nosyreporter

Originally posted by: SimHoTToDDy How horrifically diabolical...quote> Originally posted by: RedImperator Heh. Sadistic AND clever.quote> Hehehe. This is one reason why I have always loved The Sims. You can decide that the poor things will pee their pants, be drowned, or be locked in 1-tile rooms with no escape ... just because you can. SimCity is the same in that respect and it provides endless amusement. I love this idea. Nice pics!

Well things have been going well in my corner of Sim Nation. I have a bustling little metropolis with two "residential" cities and one "industrial" city, about 70,000 residents all told. Early on, I put some residents and commercial areas in my "industrial" city. But I put no schools, or anything, because I really just wanted the income and because I thought they would drive to one of the schools in the "residential" cities. But this is not the case. The advisor in the "industrial" city is very angry with me because the Sims there are dumb. Why is it that we can trade water and power and things, our Sims will drive to work, but they will not send their kids on a bus next door? Or am I doing something wrong?

It looks like those are wealthy Sims, that have no jobs. Do you have a lot of high tech industry and high wealth commercial available for them? I think they are snobby Sims and will not work in certain areas. Maybe that is the problem.

That is very good, thank you. There is a download on the STEX that was talking about all these ordinances and I couldn't figure out what it meant. And the casino needs an ordinance, too.

What is the finance window? Do you mean the extended budget window that pops up when you click on the income/expense chart on the right-hand side of the mayor UI?

I have read some things, such as descriptions on some STEX items for download, that mention ordinances. What are these and how are they used in game? I tried to do a search but odds are I didn't do it right.

I would like to see some small newspapers (because I work at one!). There are some on the STEX but they are very large sky scrapers. Community newspapers are usually in small, 1-4 floor buildings, and can employ between 15 and 200 people.

Yes the power can be sold between cities. This is what I do ... in my Industrial city, I establish a power plant and leave room for others near the edge (adjacent to the Residential city) so I don't have to spend a lot on power lines. Then you draw some power lines between your plant and the residential city. It will ask if you want a connection to Sim Nation and you say yes. Then eventually it will say that neighbors are clamoring for power deals on the cheap and if you want to initiate a deal. You say yes. Then your residential area has power and your industrial area has power. As each one grows your power demand will grow, then you can add more power plants to the Industrial city and it will flow along the power lines to the residential city. At least that is what I do and it has worked very well. The only time I don't do this is when I am putting down water lines and the pump is out in the boonies. Then I just put a windmill next to it so it has its own power.

That is a good strategy. Tonight I will try making an industrial city with two residential ones connecting to it and see how that works. Is it better to use highways or a train network? Last night I tried installing a train network into my residential city and connecting it to an industrial city, and nobody used the train. Did I have it built wrong or was that because the Sims were already using buses and cars frequently?

Doh, a double post. Sorry.

Well I tried another experiment, making another residential city next to an industrial city. And the industrial city still ends up losing money hand over fist while the residential city explodes. What am I doing wrong?

I was reading a very nice guide on this site. And it said I could build a city in one corner of one map and a neighboring city in an adjacent corner on an adjacent map, and the Sims would drive to work. I have always had pollution problems in my cities and I could not figure out why. So I tried it. The two maps are connected with an avenue and one city is totally residential, commercial and retail and the other is totally industrial, with a couple power plants and things. I have tons of Sims who want to live in my residential city and they are very happy. It's nice to build little suburbs and place churches and coffee shops and things. The industrial city is not doing so well, it is losing money, so I will maybe have to shrink it. But the Sims don't mind driving. I will try a city where they are connected by a highway, then have avenues off that, then filter it down to roads and streets in the neighborhoods and see how that works.

Thank you everybody. This was very helpful, albeit a little confusing in some spots. I went through and organized things into folders like Churches, Schools, Libraries, Retail, Government, etc. and it is much easier to keep track of. But what is a dependency? Is a lack of this why some new things I have downloaded don't appear properly in the game?

Hello all. I apologize if this topic has been covered elsewhere. I am rather new to forums and things. How do you go about organizing your plug in folder? I would like to download several of the very nice things that other people have made, such as restaurants and newspapers and things. I have downloaded a couple already. When I unzip the folders, it makes a mess of my plug in folder such that I sometimes cannot tell what goes with what and so I am nervous about downloading more. Will the game allow for sub-folders in this folder? Must everything for a specific download be kept in one sub-folder or must certain files be placed in different areas of the SimCity4 directory? And how do you know? For example, some things are SC4Lot and SC4Model ... what is the difference? How is your folder organized? I appreciate any help. Thank you all for this very nice site. SimCity4 is intriguing. -Kristen