Sporally

I've been playing for a couple of hours on the server named "Oceanic 1", but it seems quite unstable. I have been thinking about starting a new game since I'm afraid this server will never run properly again (simply too many who signed up for the first handful of available servers). Can I expect other servers, espcially the new ones added within the last 12 hours or so, to be more stable in the long run? Which ones would you suggest?

I've been wondering how you guys compare and compete your cities or regions. I mean, you could of course say the greatest city was the one with the most inhabitants, but that's not really necessarily the best way to compare cities / regions. Either it is a matter of time, and actually its even easier to get a big city / region when you go for low value zones. A way to compare and compete could be to see who can get the biggest building of level 3 value (both residents, commercial and industry). In case you ever compete on this forum or among your friends, how do you do it - and keeping it objective?

I've been very busy lately, but are now getting back to SimCity 4 - Rush Hour. OK, i know there isn't a real way of competing in this game and that is fair enough, but a goal could be to get a $$$ residentual, commercial and industry building containing as much people as possible as you guys have. So could anyone tell me what the largest (looking at inhabitants) $$$ resident, commercial and industry building is so i have something to compare with? Does anyone know an upper limit for buildings sized of $$$? Furthermore, i just want to compare with vanilla buildings, no downloads / cheats.

After Windows crashed i need to get my cities back. I've stored everything, but i just need to find out how to do this right. I recall it made a mess the last time i did this where all the cities where randomly spread across the region aswell as the empty landscapes. Maybe i did it wrong, but i guess there is a way to make sure they are installed in the right place or the regional map will be a mess and all my cities working together will be in serious trouble.

I sent the files to CaptCity but we didn't find any solution unfortunately. I must have done something wrong when moving the files around, but i can't say exactly what went wrong. However, i am very satisfied with all your help although we didn't come up with a solution. At least i am happy that it didn't erase my main city

Almost. First of there are no cities in the download-folder. Then i copy the 10 cities into it. The 4 of them work perfectly while the remaining 6 have a name in the download-folder, but when i go to import in the game it only writes 'New city' for those 6 cities, and when i import them i only get an original empty (with rivers, lakes and hills) city. Maybe, if someone don't mind, i could send it by e-mail - one that works and one city that doesn't work.

Have tried, but when i delete everything in the Download-folder and then copy over my backup, go to the game and import the cities, only 4 of the cities are shown with the right name, while the last 6 cities are shown as 'New city' although they had different name in the Download-folder, and when i place them on the map i simply move one of the other terrains from the London-region to my own terrain location while the one i moved the terrain from is replaced by a totally flad landscape. It's like the game can't read the 6 cities but know they are there, so i just put in some terrains - probably one of the terrains that i had the city on originally, but since they all have the same name i don't know which city/terrain is suppose to be located here and there. Any further ideas?

It worked - partly. Thx a lot! What surprices me is that i have 10 cities (i had added numbers to the city names and could easily add them into the right spot) but it only showed the name of the 4 of them. I got those into place without a problem, but then i only had 6 cities names "New city" in the download-folder, although they had names in the actual download-folder found via Windows. I figured i just had to try one of them in one of the spots that i wanted to add a city to and hope it was the right one i added, however, it simply put in an empty plot with lakes and stuff (could see it was terrains of a different location in London). How can this be and is there a fix to this? If not, can i use the region.ini that i've backup up to do something smart and adding them all at once. I figure there must be somewhere in the london-folder the region setup is saved since i can delete the entire folder and still have the original London-region.

I've been very busy since you replied last, and i'm sorry i couldn't follow up on my own posts. I've been trying all morning, but it seems to give me problems still (please read the posts above to get the full story). I tried to figure out which files i had to delete first in order to get all my cities into the region, but i am unable to find out which standard city maps i have to delete in order to get my city maps on the region map. I have now made a screenshot and edited it by putting a red X over the empty city maps that i need to delete in order to put in my own city maps, so if any of you are interested in helping a poor guy like me i would be extremely happy with your assistance - so if i can send anyone the picture so they you can tell me which city maps i need to delete that would be great!!! I have attached the file (if i did it right), but i am not sure if it works. In case it does, it is the red city maps i need to replace with my own, and then one of the two yellow ones, i'm not sure which one of those two though, but if you could just tell me the name of both of them. It is the London region map. The file names in the ... Documents\SimCity 4\London folder are all called: City - New City ([number]).sc4 ...except for those called Fulham, Kensington, Sydemham and Woolwich.

@ xxbydesign I meant the density or value like $, $$ and $$$. But what is this 'stages'? I don't think i know of any 'stages' going from 1-8 for residents and commercial, so could you enlighten me please? @ Fawah37 I don't think comparing the total amount of inhabitants for a whole region is a good way of doing it. Once i had a building containing 5,000 people of $. You will definately get many people if you build the only $ zones, but of course this is a way of comparing for some people. I would just hope for something a little more difficult or nice-looking than that type of buildings. Is there a way of comparing how many inhabitants you've got of $$$ for a whole city / region without doing a long and boring self-count? @ Hamish True. I'm not that much into competing, just interested in a little comparison so that i can say subjective that my city / region is the best, but objective i've got to get some more achievements before i can say it's the best city / region. Don't worry, you won't hear me bragging of my city / region, i might just be asking about your city / region for comparison only.

"Compete" might not have been the best word, but challanges would be great. I would like to see some challanges in SC4 (not that it isn't challanging to make the city the way you want it), but i just would like some sort of challange or something to compare regions with. So, maybe someone can tell me what their most inhabitet level 3 resident, commercial and industrial buildings are? Is there a way to see how many level 3 residents, commercial and industry inhabitants you've got for a city / region?

I saw a screen from another forum user who had some very nice skyscapers. Like 20% of the whole land covered map was covered with trees. Trees has a one time cost but no running expenses while recreationary items has a running expense. But how effective are trees compared with recreationary items. Let's say, a park of 1x1 square equal how many trees, and is it compareble at all?

I don't place too many trees, but i prefer moving the industry into the suburbs and only built trees nearby those industrial areas. Could someone give me a direct link to a site where i can download the Region Census Program? Thx in advance.

I've searched Google now but didn't find a link that could lead me to a page where i can download the region census program, a lot of the links that i might could have used are dead links. Could someone plz give me a direct link to a page where i can find the region census program, more than just www.simcitycentral.net.. Thx

Thx storms991.. @ Fanaza I am not sure all ppl can agree with you that trees increase the desirebility. However, everyone seems to agree that trees decrease pollution.

Thx, but uhm.... what is SCC?

Thx, and what is that 'Region census program'? Is that something that is in the game or another downloadable program?

What is that program - is it a non-Maxis program or ingame thing we are talking about? Do you have a link if it is something downloadable... NJZ - think i need the full lenght of that to understand the meaning of it And HT-I = I$$$, right?

Can anyone help me on this 'city comparison'?

That is an interesting topic. Will take a look at how much HT-I i can get. BTW: I have a friend who recently has bought SC4+RH, and i wanted to know what you would use as city comparison. I have a region of 81k inhabitants while he has 300k. Then i thought it was because he had a lot of $-residence, but he told me that he had a lot of $$$-residence and $$$-offcies too. The best way to compare city/region IMO would be to take a look at how many $$$-residence, $$$-offices and $$$-industry we each have. Is there a way to tell how big a persentage of the population that is $$$-inhabitants or something along those lines? Just a way to comparing the cities/region. Don't want to count the numbers of $$$-inhabitants manually Then we of course have to possibility to see who has the $$$-residence with most inhabitants under one roof and the same with $$$-offices (and maybe even the $$$-industry). And just another small question: Does $$$-industry always equal HT-I or can you have $$$-industry that is still M-I?

Oh, and now i've got another question i hope you can help me with. I have a city with HT-I as the only industry in this city. It runs fine for me. But i have D-I and M-I in other cities on the same region. So my question is, is it possible to have a whole region with HT-I only or do you need D-I and M-I aswell? In the real world it probably is possible to have HT-I for a city with high educational facilities, but if you ask me if this city is self-provided it is a NO. D-I and M-I produces many things needed to build a house first of. So the question is. Is SC4 made so that it pretends my region is the only one in the world (therefore D-I and M-I is needed) or should i try and transform all my industry into HT-I?

I have removed a couple of cities (see second last post of mine) and tried to keep my region as one giant system. Ultimate goal is to have the entire region covered in cities and only in system. Playing London i have the business center as the great city in the middle. I have both ID and IM and a lot of housing in that city. But i'm moving them out into suburbs so i will end up (somewhere far into the future) with a pure business distrect - depends on how stable the region will be with a pure or almost pure business city. My IH goes to the northwest, housing to the west, north, northeast and maybe some more. International airport to be located in a residential suburb to the west. ID and IM to the far east. Maybe IM to the east and ID to the south by southwest. Farming (don't know how important this is) will be to the south by southwest. I know Heathrow Airport is located in west London, and unless things have changed dramatically since WW2 the industry is located to the east. Business is, as it is with all major cities worldwide, located in the city center.

That could be the reason. Wasn't normal vegatational growth. Thx for the answer...

I have started a map on easy and later i started a couple of maps on the hard difficulity since i found out you wouldn't have that much money (thought 500k was too much to start with). 1) But now i wonder - does the difficulity level change anything else than the starting cash? If not, then i'm fine with it, but if something else is changed i should have picked easy for all maps. 2) Is there a way of finding out what difficulity level i play on a specific map? 3) Only to be answered if there is more than the starting cash as difference between easy and hard: Is there a cheat code to change the difficulity level? And if yes, can i be sure everything is set to easy with the exception of the starting cash (can live without those money, as long as i don't have to restart the map in order to get the right difficulity).

Ah ok, that way. Thought it was an online guide. But thx for the info...