How to stop certain lots from growing while retaining them in the plugins folder ?

[lengyel 0]

Hi everyone,

 

I am building a historical East-central European themed city. I downloaded many buildings and lots typical of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Now however, I would like to have only buildings typical of the post WW2 to develop, while still retaining the older buildings.

 

Basically, how do you stop certain lots, buildings from growing while still having them in the plugins folder so that you don't see the brown boxes?

 

Thanks 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

You cannot win that one directly.  The best you can do is take the unwanted plugins to an out-of-game folder to reserve them when not wanted in a particular city, then put them back (folder and all) when you need them.  You can have as many divisions like this as you like.

[lengyel 0]

Thanks for the answer. Its a pity then. If only there would be custom made architectural styles and content creators would put their buildings into a corresponding style so players could switch between them.

It seems I will have to destroy unwanted building and historicize the ones I like in certain areas.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Yeah, unfortunately it's impossible to add custom tilesets.

 

What you can do is make blockers for existing lots. These are basically copies of the lots in question which will override the original lots - only that the copies will have something in them that renders the lot impossible to grow. For example, you could set the value for "minimum slope" higher than the value for "maximum slope permitted". This has been done for Maxis buildings, but for custom stuff, you'd have to do it yourself.

 

When the blocker is inside your plugins folder (and loads AFTER the lots it is supposed to block!), it will block the corresponding lots. Exit the game, move the blocker somewhere else, start the game again, and the formerly blocked lots will be able to grow again. That's the basic logic behind blockers.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

There is a system that runs as part of a start-up script that can swap sets of plugins around dependent on the target city, but I forget the name of it.

[CaptCity 4,669]

You can use Startup Manager to control which plugins load for individual regions (v2) (v3). Version 2 is a little easier to use, but version 3, while being more complex, does offer some more options. Of course, these only function with custom content items in the Plugins folder. The Maxis blockers will still be needed for the game's default items.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Thanks, Cap.  Couldn't remember the name of that for the life of me.  Must be old age creeping up.

[APSMS 1,892]

It should be noted that if you remove plugins from a region that have already grown in your cities in an attempt to block new one from growing, you will experience CTDs.

 

The Startup Manager (SUM) is useful for players that have many regions of varying content, but it's not useful for adjusting regional content on the go (adding is fine, I suppose, but removing...not so much).

 

Because the lot is still loaded with Blockers, they do not cause CTDs, and previously grown lots are unaffected because the simulator is static, but the new parameters create impossible conditions with new growth, hence they can be easily swapped in and out sans consequence.