I have some old cities on my computer

[doon 78]

Hello,

It would seem this site is geared toward modding and custom buildings, so I figured I should make sure I'm not uploading a bunch of files that nobody wants.

I have about 200 .sc3 files, comprising perhaps 150 distinct cities. Most of these were downloaded off the internet, but the sites I got them from no longer exist. Here's a rundown of some of the more interesting ones:

Magnasanti.sc3

Name: Magnasanti / Mayor: Imperar / Date: 5/5/50000 / Date(R): 3/29/2009 / Pop: 6,005,407

First city to break 6 million residents without cheating.

Zerotaxus.sc3

Name: Zerotaxus / Mayor: Imperar / Date: 2/25/2134 / Date(R): 10/11/2007 / Pop: 39,618

Proof of concept city. Achieves net positive income at 0% tax rate.

4141193.sc3

Name: Japone / Mayor: usotuki / Date: 6/4/3753 / Date(R): 4/6/2007 (probably from 2001) / Pop: 4,141,193

Old city, among the first to break 4 million residents without cheats. Pioneered the use of libraries to raise the fun cap.

Les Simerables.sc3

Name: Les Simerables / Mayor: Rico / Date: 10/10/2964 / Date(R): 7/20/2002 / Pop: 4,236,009

Nearly 15 years old. Uses randomly placed zones and roadless transportation.

Montnoir.sc3

Name: Montnoir / Mayor: me / Date: 3/21/2563 / Date(R): 6/15/2016 / Pop: 325,243

Using pipe terraforming, every building is below sea level.

Stable Abandoned Library.sc3

Name: Setegria / Mayor: me / Date: 5/17/6932 / Date(R): 10/19/2015 / Pop: 3,763,604

While trying to abandon a large amount of RCI buildings at once, the library at (82,114) also became abandoned somehow.

Setegria 22.sc3

Name: Setegria / Mayor: me / Date: 2/1/7417 / Date(R): 2/20/2016 / Pop: 6,015,141

Contains around 9,000 more people than Magnasanti, albeit not quite as stably. No cheats used.

Imperamatrix.sc3

Name: Imperamatrix / Mayor: Imperar / Date: 2/9/17108 / Date(R): 12/25/2008 / Pop: 4,546,064

Ridiculously cool-looking city. Low pollution, crime, taxes. Maxed EQ, LE. Huge land values.

Sharapolis.sc3

Name: Sharapolis / Mayor: Amy Lee / Date: 3/6/5522 / Date(R): 1/8/2007 / Pop: 4,509,383

Large city satisfying a huge laundry list of self-imposed restrictions. These include: road access to every building, adequate recycling, ten landmarks, good education, unpolluted geyser park, &c.

Big_City.sc3

Name: Dense City / Mayor: Bob VIII / Date: 4/6/2055 / Date(R): 1/8/2000 / Pop: 12,568,846

An attempt to achieve the highest residential population via plop buildings. It would fall a few thousand short due to some inefficiencies at the edge. However, a glitch caused the population to spike upward by 2 million.

Tunnel Test.sc3

Name: Borg / Mayor: Imperar / Date: 6/14/2984 / Date(R): 10/23/2008 / Pop: 469,296

Tunnels used to create unusually steep terrain, tunnels making use of teleportation, Y-shaped tunnels, marinas on land, RCI buildings in the water.

 

Also, I have a bunch of related screenshots and city design notes saved, including some old forum posts which elucidate some of the contents of sys.pak.

My question is, how should I upload all of this? As one big zip file, separately, or not at all?

[CorinaMarie 29,556]

Hiya, doon! Welcome to Simtropolis! I'm glad to see you've joined us.

 

26 minutes ago, doon said:

My question is, how should I upload all of this? As one big zip file, separately, or not at all?

1. Those cities certainly sound interesting and (if I understand how the old EA site was set up) were also a common thing to share. My first question would be what are the file sizes when zipped? (Per city.)
2. Do any of the cities have landmarks that are not a part of default ones in the game? (They would show as a blank orange colored zone to peeps who download the city if they don't have the corresponding landmark files.)
3. What about custom buildings?
4. As for the how: I'd favor uploading them separately with a few screenshots putting the most impressive one in the first position. Also including the narrative in the description part as you've done above. For the images, please use .jpg format and not .png due to file size.
5. Depending on size (need to know that first), I'm leaning towards you uploading like the best dozen or so of them. All 200 seems a wee bit much.

 

26 minutes ago, doon said:

Also, I have a bunch of related screenshots and city design notes saved, ...

For this part, I believe creating a new topic would be the way to go.

 

26 minutes ago, doon said:

... including some old forum posts which elucidate some of the contents of sys.pak.

For this, I'd say as a reply post in the Modding Fun with SYS.PAK thread started by @kingofsimcity.

 

Now, as you may know, I'm more of the helper and guide to these forums rather than a guru about the game. (The last time I played SC3000 was the plain version around 1999 and 2000.) So, if I've asked or said dumb things feel free to enlighten me.

 

[doon 78]

1. It varies a bit. The largest is 800 KB packed. It looks to be around 400 KB on average. Cities with more regular structure have smaller uncompressed file sizes and better compression ratios.

2. Probably not. I haven't found any, but there's a few that I've never opened. Everything I mentioned in my post uses Maxis stuff only.

3. ^

4. Will do, thanks.

5. ^

[CorinaMarie 29,556]

1 minute ago, doon said:

The largest is 800 KB packed. It looks to be around 400 KB on average.

Ok, cool then. Let's say pick up to 30 of the best for now and let's see how it goes.

[kingofsimcity 5,739]

Interesting!

Looking through Sc3000.com's City Center, I found out that you can still get a copy of Big_City.sc3 and 4141193.sc3 (first and last result respectively).

Imperar's cities? I remember I used to have a few of them on my old computer before it got nuked. I would love to see those again!

 

[huzman 445]

1 hour ago, doon said:

Hello,

I think you download as much as you can. Those old files are worth gold, but make sure where you are posting them. Feel free to ask the  Gurus/Moderators how to to do that. But I'm really looking for all that stuff.

[CorinaMarie 29,556]

@doon

Since you have some old content do you happen to have the "SimTheme Park's Lost Kingdom" landmark? It would've been for the plain 3000 game (but I can convert it for use in Unlimited). The download file name was bullfrog1.zip.

[doon 78]

6 minutes ago, kingofsimcity said:

Interesting!

Looking through Sc3000.com's City Center, I found out that you can still get a copy of Big_City.sc3 and 4141193.sc3 (first and last result respectively).

Imperar's cities? I remember I used to have a few of them on my old computer before it got nuked. I would love to see those again!

 

4141193 seems to work fine (so I probably won't be uploading that one here). On the other hand, actually trying to download Big_City results in an error.

2 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

@doon

Since you have some old content do you happen to have the "SimTheme Park's Lost Kingdom" landmark? It would've been for the plain 3000 game (but I can convert it for use in Unlimited). The download file name was bullfrog1.zip.

I don't have any custom landmarks or buildings, sorry :(. In fact, I don't have the plain 3000 game - I'm using a SC3KU disc that I bought second-hand back in 2008.

 

7 minutes ago, huzman said:

I think you download as much as you can. Those old files are worth gold, but make sure where you are posting them. Feel free to ask the  Gurus/Moderators how to to do that. But I'm really looking for all that stuff.
'm

I'm putting it all in SimCity 3000 files on the STEX. Magnasanti.sc3 is up, check it out.

[CorinaMarie 29,556]

22 minutes ago, doon said:

4141193 seems to work fine (so I probably won't be uploading that one here).

That site (SC3000.com) is owned by Simtropolis and we have permission from our benevolent Dirktator to host that stuff here. So, if you feel like it go ahead and upload that one too.

[CorinaMarie 29,556]

@doon

Great job you are doing on those city uploads!

In appreciation of your effort we've created a sub-category (Cities & Maps) for them so they will stand out from the other buildings and such. Feel free to now upload directly into this new section. I'll move your other ones over once you've acknowledged this post. (I'll wait so you don't see them all go missing from the main category and wonder what happened.)

Specific things which are pleasing about how you are doing these:

1. Nice pictures included so peeps know what's what.
2. Good descriptions added.
3. Credit given to the original creators. (This is an important criterion.)

Additionally, we've decided you can upload all 200-ish city files if you'd like to. I personally know how much effort that takes (having done the Maxis content section uploads myself) so please also accept a Big Thank You from me.

Edit: Oh, and let me know which single one is your absolute favorite and I'll pin it so it stays up top of the list. (We can't pin too many or it gets cluttered looking.)

[doon 78]

@CorinaMarie

Great!

I counted, and it seems like there are 127 distinct cities in all, including those that I've uploaded already. I think most of these are available on sc3000.com after all, but I'll go ahead with uploading them if you'd like.

If I can pin one that I've made, I'd like Setegria.sc3 to be pinned once it's up (that might be a few days, some tweaks are needed). Otherwise I'd go with Imperamatrix.

[CorinaMarie 29,556]

33 minutes ago, doon said:

I counted, and it seems like there are 127 distinct cities in all, including those that I've uploaded already. I think most of these are available on sc3000.com after all, but I'll go ahead with uploading them if you'd like.

You'll be the best judge of which ones and how many to upload. If 127 is the magic number atm, then that's fine. Even if they are on SC3000.com you can upload them here. Ideally, we'd like to get everything from there transferred over. It just takes dedicated peeps like yourself to help us out. (I'm only one person and I can't do it all myself.)

 

33 minutes ago, doon said:

If I can pin one that I've made, I'd like Setegria.sc3 to be pinned once it's up (that might be a few days, some tweaks are needed). Otherwise I'd go with Imperamatrix.

Ok. I'll pin Imperamatrix for now and just let me know when you upload yours.

 

And, I've moved the cities to the dedicated category.