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We are gearing up for Simtropolis Challenges "Season Two" And we are here to let you know our new additions and to also ask for your help, thoughts and feedback! Season two brings about some rule changes, new challenges, and a whole new way to play! Hall Of Fame - We've moved the Hall Of Fame into a gallery. This is a new feature of Simtropolis which we are excited to start using, and it showcases the work that has made it into the HOF excellently. Please feel free to go through, rate and comment on these images. As for the authors of these images, feel free to go through and edit details and tags etc. Feel free to add your images if they have been missed, some of the old images had hosting issues, I had saved most of them locally, but might have missed a couple. Also, in the future feel free to add your images in once they reach the HOF. Best Picture Competition - We have some rule changes coming up, which will help liven this competition. Currently it's a bit slow, so we are thinking of reducing the number of votes required to 7. At the moment, 5 would be acceptable, but we are hoping that with an increase in interest in this forum that we hope to see 7 might be a fair. So we are aiming for 7 votes for each winning image but this might change in the future once things either pick up, or do not. Also, the 24 hour period will now start from the first vote. It seems unfair to both participants if the voting period starts when no one is viewing the forum, this way an external party can initiate the voting and this should hopefully mean more people will have the chance to vote on an image. Weekly Challenges - These will be coming back in a big way. Firstly, these will be advertised site wide. Hopefully we will have this ready by next week, but this will mean that there is more exposure to these challenges, which will make for some great images. Secondly, the theme for each week will be released a week in advance. Submitting images to the challenge is the most important part of the challenge, so we are giving those who pay the most attention to the challenges the ability to collect their things before the next week. Thirdly, challenges will also take use of the gallery. This will be for voting and commenting on images. We will be taking the highest rated image in the weekly album as the winner. This means you can vote for as many images as you want, and also weight your votes depending on what images you like the most. We think this will be great, as the albums really help you look over each image as they should be displayed, and it will also mean that most images would then recieve votes, which boosts the confidence of those first time challengers, you can also apgive rep and comment on individual images. Fourthly, we've got some really great ideas for tepees challenges, and Cities: Skylines will feature as a big part of these challenges going forward. Obviously, there will be SC4 challenges, but we are excited for how the modding aspect of C:S will allow us to do fun things. But we need your help to get C:S players into these forums, so spread the word when we have a C:S week! We are really excited for these Weekly Challenges, and we hope these additions and changes will create an exciting place to show off your content! Other Challenges - From time to time we will have other, special challenges. These might include monthly challenges, other special challenges, guest hosted rounds, custom content challenges, gallery album challenges, city showcases etc. We want to keep these special, random and different, but we'd also like to hear what kind of challenges you'd like to see that deviate from the 'traditional' challenges. Rewards - Now, you may have noticed that the awards haven't travelled over form ST7 to 8. That's a big problem, and we are working on getting an alternative worked out, one of the reasons why the trixies are taking their time. However, we are also going to jump on the chance to make reputation more relevant. This will be part of a bigger change, but what's relevant here is that we are going to start handing out reputation for each challenge and Best Picture Competition win. We are yet to make up our mind on how much we will be giving out, but it will be significant. We will also be handing out a smaller amount for runners up. So, in light of a lack of an awards system, we are hoping that handing out a good chunk of reputation will be worth the effort. This will be alongside featuring the image in the HOF and on the front page as usual. Forum Changes - There will also be a clean up of this forum, with all completed challenges moving into a sub forum, and only current challenges and voting threads appearing in this. This should make it easier to get to the challenges, while also maintaining the viewability of old challenges We can't wait to start Season Two, but would also like to hear what changes you think we should be making, or if you don't think we are making the right changes, or even enough changes. Feel free to speak your mind, let's make this the best competition forum on the Internet! Rule changes will take effect next week, alongside the first challenge, which will be: City life - show us how your city expresses what makes it unique (a very open and easy challenge for you to get back into the swing of things, open to any city building game)

"My son sleeps in a bomb shelter and knows the sound of the air raid sirens as well as the words "to talk" and "to eat". There's no good news; not yet. But we will wait. We will fight" - Vera Ketlinskaya, radio broadcast on October 19th 8/9/1941 - A wave of German Junkers has dropped several thousand of bombs in Tsentralny, more intensively in the area of Smolny and its surroundings. In this picture we see an inmense hole on the ground caused by the explosion of a 1.000 pounds bomb. Almost 70 metres below the surface appears Chernyshevskaya station. Construction of the metro began in January, but it had to be halted at the outbreak of the war. 28/10/1941 - Bolshoy Dom ("The Big House") is the headquarters of the NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs) and the recently created NKGB (People's Commissariat for State Security). Since the beginning of the war almost everyone is suspicious of cooperating with the enemy. Even though the building has suffered damage from shelling, another execution has taken place in the courtyard. This famous poster by the NKGB reads "Pay attention, these days the walls are listening. Close from chatter and gossip to treason. Do not talk!" 18/9/1941 - As soon as the Leningraders hear the air raid sirens they all run to the nearest underground shelter. While the German aviation dominates the skies, thousands of people live their lives beneath the streets of the city. In this picture we see the entrance to one of these shelters, just behind Kuybyshev Hospital near Liteyny Prospekt. Women and children entering a bomb shelter. 10/7/1941 - The Holy Transfiguration Cathedral is located in Preobrazhenskaya Square, not far from Chernyshevskaya station. An air-raid shelter for 500 people has been constructed in the basement, where first aid can be given to the wounded. Disclaimer: This CJ includes original photos taken during the siege. To my knowledge none of them is protected by copyright, but if I were wrong I'm happy to delete any picture that infringes the law. ----------------------------------[AUTHOR'S COMMENT]---------------------------------- To preserve historical accuracy I must admit that Chernyshevskaya metro station had not been built yet by the time of the siege. However I wanted to show you that there were actually some tunels and rails already built under the city, that during the war were used as shelters. I had that image of the sunken station in my wish list and I wanted to give it some credible background. Again, I hope you enjoyed and I'm eager to read your comments and opinions :-D See you next week!

Oh, really? I'll bring them out so we can vote on them before next week, maybe these will be in albums so we can test that. Which ones were they? I'm sure I'll find them when I clean the forum out, but just in case I miss them while cleaning The ones that look like they haven't finished are these ones: -Weekly Challenges #16 (Best Military/Naval Base) -Weekly Challenges #17 (Best Interchange) -Monthly Challenge March 2015 (Choose Your Own Hamptonshire) These seem to be the only ones that weren't decided upon. Everything else looks solid. And I look forward to seeing the new albums! The Gallery is a fantastic addition to the new ST!

The city of Boswell (125,067), right between Rourke and Alicante in western Maricopa, saw a booming growth in the late fifties through seventies, resulting in some significant buildings and the rise of a skyline. In recent years though, said growth has dwindled and idle lots sit next to the glorious high rises. However, with the construction of a supermall near the downtown area, Boswell has received another economic push, which has lead to many an idle lot being transformed into a landmark. http://puu.sh/jgMl9/22c89804ec.jpg http://puu.sh/jgN09/7e67c2aa5f.jpg edit: hmmm. Seems like just posting the links no longer automatically show the pictures. Anyone know of any other way to do that, now that the image button is gone?

Once again that is some very impressive image editing! Especially for the underground metro shot. I did assume that it wasn't explicitly based on a factual event since I'd imagine that a bomb blast like that would probably caved in the station and tunnel making them inoperable due to the debris. But there's certainly nothing wrong with the idea of wanted to just show the presence of such tunnels and stations, which you accomplished in a very creative way.

Sounds cool. Great to see the competitions back. I'm curious to know how you guys will handle the rewards/medals. I'm really missing them from ST7. But I'm a bit sceptical about this part: Won't that just make friends immediately the winners? I mean it's quite obvious people who chat with each other all the time are going to vote for their friends etc... I can't see this being a fair method of selecting a winner.

Last weeks I worked on an city I imported into a bigger map. Adjusted the Highway and made all highways to RHW. Also added trams. Still so much space left. This city is mainly for Residents for the bordering Industry and Banking cities. Sadly I made the big mistake last weekend to put a beach on the shore and destroying it. Now the PP is real. I might rebuild it later again, but for now I'll do the save/load to have all the Props.

"I have taken over command. Report to the High Command that I propose to proceed more actively than my predecessor" - Georgi Zhukov Georgi Zhukov, the toughest troubleshooter in the Red Army, the man who had been Chief of Staff at the war's outbreak, and who was now facing the most difficult assignment in his career. (quote from "The 900 Days" by Harrison E. Salisbury) 13/09/1941 - Zhukov took off from Moscow's Vnukovo airport in a Lisunov-2 transport plane, escorted by three fighters. One of them has already been downed by a German Messerschmitt, and another one has been hit in the wing. In the picture we see two German Stuka dive bombers trying to leave the scene, but the one on top of the picture has not been fast enough. Red Army officials in Leningrad feared Zhukov as much as they feared the Nazis. He never took a no for an answer and would threaten anyone who questioned a direct order. Disclaimer: This CJ includes original photos taken during the siege. To my knowledge none of them is protected by copyright, but if I were wrong I'm happy to delete any picture that infringes the law. ----------------------------------[AUTHOR'S COMMENT]---------------------------------- I hope you will excuse me if you find this update too short. Most of the content has been in my PC for several weeks now, and I wanted to publish it before resuming my work in Leningrad. The update of the website has also been a great excuse to have some rest :-) My goal is still to entertain you and myself telling the story of the city by combinating the power of SC4 and Photoshop!

I have three different kinds of workstations but that's all. I don't see the point in sweating over interior that is barely visible when I could spend that time working on next BAT. For now I only plan to completely model interior of Penn Station glass concourse, I doubt I will model a glass-facade building anytime soon after this one. This is the finished night view; I know it's not perfect but it's good, theoretically I could add some lights on roof but at this point work with this model became so tedious and rather unpleasant due to lags in max that I just want to export it and be done with this building. And on top of that the month is coming to an end and it would be nice to release something for International Month. I might have to turn off the lights on the top floor (or delete the furniture on it), for some reason after adding furniture there some light glitches started to appear on renders :/

A NYBT Bygone year... sure, I'm not picky Yeah, It's too bad the Gillneder had such a short life. I also was taken aback by the original Waldorf-Astoria hotel... I suppose we can't complain too much considering what building took it's place...

Playing on a new map, this time with a European touch to it! Lets see how this one goes.

As part of her prolonged visit to Queenbee's municipalities, P. R. has been invited by the Hippies. Well, that's how the town's people affectionately call the Gesalen community that has been living up in the mountain for three decades now. They were skeptical at the beginning, but seeing world famous thinkers and doers gathering there for conferences, retreats and --yes ! -- writing workshops, putting Queenbee on the The Map, they decided The Hippies were all right. As long as they stayed mostly up there. But is the Ashram thirtieth birthday, and, at the end of her stay in Queenbee, as the cool automne night falls on the town, P. R. is in for a treat : she loves fireworks, and the city offered one to the Ashram. (P. R.'s first pictures of the Ashram were taken at the beginning of her stay in Queenbee...)

Thanks airman, you can quite sure those will be remade since it might take some time to set everything up for more complex challenges. I hope you're all looking forward to the new season. Btw, what do you guys think of one weekly challenge each month which is decided upon ar at least a favourite-choice-challenge (or possibly even the first person to privately write his/her idea to one of the forum Mods will "win" his own weekly challenge)

One of only a few buildings where I like the DarkNite version particularly better. So, you're Brazilian, a building I once saw and never forgot, Centro Administrativo Do Estado, here you go:

Wonderful photoshopping, storytelling and historical info as always. Great work, keep it up!

32 Old Slip has been released! Here you go to download it: https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/30704-32-old-slip-one-financial-square/ Maracanã, Porthos Building and Parc Avignon (yea, Parc is back!) are at an advanced stage as well

I use 7.5m increments when terracing my hills (15m is way too steep for me) so the levels are still a 'natural' height for overpasses. The levels are usually in 3-tile-wide terraces with 1x1 development along both sides of a road or street. I usually avoid zoning 2 tiles deep since I don't really want condos and highrises being built halfway up a hill. The slopes are left covered in trees for aesthetic value. The main pain with doing it like this is you have to terraform every tile individually, either by ground lifter or street tile leveller.

Replies: Chesh: Sure I'll get going on it this week and looking forward to seeing the pictures! CloudyDaTroll: Nope wasn't too late at all. In fact I've just finished the map up so I hope you like it! Real World Map 005: Daytona Beach, USA This is the map of the Daytona Beach area of Florida requested by a user on Simtropolis in a Tropical Biome. It shows a stretch of the beach where the centre of the actual town is located and has both the I-95 and I- 92 interchange and the I-95 and I-4 interchange, Also included is a long strip of the beach and a large number of pools of water that are slightly artistically licensed but are an attempt to represent the many pools of water that cover the area. At the requesters instruction we have plenty of trees and some fertile land patches away from the shore as well as a bit of ore to have some varied land colours but no oil as the requester didn't want any. STEX Link: https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/30703-real-world-map-005-daytona-beach-usa/ Steam Workshop link:http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=490007428 Hope you all enjoy it and remember that pictures are more than welcome! Cheers James

That brick texture looks really good.

Langham Place Guangzhou, Guangzhou, GD, China

Boreal Bay. Unfortunately there are some problems with water flow. I spent about an hour fixing the map. I've also terraformed some of the bay in that image.

I admire no end those able to plop a realistic looking airfield or airport. The rest is not bad either !!!:-)

interesting although dark storyline. It must be hard to illustrate in SC4 : brave endeavour !

Updated brick and sidewalk texture... Don't have much time for modeling this week, but I hope to be done soon. Look any better?

Absolutely love these types of CJ! Really looking forward to seeing more

Fantastic as usual!!!

SPAMMAr - SPAM Municipal Airport This is a SC4 lot file that directly replaces the Maxis, Municipal Airport - it works in exactly the same way with all the same stats. To uninstall, just delete from plugins and the vanilla Maxis Municipal Airport will return. (Usual dependencies - MTP Super Pack and SPAM resource) ... oh and PEG security fences. I think that's it.

Looks great! I like that huge hole that the Junker created lol I think it only took me around 30 minutes to install the software, it's all good now

Super sweet. Hope to do something similar one of these days.

Much agreed! Interesting layout and tons of opportunities to turn it to a master piece of urban planning... Also, I decided to start another region, this time with some planning in mind.. (Bear in mind that the red lines means main highways and the yellow line means railways...) I still have to gather more ideas on how to start the sprawl... (I have a backup, just in case of anything!) In addition, this was made in two days from scratch, as I collected ideas from many other people's regions... Well worth the time and effort I must say!

As I mentioned in the other thread, I remember somewhere there was a detailed explanation of what is going on here, however I can't find a link anywhere and my memory is no use for this sort of thing, I have a sinking feeling it was somewhere on Simpeg.com though. This problem usually seems to occur when using a region map that is made within SC4 itself, imported SC4M files should not show this problem provided you don't remove the SV mod from your plugins folder at any point. Something to do with a value that is applied to new regions by SC4, but that is not an issue with custom-generated maps seems to trigger the issue and causes the game to adjust the terrain higher. It doesn't occur once, but with every subsequent save and can get out of hand if you are not careful, I don't think simply changing a value in the terrain mod would fix the problem at this point, it would only stop the height from increasing, if anything. As I mentioned before, I'm almost certain this isn't broken, it's intended to work this way, the altered setting was considered to give preferable results. If you use a Maxis generated region, import/save it in SC4 Terraformer (or a similar tool) and then render all the tiles with the SV terrain mod installed before starting development, this should bypass any potential problems. In fact, if you've not developed the region, or at least the city/(cities) with the problem, SC4 Terraformer can rectify the problem by importing the region, fixing the terrain height for affected tiles and then saving the region. Once more I'll state that the most knowledgeable user I know that's still around on these sorts of things is EpicBlunder, so if you need more information I'd suggest sending him a PM as I have only a moderate understanding of advanced terrain settings/modding.

Nice air base. I'm also interested in the football field of the last picture with the track going around. Good work!

Got some flag poles, light fixtures, and some other minor things. But I also successfully got it exported after having some trouble. I've updated the BAT Mega FAQ with what I learned. Which is that when your BAT appears to be rendering offset even though your LODs are centered, what I discovered was happening was that in gmax for some reason my imported LODs were named things like LOD4.LOD5 instead of just LOD4. This tripped things up and caused an automatic box LOD to be generated, and the renderings from max don't line up properly with the box, so it appears offset. The way to solve the problem is to correct the LOD names in gmax. I've plopped the building around in the game and found that it actually works really well with other wall to wall buildings. I have a lot in my cities that are about the height of the lowrise section which makes the tower stand out in a desirable way. And then for the taller wall to wall buildings the tower does a good job of transitioning.

My general reaction when I check the NAM development topics over at SC4D: Once you get out of the SC4 modding wold, it's hard to get back in... (Still good luck with modding though. Looks like some serious stuff is going on right now).

A pity if you let go of SC4, this looks really good. I understand your frustration, however -- although I've come to use the game as a zen-like activity, especially the dressing up of each tile...:-)

" Spec Intel i5-2450M " Just a reminder that IGP in this case is HD 3000 and although the subject is Win 10 compatibility it seems relevant say. As for the "DirectX hardware rendering" seems that emulation old DDRAW (remember that SC4 is DX7) seems to have deserved some attention after the Aero death in the OS. But the UAC problems (SC4 no manifest) remain the same so still necessary to install the game as admin to avoid restrictions ddraw old .. Surely now that OEM manufacturers increasingly are required to WHQL to not see themselves surprised by mischief MS & INTEL problems are becoming less frequent. Do not even think of another solution ... turns controversy. - Samsung block windows update For those who are thinking of switching to OS that MS will now offer as a service. - Piecing together the windows as a service puzzle for Windows10 - Windows 10 Consumers Won't Be Allowed to Turn Off Automatic Updates For those who do not agree ... if nothing changes, of course! - Turn off windows update in Windows-10 My pc will run? Worth waiting for windows 10 before replacing pc Note : "-CPUPriority: High" to SC4 is always a risk because of time slice requirement evil behaved of GUI game.

I've just installed SC4 (GOG Digital Version) on my friends Win10 Laptop, it's the current Release to OEM version which should closely resemble the final release version for next week. Test hardware was a Lenovo Thinkpad T520. Spec Intel i5-2450M, 8GB, NVidia NVS 4200M GPU. Using the following command line shortcut: -intro:off -CPUCount:1 -f -r1920x1080x32 -CPUPriority:high The game not only run sucessfully, but also happily works with DirectX Hardware Rendering (in this case, no extra config required). Tested with both NAM 32 and Sudden Valley terrain mod installed, I did not run into any problems. Therefore I'd say with some confidence that at least for now, Windows 10 does not seem to be a problem for running SC4. Note: I did not have a chance to check stability since this is not my machine, I don't expect to either.

Replies: SUPERMESSI: Thanks for your comment. I usually work street by street, block by block. That's why it takes me longer and longer to finish these cities as they get more complicated and finicky. gviper: I always like to design a great industrial layout. jacob814: Right now I have a period of unlimited free time- for about six weeks. That will end this September when I start teacher training. city89: Which picture are you referring to? Sexysark:P: Thanks a lot! wallacet: That is a wheat processing plant. Those great yellow piles are piles of wheat or grain. TekindusT: My next city Annuq will have a proper industrial wasteland. MushyMushy: Again which picture are you referring to? philforhockey51: Thank you. takemethere: Thanks. I have one last city left in me for SC4 and that city is called Annuq, after that I'm going to focus on CS simply because it is vastly quicker to build cities and build British cities with ease. Also I am becoming more interested in writing thus my interest in city builders is dipping in general. [-----------------------------------------------] Update 89: An Update on Annuq (WIP) I have been spending more time writing and so I have spent less time on SC4. In this entry I will show the progress I have made in Annuq. I believe Annuq will be the last city I create in SC4, the reason for this is that it is taking longer and longer to complete these cities. Detail and layout is a real time-killer. I prefer CS because with the new mods it is so easy to create British towns and cities. Anyway, I think Annuq should be ready on the 1st of August or two weeks from now, one of those two. /// I have finally cordoned off nearly every area and I now know what is going to be built in the empty areas. A row of apartments next to the hospital. NY-styled industrial units next to a new industrial complex that I am close to completing. This track is specifically an access route for the electricity pylons. Maintenance workers conduct a check upon this electricity pylon. A small-town suburban scene. And if you wonder why one small, little suburb like this takes so long here is why. First I wanted a good layout, second I made historical a certain residential style and thirdly I added in the pond complete with MMP detailing. I think it took me about twenty minutes just to complete what you see here in this picture. I'm exploring the integration of Simgoober's canals with modded seaports/waterfronts of various styles. One part of the latest industrial complex I am working on. The inner city part of Annuq will look a lot like this. Plenty of midrise buildings dotted with office blocks and skyscrapers.

As a member of the Windows Technical Preview, there are just some things that I would like to clarify. First of all, I will not guarantee you that SimCity 4 will run on a Windows 10 PC, but it should work, as Microsoft still uses DirectX software. Some exemplars will go missing if you did not install it properly. Aside from that it should be similar to Windows 8.1

Schulmanator Thanks dude LexusInfernus I have to admit, I learned to BAT specifically for this CJ Thanks though! takemethere Thanks a lot Benedict That mystery is for another story at a later date, glad you like it philforhockey51 Thanks dude _____________________________________________________________________ Note: While technically, this isn't the first update that takes place after the Reaper war (the updates Survivor[#30.1] and Normandy Crash Landing[#29.1] come to mind - yes, the series follows the destroy ending), but it is the farthest I've gone past the Reaper war, over 20 years in aftermath. Not sure how applicable this is, but it is how it is for now. Btw, the reaper BAT, it's not photoshopped in case anyone's wondering; actual rendering GMax nearly died. _____________________________________________________________________ On a bone dry, and near waterless planet, an asari-dominated expedition team head toward the site of a derelict reaper, a remnant of the devastating reaper war in 2186, over 20 years ago. To unlock the secrets of the reapers and the technology they behold, the expedition team takes it into their own hands, getting prepped to enter a destroyer class reaper that was downed when the crucible dispersed and unknown wave of energy across the galaxy's expansive mass relay network. ________________________________________________________

Part of my European city's layout