Fresh Install: Regions Aren't Reading Correctly [Solved]

[OtakuLife005 2]

Just returned to SimCity 4 after many years, and to much disappointment. Fresh Install of SC4, load it up, and 90% of the cities of the default regions show up a flat Non-Terraformed slots. Even went as far as to download a few regions from here, only to have the same thing happen.

Attached is Silver Valley that I downloaded from here, and Timbuktu from the Defaults. All regions are doing this, loading a city makes no diference, and when loaded is the same as it appears on the map. All files are accounted for in their folders.

Any ideas?

[CorinaMarie 29,576]

It sure looks like maybe some of the .sc4 files are mixed in with other regions or something. Here's how Silver Valley should look in the File Explorer:

[OtakuLife005 2]

That's how it all looks. Normal. Same for all the other regions.

[CorinaMarie 29,576]

That looks perfectly correct. Now I'm confuzzled.

If you double click that config (which is a .bmp image file) and then zoom in, is it all blue with one darker pixel like this?

[OtakuLife005 2]

Yep. The one for Silver Valley is, the others are different, for the most part as I remember them looking.

[CorinaMarie 29,576]

CB mentioned to me wondering if you have these regions in your SimCity 4 in Documents or in Program Files. We are neither sure if that would affect anything, but they should be in Documents.

[OtakuLife005 2]

The Defaults are in Both Locations as that's how it installed (Right or Wrong, just what it did), Silver Valley is in My Documents, as I was pretty sure that's where it was supposed to go.

[CorinaMarie 29,576]

Yes. That's correct then. The defaults are in both locations so if you delete them from Documents the game can restore them (like if you tell it to restart a tutorial). And yes, putting Silver Valley in Documents is the right place for it.

What is so odd is that I can tell the config.bmp being used is not random in your first pic and it's also not the one the game should be loading from that folder.

I'm at a complete loss for new suggestions. (Don't give up tho cause there are smarter peeps here than me who will log in from time to time and may have experienced something similar and know what causes that.)

[CorinaMarie 29,576]

How about trying this: Rename the Regions folder (in Documents) to Old_Regions then create a new Regions and then extract the files from the Silver Valley zip again? Also, out of curiosity, has the game placed any of the .sc4 files into the Downloads folder of Regions?

[OtakuLife005 2]

Interesting...313 Files in the Downloads Folder. That doesn't seem right, wasn't that Folder only there for when the Official SimCity 4 Website let you download Community Cities and Maps?

[CorinaMarie 29,576]

Yeah. It should be empty. What happens is when the game sees cities with the same internal ID it tosses them in there.

I believe starting with a fresh, empty Regions folder is the way to get to the bottom of this. Then install just one region, such as Silver Valley fresh from the zip file.

[OtakuLife005 2]

I deleted everything in the Downloads Folder, guess that was the issue. Everything is loading fine now. Would love to know why it did that on a fresh install. I've never had SC4 installed on this PC before.

[CorinaMarie 29,576]

So, even tho we've no clue what went wrong we can safely say you are ready to play now?

[OtakuLife005 2]

Already doing so, thank you for your help!