Which mods are CAM 2.1 compatible?

[MichaelJBull769 55]

Which mods will work with CAM 2.1?

 

[CaptCity 4,754]

Hi @MichaelJBull769

If you are asking about game mods that would conflict with CAM, then probably any mod that affects growth stages - such as SPAM and the Industrial Revolution Mod come to mind (although the IRM has a CAM 'fix' I believe).

If you are asking about custom content (lots) that would work with CAM, then I think most things would 'work' but not all will be able to take advantage of CAM's new growth stages. For lots to grow at the higher stages set by CAM, they would have had to be made with CAM in mind and set to grow at the newer stages. On SC4D's LEX, these are often indicated by being a 'CAMeLot' and would grow at the growth stages added by CAM. 

Hope that makes sense...

[MichaelJBull769 55]

Will the Industry Quadrupler by toroca, LessAbandonment by bones1 and AbandonmentModdV1.2 by RalphaelNinja work with CAM?

Since the cleanitol told me those mods wouldn't work.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

All three of those should not be used with CAM.

Ofc, that's nothing to worry about because CAM already has its own advanced balance settings for the exemplars those cover.

[MichaelJBull769 55]

Ok Thanks

 

[BartonThinks 3,416]

7 hours ago, CaptCity said:

Hi @MichaelJBull769

If you are asking about game mods that would conflict with CAM, then probably any mod that affects growth stages - such as SPAM and the Industrial Revolution Mod come to mind (although the IRM has a CAM 'fix' I believe).

If you are asking about custom content (lots) that would work with CAM, then I think most things would 'work' but not all will be able to take advantage of CAM's new growth stages. For lots to grow at the higher stages set by CAM, they would have had to be made with CAM in mind and set to grow at the newer stages. On SC4D's LEX, these are often indicated by being a 'CAMeLot' and would grow at the growth stages added by CAM. 

Hope that makes sense...

Just to clarify this point somewhat...

Any growable lot made for the regular game will still be able to grow using CAM. However, you'll want to be careful with high density lots, specifically stages 7 and 8 for residential and commercial lots, and stage 3 for industrial lots. These lots might not match up with the CAM growth stages. They will still grow, but they might have a lot more jobs/residents than they're supposed to have for the CAM growth stages, and they could throw off the balance of the game.

The good news is that any low-density or mid-density lots made for the regular game should still work fine with CAM.

[MichaelJBull769 55]

I always have a commute time issue combined with lack of jobs for some residents when using CAM with NAM 41.  Meaning I get jobless icons.  Would Cori's NKO mod solve this issue?

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

22 minutes ago, MichaelJBull769 said:

Would Cori's NKO mod solve this issue?

It will depend on the cause of the No Job Zots. If R$$ or R$$$ are kicking out lower wealth and building in their place while there are not enough jobs for them, then yes, NKO would prevent that from happening.

But, if the cause is snarled traffic or other issues, then those need to be figured out as well.

[MichaelJBull769 55]

Which subfolder of CAM would I place the NKO Mod? a_Core or Core Buildings or the subfolder before that?

[Cyclone Boom 16,877]

3 hours ago, MichaelJBull769 said:

Which subfolder of CAM would I place the NKO Mod? a_Core or Core Buildings or the subfolder before that?

As @twalsh102 posted in our NKO thread:
 

On 8/28/2020 at 6:59 AM, twalsh102 said:

By default, all CAM files are installed in a folder titled a__CAM. As long as you put Cori's mod in a folder that comes alphabetically after the CAM folder, it will load after CAM.

So I would just create a folder with the same name as Cori's mod, and place the .dat file in that folder. If you just took that dat file and placed it as is at the root of your Plugins folder (not inside any other folder), it would install before CAM.

That way it'll make certain the loading order is correct (since we made NKO completely compatible with CAM).

[MichaelJBull769 55]

Would it be _ or __ or ___ to indicate loading order since CAM has two dashes in it. Thanks.

[Raymond7cn 6,772]

13 hours ago, MichaelJBull769 said:

Would it be _ or __ or ___ to indicate loading order since CAM has two dashes in it. Thanks.

Hiya @MichaelJBull769,

As @Cyclone Boom and @twalsh102's tips, To put NKO mod in a folder that comes alphabetically after the CAM folder. so I guess you're right to put NKO in a three ___ folder to make sure the loading order is correct, In regard of alphabetic sort, I found this website is helpful to me.

Plugin Loading Order-Wiki

Hope it helps.

Sincerely,

-- Raymond

[Propfam 2,288]

Or use SC4DataNote by @rivit and select Override when you open the app. There are green and red items on the list. Click on those and check either the "Overrides" or the "Overridden by" section. Now you know your order is wrong or not.

Hope it helps. Thanks.

[BartonThinks 3,416]

I feel like this might be getting a little too complicated? CAM gets installed in a folder labeled "a__CAM". You just need to create a new folder with the NKO mod and name the folder something that comes after "a__CAM" alphabetically. So long as the folder name starts with a letter of the alphabet that comes after the letter "a", you'll be fine.

For example, your plugins folder could look like this and it will work...

Plugins:

•  a__CAM
  • a__Core
  • Core Buildings
• NKO Mod

I would recommend against putting the NKO mod into the "a__CAM" folder itself. It doesn't need to go in that folder, it just needs to load after CAM does. It will be easier to keep your plugins organized by putting the NKO mod into a different folder.

I would also strongly suggest reading the Prima Strategy Guide for SC4, which you can find here. The NKO mod can be really useful, but in this case, I think it's a bit of a band-aid solution to the problem. There are a bunch of possible reasons why you're getting jobless icons, but each of those reasons can be boiled down to something in your city being unbalanced or poorly configured. Patching this up with a mod might help in the short-term (and that's a big "might" -- there's a strong chance that something else is causing your jobless rate). However, if you want to grow healthy, well-functioning cities long-term, the Prima guide is your best bet.

[AP 3,588]

On 16.6.2021 at 6:21 AM, CaptCity said:

Hi @MichaelJBull769

If you are asking about game mods that would conflict with CAM, then probably any mod that affects growth stages - such as SPAM and the Industrial Revolution Mod come to mind (although the IRM has a CAM 'fix' I believe).

If you are asking about custom content (lots) that would work with CAM, then I think most things would 'work' but not all will be able to take advantage of CAM's new growth stages. For lots to grow at the higher stages set by CAM, they would have had to be made with CAM in mind and set to grow at the newer stages. On SC4D's LEX, these are often indicated by being a 'CAMeLot' and would grow at the growth stages added by CAM. 

Hope that makes sense...

@CaptCity could you eleborate on the IRM fix for CAM a bit more? I really can't imagine playing without the raised demands of CAM anymore and was very sad to learn that I cannot use IRM with it. But maybe this info is not correct?

EDIT: I just found this:

looks like I simply have to load this after CAM and that should do the trick?

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

Just to clarify: NKO adds stability which the vanilla game lacks. Some peeps prefer the challenge of managing a more chaotic game and therefore do not use NKO.

This gives two perspectives to consider.

1. There are those (as seen in the NKO thread replies and in the reviews and comments on the STEX file) who use it and who see what it does as a beneficial enhancement.
2. Then there is the opposite opinion suggesting it degrades enjoyment of the game.

Keep in mind that using NKO does not magically fix a city. As mayor, it does still require proper balance between job availability and the Sims who live there. The key difference is if you set up a successful low wealth arrangement where Sims and jobs are nicely balanced and then add amenities like medical and schools, this is going to greatly increase demand for R$$, yet the the jobs present are not to their liking.

At this point one of three things will happen.

1. With NKO installed from the start, it'll all continue without any trouble.
2. Without NKO, one needs to click every single R$ residential to be historical and then continue without any trouble.
3. Without NKO and without clicking all as historical, watch as each R$ gets replaced with R$$ which then dilapidate, turn dirty, and get re-inhabited with twice as many R$ Sims as were there before. This then also throws off the carefully established balance because now there can be more Sims than jobs.

So basically it comes down to which method one wants to use when managing their city. Neither is right or wrong. It's all about which one is personally more enjoyable.

[rsc204 21,808]

4 hours ago, AP said:

looks like I simply have to load this after CAM and that should do the trick?

Yup. All CAM does at its core is add additional Growth Stages and differently balanced stats, this means content not modded with CAM in mind, simply won't grow as per the CAM changes. The modified version of IRM simply takes into account the additional Growth Stages and alters the stats to fit better with CAM.

But the same is really true for any R/C/I lot you might find, all such buildings should be ideally modded specifically for use with CAM. In fact an argument for modified Civic Buildings is also reasonable to make, since with CAM you may eventually need more capacity for those buildings to support larger populations. When it's just a few downloads, it's easy to CAMify them by using the dedicated function in PIM-X to modify the stats for you. Of course there is also a lot of ready-to-go CAMpatible lots, mostly on SC4D's LEX.

Outside of R/C/I stuff, the difficulty with working out what works with CAM and what doesn't, comes from knowing which things CAM modifies to begin with. So if a mod alters something that CAM also alters, you will have a conflict, i.e. only the Properties of the last such mod to load will be used. Sometimes this is desirable, you can just load other mods after CAM and they essentially inter-operate. But, some settings that such an override of CAM might use, may be incompatible with CAM in the sense that changes made as part of CAM get messed up by them. Without really understanding how to dig into files in Reader it's hard to be sure what may cause problems. But generally speaking if the changes another mod makes relate to anything CAM also does, it's probably best to avoid using it with CAM.

[AP 3,588]

@rsc204 Thanks for your reply and explinations. Looking at the download numbers of CAM and IRM the download numbers of Industrial Revolution Mod - CAM Version seem far too low. I would assume that not many people know this actually exists since quite a few places say these two mods do not go together, since the creators of these mods were last online a long time ago maye a moderator could add that to the CAM and IRM download hints?

[rsc204 21,808]

1 hour ago, AP said:

Looking at the download numbers of CAM and IRM the download numbers of Industrial Revolution Mod - CAM Version seem far too low.

Bear in mind these days very few downloads get really high numbers like the good ol' days. Even so, it might be something that would benefit from a more prominent notice.

[twalsh102 1,601]

As far as what's compatible with CAM 2.1.0 and what's not, the best place to start is with the documentation. It has a list of what mods were incompatible with CAM at the time it was published. Of course this doesn't help with any mods that were released after that.

As @rsc204 stated, you need to know what CAM modifies. You will also need to know what specific mod you're worried about modifies. It also helps to understand the load order the game uses. To get specific, CAM modifies 100+ Simulation-related exemplars. If any mod you're interested in also modifies any of those exemplars, then there will be issues. CAM is by default installed in the a__CAM folder so that it will install after all Maxis content, but before almost all other .dat files (which is the format used by all Mods).

There is a simple way to determine if the Mod you're interested in modifies anything CAM modifies. You have to use @rivit's SC4 DataNode. With CAM installed in its default folder, and the Mod you're interested in installed in a folder that comes alphabetically after a__CAM, use DataNode to scan your environment. Once the scan is done, change the viewpoint to TGI View, then click on Simulation. This will show ALL Simulation-related exemplars and any overrides. So it will first show the Maxis version from the SimCity_1.dat file, then the the CAM version (if there is one). If you have any Mods that override CAM, they will be listed after the CAM version. By doing this, you don't need to know what any of the exemplars actually do (unless you're interested in learning some of the inner workings of the game), but you can quickly see if there is anything that overrides CAM.

On a side note, CAM also modifies select Maxis Lot and Building Exemplars (here's where the conflict of the original IRM comes in). @T Wrecks explanation in the original documentation for the incompatibility of IRM and CAM is actually incorrect. He stated that the Lots included in the CAM package have been given different IIDs. That is not the case, else they couldn't override the Maxis Lots. The incompatibility is because of how the IRM files were packaged, and Load Order. The IRM lots were packaged as individual .SC4Lot files, whereas the Lot and Building Exemplars in the CAM Mod are all packaged in a single .dat file. As a quick review of load order, the game actually goes through your Plugins folder twice. The first time, it loads all non-dat files in alphabetical order by Folder and File name. The second time it loads all .dat files in alphabetical order by Folder and file name.

The download numbers might be at least partially explained by the fact that @T Wrecks also released a bunch of custom Industrial content that had been modded to work with IRM (I counted 78+ individual lots, and several Lot packages and Add-on sets), while something similar has not been done for CAMpatible custom Industrial Lots (note that the various IRM Filler Sets will work with CAM).

[Gwyain 95]

On 6/17/2021 at 2:14 AM, AP said:

@CaptCity could you eleborate on the IRM fix for CAM a bit more? I really can't imagine playing without the raised demands of CAM anymore and was very sad to learn that I cannot use IRM with it. But maybe this info is not correct?

EDIT: I just found this:

looks like I simply have to load this after CAM and that should do the trick?

As someone why plays with CAM and with the IRM CAM version I should be able to add a bit to this. @Shadowstrike's CAM version of IRM will indeed work properly with CAM, but the IRM Addon Sets such as this are not compatible (at least out of the box):

Another thing to bare in mind is that any other industry buildings you download will not necessarily conform to the density distinction IRM makes for I-D, I-M, and I-HT, which means you'll have have to change those manually with the Reader in order to keep the industry segregation of IRM. This of course becomes doubly important with CAM and IRM, since you may have to manually change the growth stage and the allowed density type for downloaded Industry lots. All this to say, if you don't want to get your hands dirty with modding growables, CAM and IRM (and especially both together) can seriously restrict what sorts of buildings you download and use - and as far as I know, there aren't any industry downloads outside the base set that will work with both IRM and CAM out of the box.

[Fantozzi 4,067]

Everything will work with CAM except of those things conflicting like mentioned by CorinaMarie. There is no reason a growth stage 4 lot wouldn't grow on grow stage 4, with or without CAM.

Question would be: if your game runs fine without CAM - why would you even install it? What is the sense of having it.

The troubles installing CAM derrive from the fact it has to modify the original game and content.

You may know growable lots have a property called growth stage. Growth stages themselves are part of a quite complex game mechanics depending on regions densitiy, education, water supply and ... and ... So growth stages are formed complex while every growable lot is assigned to those stages.

So first of all - if a growable lot is assigned to a grow stage 4, for example, there is no reason it shouldn't grow on this stage.

CAM expands the game along the time axis. You may know - as an experienced player you can hurry through grow stages in one afternoon and your city soon will look boering plastered with a forrest of skyscrapers mostly of the same kind. 

What CAM aims for - is to extend the process making it more smaller steps that can be more detailed regarding the visual aspects, from tiny rural huts, to european small cities, until to the silhouettes of Miami and Tokyio, Making better use of custom content, so to expand gameplay and have a better game experience.

Just imagine there were only 3 grow stages, small houses, mid sized and skyscrapers. And all of the creations you would have to put into these three drawers. Messy! You wouldn't get much diversity and many of the bats in your plugin folder wouldn't even show up in your cities.

Image this: if you have 200 buildings for 3 grow stage there is far more rivalry between them on each stage as if they have 15 stages to be equally distributed.

So if CAM now changes game mechanics to expand the amount of drawers for lots form 8 to 15 it isn't enough.

It changes nothing, if the content itself remains in drawers 1 to 8 while all the new drawers, stage 9 to 15, stay empty.

So a great part of the original growable lots must be sorted into the new drawers and therefore must be edited to change their growth stage property.

 

Now you have CAM installed and all basic growable lots are sorted anew into those 15 growth stages.

 

Now you download custom content. Now you install a maxis lots blocker because you don't want to see old maxis content anymore.

Can you imagine what happens? All the content you download is sorted in drawers 1 to 8 like it was before CAM and drawers 9 to 15 will stay empty.

If you open PIM-X there is no different processing between CAMelots and conventional lots for growth stage 1 to 8. It seems confusion comes from not separating density of the lot  form regional density. Density of the lot will decide if a building will grow in high, mid or low density zones (you did zone before) and doesn't depend directly to the growth stage. Of course it stil depends on demand if it will grow. Regional density, the population, instead marks one of the caps for a grow stage. So there is no need to make a difference regarding the property 'capacity satisfied' of a bat. It is possible to increase the amount of Sims under CAM but as there is no reason to do so, PIM-X won't do it.

So fun fact for all lots done with PIM-X: there is no difference between CAM and Non-CAM lots on growth stages 1 to 8. They will have the same stats. 

And why is this? Because CAM and base game - on the regular growth stages - don't make a difference IF buildings of a certain lot density will grown but only WHEN they grow. So if you, mix CAM- and non CAM lots, basically what you get is a stew of bats of different sizes instead of an order that shows a development. So its mainly a visual mishmash, not a question compatibility. Okay - there is something else, the question how often one lot grows instead of others of the same grow stage. You may have noticed they don't grow equally distributed but it seems some lots the game loves more others the game loves less. This has to do with they way game chooses lots by percentage from overall regional capacity (see following link), so there is an influence on this by CAM. Yes. But this is another story. 

So inside the following link there is another link to a very similar post with CAM stats, so opening both in your browser you can compare directly the differences:

https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=2994.0

Example:

In Base game, if your region has reached a job capacity of 43859 Sims, stage 8 CO lots will start to grow.

In CAM, if your region has reached a job capacity of 69469 Sims, stage 8 CO lots will start to grow.

So they will grow anyway, just under different conditions. So of course you can use all growables with CAM. No prob.

Instead it's all about demand. About the caps that limit demand. From the example above you may immediatly understand you will need a lot more parks to reach stage 8 in CAM, or modded parks with better caps relief. Some lots by Mattb325 will do great help here. You will need higher network capacities. Those can be the problems when playing with CAM and NAM together, think you have to adjust the traffic simulator to the bigger capacities. 

And also on demand: if you want a really big building with 8000 jobs in your city to grow you must have a demand of 8000 Sims. And that isn't possible with the base game and that's one of the reason why you would really want to have the CAM.

The only problem is - when we are talking about this really big skyscrapers, these wonderfull high quality models of the biggest towers in the world most of them are modded with PIM-X not really working with the base game and not really fitting CAM.

That's because PIM-X hasn't build in the limits of the base game but the limits of CAM so you can exceed the limits of the base game. Or in other words: in PIM-X you can create base game lots with values fitting only CAM. 

So a great part of the game content won't be affected you don't have to worry about this. Basically all growables which create more than 6000 'capacity satisfied' for a single occupant group won't grow in unmodded base game. 

And ... you can't circumvent this limits with ploppables. Never try it! (I did). If you haven't the demand and plop a building with 12.000 jobs (and there are buildings with even more on the STEX) it's like you crash an internal job-calculator, you'll have negative demand for the rest of your life, even if you bulldoze the ploppable. It's like you confused your nation, sheer CHAOS.

So one of the things CAM does ist to extend the headroom for demand drastically - which allows these monster job dispenser to exist. Still it isn't to create monster demand. But then - we lucky people! - this is exactly the reson to have all those wonderfull custom parks and custom monuments. To create desire, burning desire amongst Sims. For culture of course (what did you think?).

What one should know: CAM and PIM-X belong together. You must fill the 15 grow stages you get with NAM on your own and you can even do it - in certain limits  - to your own taste how cities should develop. And this can be great fun, to adjust the development process to your own taste, while many people seem to imagine this as great pain.

I showed you with Colossus Farming Mod, where grow stages can be topical stages, where there is brewery on a grow stage and then on the next growth stage it's turning into lumber industries. 

So you can fine-tune game's development process by deciding in which of those 15 drawers you think a building belongs visually and PIM-X will help you doing that.

And that's the fun about CAM.

Yes, one could put it even this way: without PIM-X CAM doesn't make much sense anymore. Because it's no sense to own 15 drawers where 7 remain empty. Or even if they are filled only with basic content, it doesn't really make sense.

 

My english ... my way of expressing things ... maybe this is easier to read here: 

https://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/238611/what-population-do-you-need-to-get-high-density-residential-commercial-in-simcity4

 

 

[Kalabria 2]

Hi, i have a question. Can i use SimCity 4 Extra Cheats Plugin or it's incompatible with CAM? I've read the CAM 2.1.0 Manual but it doesn't specify what cheats aren't compatible. I only use cheats for money, nothing more.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

Hiya, @Kalabria. Welcome to Simtropolis.

While I don't use CAM, I've recently investigated its exemplars and there should be no trouble at all using the Cheats along with CAM.

[Kalabria 2]

2 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Hiya, @Kalabria. Welcome to Simtropolis.

While I don't use CAM, I've recently investigated its exemplars and there should be no trouble at all using the Cheats along with CAM.

Hi, CorinaMarie. Thank you very much for replying me.