Making a region I plan to share when done

[dbarandiaran 50]

Hi everyone! First off, I am a Mac user, so I don't have access to the terraformer applications and am therefore using the in-game map maker. I've looked on the maps library and have found some very nice regions, but I decided to make my own region to fit all of my wishlist into a single region.

My region is 4x3 large tiles, will have a small coast, some rivers and some mountains. I am aiming for a region that is not totally flat, but nonetheless will not have terrain that is difficult to work around.

I have the water worked out, that took me ~10 hours to get to a point I am happy with. Now I am going to be working on the mountains and regional contours. That I expect will take a lot longer, but I wanted to post a preview and get some initial thoughts/reactions.

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

@dbarandiaran

Welcome to Simtropolis!

It looks a nicely terraformed region with how you've made the smooth transitions between the meandering waterways.

Feel free to upload it to the STEX in the Maps Category once you've finished it.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

2 minutes ago, dbarandiaran said:

I wanted to post a preview and get some initial thoughts/reactions.

I like what you've created. And the oxbow portions of the smaller rivers are a great feature.

 

4 minutes ago, dbarandiaran said:

Making a region I plan to share when done

Are you using the 64 bit version of the game? I ask because if so, you will need to label your map as Mac Only.

The city save files are a completely different structure than the non Mac versions. While the 64 bit Mac version of the game can read any 32 bit city save, the reverse isn't true for all non Mac versions of the game to read files saved from a 64 bit Mac.

[dbarandiaran 50]

11 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Are you using the 64 bit version of the game? I ask because if so, you will need to label your map as Mac Only.

 

I am running the Steam version, but don't know if it is 64-bit version or 32-bit. How can I find which one I am running?

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

2 minutes ago, dbarandiaran said:

How can I find which one I am running?

The Mac experts would prolly have an easy, simple answer. I use Windoze so I'm not certain.

However, if you want to attach a single city save file, we can try to import it into a sandbox region and see if the game gets mad or not.

[dbarandiaran 50]

Ok, here is one of the tiles where a smaller river branches off one of the main channels.

City - New City (10).sc4

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

@dbarandiaran

Thanks for the file. We'll look into it now to see whether it's compatible with our Windows version.

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

While your city doesn't open in our games, we do have good news.

Cori and I both tested importing your city tile, and the game itself doesn't recognize it. However, the Mapper tool reads it just fine, and from there it can be exported as a SC4M file which is importable into the 32-bit game. So once you've finished hand-crafting the region, we can do the conversion so you can then share it with everyone. Just send it to us when it's ready, and then we'll make a SC4M file of your region, and also the raw saved city files which will be compatible with the Windows version.

(Uploading to the WeTransfer temporary storage site is an option if too large for uploading as an attachment. Just choose the Link option.)

Probably just best to not start Mayor mode in any city tile, as that might affect whether or not Mapper can still read the terrain data. We aren't sure on this, but best to play it safe as a precaution. There was a member who posted a Mac region, and the tiles themselves were unrecoverable for the actual city data.

Here's a preview of your re-rendered tile in region view:

 

Mapper was able to export the terrain data which allowed creating as a new file.

[rsc204 21,808]

On 23/11/2021 at 9:16 PM, dbarandiaran said:

I am running the Steam version, but don't know if it is 64-bit version or 32-bit. How can I find which one I am running?

You have the 64-bit (or newer) version.

Steam, like most online services auto-update your software without your input, so there is no way you can realistically have the old version. Bear in mind too, if you are using MacOS Catalina or newer, the 32-bit version won't even run on your Mac any more since 32-bit support has been completely removed from MacOS.

As mentioned, provided you don't want to re-distribute cities with development, the maps themselves can be converted to a format that works with both games. But once a save file has been saved with the 64-bit version of the game, it'll never work with any other version of SC4.

[dbarandiaran 50]

Update: It turns out using the in-game map editor is hard. After a lot of frustration and an accidental write-over of my map file (grrr...) I discovered Corina's most excellent post on using cloud images as a basis for maps:

I've been messing with cloud images and some DEM files, and I have a region that I have uploaded to STEX:

There will be more.