poll Who is your favorite advisor? [Poll]

[Dreamcitybuilder 161]

While I barely listen to them after all those years, they still continue to accompany us in our city-building endeavors and helped to shape countless mega-cities ...

But who is your favorite city advisor? Which one of them should get elected as President of SimNation?

Which one of them gave you the best advice? And which one is just annoying?

 

Vote here to solve this fundamentally irrelevant question!

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

I went with Bettina Dean (Health and Education) since I always micro manage my medical and school funding and she's the one who let's me know when the current capacity becomes insufficient.

[Cyclone Boom 17,031]

Not that we really need it, but to help with casting votes, I've added a message banner atop the thread reminding who they each are.

Mr Armstrong got my vote, seeing as he's incredibly considerate with all the meticulous health and safety advice he gives me on my weekly mayoral briefing.

[hugues aroux 3,854]

Warf ! I love this trivia. Well, considering the number of clicks on his face for so many years to open the DAMN Menu, for me it's Fairbanks and I like (not) his carnivorous smile ...

[The Thinker 479]

"Who is your favourite advisor?"

Hmm, I'm not particularly sure I can even answer this question.

Wait a moment...

*frantic scribblings*

"Who is your least favourite advisor?"

There, much better.  Anyway, to answer that question, it would have to be the Environmental Advisor.  Seriously, you do no have the right to shut down my water pumping facilities!  Also, stop bugging me to shut down that Coal Power Plant, you're not the one having to watch the city budget here!  *Grr!  Grumble!  Complain!*

[Tubthumper 499]

Jamil Herd - because with the installation of NAM, I hear nary a thing from him.  The way I like my advisors - silent and agreeable.  This is SimDictatorship over here!

[Simizen 1,100]

absolutely loving the universal hate that the environmental advisor's getting here

just wish she was written better, cause, she's annoying to deal with, due to yelling at you over some of the stupidest things, and then just shuts everything down at critical moments costing you hundreds of sims and thousands of simoleons needed to build up your city

Neil's not bad though

[Dreamcitybuilder 161]

Apparently nobody likes Camille Meadows ...   (with 0 votes at the moment)

[The Thinker 479]

4 hours ago, Ryuu Tenno said:

absolutely loving the universal hate that the environmental advisor's getting here

just wish she was written better, cause, she's annoying to deal with, due to yelling at you over some of the stupidest things, and then just shuts everything down at critical moments costing you hundreds of sims and thousands of simoleons needed to build up your city

Neil's not bad though

The Enviromental Advisor in SimCity 3000 had a far more pleasant personality, with her I actually wanted to help her agenda.

In fact, I think there's a critical flaw with all of the advisors in SimCity 4, they're just not helpful.  Well, I certainly don't find them helpful that's for sure.  At least the SC3K advisors actually provided useful briefing notes & petitioner profiles, which I think provided a neat and unintrusive way of diegetically conveying tips & hints to the player.

[Simizen 1,100]

yeah, i agree, 3k had the best personalities for their advisors. Something I wish 4 had done. If they were to ever remake 4 (or we can manage the open source version everyone wants), I think looking back at 3k for inspiration would be a good idea so that we can have better personalities for them. Alternatively, we could just graft the 3k advisors over the ones in 4 and just call it a day, since we can build off their personalities, lol

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

56 minutes ago, Ryuu Tenno said:

If they were to ever remake 4 (or we can manage the open source version everyone wants), I think looking back at 3k for inspiration would be a good idea so that we can have better personalities for them.

All it would take is the time and dedication. Everything the Advisors say and when they are triggered is controlled by Lua code which we have access to.

[Lucario Boricua 7,048]

Am I the only one who's okay with Camille Meadows but loathes Neil Fairbanks? I swear Neil has some corrupt business going on in my cities. Then again, I tend to be quite diligent of managing the environmental conditions in my cities.

[Simizen 1,100]

19 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Everything the Advisors say and when they are triggered is controlled by Lua code which we have access to.

I feel dumb sometimes, cause, I forgot that was a thing, lol

[TheMurderousCricket 5,085]

On 12.03.2022 at 7:55 PM, Dreamcitybuilder said:

Apparently nobody likes Camille Meadows ...   (with 0 votes at the moment)

I voted for her because, somehow, park rangers are the only law enforcement agency that I find appealing.

By the way, did you know that some people actually mistake her uniform for a garden hat? Please don't be that person... 

All other advisor are either stupid, offensive, arrogant or cynical if you ask me.

[Tubthumper 499]

2 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

By the way, did you know that some people actually mistake her uniform for a garden hat? Please don't be that person... 

What type of person am I who thought it was weird she was wearing a 1930s barbershop quartet hat?

[Terring 6,476]

On 12/3/2022 at 11:47 PM, The Thinker said:

In fact, I think there's a critical flaw with all of the advisors in SimCity 4, they're just not helpful.  Well, I certainly don't find them helpful that's for sure.  At least the SC3K advisors actually provided useful briefing notes & petitioner profiles, which I think provided a neat and unintrusive way of diegetically conveying tips & hints to the player.

SC3K advisors are more helpful because they give you all the information and hints you need all the time and not only in emergency situations, while the SC4 advisors only informs you when something needs your attention without any hint and it's up to you to find the solution. Also the SC3K advisors are more respectable to you even if you messed up your city, while the SC4 advisors have no problem to mock you. Jonas Sparks takes the cake on that. He even calls you "donkey" if you close a detrimental for your city deal. But at least he's fun. Bettina Dean, on the other hand, is more serious and more rough to you. She's a scientist that wants only the best in healthcare and education, which is fine and it's what I want for my Sims too, but it's not fine when she blames you for "putting healthcare in the bottom of your agenda" just for one extra patient in a small clinic. Also, for some reason, Neil Fairbanks has no problem to invade in other's advisors fields and informs you about anything else, like taxes and pollution. Don't we have Monique Diamond and Camille Meadows for those fields?

And to stay on topic, my vote goes to Jamil Herd because he's cool.

[MI Explorer 19]

I have to go with Jamil Herd, the transportation advisor. He's a cool dude in a loose mood. Whenever he gets unhappy or concerned about something, he is mild and keeps his cool. He has that "Hey, hey...come on now" kind of attitude.

My second favourite is Jonas Sparks, simply because of his catchy humour.

My least favourite is Bettina Dean. She looks sad all the time and acts like she is suffering from depression. Poor lady... 

[Edvarz 1,985]

I'm torn between Neil Fairbanks and Jamil Herd, to me they are the most pleasant without being yes-men. My pick for least favourite though has to be Mr Sparks, he constantly pops in to berate you about aging power or water facilities, and while it's useful, he's just rude . I honestly like mrs Dean better. On the other hand, I almost never read what the finance or environment advisors say, they've never given me any trouble.

[Dreamcitybuilder 161]

On 3/13/2022 at 3:54 AM, CorinaMarie said:

All it would take is the time and dedication. Everything the Advisors say and when they are triggered is controlled by Lua code which we have access to.

Would it be in theory possible to alter the text of Jamil Herd, to give some tips how to use NAM ?

And would it be possible to replace their images?

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

3 minutes ago, Dreamcitybuilder said:

Would it be in theory possible to alter the text of Jamil Herd, to give some tips how to use NAM ?

Yes. That's completely doable. It's more a matter of someone knowing what to have them say, what to have trigger each advisor message, and then who will do the Lua coding.

 

5 minutes ago, Dreamcitybuilder said:

And would it be possible to replace their images?

The advisors portraits? Yes, but it needs some sort of warped, wraparound image. I've no idea if that's easy or difficult to do.

[hugues aroux 3,854]

Personally, it would be fun to redo these faces, and I was wondering if there was not an app produced by EA at the time of Sims2 to redo the faces and import them into the game. ??? Something like that ??!! Very vague memory. I'll look for it ...

[Simizen 1,100]

lol, I get on the site after chatting with people in the SC4D discord server, and immediately after talking about potential replacements for the advisors, I'm seeing it pop up over here (granted y'all have stuff from like 12 hours ago, but, still, lol)

Though, i'm totally in favor of having them replaced, along with updated info. Was considering starting a thread on it tbh, but, I in no way have any idea of how to even begin to do that kind of mod.

But, totally with @Dreamcitybuilder here on replacing the transportation advisor, or his dialog info with stuff regarding NAM.

Spoiler

I've got a few good ideas on how to expand on/update the advisors.  But, not sure if a new thread is viable. That said, I'd rather not hijack this thread for that purpose. Up to y'all. Seeing the discussion on it would be neat though.

 

[Terring 6,476]

On 15/3/2022 at 3:21 AM, Alexander Maddox said:

My least favourite is Bettina Dean. She looks sad all the time and acts like she is suffering from depression. Poor lady... 

Maybe because she have seen some really crazy and terrible things.  Maybe this is why she looks so angry when something goes wrong.

[valiullin 13]

Don't fall for Neil's bootlicking tactics, sure he looks SO friendly giving you all the nice rewards and a house on city funds and statues of you but I'm warning you, this guy's a sneaky scheming little rat that'll stop at nothing to get ahead. If you trust him then go ahead and turn your back on him, soon you'll be six feet under in one of Neil's free graveyards and there'll be colossal statues of mayor Fairbanks spawning everywhere in your cities.

I'm going with Monique because at least when she gives me stuff she makes me feel ashamed of myself.

[Dreamcitybuilder 161]

17 hours ago, Ryuu Tenno said:

But, totally with @Dreamcitybuilder here on replacing the transportation advisor, or his dialog info with stuff regarding NAM.

Why not start the discussion here? I mean if we are already talking about the advisors ...

It seems as if the advisors nowadays follow outdated views on city planning... I mean constructing coal power plants, promoting limitless growth and urban sprawl and more and more roads instead of intelligent transit.

---------------------------------------------------

10 hours ago, valiullin said:

I'm going with Monique because at least when she gives me stuff she makes me feel ashamed of myself.

I rarely ever hear anything from her.

 

It seems as if @Lucario Boricua and @valiullin have some serious accusations against Mr. Fairbanks .... .... Fascinating conspiracy theory ideas ....

Maybe Fairbanks has a secret deal with the construction industry? Fairbanks convinces the mayor to add more and more zoning, and earns a cut from their profits ....

Would make a nice background story for a city journal ... The advisors start a conspiracy against the player and govern their towns themselves ...

 

[Simizen 1,100]

1 hour ago, Dreamcitybuilder said:

Why not start the discussion here? I mean if we are already talking about the advisors ...

if @CorinaMarie or @Cyclone Boom are cool with that, sure, I can post some ideas on it

[CorinaMarie 29,857]

6 hours ago, Ryuu Tenno said:

if @CorinaMarie or @Cyclone Boom are cool with that, sure, I can post some ideas on it

Considering @Dreamcitybuilder started the topic and they say " Why not start the discussion here?", it's perfectly fine to post your ideas in this thread. (Without the OP suggesting it, I'd agree a new topic might've been the way to go.)

[Simizen 1,100]

16 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Considering @Dreamcitybuilder started the topic and they say " Why not start the discussion here?", it's perfectly fine to post your ideas in this thread. (Without the OP suggesting it, I'd agree a new topic might've been the way to go.)

Awesome. And, i feel dumb for not realizing that they were the ones who started the thread,

So, the ideas for the advisors is that we could either replace them with new ones, or, update them with newer information. I believe @Lucario Boricua knows a bit of this, as we talked about how the transportation advisor could be replaced with a NAM team member (such as @Haljackey).

So, the list as we figured it (loosely):
-City Planner: someone from CAM
-Utilities: either @Simmer2, or @RobertaME
-Transportation: @Haljackey, or @Tarkus
-Environmental: either someone from SPAM or, @CorinaMarie

_{(sorry for all the pings )}

These were the ones we talked about. Not finding anything on the others, so, they could probably be left alone. Of course, I think a poll should be made, or, at the very least, a thorough discussion should be had, about who we could turn into useful advisors for the game. The ones mentioned, were chosen for their experience (or perceived experience) in these areas. I jokingly suggest that we have a good candidate for who could be our garbage utility advisor, that being EA Games

In my opinion, I'd like to have actual sim versions of the people we use as advisors, and, maybe give them a special icon to be put with them, that represents their particular mod. So, for example, the transportation advisor, could be someone from the NAM team, but, would also have the NAM logo in the corner somewhere. The original idea for this was, we could replace each advisor, according to the mods that are used. So, the players would still get the vanilla advisors, but, they would only change when installing other mods. This would mean, we'd have to expand on the mods a bit to include advisors for each, but, of course, this is all dependent on who's involved with the mods. I don't know who'd be in charge of SPAM at this point to ask them if they'd be willing to add a new advisor to it. But, of course, many players will still want their vanilla advisors, so, this may inevitably work out to being a separate mod, or set of mods, instead.

I'd certainly love to see y'all's responses to this, and see what kind of ideas y'all would have for who we can have as advisors. There aren't any hard and fast rules with this, just some preferences. And, the biggest is, if we change out the advisors, we need to give them loads of information regarding the mods they're supposed to be connected to, that way players can better understand what's going on in the city. As for the NAM team, this may actually prove rather beneficial for them, as they can toss in key information about the different network types, as well as draggable networks vs puzzle pieces.

Probably the biggest catch to this, is that AMPS likely can't be changed (unless @RobertaME wants to change it), because she's expressed interest in why she uses the city planner for it. And, for that I would like to respect her decision and leave some of it alone. Though, I'm sure there will also be some weird conflicts regarding mods due to this, so, it will likely need some in-depth discussion to try and reduce these issues to the best of our abilities.

I'd look into the lua code to see what could be done to update the advisors, but, I'm already all over the place with like 6 or 7 different projects in my free time as it is (along with a fun mess of stuff irl), so, I sadly won't be able to really do anything with the lua code; at least, for a while. I'm honestly sure that by the time I could do anything with it, this mod would be done by then.

[hugues aroux 3,854]

hi, I've opened a topic on: Advisor appearance HERE; as I'm going to modify mine (advisors), I might as well share my info collection, talk about it and exchange without disturbing a more technical topic - LUA - Advisor-player interaction! isn't it!

[vw_oklahoma 308]

My fav is Monique Diamond. I figured out long ago the point of this game is to keep Monique quiet and happy. As long as she is content, it is irrelevant what the other six say. When she starts yelling, I'm in deep trouble and fixing to run for the senate.