SC4 City Date Sync - synchronize the city dates in a region

[Null 45 3,129]

A DLL Plugin for SimCity 4 that synchronizes the city dates in a region.

The plugin saves the current in-game date when exiting an established city, and then applies it to the next established city if that city's in-game date is less then the stored value. The city date is applied by automatically executing the SimDate cheat when loading the city. The city date synchronization only occurs between cities located in the same region.

Disclaimer - I have not experienced any issues with using the SimDate command in this way, but it may have side effects that I missed.

Download: https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/35782-sc4citydatesync/

Source Code:  https://github.com/0xC0000054/sc4-city-date-sync

System Requirements

Windows 10 or later

Installation

1. Close SimCity 4.
2. Copy SC4CityDateSync.dll and SC4CityDateSync.ini into the Plugins folder in the SimCity 4 installation directory.
3. Start SimCity 4.

Troubleshooting

The plugin should write a SC4CityDateSync.log file in the same folder as the plugin.
The log contains status information for the most recent run of the plugin.

[Null 45 3,129]

Release version 1.0.1, which ignores the date when exiting a city that has not been established.

[Somnolence 81]

Sounds interesting, but does it affect the gameplay in any way?

I assume it depends on whether the city date does anything (except for the fireworks thingy).

[SIM-ple Jack 17,451]

5 hours ago, Somnolence said:

Sounds interesting, but does it affect the gameplay in any way?

IMO, I think it does. Did some experimenting with game time, earlier this year, and I believe a time synced region can forestall un-zoned plop abandonment by as much as 7-9 game months. All my maps released are pre-synced now. Might try fine tuning to time of day on next region, to see what happens. If this mod becomes available in earlier Win versions, I'll give it a whirl.

WIN7

[Null 45 3,129]

5 hours ago, Somnolence said:

Sounds interesting, but does it affect the gameplay in any way?

I don't know. As I said in my disclaimer, it didn't appear to have any negative effects but I may have missed some.

5 hours ago, Somnolence said:

I assume it depends on whether the city date does anything (except for the fireworks thingy).

Correct. The game dispatches notifications when the in-game year, month and day change, but I haven't checked checked to see if those events fire in this case and I don't know what parts of the game may be listening or what they do in response to it.

5 minutes ago, SIM-ple Jack said:

If this mod becomes available in earlier Win versions, I'll give it a whirl.

What Windows version do you need the mod built for? I only put Win10 in the description because I have no way of testing on Win 8 or 7, but I have an XP Virtual Machine that should be compatible with the GOG offline installer for SC4. I should probably also do that testing for my auto-save plugin.

[Null 45 3,129]

1 hour ago, SIM-ple Jack said:

WIN7

The plugin may be compatible with Win7, it is much more likely to work on that OS than XP (which would need a recompile). You may need to install the VC2022 x86 redistribute from Microsoft for the plugin to function: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170#visual-studio-2015-2017-2019-and-2022

If it works on Win7, post a reply in this thread and I will update the system requirements.

[Null 45 3,129]

Released version 1.0.2, which fixes an issue with the SimDate command not working.