Which plug-ins folder to use?

[mizmayor 8]

I played this marvelous game on a series of Windoz computers for years. But the game got so slow and unwieldy on my last laptop a few years ago I quit playing, but missed it a lot.

So late last year I bought a MacBook Pro, and my first download from the App Store was the Aspyre version. (yes, I'd read about the Steam and other versions out there. Decided to go with the simplest for now). (Nope, not going the bootcamp/parallels/wine routes if I can help it.)

I'd read about the limit on the plugins folder, so when I started searching the stex for my favorite plugins from the old days, I decided to basically, wait until I missed having a plugin before I'd come download, or search through the old files I'd saved from my old setup. I quickly found an empty plugins folder under Applications/SimCity.../Show Package Contents/Game Data/Plug-ins. And for the most part, everything I've dropped in there seems to work well. Created subfolders for Mods, Lots, etc to try and keep it organized. Slowly been adding in my favorite plugins.

And most recently, I've been missing the NAM. So, found the Mac installer, and obediently reading the 'read me' discovered the existence of ANOTHER plugin folder I didn't realize existed: ~/Users/username/Library/Containers/com.aspyr.simcity4.appstore/Data/Documents/SimCity 4/plugins.

And, of course, it is empty. 

And I probably wouldn't have given it much more thought, except I discovered all of my recently created cities are in the regions folder in the same location.  Not in the location where the plugins folder i've been using is located.

So my questions: Should I move my plugins to the location I found today, or leave them in the one I originally found?  Will the NAM work from either one?

Also, if it makes a difference, I will probably be the only user on this computer playing THIS game.

Thanks for any insight that will dispel the confusion.

[Tropod 144]

To be honest, not sure about Macs. I should probably buy 1 one day, does an iphone count . anyway.....

There are several places the game will legitimately play plugins (ie *dats) from & there is more than 1 "Plugins" folder. There is a loading order etc & a thread on it somewhere. If you're going to be the only user though, if you're using 'a' plugins folder it doesn't matter a great deal though others will say otherwise.

Following also have some interesting info for plugins folder locations;

https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=16799.0

[Sabretooth78 808]

The plugins folder in your user Library is the analog to the Windows "My Documents" plugins folder and theoretically where you should be placing your custom content.  Whether or not it actually matters is anybody's guess.  Another reason I would advocate that folder is that I believe keeping your custom content inside the app is a bad idea, especially when Aspyr releases an update and blows everything out.

[mizmayor 8]

14 hours ago, Tropod said:

To be honest, not sure about Macs. I should probably buy 1 one day, does an iphone count . anyway.....

There are several places the game will legitimately play plugins (ie *dats) from & there is more than 1 "Plugins" folder. There is a loading order etc & a thread on it somewhere. If you're going to be the only user though, if you're using 'a' plugins folder it doesn't matter a great deal though others will say otherwise.

Following also have some interesting info for plugins folder locations;

https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=16799.0

uh, I kinda got into mac after adding 3 iPod Touch and 4 iPads to the household. Only made sense to replace my aging XP Pro laptop with a Mac!

Thanks for the reminder of sc4devotion, I'd forgotten about that site. Explains why I couldn't find certain items here on the Stex. I'll check out that link. Thank you.

8 hours ago, Sabretooth78 said:

The plugins folder in your user Library is the analog to the Windows "My Documents" plugins folder and theoretically where you should be placing your custom content.  Whether or not it actually matters is anybody's guess.  Another reason I would advocate that folder is that I believe keeping your custom content inside the app is a bad idea, especially when Aspyr releases an update and blows everything out.

thanks for the explanation. Makes sense. And that word of caution about putting things in the program folder makes a lot of sense, and has kinda decided the issue for me.

Thanks for your time, y'all.

[atlanticfish 8]

The correct plug in folder is accessed by right clicking the Sim City application folder. Once the folder is open you will see the club-in folder.

[foist 7]

I'm using NAM 34, the Columbus terrain mod, PEG seaports and a bunch of other miscellaneous stuff.  All my plugins are here:

~/Users/username/Library/Containers/com.aspyr.simcity4.appstore/Data/Documents/SimCity 4/plugins

I can't say whether the other places work or not but I haven't had problems with the above location.

[atlanticfish 8]

Your are in the right spot

[alicenychto 41]

I'm using a wineskin wrapper and my folder is under ~/Documents/Simcity 4/Plugins, directly in user contents directory.. and I prefer this folder since it can isolate the program and custom contents.

I don't know if there's a possibility to create an alias to any customized directory under the default folder and it could be loaded by the game. This might be helpful for organizing user contents.

[Sabretooth78 808]

You can do aliasing (I prefer symbolic links myself), the only thing is you need to make a link to each individual file - which is reasonable if you datpack.  For whatever reason, the game cannot see plugins files located within aliased/symlinked folders.