Getting SC4 tonight hopefully, anything I should know?

[AidanA28 17]

So, tonight I should be ordering SC4 off of Amazon. I have a few questions, as well as just a general question.

 

1: Will one-way roads be avaible without NAM or any of the other mods?

2: What WON'T be avaible without mods?

3: Is there anything else I need to know? Thanks!

[Ernestmaxis 209]

Mac of Windows edition?

When you installing the game and start downloading organise you plugin folder.

Download Damn manager it helps alot.

Nam has one ways roads. Maybe it with helps to search for some tutorials on sc4devotion.com

There al many tutorials for the Nam and the different puzzle pieces that Nam has.

What wont be available without mods. I gues everything this game runs on mods.

[Compdude787 916]

One-way roads exist without the NAM (only the default OWR-2). As for your second question, it depends on what mods you have. Every mod adds something new to the game, and none of us have all of them.

 

One thing that won't be available without the NAM is a smarter traffic simulator which determines commuting routes based on fastest driving time as opposed to shortest route by distance. Maxis was originally going to do their pathfinding like it is in the NAM, but ended up having to dumb it down prior to release so it could run on lower-end computers that existed in 2003. Remember, multi-core processors didn't exist in 2003, 64-bit processors had just been introduced, and many processors had a clock speed well below 2 GHz. Not to mention that 256 MB of RAM and a 64 MB video card was considered adequate for the software of that day. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Since you  didn't say, I will guess you're getting the Windows version.

 

Without question, you need the NAM.  Use the custom installer to take only the traffic controller and you should be just fine.

You also need the following:

 

 EA Plugins
│   ├── AmericanFlag.dat
│   ├── bldgprop_vol1.dat
│   ├── bldgprop_vol2.dat
│   ├── Canada_Flag.dat
│   ├── CastleSet.dat
│   ├── dayopeace.dat
│   ├── Longfellow Castle_4d50ba18.SC4Lot
│   └── Plugin_007_AirForceBase.dat
 

And

 

Plugins/Fixes
├── AndreasRoth
│   └── cityhall_fix
├── Cougar2004
│   └── SpacePort Fix Mod
├── RalphaelNinja
│   └── CrimeDoesntPay
└── Toroca
    └── OperaHouse
 

[Tommy_H 3]

Nonny Moose, I understand that these are all subfolders you recommend creating in the the ...My Documents/SimCity4/Plugin folder, right? And place the actual mods in them (of course...). Purpose is to get well-organized and remember and manage what you have/have not, right?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Tommy, those are actual outputs from my tree program (a Linux/DOS utility) and I tried to limit it to show you the names of things you need.  These were taken from my alterego account which is a minimum version of SC4D which also includes a limited NAM.  That account is for playing with what I consider to be an utterly minimum set of custom content.

 

It is on a 64-bit prefix (in Linux/wine you have a choice of 32- or 64-bit environments) but it is set to XP decor.

 

My intent for alterego is to play a vanilla game, but that is impossible without fixing the bugs.

 

EDIT: One item I left off my list that I consider essential for play is the 'extra cheats .dll' which must be present and installed correctly.  Not having a money command (moolah) is a nuisance.  This package unlocks most of the developers' debug commands.

[Tommy_H 3]

Nonny, OK, I see   It shows you are very organised. I also did some sub-foldering but not as elaborate.  

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Tommy, I have shown only first and second levels of some of my plugins.  The actual 'live' version rather than my 'rollback' version is much deeper.  I am reluctant to post such a thing because it is very large.  If you really want to see the whole thing, send me a PM and I'll respond with the full map.  Of course, you realize what you'll get is what I currently have and it is subject to change.

[AidanA28 17]

Dang... Well, I am still not allowed to use mods, and also I wasn't able to by SC4 anyway :/ Thanks to all anyway.. 

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Why are you not allowed to use mods?  You need the fixes at the very least.  You should know that the exchanges are moderated and virus free.

[.anonyman 28]

I think we scared Aidan away with all this talk of "must do this" and "must download that"!

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Sounded more like lack of parental permission.  Some parents are funny about letting their kids download anything.

[AidanA28 17]

Hear Hear. I accidentally crashed this computer though, but there was a Hijack search already on the computer, and it lead me to the wrong .RAR opener. Ended up spending 3 nights pondering it, then it went bonkers. Spent the 4th night wiping the harddrive.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

You had a Trojan associated with the *.rar extension?  What kind of anti-virus system are you running?  And do you have your firewall turned on?

[ROFLyoshi 1,760]

If your parents are worried about you using up all the data by downloading mods, maybe talk to them about getting a limit for you? Like say 100MB a month etc.

Otherwise maybe write down a list of all the mods that interest you, and download them under their supervision? I can understand their worries and even my family is wary when I download on the family computer. Just my two cents though.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Actually, get your parents to make the minimum donation to the site and get the DVDs.