Mister Giggles

Two birds with one stone, yes.

Note: This same method can fix the doubled workforce bug in the Colossus Addon Mod (Which is also caused by altering RCI exemplars). Just replace all instances of IH_census_10_78_12.dat and zIH_census_10_78_12.dat with ColossusAddonMod_1.0.dat and zColossusAddonMod_1.0.dat respectively. Thanks to Cogeo for making people's lives easier.

Remove all plugins. All of 'em. If you can load the region and a (Preferably empty) city tile, your crashes are likely due to a bad plugin. Put half of the plugins back in. If there are no crashes, remove them and put in the other half. If there's a crash, you know it's a plugin in the half you just put in. Keep dividing that half in half using the same method until you find the culprit. If that does not work, un-install the game, install CCleaner, and run its registry cleaner to clear out all traces the game ever existed. Do note, this is an advanced tool so be careful and read the instructions before using it. Axes are useful tools, but you can also cut off your arm. Re-install the game and patches, see if you can load the game. If it still doesn't work, there could be viruses/spyware at work. MalwareBytes is a quick solution for dealing with viruses, although if you don't have an active virus scanner, Microsoft Security Essentials will work well enough. Spybot will deal with everything else. If nothing I've just recommended works, well...we'll cross that bridge when we come it it. <_<;

Play your cities for a while. Most of the bug will be worked out.

The latest update for the physical version is 1.1.640.0...go here, read and accept the terms. Goes to the "RH update page", download the 1.1.638.0 update for your region, and install it. It shouldn't throw any errors. If you want nightlights, back up a page and go to the "BAT download" page, and click the "Sim City 4 Buildings Update 14.4 MB" link to download the 1.1.640.0 update. Install it. These updates are cumulative, and must be installed in order. This is likely the reason for the crashes...the NAM was designed with the 1.1.638.0 update in mind.

CAM 1.0 has a bug that doubles the workforce, causing the oddities you're noticing. It is fixable, and the instructions below assume you have a degree of technical knowledge. 1: Install DatPacker 2008. 2: Go to your SimCity 4's program folder and copy SimCity_1.dat to a folder within your main plugins folder (Not the one in SC4's program folder). Put another copy of SimCity_1.dat into the Apps sub-folder of SC4's program folder (Back up). 3: Copy ColossusAddonMod_1.0.dat to the same folder as the first SimCity_1.dat copy you made. 4: Rename ColossusAddonMod_1.0.dat to zColossusAddonMod_1.0.dat. 5: Start up DatPacker, select the folder in which resides SimCity_1.dat and zColossusAddonMod_1.0.dat, uncheck all options, and datpack. 6: You'll now have a new folder, Plugins_Compressed, show up in your plugins folder. It contains the merged SimCity_1.dat. Change its name to SimCity_1.dat if it's been changed. 7: Copy the merged SimCity_1.dat to SC4's program folder, overwriting the original SimCity_1.dat. 8: Delete/remove the Plugins_Compressed folder, the folder containing the copied SimCity_1.dat and zColossusAddonMod_1.0.dat, and the original ColossusAddonMod_1.0.dat. Not getting rid of these files from your Plugins folder will cause all sorts of happy fun times.

The phenomena you're noticing is a result of how the game determines its numbers. In a nutshell, sims require jobs somewhere before they'll move in, regardless of demand. The jobs must exist in the city or somewhere in the connected region. That's why some factories pop up before the sims move in. If the game didn't work like this, abandonment would be rampant.

https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/files/file/26795-diagonal-bridge-enabler-removes-water/ Read the sentence in big bold red text. It is a warning, and gives you the solution to your problem.

Ah, I finally meet another member of the NDEX team. It's an honour, sir. Latitude extended, personally, but you might wish to change the 2nd picture or mildly censor it before someone starts getting calls. <_<

I apologize.

Nothing to see here, gents. <_< Ignore the below post. >_>

I am getting the feeling you're referring to "download" in the illegal sense, not the Steam sense. Not just because you haven't elaborated upon the location of download with requested, but also due to the problems that are being experienced playing/uninstalling the game. A warez copy loaded to the hilt with malware will cause havoc with a system... If such is the case, it would be wise to cease posting until such time a legal copy is obtained. Granted we'd have to work through all the viruses and other terrible things eating away at your hard drive to get the computer stable enough to play the game, but at least then it'd be worth helping you.

Plopping the park again results in another 8 dollars a month in maintenance that remains after the park is demolished. Removing the lot file results in 8 dollars a month in maintenance that is attached to, literally, nothing.

Naw man, only Origin does that. For now. <_<

There are many lessons to be learned here, I think.

The Microwave Rectenna Plant by Somy won't explode if you keep it watered and keep it within range of a fire station. Thus, you avert nuclear apocalypse.

I'm glad everything worked out!

While sims do age, and do die, they do not remove themselves from the population when they do so. They are immediately reincarnated into younger, less educated sims of the same wealth group. This, in an instance where it occurs in large numbers, can change demands. The cause of the population loss is something else, assuming the Datpacking itself wasn't the cause. The neutral tax rate (The rate at which there is no benefit and no disadvantages to demand) is about 8.7 at 500,000 population. Thanks to RippleJet for making the demand curve. I'm not sure, however, if it's the cause of your problems. I've had over a million sims before demand cratered while at 9.0. Then again, each occupancy group has its own neutral tax rate that changes based on how many of that given type is in a city...then again, again, they may be interlinked.

Can you link to this file? I can't find a way to download it, outside of the torrents Bing brings up.

That's because there is no desirability for high tech where your dirty industry is due to air pollution. High tech has no tolerance for dirty air; ID produces a tremendous amount of it. If you use a mod/lot that reduces air pollution by a significant enough amount, you will notice high tech industry replacing the dirty industry assuming you fulfill the other requirements for high tech. For industries, the existence of sims has no effect on desirability (Besides the creation of air pollution due to traffic). Whether or not they work the dirty industry is decided entirely by their wealth level and their ease of access to it. Instance 4201 in Simcity_1.dat determines the percentage of each wealth type that can work in a dirty industry building. By default, it's set to 64 (Hex) for low wealth, and of course 0 for medium and high wealth. Therefore, only low wealth sims will work in dirty industry, and they will do so regardless of their education. Yes, they can have 200 education and they will still happily work at dirty industry (Or farms, even!). It's just that there will be no DEMAND for ID or IR. Any ID or IR remaining in the city that does not abandon due to low desirability/lack of power/water/etc is still viable for jobs.

That was a Hell of a story, Nonny.

If you kill demand for dirty industry (Via high taxes or high education), it is possible for it to abandon regardless of what else you do. However, if you have high desirability for dirty industry where it is, it's very easy to retain the majority of it. Plop a couple plazas, add in a police station if you haven't, and most of it will stay. As for keeping it from upgrading...the air pollution will keep the High Tech out. Manufacturing may or may not replace the dirty, but you can always set your Dirty Industry buildings to historical...time consuming process, though.

As RippleJet noticed during the CAM 2.0 testing, farms do not act in a way the stage numbers would demand. Stage 1 farms will still grow somewhat commonly even if their chances of growing are less than 1%. This indicates another function is involved in the process that we are unaware of. I have noticed the following over the last few years: a: The larger the lot size, the more difficult the lot is to grow absolutely. A 16x4 will be much harder to grow than 4 4x4 lots, EVEN IF the lot in question is LOWER stage than the 4x4 lots (This can occur with CAM). 15x15 and larger lots are almost impossible to grow. b: This problem doesn't occur until the lot is larger than 6x6. Until then, growth behavior is as expected. c: Commercial services are less vulnerable to this problem than residential, but it is still noticeable. This may be due to the fact that they have far smaller occupancy numbers overall. d: Occasionally, abnormally large lots will spring up like weeds. These incidents are sporadic, unpredictable, and I've found no reliable way to force them even when the below is taken into consideration. e: The "growth simulator" has a priority for what gets grown assuming desirability and demand factors are relatively high: High priority is given to residentials. Of the three wealth types, the game will focus on high wealth first, then medium wealth, then finally low wealth. Medium priority is given to commercials. Of these, high wealth commercial services seem to have the highest priority, followed by high wealth commercial businesses. I've not extensively tested the lower wealths of these two occupancy types, but I have no reason to believe they function differently. Low priority is given to industries, with high tech having the highest priority, followed by manufacturing, and then dirty. f: The game will ignore checks for growing a certain occupancy type of building when demand is at/below 0. This can be useful for focusing the game on another occupancy type. My conclusion, based on a and b, is that there is a hardcoded behavior in the "growth simulator" that ceases to function correctly when it has to deal with a lot over a 6x6 size when it isn't given an opportunity to split the lot up. This behavior is very likely the reason the Maxis lot program can't normally make lots over 6x6 in size.

Capacity will act unusually if you change it for already-existing buildings, but there is no significant negative impact on the simulation that I have noticed. Bulldozing/starting fresh is still the best idea. Altering things with PIM? Yeah.

Reading/trial and error is required to use these tools. There is no muffin button when it comes to modding SC4, I'm afraid. SC4PIM will do exactly what you want, but as you've experienced it's a very complex tool. It does come with an extensive manual, however, which makes its learning curve a little less steep. I personally recommend it for finely tuning a building's parameters. iLives Reader will also accomplish what you want, but it's not an automated process like the X-Tool. A basic manual is located here: https://www.simtropolis.com/forum/files/file/21372-the-reader-beginners-guide/ I've never used iLive LEprop, so I'm not sure what it can, and cannot do.