Wharf Rat

First off, sorry to begin my stay here with a question. I've royally screwed up my region and need help. I was trying to restore a city to its default, and mistakenly chose to "level" it. Now where there once was a nice bay to pass subways through, there is a large flat patch of grass. From searching this forum, I've gathered that the best bet is to make a copy of the cities I do want to keep, reset the whole region back to its default, and import the kept cities back in. The problem is that when I go to access the data files for the cities, they're all named by number and I can't figure out which ones I want to save. Unless I can figure out the corresponding number for each city in the region, I don't see how this is going to work. Is there anywhere I can find these numbers for the San Francisco region? Thanks for your help!

There's a newly cleaned out SimCity 4 folder in My Documents. At this point, I've come to accept that my cities are lost, but San Fran shall rise again! It's probably for the best anyway, as I was just starting to figure out how to use subways effectively midway through constructing the region so the whole transit system was a nightmare. This will give me a chance to build a region from the ground up with efficient transportation in mind. I recently rediscovered this game after many years, and while its complexity kept me from getting into it in my teens, I'm loving it now. The girlfriend's not too happy about it, though. Unfortunately, this computer isn't technically "mine," and the IT guys in charge have disabled system restore. I keep pretty regular backups of my important documents (SC4 files will be on that list from now on), so I'll just wipe this thing at some point and start over. For now, SC4 doesn't show up in the Add/Remove Programs list or in Start>Programs, but I can start it from the CD. Goofy, but it works. I backed up the Plugins and Regions folders from Program Files>Maxis>SimCity 4 Deluxe by copying them to a folder on my desktop. From here on out, I'll do my best to keep from destroying this computer.

Well, well... I really wish I'd waited 18 minutes for your reply instead of rushing in and changing things like an idiot. I backed up the files in the regions folder under Program Files instead of under my user folder. Then I went and tried to uninstall the game, but something strange has happened. I clicked the icon and the computer paused for a minute like something was going to happen, but it never did. Now, the SimCity 4 folder is missing when I go to Start>Programs>Maxis, but when I load from the disc, it acts like it's still installed. Of course, I think I've completely deleted all record of my cities (because the city files under Program Files wasn't what I was supposed to back up in the first place, right?), but that's the least of my worries at this point. When I try to uninstall it, there's still nothing happening. Oh lord, what have I done? I realize that it must be very frustrating dealing with someone like me, but I appreciate your efforts.

I did rename each of the cities as I created them, but when I open Program Files>Maxis>SimCity 4 Deluxe>Regions>San Francisco, all of the file names are still in the "City - New City (##)" naming scheme. Nonny, what you suggested is what I would like to do, but because all of the city files have the same naming scheme, I won't know which of the backup folders to load. Unless I am misunderstanding you, it seems that I would still need to know what (##) corresponded with which city in order to properly switch them out. Is there anywhere I can find that information? If so, I figure I could back up the files I do have, reload the entire region, and replace the individual files with the correctly numbered file. The problem I'm facing (as I see it) is that I don't know which number corresponds to which square)