Jim14409

Thanks for the responses guys. As much as I'd like to try Cities:Skylines I probably won't be getting it any time soon as my system does not meet all of the minimum requirements. At some point one has to ask if it is worth discarding perfectly good computers that are tens of times more powerful than anything used to put a man on the moon just to play the latest game, most of which turn out to be highly over-rated. I still enjoy SC4, Banished, Sid Meiers Railroads, Tropico 4 (haven't bought 5), Dawn of Discovery, and Europa Universalis 3, and a few older ones. Maybe I'm just getting old, but I've learned that even the best of new games is not going to paint the real world pink with marshmallow clouds and world peace. Thanks again for the responses.

I know nothing about Steam other than the occasional comment here and there so could you help me understand your response? You say one can run Steam in offline mode but required to be running in order to play the game. Will Steam "run" without an internet connection? Can I play without an internet connection once installed and validated? Also, how much CPU useage and RAM does Steam require? Sorry, but I'm old school. Give me a DVD a password and perhaps require a phone call or something if you must, (all of us do not have unlimited download data allowance). Patches have never been a problem since they started to be posted online. Players simply download read instructions and install. Simple. To say Steam is needed for updates and patches is simply an excuse and I doubt I would like the reasons by Paradox or any other company for being connected. I have quite a game collection (I paid for them all) but have stopped buying games for about two years now because of how they are delivered. I did purchase Banished but don't have to have Steam or anything else. I will always support such developers.

I agree on the dormer windows! Flat roofs would not look right in Banished IMO. Nice work.

Amazing how often a re-do whether it be a re-download or a re-boot straightens things out. Glad you got it working.

In the Colonial Charter mod many of the buildings are now upgradeable including the mines and quarry. There is also talk of introducing some scenarios and challenges in future updates. Colonial Charter mod is doing a super job in making the game new and fresh each update.

I've not played any of the Cities games before and so I wonder how the intriguing city in the clip came to be. For me gameplay is slightly more important than the final look. So if the gameplay (how one arrives at such good looking cities) is near as good as this looks I just might buy it.

You know how some of these new fangled bulbs have to get warmed up before they glow their brightest and even then some of them give an off colored light? Explains a lot about me huh? Well what can I say...

Thanks for info on the painting. Really like it. Ditto on Imageshack. I don't use the site enough to justify paying and I let them know as much in my goodbye note. Everyone should let them know if and why they are leaving.

Ahh! I see the electricity finally came on...the light bulb over your head lit up.

Never heard of "World of Banished" and I thought I had all the links to all the sites about the game. Thanks Mr. Moose. Concerning the gameplay of Banished... I installed the "Debug Menu" in the MOD folder and now it is an all together different game! For those times one wants to just concentrate on building and increasing population with few or no challenges or waiting just open that menu and add whatever you need to the game. I love it! but will still want to play the regular game once in a while just to keep the brain working. I too sometimes need a break from SC4. Not for any particular reason especially other than sometimes we just want and need a change, like not eating the same thing for dinner every night. SC4 is the only game however that I have ever played in about thirty years of playing video games that I always come back to so regularly and enjoyably. Shouldn't take long to save up out of the gas budget what with the falling prices. Even when prices are high I only spend about $20 every two or three months so no big savings here. EDIT: About those CTD's Have you installed the software that allows the game to access more memory (can't think of file name) and done the command line modification and use only that link to access the game? After I did that I never get CTD's except when I forget and wave one of those transportation pieces around. (I can never remember the no-no but that is what I do-do.)

After my long rant...sorry...Yesterday I found a MOD just for the thing I was complaining about. In fact there seems to be more than one, none of which I have tried. Another one is coming out anytime now in the Colonial Charter MOD which I will try out as I am already using that MOD. BTW Banished is only $20 in case you were not aware. Believe me I know...sometimes $20 can be a lot of money. I hope you are able to get it soon. What has you annoyed in SC4 if I might ask?

I would like to have some way of pre-zoning or future planning. Perhaps it could be a lighter shade of the actual zone color or have diagonal lines to indicate that it was not yet actually zoned. Also someway to designate future streets, roads, avenues, and highways as well as a way of designating the area where a university, zoo, airport or other building will be placed later. These building placement markers might all be one color and then use the text aspect to denote the actual building to be placed. Any of this may not be possible but would be helpful in my game play and planning for future growth of any town, city, or region.

I basically like Banished, even love most of it and have sung its praises elsewhere, but it seems to have an aspect that I find in many games which to me is extremely annoying. I may be wrong but it seems the game is programmed to do certain things at certain times no matter what the player has done or does do. Suddenly the food or the wood or the iron will start going down like someone pulled the plug on the bathtub, or people start dying out of the blue by various methods and it does not stop until it reaches a population generally of less than half of what it was. Some find this to be "challenging" but I find everyday life to be all the challenge I can handle these days. I play games to relax and forget my troubles for a while and want a game to be truly interactive in the present. But on the other hand it could be that I am just an inept player and several tiny missteps all converge into one big catastrophe. To answer your question...it is a love hate relationship. Regardless, I do think it is quite an accomplishment for one person and visually it is beautiful. Being a glutton for punishment I'll probably start another town today (I deleted last nights game). Now...aren't you sorry you asked?

I have Children of The Nile but have not played it in several years but did enjoy it when I played. After several months break I am currently playing Banished with some of the MODs installed.

Fascinating! There should be prizes for such devotion to detail. When I get to thinking my cities are looking pretty good I visit one of the Journals and realize my work is not even in the ballpark. Would be so great to be able to explore such cities in a first person drive/walk through. Thanks.

I play SC4 regularly and at times excessively one could accuse, but have never played The Sims. Somewhere early on I got the idea that the game was for pre-adolescent girls so never investigated. Since then when I read anything about The Sims my eyes glaze and I fast forward. The pics in the post above look rather inviting but other posts sound rather uninviting so guess I will continue to pass for now unless someone has a convincing argument in favor of the game.

Much of my zoning is done manually or by hand I guess you could say but when I do zone in mass I have found a way to prevent mansions from hijacking and building in areas where I don't want them. Don't allow three lots to be back to back they can be in a row, but not back to back. Say you have zoned a area of lots that are three lots across and two deep (3-1x2's) and butting up on the back side you have another group of the same facing the other street and there is no unzoned space between them. The trick is to shorten ONE of the lots on either side by onegrid block. This results in one street of 3-1x2's all next to one another. Back of them on the next street you would have 2-1x2's and one lot of 1x1. A mansion will not grow here. I have found the same to be true on 1x3's and other sized lots as well. If you zone a large area just take the de-zone tool and dezone one grid block where three would butt up to three otherwise. Hope this makes sense and I'll be glad to help if it is not. I had a graphic but so far can't upload it.

I was already a member of Simtropolis before SC4 came out. November 2001 I started playing Sim City and signed up for Simtropolis 6-24-2003. After moving from another state I was away from the game and the site for a couple of years and couldn't find my old sign-up info so I opened a new account (this one) May 31, 2009. I do appreciate Simtropolis even if I do make some folks angry once in a while with my many differing opinions and viewpoints. I have learned a lot and greatly benefited from this site and am happy it has continued.

My apologies to the OP for my part in the hijacking. Thanks for the responses guys. I'm thinking my new med might be starting to work since this is the first day I have felt slightly better and the edema is greatly reduced. I am so far behind in the things I usually take care of in the Fall. Hope to get started on some of them soon if these new meds work as they should. Moose I didn't realize it had been so long but I went on Beta Blockers about 1992 so a couple of decades for me as well. To Tommy_H - I too find the SPAM farm plugins hard to beat and they are all easy to find at SimPeg4

In my case I've had the zipper since I was four, born with something called Tetralogy of Fallot by and large OK, but have had a couple of nasty health scares with it, they had me on beta blockers for a year a while back before they decided the side effects were worse than the original problem. Catty, sorry to hear of your health issues but glad you are doing reasonably well. I am wondering about the side affects you mentioned. I have been on beta blockers for several years (fortunately no zipper here) and just this Monday they put me on alpha blockers as well. Maybe I should Google the blockers because seems I just can't get my energy back and generally feel lousy. I wish you, Moose, and Mrbisonm, well! As I'm sure you all know that when the heart is ailing it affects everything.

Puts me more in mind of SimCity Societies than it does SC4. I especially don't like all the blinking logos overhead or the blinking reminders to check out the new stuff. I may not play like the next guy or at the speed they play and that is one of the wonderful things about SC4. Like Burger King used to say, "Have it your way." SC4 lets me do that and any game that hopes to compete will do the same. I wasted money on Societies and not going to get excited about this one. Time will tell.