itsbernie81

Hi there, First and foremost, thanks to the BSC team for CAM. It has basically changed completely the way I play SC4 and has made the development of large, sustainable cities with no unemployment a lot easier. It seems to me that the CAM does so by significantly boosting the demand for commercial and industrial development (or perhaps repressing residential development). Whatever it is, SC4 with CAM makes the game much more enjoyable. However, after playing the game with CAM for a few weeks now, I have noticed some strange developments. I am not suggesting that CAM caused them, though I would be interested in any comments and suggestions: Big drops in resident average income each time I load a city. A typically established city in SC4 with a reasonable mix of citizens of the three wealth types, in my experience, has an average income of about 70,000 simoleons. Recently, I have noticed that when I load my cities, the average income halves immediately. And it continues to halve again every time I load. This is not accompanied by a change in wealth type distribution (i.e. the change in average income seems to have no correlation with the composition of wealth types). This has obviously been triggered by something only recently as I have been playing with CAM for a few months now and this has not affected my cities during the early stages of the region’s development. For the record, my largest city, with a reasonable mix of citizens of the three wealth types, has an average income of 10,000 after successive falls. Sudden changes in demand. In my biggest city, I noticed something extremely bizarre. I have been building that city (without building up its neighbours) for several sim decades. One time, I load the city, and residential demand suddenly plummets. I am used to this happening when I play neighbour cities that may absorb too much demand, but this is a case where I have not touched the neighbour cities for years. The residential plummet was immediate. My city lost 70,000 (about 10% of its population) overnight. Since then, it was been struggling to grow smoothly (as it usually does under CAM). After a few wild swings, it has recovered the lost population, however. And on a totally different (and I know, sensitive) topic unrelated to CAM, I have also seen the first sign of the so called "Prop Pox”, though I want to note something. It should not be called “Prop Pox”. Model files are affected too. I have seen props go missing, as well as entire SC4Model files. One of my Maxis industrial buildings has suddenly just gone. I would have posted this on sc4devotion, but the website is currently down. Best regards, Bernie

Thank you both! Very helpful. Really appreciate it.

Hey, thanks very much Alex! Lo and behold, there they are! Sorry, just one final question. Where are the ramp puzzle pieces for connecting elevated RHW-based highways to other roads and avenues? I tried cycling through the various NAM-based puzzle pieces for highway offramps but I don't think I saw anything appropriate.

Hey there, I have installed the latest version of the RHW after installing the latest version of NAM. Under the highways menu, I can see there are several new RHW menu items, which contain either puzzle pieces or starter pieces for wider highways. However, cycling through all the puzzle pieces, I cannot see an option for ramps and bridges over/under other road types. For example, I can't find the option for building an avenue bridge over a RHW highway. Can someone please point me to the right part of the menu? Or is this some sort of installation issue? I have tried looking through the documentation and could not find the answer. There's a well-written article on interchange design over at sc4devotion but unfortunately the pictures are not loading as the user's bandwidth on photobucket has been exceeded. Your help much appreciated. Best, Bernie

Dear both, thanks for your suggestions. Tungston - I did download the config.bmp file as well and have kept the name as it is. Each folder bears the region's name, the config.bmp (for the city tile layout) and a greyscale jpeg file for the terrain. I have no idea why this causes a problem, but it does. I will try loading the files directly on the file directory of the virtual Windows XP machine and see if it makes a difference (at the moment, the files are in a shared directory under OSX). Teg - I agree it is some sort of a graphics card issue with Windows XP running under a virtualisation environment. As soon as disabled hardware rendering the flashing went away, but this is not a long-term solution ... I will keep you posted. Thanks again!

Hey there, Used to be an avid SC4 player on my old PC and currently getting back into it ... on a Mac, running Fusion. CitiesXL is taking its time coming out and I am getting the itch to zone some RCI! After installing SC4 without hiccups and updating it with the official patch, I have encoutered two problems. I tried searching the forums but didn't find the solution (and apologies in advance if it turns out this has been answered before). However, any suggestions for the following? - I am trying to load maps and city tile files downloaded from the STEX but an error message pops up, saying that maps cannot exceed 1025 x 1025 size. Is there a modd that I have to download to have maps exceeding 1025 x 1025? I couldn't remember there being such a modd, but just wanted to check. If not, is there a fix? - There are some severe grahics issues. Everything that animates flashes on screen - I'm going blind! Specs are as follows: MacBook Pro (February 2008 build), 2.4 Ghz processor, 4GB RAM, GeForce 8600M GT graphics card. As mentioned, running SC4 through Windows (and not "natively" on OSX). Again, any workarounds and fixes? I'd be grateful for any tips and suggestions. Thanks in advance, Bernie

Thanks - a well-articulated review!

Hey Rexer, I really liked your review! I think it was the sort of review that I wanted to read before deciding whether to purchase the game. I am inclined to purchase, but perhaps wait a little until the price falls, because it is apparent that it is not worth $99.95 AUD. For my part, without playing the game, I get the impression that people have a really negative disposition to SCS simply because of the title "SimCity" and the expectations generated (that's EA's fault, not ours mind you). I agree that when someone mentions SImCity I think of concepts like "zoning, organic growth, landscaping, regions" - none of these concepts prevail in SCS. Also, it is apparent from a few reviews that there are many untapped possibilities in SCS that people have yet to discover (probably because they have been playing the game with the SimCity mindset - it's hard to avoid I suppose). Many have given up discovering these possibilities, being tired of the game once it was apparent it was no replacement to SC4. I am still willing to keep an open mind. The concept of having a roadless city is interesting to me for example. The concept of "venues" is also intriguing, geared around operation at different hours. Probably wait another few weeks and grab it after Christmas. Or maybe I will wait for Cities Unlimited if by then it becomes apparent that's what SimCity has evolved to.

I have seen the 1UP video of the chat with the producers of SCS and I have seen all the screenshots that have been released on various websites before I comment - in an attempt to be as best informed as possible. I have been a SC fan since the very first version in a big floppy disk - as with probably most people here. I loved SC4 once Rush Hour was installed. I love this community. Let me start by saying this. Why I loved the SC series so much was the organic nature of it. You interact with your city. You can't just dictate where everything goes. Your citizens react to your decisions. You zone residential next to a heavy industrial areas, and you get slums (if anyone wishes to move in at all). Traffic becomes too congested in an area? Your sims can't commute to work on time, and they move. The city is prosperous, you reap the rewards as you watch once dilapidated neighbourhoods gentrify. The city lives and breathes because of your decisions. For me, there is always a little giddy thrill when I see the first skyscraper under construction, the first mansion popping up in a neighbourhood. I always love the transportation options available to me under SC4, especially with the modifications made possible by SC4 innovativeness. I love planning highway routes, a transit system, creating realistic suburban street layouts, and then seeing the sims populate the zones. It's apparent that SCS does not embrace ANY of these concepts at all. Zoning and transportation aren't features included in the game. To me, these are the fundamental elements of SC that I enjoy so much. The game is an exercise of strategic plopping. Some plopping is okay here and there (for example, where you want a part of your city to look just like that) but without any interaction with your sims as to how a neighbourhood should look, you take too much control for my liking. It seems under SCS you don't only choose where sims live, but what type of "energies" are exhibited by the sims who live at that point. That's coming too close to God mode for my liking. There appear to be only roads at the moment - I hope that will change. SCS presents some interesting concepts. I don't think it is very original. Those "societal energies" that have been touted as being so revolutionary seem uncannily like City Life's "social classes". SCS just takes that concept even further in unappetizing ways - I mean, how many SC fans have ever really wanted to build a city with zombies and chocolate houses? The possibilities are endless, says the press release, but these aren't the possibilities we want to see, are there? I want to get back to creating realistic suburbs, towering downtowns, quaint seaside suburbs, that sort of thing. It is apparent that SCS won't be offering anything like that. I accept that. SCS is not SC5 and it is called SCS for that reason. I will watch SCS and Cities Unlimited with keen interest - playing with societal energies could be interesting too. However, as with the majority of people here, what I am really waiting for is SC5. I hope I don't have to wait too many more years. Peace Bernie