A few questions

[FourWinds 29]

I've put a few hours into the game now and I have a few questions and musings.

 

 

1. I noticed that if I create a new region - from the menu in game - there are only a few large tiles, and being a $%&^! it seems to me that large tiles must be a good thing. So, I eventually found (on youtube) an explanation of the config.bmp file, and how to mess with it in Paint. First of all I just made an all blue (big tile) bmp, but then I had a thought: this would mean that there are only a maximum of four adjacent tiles to the middle tiles; I thought this may be a bad thing, and so I threw a couple of green (middle) tiles on each corner so I could have a central big tile with six adjacent big tiles - pretty smart eh. I then used god tools to make a nice seven large tile island, and realized that any real god must be knackered because it took bloody ages! Question: Are my $%&^! instincts correct or is it a good thing to have a mixture of all three sizes to ensure more city edge overlap? Have I missed the point of the small tiles and virtues they may have with respect to assisting a large tile... perhaps a small tile city next door to take all the trash - can I do that?

 

2.  I go into trouble with polluted water: the utility guy with the hat and the green lady with another hat were giving me a hard time about it for ages although I added the two pumps suggested, far away from my industrial area and its pollution. I think I've fixed this by bulldozing the water tower that was in the polluted area. Can anyone confirm that this is what's required: to remove any pumps and towers from the polluted area as pollutants enter the water system from them rather than leeching into the pipe network?

 

3. I have worked up my starting large tile to just over 18k people. All the advisers are blue or green, there is education, there is health coverage, there are cops and firemen, all relevant graphs look in good shape to me, but... all three of the RCI are way below the middle! I don't get it; what the hell is wrong with my plebs? I even built them parks and games areas! Can anyone advise please?

 

4. On the way to my 18k plebs there was demand for industry. When I clicked on the RCI thingy the expanded view said that agriculture was wanted. It seems that more agriculture is always wanted! Even now with the higher level RCI indicators all showing low, when I click on it it seems that flaming agriculture is wanted!!! What's the deal here guys; is it a new city growth thing (no pun intended) that I rezone later?

 

5. Zones: What's the point of zoning low? Shouldn't I just zone high so things can evolve as time goes by? I have a fundamental lack of understanding here; will my low density zones evolve through different buildings through time or not? Please point me at a tutorial if there's one I've missed that explains this.

 

6. Is there any way to get firemen to go to a fire on their own? It bugs me that I have to do this, and whilst making a cup of tea last night some places burned down due to my lack of attention. This issue is a particular dislike of mine, so if there's no way to do it in game is there any mod? I'd rather play the vanilla version I think, but I'd add a mod to fix this.

 

7. This is a great game, a truly great game and I'm glad I found it on Steam after reading all the wailing about SC2013. It's a damn shame they didn't just make SC4 with better graphics. I understand why some of you have played this for the last ten years.

 

Sorry for the big unload of questions all in one go, and thank you in advance for any replies. Please don't point and laugh at me; I know the game's been out for ten years, but I only just started

 

Regards,

 

Steve

 

 

[Jim14409 448]

I've put a few hours into the game now and I have a few questions and musings.

 

 

1. I noticed that if I create a new region - from the menu in game - there are only a few large tiles, and being a $%&^! it seems to me that large tiles must be a good thing. So, I eventually found (on youtube) an explanation of the config.bmp file, and how to mess with it in Paint. First of all I just made an all blue (big tile) bmp, but then I had a thought: this would mean that there are only a maximum of four adjacent tiles to the middle tiles; I thought this may be a bad thing, and so I threw a couple of green (middle) tiles on each corner so I could have a central big tile with six adjacent big tiles - pretty smart eh. I then used god tools to make a nice seven large tile island, and realized that any real god must be knackered because it took bloody ages! Question: Are my $%&^! instincts correct or is it a good thing to have a mixture of all three sizes to ensure more city edge overlap? Have I missed the point of the small tiles and virtues they may have with respect to assisting a large tile... perhaps a small tile city next door to take all the trash - can I do that?

 

2.  I go into trouble with polluted water: the utility guy with the hat and the green lady with another hat were giving me a hard time about it for ages although I added the two pumps suggested, far away from my industrial area and its pollution. I think I've fixed this by bulldozing the water tower that was in the polluted area. Can anyone confirm that this is what's required: to remove any pumps and towers from the polluted area as pollutants enter the water system from them rather than leeching into the pipe network?

 

3. I have worked up my starting large tile to just over 18k people. All the advisers are blue or green, there is education, there is health coverage, there are cops and firemen, all relevant graphs look in good shape to me, but... all three of the RCI are way below the middle! I don't get it; what the hell is wrong with my plebs? I even built them parks and games areas! Can anyone advise please?

 

4. On the way to my 18k plebs there was demand for industry. When I clicked on the RCI thingy the expanded view said that agriculture was wanted. It seems that more agriculture is always wanted! Even now with the higher level RCI indicators all showing low, when I click on it it seems that flaming agriculture is wanted!!! What's the deal here guys; is it a new city growth thing (no pun intended) that I rezone later?

 

5. Zones: What's the point of zoning low? Shouldn't I just zone high so things can evolve as time goes by? I have a fundamental lack of understanding here; will my low density zones evolve through different buildings through time or not? Please point me at a tutorial if there's one I've missed that explains this.

 

6. Is there any way to get firemen to go to a fire on their own? It bugs me that I have to do this, and whilst making a cup of tea last night some places burned down due to my lack of attention. This issue is a particular dislike of mine, so if there's no way to do it in game is there any mod? I'd rather play the vanilla version I think, but I'd add a mod to fix this.

 

7. This is a great game, a truly great game and I'm glad I found it on Steam after reading all the wailing about SC2013. It's a damn shame they didn't just make SC4 with better graphics. I understand why some of you have played this for the last ten years.

 

Sorry for the big unload of questions all in one go, and thank you in advance for any replies. Please don't point and laugh at me; I know the game's been out for ten years, but I only just started

 

Regards,

 

Steve

Steve,

1.  When SC4came out a lot of people still had machines that could not handle the larger tiles. I pretty much only play large tiles and SC4 Mapper 2013 is great for making the changes on any map as far as I am aware. I don't know of any advantage in having small tiles unless it is just a personal preference by some players.

 

2. Plop a water treatment plant in the heavy polluted areas and always place water pumps in good areas.

 

3. Connections to neighbors should revitalize your town. Roadways, ferries, and rail or any of those.

 

4. Farming demand will dry up as soon as the population become educated (something I dislike). When education levels are low most Sims will work in dirty industry and farms so you may want to make a lot of farms early on and re-zone as the land is needed later.

 

 5. Some people zone high from the start, that only assures density, not prosperity. I zone low and gradually upgrade those areas I want to become more densely populated. Doing it this way also enables you to better plan future traffic upgrades and is more realistic when compared to a real town or city.

 

6. I disabled fire and all disasters years ago. I never liked messing with that aspect of the game.

 

7. Hope you continue to like SC4. I would suggest you get familiar with the basic game before overloading yourself with new content. It will make things less confusing down the road I think.

 

Good luck!

[xcalbier 43]

New hu well all I can say is it takes a wile to learn the game frams don't matter much ind is what starts citys farms have almost no jobs

[Bdub01 201]

Hello. Here's my two cents worth of simoleans . For your first question it's "to each their own". I do build my main downtown districts on the large square. However, the small ones are great to get started on. They are perfect for farming communities and when I have too much demand for R&C$ I use them to build a "ghetto" city by taxing everything else sky high. Other players don't like to do that. So you have to decide for yourself.

As for the water, you don't have to supply water to DI and AI. They go on fine without it. So I personally don't put pipes under my DI zones. That does help keep pollution lower. Also don't put a water tower or pump in Industry of any kind cause I will get shut down quick. No water to the landfill either!!!

Next question... If you are only playing one tile it's not easy (at least to me) to build up RCI. That's where the small tiles come in. Build a farming city or two, then maybe an industrial city. As they grow, demand jumps up across the board.

Every new city stats out wanting ag. And that's not a bad thing. It's easy jobs for the ignorant sims till the start going to school. Once your population reaches a certain point, the demand for farms decrease in that city. Keep a few farming cities as well in your region!

Next it's better to build out before you build up. You can start with high density if you want. But quite frankly you won't get skyscrapers till you reach high enough demand for it. If your not using a money cheat building high density stuff can get expensive as well.

I also hate having to dispatch firefighters also! I'm a mayor not a firefighter!!! I suggest placing firehouses where the radius covers everything. I guess you can turn it all as well somehow but I've never done that.

The game is old, so graphics aren't 2013 style but I like them even better than the new SC. The new one looks like Lego land or something. Anyway hope that helps and have some fun!!!

[Jim14409 448]

Hello. Here's my two cents worth of simoleans . For your first question it's "to each their own". I do build my main downtown districts on the large square. However, the small ones are great to get started on. They are perfect for farming communities and when I have too much demand for R&C$ I use them to build a "ghetto" city by taxing everything else sky high. Other players don't like to do that. So you have to decide for yourself.

As for the water, you don't have to supply water to DI and AI. They go on fine without it. So I personally don't put pipes under my DI zones. That does help keep pollution lower. Also don't put a water tower or pump in Industry of any kind cause I will get shut down quick. No water to the landfill either!!!

Next question... If you are only playing one tile it's not easy (at least to me) to build up RCI. That's where the small tiles come in. Build a farming city or two, then maybe an industrial city. As they grow, demand jumps up across the board.

Every new city stats out wanting ag. And that's not a bad thing. It's easy jobs for the ignorant sims till the start going to school. Once your population reaches a certain point, the demand for farms decrease in that city. Keep a few farming cities as well in your region!

Next it's better to build out before you build up. You can start with high density if you want. But quite frankly you won't get skyscrapers till you reach high enough demand for it. If your not using a money cheat building high density stuff can get expensive as well.

I also hate having to dispatch firefighters also! I'm a mayor not a firefighter!!! I suggest placing firehouses where the radius covers everything. I guess you can turn it all as well somehow but I've never done that.

The game is old, so graphics aren't 2013 style but I like them even better than the new SC. The new one looks like Lego land or something. Anyway hope that helps and have some fun!!!

You make many good and valid points. I've always played the game with each section being an individual city so was only thinking in that vein. Some of the best looking cities I've seen pics of though were where the entire map was one large city.

 

As most of us know there are many effectual ways to play SC4 each rendering their own results. The best way to play is what gives the mayor satisfaction so...Play On!

[docj101 99]

You'll always have questions and musings no matter how many hours you play, that's part of what makes this game great.  I have a few thoughts for your questions.  Always ask questions or share thoughts because someone will usually chime in.

 

1. Nice you learned how to make your own borders with .bmp!  Adding smaller tiles is up to you.  It can be faster flipping back and forth between cities if your loading smaller tiles; playing heavily inter-regionally that might save you time over a long haul.  Yes you can just use one tile for a garbage dump, power provider, etc via neighbor deals.  Incorporating smaller tiles can be good for that I suppose.   I personally make regions with all blue tiles and since those tiles are so huge I can also make every tile responsible for it's own utilities.  This lets me avoid neighbor deals which can be pain.
2. Water treatment plants are the only way to combat water pollution.  The default one in game is very large so consider the fact that you will need to place one or more early on to avoid having to bulldoze for it.  You can look into user-made alternatives for water treatment on the STEX once you get into custom content.
3. Click on the RCI indicator to get detailed stats.  You should see that there is still a demand for $low wealth Sims, it's just that $$ and $$$ are bringing the average down.  Zone for more residential areas; new low wealth sims will move in and cause greater demand for everything else in the process.  Make neighbor connections even if there isn't an active neighbor on the connecting tile, it still helps.  Don't forget to place all the buildings you can from the rewards menu that seem beneficial (i.e. mayor's house, statues).
4. You don't have to ever use agriculture if you don't want to.  Once enough of other sorts of industry move into town the demand and desirability for it goes away.  It is always present in a new city so that 'if' you wanted to build a farm town you could.
5. Zoning lower densities allows you to limit growth and can save you money up front on a large development; costs more to lay higher densities.  If you choose to attain a desired look such as a town of individual homes, you would have to make sure that the density was set to low.
6. You don't need a mod to make fireman act on their own, as long as ALL of your buildings are within the red radius circle of a firehouse, they will act on their own.
7. You may get sick of it from time to time, but you'll find it's a game you'll never stop coming back to once you've played it.

 

Last but not least.  You mentioned that you prefer the vanilla SC4 deluxe, which is fine.  I do recommend that until the day comes you decide to start adding custom content you use at least one mod.  That would be one that lets you create a better traffic simulator.  The easiest way for you to do this is by downloading the *  It is a small program that lets you select some presets for the capacity of your roads, and it will make the in-game data views correspond to those capacities you have chosen.  This helps with congestion.  Most importantly what it does is adjust how intelligently the Sims choose their commute route and makes them tolerate further commutes.  This will help your cities grow by effectively making more empty jobs available to your Sims.

 

*This is now "old" and you'll be told the get NAMv31.1 which has it included and is the most basic install of NAMv31.1.  Since you are going for "vanilla" experience you wouldn't need the rest of that NAMv31.1 download; this subsystem will serve your purposes just fine and install almost nothing.  And I almost hate to make a shameless plug here, but in this "vanilla" scenario my mass transit mod makes a nice little companion to the traffic subsystem; adding extra stations of each type with higher capacities while keeping the Maxis look going.  You can find that by clicking the banner below.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Welcome to Simtropolis

 

Sounds like a normal start.  You have received some good answers provided we are all on the same page.  I would guess you have a download version from one of Steam, Origin, Amazon, or Gamersgate, or perhaps from an authorized dealer I don't know.  If not there are some things you will need if you haven't already got them.  If you loaded the game from CD, please tell us which version of the game you have.

 

With respect to custom content, take it very slow, test each add, to be sure you haven't added a conflict.  There are some.

 

Again, welcome, and happy Simming.

[docj101 99]

If you loaded the game from CD, please tell us which version of the game you have.

 

Refer to his 7th question/statement.