INFO: Getting Up and Running

[greyveil 37]

Greyveil's Help Thread

Because my signature would be too long if I included all this info in it, I have decided to post this topic and then link it to my sig for newbie help. Feel free after this initial post to add you own newbie tidbits as well.

NOTICE:
These instructions will assume you have the basic SC4 game installed with no patches and will take you through the process of upgrading to either Deluxe or Rush Hour. I don't recommend the vanilla SC4 because of the game play issues.

I will provide descriptions of files and detailed install instructions where I can.

These links are provided in a step by step fashion (i.e. whenever possible the files should be installed in the order given)


Part 1: Game Required File install

Aside from the game itself, there are several files that need to be downloaded and installed from various places in order to successfully play the game. This will be broken down into 2 sections.

Section A files are REQUIRED to play the game. Section B will include mods and files that either add features to the default game or fix certain issues with the game.

Section A.

1. First, depending on the version of SC4 you are installing;
 

a. Rush-hour: do a normal CD install to upgrade from SC4 to Rush-hour.
b. Deluxe: do a full install to install SC4 and Rush-hour at the same time.

2. Once you have Rush Hour or Deluxe installed, use this or this link to download the EP1 update (select the correct version for your game's region).

3. The next 2 updates are required for using custom content and certain mods in the game.
 

a. BAT Nightlights fix  [Other Link]

This will fix the BAT nightlights not appearing problem. You want the one under "Recommended Downloads".

b. Buildings as props updates: bldgprop_vol1  [Other Link] & bldgprop_vol2  [Other Link] , these fixes allow original game content to be used on custom lots. (I also recommend while you are here to download the lot editor).

This covers the required installs. In the next section I will detail files that are required for the game to run as intended. I will also be including a list of helper apps programs that help you do certain things for the game and helper websites. You do not need to install these files, but it is recommended.

Section B.
 

a. by Thalassicus

Description: This mod increases the detail visible for the data views on the high end of the color spectrum for the Desirability, Mayor Rating, and Land Value data views, giving useful data where areas of a city used to be just solid green. It also increases the max value on the Mayor Rating Graph from 100 to the game max of 128.
 

b. by redlotus

Description: This mod eliminates nearly all of the useless 'news items' that keep popping up in the news panel so you can concentrate on playing the game and not have to read useless info.

 

c. by toroca

Description: This mod fixes the Opera House, which has a capacity MUCH too low for large cities in SimCity 4. Currently, the Opera House can go over capacity and inhibit city growth, and you'd never even know it because the Opera House doesn't report its usage statistics. This mod changes that. Please see the readme for full details, including installation instructions.
 

Part 2: The Network Addon Mod.

Rush Hour/Deluxe - even with all the patches and fixes installed - has a few bugs that are related to commute time and the way it handles traffic. This issue has been discussed in too many forums to mention here. If you would like to get details of these issues I would recommend doing a search in the forums for commute time or traffic. Now that we've got that out of the way, a mod exists that fixes many of the problems you may have with transit networks. That mod is...

The NAM.

The Network Addon Mod (NAM) includes full traffic and pathfinding fixes, along with new custom intersections and interchanges. It also includes pedestrian malls and ground light rail (stations not included).

 

a. , (Simtropolis Community Effort)

Description: This is a community effort to combine all previous transit and pathfinding fixes and to improve the overall game play when it comes to transit networks.


Part 3: Frequently used mods.

This next set of apps and mods are used regularly by most players, to either help in game or to create content (like maps, regions and lots):
 

1. Lot Editor  [Other Link]

Description: This program allows you to create custom lots for your city.
 

2. SC4 Terraformer by Wouanagaine

Description: This program allows you to load or create regions. The hand terraforming tools used in SC4 itself are available here. Plus, it's in actual 3-D.
 

3. Hole Digging Lots by or Shadow Assassin

Description: This package contains special lots that have been modded to dig holes, and one that does the reverse by lifting the ground level up. The hole digging lots have been designed to dig entrances for tunnels, but they can be used in many ways (digging a ditch for a sunken highway, or for an underpass are examples). New hole digging lots include an avenue digging lot and a lot for sunken highways.
 

4: by equinox

Description: (by: equinox)
This is a mod I wrote after becoming frustrated with the demand cap situation in one of my cities. I realized I had no idea what the cap status was until the desirability began to fall and buildings began to dilapidate and abandon. As a result, I took the game's three primary developer queries (residential, commercial, and industrial) and added some details and statistics to them, and that's what you have here.
 
The most important information this mod features relates to the demand caps. These caps limit growth in your cities, and the percentage you have filled is shown in all 3 'upgraded' queries. For complete information on how demand caps work, and how to read the data in the queries, consult the enclosed HTML readme file. It explains them all in depth, based on information from the Prima Strategy Guide. Also found in the queries are somewhat simpler stats like the number of each density zoned in the active city, and the demand for the developer type, but reflective of your cap status.
 

5. Region Census by sawtooth

Description: Region Census is a program that allow you to get pictures of full regions without pasting pics together. It also has region stats.


Part 4: Your Ideas, Please.

Anyone wishing to recommend additions or changes, please post here and I will update this. Please do not post radical mods, or files that are not for everyone. I am trying to keep this limited to files and mods that you feel everyone should have and use. Also links to step by step helper threads are encouraged.

---

Appendix: Update Log.

• This is the first draft (Dated 12-26-04)
• Updated (6-13-05) with new NAM links.
• Updated (6-17-05) with new NAM links.
• Updated (6-20-05) with new Landscape Designer link (Thanx BarbulaM1 & BigJoe)
• Updated (9-20-05) edited NAM links.
• *UPDATED TO ST 5.0 STANDARDS BY HORDIJK*
• Updated (04-26-06) edited all links to meet ST 5.0 standards
• Updated (August 4th, 2010) to fix broken links and a few other minor matters. Editor: Astronelson.
• Updated (September 1st, 2014) to correct links & add minor formatting changes. -Cyclone Boom

[L00N3Y 0]

Hey greyveil,

Nice job on the Newbie Thead. It's really gonna help me out a lot. I always wondered what other things I should download to fix any other issues with Deluxe besides the patch.

Thanks a lot for the information. It really will help me and a lot of other new people.

Have a nice day!

[The Terminator 0]

Cool, I wish I had this when i first bought SC4. when i bought it for the first time back in march 2003, I couldent do anything(but then i found about the Coastel casino)

 

 

Now greyveil what is better to buy if you are a $%&^!:

Number of the Beast of Powerslave?? and should the n00bs look into the 90's stuff as well? and who exactly are paul di'anno and blaze bayley?? im sure the n00bs want to know.

[ILL Tonkso 1,239]

My additional.

If its from the NDEX team download it

If its from the BSC team downlaod it

Get a PEG Rock Mod (many 2 choose from)

Get a Water Mod (many 2 choose from)

 

Check out Peg and Oppie's work on the Exchange

[kingofsimcity 5,740]

Hlepful tips on STEX:

Comment on lots based on what the type of work it is. Dont rate it low just because its doesn't meet your expectations.
Rating anything lower than a 10 can rally make some mad. This isn't really good because a 9 still means excellent job and in grading, its still a A-.

Some great people and teams on the STEX:

PEG

Cerulean

NDEX 

CSX

BSC 

PDA

And a whole bunch of others.

[unseelie 0]

One thing to keep in mind about the water mods: some shades of water will hide the ferry routes in transport map mode. I also like the snowcapped mountain mod, although city names in snow-covered cities can be hard to see, since they are written in white letters.

Another interesting mod is the TunnelandSlope mod. The most extreme version is found only in a thread on these boards. I don't remember the name of it offhand, but go to Sculpting Columbia River in the City Journals section and Jeronij has a link to it in his sig. This makes it very hard to lay rails as they only allow a 2% grade, but it makes for much more realistic looking paths, and as Sculpting Columbia River shows, it's also an excellent mod for sculpting cities. It's worth at least testing out.

[clistalfowl 0]

:DThanx a lot for your help, but i have one question.... i don't quiet get what was the problem you had that you had to have the ((( RCI Query Upgrade Mod ver. 1.2 by equinox ))) why did u need to LIMIT the growth of your city?? Isn't it good for it to grow??

    I really liked this thread thogh, thanx a lot..

       

[greyveil 37]

sc4destiny, the RCI Query Upgrade Mod ver. 1.2 by equinox  does not limit growth, it adds demand cap data for the region to all the rci queries, so you can get the info by just querying the lot

hope this helps...

[rjaguirre1969 0]

Your information here was a godsend! Thank you! I was able to upload new maps into SimCity and utilised some of the updates you provided. However, I seem to have Charlie Brown luck this sort of thing, my uploaded map - MiddleEarth to be precise - did upload, but came out looking like something off th Martian surface. There were no trees nor water. Just barren landscape. The layout of the land was obvious, it just looked like, well, like the Martian surface. How do I fix this?

[greyveil 37]

when you say martian surface, is it red? if so did you recenly install any terrain mods, like simmars?

if not can I possibly see a pic of the affected region?

[bradleydyess 0]

These are the lots that aren't working. THey're all by BSC(Simgoober)
1 Clayton Homes - Sea Breeze
2 The Lonestar
3 Clayton Homes - Bahamian

Tried a search for those files on Simtropolis but came up with no results. My thought is that those lots are part of a larger download. Just wondering if you have any idea which one it might be? Also one other question. Will plugins still work if I stick them in subfolders in the plugins folder?

Thanks
Bradley

[Tolomar 5]

the BSC has their own threads on things....if your having trouble with any of their lots...try posting in their forums, simgoober is quite good with responding (just not outside of those threads)

 

as for sub folder...i recomend them...lots of them to orginaze your plugins  (though some have to go in ceratin places) always check the readme file!

 

guys try and keep this thread to whats on the first post...it is the get yuo up and running thread, maybe try a new thread for map or lot help...(just an idea)

[Joesocwork 4]

Up and running!!!  Fantastic job GreyVeil!!!

[kaiserf 0]

Congrats on this excellent thread, I've been playing SC4 for quite a while but never used the NAM, so this thread was great just for introducing me to that.

I do have one suggestion, and that is that it might be good to point new users to some of the lots that deal with faults in the game's transportation functionality. In particular I am thinking of things like the PEG Seaport, which restores the rail functionality that (I think) is supposed to be in the game. Joerg's airport pack also comes to find.

Anyway, nice post - thanks for putting it up.

kaiserf

[Compromise 1]

Great.
This will make a good adition to the vast tutorial collection in Simtropolis including my own.

[Chris M 406]

This should be posted as a sticky. It would be better seen by the newbies.

[Mickele Macon 2]

Very Nice I wish I had this when I joined simtropolis.  I eneded up getting most of the mods thur searching and hard work.  Hope this helps all new commers to Simtropolis.

[HighRiser 6]

This is great as I just had to do a complete reformat on my HD and reinstall SC4 & RH. Now I am looking forward to playing the game again. Thanks for putting this together.

[samantha 138]

This is a great idea for a thread and excellent advice Greyveil, I can see that the new members forum has been placed in safe hands..both you & Dalai are doing an outstanding job - cheers!  

[sldrboy 0]

Stumbling across this site, it seemed a daunting task to figure out what I needed (I'm new to SC4). This has provided a wonderful foundation. Thanks alot!

[gmac_oboe 0]

Hey Everyone!

Someone earlier mentioned something about a downtown tutorial, I was wondering if that ever actually became a reality?  I think that would be really helpful to a lot of people, including myself!

[Kiithcasran 0]

Wow, thanks for all the help, now all i need to do is clear up this issue with my serial code at the main site and i can get everything going!

[Indyman 0]

Greyevil, what would happen if you didnt download the required things?  I've been playing for 2 years and had no clue to download these things.  Could this contribute to development problems?
 
Thanks for starting the post.

[sc4frk 0]

This is good to have around, good work greyveil!

[Sim Trekker 41]

Do you have to have the official update to have the Transit Supermod work properly? I tried lots of stuff but it doesen't work.

[plzmomoney1 0]

Is there anyway I can Download a region not a region map, or are they the same? im confused. I just want a region to play on besides the ones that came wit the game. This is problably a dumb question.

[marie 1]

A lot of thanks for your guide. I was getting a little confused about what i needed and where to found it.

[sringe 0]

Excellent help, Thanx..

[salehsamee 1]

hey guys what about the realistic civic mod, i think that is a very usefull mod. I personally think that everybody should have that mod. and what about the snow capped mods, u should post a link to that. And there is another mod which opens two other city halls later in the game. That is a must. Just thought these mods should be included in this really really helpful Thread. woohoo for greyveil !

[greenbelt 2]

Great help for us newbies. Too bad I looked here last! Still have to fix the problem of getting registered at the official site. I think I remember an Omnibus thing about this for Mac users.