Why is it so hard to KISS

[Alky 16]

I'm finding it almost impossible to keep it simple. I start a city and my goal is to have 2 or 3 small communities on the map but then advisers want more schools, police, firefighters, commercial, industrial, more housing etc., then there's the pollution and power, yada, yada. Next thing I know I have the map 's space filled with no more room for anything, yet they still want more.  Resistance seems futile! 

 

[MandelSoft 2,774]

Most SimCity 4 players have adopted the strategy to completely ignore the advisors (except the red and flashing red messages when things really start to get bad). Usually the city runs better without them

[jmsepe 2,039]

Try to ignore them although that would seem ironic since they are supposed to help your city grown well. Just focus on the data and not the words of your advisor, things will become more easier.

[mrsmartman 200]

The issue of KISS seems more serious in the areas of management and application of BATs and MODs in the cities.

[Alky 16]

Has anyone heard of a mod that totally kills the advisers? They're a distraction and I think Maxis' idea was to just fill the city.  I've seen pics of other people's cities where there's stretches of road that will come upon a handful of buildings and maybe a barn or something. That's the kind city map I keep envisioning but it seems once I start it's like I'm crack and just keep adding & adding till I run out of space. It's not as relaxing as it should be. 

[Compdude787 916]

There's no way to completely kill the advisers but you can disable the advice popups that always alert you about stuff you don't care about. To disable them, go into the Play Options and uncheck the "Urgent Advice Dialogs" option. This is what most of us do because we could care less about what the stupid computer thinks about the way we're building our cities.

[Alky 16]

There's no way to completely kill the advisers but you can disable the advice popups that always alert you about stuff you don't care about. To disable them, go into the Play Options and uncheck the "Urgent Advice Dialogs" option. This is what most of us do because we could care less about what the stupid computer thinks about the way we're building our cities.

 

Thanx! That will help a lot, I never thought of that.  LOL

[mrsmartman 200]

The advisers are for the dummies but not the pros.

[Prophet42 1,503]

Also, when you set up a new city, if you select 'Hard', the number of Advisor pops will be greatly reduced.  They will only pop up when there is a crisis or when an award becomes available. 

 

To develop small communities, just provide them the bare necessities.  If you are not concerned about having Hi-tech industry, then you don't have to provide schools.  If your population is less then 1,000 to 1,500 sims, then you don't need to provide police.  You don't need to provide a fire station until around 500 sims.  You don't really need to provide a medical clinic unless you want your sims to live long. 

 

As stated above, just ignore the advisors (unless it is a crisis) and build the city as you want.  The game is geared toward mass development and large cities.  You just have to overcome the game's inclination and make it do want you want it to do.

[Alky 16]

Also, when you set up a new city, if you select 'Hard',

 

As stated above, just ignore the advisors (unless it is a crisis) and build the city as you want.  The game is geared toward mass development and large cities.  You just have to overcome the game's inclination and make it do want you want it to do.

 

Thank you, good tips. 

[Shark7 118]

Most SimCity 4 players have adopted the strategy to completely ignore the advisors (except the red and flashing red messages when things really start to get bad). Usually the city runs better without them

 

I personally turn them into Llamas...since you can't fire them.     Gotta love the extra cheats mod. 

 

But as far as listening to them, your right MandelSoft, I just ignore them.  If you do everything they want you too, you'll always be in the red and never have room to actually build your city the way you want it to look.  And since I like to build rural looking communities on large city tiles, it really pays to not pay attention to the annoyers...er advisors. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

CTRL+xdollyllamaCTRL+m turns them into llamas.

 

To reduce them to minimum turn off most of the dialogues, leaving only urgent advice on.  And play on hard.  If you need more Simoleons use the extra cheats dll command moolah.  The format is:

 

moolah <n>

where

<n> ::= any non-zero number within reason with no punctuation.

 

Moolah is not an increment of any kind.  It sets your treasury balance to <n>.

 

So, if you want to play on hard mode (eventually unlocks everything) but run out of money start your city then immediately type in

 

CTRL+xmoolah 500000CTRL+m

 

And you really won't notice any difference from easy mode.

 

Moolah can be used any time you need to fix your cash situation.

[Alky 16]

I found a Simolean tree mod that each time you plop it, it gives you an additional $10k per month, so 10 trees would be $100k.  I've been planting them as needed to always be slightly ahead of expenses, if I get too far ahead I can always bulldoze one or two. 

[Compdude787 916]

I found a Simolean tree mod that each time you plop it, it gives you an additional $10k per month, so 10 trees would be $100k.  I've been planting them as needed to always be slightly ahead of expenses, if I get too far ahead I can always bulldoze one or two. 

Well, personally I prefer using the Moolah cheat, but whatever floats your boat is fine.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

You should change from KISS to KISMIF.  (Keep It Simple, Make It Fun).  Much less pejorative. 

 

I don't like money lots because they take up space.  You will get used to using Moolah fairly quickly.  It is not really a cheat, nor is the 'extra cheats dll', it is just a switch that turns on some of the developers debug features that are normally inhibited.

 

Cheat doesn't mean anything in a single player game.  Who are you cheating?  Using knowledge on the other hand is part of the game.

[rsc204 21,857]

Agree with others, the Moolah cheat is the way to go for me, sometimes I just need cash to build, for example fill a city with RHW (I usually build transit first) what with all that rebuilding junctions when I screw them up (often) it costs a lot of money, and I don't see it as cheating to get round this.

 

And I would try to take your time terraforming a region slowly, resisting the urge to build anything during this stage. When you are happy with your results, then make a plan for a whatever settlements you want to make, try to decide where some big industry or large features like ports, marinas and beaches will be and make a rough plan of how to connect them up with transit. If you have an outline then usually it helps to stop you building too much. It's always tempting to build your final vision, but SC4 is designed for that vision to be built slowly, hence you can't have skyscrapers until your demand is high enough. Stopping yourself from zoning anything but low density until you've filled a region, then upgrading parts to medium-high density is a really great way to play, although I admit I don't always have the patience either.

 

Since it looks like you are a bit new to all of this, why not have a look at this CJ/Tutorial on SC4Devotion by SmileyMK. It's very unique in that it explains every aspect of how to get the best of the game in detailed step-by-step lessons. It might seem like you've missed a lot, but it's worth every moment of time you spend going through from the beginning, I know my game is better as a result. Which brings me to one last point, soak up as much inspiration from CJ's as possible. We won't all be able to build the creations of BadSim, Paeng, Vortext or all the other truly fantastic cities out there, but they are a great way to see what's possible.

[Nesral Sredna 62]

Seems like someone forgot to upgrade their photobucket bandwith. The CJ is missing its pictures...

[Compdude787 916]

Agree with others, the Moolah cheat is the way to go for me, sometimes I just need cash to build, for example fill a city with RHW (I usually build transit first) what with all that rebuilding junctions when I screw them up (often) it costs a lot of money, and I don't see it as cheating to get round this.

When it comes to building RHW freeways, I like to think of the Moolah cheat as a federal FHWA grant.

[Sabretooth78 808]

 

Agree with others, the Moolah cheat is the way to go for me, sometimes I just need cash to build, for example fill a city with RHW (I usually build transit first) what with all that rebuilding junctions when I screw them up (often) it costs a lot of money, and I don't see it as cheating to get round this.

When it comes to building RHW freeways, I like to think of the Moolah cheat as a federal FHWA grant.

 

Exactly.  I'm not aware of any highway systems that have been built exclusively using property taxes.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

One of the things I do with the Moolah command is take back the 'grant in aid' when the city can afford it.

[Mymyjp 1,052]

At first, when I started, I didn't want to use cheats, mods, etc.

I have been playing for about 2 months now Alky and honestly, the DDL cheat is wonderful. You can choose so many option on top of Moolah.

 

As for the advisers, guilty, I still listen to them at time since I am still new at identifying potential issues right away. You are right, they are annoying and can definitely ruin your cities.

 

I find one thing that helps me is to only read the tips or general comments. When they start requesting more civics, parks, etc, I refer myself to the graph and assess if my city really need it.

 

It is hard to enjoy the game to its full potential at first (trust me, I almost quit at the beginning), but it does get better. I viewed a lot of Youtube tutorial, looked at journals and most of all, I did receive some great advise from veterans players.

 

Good luck with the game and hope you enjoy it as much as we all do!! (yes, I am now completely passionate about this game!!!)

[Alky 16]

At first, when I started, I didn't want to use cheats, mods, etc.

I have been playing for about 2 months now Alky and honestly, the DDL cheat is wonderful. You can choose so many option on top of Moolah.

 

I'm not against cheats or mods that give you an advantage over the default game.  I find it hard to not turn my small city into a giant metropolis.  I strive for an area that's city-like and several small areas that are more rural. Problem is I can't stop from adding just that one more thing and soon the whole thing gets out of hand. LOL

I like to connect adjoining cities with rail and roads/highways, get some neighborhood deals going and so on to see how they interact.

I have the CTRL X menu with the assorted cheats which has the moolah on it and it works fine but I still like the Simolean tree because I can plop & forget, depending how many I need to stay ahead of the expenses. Since I'm trying to NOT fill every square in my city, the use of the money tree isn't a problem for me.

I started playing SimCity way back with SimCity3 and got SimCity4 as soon as it came out. There's been a lot of gaps in my use of the game, several years at a time in some cases, so I forget a lot of stuff and then there's so much content being added that it's like starting all over again. It's kind of incredible how active the old game and the forums are still. 

[Cob92 360]

The thing you have to keep in mind is each advisor provides advice independently of the others, and all of them aside from the environment advisor are essentially aimed at the traditional infinite growth paradigm that SimCity is based on. If you wish to limit growth you should not listen to them so closely.

[Fatherted 129]

Simoleon trees can crash the game (and, if saved with, corrupt the tile) if pumping you over 100 billion (or is it 100 trillion?). Point is, moolah is regulated, trees are not.

[Alky 16]

Simoleon trees can crash the game (and, if saved with, corrupt the tile) if pumping you over 100 billion (or is it 100 trillion?). Point is, moolah is regulated, trees are not.

 

I only have enough trees to cover at most, double my expenses.  Even that gets to be too much & I have to chop one or two down. 

It amounts to rarely more than $100k per month that the trees put out. The cities after a few years are around a couple million in the black with this minimal effort.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Everyone to his taste.  You should be aware that the treasury counter is not unlimited.  If you overflow it, it will probably have one of two effects: 1.  A general disaster corrupting the city; or 2. turn into a large negative number causing you to lose the game.

[Compdude787 916]

Everyone to his taste.  You should be aware that the treasury counter is not unlimited.  If you overflow it, it will probably have one of two effects: 1.  A general disaster corrupting the city; or 2. turn into a large negative number causing you to lose the game.

That's integer overflow for you....

A 32-bit game can only handle so many digits.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

Yep, even a signed double integer will only handle 2⁶³-1

[Fatherted 129]

Which, admittedly Nonny, is quite a lot. Unless you abuse money trees.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

I never take a chance of having a game wrecked by an over enthusiastic money lot.  Moolah gives you 100% control at all times.