mayorplease

Preface / Purpose of this thread: Did you ever want to create suburbs without any of the Maxis houses like this? Or have a uniform looking neighborhood of mid-rise appartments like this? Plopping commercial/industrial buildings works just fine. Open the landmarks menu... plop skyscrapers... downtown finished... The problem with plopping residentials should be mostly known by everyone. While you can certainly use the Extra Cheats Plugin.dll to plop whatever building you want, they don't function right when they are plopped. They get abandonned pretty fast and even if they not, the sims won't find their way to work because the pathing does not work. So the only way to make those residentials work in-game is to let them grow. The techniques I will be showing are mostly for newcomers to the game who want to gain control over their residential plugins. Of course, if some veterans want to join the conversation, feel free to share your best-practices when using custom residentials IMPORTANT NOTE: This is NOT a tutorial about demand, basic infrastructure or growth stages! I will always assume that you meet the requirements for these buildings to actually being able to grow! This is about growable RESIDENTIALS ONLY, the same principles can be applied to growable commercial/industrial though. What's needed: - Ilives reader (latest version 1.5.2 can be found here) - BSC No Maxis Files (here) - A general idea what look you are going for - Patience Basic idea: To make sure we get the buildings we want to grow, we will use these variables to our advantage: a) Building style (tileset) b) Zone density c) Zone size Here is a quick example what this means: Let's assume we want a specific type of house to grow in a suburb. (see 1st picture) We know the house only (!) grows in the Chicago tileset. Furthermore it's a small house, so it will only (!) grow when we zone for low density residential. And finally we know the lot size of this house is 1x2. So we pause the game, set the building style to "Chicago only" and zone low density residential with a size of 1x2. Then we hit play again and voila, exactly the house we wanted will appear. Another one (see 2nd picture): We want to create a block of those w2w buildings. We know these houses only (!) grow in the Houston tileset. It's an appartement, so it will only (!) grow when we zone for medium density residential. And finally we know the lot size of these houses are 1x2 and 2x3. Pause the game, set the building style to "Houston only" and zone medium density residential with a size of 1x2 or 2x3, depending on where want each building to go. Tadaa. As we don't want or have enough variables to assign one to every single building we want to grow, we will form groups of buildings. Now let's get to work: Step 1: Organize your plugins Here is an example folder structure to use. It makes it easy to add or remove buildings while you play. Basically, before starting a new region, you set up your plugins for that region. plugins -my_region A --res_low_density_chicago ---houses A ---houses B ---houses C --res_mid_density_houston ---mid_rises A ---mid_rises B ---mid_rises C --res_high_density_newyork ---high_rises A ---high_rises B ---high_rises C . . . In the top folder ("my_region A") we have our maxis blockers: From the BSC No Maxis Files copy "Stop_R$.dat", "Stop_R$$.dat" and "Stop_R$$$.dat". The other folders hold your downloaded plugins. You decide where you want everything to go. In the next step, we adjust the in-game values of these downloads to match the folders. (Again: This is for residential only! If you want to expand on this concept, you could add com_low_density_chicago, etc...) Step 2: Edit the plugins Open Ilives reader and go to first folder we have created ("houses A" in "res_low_density_chicago") Depending on the download, you will find .sc4lot and .sc4desc files or a .dat file. We now match up the plugin with our folder structure. So we are looking for our variables we want to use: a) Building Style (tileset) That would be "OccupantGroups" (in my example in a .dat file). Style has to be only (!) Chicago. Picture: b) Zone density That's "LotConfigPropertyZoneTypes" (in the .sc4lot file), which has to be only (!) "R - low density" Picture: It's easy to change any of these values using the drop down menu. Always save before you close the file. c) Zone size This is not something we can change that easy. It's the way the lot was made. What we want to do, however, is delete all .sc4lot files we don't want. In my example I have a couple of those files like "American Four Square 1x1_2faba7d8.SC4Lot" and "American Four Square 1x2_afac2d37.SC4Lot" etc. So if I dont want these houses on a 1x1 lot, I just delete files with "1x1" in the name. If the filename doesn't say anything like this, it can be found under "LotConfigPropertySize" (in the .sc4lot file) Picture: We need to check these 3 variables for all files in the folder ("houses A") before we move to the next folder ("houses B") and do the same. After we are done with everything in "res_low_density_chicago" we move on to "res_mid_density_houston". There, we make sure all buildings match only (!) the Houston tileset and zone density "R - medium density". I hope you get the principle now and can come up with a way this could work for your cities. If you have any questions or any feedback on how to improve this guide, feel free to post

It is indeed the heavy rail viaduct, not light elevated rail. I am using RVT's mod for RRW. In the picture you see the rail catenary mod in combination with "ConcreteSteel_DkGrey" textures for the rail viaducts Hope this helps

Lovely!

Here is an update on the interchange I posted earlier, it has now traffic using it Here are some more shots of the city. Thanks Aaron Graham and NYBT for these great BATs! Transition from housing to medium density development: And from medium density to high density Finally, this is where they are all going to. The beginning of a downtown It features a collector/distributor system including a basketweave interchange in the middle of it all. Took me forever to figure this out, but it seems to work so far. Thanks to the basketweave, there are no weaving issues when you enter/exit the highway

So I was wondering about the monthly challenges There are obviously no entries for the march challenge. But seeing no signs of an april challenge made me a little worried. Are they dead?

As I tried to point out, it is not really a commute time issue. There just are not the right type of jobs available for these poor sims. If you had the jobs in your city the sims would most likely find a way to get to them. There are two things you could do: 1 - Increase the amount of Co$$$ jobs 2 - Decrease the amount of R$$$ sims Keep in mind what I said earlier, only 10-15% of the jobs of Co$$$ buildings are for R$$$ sims. For example, if you build a new Co$$$ tower with 5000 jobs, only 500 R$$$ sims will work there. 4500 jobs are for R$ and R$$ sims. Take a look at your population graph. Most of your sims in a healthy city should be R$$ followed by R$. Only a tiny amount should be R$$$. If you have too many R$$$ sims, try raising the taxes for them so they move out.

The problem seems to be that you don't have enough jobs for your R$$$ sims. Did you know that Co$$$ buildings only supply 15% of their jobs to R$$$ sims? The rest is for R$ and R$$ sims. My guess is you have just too many R$$$ sims in your city in relation to R$ and R$$.

As this is an international site, you should post in english or at least provide a translation. That way others can understand you, too Anyways, I'm using the Sudden Valley terrain mod by Gobias. It has great HD textures but is a bit demanding on the CPU. In my opinion it is totally worth it though. Here is a link for you buddy: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2867 And don't forget the dependency file from here: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=2866

Oh thank you T Wrecks, that's very kind of you. It means a lot to me, especially coming from a long-time member like you By the way, I love your Industrial Revolution Mod! It adds so much to the game! I hope you continue making great stuff for sc4! Oh yes, you are absolutely right. The problem is, after they would go under the overpass, there is no way to elevate them to level 1 and make a left turn at the same time. And for the flexfly I need to go to level 2 anyway. But you are right, the elevated section could start after the ramps go under the overpass, which would make it shorter. And a shorter elevated section is also more realistic/cost-efficient. It was actually a quick fix, so here is a picture of what it looks like right now. I added two more pictures of the progression on that tile. There are two Y-interchanges feeding into that main one. To minimize the weaving issues, I left 15 tiles of space between the on/off-ramps. Hopefully thats enough space for these sims to not bump into each other And I plan on creating a ring-road around the center, which will be mostly high density. The tiles to the west, north and south are suburbs, all connected with the RHW4s you see going out. Thanks T Wrecks! Great feedback!

Still working on the suburbs I posted earlier, since you seemed to like them, here is an update Meanwhile I added a new industial area, which will continue on the next tile to the east. Also the commercial areas gradually expand with the number of sims moving in. Any constructive criticism is welcome Here is an overview of the tile, followed by a couple of close up shots: Industrial area and freight yard: The commercial park, with the first offices in town (excuse the temporary power lines ):

3-level cloverstack interchange This will be the main interchange in the city. I expect lots of traffic from the surrounding suburbs, so it had to be high capacity. It took me pretty long to build, but I tried my best. Any constructive criticism is welcome

Looking good! On the last picture, is that a Tram-in-Avenue Tunnel? How did you make that?

I want, I want mayorplease Huston

I came into this in the dark. I tried to avoid any hype surrounding the game so my first experience wouldn't be influenced in any way. This is me doing my own thing, and of course I'm going to run into stumbles / rocky roads in my first city. Nevertheless, I am quite enjoying the game and I am grateful to have the opportunity to share my experiences with the community before launch. Actually, I think it's a great idea to go in blind and figure all the stuff out on your own. Recording it and sharing it with the community is even better. Thanks Hal Now I know its quite embarassing to say, but I actually watched all 100 parts of your "building a city from scratch" series I know, I know I am crazy, but you did a great job talking over those videos and it was always entertaining to watch. And tbh the parts where you pulled your hair out cursing over RHW were the most fun You can be sure that I will be watching all the videos you do for this new game, but deep in my heart I still wish you would do another series with SC4. You hinted at it a couple of times, if I rememder correctly. I would love to see how you progress in the huuuge region you are building, the transit network connecting all you cities and of course your adventuring into more rural areas as well. Maybe it will never happen, but I sure would love to see it.

Fully diagonal rural parclo interchange featuring FARHW Only a couple small villages and farms nearby. And what's better than an interchange? An interchange with a small story of course So, you see, budget was tight. And there was no money left to fill up those holes where the material for the overpasses was dug out from. So these small ponds developed naturally over time. Good story, right? right? And what the heck, here are some bonus pictures That's how it looks like in fall:

Thank you for pointing that out, I've done some code inspection and am happy to say that yes, it is actually really easy to do! I've added it to the post I mentioned above, check it out now with your fix, much nicer effect See this is what I mean by learning more when trying to teach others too! Woo. Oh yes! That's even better I like how it's popping up now from the point you click Waiting for a tutorial now

New region, the first suburbs, very much still WIP Trying for organic growth, busting the grid as much as I can. Hope you like it

Cool, I assumed it would be kinda like that. That's awesome. Now it would be even better, if those image links pop up "in-site" (for lack of a better word) instead of opening in a new tab? Like when you click on images in a thread they open right on top of it, if you know what I mean Is that possible? Also I am now really interested how you did that

I would love to see the image maps tutorial, sounds really cool, but is there an example one you can link for reference? I can't quite imagine what it would look like when finished. Looking forward to any tutorial you do! Thanks!

I was playing on software rendering, but wanted to use some HD content. Now this is what I get when saving and exiting to the region: New region, no terrain mod, no tree controller. This is my system: - Laptop - Core2Duo P8400 @2.26Ghz - Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT (No Intel onboard graphics) - 4GB RAM - Win7 64bit - Simcity 4 Deluxe GOG Version This is what I tried so far: -Edit graphic rules and video cards files (according to this thread: ) - Change around stuff in the Nvidia Control Panel I tried disabling everything, the "let the program choose" option and enabling most of the options. - This is my shortcut to sc4: "D:\games\SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition\Apps\SimCity 4.exe" -intro:off -CustomResolution:enabled -r1280x800x32 -d:DirectX Always the same result Everything else works fine on hardware rendering, game runs fast, only this bug Running in software mode, the region view updates just fine, it must be something with the hardware mode. Any Ideas?

Now THAT is BY FAR the BEST regional transport design I have seen on this site! I demand a submission it to the NAO!!!! You sir, definitely made my day. Thanks for that!

Hey rsc204, I have downloaded your "MGB - MMP Pack Vol1" from the STEX. It's great Loving the trucks, I have one question about the rail cars, though. In the screeshot you added on the download page, how did you plop those rail cars on top of the tracks? The game won't let me plop them on dragged rail, I just can't get it to work

HOLY MOLY... So after HOURS of playing around with the settings (yes, tried different resolutions, too - didn't work) I went and downgraded my drivers. Although I play other games, which would benefit from up-to-date drivers, I decided that SimCity would be worth it So after countless searches I stumbled upon a post on SC4 Devotion. The guy there basically said that drivers past 314.22 would cause him glitches in the game. Long story short I am now running the 314.22 driver and the glitch is GONE! :) Can you believe it? I am really happy now! Finally I can run the game in all its' glory and use some of the HD plugins I was so eager to try out, but couldn't To recap for anybody else having this issue: Card: Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT Driver: 314.22 -> glitch gone

Thanks for your answer Prophet Yes everything is fine while inside a city tile. It only happens when saving and exiting to region. And it happens with every tile I open, not only this one in the screenshot. The image gets rendered ok I guess, because when I make changes to the tile they are updated in the region view. It's just this ugly black border that gets somehow thrown in there I tried using -d:OpenGL, too, but that didn't work at all. The city would not render and only show me a completly white tile. And if I switch back to software rendering, open the tile again, save and exit to region. Guess what, everything is fixed. About using an older driver. I am using the Geforce 340.52 driver right now, which is the latest one. I play other games as well, so not sure if I really wanna go that route. There must be a way to fix this, at least I hope so.

Thanks for the great explanation Very well explaned and very good job finding this trick! Thanks for sharing! It was close, but yep, you avoided it