Help with SC4 running on Steam

[thornp113 54]

Howdy ya'll! 

I'm from Michigan (The west side of the state.  NOT Detroit!!!!).  I played sc4 many years ago and now I am returning. I play the game through Steam and I am having trouble with Mods.  I keep reading that they should work fine but they don't.  I think I may need to install an update first?  Idk.  Anyone who has dealt with this please give me any info you can!

Also... I need permission to access discord.  Thanks!

[CorinaMarie 29,626]

Hiya, @thornp113. Welcome to Simtropolis.

The Steam version will not need any updates. Both official Maxis updates are already rolled into it. So, we'll need more specific details like no mods at all work or only specific ones are troublesome and if the latter, which ones?

Re-try the Discord syncing. It should work now.

[thornp113 54]

Thanks!  

I will spend some more time troubleshooting and let you know how it goes.

[Cyclone Boom 16,942]

Hi @thornp113

Just to add a quick tip...

You'll probably already know this, but it's important to make sure SC4 custom content is copied out of zip files, and placed in the following location:

C:\Users\<Username>\Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins

So just double check that the mods and items you're trying to use aren't still in their zip archives while in Plugins.

[thornp113 54]

Thanks.  I just tried installing NAM and it crashed my game.  Do I need to extract it before I run the installation program?

[Cyclone Boom 16,942]

It's probably worth extracting installers before running them, but they usually get copied out to a temporary folder automatically before starting.

One thing needed is to apply the 4GB Patch to use the NAM nowadays.

To do this for NAM 42, run the batch file:

NetworkAddonMod_Setup_Version42.bat

Then it should proceed to patch your game and start the NAM installation.

By the way...

If not seeing the .bat extension, it's likely due to the daft Windows default setting to keep known file extensions hidden. To rectify this, it can be adjusted in file explorer options as this article explains (for various editions of Windows). The benefit is then it becomes clear what each file is to be run as.