Returning player with a few questions!

[bbsmitz 21]

Hi Folks,

So I'm dipping my toes back into SC4, playing around with starting/growing cities, and after some kicking the tires, I've got a few questions!

I'll preface this with, I'm running most of the basic mods/bug fixes including NAM (or at least a version from 2023), the High Tech Industrial Demand Fix, the less abandonment mod and the industrial jobs fix.  I'm also running the SPAM farm mod (also a version from 2023).

First, what's the best way to try to force areas to grow R$ or R$$?  The demand for those is off the charts, but even with just basic education and health services, a lot of my growth, particularly in the medium density areas, ends up being R$$$ condos.  If I plop down a reward or two or god forbid a park, I get a bunch of R$$$.  Since the bulk of jobs are aimed at the R$$ set, this make keeping all my sims employed difficult.  Does depriving water or healthcare keep away R$$$ residents?   I've seen the mod that suppresses R$ and R$$ upgrading to R$$$; is that worth a try?

Second, on reading up on guides and resources, I've seen comments (or at least one) that SPAM is unbalanced and can make demand wonky.  Is that still true?  I've enjoyed the more varied farm lots but would it be worth uninstalling it if there's no updated fix for it?

Lastly, my understanding is that now the community recommends using sc4pac to manage your mods.  Is this correct?  Is there a megathread like the old one Ulisse used to have with a rundown on the current state of recommended mods?

Thank you to everyone for your time!

-bbsmitz

Edit: I literally just saw Rob's video post below this one on mods.  I'll watch his vid... 

[CorinaMarie 29,577]

25 minutes ago, bbsmitz said:

First, what's the best way to try to force areas to grow R$ or R$$?

NKO

[Kel9509 1,357]

1 hour ago, bbsmitz said:

First, what's the best way to try to force areas to grow R$ or R$$?  The demand for those is off the charts, but even with just basic education and health services, a lot of my growth, particularly in the medium density areas, ends up being R$$$ condos. 

Ironically enough, the game is not that hard to "win."  Plop some schools, police, etc and you get a ton of R$$$, which bring high wealth offices and services.  So if you want a bigger population of R$ and R$$, one thing you can do is limit police presence and schools.  Yes, you have to intentionally create a slum sometimes.  It's actually harder than you realize.  Tax policies can also assist - raise taxes on R$$$, and high-wealth jobs like I-HT, and CO$$$.  

@CorinaMarie's right though, No-Kick-Out mods really provide a lot of control over your building growth (requiring bulldozing).  If you don't use one of the the No Kick-Out mods (either the original, or the one embedded in the Building Styles DLL mod) then one other thing you can do, particularly with large R$ buildings, is mark them historical right away so they don't redevelop into a different higher wealth category.  I don't use No-Kick-Out but I do mark a lot of larger lower-wealth buildings as  historical. 

As for Less Abandonment, it's supposed to increase the desirability requirements for growing a high-wealth residential lot, so less of them appear.  Are you using this mod or something else?  

[Kel9509 1,357]

1 hour ago, bbsmitz said:

Lastly, my understanding is that now the community recommends using sc4pac to manage your mods.  Is this correct?  Is there a megathread like the old one Ulisse used to have with a rundown on the current state of recommended mods?

I don't use sc4pac, primarily because I edit a lot of downloads to tweak them a bit.  The downside is that you have to be careful to get all dependencies and stuff, particularly if there's any updates.  Sc4pac is better for the casual player who doesn't really mod their own game and just wants some nice downloads to automatically install.  But there's a ton of awesome content that is still not on sc4pac so if you want any of that you'll need to have some basic knowledge on how to install things.

There's a list of recommended mods here: 

https://www.sc4evermore.com/index.php/guides/how-to-configure-SimCity-4-on-modern-computers

Towards the bottom of that page there's a link to a combo-mod that sc4pac can install called Colossus Addon Mod - ModPacc Zero, which is a combination of a lot of those critical fixes plus other important "necessary" mods.  (Despite its name, the ModPacc Zero mod is not really about CAM (aka the Colossus Addon Mod to increase growth stages)).  Like I said I don't use sc4pac but I have most of those mods anyway (they're all linked in the description in you want to install them separately).  I don't use some like autosave, the minimize button remover or the yellow pause thingy remover.  But the rest are almost required.

[bbsmitz 21]

Appreciate the responses guys, I'll check out Cori's mod. Someone also suggested the no mansions mod which I might take a look at.  Following up,

1) Based on Kel's link and some more googling, it looks like the SC4launcher is now deprecated and it's recommended to use .dlls instead of a launcher.  Does anyone know the best way to remove SC4Launcher?  Can I just uninstall it from the add programs windows menu?

2) Turning back to SPAM, does anyone have thoughts on if that's still viable as a mod in terms of balance/demand?

Going to go through the youtube tutorial in the link Kel posted tonight... wish me luck.

[bbsmitz 21]

Hey folks,

So I've made some decent progress building out my first tile (medium size).  I got to ~230k population but was still struggling with oscillating demand, so started using Cori's NKO linked above.  It's been super useful in helping me choose exactly what parts of the city I want to build up.  Definitely feels like a slower pace of play with it, but definitely has helped prevent oversupply followed by abandonment.  I've also found that as I start transitioning away from mostly middle density to higher density, I'm not getting R$$$ just randomly popping up like I saw before.  Might be just the increased traffic is suppressing desirability enough that most of my growth is R$$ and I need to plop a few parks around to get a R$$$ going up.  So I can control my growth better.  I'm thinking of starting a new city in the adjacent large tile, and before I did wanted to ask a few questions.

1. I'm struggling with how to fulfill CS$ and CS$$ demand.  Does anyone have recommendations?  Ploppables?  If I don't fulfill the demand, does that adversely affect my city's growth?
2. Does anyone have any resources (like a city guide or a youtube video) on layout tips for a city?  I know a lot of experienced city builders will do a basic layout with things like highways/train/elevated etc. lines and roads before they start zoning.  Anything I could read up on or watch would be helpful.

Thanks guys!

[CorinaMarie 29,577]

1 hour ago, bbsmitz said:

If I don't fulfill the demand, does that adversely affect my city's growth?

You never have to fill any demand.

Just consider it like a waiting list of peeps who want to build in your city. The only time to worry about demand is if one of them drops to zero or goes negative and you are wanting to build some of it. If it's Green that goes flat, build Yellow and Blue. If it's those, then build Green.

Mostly, you never need to feel like you have to fulfill any demand. The game is designed so that if you do fill all of one or more then others will shoot up. It's intentionally a never ending cycle.  

[bbsmitz 21]

Thanks Cori!  Won't stress the services then.  Currently messing around with forcing sims to use trains to commute...

[Lab Rat 12]

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