Any SC4 mod to make gameplay more interesting?

[OrSpeeder 72]

I am playing SC4 using NAM, SPAM and Industrial Revolution as base mods...

 

But I noticed most mods are just new graphics, or sometimes some functional mod here or there to make the game easier or more reasonable.

 

There are any mod that make the game more interesting instead? After a while, you figure how to plan the transit, the zones and the civic buildings, the game become quite easy, just a matter of following RCI while keeping positive cash flow, it is not hard to soon amass several millions of simoleons without cheating, at this point it cease being a city simulator and become just your personal diorama.

 

So, any mod that fix that? Or improve the gameplay?

[cmdp123789 710]

Well, there is no such mod, and to be honest, I dont think there will be.. think about it, the game is good for that, being a diorama.. and the truth is, people are always trying to figure a way to get to that point.. perhaps you should look for a new challenge, for example recreating a real life city.. or managing to create a realistic region.. 

[Indiana Joe 1,750]

The un-modded base game has the most strategy involved.  Mods usually aim to make the game easier or just look better.  We've turned it into more of a modeling tool, for making City Journals.

 

There's a few challenge mods though.   makes you start out with 0 Simoleans in your bank, and you have to take out a loan and pay it off while growing a fledgling city.

 

If you download enough custom buildings, hunting down those darned dependencies and dealing with their creators' horrible trash/pollution/population balance is a challenge in itself.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

And there is always Sim Mars.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Ultimately, the challenge with SimCity 4 is inside your head. You're right: building something that looks like a city, has a relatively high population and turns a profit isn't difficult at all once you've learnt the basics. That's where SC4 begins to differ from other games. After learning the basics (typically in a tutorial level or beginner mission), it will throw levels / scenarios / missions of some kind at you. SimCity doesn't. The one who makes it a mission to reach a goal is you, and the one who sets this goal is also you. The downside of this is that you don't just get it all handed to you on a silver platter, care-free and ready to be played. The upside is that you don't just reach the game's goal if you succeed; you reach your own goals.

 

If this doesn't satisfy you, maybe games with externally defined levels / missions / scenarios and "win/fail" criteria just suit your taste better. SC4 isn't really centred around this aspect.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Amen to that.  The whole point of playing this game is that it has no end point designed by the programmers.  The only programmed end point happens if you go broke.

 

This is not really a game.  It is an exercise in imagination and problem solving where the user provides the problems and solves them in terms of the program.  Games with end points lose their glitter once you've solved them.  SC4 has kept me entertained since 2003 and it still does, though I haven't played much lately because I've been playing Banished.  Banished is another endless simulation.  Whether C:S is one remains to be seen.

 

People who need predefined goals and end points really can expand their horizons with SC4 and become more rounded persons.  When you leap off this cliff, there is no safety net.

[mayorgreener 37]

I always try to create the world's most effective and planned city... grid...yupp... well as per my knowledge 

[.anonyman 28]

Personally, I like playing tutorials and scenarios to simulation games. I wish SC4 had some scenarios built into it.

 

It can be interesting to start up an existing city/region and fix the problems. Or switch to a new transportation network. And don't forget about disasters!

 

Another user offered his/her completed vanilla region for download a few months ago. I have been converting parts of it to the mods I use, building a RHW network through it, and upgrading the rail lines. It's been a fascinating challenge and I like how each time I open a city, I see something unexpected.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

If you want that kind of thing, try some of the missions in the U-Drive-It section.

 

As for building scenarios, what's wrong with your imagination?

[OrSpeeder 72]

I discussed this topic in many forums and chats.

 

It always amaze me, how the current SC4 community ALWAYS assume I am talking about scenarios, or winning and losing conditions.

 

No people, this is NOT what I am talking about, at all.

 

What I am talking about, is that the game is very weak, in the game sense, even in the simulation sense SC4 is not that impressive, it allows you some extreme freedom in what to build, and is interesting for various reasons, but it is too easy, and gets boring too fast (Banished I thought was much worse though...), you can reach millions and millions of simoleons in 3 to 5 years, even in hard mode, and then you can do WHATEVER YOU WANT that you will NEVER have problems, there are no serious disasters or consequences for your actions, you will never run out of money, in fact I found out last night that trying to lose is more fun than trying to win, in my older cities, no matter how hard I try, I never figured how to make my mayor rating go negative, or how to make my budget get negative without resorting to unrealistic tactics (ie: building 300 schools next to each other for example...)

 

Scenarios, like Tropico maybe, would help? Maybe yes, Tropico games are fun, but senarios are only fun if the mechanics are solid, SC4 probably would still not be that good with scenarios, in the gameplay sense (by the way, I am not saying SC4 is terrible or suck, it is still better than SC1, 3, 5 and Societies, and gave me many hours in engineering RHW and pretty parks, but it is nowhre near scratching the actual simulation game itch).

[mayorgreener 37]

I discussed this topic in many forums and chats.

 

It always amaze me, how the current SC4 community ALWAYS assume I am talking about scenarios, or winning and losing conditions.

 

No people, this is NOT what I am talking about, at all.

 

What I am talking about, is that the game is very weak, in the game sense, even in the simulation sense SC4 is not that impressive, it allows you some extreme freedom in what to build, and is interesting for various reasons, but it is too easy, and gets boring too fast (Banished I thought was much worse though...), you can reach millions and millions of simoleons in 3 to 5 years, even in hard mode, and then you can do WHATEVER YOU WANT that you will NEVER have problems, there are no serious disasters or consequences for your actions, you will never run out of money, in fact I found out last night that trying to lose is more fun than trying to win, in my older cities, no matter how hard I try, I never figured how to make my mayor rating go negative, or how to make my budget get negative without resorting to unrealistic tactics (ie: building 300 schools next to each other for example...)

 

Scenarios, like Tropico maybe, would help? Maybe yes, Tropico games are fun, but senarios are only fun if the mechanics are solid, SC4 probably would still not be that good with scenarios, in the gameplay sense (by the way, I am not saying SC4 is terrible or suck, it is still better than SC1, 3, 5 and Societies, and gave me many hours in engineering RHW and pretty parks, but it is nowhre near scratching the actual simulation game itch).

 

you play SC4 extremely well

 

but you have to understand that its a city building game mainly. its not a nation building game or economy/business building game...  can you really build extremely aesthetic cities? well planned road, bi-cycle alleys etc. etc. See paengs cities

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

My friend, you need a break from SC4.  Try to find some other computer program that will distract you or please your desires more.

[OrSpeeder 72]

My friend, you need a break from SC4.  Try to find some other computer program that will distract you or please your desires more.

 

I am... "genre wandering" trying hard some genres for each time.

 

Now I am in city building, in March 26 Pillars of Eternity will come out, and I will go back to RPG.

 

But before this I was into Factorio, before Factorio I was playing with Stalker: Call of Pripyat, before that it was Gnomoria, before that it was a survival roguelike...

 

Anyway, I entered the "City Builder" genre for now, and although Tropico and Anno are really good (I played them the last times I had a City Builder itch), they are... different. Sim City series (and now cities XL) has a very unique theme, and SC4 (and SC2000) are the strongest games in the genre, when regarding "current-day" cities, but I feel like SC4 could have lots of gameplay modding love.

 

 

Finally, by the way, I started my own mod, and had a blast playing it... still has lots of issues to be fixed though, it is sort of wonky in some areas.

 

But biggest changes so far:

 

1) Fire is "fixed", in the sense that insted of being just a nuisance that you need to click to put out, it is a real threat now, specially if your fire coverage is not enough, or underfunded... Maxis, trying to fix the problem of fires being too annoying (I guess it was their reasoning), made some retarded workarounds (most notably, fires STILL start near fire stations, player never notice because fire stations automatically put out fires with 1000% efficiency), I figured that the original programmers, like the traffic ones, knew what they were doing, and that tweaking could make fire behave like... fire.

 

Indeed it is true, and now fire can spread, and be dangerous, in a city without fire department at all, a fire can burn your entire city down (like SC1 and 2), with realistically placed fire departments, you can put it out, but if your roads have shitty planning it might happen to the fire destroy a building or two before that.

 

2) Instead of taxes having a boost on easy, now they are "normal" on easy, and have penalties as you raise difficulty.

 

3) Mayor rating can go down, and WILL go down if you don't care for your sims properly, you cannot have a skyscraper city with zero schools and hospitals anymore. (but initial villages with dirty industry and shitty services are still possible, of course...)

 

4) NAM-related fixes: NAM makes all commute times become permanently short, this gave several "Free bonuses", among them mayor rating, land value and desirability, now "short commute" (ie: NAM default if your city is reasonable) don't give you a bonus, but "long commute" (ie: areas where you did exceptionally bad planning) still get a penalty. Also NAM makes traffic much easier to manage, thus again, "low traffic" stopped giving bonuses, but bad traffic give penalties.

 

5) Crime fixes: police now is more efficient and really stop more crime (akin to "Crime doesn't pay" mod), but I changed some crime-related curves too, and there are more crime if you have zero police, and more negative opinion because of crime.

 

6) Budet changes: Start with less money (including zero money on Hard, like SC2000), loans are more expensive (but take longer to pay too, otherwise hard mode would be too hard).

 

7) Riots and pipe bursts are easier to happen... theoretically, I never saw a pipe burst, riots need some tweaking (sometimes a riot happen right when you start the city, this is NOT supposed to happen).

 

It is easier to control facilities budgets: Now the mininum value to avoid strikes is 75% instead of 90%, this is to make reduced budgeting a viable strategy, like it was in older SC games (instead of the only solution to always be raise your income).

 

 

 

All these are in SImulator exemplars, and some Development exemplars, if anyone has any ideas of what else to mod, shoot...

 

Also I won't touch traffic (I leave that to NAM), or stuff that breaks SPAM, or Industrial Revolution.

 

Unfortunately CAM changes too many things, so it is obviously imcompatible with CAM, but probably for the best (since I believe, my mod, and CAM serve more or less the same purpose, but my mod try to keep a vanilla feeling, without introducing denser population).

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Sorry I got you wrong first. It's just that many people seem to feel somewhat disoriented when they don't have any scenarios and win/fail criteria. Now I understand what you're getting at.

 

Well, there are some interesting fixes.

 

I agree that fires are really just a distracting nuisance the way they're implemented in the vanilla game. Your police fix sounds interesting, too. What parameters did you change, i.e. in what way does police behave differently now?

 

I think pipe bursts only occur if you underfund your water pipe network. There's also an annoying "feature" where a power line will start buzzing, sparking and smoking when the power plant it's connected to is underfunded to fix overcapacity. However, the line is never destroyed, and this visual indication of a problem doesn't make sense anyway because unlike a water pipe, a power line doesn't care how much of its capacity is actually used as long as it's not above the specifications.

 

Another thing that migght be interesting for you is the influence of existing development on desirability. I always found it annoying that a mansion might pop up right in the middle of a slum. Typically, you should think that wealthy people prefer to keep away from the poor. This would also add another dimension to gameplay because it would be difficult to develop an existing neighborhood from a slum to a shiny utopia even if you have sufficient demand for some high-wealth skyscrapers. Just like a real-world mayor, you'd have to decide: Do I leave the slum where it is and try to accommodate my wealthier Sims elsewhere? Or will I have to tear those old buildings down and make room for something better? And where do I make room for low-wealth housing now?

[OrSpeeder 72]

As for what the police do:

 

First, there is a variable on the crime simulator (not on the police stations) that calculate how much crime declines based on police station coverage, in vanilla game even with excessive coverage, clime only declines 50% (meaning that in vanilla you might have a case of runaway crime on poor cities, no matter how crazy you are in station dropping).

 

I put it now to decline 97% (not 100% because there is no such thing perfect police coverage, someone always slip somewhere).

 

As for the curves, I made that in general many things generare slighly more crime, including I put that high-EQ rich citizens still commit crimes (vanilla high-EQ of any ealth level don't commit crimes... but e know that IRL high-EQ high-wealth people for some reason insist in commit crimes even if they don't need to, so I added a tiny amount of crime, instead of zero).

 

And made unemployment generate crime much faster, so you cannot go crazy building residential zones everyhere for their tax income and forget to provide other zones and neighbour connections.

 

 

 

 

I am... still trying to fix the mansion problem

 

My hard-mode test city I had to manually bulldoze all mansions, because after the city "got going" well, suddenly all residential zones got overran by mansions, this is a side effect of SC4 rules: buildings can only be replaced by higher density buildings OR by wealthier buildings, meaning that a low-wealth building for 3000 people can be replaced by a mansion.

 

This CAN be disabled (the wealth replacement part) but I believe this will break the game badly instead. There are several options about desirability in relation to zone nearbyness, I intend to see if I can use that, but unfortunately, there are no such options related to industry...

 

The problem of not having a way to tag residential undesirable near industry, is that something funny can happen: my first industrial city (it is a city saved with 800 people and 20k industrial jobs available, made to give jobs to commuters from my main city) has a tiny residential zone that is in the middle of the dirty industries and look like a slum. As soon as I provide water, they turn into mansions Thus population drops, and looks VERY silly (seriously, a bunch of mansions IN THE MIDDLE of a dirty industrial area?)

 

 

 

So... yeah, I am still trying to figure a way to stop mansions from overunning your city, they are really annoying (because they tend to look out of place, and cause population drops when they replace tall buildings of lower wealth).

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The solution to the mansion problem is simple.  Do not use default click and hold zoning methods.  Mansions cannot grow in neighbourhoods consisting of back to back 2 x 1 lots because these cannot be consolidated into the 3 x or 4 x lots required.  It means manual zoning, but what the heck?  I don't zone very much at one time, because I want my cities to grow slowly.

[gviper 922]

I discussed this topic in many forums and chats.

 

It always amaze me, how the current SC4 community ALWAYS assume I am talking about scenarios, or winning and losing conditions.

 

No people, this is NOT what I am talking about, at all.

 

What I am talking about, is that the game is very weak, in the game sense, even in the simulation sense SC4 is not that impressive, it allows you some extreme freedom in what to build, and is interesting for various reasons, but it is too easy, and gets boring too fast (Banished I thought was much worse though...), you can reach millions and millions of simoleons in 3 to 5 years, even in hard mode, and then you can do WHATEVER YOU WANT that you will NEVER have problems, there are no serious disasters or consequences for your actions, you will never run out of money, in fact I found out last night that trying to lose is more fun than trying to win, in my older cities, no matter how hard I try, I never figured how to make my mayor rating go negative, or how to make my budget get negative without resorting to unrealistic tactics (ie: building 300 schools next to each other for example...)

 

Scenarios, like Tropico maybe, would help? Maybe yes, Tropico games are fun, but senarios are only fun if the mechanics are solid, SC4 probably would still not be that good with scenarios, in the gameplay sense (by the way, I am not saying SC4 is terrible or suck, it is still better than SC1, 3, 5 and Societies, and gave me many hours in engineering RHW and pretty parks, but it is nowhre near scratching the actual simulation game itch).

Wow! I suppose you might be looking for a city-simulator that puts you in a chokehold and only relinquishes to the point at which blood and breath return only to resume?  That's not the simulation style (in my opinion) of SC4.  Though It's easy to make money and the business side is really dull (for me) the development side is very formidable.  I played this game when it came out and it kicked my fanny, I couldn't make it past about 150k citizens without issues e.g. dilapidations, demand aesthetics.  But I came back with a vision, the vision grew, and now I am enjoying the present experience of taking the creating of my city to the furthest limits possible (by the game, content, and my own faculties) and the experience of this has been anything but weak.  Depends on what you want, and the level of discrepancy to what you have, and how you reconcile this.  If you can't (or aren't willing) to envision a goal in the game beyond those that you articulate as being weak might be best to step back from it, if you can, then you have something to work with. I don't think there is such a city simulation on the market, I am not sure how hard or easy it's to "do business" in Cities: Skylines.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

@OrSpeeder: Thank you for all the information!

 

Yeah, your changes to the way police works sound reasonable. It IS particularly annoying that you sometimes need to plop down dozens of police departments around larger lots, and still there's crime. So it's good that your mod addresses that. Making unemployment generate crime faster is also a good idea and a very realistic touch IMO.

 

Bah, the mansion problem can be overcome with low-tech solutions if all else fails. Making the mansion lots low-density only should help, for example. This would restrict the spread of mansions to low-density suburbs, but you will no longer see a 4x4 highrise (high density) being replaced by a mansion. Other buildings could probably remain untouched because mansions seem to be much more problematic than anything else.

 

I agree that taking out the ability of wealthier buildings to overgrow poorer ones altogether doesn't sound like a good idea. It goes too far against the grain of the game. And with the mansions "tamed", it probably wouldn't be necessary.

 

 

As for the desirability based on nearby zones: Did I understand you correctly that industry does not have a direct desirability-lowering effect on residential? Maybe the programmers thought that this "job" would be done by pollution alone, but your example of the industrial city with a bunch of mansions surrounded by dirty industry seems to indicate the opposite. Did the mansions not even dilapidate to a lower wealth level? This makes me think whether air/water pollution could be used to prevent higher-wealth zones. SimCity is quite generous in this respect anyway. Last time I actually played the game, I also noticed how medium-wealth houses would pop up as soon as the area s not too dirty and there's some demand, even on unwatered zones! As a consequence of lacking water supply, they'd mostly dilapidate again, but IMO "let 'em come only to dilapidate again" is not the smartest concept.

 

Anyway, the influence of residential wealth classes on each other is the most interesting part IMO because you can't control it by mere zoning. The proximity of residential to industry can be controlled. The only problem is that if you decide to place residential near industry (worker's estate?), you can hardly keep high-wealth buildings from appearing in the first place. Then again, a typical worker's estate would be wall-to-wall development, and there's not much high-wealth W2W out there. Still, the problem is there, even if it cannot manifest itself too badly.

 

Please keep going with your modding attempts! Now that I understand what you're aiming at and know a little about your approach, I think you're up to something very interesting!

[OrSpeeder 72]

Oh, yes, the developers intended for pollution to drive away residential, but I don't tweaked pollution curves yet, I DID tweaked a bit of the amount of penalties for excessive pollution, but to get there requires a absurd amount of pollution anyway.

 

Pollution curves have an excessive amount of values to tweak, and I don't know reasonable thresholds, I will see if using the cheats dll I can figure stuff better in that department.

 

 

Currently the "proximity" that can affect a zone is: residental wealth levels, commercial wealth levels, and office wealth levels, the game current rules is that residential of the same level attract others of the same level, the intentio nis probably create for each contiguous zone a "solid" block of same wealth, commercial business and offices attract each other (ie: a business attract an office, an office attract a business). Probably with the opposite intention: create more mixed places instead of boring uniform rows of shops and then rows of skyscrapers.

[BlakeMW 84]

 

So... yeah, I am still trying to figure a way to stop mansions from overunning your city, they are really annoying (because they tend to look out of place, and cause population drops when they replace tall buildings of lower wealth).

My solution to mansions is simple - zone lots of mansion-friendly low density residential (meaning, it has water and a scattering of parks and other land value boosters). They also make good places for private schools as private schools do a very good job of educating R$$$ and a very poor job of educating R$. If you actively encourage mansions to grow in suitable areas, then you'll end up using up the demand for mansions, and they'll be relatively less likely to move into high density zones. I think the game kind of assumes there will be low density suburbs.

 

My experience is that if there is demand for high density apartment buildings they will take precedent over mansions, and even displace mansions. I don't believe I've ever seen a mansion displace an existing high density apartment building, but I suppose it could happen if R$ population drops a great deal, causing the apartment building to be abandoned - but in the normal course of evolution it is more likely that a R$ apartment building will be replaced by a R$$ apartment building, as for the most part with increasing education and IM/IHT C$$/C$$$ development, sims move up in the world rather than being removed from existence.

 

One very useful method for completely keeping away R$$$ is just to keep the desirability low. In some cases low desirability can be problematic for getting apartment buildings to move in, but once they grow they tend to stay even if increasing crime causes desirability to fall. Essentially having no or few parks will tend to exclude R$$$ moving in - perhaps not at start, but certain once crime kicks in. You can bulldoze and rezone any R$$$ that moved in, or just let poorer sims live in the R$$$ houses.

[T Wrecks 10,209]

Whoa, that sounds like pollution is very tricky. Hmm... maybe land value would be an option? I'll have to fire up the game and see how land value actually behaves.

 

the game current rules is that residential of the same level attract others of the same level, the intentio nis probably create for each contiguous zone a "solid" block of same wealth,

Yes, that makes sense. Wealthy people wouldn't move into a ghetto, and poor people couldn't afford living in a wealthy neighbourhood generally. However, I think the effect is a bit weak the way it is now. At least R$ and R$$$ could repel each other more strongly IMO, maybe with R$$ being more tolerant towards both.

 

R$$$ grows too easily anyway. That's why Bones1 made a mod years ago that raised the desirability requirements for R$$$ to prevent the vicious circle of growth in unsuitable areas and subsequent abandonment. I've been using that one, but even afterwards I still found myself staring at the screen in disbelief sometimes when an R$$$ building appeared in a spot I would never have expected.
 

commercial business and offices attract each other (ie: a business attract an office, an office attract a business). Probably with the opposite intention: create more mixed places instead of boring uniform rows of shops and then rows of skyscrapers.

 

Hm, that's interesting. Yes, maybe they made that to prevent monotony. It's also something city planners or authorities would do when planning a new urban commercial district: take care that you don't have all offices and no shops so that there's some street life. Also, an environemnt with many offices will be a good spot for restaurants and other food joints (lunch break!).

 

For suburban environments, however, that pattern may be different IRL. There seem to be pure office parks without shops or large shopping areas without offices sometimes.

 

Oh well, I guess differentiating that much would take it too far, and I'm actually happy with the way commercial buildings behave in game.

 

Come to think of it, the only change that may be interesting IMO would be to make commercial services react to residential in an attempt to have ritzy CS$$$ boutiques prefer R$$$ environments, whereas the cheap CS$ shop would be more likely to settle down in R$ areas. What do you think?

[OrSpeeder 72]

Oh, I am thinking of making residential attract appropriate level-offices and shops later.

 

Trying to fix some other stuff first.

 

 

Anyway, I made another long playthrough last night, it has been fun, and successful, without being too easy or too hard.

 

I noticed three interesting things:

 

First, mansions... well, as soon as they can they will move in, I figured the best I could do is just assume that whatever place they will settle will end being the city wealthy area, at least until you really need space and bulldoze them down (then probably high-density buildings will take over the spot first).

 

Second, land value can EASILY reach 255 (the maximum), unless your pollution is completely broken, providing schooling and health facilities will bump it to 255 (the maximum), specially on the start of the game, when you don't have much traffic and pollution. This is why mansions can move in large groups, they are just outpricing everyone else, because they can pay the maximum land value.

 

Like I said, maybe I will try to tweak pollution later.

 

Third, if you insist in using only low density zones and just sprawl all over the map, even with my harder mod you can build some huge positive cashflow, when things slowdown and you need higher densities (specially BECAUSE of the mansions) then things become hard again, as you will have to suddenly have lots of utilities you don't had before (like water and garbage collection).

 

Fourth, on low densities you can spend 30 years without garbage collection, SIMs won't notice... I only put garbage collection when I decided to have higher densities, and the garbage was looking ugly near megalots (unviersity, army base, etc...), but even with the graph showing 120.000 of total garbage, the data-view showed only some yellow spots, and the megalots red... I think I will need to lower thresholds for sims to get bothered by garbage (instead of raising residential garbage generation, if I take that second option you will go bankrupt easily once you start placing landfills, because of how crazy expensive they are to maintain).

 

Fifth, my city has 120k citizens, and no police... :/ It is just... not needed, there is not enough crime, the few houses that have been attacked usually just drop in value from 255 to some medium-ish value that is still high, meaning it has no practical effect on you. At the same time, having no police made high-density gameplay a little easier to budget... still, the game is nowhere near SC1 and SC2 levels of need of budgeting, maybe I there are space to make it a tad harder to fix this issue.

[dkempel 3]

Hello, as to suggestions to improve gameplay, I had some ideas while playing sim city for the first time just recently - though I have no clue if they can be implemented.

The city could develop a history that is more than just the fact of the previous planning, for example, by the sims feeling attached to their specific areas. Likewise, industry and commerce could have learning (over time) and cluster (in terms of space) effects bestowing some kind of advantage. The same with parks, perhaps especially with parks and sports arenas.

Further, more ways of differentiating the behavior of classes would be interesting and realistic. Rich people could improve their local area by rezoning for parks. Poor people could be more inclined to take mass transit.

Also, could there be a mechanic to regulate the traffic preferences, e.g. a car tax versus mass transit price?


I agree that the gameplay lacks depth in its formal mechanics. It seems the game holds tremendous potential if more mechanics were integrated. I have not tried modding and I don't know how the game works on that level.

[NCGAIO 562]

Just out of curiosity what version of reader you are using for the mods?

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

The idea of adding some heuristics to the game is not all that bad, but it is too late. 

 

The core of the game is cast in concrete unless or until the owner (EA Games) should release the source code.  At that point, C++ geeks might find it more than an easy task to interfere with the existing code.  Even Will Wright said they had programmed themselves into a corner.

 

Not only would the source have to become available but also the source for the published patches.  The very first thing would to be to incorporate these fixes and retest the new executable exhaustively, perhaps as a public beta.  After that, it would be a matter of understanding the code completely before anyone dared to make any kind of change, including some of the necessary bug fixes.

 

At that point, the community would be free to make any alterations, but there should be a core group like the NAM implementers that had control of any and all changes, and authorized any new release.  This assumes that the application had to have become abandonware.  It would be something like the Linux kernel where Linus Torvalds controls the actual updates.

 

Of course this requires the general agreement of the community since the source would have been published.  Anyone with the skill set could soon have his own version of the game, which could eventually lead to chaos.

 

Baby Steps:

 

• Incorporate and test the published patches
• Rebuild for 64-bit modern machines using a makefile to create portable native-mode versions for any operating system
• Apply any other known bug fixes
• Begin incorporation of approved "improvements"

 

The above would occupy a development group for something like five to ten years since a public beta should be included with each step.  The big one is the second step.