WarnerW

I recently re-purchased Sim City 4 Delux (I'd had it before but it was lost in a fire). I also got the collection. I find the collection useful but not as much so as I'd have wished. When making these collections, why not have a new user install of some kind that will load the plugins folder the necessary dependancy files and a good basic set of buildings, utilities, parks/beaches, industry, etc... It seems to me it would be rather easy to make a single zip file with all the basics that could be unzipped into the plugins folder. I find it very tedious to have to read the readme file on ever item and then locate the dependancy files and load them just to get going. A well setup object menu would be nice too, from where I am right now many items appear multiple times in my menu's and fixing this is a major pain. It would not be such a big deal to add more files after the basics are done, but it takes many hours to go through the dvd and pick out each item individually from the start. Thank you all. W.

I guess the best way to express this is by way of example. The attached zip file contains the bsc dependancy packs found on the stex dvd and a collection of civic bats and lots (police, fire, schools, hospitals, rail, etc...) that I find essential. Only those utilizing BSC dependancies were included (it is just an example). I also downloaded Deadwoods's RT subway stops and included (under rail) as it is soooooo useful. Just download the zip file, put it in the plugins folder, and unzip (with paths maintained), and walla it should all work. Note: I did clean up the installs for some of the items for consistancy. For example, simgoobers stuff (which I really like) was too complicated an install for a clean example, so I moved the contents to the relevant folders. All items are in folders indicating the author, so it should be easy to find and reinstall these items if one would wish. Let me know what you think. If someone who really knew the game well were to do something like this it'd help a lot! W. Note: cannot upload file, keep getting a "server reset" error. It's about 185mb, is there something i need to do to upload here?

Oh, I know how to load them. It's just tedious as all hell. To do it right you have to unzip the file, read the readme, copy the files to your plugins folder, and make sure all the dependancy files are available. You can nest things in sub folders, but sometimes this does not work and it also slows down your computer. Then you have to test things. Install more than a few items and finding problems becomes very difficult. It shold be rather simple for an expert user to pick out a basic package, and to include all the major dependancy packs, set it up in a fresh install (simply rename the existing plugins folder and make a temp one for this purpose), test it to make sure it's good, and then zip the whole thing including the sub-folders retaining paths. Then the new user could setup a fresh plugin folder, copy the zip to it, and unzip. Walla, game is going! From there they could add files as desired carefully and they'd have an example of a well thoughtout structure to follow. W.