Negative Mayor Rating

[JustArrived 18]

The title says it, but ...

 

This is for all those who had / got a negative mayor rating and could not find a cause.

 

As you search the net you will constantly get the suggestions that it is caused by, pollution, crime, taxes, no trees/parks, and the list goes on.

 

Well, I had all of those well and truly covered. Yet not matter what I tried my city would start off OK, then slowly dive all the way to about -80%. No matter what I tried it would not come up, although one time, using heaps of trees and parks I got it to 0%, but then it just slowly went back to about -80%. A LOT of people said you must be doing something extremely bad for it to go so low. But that was not the cause. I know this is long, but, please let me show you how I found out it was not me, nor anything I was doing.

 

After reading a bizillion web pages, I found one comment that suggested it could be a bad MOD and I think it was on this site Simtropolis. And that's how I found out what it was. So here is the run down.

 

1 – The cause :-

It was a badly written MOD.

In my case it was “Reserved Lots”

I used this to mark out areas as well as reserving lots for latter expansion.

I now use “Planning Block” by Corine (love your work by the way).

 

2 – How I found out :-

        1 – I uninstalled SimCity 4 completely. And deleted all folders associated with it.

        2 – I installed the vanilla version from GOG (Deluxe Edition v1.1.641 hotfix). Did not start game.

        3 – I installed SC4 Launcher. Started game for the 1^st time thru SC4 Launcher.

        4 – I ran the game and started a new region and city, and ran it for a few sim years to make sure. +80% mayor.

        5 – Next installed NAM and about 3 MOD's. I kept track of which MOD's I had installed.

        6 – I repeated Step 3 and ran the city for a few Sim years. +80% mayor.

        7 – I kept repeating this process, installing about 3 MOD's each time, and each time creating a new region and city, and ran it for a few years.

        8 – After a few 'rounds of repeats' the mayor rating started to plummet. all the way to about -80%.

        9 – It had to be one of the last 3 MOD's I installed. So I removed all 3 and added one at a time, and each time creating a new region, city, and ran it for a few years.

        10 – As soon as I had ”Reserved Lots” installed AND used them, the mayor rating nose-dived. Even it I bulldozed all of it lots, the negative mayor rating remained. The only way I could 'fix' it was to uninstalled “Reserved Lots” and delete all cities that I had used it on.

        11 – Now my mayor rating sits about +80-90%%

 

I hope this helps anyone with the same or similar issue.

Just another SC4 addict, oops, lover

Kevin

 

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

Do you mean the "Reserved Lots" by @nos.17? Please provide the exact link if you can, so that others know which mod you have in mind.

There are also whole collections of shady BATs which include strip clubs, brothels and gambling dens which are specifically designed to infuriate your Sims.  But they were done on purpose.

[JustArrived 18]

Oops, you're right, my bad. Thanks for the heads up about providing a link.

The MOD that was giving me trouble was Reserved Lots. A great idea, but just gave me a headache or a negative rating.

 

 

13 minutes ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

There are also whole collections of shady BATs which include strip clubs, brothels and gambling dens which are specifically designed to infuriate your Sims.  But they were done on purpose.

Funny, never looked for things like that, but it does keep some people happy, sad, um, something .....

[JustArrived 18]

Also, finally found CorinaMarie's Planning Blocks again to give everyone  a link.

Scroll down the comments for a bit and you will find "Planning Blocks"

A big thank you to @CorinaMarie for her excellent work as always.

Really a big thanks to all who keep SC4 'alive', Simtropolis, The Stex, SC4Ever, NAM, please forgive me if I have overlooked anyone ....

But feel free to add them here 

Regards,

Kevin

[TheMurderousCricket 5,055]

6 minutes ago, JustArrived said:

Also, finally found CorinaMarie's Planning Blocks again to give everyone  a link.

That looks practical, but I'd rather use a full menu mod if it wasn't for certain doubts that I have...

One thing that I don't get is whether menu mods are easily customizable, or whether I just need to stick to the menu structure provided by the mod's creators... In the latter, downloading such mod would be pointless.

[JustArrived 18]

7 hours ago, TheMurderousCricket said:

That looks practical, but I'd rather use a full menu mod if it wasn't for certain doubts that I have...

I don't use the Menu Mod, it's just the only place I've found where Corina has the Planning Blocks available as a download.

I use Sub-Menus, although I wish it had the ability so I could move/place items in the menu that works for me. But it is a great piece of work.

If your reading this Corina, would you consider having your Planning Blocks on their own download page? Just a thought

 

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

2 hours ago, JustArrived said:

If your reading this Corina, would you consider having your Planning Blocks on their own download page? Just a thought

Yes, I am reading this and I want to research it a bit to give you a proper answer.  

The short version is the file attached to the post was a very first draft and may very likely have park and landmark effects.  Later, @Duco made them a standalone file on the STEX (with my permission) and I worked with them back and forth thru a few versions, but I don't recall if the final one had the park and landmark effects in them or not.

I now seem to recall several years later it was discovered the game doesn't recover well if bulldozing a bunch of lots with auras in the same game session. Like it creates a negative effect or something. I believe that was found when bulldozing someone's embankment walls, but the same thing could very well be happening with planning blocks. 

Hopefully I can find that discussion when I have more time. For now, I would be very, very suspicious of said Planning Blocks. What do the Parks Aura and Landmark Aura look like in the troubled city tile? And do we have a before and after version or only the current borked city?

[11241036 5,097]

35 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

I now seem to recall several years later it was discovered the game doesn't recover well if bulldozing a bunch of lots with auras in the same game session. Like it creates a negative effect or something. I believe that was found when bulldozing someone's embankment walls, but the same thing could very well be happening with planning blocks. 

I believe this is exactly what happened here. It's not plopping these lots - it's actually bulldozing them after plopping them en masse. I've looked into these lots by @nos.17 and saw that they provide a +10 to mayor rating for every instance of these lots you are plopping, in a radius of 256 cells. However, as far as I know, the mayor rating cannot go above 200 and below -200. The game just adds 10 to your mayor rating every time you are plopping such a lot until it hits 200; it doesn't keep a record how many of these lots you have plopped.

A short example:

• Base mayor rating = 0
• Plop 30 of these lots: 30x10 = 300, but you cannot go above 200, so the result is +200
• Remove all 30 of these lots: 200-300 = -100

It's not fair, but that's the way it is, similar to how you can break the game by modding lots although some instances are still in your city. The game doesn't connect the effects of a building to the lot - it just adds the effect to your city whenever you are plopping a lot, and removes it once you are bulldozing it. And it always looks for the effect once you are plopping/bulldozing it in the current file - not the one you had when plopping a lot.

You can, by the way, use this to your advantage in order to fix your city, if you know how to use iLive's Reader. This is a pretty dirty trick, and it's always better not to modify lots while some instances of them are still in your city, but I can't think of any other way to save your city:

1. Save a backup of the files somewhere, first of all.
2. Plop enough of these lots to increase your mayor rating to any level you like. Save, and then quit.
3. Use Reader to remove the Mayor Rating property from the building exemplar files.
4. Next, go back into the affected city and bulldoze all of these lots. Don't worry, this time nothing should happen. If the mayor rating still keeps decreasing: Save again, and then revert the change to these lots (put the Mayor Rating property back in), and repeat steps 1-4.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

8 minutes ago, 11241036 said:

... a +10 to mayor rating for every instance of these lots you are plopping, in a radius of 256 cells.

Ah! That's what I recall. 

Which maybe exonerates the Planning Blocks?!?

I've been testing with more and more plops of them, checking the Parks Aura, then bulldozing en masse, and I've not yet been able to create any negative auras and the Mayor Rating remains unchanged cause said Planning Blocks don't directly affect it.

Spoiler

 

[11241036 5,097]

On 31.12.2025 at 3:46 AM, CorinaMarie said:

Ah! That's what I recall. 

Which maybe exonerates the Planning Blocks?!?

I've been testing with more and more plops of them, checking the Parks Aura, then bulldozing en masse, and I've not yet been able to create any negative auras and the Mayor Rating remains unchanged cause said Planning Blocks don't directly affect it.

  Sample Test in Game (Hide contents)

 

 

I just looked into the Planning Blocks.They do not have any real effect whatsoever, you should be able to plop/remove as many of them as you want without ruining your park/whatever aura.

There is a dedicated Park Effect property (Name value: 0x27812850), I think that this one has the biggest effect on park aura. See the attached picture. I don't know if other variables, such as high pollution values, have any influence on park aura. Likewise for landmark aura, there is a Landmark Effect Property (Name value: 0x2781284F).

[nos.17 5,120]

On 12/30/2025 at 9:31 PM, 11241036 said:

I believe this is exactly what happened here. It's not plopping these lots - it's actually bulldozing them after plopping them en masse. I've looked into these lots by @nos.17 and saw that they provide a +10 to mayor rating for every instance of these lots you are plopping, in a radius of 256 cells.

Thanks for this - looks like I missed this property. I will get these updated as they really should be neutral.

[JustArrived 18]

On 03/01/2026 at 7:48 AM, nos.17 said:

Thanks for this - looks like I missed this property. I will get these updated as they really should be neutral.

That would be legendary nos.17, I would still like to use them. I'm sorry if it made you look bad. I think first I should have tried to contact you. Sorry about that mate.

In regard to Planning Blocks. In some cities I have placed a large amount, bulldozing them a bit at time when I get o them. At times I've only placed a few. Either way I have not noticed any negative mayor effects. Always sits from +70- to 90%. Still would be great to have them as a download as well as I like to plan out my entire city before any resident 'moves in' and having both Reserved Lots & Planning Blocks available would be great  

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

1 hour ago, JustArrived said:

Still would be great to have them as a download...

Do you mean different than the STEX linky I posted above in reply #7? While they are listed as Menu Dividers, they also show them used as Planning Blocks.

I do believe now all these years later in hindsight we should've taken out the pluses to Parks and Landmark Auras. (Back then neither of us really knew what we were doing creating mods. ) 

[JustArrived 18]

5 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

I posted above in reply #7? While they are listed as Menu Dividers, they also show them used as Planning Blocks.

G'day Corina.

I just thought you were going to add Planning Blocks with its own download page. Maybe I miss understood, sorry.

And while you're here, I would like to thank you and Cyclone Bloom very much for 'picking up' this fan website and keeping it going, as other sites have fallen to the side. And I like that you both have kept previous users in mind. One example is A Nonny Moose.

[nos.17 5,120]

11 hours ago, JustArrived said:

That would be legendary nos.17, I would still like to use them. I'm sorry if it made you look bad. I think first I should have tried to contact you. Sorry about that mate.

That's usually the best approach, but no offense taken. 

File is updated.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

9 hours ago, JustArrived said:

I just thought you were going to add Planning Blocks with its own download page. Maybe I miss understood, sorry.

Ah. Well, I figured since there would be no change to them other than the file name, there wouldn't be any benefit and might actually make it more confuzzling for peeps.  

So, I'm not planning to create a new entry, but we could rename the current Menu Dividers to Menu Dividers / Planning Blocks if that might help.

[JustArrived 18]

13 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

So, I'm not planning to create a new entry, but we could rename the current Menu Dividers to Menu Dividers / Planning Blocks if that might help.

That would just the thing  I think it will help people to know that you can use them as Menu Dividers and/or Planning Blocks. Thank you very much CorinaMarie

18 hours ago, nos.17 said:

File is updated.

Thanks heaps & heaps nos.17. You see, I was so use to using them, I missed them. Now I can use them again. Thanks mate.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

6 hours ago, JustArrived said:

That would just the thing

Done.  

[JustArrived 18]

On 1/5/2026 at 11:29 AM, CorinaMarie said:

Done.  

Thank you heaps CorinaMarie. Have a great day.  

[Lab Rat 13]

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