clif9710

Thought I haven't played them, it's apparent from what I read that the successor simcity games haven't met expectations and as a result SC4 continues. I wonder what kind of information was gathered to drive the development of the later versions, such as Skylines. You'd think that the characteristics of SC4 (and NAM) that make it endure would at some point be put into a new version...

Being a newbie, NAM is overwhelming. I've watched tutorials and invariably the presenters will intend to do something, it won't work, and they will say something like "oops, that can't work here, so here's what you have to do" and then he works some magic to come up with a solution that will work. The detail is overwhelming. My favorite interface was in World of Warcraft, where one could decide on the things one wanted to use frequently and place the icons for immediate access. The not-wanted did not appear on screen, you could forget about them. When in battle, a sequence of icons could be hit and the results were as smooth as if it were all one action. Unless I am using it wrong, it appears the NAM always requires scrolling through what seems like a huge number of selections, most of which are not what one is after. The next time the item is needed, it's scrolling time again. I don't believe one can leave a menu in a scrolled position - you always have to start at the top. I found, for example, that the bus station had moved down the scroll list. Going through this scrolling over and over is tedious. None of this is to belittle the incredible amount of work that obviously went into NAM.

Well, I reached 500 years and sure enough, the game uninstalled and a window opened that said "a random 12 gB of your hard disk has been erased as punishment for waiting 12 years after we released this game before you purchased it" A.N.Moose - after reading your comment, I started up Process Hacker to view CPU and GPU use while SC4 is running. I also started FRAPS. The CPU usage goes between 10 and 15% and the GPU is running a about 5%, but I am nowhere near the 700k Sims you mentioned. The FPS is 15. My PC is an I7 and I have a add-on graphics board. The only problem I have is on rare occasions the game will quit, so I take care to back up from time to time.

If I am interpreting what I see correctly, 500 "years" is the limit. When that is reached the game stops?

I'm reading comments and notice people mention bugs, such as the "commuter bug" and I know about an I-HT bug. Is there a listing of all known bugs/fixes?

That might be a reason to run at the cheetah speed, since the months would go by fast and updating would come sooner?

Ah, ok. So it is the quality of the situation in relation to the best that can be obtained that is revealed in the straight query. Thank you. There is one loose end, though. Abandoned buildings that show 0/15 employment, for example, should not have any workers because conditions are so bad none are allowed...yet the route query can still show active commuters to the site. But maybe that only means the number of them is dropping and will likely go to zero soon.

I placed this question on another forum and was told it's normal. I'm hoping that's not the case. What's your experience? There is a Goth Industries plant that, when queried, tells me 13 out of a possible 19 jobs are filled, but when I do a route query I am told that "workers and freight" are zero and no travel paths are shown. I've also found that abandoned plants that a query shows have no workers can, when route query is used, show there are workers and the commute paths are indicated. I've let some game time pass to see if it is momentary thing, but the discrepancies remain. Since this information is so basic to the game, it's hard to believe it is normal. Is there a fix?

I guess I could bring in the aliens or a tornado to cause some expensive damage.

My city treasury is going up up up. I have over 5.5 million in funds and my city is small (22,000). All is going well, everything is under control and I'm wondering if I should start spending wildly on landmarks, none of which I have placed so far. BTW, the NAM installation really altered the traffic situation. If anything, it seems too tolerant of traffic now. I still have mostly streets with only a couple of avenues and congestion is nowhere near being a problem. With my big surplus, I'm thinking of calling Mayor Rahm Emmanuel in Chicago to see if I can give him some badly needed tips...but then again, there is no pension funding in SC!

The video that got me on this subject of triggering is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3Fyec9bWgk go to 16 minutes in and watch for a minute as he "triggers" residential development in several locations with bulldozing.

I've been watching a SC4 tutorial (by dwyrin) where he speaks of triggering an area. He does this by bulldozing one lot out of a side-by-side series of lots none of which have any development. As soon as he does this, the whole area of connected lots begins to grow. It acts like the game doesn't realize the area needs to pop until he reminds it by this single-lot bulldoze. What's the story on triggering?

I don't agree, abandoned historical buildings may not be redeveloped, but they can be rehabilitated. So it may be good to mark abandoned buildings historical, especially if they are buildings that you want to keep, or hard to get. Normally you don't want you your 2x3 CO$$$ office "redeveloped" as a CS$ shop with 80 CS$ jobs, you rather want to protect it from such a "redevelopment". It will be re-occupied when conditions improve. Thanks for that comment because it answers another question. I was wondering if lots could downscale into a lesser property. I'd been thinking that the only thing that could happen on the down-value side would be abandonment then the building would either sit there unoccupied or partially occupied or burn down but would never be replaced.

I have been looking over posts about marking things historical. Am I correct that this will freeze development of a lot and that is its only function?

thanks very much, I'll do that