Klemvast

In Belgium: Antwerp vs. Ghent Ghent vs. Bruges All three are beautiful old medieval cities dating from the time when Flanders was the economic hotspot of Europe. So they all claim a symbolic title of "capital" (which they all deserve, depending on how far back you want to go in history). Because Antwerp is the largest city today and economically most important because of its port, citizens of Antwerp are seen as "arrogant" by the others. Oh, and Brussels vs. Paris. Brussels is actually the second largest French-speaking city in Europe after Paris (it's bigger than Lyon or Marseille). Brussels has almost everything copied from Paris: the architecture, the "avenues",... The World Expo gave Paris its Eiffel Tower, so Brussels decided they would have a World Expo as well and built the Atomium (which must be one of the silliest monuments in Europe, but that's just my opinion). Luckily, you can still eat "French fries" in Brussels, although Belgian people will insist that French fries were really invented in their country. Hahaha.

Originally posted by: CaptCity Klemvast... Might be this one...quote> Yup, that's it! Thanks a lot man. Now I can go building cities again without financial worries.

Hi, I returned to this great website after quite some time. Several months ago, one of my HD's crashed completely and I lost all data I didn't have any backup of. This included all of my SC4 plugins. I'm now thinking of toying around with the game a little bit again, but only with some of the most necessary downloads like the Network add-on mod etc. There is, however, one little file I would like to find again. It was basically a cheat: a small little plaza you could plop down in your city, and after one month you would have a ridiculously large amount of money. It used to be on the STEX I think, but I cant find it. Does any one know the name of that thing? (Or a similar cheat?) It would be great for me, I've never been such a fan of the whole financial side of SC, I just like the pleasure of citybuilding. Thanks in advance.

Hello, I'm one of those players seeking realism in the game, I try to recreate everyday European cities and towns I know myself. I tend to work from a real map (although I don't do mapmaking for SC, I try to make everything as accurate as possible: the place where roads and rivers should be, the path for railways to follow, etc. etc., everything should be in the right place and the layout of my city should more or less follow the layout of the city in real life). So now the question for the realists. What do you prefer? 1. Working on a map with completely accurate dimensions (as I read somewhere on this website, a large city map is supposed to be 4x4km, a small one 1x1) or 2. respecting dimensions, but scaling down everything to a certain degree At the moment, I am working on large city maps, which are in real life about 12x12 km. (So I scaled it down quite a bit, as you can see!) The reason for this is that I'm having a nasty realism problem: when I keep the geographic dimensions completely realistic, I will soon get completely unrealistic population numbers. I would typically be working on a pretty small town which has in real life about 30,000 inhabitants, but in SimCity, it would soon rocket to 60,000 or more. The reason for this is that I'm trying to simulate European towns and cities, and as you probably know, they mostly have nothing but rowhouses in the center of town and perhaps a small highrise here and there, but mostly medium residential. Since one single rowhouse in the game can contain up to 30 people, this totally messes up the realism (normally, you would expect one single family to live there, so 4 or 5 people). Also, after some time, I would be obliged to implement mass transit even in very small towns, or I would have to place airports and other unrealistic stuff. (Also, even small towns suddenly get high commute times, but I can still fix that with the NAM to a certain extent.) Does anyone have more experience with what the perfect scale should be to make a realistic city? As you can tell from my story, I am now choosing option 2 (scaling down), but this presents me with other problems (e.g. I can't really create true suburbs or low density residential areas, because if I want to be completely realistic, the roads should now be so close to each other it turns into a bizarre jungle of streets without much space between houses very soon).

Antwerp Central Station: This railway station is also dubbed the railway cathedral. I was trying to find a picture of the main hall, but I couldn't find any. Especially the main hall is very impressive to enter. It's as if you enter an old Italian church like the Duomo in Firenze. (Especially due to the acoustics, actually!).

You can reduce the bulldozing cost for highways and avenues by 50%. What you have to do is bulldoze only half of it (so only one driving lane). Cost will be only 50 percent, but the other half will be demolished as well. Thought I would just share it with you.

Date: 6/27/2005 8:51:21 AM Author: buckbeach I rationalize money cheats for initial highway/rail etc and including plop lakes, dams and canals (including irrigation) as subsidies from Big Brother Govt (state, national etc where ever you live).  Many aesthetic and normal improvements have a cost without a benefit (or much of one) in return.  I look at ongoing funding the same way monthly tile costs that have no tax or business revenue are not well spent (at least game-wise).  Anyway, since the economic model of the game can't possibly encompass the funding of a real city, cheats are my way of compensating and still have fun.  Works for me. quote> Yeah, me too. But I only use the money cheat when my city really runs out of money, since I like to have the budget more or less balanced, nothing less nothing more. (I also think this is the only possible goal in SC4, you can make some profit, but not for a very long time...). And that's exactly when I discovered this cheat... well, glitch or something. It's not something you will use very often anyway, but if you're going for economic realism, it might come in handy.

One of the best and funniest games that I ever played is Anachronox on the PC. It's pretty old, and the problem with it is that all the people working on it were fired just when the game came out. The game never really became a success, but it's kind of like an underground classic. If you can ever play it, you should really do so! It's an RPG with lots and lots of humor in it. For example, one level is completely in cartoon-style (even the text balloons change), and the story behind it is that some evil boss has captured all super heroes and keeps them imprisoned in a spaceship somewhere in the galaxy. Of course, when you finish the level, you can add your favorite old-time superhero to your party and he has some pretty hilarious fighting techniques. But there's much more than that. Some of the characters include a grumpy old grandpa and you can even play with a complete planet called Democratus (actually, this was an emergency case: the planet shrank to the size of a human being as a defence measure against destruction, and since then it has become a normal character in the game, hehe, imagine that hey, shooting down some bad guys with a planet as character). The scenes in the red light district (pretty far in the game) are also hilarious. Has anyone ever played this game?

The GameFAQ is also pretty funny: http://db.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/file/big_rigs.txt Personally, I found it incredible how the trucks just drive off the map into nothingness... incredible!! I'm just imagining how this game ever even saw the light, and why they even had the guts to publish it. Strange.

I couldn't find ANY pictures at all from this building, except for this small one: This is the so-called Villa Urvater in Sint-Genesius-Rode (near Brussels, Belgium). It was built by a diamond tycoon from Antwerp in the 1960s and was recently saved from demolition by a Belgian minister, after a lot of protest from architecture lovers from all over the world. The architect was Andr

Date: 6/22/2005 10:40:00 AM Author: Nik-nik Date: 6/17/2005 6:02:48 PM Author: will_silver00 You know I'd forgotten about the many times I, too, have plopped C BATs straight on the ground!?  Of course it works, doesn't it... Whoops.  That said tho, these new ones by Xannepan do seem to be ultra-sensitive to outside factors and can delapidate very quickly if you're not careful. Anyway, thanks again for the input.quote> I noticed the delipidation as well with the R$$$ buildings of Xannepan. So care is key. Anyway, please explain it to me (I own SC$ +RH since January 2005 and have bought one of those discounted products, so without an official Strategy Guide that people are referring to (so I do not have the manual, for those who would say RTFM)) Why do the buidlings in the middle not show the no-road zot? Or are they just non-fuctional and just eye-candy (beautifull though). quote> Yes, it says so in the tutorial above: This style of building hinges on filler lots that MUST have no road restrictions, which you'll need to make yourself in the LE. It's easy to do using Xannepan existing buildings many of which can be chopped down to 1x1 or 1x2. Porkissimo's and (most of) Erdmoebel's buildings are both ploppable, with no road restrictions so can go anywhere. You could even use Maxis' buildings to make some filler lots. quote> That's why they don't have the no road zot, you see. And by the way, the manual is not the same as the Prima Strategy Guide some people refer to. You can buy that guide, it's an independent publication (I don't have it myself though)

Hello, In certain discussions in the forum, I have heard people say that there is a recent mod decreasing residential population by 50 percent. After searching the forums, the only thing I could come up with was a mod which has been released by user rustawilliams, but this dates from 2004 so it's not that recent. Is there a more recent mod around, or should I stick with that one? Thanks for advice!

Hi everybody, yes, it was a mod reducing population by 50 percent. I haven't PM'ed yet, when I have time... hope I can find it.

Date: 6/19/2005 4:56:35 PM Author:rendezvous i despise these two styles - is there any way to, when i start a new city, to have only houston and european styles selected for building?  its sometimes hard to remember to turn the other 2 off when starting a new city, and even if i could, it would be tedious, and afaik there is no way to disable them after they have already been built...quote> The possibility to switch them off is already there, what more do you want? Just think about it when you start a new city. And if you forget, just bulldoze the buildings when the game is paused, uncheck Chicago and New York style, and you're settled. You won't have any Chicago or New York buildings anymore. (Some buildings do pop up no matter what style you choose, however, such as certain stage 1 residential buildings, you can't change anything about that, just make sure that your city develops and they will disappear.)

Date: 6/19/2005 2:40:20 PM Author: Tropod If such 'certain discussions' already exist in the forum, & it's discussing a recent mod, why not ask this there instead of starting a new thread? . Some type of mods only ever have one creation or one make or version, whereas some other mods (like Traffic based mods for example) have quite a large number of variations or versions. So I dare say chances are that is the mod you're after, but I wouldn't quote me on it . If you're still unsure, I would suggest getting in touch with the creator if possible & ask them about it.quote> Well, I did ask on the forum who made this residential halver mod, but then I got no answer (for more than a month now), sorry for starting another thread about it here but I thought this would be the best place to ask. But your hint about PM'ing, mm, yes, I could do that for sure. If anybody knows more about this, feel free to react though, I would say.

I'm gonna join the game! Carlisle, UK or, let me guess... Oswestry, Wales (well, that's the Uk right, though some people don't like that?) They have an aquaduct there anyway, so...

Date: 6/15/2005 10:19:28 AM Author: Buster Guys - how about cleaning up your road systems a bit? That 'roundabout' is really no such thing - just a big jumble. In all the pictures the road layout can be changed to get fewer intersections - and thus fewer zebras. This will improve traffic flow as well. Intersections slow cars down - the fewer, the faster the commute. If you want to use roudabouts, real ones are actually being developed now by Teirusu and others - one is already included in the NAM, I believe. That said, I completely agree that the zebras should be a darker grey, the same as the stripes in the middle of the road, and they should be simpler, without those extra stripes at the sides. They stand out too much as it is. Just my 2 cents. quote> Yes I know the roads in the picture are a bit of a jumble, the reason for this is I try to do a lot of things diagonally, and what is even more, this city was modelled after a real life one and it is scaled down way too much, so you get a lot of streets near each other. Nevertheless, the zebras on roundabouts will remain a problem whatever I do. And also on intersections that are not simple and straight 4-road crossings. About the new roundabouts: yes, I've discovered that thread lately (but only after I first posted here). But my impression was that they're not finished yet, should check that out soon though...

This is what I mean: As I look at those pictures now, I tend to think that I'm still using the grass areas a little too much, it gives a somewhat strange open look to my cities, but in some cases (as with the museum), I still think it's pretty nice. In other cases, I would delete some of them and add trees (if you use such a lot of open grass areas as I do, it tends to be heavy on your budget as well.) You do have to look out on corners, though. If you zone 1x1 around an entire block, the corner lot tends to grow into a 1x2 rowhouse instead of a 1x1, at least when using the Chicago tileset (which is why I temporarily leave the open grass corridor you can see in the second picture, I fill the empty spaces up later on).

Date: 6/10/2005 6:51:48 AM Author: nealos101 Becuase those 2x2 medium density blocks or 2x2 high density skybuildings appear.  To ensure terraced housing is on those areas, you have to do that. Nealos101. quote> The other way to avoid that, by the way, and this has also been said somewhere on the forums, is to zone 1x1 medium density only. This will give you only rowhouses, so the small apartment blocks in your picture will not show up. You can always add grass areas or trees behind the houses for extra effect.

The NAM (Network Addon Mod) is considered a must by most and also by me. Actually, I cannot even imagine what a mess my city would be without it (it improves commute times and other traffic issues).

I build my major highways and avenues first, although I cheat with the money. I use this method to accurately scale my city and to have some orientation points in my city before I start zoning and building. You do have to get a population of a few thousands pretty quick though, because otherwise the maintenance cost for highways will drive you bankrupt (but even if that happens, I must admit, I cheat with the money hehe.) Eventually, even my smaller cities do turn out to be more or less break-even when it comes to budget. I usually build mid-density towns and I use the NAM, so commute times is now seldom an issue with me. I'm gonna start on some bigger cities in the future though, I'm wondering how that will turn out, since I don't really like grids. But if it is the distance Sims are actually having trouble with, I would suggest the NAM, really. It helps a lot with commute times.

Vancouver Library looks really nice! However, I have my own request: the Berlaymont building in Brussels. This is the official seat of the European Union. There is a lot of controversy surrounding this building, since many people seem to think it's a complete failure. It is apparently also dubbed the Berlaymonstre by some people. After a long renovation due to the use of asbestos in the original building, it is now officially open again. Some pics: The sticks you can see are actually flag poles, but I guess they removed all the flags here for some reason. The building has an irregular ground plan, making it very recognizable, especially from the air:

Guess a solution could be to add zebra crossings individually instead of having them show up automatically. But even then, I wonder how many people are going to add each and every one of them, one by one, to their cities... hmm, no. Or you would need a hell of a lot of different types of intersections with different amounts of zebras etc., too much work I guess, any way, I'll stick to these Euro roads for now, since overall, the effect is indeed very cool.