Indiana Joe and the Quest for the Ultimate Plugins Folder

Indiana Joe · September 18, 2018

My guide is mostly broken after the deactivation of the BSC LEX at SC4Devotion. Ulisse Wolf has the most updated links to mods and game fixes here:

Hi all, Matt here.

I'm hiding the big introduction in this spoiler so that newcomers can skip right to the mod list.

Spoiler

Coming back from a few years of rarely touching the game, and being rather disconnected from the shrinking but still active and amazing custom content community, I found myself feeling renewed interest in playing. 15 years after this game was created, it has long been a tradition for the enthusiast player to customize it heavily to their liking. In a nutshell, I wanted to build a fresh new plugins folder, and I wanted to document the thought process. I know very well the feeling of spending more time customizing than actually playing, so I wanted to have a theme of simplicity, and of keeping the traditional spirit of gameplay that the creators at Maxis originally wove into the game, as it was that unique charm that drew all of us into the game in the first place.

This one is going to be quite the essay, so buckle up (and also written at 2 AM, when you have all your best ideas ) I will discuss some of the philosophy I am going in with as I plan out this plugins folder and it's "final form," and then some content-specific practical planning for customizing each aspect of the game.

In fact to make it more of an interesting article than an essay, I think I'll drop in some old screenshots of mine from throughout the years, from random unrelated scenes and projects.

The Philosophy

A quaint small town on a bay, its name forgotten among all the other sleepy little communities that are easy to quickly build in the game, yet look like they have been nestled in the hills for generations.

Over the years I have collected a fairly moderate size of plugins for the game (3 and a half gigabytes worth, but who's counting?). While I kept my own plugins folder relatively organized, it was the plugins themselves that did not mesh together very well. There can be much inconsistency between countless different authors. The perfect solution to this would be to use the wide array of creator tools made by the community to customize each lot to one's own standard. But I think I can save a lot of time by limiting the number of cooks in the kitchen. I will focus on a few high-quality creators that have a large catalogue of content that is consistent in design. I will probably still end up making many of my own edits, but the less of this I am able to do, the more accessible this project might be to a reader who wants to follow in my footsteps and use this as a guide to build their own folder.

A second main issue is the sheer size of the available custom content. A mile-long menu of lots to scroll through in the game makes for a poor playing experience. Of course there is a mod to address this: Daeley's Advance Menu Navigator. While impressive in its time, it is a dated and imperfect mod. My intention instead is to limit the number of total ploppable items I include in the game, for a more traditional experience. I aim for a style of gameplay that feels like a new expansion pack for the game; the mythical follow-up release to Maxis's Rush Hour.

"Limit" will in fact be a central theme to the folder. There has to be a balance between having too many repeat buildings and lots, and having an overwhelming amount of custom content. The folder never has to be "complete" per se, but will set up a structure such that anything added will fit right in, like an identical link at the end of the chain. Nothing new will be added that massively changes the way everything works, outside perhaps of updates to major mods. Now, in 2018, I feel is a great time to do this, which brings me to the subject of timing.

Timing

A shopping center, featuring a mall, a few restaurants, and a smaller strip mall. Sims come in droves on the weekend to spend exorbitant amounts of money on trivial materials and gimmicks.

When is a good time to build a plugins folder for SimCity 4? Somewhere on the highest mountaintop in Timbuktu, a wise monk ponders the answer. The answer is...now! No, really, not as in "it's never too late to start," but actually now in 2018.

My personal renewal in interest for the game is 90% nostalgia of course, and another part of it may be the new desktop computer I built this year. The desktop is where I discovered and fell in love with the game; it has a different playing experience with a bigger monitor and comfy office chair. I left home to go to college and had less time to play, but also the game was less enjoyable on a laptop. Not to mention all of the graphics driver issues that come with that setup.

In the time that I've been gone, the community has waned and slowed down. Many left for other city builders. EA was disappoint as per usual. Colossal Order stole the show with the beautiful Cities: Skylines. SimCity 4 is an aged bottle. But that is a good thing. Imagine, for a moment, the plugins folder you are building in 2009. The NAM is new, lots of content is being made. 2 years later, and your folder is outdated. You've got obsolete stuff in there, and it requires constant maintenance. By 2013, the new SimCity drops and everyone hates it. Go back to ol' SC4 and your plugins folder and now it needs to be updated to add all of the new HD content, updated mods, etc. etc.

Skylines is still growing with official updates and custom content, perhaps in a few years it will be easy to make a perfected collection of content for it. But now is the time that I can sit down and make a SimCity 4 plugins folder, and it will feel relatively stable. New content is coming out but not like in the past, when the mod landscape was changing from year to year.

Playability, Having Fun, and Having Style

Downtown with a busy boulevard, public hospital, and a civic plaza. Someone needs to water that grass between the hospital and town hall parking lots.

As previously said, I want to focus on making the game fun to play. There should be a balance between realism, which can never be perfectly achieved anyway, and "game." Every piece of added content will build off of what the game provides, and statistics will be balanced in accordance with the traditional game. A few exceptions will be the traffic simulator and agricultural simulator, modified by the NAM and SPAM respectively. These mods are well-balanced, well fleshed-out, and improve the game experience tremendously.

Also, nothing should feel like cheating. It will be an immense project to try to re-balance the financial aspect of the game. Going into this I hope to have consistent prices and incomes from various lots and objects. Having goals and struggles are a huge part of what makes the game entertaining and engaging, and I think the sandbox play style that many players have gone towards has also turned some away by the boredom that comes with it.

I envision a consistent style across my game, building off of the American architecture and city layout that Maxis designed. Fortunately most content available conforms to this. I will try to stick to High Definition content as well, as there is plenty of it available. There are some good collections of old lots that use SD props, but fortunately many of them have been re-made or re-lotted.

Alright, this is the end of the rambling article. I'm going to split this up and make another post organized into specific sections of the game and the custom content I will use. Thanks for reading~

Matt

Indiana Joe · September 18, 2018

Please read this Dislcaimer for SimPEG plugins:

Spoiler

Some parts of this guide link to plugins created by the defunct Pegasus Productions team (PEG, SimPEG, PEGProd, etc.). The following was common knowledge back in the day, but if you weren't around the community then I have realized you may need to know:

SimPEG plugins are generally meant to be used together as a set, and a few files are incompatible with other major mods outside of the SimPEG-universe. They were geared toward making "agricultural/rural" cities. For example, the SimPeg Agricultural Mod is incompatible with the Colossus Addon Mod. They are both are modifications of building stages. Other smaller files are incompatible with some things; like the SPAM traffic simulator, which is the same file as the NAM traffic simulator.

So in general, be cautions when downloading PEG plugins. I still recommend much of that content as it is high-quality and was made by passionate and talented creators. Read descriptions carefully and check comments/reviews for compatibility problems. Post in the forums if you have questions about a file.

SC4 has a lot of parts to it. Here's a totally non-functional table of contents showing how I'm going to split things up into sections.

Visuals and Nature

Water and terrain
Trees
MMPs

RCI

Residential
Commercial
Agriculture
Industrial

Transit

Transit networks
Stations
Ferries and Seaports
Parking and accessories

Utilities

Power
Water
Waste

Civics

Public Safety
Education
Health
Landmarks and ploppables
Parks
- Walls, seawalls
- Green parks
- Plazas
- Fields and playgrounds
- Sports stadiums

(Spot where I got the organization idea from )

Firstly - Various Small Mods and Fixes

A list of all the downloads I use to fix and tweak the game for quality of life. The average player will probably want most of these.

SC4Launcher
~~Extra Cheats DLL~~. Updated Extra Cheats (useful for its debugging tools)
SC4Fix
Hi-Tech Industry missing R§§§ Jobs fix (~~Needs to be dat-packed.~~ It should work just in your plugins folder, from my testing.)
HippoTank Demand Fix (adds missing jobs to Medical Clinic, Solar Power Plant, Nuclear Power Plant, caused by same bug as I-H)
Industry Job Doubler (also doubles power/water usage and pollution, for each building) or the original Quadrupler
Less Abandonment Mod & No Kickout Lower Wealth
- These two will allow you to have better control over where low/medium/high wealth residents move in, and prevent high wealth overgrowth leading to abandoned buildings (often says "abandoned due to commute time" because they could not find a job nearby).
Zoning Mod (removes the size limit when zoning large tracts, useful for farms)
Automata Fix Pack (if you don't replace the train and plane models with custom ones, this fixes glitches with the originals)
- For more great tweaks/fixes/HD overrides by Japanese modder FANTA1990, apeek has put them on ST.
Maxis Prop Names and Query Fix (also contains bldgprop_vol1 and 2, AKA "Maxis Buildings as Props," a dependency for any plugins that use Maxis buildings.)

These are more personal preference, but I think they generally enhance the game:

SimFox Day'n'Nite mod (if you install this, choose the DarkNite versions of any BATs you download)
Maxis HD Tree Replacement Mod (more good stuff from T Wrecks, uses Girafe's flora that I recommend below)
Mods that give city buildings construction animations when placed, for civic buildings, utilities, and reward buildings.
You'll want some type of slope mod, there are many that are easy to find. I like the SCRT Mod because it has different options for how steep you want your slopes.

Visuals and Nature

Water and terrain - Terrain mods can sometimes have beach and cliff (rock) textures that come with them; you can also download all these separately to your liking. Make sure you don't have conflicting files. I have used both the Columbus mod and the HD Sudden Valley for terrain. For more HD, see Gobias's works, Lowkee33, and SHK rock and water mods.

A fantastic resource are Cori's Shoppes, which provide visual comparisons (and links!) of all Terrain, Water, Rock, and Tree mods. If you want to learn more about terrain mod tweaking, here's a nice little write-up by Blunder.

Trees - in recent years there have been a few amazing HD tree mods that include fully seasonal functions. (See: AERDEN and the ones by Blunder). The real question is whether to use the seasonal or summer version? There is enough content that it is almost possible to make the entire game have seasonal flora, but not quite. The downside is there will be a few remaining lots and pieces of flora that do not change seasonally. I'm interested in outside opinions on this.

2020: I have found the Standalone Flora Brush mod to be immensely useful, it greatly increases the speed of using the God Mode flora brush to forest your cities.

Also 2020: Get your green thumb on with the SFBT Street Tree Mod and WRC T21 Mod, and then slap an upgrade on those with T Wrecks' Tree HD Replacement. What a combo! Your cities are now stuffed full of HD tree props.

MMPs - The HD tree mods mentioned above can include some MMP trees that will match your forests. Most of the HD flora that they use are made by Girafe, I recommend the entire collection. For MMP lakes and streams, I use RFR plopwater---if you want your actual water to match pretty closely in color, try the Cape Cod Bay HD water from Gobias. More HD MMPs by Simmer2.

There is a also a good deal of MMP content made by the PEG Productions team (herein PEGProd), but unfortunately they are not HD props, and I think I will skip them to keep a consistent visual experience. If I am missing any good HD MMP content, please share.

RCI

Just a disclaimer, I will not be using the CAM (creates 15 building stages to allow for growable supertall buildings, downloaded separately anyway). It is not compatible with the SimPeg Agricultural Mod listed below. Ploppables can fill in for the biggest towers in the largest metropolises.

Residential - For Maxis lots, I am partial to the TOTAL RELOT mod by PaulSawyer (which gives all R and C lots seasonal flora! A good reason to go #TeamSeasonal). For R§§§, kingofsimcity's overhaul set also contains beautiful seasonal lots (see his other files for expansions and other good content).

For additional BATs, most of the suburban stuff I will use will come from Mattb325. See house packs by JMeyers2043, AndisArt, IDS2, Jmouse. See Homefryes for houses and beautiful townhome complexes. JaWood for various things. 2020: SimCoug has some great 'rustic'-age stuff.

For slightly larger apartments and condos: Mattb325 again, he has R BATs for basically everything. I Lostalim, Don Miguel; spa for various R/bit of C. Also check out Gn_leugim, who has some CO and CS also, slightly more Euro but most could pass as American. JBSimio with various R/C. Tag_One has some projects and condos. Yticmic for rowhomes/apartments.

High rises: These BATS often mix in with Commercial Skyscrapers, and many BATs offer two versions. See that section below for the NYBT team with NYC residential; NDEX team has R BATs as well. So do Diego Del Llano, nofunk, JasonCW, Cobb32118, SimGoober.^Mattb325... Here's a list with just residential.

Commercial - see above section for Maxis re-lots. There are a metric tonne of commercial BATs and authors. It is going to take some time to break it down and get a good mix of different buildings. I'll add to the list over time, taking suggestions (focusing on creators with a large amount of consistent content).

Low-rise shops: RRetail (actively doing amazing work re-loting many old popular BATs), Ceafus88 (with a few residentials too), JMyer's shops (with some mid offices too), Nos17's B62 remastered series, and DK1's works. PClark06.

Medium office buildings: Madhatter106 has a wide set of medium offices, and check out I. Lostalim for various R and C mid/high rises. 2020 additions: Gutterclub

Skyscrapers: Oh God, there's so many. Various BAT teams: NYBT (Aaron Graham, Darknono35, Seraf, Parisian), NDEX (Dusktrooper and Equinox; ILL Tonkso, Chris M.). Recently active BATers like Diego Del Llano, Ceafus88, nofunk, JasonCW. Early creators like SimGoober, Cobb32118, Xyloxadoria. So many more. (Kellydale2003, scotty222, oneil_1...stop it. Stop downloading. You have enough. It's time to stop.) 2020: You fool, you can never have enough CO skyscrapers. Get some more: IDS2, gutterclub, SimCity4IE; on001222 has some spectacular Asian BATs.

Agricultural - The SPAM mod and any SPAM-conforming content. Amazing mod, brings great consistency and strategy to I-Ag in the game. Also check out Fantozzi's extensive set, compatible with either the SPAM or the CAM (with the latter, it has up to Stage 10 megafarms that can grow).

Industrial - TWrecks's IRM and all conforming content. He has done for I-D, I-M, I-HT what the SPAM did for I-Ag. 2020: I forgot to add in Tag_One, but T Wrecks has already re-visited some of his work.

Transit

Transit networks - the NAM is fortunately all-encompassing. It has many sub-mods and is highly customizable. I use the majority of its options, including the SAM (additional streets), RHW (additional highways), NWM (additional one-way roads and avenues), MHO (changes Maxis highway to match RHW), HSR (high-speed rail added to monorail), and RRW (additions to railways). I don't use the Bullet Train mod, as it fits a more Japanese theme. I use the standard American road retextures.

Stations - the NAM comes with many stations, also check out Cogeo's content. For all your RRW needs and more, Simmer2's content. Another RRW addon: rivit's RUM, adds viaduct styles. 2020: SimCitler with some older stations; JasonCW also has old stuff. MattB325 has lots of great new train stations; for the latter 2 creators you can find links above in the RCI section.

Ferries and Seaports - See nbvc's extensive marina stuff. 2020: here's some ferry terminals by Matt: Car Ferry, Passenger Ferry, and the first, second, third version ones. Another Car Ferry by WolfZe. A PEGProd Ferry. Some WMP ferries: here, here, here.

For seaports, there is a huge amount of content available from the older PEG CDK series, but I will be trying Heretic's Seaport Project, which is a RRW-compatible re-lot of many seaport lots. It does however contain 130(!) lots, ~~which might be~~ is too many. I'll have to see how I can trim it down.

Parking and Parking Accessories - I will probably lot my own parking garages/decks, there are four models I have found that look pretty good: SimGoober's, DuskTrooper's, Chiliwack's, and Goffyguytpa's. 2020: HooHa has a variety of prefab parking lots.

For parking lots, it's too easy to end up with a million different lots from various packs. Modularity is a double-edged sword. Scrolling through the menus for hours? Ain't nobody got time fo dat. I'll try to make my own small set of various size prefab parking lots, with a few pieces that allow connectivity and flexibility. Using SHK Textures, the most modern and extensive set, and they will also blend with the RRetail lots I mentioned in the RCI section.

Airports - The RMIP is the only extensive set, but it has too many lots for my semi-modular theme. Don't know what I'll do yet.

Utilities

Power - The PEG Pylons mod is kind of a must, unless you're a huge fan of candy canes. Simmer2 has some beautiful HD power resources, including a coal plant, waste-to-energy plant, solar plant and modular set, and transformers/substations. Check out this SFBT plant for all your nucular needs. Burn your garbage more efficiently with the BSC waste-to-energy plant. Get your sci-fi on with a microwave power plant. Why not ~~Zoidberg~~ go geothermal? Also, dam son, where'd you find this? 2020: I found cool power/tower accessories by takingyouthere. Also, this monstrosity power plant--Hittwice, how did you make something that is so simultaneously Lot-editor-vomit and intriguing?

Water - Very limited number of pumps, towers and treatment plants available from the community. Here's all the ones on the LEX, I'll be taking the visually appealing ones and adjusting the capacities accordingly. Nexis Water Pump. Also this Desalination plant by Fukuda is pretty cool. 2020: I found more water towers.

Garbage and Waste - Though hilarious, the classic PEG Garbage Chute is straddling the line of cheating. It's almost an icon of the game at this point however, I'm undecided whether I'll include it. The PEG Garbage Dock is a little more realistic. See Power section above for some Waste-to-Energy plants. A couple of older BSC recycling centers here and here, they should be RRW-compatible with Simmer2's texture override pack. Modern recycling centers here and here. Nbvc's pack. Also a couple of landfill mods here and here.

Civics

There will be an attempt to adjust all civic services to reflect Maxis ranges and capacities.

February 2019 update: if you haven't been following Mattb325, you should be. He's unleashing a furious amount of new high quality buildings, civics among other things, with many FAR/diagonals. Try the new fire station, police station, elementary and private school, college, library, hospital, clinic, town hall.

Public Safety - Fire Stations, North American style: Get your suburban and rural ones here, here, here, here, here, and here. The industrious Bipin made an urban one. Get your wall-to-wall stations here, here, here, here, and here. (Psst, hey kid, want more W2W?)

Police stations: Couple of police stations by mattb325 here. Small stations here, here, here, and here. Police headquarters here, here, and here, admin buildings here and here. A more Latin-themed station pack here.

Jails/Prisons: This one matches the Simville Local Police station above. Federal Reformatory. All other prison lots seem to be unexciting Lot Editor ventures.

Small town hall by Simgoober. And a fully functional civic center that handles all public safety, I don't like the reward requirements on it though. A couple more town halls here, here, here, and here.

Education - For a several great elementary/high schools, check out JBSimio's 4 volumes of schools (also he has a mega modular university pack). Also justanothersim86's education collection.

2020: somehow I never put private schools in here. Here's a new one by Art128. Another one by Simmer. And another. One on the STEX. Here's a link to all of Mattb325's schools, including a few private ones.

Elementary schools: Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. A very rural one. MTP old schoolhouse from PEG.

High schools: Here, here, here, here, a mega one, and a SPAM-themed rural one.

Hybrid/both schools: This and this by deadwoods; also here, here, and here.

Colleges/universities: Here, here, here, here, here, here. A brutal one here, a more German design, and a fancy model here. This one dates back to 2003! Still looks good.

Libraries: Found quite a few of these, they tend to be high-quality models. There's already a few in justanothersim's collection linked above; the rest of these I have sorted by physical size roughly from small to large: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen. And a very modernist design. --Found yet another one by DK1 (he's got great generic buildings).

Museums: There are a ton of these, I'll come back to it and be picky to decide which ones I want.

Health - A few SimGoober clinics/hospitals. Paeng's modular hospital set. LBT hospital pack.

Clinics, etc.: small ones here and here. Larger ones here, here, and here.

Hospitals: medium sized here, here, here, and here. Large size here, here, here, tall tower style here and here. Get your mega medical centers here, here, here, and this ridiculous one by Paeng.

Landmarks and ploppables - This section can be potentially huge, there are a lot of generic ploppable buildings that can be used to supplement growable RCI, used as landmarks, reward buildings, various aesthetics. Just depends on how big you want your landmark menu to be. I would like to stick to mainly relying on growable RCI; if I tailor the four architecture tilesets to my liking, I should be able to get the kind of buildings I want in the areas I want (see more discussion on this in posts below). That said, I will probably include some mega commercial skyscrapers, as they don't fit well into the existing building stages without the CAM, and would be hard to grow naturally. For some of these, see the authors mentioned in the Commercial section of RCI, above.

Parks - This is probably the single biggest menu area for ploppable custom content, so much so that many modders started putting their lots in other menus when they would normally default to the Parks menu. I will sub-divide this one into a lot of arbitrary sections.

City Greenspaces: these are your classic parks, oases of grass, trees, water, and gardens amongst a jungle of concrete. Definitely will be using this gorgeous park pack by Kingofsimcity (also has sports fields for the section below), and he's got more. Paeng has great parks of all categories, all his stuff is worth looking at. There are enough newer, modern, HD parks from various authors, I don't think I need older sets from SFBT and BSC and such (check out that second link for deadwoods' other good content).

Plazas: Tariely has some great plazas and parks. See Paeng and Kingofsimcity, linked above. 2020: great modular set here, which also has great retaining walls, with support for transit overpasses.

Pathways and trails:

Sports fields and stadiums: Fribe's stadiums are fantastic. Chrisadams3997's football/rugby fields. Adambailey39 has some stadiums, but they have no night lighting. Scba has a huge amount of content, fields and stadiums for baseball, football, soccer. Teemu_om has two insane baseball stadium BATs (one with a freakin' train station built in!) and the indoor Toyota Center arena. Get some more indoor arenas here, here, and here. Some soccer content from coultharda. Major league soccer is pretty much non-existent in the USA, so I haven't included the many high quality European stadium BATs, but they are easy to find on the STEX. In case you missed it above. 2020: new from Schriefer.

Walls, sea walls, retaining walls: Jeronij has some wall sets that have been around a long time; still see some use by me. JayStimson has 3 sea wall sets. For more sea walls: Marrast, Blunder. Retaining walls: Bipin's beautiful urban set, For highway walls and sound barriers, you got Deadwoods and Simmer2.

Beaches, general coastline: Look at the CDK series (link under Transit: Ferries), although it isn't HD. Old but gold (could use re-lotted). The best creators nowadays do mostly MMP beaches.

Religious buildings and cemeteries: Paeng, SimGoober 1 and SimGoober 2, new by Mattb (fractional angle!). Jule78's content, some old gems.

And modular amusement parks in case you want some thrill.

All the categories are now in here! They still need to be filled in and reviewed.

T Wrecks · September 18, 2018

Hey Matt, nice to see you again!

I'm enough of a nerd to find your thread very interesting as well - even more so because I'm currently in the process of rebuilding a plugins folder myself. Obviously, this means that I am currently musing about many of the things you outline above.

Regarding the overall situation, I agree wholeheartedly:

Content creation has slowed down to a manageable pace these days, the big game changers are already existing.
The huge amount of existing content makes it possible to be picky and choose quality over quantity unless you're going for something exotic.
IMO, there is a certain threshold (it cannot be pinpointed, but it's there) where a city's overall look tips over from "varied" to "cluttered": while you may need a certain amount of buildings in order to maintain sufficient variety to conceal repetition (let's face it, there's always going to be repetition!), just throwing in a huge amount of buildings according to a "the more, the merrier" approach can result in a city that looks like Frankenstein's garbage can: too many different styles, no consistent quality, no common theme.

My personal approach is similar in some aspects and different in others:

I want to have sufficient variety (not maximum possible!) in all departments, without compromising on quality if I can.
The key measure of quality is the BAT blending into the game's background, and I mean that quite literally: If I place a single-family home BAT among Maxis single-family homes and the BAT stands out visually, I ditch it. Noticeably overscaled/underscaled? Ditch. Oversaturated? Ditch. Too low on details? Ditch.
So far I have slashed the sheer number of items considerably, but the few that I kept have far more lots and variations. I think my "low-density residential" folder for the old tilesets (Chicago 1890 and NY 1940) has gone down from 30+ to about 10 entries. Those, however, are extremely varied, top-notch quality, and relotted to my personal taste. As a bonus, many are slope-friendly, too!
I try to cover all wealth levels and styles and pick options (if applicable) accordingly. I sort the ones where I'm sure into wealth categories. Then I look at the remaining ones, and if these are offered in two versions, I go for the one I need more. For example, I used to use Aaron's NYBT Tapscott Houses for low wealth. However, I feel like I have enough options there that look more like low wealth. That's why I'm going to go for medium wealth this time.
I keep an eye on interesting stuff, but I prioritise covering the minimum for each category over adding more to categories that are already suffiently filled.
I do not use seasonal flora. In fact, I have "de-seasonalised" KOSC's Maxis Mansion Overhaul as well as many other lots. Seasonal looks good, make no mistake. However, it is cumbersome to use because the game wasn't actually made for it. So count me among the ranks of #Team Evergreen.
I don't use the SPAM because I'm not too fond of prop-based fields.
I don't use CAM, either.
One thing want to try is the "at least one landmark per tile" rule. It can be a small one like a church or a water tower. I never use the small landmarks, neither Maxis nor custom. I hope my menus won't get blown up too much, but I can always mod item order...

Some download recommendations:

Residential, low density

I use @CycleDogg's low-density residential stuff - it's marvelous, slope-friendly, full of variety, and... not always lotted to my taste. Some of the textures were just too lush and utopian for my taste, plus the huge trees, and seasonal at that... That's why I relotted it all.
@jmyers2043 has published a wonderful collection of small homes with custom foundations for use on slopes. In the context of my personal plugins, they were better suited for medium wealth, so I relotted them all.
@IDS2 has made a wonderful set of Minneapolis houses.
@AndisArt's SC2013-style homes are great.
@kingofsimcity's Maxis Mansion overhaul is an obvious recommendation.
@Bipin has some interesting content, too.
Among all the great stuff he has made, I particularly like some of @mattb325's mansions.
Some of @SimGoober's stuff has withstood the test of time remarkably well. I keep using the Highgrove and Hagerman mansions. I bade farewell to many others, though.

Residential, medium density

In the style I'm going for, there are lots of interesting wooden buildings made by @CycleDogg and @spa.
Some NY-style stuff that's great is made by @Aaron Graham, @tag_one and - a BATter often underrated - @Don Miguel.

Commercial, low and medium density

I think the two first go-to artists in this department are @madhatter106 and, once again, @jmyers2043.

I haven't advanced much further than that, so no recommendations yet. My list obviously relates to North American turn-of-the-century to Art Deco styles, too. If you go for European or anything else, YMMV.

Indiana Joe · September 18, 2018

@T Wrecks I appreciate your interest, it sounds like we're in exactly the same boat, you're only a few steps ahead. And I think we all count as nerds if we're already here.

Thanks for your detailed recommendations, most of them already have a place in my old plugins folder, I just haven't gotten around to listing them yet as I update the guide. But that does make me feel better about having a grasp on the best sources of custom content. It sounds like you play mostly to those two tilesets you mentioned

1 hour ago, T Wrecks said:

Chicago 1890 and NY 1940

and I have had some ideas about tilesets bubbling around. I'm thinking about taking it one step further and re-defining the four sets we have to work with. I could have greater control over what wealth types grow in the city quite easily. Four possibilities:

The low-wealth set: low density is rural, low-income housing, trailers and farms; medium density is gritty apartments and row houses; high density: the projects. Absolutely no R§§§.
The suburban set: nicer homes, apartment buildings, condos, with big yards, wide spaces, spacious parking. Not wall-to-wall. All wealths.
The urban set: compact lots, wall-to-wall, overall higher density, more art-deco and less modernist.
The modern set: green and energy efficient style housing, modernist mansions, high-tech looking skyscrapers. Closer to the Euro set.

Many ideas to swirl about.

Haljackey · September 18, 2018

As someone who has never organized their plugins folder and kept adding to it since 2005- this seems like a ton of work.

...But an interesting read nonetheless. Thanks for sharing!

Bombardiere · September 19, 2018

I am also reading this with great interest as this is what I would have like to see for Plugin Sharing Discussion. Ok you will not provide ready download package for plugin folder, but this is almost as good. Well thought extra content set up for a North American City. It will certainly be useful for me. Thank you.

I have made separate plugin folder for different style cities I play. Such, London, Paris, Chicago 1890 or modern vaguely North American Style city which is essentially a Mattsville @mattb325

This way I have been able to keep my average plugin folder around 1 GB. But that has meant a lot of work and as I want to keep dependencies in minimum, it means that I have to do a lot of relotting.

I agree that with Modern North American and perhaps with Euro and Japanese/generic Asian one can be picky. Usually good content to choose from. I have been looking for historic building and with those the selection is more limited. Also it is an issue that some Euro Batters have used different scale than Maxis based, I believe that most Batters did follow Maxis scale and because of that, it is kind of annoying to see a great Bat which does not fit into general building lineup.

T Wrecks · September 19, 2018

@Indiana Joe: Those tileset ideas are sure interesting! Especially the division between suburban and urban is an interesting feature, as this is one of the hardest aspects to control using default means and methods. I've been thinking about that, too.

You see, most of the Chicago-style small & medium residentials that I use are inherently more rural, whereas most NY-style residentials tend to have a more urban character. Heck, the entire era was more rural if you think about it. And then there's Don Miguel's old (but great) Castiron Lofts, which are pretty much Chicago tileset material IMO, but also definitely urban. I reckon the best I can do about this is to move the urban stuff to higher stages. In most cases, "urban" does imply a higher density anyway, and those Castiron Lofts are so big that Stage 6 pretty much checks out if you go by Maxis references.

This should be viable for me because I tend to build from small to big anyway. Keeping things small in the beginning makes for an easy start and ensures that much demand gets built up because your villages grow slower than demand. Then, when you have nice and fat demand bars, going urban is pretty easy. This involves regional playing, too, as demand gets carried over to adjacent tiles to a degree. Going from small to big, you can "channel" surplus demand from the suburbs into your CBD-to-be.

However, your tileset approach would not work for me because I do intend to upgrade to Houston 1990 eventually. I'd grow most of the region, particularly the rural / suburban part in Chicago 1890, maybe some cities, too. However, in cities I'd activate NY 1940 as well because this tileset contains more urban stuff. This is pretty much where I intend to stay for a while. Then, when things have settled and I have decent demand and want to refine things, I want to make the switch to Houston 1990 and revise cities. Nothing good grew there in the old tilesets? Release the ~~hounds~~ bulldozers! Whatever grows now will be International style to post modern if it's a larger commercial, or generally modern stuff. So that's a bit of organic growth I'm envisioning. Non-historical buildings might get replaced by modern stuff, too, which should make for a realistic mix.

All this is partly because I don't want to do without modern stuff. Let's take the entire IHT sector: High-tech industry looks absolutely, utterly and completely stupid alongside old wooden houses and tenements if it's alone. It looks like some time travellers from 2020 invaded an Atlantic coast town around the early 1900s. However, if you have this industry alongside a town that shows modern glass facades among its older building substance, things look a lot more credible. (It'll be interesting to see whether I can do without I-HT long enough to keep things in their "natural" order or whether the game will force me to develop I-HT in order to grow my cities first and then allows me to modernise. The latter would result in a period in which my cities would look odd, having high-tech industry that I use to fuel the growth of 1920s skyscrapers.)

Not to mention all the great modern BATs! Elite BATters like the two "download all of their stuff" guys @Jasoncw and @nofunk have made some modern stuff that I wouldn't want to miss. Add many great (mostly smaller and W2W) buildings by @gutterclub that are just too tempting, and what about skyscrapers and high-rises by the likes of @Darknono35, @kellydale2003 or @scotty222? Some great midrise stuff by @mattb325, too. And then there's the wonderful world of suburban 'big box' retail which only really begins to make sense in a post-war era.

Modern Euro / Asian style is tempting, too, but this may be too far in the future for me to even touch. Fortunately for me, ace BATters like SOMY, ks_JPN, APTX8590 or @on001222 do have some stuff in their portfolio that's not super modern (at least not by the looks) and generic enough to look okay in a vaguely Euopean / North American city.

Well, so much for my ramblings on tilesets, growth strategy, and some highlight BAT selection...

Indiana Joe · September 19, 2018

@T Wrecks It's interesting to me how you primarily separate the styles by age, and architecture is more of a second thought. The default sets are well suited to be used like this. It fits a linear playing style where all cities evolve over time, as in real life. I realize more now how my playing style is a bit different, where I have somewhat of a regional plan, and everything is supposed to reach a certain point and stop there, as if frozen in time. When all the city tiles are filled up, there are some big cities, some small towns, some rural areas, and then I'm done; the region is complete (hypothetically of course, as if I'll ever get that far in a region ). Then on to the next one, with a different design.

What I would like to do with the sets is have more finite control over the classes of residential building. There are a few specific issues with residential development that irk me. Once you add water and schools to any city, you start getting mansions. Often in places you don't want them. Similarly it is difficult to get W2W buildings to line up, etc. I'm thinking I can remove the need to hover over residential plots with the bulldozer, and force exactly the type of buildings I want to appear.

So with 4 tile sets to work with, 3 densities, and 3 wealths, it becomes a game of writing and erasing over and over on the drawing board. The subjective part of this is how you classify different types of residential buildings, which can be done in a million different ways.

Possible building classes by wealth

Low wealth:				Medium wealth:				High wealth:
Trailers				Cabins/farmsteads			Older, rural mansions
Suburb. singles/duplexes		Suburb. 2-stories			Contemporary mansions
Inner-city sing/dup			Inner-city 2-stories			Expensive townhomes/condos
Gritty apartments			"Green," contemp. homes			Expensive mid-rises
Gritty row houses			Nice apartments				Expensive high-rises
Projects				Nice row houses					
Mega prefabs				Nice mid-rises
					Nice high-rises

...Roughly sorted by stage from top to bottom, going rural->suburban->urban. I ended up being more specific in some areas than others; certain buildings like trailers/mobile homes just look out of place unless they are in precisely the right area, same with row houses, farm houses. So I'd like to use the 4 sets to separate these things in a way that I can control where they grow. A secondary sorting will happen as I roughly try to divide architecture between pre-war, post-war, late 20th c., and contemporary. Or something like that.

Currently the different ways to control wealth are of course the presence of water and schools. For med/high density you need water anyway, so if you want a low-wealth, high-density area, you basically have to forego all education. I think I can fix this too by having a tile set dedicated to low-income residential. And if I keep mansions separated, I can re-zone and water suburban areas and force apartments and mid-rises to grow instead of mansions.

So, some wealths may be missing from some boxes on the table. Another thing to consider is lot size; I may want to avoid having large-lot mansions on the same tile set as large-lot trailer parks, or large-lot apartment complexes. That way when I zone specific sizes, I know exactly what buildings I'm getting. It's going to take a lot of fiddling to get it the way I want it, I'll be playing around with it in excel for a while.

Matt

T Wrecks · September 19, 2018

Don't forget that you can also leverage tax rates as a temporary "toggle" for certain wealth classes. I can totally imagine myself starting a village with R$$$ taxes at 20% to choke all R$$$ growth for the time being - until I have built up some R$$$ demand in the background. Then I can lay out a new zone dedicated to mansions, reduce R$$$ taxes to normal again, and those wealthy Sims will start moving in where I want them.

Of course, this method is very primitive and has its limitations. It still requires much bulldozer / "Make historical" control (oh, how I wish we could drag "Make historical" rectangles!).

I wonder if fiddling with the game's internal settings might help. IIRC, @CorinaMarie has successfully manipulated the property that enables higher-wealth buildings to replace ("kick out") lower-wealth buildings in the first place. This sounds interesting.

Likewise, I have once stumbled across a property that controls the influence of nearby low/medium/high-wealth buildings on the desirability of a given plot for the respective wealth classes. Manipulating this could also help to get far more homogenous neighbourhoods. You could make it so that wealthy Sims absolutely detest living near poor folk so that the desirability for R$$$ around low-wealth housing would turn deep red. This also seems to be an interesting route.

On a completely unrelated note, given the degree of pondering and fine-tuning you and I are apparently willing to put into this, I wonder if either of us will actually make it back into the game at all!

CorinaMarie · September 19, 2018

On 19/09/2018 at 1:28 PM, T Wrecks said:

I wonder if fiddling with the game's internal settings might help. IIRC, @CorinaMarie has successfully manipulated the property that enables higher-wealth buildings to replace ("kick out") lower-wealth buildings in the first place. This sounds interesting.

This isn't a Cori Original idea. I found it in the apparently anomalous exemplar reveals new type thread from 2005. However, it doesn't appear anyone ever seriously tested it so I created one for myself (Cori's_No_Kickout_Lower_Wealth_CAMpatible.dat) and in combination with @Bones1's Less Abandonment Mod, I find it to be the Holy Grail of city growth management along with tax rate adjustments. Without those two mods it means many of my buildings will upgrade and throw off the balance with many then abandoning and filling up with too many lower wealth Sims.

Basically I play such that all the lower wealth that I want grows first and I give them full health coverage and a good education. With the No Kickout in place they can upgrade to the highest density building within that wealth and zoning, but will not get over run by higher wealth level buildings. Then I adjust the low wealth taxes to drop demand towards zero. (Edit: See my Selective Residential Revamping topic.) Slightly above or slightly below is fine, but I don't crank up the taxes to 20% as many peeps advise. I set them such that it discourages new growth of the wealth level without overly annoying those Sims. Next I zone new areas or selectively bulldoze where I want higher wealth to grow. After they sprout, I set the taxes back to normal for all wealths.

The property can be found in the Building Development Simulator. Here's what it looks like:

00 Kickout False.jpg

^ Note: You have to use Reader 1.5.4 because 0.93 won't see it.

In the following two pics, the demand is 5000+ for all wealth levels, the area is fully watered, and not a single building is marked historical:

As y'all know those 1x2 homes between the streets would normally get replaced with some medium wealth and some mansions.

What I don't know is if any major mod out there alters this same exemplar.

Update:
See this topic for a picture previewed overview of NKO usefulness...

Indiana Joe · September 19, 2018

Wow guys this is great stuff! I had never utilized taxes to their fullest to force different wealths to grow, because as soon as I reset taxes everything would just get replaced anyway. The Kick Out exemplar sounds like a game changer on that front.

So now I don't have to worry as much about wealth if I customize the tile sets, I can focus more on building style.

Thanks to you both. Just goes to show that you can always read and learn more about the game, no matter how much I think I know

Cyclone Boom · September 20, 2018

@Indiana Joe

This is a very insightful exploration into the strategic methodology behind a carefully curated set of custom content.

With it so easy to quickly become overwhelmed with the myriad of BATs, lots, and mods out there, I couldn't agree more with having a focus. Setting out key principles and then to select items accordingly to one's personal preference. Whether into the gameplay or the more artistic non-functional side of things (or even a balance), by using a systematic approach it then becomes easier to not only realise what items to use, but knowing each is there for a designated purpose. Then as compiling a Plugins set, making a decisive effort to organise and keep track of what is what. Although it may seem a monumental effort at first, in the long run this collectively does reap the rewards.

So thanks for taking the time to document your approach. In what arguably is more of a creative hobby than just a game, there are endless possibilities. Sometimes simply knowing where to start is the biggest step. I'm sure along with the valuable input shared already by everyone in this discussion, it'll help as an inspiration to many.

As an aside...

For greater visibility and since it can relate to various gameplay aspects (including RCI wealth management), I've moved us over to the General Discussion forum. I also featured the thread so it'll be listed on the homepage feed and sidebar tabs. I highly suspect both new and returning SC4 mayors will have an interest in the recommendations being discussed here. That way it can stand out from modding topics, which are otherwise specifically focussed on the creation aspect of custom content.

Indiana Joe · September 20, 2018

@Cyclone Boom Thanks for the feature!

As for The Big List, I am taking a break from worrying about BATs, which are gonna take forever. Adding a section at the top for essential/miscellaneous small mods and fixes.

Andrey km · September 20, 2018

I checked the size of my plugins folder: 7.88GB To tell you the truth, my desktop takes 3 minutes to load the game.

Over the years, I had to rebuild the plugins folder from scratch because of some crashes with my HD. The question is: why do I still have 7.88GB of files? Because I spend most of the time customizing, not playing properly. With the addition of lots of quality stuff available for download, I get it all. Currently, I do not have much time to play because of my college, but whenever someone shares new stuff, and I like them, I get it. Every city I build has a focus. Some are of great density, some smaller, some I focus on transportation, others in industries, others in farms, anyway ... Every city, a city. Since my focus is on customizing, creating the perfect landscape and skyline, I spend a lot of time searching for the plugins inside the game. The poin that @Indiana Joe has touch is very important. Actually, the game does not handle very well with a huge amount of plugins, and that's why I think every person needs to keep the plugins folder very well organized.

The question of compatibility betwen plugins: I see that A LOT, every time. Night scenes, for an exemple, are nightmares. I use @SimFox's Day'n'Night mod, and many plugins don't have support for this. Night scenes in SimCity 4 are beauties, and that fact breaks my heart. I will try to do a list of plugins that follows this pattern as soon as i can.

I think the purpose of the game itself is not customization, but due to the amount of plugins, online communities, the city journals, my focus on SimCity 4 has changed over the years, and for that, having a plugins folder which has variety, compatibility and at the same time organization, is a task that requires a little more attention.

PS: I still didn't learn speak English, but i keep trying

Duco · September 20, 2018

Very interesting to read all this. Most of my content I have in my documents/simcity4/plugins folder. Some mods I have installed in C/steam?apps/../plugins.These are mods that fixes the issues with simcity4 and the mods that I have always on, like the terrain and water mod.

I read somewhere that the steam plugins folder loads first, so I thought, lets put those important mods there.

The British Sausage · September 20, 2018

15 hours ago, Indiana Joe said:

Wow guys this is great stuff! I had never utilized taxes to their fullest to force different wealths to grow, because as soon as I reset taxes everything would just get replaced anyway. The Kick Out exemplar sounds like a game changer on that front.

So now I don't have to worry as much about wealth if I customize the tile sets, I can focus more on building style.

Thanks to you both. Just goes to show that you can always read and learn more about the game, no matter how much I think I know

You do not need to use the Kick Out exemplar- just make sure the desirability stays high, make sure the crime is low, pollution is low, commutes are reasonable and there's never any garbage.

When I focus on one wealth-type of residential I overtax all the others to eliminate demand, I then go crazy on the "Make Historical" and this locks in the buildings I want to stay.

As long as make historical is turned on and desirability stays high a residential building will not go abandoned or delipidate into R$$ or R$.

Anyway as for plugins my current plugin folder is a little lightweight coming at 5.4GB, sometimes it gone up to 8 or 9GB! But several times I have deleted all the plugins and rebuilt from scratch. My advice for getting the buildings you want and seeing them appear ingame is to write down their lot-name on a piece of paper, use the building plop and plop 'em in. This works always for commercial and industrial, it also works for residential if the residential building plopped in replaces a residential building of the same lot size and wealth type. However plopped residential does not spawn traffic so use sparingly!

I don't care for the simulation, I bend it and cheat it for convenience: as long as buildings are not getting abandoned and I can see Sims and vehicles spawning then I'm happy!

Finally, after copying and pasting from a tutorial I created about building diagonally, here is a list of pretty much everything you need to build diagonally and make the textures look smooth and seamless. Enjoy!

{---}

Additional content (edit- 16/04/2017)

Simcoug's R$$ Diagonal Homes:

Simcoug's Diagonal W2W Tenements:

Rivit's RUM-http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/29279-rum-for-rrw/.
--This is for transparent railway textures.

MGB - Terrain Grass NAM (TGN) for Gobias Berner Oberland- http://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/30159-mgb-terrain-grass-NAM-tgn-for-gobias-berner-oberland/
--Replaces all the road network grass textures with the Berner Oberland styled grass. There is also a Sudden Valley, Appalachian and Pyrenean version of this mod to.

Selecting the base texture replacement option for the Berner Oberland, Sudden Valley and Appalachian terrain mod installers. This goes hand-in-hand with the TGN. For Berner Oberland and Sudden Valley you can find them on the LEX.

Bombardiere · September 20, 2018

On 19.9.2018 at 5:23 PM, CorinaMarie said:

This isn't a Cori Original idea. I found it in the apparently anomalous exemplar reveals new type thread from 2005. However, it doesn't appear anyone ever seriously tested it so I created one for myself (Cori's_No_Kickout_Lower_Wealth_CAMpatible.dat) and in combination with @Bones1's Less Abandonment Mod, I find it to be the Holy Grail of city growth management along with tax rate adjustments. Without those two mods it means many of my buildings will upgrade and throw off the balance with many then abandoning and filling up with too many lower wealth Sims.

Cori Do you have a thread where you discuss your findings? I want to learn more. I often play with historical style and I want to create slums. Whitechapel you see. But I don't necessary want to choke my sims with pollution or kill the education.

Cyclone Boom · September 20, 2018

6 hours ago, The British Sausage said:

You do not need to use the Kick Out exemplar- just make sure the desirability stays high, make sure the crime is low, pollution is low, commutes are reasonable and there's never any garbage.

I suppose it depends on the underlying goal when building any given city.

In terms of how the No Kickout toggle adjusts the growth simulation, I've been testing it with @CorinaMarie and feel it's an extremely useful mod for improved realism and finer control. Since contrast between wealth levels is something common in real world cities, it prevents lower wealth from being taken over. This means wealth levels can coexist, such as by R$ remaining inside an area suitable for and containing R$$ and even R$$$ homes. Tax rates can be adjusted accordingly, and should one later wish to upgrade an area, it's possible to selectively bulldoze. This then provides higher wealths an opportunity to reconsider and grow in place, providing the conditions are suitable.

It therefore makes the balance of jobs and Sims easier to maintain, all with the convenience of not needing to mark hundreds of buildings as historical. As a bonus, we've noticed how some lower wealth buildings can survive which would surely have been automatically upgraded. For instance I recall there being a few terrace houses and also small sized prefab blocks which were still there in among an area of wealthier condos and apartments. An exception to the rule is should a building abandon, it's then able to automatically redevelop. In a way this seems realistic too, given it represents how a property developer has invested in a restoration or a full reconstruction.

While it may need consideration to plan ahead when developing and take a little getting used to, I feel No Kickout is really a highly beneficial gameplay adjustment. It may well be that Maxis toggled it off prior to release, so then to allow more widespread RCI development with less control over what can grow where.

The British Sausage · September 20, 2018

30 minutes ago, Cyclone Boom said:

I suppose it depends on the underlying goal when building any given city.

In terms of how the No Kickout toggle adjusts the growth simulation, I've been testing it with @CorinaMarie and feel it's an extremely useful mod for improved realism and finer control. Since contrast between wealth levels is something common in real world cities, it prevents lower wealth from being taken over. This means wealth levels can coexist, such as by R$ remaining inside an area suitable for and containing R$$ and even R$$$ homes. Tax rates can be adjusted accordingly, and should one later wish to upgrade an area, it's possible to selectively bulldoze. This then provides higher wealths an opportunity to reconsider and grow in place, providing the conditions are suitable.

It therefore makes the balance of jobs and Sims easier to maintain, all with the convenience of not needing to mark hundreds of buildings as historical. As a bonus, we've noticed how some lower wealth buildings can survive which would surely have been automatically upgraded. For instance I recall there being a few terrace houses and also small sized prefab blocks which were still there in among an area of wealthier condos and apartments. An exception to the rule is should a building abandon, it's then able to automatically redevelop. In a way this seems realistic too, given it represents how a property developer has invested in a restoration or a full reconstruction.

While it may need consideration to plan ahead when developing and take a little getting used to, I feel No Kickout is really a highly beneficial gameplay adjustment. It may well be that Maxis toggled it off prior to release, so then to allow more widespread RCI development with less control over what can grow where.

All good points!

It's just I have method which is reliable and I don't have to go through every building and apply the No Kickout toggle which sounds like a huge amount of work.

If I wanted too I could mix and match- zone in some of the lots in an area and grow low wealth, then zone in the reminder of the lots and grow medium wealth. In each case I just alter the taxes and always click on "Make Historical".

Indiana Joe · September 20, 2018

1 hour ago, The British Sausage said:

All good points!

It's just I have method which is reliable and I don't have to go through every building and apply the No Kickout toggle which sounds like a huge amount of work.

If I wanted too I could mix and match- zone in some of the lots in an area and grow low wealth, then zone in the reminder of the lots and grow medium wealth. In each case I just alter the taxes and always click on "Make Historical".

Nah the great part about it is it's just one little option in one exemplar that instantly affects all RCI development. It removes the need to go building to building and is almost like a mass-make-historical button. (Except buildings could be replaced by higher density, same wealth)

I played with it to test and it's actually pretty amazing.

And thanks for the diagonal list! That's the kind of thorough study of content I was hoping to see when I made this thread.

Matt

The British Sausage · September 20, 2018

2 minutes ago, Indiana Joe said:

Nah the great part about it is it's just one little option in one exemplar that instantly affects all RCI development. It removes the need to go building to building and is almost like a mass-make-historical button. (Except buildings could be replaced by higher density, same wealth)

I played with it to test and it's actually pretty amazing.

And thanks for the diagonal list! That's the kind of thorough study of content I was hoping to see when I made this thread.

Matt

Alright, now I am curious!

CorinaMarie · September 20, 2018

8 hours ago, The British Sausage said:

I then go crazy on the "Make Historical" and this locks in the buildings I want to stay.

This will indeed work and has been the recommended method for years.

As CB mentioned, the No Kickout allows one to skip the necessity of clicking on hundreds of buildings to make them historical. I'd personally rather be playing than spending all that time mousing around.

4 hours ago, Bombardiere said:

Cori Do you have a thread where you discuss your findings?

There is no dedicated thread. It's such a simple mod that my explanation above really covers everything. It's also one you can put in and take out whenever you like without the need to bulldoze anything. Keep in mind if you've used it and then remove it a bunch of lots will revert to their old habit of getting taken over by higher wealth levels unless you've made the area undesirable to them or marked them historical.

If you enjoy clicking buildings as historical for hours on end then there is no need to use this time saver.

4 minutes ago, Indiana Joe said:

I played with it to test and it's actually pretty amazing.

Those who've tested it agree.

The British Sausage · September 20, 2018

1 hour ago, CorinaMarie said:

This will indeed work and has been the recommended method for years.

As CB mentioned, the No Kickout allows one to skip the necessity of clicking on hundreds of buildings to make them historical. I'd personally rather be playing than spending all that time mousing around.

Ha ha! All I do in SC4 is mouse around! Scroll up, scroll down...

But I go pretty slow one city block at a time and all that mousing around gives me time to think, but I get the areas I need and the look I'm aiming for...

jeffryfisher · September 20, 2018

2 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

No Kickout allows one to skip the necessity of clicking on hundreds of buildings to make them historical.

This affects other property types too, doesn't it? With no-kickout set, don't you also prevent commercial and industrial from upgrading?

3 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

it prevents lower wealth from being taken over.

In my cities, if too many $$$ sims build McMansions where they're not needed, they starve out and abandon, soon to be re-occupied by greater numbers of lower wealth sims who can actually find jobs in my gritty industrial sectors. The repurposed mansions add character to my neighborhoods. YMMV.

CorinaMarie · September 20, 2018

11 minutes ago, jeffryfisher said:

This affects other property types too, doesn't it? With no-kickout set, don't you also prevent commercial and industrial from upgrading?

Yep. It also keeps higher wealth commercial and industrial from running your low wealth versions out of town. Ofc, if you have such demand for the higher wealth ones you can either zone more and they can grow there or you can selectively bulldoze some lower wealth and let them sprout in their place. Basically, all it does is put you, the mayor, in control without the hassle of making lower wealth buildings historical to prevent them from being ousted.

14 minutes ago, jeffryfisher said:

The repurposed mansions add character to my neighborhoods. YMMV.

That's perfectly fine if that's the style and look you are striving for and you don't mind the reduced tax income when they are inhabited by lower wealth Sims whilst in the dilapidated state.

Indiana Joe · September 25, 2018

Fortunately the website seems to be running pretty steady now, I am able to continue adding to the list. Updated a bit, there's a lot of sections I have to go back to but I am trying to flesh out the parks section. There are a whole lot of things I can choose to include or not include, it will be difficult to get a good, flexible variety while not overloading the menu. There are endless parks on the exchanges, it will take a while to research.

T Wrecks · September 26, 2018

On 18.9.2018 at 10:41 AM, Indiana Joe said:

There are enough newer, modern, HD parks from various authors, I don't think I need older sets from SFBT and BSC and such (check out that second link for deadwoods' other good content).

Now this is a point on which I'm not decided yet for my own plugins. The SFBT sets are sometimes really nice to make fluent transition from Maxis lots to parks, or to make sure that the driveway on some Maxis lots actually ends at a road. Using my HD tree replacement mod, the "HD" aspect is also catered for. I don't see myself throwing out all Maxis stuff altogether, so I guess there'll be plenty of Maxis driveways left to line up. For bigger park areas and/or standalone parks, I tend to agree with you and will most likely switch to KOSC's packs myself.

Paeng also fully deserves being mentioned, as does @Fantozzi's extension set 'Big Paeng Theory'.

One might as well mention that, given today's abundance of MMP stuff, going full MMP is also an option worth considering when it comes to making parks.

_______________

On a personal side note, I have finished the first residential category, single-family homes, and have moved up to the 1-tile wide rowhouses. The trend continues: lower number of items, but with far higher lot counts than before. Particularly with Cycledogg's sets, the number of lots may well exceed 50. Releasing my stuff is totally an option, but I'll test it all first, and in any case I need to finish the IRM releases I have queued up.

I'm currently wondering whether the amount of custom foundations out there may put me in a position where I can equip non-"slope friendly" (SF) buildings with foundations from other uploads that are a close enough match. Mattb325 has been on an uploading spree recently, and many of the houses he uploaded come with custom foundations as well.

Indiana Joe · September 27, 2018

You must have managed to post right before or after I added Paeng in there

I have also been considering the idea of publishing some re-lots in order to make available some consistent sets. To me, individually lot-ing all my RCI sounds like a bit too much of a task. But for civics and some ploppables, I have some concepts in the works. Stay tuned.

Matt

jeffryfisher · September 27, 2018

2 hours ago, Indiana Joe said:

You must have managed to post right before or after I added Paeng in there

"PEG Ponds" deserves special mention because it enables a mayor to construct large-scale lakes and streams at elevations above the Maxis water-line. Those who want consistent look and feel would want to get a water mod that makes Maxis-level water look the same color.

Also, PEG Ponds works best if one plans ahead and takes care to render a region's height-map so that lakes and streams are flat areas at shore-elevation (gray) rather than holes punched down through the Earth's crust to reach the Maxis water-level (black). Flattening using god-mode tools is possible but tedious.

At one time, I experimented with a water-elevation mod that was supposed to give me Maxis water at elevation within a terrain basin, but I couldn't control it. YMMV.

rsc204 · September 27, 2018

You can transition PEG's MMP Tahoe water to Brigantine cleanly, by painting right into deeper water. You can also cleanly transition PPonds, Streams and the CSK into Tahoe and each other. IMHO it's the most comprehensive set of water pieces there is. MMP water is really the only way to go however when the terrain isn't pretty flat, or maybe some of the waterfall lots. I've seen some great examples where people have used these sets to keep water flowing between mountains all the way to the shore. Sadly, many of the CJs/MDs showing such wonders have long since ceased to function .

Indiana Joe and the Quest for the Ultimate Plugins Folder

88 posts in this topic Last Reply August 9, 2023

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