as reference.

Ferox and DaveN are great BATters with great BATs but their BATs are polish BATs, but when I look around some CJ, they just fit very well. I think there will not any problem when you use the BATs from them, and actually, both of them not just uploading their BATs here, but also in BSC, the links are below :

Ferox BATs (BSC) : http://sc4devotion.c...PSEARCH=Creator

DaveN BATs (BSC) : http://sc4devotion.c...PSEARCH=Creator

DaveN BATs (STEX) (He is registered as abstynent here) : http://community.sim...oads&mid=314636

I wonder how could one assign specific tileset to BAT, I've sort my BAT (based on uploader's description). But some of them will just mix up in-game. For example, can I assign JMyer's BAT to Chicago and Ferox's BAT to Euro?

If I remember correctly, there's a wiki which explain most of properties used in Reader. too bad I lost my bookmark on a recently-happened HD crash. I should staru to believe in cloud

Some steps to edit the tileset using ilive's Reader :

1. Open the reader, then search for the DAT or .SC4Desc that you will edit.

2. Click 'Fill the list' button and then, open the Exemplar file.

3. Then, right click the 'Occupant Groups' slot and click 'edit properties'.

4. Then, you will find this thing :

To change the tileset, look at the 0x00002003, that means the building tileset is only euro.

To change it, you can change the last number from 3 to another number, the codes for every tileset is below :

0x00002000 : New York

0x00002001 : Chicago

0x00002002 : Houston

0x00002003 : Euro-contemporary.

You also can make the building grow on several tilesets by using the 'add' button and then, type the code.

Example :

Values :

0x0001000

0x0011010

0x00002002

0x00002003

Then, the building will grow when Euro or Houston tileset is activated.

If SC4 PIM + Reader is just too complicated, you can always use the PIM-X (You must register/login first, the link to register is on the post #8 ) where you can easily right click and then choose the tileset selector and select the tilesets.

[bxbb 0]

As for BAT, I recommend Ferox's BAT (since most of my BAT in Euro subfolder consisted of them). Not sure if it's fit German-style city, since I'm living in Indonesia

Back then when I never know the existence of NAM, use estate-style layout, with limited access to each estate to make sure my Sim will always use highway and avenues and I still be able to upgrade my network gradually. Aside from it's usefulness (despite the fact that my highway just go 'bleeding' after I hit 200k pop) I find that this layout also give a better looks. And with NAM in hand, it's just getting better (SAM, FAR, roundabouts, cul-de-sac, etc). For street layout, here's some of them which I take as reference.

Ferox and DaveN are great BATters with great BATs but their BATs are polish BATs, but when I look around some CJ, they just fit very well. I think there will not any problem when you use the BATs from them, and actually, both of them not just uploading their BATs here, but also in BSC, the links are below :

Ferox BATs (BSC) : http://sc4devotion.c...PSEARCH=Creator

DaveN BATs (BSC) : http://sc4devotion.c...PSEARCH=Creator

DaveN BATs (STEX) (He is registered as abstynent here) : http://community.sim...oads&mid=314636

I wonder how could one assign specific tileset to BAT, I've sort my BAT (based on uploader's description). But some of them will just mix up in-game. For example, can I assign JMyer's BAT to Chicago and Ferox's BAT to Euro?

If I remember correctly, there's a wiki which explain most of properties used in Reader. too bad I lost my bookmark on a recently-happened HD crash. I should staru to believe in cloud

Some steps to edit the tileset using ilive's Reader :

1. Open the reader, then search for the DAT or .SC4Desc that you will edit.

2. Click 'Fill the list' button and then, open the Exemplar file.

3. Then, right click the 'Occupant Groups' slot and click 'edit properties'.

4. Then, you will find this thing :

To change the tileset, look at the 0x00002003, that means the building tileset is only euro.

To change it, you can change the last number from 3 to another number, the codes for every tileset is below :

0x00002000 : New York

0x00002001 : Chicago

0x00002002 : Houston

0x00002003 : Euro-contemporary.

You also can make the building grow on several tilesets by using the 'add' button and then, type the code.

Example :

Values :

0x0001000

0x0011010

0x00002002

0x00002003

Then, the building will grow when Euro or Houston tileset is activated.

If SC4 PIM + Reader is just too complicated, you can always use the PIM-X (You must register/login first, the link to register is on the post #8 ) where you can easily right click and then choose the tileset selector and select the tilesets.

wow, thanks for the info

[Gn_leugim 853]

*Shameless auto-promotion *

Check my files under STEX. they are not german type, but they are euro generic, so you may ding them suitable