Entering God Mode In Developed Cities

[zebulon_stonehenge 135]

I just discovered an interesting hidden feature in SimCity4: in a developed city, you can re-enter Full God Mode (like you have before you establish a city), by holding down Ctrl-Shift-Alt while clicking the Sun icon.

Now, do beware: these tools are powerful and many of them will destroy existing roads, buildings, etc. (For instance, if you try the "raise terrain" or "lower terrain" buttons, a single click will destroy everything in your city! (Except for trees and garbage dumps; those are apparently indestructible.)

However, certain tools are useful, such as the "plains" tool for quickly leveling areas, the "mountain" tool for adding a mountain, the "tree" tool for adding old-growth oak trees (the only way to do that, I think), and the "wild animals" tool for having giraffes walking across your front lawn. :-)

Now, some people reading this probably already know of this feature; but my guess is, many don't, so I'm dropping this discovered nugget of knowledge here.

[zebulon_stonehenge 135]

Oh, my; I "lowered terrain" in one of my cities, and then the whole city was below water except for the tree tops. (My buildings and streets all exploded.) This looks like a disaster area after a major flood (caused by Hurricane Simone, no doubt). Fortunately I hit "exit without saving", then re-entered, and my city was restored.

 

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

I haven't tried it myself, but I believe you can adjust the Sea Level property in the Terrain Properties exemplar and that doesn't make all the buildings and streets explode. So, if using the default of 250 meters you might try 260 or 275 or such to get a flooded city appearance.

[archemediesx 65]

4 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

 I believe you can adjust the Sea Level property in the Terrain Properties exemplar and that doesn't make all the buildings and streets explode.

Would that be directly accessible through that god mode keyboard control, or would one have to use a water level mod?

[rsc204 21,808]

1 hour ago, archemediesx said:

Would that be directly accessible through that god mode keyboard control, or would one have to use a water level mod?

Not through the control, I do believe there is such an option in the CTRL + X debug console. If not by default, with the use of the following Plugin:

However, you don't need a water level mod to adjust it either. All such mods just override the Exemplar containing the necessary Property from the game's main files. Usually that'll be inside SimCity_1.dat. Although, it's highly recommended never to mess with such files, instead to make a copy as an override and use that for modifications.

If you are serious with maps, it seems conceivable you will want to check out a terrain mod. Not only will one of these improve the look of the terrain, but there are many properties one can then tweak, altering how the terrain is displayed. These resources should be invaluable if that sounds like it's up your street:

 

[zebulon_stonehenge 135]

On 8/29/2018 at 4:00 AM, CorinaMarie said:

...you can adjust the Sea Level property in the Terrain Properties exemplar...

I think that's what the "Ctrl-x / setsealevel 175" command in the "Extra Cheats Mod" does. It probably just alters the exemplar you mention. I've tried that, and I think the reason it usually doesn't blow-up streets and buildings is, it can't actually raise the sea level above where it is currently, it can only lower it. Only in very shallow seaside towns will you notice the sea levels visibly changing; in higher-altitude towns, it just changes the color of the land from grass-green to sand-tan.

Could be useful in seaside towns, though, if one wants to drop the water level a bit to expose more land for development.

Hmmm.  Could this be useful for exploring the ocean bottom, say to correct issues with ferries, beaches, seaports, or marinas being un-ploppable in an area due to bad terrain geometry? Let me try that... Ewww, no! I tried it in a town with land masses separated by water, and even the highest sealevel (200) was about 50 meters below existing sealevel. It destroyed all of my bridges and power connections, and broke many streets inland which were connected to those bridges as well. So it's no good for towns with bridges. (Didn't hurt the beaches, seaports, or marinas, though; just left them high and dry.)