primemover

Define "connected"! From what I can tell, SimCity STILL won't support becoming PART of the city. It wasn't the easiest thing in the world in Cities XL but I could actually walk and drive (by "hitching a ride") in the city that I built.... what fun!! I have played both over the years and I am frustrated with both; SC in particular. After making a game like "The Sims" you'd think they would have the brains to combine the two games into an amazing MMO. There are "mayors" who like to build cities and "Sims" players who like to live in them... what a concept. Instead we have CitiesXL buggy Bloatware that had several truly amazing and wonderful new innovations along with a whole new look to the city builder genre that abandoned the wondeful SC region play for another great idea... A new world with an MMO economy. Bad for individuals though (until they got rid of it). Then... each new edition brings lots more graphics but very little new innovation and they never fixed the bugs they had. And then we have SC-we-are-still-stuck-in-societies from what I am hearing. Why doesn't SC learn from Cities XL and make the best of both worlds? But no... we now have smaller cities, no real truly unique economy pieces except the usual RCI; and the only truly new innovation is our freedom from the "block" building constraint... which CitiesXL already had. True... SC does have a better "simulator" in many respsects but you still really can't be part of your city as a sim. The bottom line is that they aren't really all that comparable as some of you have said. They have completely different focuses. What we really need is a simulator the combines the best of these focuses. Brand new world(s) with realistic geography (CitiesXL) Customizeable regions on the above world (the ability to import geography and/or change it..SC) Region Play (SC) Variable city size (Both... SC4 had the right idea) Xtra large city size (CitiesXL and larger) Unique city resouces that are tradeable in an economy (CitiesXL) A large variety of transportation choices (SC4 expansion) Customizeable transportation systems (CitiesXL) A good city growth simulator (SC) A large flexibility in modding (CitiesXL/both...both franchises had a decent amout at one point at or another but CitiesXL leads here) A LARGE variety of buildings (CitiesXL) Civil Service options that rely more on traffic patterns than a radius (CitiesXL) Civil service options that make sense financially (SC) A reasonable recreation system (CitiesXL's recreation idea was a good one... but the system made absolutely no sense at all. Since when are bowling alleys and race tracks a city expense???? as opposed to a commerce source?) The ability to actually experience your city as a sim (Cities XL combined with elements of the "Sims") these are just the basics... feel free to add your opinions. A reward system for doing well (Both, but with some of the cool options in Cities XL and a little more flexibility as with SC) An event system that allows for things to happen in the city (SC) and adds some story. (Disasters for example...) One last one: The option to merge the Simulation and SIMS communities in a large MMO that uses "real time" cities as a possible locale. When I say "Real Time" I mean ones that evolve slowly so that Sims don't suddenly find themselves homeless because a new highway is built. I should probably keep dreaming huh?

I just located the help files on LUA scripting (strange I did not find them when I did LUA search previously). Hopefully they will contain some pointers. Apparently it is possible to create variables of your own but I have yet to determine if they are saved with the city files or if they are just loaded (calculated) at run time (when the game is loaded) and therefore must be based on already existing information. But I can't read it all at the moment. I've got to get back to some other things I've been putting off. Meanwhile, does anyone know the answer to this question?

After seeing what it does, my guess is that it doesn't use any scripting other than a script to activate the reward (which I checked and this is true.). It just queries more specific variables than any of the other population functions do. In order to accomplish my objective, (which will ultimately lead to more than just queries), I will need to create a custom variable that allows the building (or using a set of buildings) to keep track of which cities in the region are part of a particular metropolitan area. Here is a basic idea of what I would like to accomplish using my current region as an example For my current region I downloaded a 20 x 20 mile map of a section of the Baja peninsula (of Mexico) with a nice mountain range and an area that could be a small bay. The Region map is 32 x 32 small maps (but keep in mind that much of it is water). There are two main (large) cities Navhyrin (originally spelled Navorin) and Windsor Bay and several surrounding towns and communities. (Paradise Valley, Ellicot Island, a state park, etc...none of which actually exist there in real life... I like to create my own places and environments rather than have them be real places). Here is a map that I created using Wouanagaine's SC4Terraformer and Paint Shop Pro (I used it to plan and create a custom config.bmp used to determine where city borders are so this map does not reflect the actual city boundaries). So far I have only had time to build the beginnings of Navhyrin. But Navyrhin already consists of a utility district (small map), a downtown (medium map), a ritzy "cape", the main city, a beach district, and a "heights" (all large maps). Not that the city actually spans the entire large area included by these maps but the sprawl is typical of real life cities. Houston Texas and vicinity covers an area much larger than my 400 square miles (I used to live in a small town on its outskirts, a whopping 20+ miles from the downtown area) Currently I live in Phoenix, where the northern section of town is still 10-15 miles from its center. Windsor Bay will likely be much the same. The Chamber of Commerce will become available when a city such as Navyhrin reaches a commercial population of around 50,000 and a total commercial + residential of 100,000 or more. (This part is easy to script using LUA. I have already seen examples on how to do this, including one in the CensusRepository fil). Once the chamber is placed on the map, for every 100,000 or so population, a new “section” (i.e. map) can be incorporated (an awarded ability) into the main city. This is very much the way cities work in real life. Houston was able to force a neighboring community (Kingwood) into its metropolitan area in spite of measures taken to stop it. Some communities join willingly, others are taken through curried influence (against the will of some of the members). However, this is where the difficulty comes with modding. I can’t simply query a total for the region because most of the maps in the region don’t belong to Navhyrin. Windsor Bay and smaller communities for example will be separate incorporated entities (towns/cities). Instead, I will have to SCRIPT a subroutine that adds up the total using custom variables that let the script know which maps to include (or that keep a “city” total). In addition, I would like the ability to pool city resources of all maps that belong to the main city. (In other words, the maps that belong to a particular city will have access to each other’s money etc… ) I believe there also should be some negative sides to incorporating more area into a city (such as a mayor rating deduction or something as some citizens will want to keep their community identity separate).

After seeing what it does, my guess is that it doesn't use any scripting. It just queries more specific variables than any of the other population functions do. In order to accomplish my objective, (which will ultimately lead to more than just queries), I will need to create

Yeah... the census repository just divides all the stats for your city into wealth categories. Not really what I am trying to accomplish at all. Thanks though. It's a nice looking building with a useful query.

Hmm... ill check it out. However, I want to keep one "cities" (a collection of multiple cities) census seperate from a rural town or even another city that is closeby... I like to build megalopolises where one city blends into another like they do in large urban areas in RL. I am trying to come up with a way to organize thim into separate collections in a way that will not only affect census talleys, but influence game play as well. For example, the LA megaloplis is divided into Compton, LA, Anaheim, Beverly Hills etc. LA itself could easily fill up more than one large "city" on the Sim City map (keep in mind that a large city is section that is only approximately 2.5 miles by 2.5 miles). So I am trying to incorporate a way for multiple "cities" to act as one city. Not necessarily for manipulation (building zones and things) but at least for other aspects of game play (like having access to one another's income) as well as census information.

Thanks for the link. It may not help with my problem but it is an interesting program all the same. The functionality exists in which program? Sim City or the region census program? I know that external programs can access region data provided one knows how to read the files. What I am asking is does the functionality to add your own custom variables for a building exist in the Sim City program itself and can those custom variables be accessed by a LUA script? (Sim City uses LUA scripts to control custom behaviors of buildings such as the effects and conditions of reward buildings).

Ok... either this isn't interesting to anyone or no one knows an answer. Which is it? I have looked at some example lua scripts that some people have written for reward mods and it looks like programming the necessary functionality might be possible IF I can create my own variables that are saved with the game and accessible by LUA. Does anyone know if that is possible?

I'm pretty new as well so I am not sure about the answer to your second question. As far as your first question, Are you asking how to mod? or how to install the mods? or what? If it is the second one, if you know your way around a computer then yes, I can help. Personally, I download my mods to a seperate folder and then unzip them as is (or nearly so) to my My Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins folder. To make sure that the mod will work, you need to check any "dependencies" in the readme file that is shipped with the mod and make sure you download and install them as well. Some mods come with auto installers and those are easy to install. Just execute them. Finally, I have had some trouble finding some of the prerequisites for some mods as they are probably out of date. So sometimes you may not be able to get a mod to function.

I am brand new to Simcity4 Modding and so I don't even know if this idea is possible to do... but I think it is a unique (and possibly good) idea. FIRST: THE IDEA... If anyone else plays like I do, I like BIG maps with interconnected cities... some of which are actually part of the same city and some are seperate. A mod that I downloaded recently (BSC_DAE_ForestLookoutTower_v101) had a building with the capability (supposedly... haven't actually built it yet) of giving "a wealth of population statistics about a city and region" seperated by income level. This got me thinking...what if their was a building that do a hybrid of this... give statistics for a metropolitan area? (i.e. a specific city and all its "pieces" or surrounding parts). Hence the following idea came about. In real life, large cities often grow, expand, and take over smaller villas or towns. Commercially, tax wise, and as far as zoning laws etc are concerned, these smaller cities can and often become part of the larger city, forming a metropolitan area (and in some cases… a spread of the city itself). In my playing of Sim City, I often create custom areas (including the config.bmp) that include a city such as “Simopolis” and another such as “East Simopolis” with a smaller commercial district “Downtown Simopolis” sandwiched in between them. If possible, I want to create a reward building that makes Metropolitan areas a reality: The Chamber of Commerce. When the population + commercial population of a city reaches a certain size, let’s say 100,000, the chamber of commerce becomes available as a reward building. (provided the city is not already part of a metropolitan area). In addition to some other benefits (that are much easier to incorporate since they are typical of buildings in the game), once the chamber of commerce is built, a metropolitan charter can be formed. Once built, for each 100,000 population (or some such number), another city can be added to the metropolitan area bringing additional “benefits” (as well as some potential costs/limitations). In addition, the included cities (as far as the chamber of commerce is concerned) behave as though they are one. (I.E. stats wise, and if permitted by SimCity’s capabilities, in some other ways as well.) THE PROBLEM: In order for this to work, scripting must be used. 1. A way must be found to figure out which cities are part of the metropolis 2. There are a few ways this might be done, through an additional building (or set of buildings) such as a chamber of commerce extension building in a member city or directly (if LUA can do user interaction like doing neighbor deals) but in the long run, that data must be recorded somehow. I know lua is capable of doing this (I play World of Warcraft and am familiar with LUA’s use in addons) but I haven’t the faintest idea how much leeway SimCity4 gives LUA when interfacing its program. 3. Finally, scripting may need to be used to figure out which cities to use when giving a running total of member population statistics. So does anyone in this forum know how to use LUA with Sim City? Is this kind of thing possible? If so, where are some resources I can use to figure out how to do it? I think it is just as possible that SimCity doesn’t have the capability that LUA could give it because it all may depend on the LUA interface that the SimCity executable provides. This may just be a nice idea that ends up being a pipe dream but I thought I would try and ask. Thanks in advance, primem0ver

lua is a scripting language. I am actually trying to learn how to use it in SimCity 4 as I have an interesting idea for a building that would require some scripted behavior. I don't know much about the reader though as I have just started using it myself. All I know is that you don't just simply create a "lua" file because a lua file is a scripted program... you must know how to program using lua (in addition to interfacing SimCity with lua or copy a lua file that already exists) in order to include it as part of a building I am not sure if this answers your question... but at least I tried