Restore the Army Base and Prison

[MMC 2]

I accidently deleted my army base and prison from my sc4 game. Is there any way to get it back into my game?

[Matrim Cauthon 344]

6 minutes ago, MMC said:

I accidently deleted my army base and prison from my sc4 game. Is there any way to get it back into my game?

They should be located in your rewards menu. Civics->Rewards.

[MMC 2]

No. They got completely deleted out of the game.

 

[Cyclone Boom 16,953]

The army base and prison should still be available from the Rewards menu if eligible to plop them in the current tile. If initially bulldozing or they get destroyed somehow (such as from a disaster), they can still be built again once they've been unlocked.

[MMC 2]

I've downloaded a lot of new things into my game and went back to play and they are not even in the rewards menu. They are no where in the game at all

[Matrim Cauthon 344]

7 minutes ago, MMC said:

No. They got completely deleted out of the game.

 

I'm not quite sure what you mean by this.

If bulldozed they can be rebuilt, however it would be very difficult to actually delete them from the game since they are part of the core game files.
They can be "blocked" if you downloaded something designed to block them from being built (often called "maxis blockers"), but I don't think that's the issue.

 

4 minutes ago, MMC said:

I've downloaded a lot of new things into my game and went back to play and they are not even in the rewards menu. They are no where in the game at all

Are these cities that have unlocked those already?

They are hidden by default and will not show up in the rewards menu until the conditions to unlock them occur.

[Cyclone Boom 16,953]

Let's try ruling our variables firstly, and it sounds like perhaps you've got some custom content which might override them from the menu.

Go to your Plugins folder and rename it to something else. Then start the game and it'll be loaded without any custom content at all. Your existing Plugins will still be preserved in the renamed folder, and then it'll allow testing in a new region. Check to see whether they can then be build from the Rewards menu. Press Ctrl+X and then use the you don't deserve it cheat command, which will unlock them initially when establishing the tile.

[MMC 2]

I use the cheat code but, I'm saying they are not in the menu at all

[Matrim Cauthon 344]

1 minute ago, MMC said:

I use the cheat code but, I'm saying they are not in the menu at all

This is with your plugins directory empty?

You might need to reinstall SC4, or repair it(revalidate files in steam). Note you'll need to re patch SimCity 4.exe with the 4GB patch for NAM if you use it.

[Cyclone Boom 16,953]

3 minutes ago, MMC said:

I use the cheat code but, I'm saying they are not in the menu at all

So did my above advice to try starting SC4 with no plugins not work?

It seems likely that something is conflicting and causing them to be missing from the menus.

[MMC 2]

How do I do that?

[Cyclone Boom 16,953]

Just now, MMC said:

How do I do that?

 

I explained this above:

7 minutes ago, Cyclone Boom said:

Go to your Plugins folder and rename it to something else. Then start the game and it'll be loaded without any custom content at all. Your existing Plugins will still be preserved in the renamed folder, and then it'll allow testing in a new region.

 

[CorinaMarie 29,626]

@MMC

I'm totally confuzzled.

Are those two the Maxis lots or are the custom items? Then did you bulldoze them in the game or did you delete the custom content from your plugins?

[MMC 2]

No. It caused other basic things to be gone

[CorinaMarie 29,626]

Just now, MMC said:

It caused other basic things to be gone

Let's start fresh.

Outline the exact steps that caused the problem and then fully explain what said problem is.

[MMC 2]

I downloaded some new content to my SC4 to make it look more like a city and after I did this. I went back into my game to play it and when I click into the rewards menu these two items where completely gone from the menu and this with using the cheat code

 

[Matrim Cauthon 344]

7 minutes ago, MMC said:

I downloaded some new content to my SC4 to make it look more like a city

Could you go into more detail?

For example where did you install the files to? Do you know what mods they were? how many? 

Did you have mods installed prior to this, or are these the first mods you are adding?

[rsc204 21,817]

I think the source of confusion here comes from how bizarre the idea of content just "going missing" is in reality. Now I'm not gonna say it's impossible, but realistically if something from the base game is no longer there, one of two things must be behind this:

• One or more mods are messing with the affected items.
• Your game's install files have been damaged/altered/corrupted.

People talk about file corruption sometimes as if it's somehow normal, it is not. For a previously working file to suddenly be missing data, assuming you have in no way messed with it, the most common cause would be a damaged or dying hard disk. Especially for a write-once file which is what we're talking about, in other words after the original install, the files containing this info only get read, never updated or rewritten. But, even in this scenario, it would hugely unlikely that the only things affected were your ability to place two of the in-game lots.

So the long and short here is, make 200% sure you are loading the vanilla game without any modifications (Plugins). To do that rename your Plugins folder in Documents\SimCity 4 to literally anything else. Also double-check you don't have any mods in the Plugins folder inside the Installation Directory, this location varies and can be customised. Note this second folder should contain 5 PNG files, anything else there should be temporarily moved. Now run the game, use the unlock rewards cheat, are the items back?

• If Yes
  The problem comes from Add-ons/mods that were loading.
• If No
  Odds are your data isn't corrupted, but at this stage it's a moot point. If the data isn't there or as expected, your only realistic prospect of resolving the issue is to uninstall SC4, then re-install the game once more. Regardless of the what or how, the resolution remains identical.

Those are the only two valid solutions to your problem.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

On 1/8/2021 at 6:00 PM, MMC said:

I accidently deleted my army base and prison from my sc4 game.

Go find and download an analysis tool like DataNode that can load all of the SC4 game data and let you see everything in there, including anything that is being overridden by anything else:

 

[rsc204 21,817]

1 hour ago, jeffryfisher said:

Go find and download an analysis tool like DataNode that can load all of the SC4 game data and let you see everything in there, including anything that is being overridden by anything else:

Why?

Wouldn't that take longer and require a higher level understanding of things, than simply renaming a folder? This is an either or scenario, better to find out which before overcomplicating things IMHO.

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

IMHO, anyone with more than minimal mods should run DataNode anyway, so an issue like this is a good motivator to conduct some long overdue clean up and plugin sorting. I bet this "lost" army base is just the tip of an iceberg.