A Hidden Cheat

[huzman 445]

As everyone knows, there are TWO God's Mod. One before founding a city and another after. Sometimes you start a city and realize that you forgot to plant an enormous amount of trees. On the first God's Mod, trees are free, on the other one they will cost you a packet. Many other examples come to mind, with the terrain leveler, for instance.

Here is a solution : once in the founded city, choose Ctrl+Alt+Shift and click on the God's Mod. And presto, you got the first God's Mod !

How many people knew this trick ? Hoping I'm not deluding myself.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

2 hours ago, huzman said:

On the first God's Mod, trees are free, on the other one they will cost you a packet

I apologize if I am being dense, but what's a packet?

BTW, Are you trying to describe the "God Terraforming in Mayor Mode" mod?

  Edited April 22, 2017 by jeffryfisher  
Mod link

[CorinaMarie 29,894]

3 hours ago, huzman said:

How many people knew this trick ?

I didn't know until I read it somewhere, but I've known about it for most of a year now. These kind of tips are nice things to post for the peeps who haven't yet discovered them.

 

1 hour ago, jeffryfisher said:

I apologize if I am being dense, but what's a packet?

Another way of saying cost a bundle. As in lotsa Simoleons.

 

1 hour ago, jeffryfisher said:

BTW, Are you trying to describe the "God Terraforming in Mayor Mode" mod?

It's the same as that except without the extra menu clutter. The difference being in plain vanilla one uses the key combination click routine to get there and that mod just makes them always available. With @huzman's method no mod is required.

[huzman 445]

56 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Another way of saying cost a bundle. As in lotsa Simoleons.

I love it !

[APSMS 1,893]

I've known this since I first played the game at a friend's house back in 2005/6. I believe it's one of the standard cheat codes, and it probably comes written inside the CD case/manual. My friend was a nerd like me; he knew all the cheat codes, which implies to me that they were either not well hidden or very widely circulated. It stuck in my mind enough that when I picked up the game a few years later (2009/10) I remembered first about the god mode cheat/shortcut and then the weaknesspays cheat, which I used extensively until I discovered custom content around late 2011/early 2012. We used both of these cheats a lot when playing at his house, and I suspect that's why I remembered.

FWIW, he had downloaded a few mods (like a $4 billion/month park which he hated using because it removed any challenge from the game) from the official site (who knows, he might've even been a part of Simtropolis and I'd have never known), and I remembered that enough some years later, and it led me here and SC4Devotion, because of course at that point the EA site for SC4 had shut down.

Which is all to say I'm very glad he introduced me to the game.

[huzman 445]

I just discovered a new way to use the god mode cheat (not in ST) and I find it quite a find. I tried to go back to that thread so I could give the author his due, couldn't find it again.

In god mode, when using the tools, you have three choices: the default size one, the larger one with the Shift key and the smaller one with the Ctrl key.
But did you know about the Shift+1-9? It made my day.
Shift+1 gives you a tiny size and Shift+9 is a really big one. That makes terrain modifications a lot more precise.

Please let me know who knew this. I'm really into those tips that improve the game.

[rsc204 21,866]

24 minutes ago, huzman said:

Please let me know who knew this. I'm really into those tips that improve the game.

Who knows, I dare to say this should be common knowledge, I think even the in-game tutorials cover it at some point.

24 minutes ago, huzman said:

But did you know about the Shift+1-9? It made my day.

Then you'll love using CTRL+1-9, which alters the strength of the tool from low to high.

On 22/04/2017 at 7:55 PM, jeffryfisher said:

BTW, Are you trying to describe the "God Terraforming in Mayor Mode" mod?

On 22/04/2017 at 8:52 PM, CorinaMarie said:

It's the same as that except without the extra menu clutter. The difference being in plain vanilla one uses the key combination click routine to get there and that mod just makes them always available. With @huzman's method no mod is required.

Which might seem neat, but honestly who cares about one tiny mod that is so useful it's almost a feature. Personally I've had that mod since I found out about it, precisely because altering the terrain is something I do frequently enough, I prefer to just have it there. As for menu clutter, SC4 doesn't do menu clutter, just press NUM-Lock and *poof*, no menu clutter .

 

[Yarahi 1,823]

6 hours ago, huzman said:

I'm really into those tips that improve the game.

Then try holding down Shift-key(and move your mouse a little) when dragging roads - works for powerlines too

[huzman 445]

13 hours ago, rsc204 said:

Then you'll love using CTRL+1-9, which alters the strength of the tool from low to high.

Ah... Lovely!

13 hours ago, rsc204 said:

just press NUM-Lock and *poof*, no menu clutter

Just magic.

7 hours ago, Yarahi said:

try holding down Shift-key(and move your mouse a little)

Another great tip.

Maybe we should keep this going and be able to update the cheats file. Thank you everybody!

[Propfam 2,305]

On 4/22/2017 at 10:15 PM, huzman said:

As everyone knows, there are TWO God's Mod. One before founding a city and another after. Sometimes you start a city and realize that you forgot to plant an enormous amount of trees. On the first God's Mod, trees are free, on the other one they will cost you a packet. Many other examples come to mind, with the terrain leveler, for instance.

Here is a solution : once in the founded city, choose Ctrl+Alt+Shift and click on the God's Mod. And presto, you got the first God's Mod !

How many people knew this trick ? Hoping I'm not deluding myself.

I know this cheat. This is very useful for very very very cheap (actually FREE) terraforming. Also, you may use some cheats that I explain in the Omnibus for zoning row houses.

[CorinaMarie 29,894]

2 hours ago, Chief ZDN said:

Also, you may use some cheats that I explain in the Omnibus for zoning row houses.

That would be this one. To be fair, it would be Emma LB and Patrickov who explained it. You did the work of copying it over from SC4ever.com.

[catty-cb 4,412]

On 30/04/2017 at 4:33 PM, APSMS said:

I've known this since I first played the game at a friend's house back in 2005/6. I believe it's one of the standard cheat codes, and it probably comes written inside the CD case/manual......

Back of the manual, I'm looking at it now ...but unless you have 20/20 vision and a magnifying glass they are pretty unreadable, I think there is an electronic version somewhere

................  here you go

https://community.simtropolis.com/clubs/26-city-builders-website/cb-documents/9-SimCity-4/2-hotkeys-used-in-SimCity-4

[Propfam 2,305]

On 6/24/2017 at 3:09 PM, CorinaMarie said:

That would be this one. To be fair, it would be Emma LB and Patrickov who explained it. You did the work of copying it over from SC4ever.com.

I think, I don't created it. But, I just copied it. Sorry. I forgot the name.

[Jeffrey500 567]

I don't think it is actually a cheat. But zoning your wasteland in a neighbouring tile will save you a lot of money when doing so. 

[huzman 445]

On 6/23/2017 at 6:39 PM, rsc204 said:

Then you'll love using CTRL+1-9, which alters the strength of the tool from low to high.

I tried your tip for a couple days with no apparent results. Then I found out that the strength of the tool works with the Shift+ F1-F10. The irony is that I found it in paper manual of SC4.

[rsc204 21,866]

Maybe it's my funky memory, so much of this I do without thinking, it's hard to actually remember what does what

[huzman 445]

On 7/3/2017 at 8:03 AM, rsc204 said:

it's hard to actually remember what does what

Aahh... That happens even in the best of families...

But I have another wishlist:
In SC3K there are some wonderful cheats, here are the ones that attracted me the most:

Can these cheats be implemented in SC4? Maybe in one of the terrain generators...

[CorinaMarie 29,894]

3 hours ago, huzman said:

Can these cheats be implemented in SC4? Maybe in one of the terrain generators...

We mostly have that already in the God Mode Terraforming Tools:

 

And I believe the TerrainRaiseLowerAmount variable in the Terrain Properties exemplar controls by how much it moves up or down:

 

Now true, it's not the same as having two extra options for a factor of 10, but since it's not something one needs a lot just click the single up or down as many times as you want. If the default 40 (whatever that represents) is too much or too little then simply adjust that to some other number.

[huzman 445]

3 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

We mostly have that already in the God Mode Terraforming Tools

How about that! I use those tools a lot, and never saw those two. How dumb can I get? Thanks, mademoiselle CorinaMarie.

3 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

If the default 40 (whatever that represents)

Now, to work in another witches' brew.