Simizen's Mod Madness

[smf_16 1,835]

If you want the background story:

 

Nowadays I recommend you use @Null 45's Growify DLL though, as it doesn't require you to quit the game first.

[Simizen 1,098]

oh, cool!! thank you for the link!!

[Simizen 1,098]

Industry Taxes

So, to start this off, I had a random idea that would allow for a potential way to give us "extra" zones without adding new ones. Thankfully I reread through my idea list earlier and got a refresher regarding it, and basically the current info is that there's no way of convincing the game that there's more zone types.

Spoiler

The idea was to utilize the specialty keys in conjunction with the zones. Since we can use the `Ctrl + Alt + Shift` combo on the God Mode menu to access the pre-incorporated God Mode tools, the thought was that we could utilize them (individually, or in a combo) to convince the game that the Medium and High density Industrial zones were Agriculture, and vice versa. Additionally this could work with things like Commercial to help separate the Services from the Offices, and any potential options regarding Residential.

But sadly this is not currently (if at all) possible to do, even with the DLL modding available to us. But I wanted to share this info in the off chance that it could still somehow be useful, maybe we can use the modifier keys for some extra features in the game or something, who knows

Though, seeing as we have DLL modding now, this has opened up a whole world of possibilities, of which we're barely scratching the surface of currently. But, due to a couple of DLL mods, it has reminded me of a wonderful feature previously found in the older SimCity 2000 game: Industrial Taxes.

^ Original Pic Name: cityindustry.jpg

Now, I don't know the kind of work involved with this, cause for sure a new line item would need to be added to the Income Statement in the Budget window to access a brand new set of taxes to run with, but I think it could be good to have this. However, there's a distinct possibility that more work would need to be added to the game elsewhere, to help piece everything together (namely, another exemplar to add to the lots), and this could make the programming more complex unfortunately.

But, the overall idea here, is that if we can add industry specific taxes, then we can control what can grow in an industrial area. And honestly a similar thing could be done for the Commercial lots as well. The only catch to this is, I'm not sure if the taxes could alter how the farm lots grow beyond just encouraging/discouraging them, as the goal is to do something similar to my FARM idea, where you can get things like logging camps, quarries, etc. Though, a separate one for changing out the kinds of farms wouldn't be out of the question, as there's plenty of different crops and such that people have put together, and it would be a great way for players to have their cities specialize in certain crop types (and a great way to actually kill the Pedriana Plants lot without the need for specialty mods )

However, after noticing some stuff on the list, it's quite possible that this could be applied to both the Commercial and Industrial zones simultaneously, which could provide for some rather interesting effects when developing a city.

Given the above list, if the Industry Taxes is implemented in the game, I would suggest breaking it down into 3 groups:

• Industrial:
  • Steel/Mining
  • Textiles
  • Petrochemical
  • Aerospace
• Mixed:
  • Food
  • Construction
  • Automotive
  • Electronics
  • Pharmaceuticals
• Commercial:
  • Finance
  • Media
  • Tourism

While not originally part of the list, I have added Pharmaceuticals to the list as that's a valid industry IRL. Note that it is likely that Pharmaceuticals is covered by one or more of the industries, I felt it best to give it it's own category for people to tax it however they want.

Save for the Pharmaceuticals color, the 3 colors for each of the groups is based on the Wealth Taxes window, and applied to the appropriate groups for convenience. Though it may be possible to change out the color for the Mixed type to something else, this was just meant to keep it simple for anyone attempting to make the mod.