SimCity 4 Hardcore Challenge

[Jessica Lee 41]

Introducing the SimCity 4 hardcore challenge there's only 4 rules
TLDR: hard difficulty, no mods, no cheats, only one city

1) hard difficulty
2) no mods - an exemption can be made for mods that prevent the game from immediately crashing to desktop but no mods that affect gameplay such as NAM, CAM, spam, airport/seaports, no bug fixes - you have to deal with bugs such as rich people not working in high tech or certain educational buildings being a detriment once maxed out.
3) no cheats - aside from maybe renaming the tile/mayor but still try to avoid
4) limit 1 city - you create a new region then edit the config in paint to be one large tile 4x4 pixels blue (0,0,255) - you are solely responsible for you're own trash/water/power/sewage

You're allowed to zone or build whatever you like, tax however you like, connections - to simnation - are allowed, terraforming is allowed (if it somehow helps), you can take loans and intentionally go broke to get bizness deals and double plop rewards

I'll gift the winner (highest population) a game up to $25 usd via steam, I can be convinced to go higher based on how good the build. To get in contact with my discord is Jess1ca369.

[CorinaMarie 29,571]

12 minutes ago, Joshua LeMay said:

edit the config in paint

You could attach the config.bmp to your post so peeps can download it.  

 

13 minutes ago, Joshua LeMay said:

I'll gift the winner (highest population) a game up to $25 usd via steam. To get in contact with my discord is Jess1ca369.

For this part, Note: Simtropolis, its owner (@Dirktator), and all of its staff do not endorse nor certify any aspect of the contest. Ofc, we don't mind if y'all do it and it's up to everyone on their own to decide about contact and such.  

Then a suggestion: You could have peeps upload their finished creation to the Ready Made Regions STEX category. 

-Cori & CB (doing the admin thing)

[urbanmosaic 233]

I've been using SimCity 4 since 2005 so I'll definitely take this challenge.  I don't use either Steam or Discord so if I win you could maybe donate the $25 to Simtropolis.  How will you verify that the winner did not cheat?  Is it by the honor system?  Maybe some ST Mods would be willing to be independent judges, but that's probably a liability issue. When will you determine a winner?  

Here is a Region Folder with the required config.bmp and region.ini named Hardcore Challenge. I'm going to get started on my entry now. 

Hardcore Challenge.zip

[Jessica Lee 41]

Hey urbanmosaic. Update: I'm going to judge the contest. The contest end at the end of the month -> greenich mean time; note: 12:00 am is the first minute of the day. Cities are to be sent to me -> please upload to google drive then send me the link. I can totally donate to simtropolis, hobbyist/retrogame site and/or any valid nonprofit (not associated with politics), or via paypal - currency conversion/transaction fees are on the recipient, I'm in the usa.

[urbanmosaic 233]

1 hour ago, Joshua LeMay said:

The contest end at the end of the month

Okay, Game On!    I've already got started. I used @urbanmosaic as the mayor name so you know which entry belongs to who. Lots of time to tweak the city to get max pop.

[Jessica Lee 41]

Here's my attempt at my challenge

[urbanmosaic 233]

I'm still working on my Hardcore Challenge city.  Its more challenging than I thought it would be, but its coming along.  I couldn't find a definite reliable source for maximum pop. achieved in a single large tile with no mods, but safe to say its probably above 1 million. This is a contest so I'm not reporting my progress... Out of interest, According to Guinness:

__________________________________________________________

SimCity 4 in the Guinness Book of Records:

"As of 12 January 2016, the largest SimCity 4 region ever created, in terms of total population, was made by YouTube user Peter Ritchie. His monstrous mega-region consisted of 81 large city tiles, 16,492 miles of paved road, 5,360 miles of subway lines, 324 hydrogen power plants, 486 waste-to-energy plants, 512 large water pumps, plus over 2,000 schools, 81 universities and 162 colleges. All that infrastructure enabled the region to reach a maximum, record-setting population of 107,658,254 residents." --Guinness

Source: https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/418977-largest-SimCity-4-city-region

[Jessica Lee 41]

Hey guys so here's the thing the 8 pm greenich mean time on the 30th to 8 am on the 31st is when we will be report results (by showing a screenshot of what you got), 8 am on the 31st to the beginning of august that's the submission date.Unfortunately I haven't established a means of not having the winner's city be public.

[urbanmosaic 233]

I got to 541,000 population and thought it would be easy to get to 1 million, but nope it just became impossible to get any further.

Even though I filled the whole tile I could only maintain a population of 335,000.  Its an awful mess with constant fires, massive dilapidation and degrading utilities. 

So 541,000 is the max. population for me in the Hardcore Challenge.  I'm going back to mods now.

[Jessica Lee 41]

I'm declaring urban mosaic the winner. What prize would you like, I can donate $25 to simtropolis like you suggested before.

[urbanmosaic 233]

5 hours ago, Jessica Lee said:

I'm declaring urban mosaic the winner. What prize would you like, I can donate $25 to simtropolis like you suggested before.

You did better than me with 630,000.  I still think I can make it to a million if I follow exactly what the simulator wants rather than trying to force it, so I'll put that project on my list and whenever I do I'll post it here.  @CorinaMarie  had suggested uploading the result to Ready Made Regions but no not the mess I made. Its a case of dystopia worse than Bladerunner world. 

Yes, please do donate the $25 to Simtropolis, it was worth the effort to contribute something back to this community and its very kind of you to do this challenge and reward.  I learned a bit more about how the raw simulator works with no mods.  I don't think most people would have stuck with this game so long without the corrections of the NAM and many other mods.   

So thank-you very much, and thanks to Simtropolis.