Starting over. Where to begin?

[HyperXK05 0]

So its been a few years since I have played SimCity 4, but i wanna get back into it.  I had a buddy build a decent PC with a fresh Copy of XP and it will ONLY be used to play SC4 and download content for it.  So with that said, where do i begin?  What items are a def "must have" and anything else would anyone suggest?

 

the last time I played, I went a bit crazy with downloading buildings, the NAM and a bunch of other stuff so dint get all the dependencies i needed and i had brown boxes and  game would close to desk top often.  so i want to do it the right way and get everything I need.  I'll be installing the game over night and hopefully get to start playing tomorrow. 

[Prophet42 1,500]

First make sure your copy of SC4 is properly patched to 1.1.640 for CD version or 1.1.641 for downloaded.  Next download NAM - latest version is 32.  After that it is really up to you.  If you are going to do farms, I would suggest looking into SPAM from Pegasus. For buildings I would suggest looking at Madhatter, Jasoncw, AaronGraham, SimGoober, NDEX, NYBT, SimCoug, GasCooker, Darknono35, Nofunk, reddonquixote, ...plus many more excellent BAT's.  Once you find a BAT artist you like, you can click on the 'View other files from this member" to get all their BATs.  Welcome back and have fun.

[.anonyman 28]

The NAM now has a great installer, which can be run again and again to add or remove NAM content whenever. Not ready for all those bridges? Not interested in HSR or GLR? Why then, leave them out and only install what you want!

 

There are some well-done mods that I find essential for fixing the game's shortcomings, and they don't have dependencies so they're easy to deal with: 

Radius doubler or Eternia civics mod, news filter, mall jobs doubler, and bridge height fixer. 

 

Have a look around the STEX and LEX (sorted by # of downloads) and don't go crazy right away!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Especially don't miss the various lots with 'fix' in their title.  These really are bug fixes solved by the community.

[Cyclone Boom 16,851]

Welcome back!

 
I'd suggest a good place to start is the Little Big Plugins topic over at SimPeg.
This lists a range of small but useful items. Of course, not all will be to everyone's taste, but it's worth taking a look and experimenting with some in a test sandbox region. It includes the main gameplay fixes as Nonny mentioned.

 

Probably also worth adding the and The first is more of a toolbox of commands than actually "cheating". You can't really cheat at a game where you're mayor and making the rules! And the crime mod will help to prevent the so-called "mega lot crime bug", which commonly occurs on airports.
 
It's worth remembering that the world of custom content is so vast. In addition to Simtropolis, SC4D, and SimPeg, there are numerous sites to download content from.

The lists some of the common and more obscure ones. There's also an interesting forum here.
 
With so much content available, it's so easy to get carried away. Therefore it's always a good move to add plugins in batches, testing as you go along. This way any conflicts / missing dependencies can be found before using in your main regions. Also, far from all plugins are needed to make SC4 enjoyable. If you don't feel like exploring the NAM's full array of features, you don't have to. Even installing the traffic simulator on its own will make a huge difference to the gameplay. You'll discover that collecting plugins is a seemingly endless task. Although this is half the fun, you may find it easier to decide what content is really needed while playing the game.
 
It's much harder to remove unwanted content from an established city. Though it's far easier to start small, then add new items as a city develops.

[qazzy1122 2]

The NAM now has a great installer, which can be run again and again to add or remove NAM content whenever. Not ready for all those bridges? Not interested in HSR or GLR? Why then, leave them out and only install what you want!

 

There are some well-done mods that I find essential for fixing the game's shortcomings, and they don't have dependencies so they're easy to deal with: 

Radius doubler or Eternia civics mod, news filter, mall jobs doubler, and bridge height fixer. 

 

Have a look around the STEX and LEX (sorted by # of downloads) and don't go crazy right away!

 

When was this installer added? How can someone who gets a PC friend to open the .exe access it from a mac? 

[.anonyman 28]

When was this installer added? How can someone who gets a PC friend to open the .exe access it from a mac? 

 

 

Well, I don't use a Mac so I don't know much about it. Have a look through the threads on this forum, though. Whatever the problem is, I'm sure someone has tackled it before. Good luck!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Currently, the NAM is not supported for the MAC O/S.  However, you can run the game in wineskin or bootcamp using the Windows version and under either of those you should be able to run the NAM installer.  You will have to install a few things into your pseudo Windows set up in order to do so.