Simcity 4 Multiplayer

[Spartan4845 0]

So I bought Simcity 4 from Steam after seeing the Dropbox Multiplayer setup. But when trying to configure a region for my friends and I it became apparent that everyone of the guides that I found was for setting up to connect to someone elses region. I've spent eight hours today serching for a start to finish guide with no luck.  Does anyone know of a guide that is to setup a private region for multiplayer?

 

I have the Steam SC4 and I have dropbox. I tried Sugar Sync but that refused to sync the files to my friends.

 

Any and all help is appreciated.

[nos.17 5,256]

Ok I may be able to help you out on this. Way long ago, I played a little with a Multiplayer group. Unfortunately, everyone sort of dropped off as I joined, so I only played a little and then moved on to my own game.

 

Now the details:

We used Dropbox to store a common plugins folder. There was one region that we all (obviously) built on. This is what it looks like:

 

 

Since you downloaded it from Steam, I recommend you make a steam group so you can discuss happenings, what plugins to add, etc. However, the important thing is to set up the SC4 shortcut so that it reads from your Dropbox plugins vs. your Documents or C:// plugins.  For example for the shortcut "Simcity 4 Co-op.exe," we modified the Target line to this: 

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe\SimCity 4.exe" -UserDir:"C:\Users\____\Dropbox\SC4 Coop\Coop"

 

Basically this is saying to run the same shortcut as regular SC4 but instead changes the directory it reads to your Dropbox. Change above so this matches up to your computer and file locations.

 

The Start-In box should read wherever you have SC4 installed. For example:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Maxis\SimCity 4 Deluxe"

 

 

All of your friends will then run the game from this shortcut.

 

Tell me if this works or not. Again, I do not know 100% what I am talking about since it has been awhile and I was not exactly sure what I was doing - I had another member help me out. If you need, I probably could get in contact with him and ask if he remembers, even though we have not talked in awhile.

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

There have been several groups of multiplayer SC4.  Since there is no provision in the game for this operation it becomes very difficult unless you set up a common server which actually runs the game, with everyone connecting to it, each in his own city.  Some serious software engineering is required to provide the necessary connectivity, probably though Apache.  Provisions must be made for accidental disconnects (perform a save and exit to region).  How you allow more than one player to connect to the region is the biggest problem.

 

Good luck and happy queueing.

[nos.17 5,256]

There have been several groups of multiplayer SC4.  Since there is no provision in the game for this operation it becomes very difficult unless you set up a common server which actually runs the game, with everyone connecting to it, each in his own city.  Some serious software engineering is required to provide the necessary connectivity, probably though Apache.  Provisions must be made for accidental disconnects (perform a save and exit to region).  How you allow more than one player to connect to the region is the biggest problem.

 

Good luck and happy queueing.

 

Ehhh. All of that is not really needed to play multiplayer - that definitely goes beyond the scope of what is minimally necessary to play. The good thing about using Dropbox is that multiple people can be playing at the same time - as long as they are not editing the same city - which could be solved with some ground rules: for example, one cannot edit another person's city without their permission,

[A Nonny Moose 8,262]

And what do you propose to prevent conflicts and deadlocks?  Admittedly, SC4 doesn't have the idea of grabbing a resource and reserving it while trying for another one, but what about simultaneous saves?

[Aesonus 19]

Nonny makes a good point. It's also worth mentioning that what happens in one city affects demand in a connected city, but only after the city in question is reloaded. Simcity wasn't made as a multiplayer game really.