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I'm using NAM 34, the Columbus terrain mod, PEG seaports and a bunch of other miscellaneous stuff. All my plugins are here: ~/Users/username/Library/Containers/com.aspyr.simcity4.appstore/Data/Documents/SimCity 4/plugins I can't say whether the other places work or not but I haven't had problems with the above location.

Thanks for the input everyone. I contacted Aspyr asking for info, and will post anything relevant I get back.

I experienced color issues in the transportation view with the old version. I can only speak for my own rig (late 2013 iMac 27' OS 10.8 ) but for me they look as they should in the new release.

I don't know of a way to turn it off. I use a cheap third party two-button mouse with a scroll wheel and haven't had any problems. Never cared for the scroll dot on Apple mice.

Are you seeing the proper terrain within SC4 mapper before you save it? I've only started using the program recently myself, but once I hit 'create region' and select the proper file type and file, I see the terrain, then do a "save region." You should end up with a folder containing a small config file and a region.ini plus individual files for each city. Then drop the folder you created into your Regions folder (the one within your library/containers/com.aspyr.simcity4.appstore/Data/Documents/SimCity 4 folder).

So Aspyr's considering removing plugin funtionality from the new SimCity 4 in an update. I'm seriously hoping they don't do this. The base game isn't nearly as attractive to me, and finally having a version that runs fast and well was worth buying it again, but removing the ability to add custom content would be a real punch in the gut. Anyone know if there's any way to make sure the game doesn't update to a new version unless I allow it to? The obvious thing would be to avoid having the game call back to Aspyr HQ every time I open it, but I don't see an option for that anywhere, plus not having the game connected to the internet apparently makes the game unplayable if you're using the plugin folder under some circumstances anyway (which is the bug people were asking about that led to the Aspyr response that an update will cut plugin functionality out of the game). Anyone have any ideas about how to avoid an update? My game's playing just fine at the moment, very stable and fast, with a good selection of plugins (the ones I'm most interested in, anyway). I'd rather not be subjected to a 'fix' that removes a bunch of stuff I'm really enjoying. Sorry it that's confusing, and thanks in advance for any insight.

The region map will show a kind of quick-rendered version of the new region's landscape. Once you go to the close-up view of an individual city, save and exit back to the region view and you'll see that city as the normal, fully rendered version. There's an option to automatically reconcile map edges - make sure you turn that off before you zoom in to the close-up view. You'll have to do that with each individual city, but the upside is you don't have to wait for the whole region to render - you're basically doing it one city at a time.

I don't have the expertese to track down this problem, but I did try a few things just to see what would happen. The first time I started game with no connection (but with the NAM installed) the game created two new (mostly empty) region folders: "(2)" Contained only a region.ini file "timbuktu (2)" Contained nothing, was just an empty folder Removed only the "Network Addon Mod" folder from Plugins (leaving "z___NAM" folder in Plugins), and game wouldn't boot, immediately got a crash notice. Removed only "z___NAM" folder (leaving "Network Addon Mod" in Plugins) and game opened to a blank region again, and created two more blank regions: "(3)" "timbuktu (3)" Both were empty folders. I didn't click on any cities this time (I did the first time), probably why the region.ini file was created in region "timbuktu (2)" above. This time the game didn't crash (since I didn't click on a city?) - I was able to quit without a crash by clicking the quit button (though the text was missing from the confirm dialog). I've got some other custom content installed - terrain, tree, and water mods, some power plants, a few other things. The game seemed to run with no problems with these active and no internet connection. I only had problems when the "Network Addon Mod" or "z___NAM" folders were installed.

Unplugged my internet connection to confirm this, sure enough... I just installed the NAM yesterday, but I hadn't tried playing while offline before this morning. Why would the NAM have any effect in this regard?

Works for me as well.

I'm no expert, more of a dabbler, but I'll tell you what's been working for me. I don't know if you're familiar with the old (pre-app store) version or not, so apologies if any of the following covers stuff you already know. First, any mods or buildings you want to add should be placed in the Plugins folder here: Users->your username->Library->Containers->com.aspyr.simcity4.appstore->Data->Documents->SimCity 4->Plugins I can't remember if I had to create the "Plugins" folder or if it was automatically there after installation, but that's where it goes. Because Apple is stupid, in current versions of OS X your Library folder is hidden by default. Here's how to unhide it. I've only added a few buildings so far (a couple power plants, a click-for-money pavillion, a couple others), but they're all working fine, just download, expand the Zip file, drop the resulting .SC4lot file into your Plugins folder and you're done. The Plugins folder supports sub-folders, so for example I keep the 3 power plants I downloaded in a folder called "Power Plants" within my Plugins folder and it reads them just fine. My understanding is that most lots on the STEX should work with the Appstore version, though from my time here years ago with the older Mac version I remember an issue with some of them concerning the lights at night not working. I'm not sure if that's been resolved or not but the affected lots worked in all other respects. Some downloaded lots have dependencies, meaning other files (props or textures) they require to display properly in-game. If you see a brown box in-game where one of your downloaded buildings should be, I think it's because you're missing a dependency file. Dependencies should be listed on the file page of whatever lot you're trying to download, many files have none so it's not always an issue. I've also been using some terrain mods, specifially the Columbus Terrain mod, the CPT Tree controllers/models, a jagged edges mod, and the PEG Brigantine water mod. The water mod was relatively easy. It's just a single .dat file you drop into your plugins folder, though it's trapped in a .exe file which means you need some way to extract it (more on that later). The results are worth it, but I had trouble finding all the relevent files for the Columbus terrain. Download what you think is the mod itself and there'd be a little note listing two other files you need to make it work, which may or may not be available any more due to an update or being moved to a different site or whatever, and when you find them they're .exe files. I ended up finding the last of what I needed on some German SimCity site, and did the installation by running the instructions through Google Translator. I'm sure I took the long way around - they're probably all available in a tight little package somewhere, but I missed it. The Tree mod is very cool as well, though like the terrain and water mods it requires a way to deal with .exe files. Some of the terrain mods I chose to install come with a ton of options I didn't need. The tree controller for example comes with like 15 different controller files so that you can load one, place one type of tree, quit the game, load another, place another type of tree, etc. It's confusing if you're a lazy casual gamer like me who just wants to drop in a single file and have a bunch of cool trees show up - luckily one of the included controllers will do that for you, but I had to do some reading to discover which one. Imagine the indignity! The thing I wanted most when trying to get a terrain mod working was a list of required files, as in 'complete this list and it will work.' So below is a screenshot of the files in the terrain subfolder of my Plugins folder. Find the downloads that include these files, extract them, and you'll be up and running with the following: The Columbus Terrain mod (snowcapped low version), includes rock and beach replacements The CPT tree controller and models (lots of cool better-looking trees) Jeronij's jagged edges mod (smooths jagged diagonals, easier wall building and better overall smooth diagonals) The Brigantine Water mod file (PEG_WATERMOD_Brigantine_205.dat) isn't shown, but it's in the 'PEGPROD' folder (seen below my CPT_TerrainEssentials folder) Now, about using .exe files. There's a program called Filejuicer that's recommended all over the place here. It's a free-to-try app that Mac users can use to pull relevent files out of an .exe. I used it a bit years ago when I was struggling with the original, terrible Mac version of SimCity 4. It's not a bad solution for some things, but I don't remember it working with every file and if you're going to use it more than a few weeks you'll need to pay for it, so it may not be a long term solution for everyone. I ended up downloading Wineskin Winery instead, which is free, and allows you to create a little app that you'll then run each time you want to 'install' an .exe. I had no previous experience with Wineskin, but was able to somehow muddle through creating the relevant app. Since my initial fumbling efforts, some saint has of how to do this. This will also enable you to run the the app that allows you to create new custom regions from either grayscale images or SC4Map files, of which there are tons in the STEX.

This is completely awesome. Thank you.