TogaMasterJohn

I find the "bug" message to be hilarious. A part of me wonders if that message is an Easter egg, either intentional or unintentional. If memory serves me right and from what I understand (from conversations over at the "sc2kfix" project's Discord server), the military base was a bit controversial at Maxis during SC2K's development; some were for it while others were against it. It's possible that SC2K-esque military bases (with similar functionality and benefits) were a planned feature at one point but were later scrapped due to time constraints, different ideas, or other factors. The fact that a military base (with similar benefits to the one in SC2K) is offered as a "worse case scenario"/"in a pinch" award when you're short on funds and you're losing money at the same time in SC3K (and even SC4) makes me wonder if that was a compromise instead, given how problematic the bases were internally at Maxis. And while it's kind of a loose theory, it's possible that the zone and its message when queried are merely a joke/Easter egg. That or the zone and its message were accidentally included in the final release (this wouldn't be the first time something like that has happened in a Sim game, especially SC3K Unlimited).

Talk about a pleasant comeback special... definitely worth the wait! Seeing all of this simulated beauty is amazing. Very expertly detailed (as always!). I could see myself inside of Tanje's magnificent garden and the Greener Hills Nature Preserve (with extreme care! ). Even though my allergies would probably wreak havoc and cause nothing but trouble for me for days afterward (even with allergy medicine), it would be worth it. I can only wonder what all of it would look like in fall... Great job as always, my friend! I can't wait for the next entry!

Perhaps the server is in need of a towel?

Hmm... I haven't disabled mine at all, so that's quite interesting. I have never experienced any problems messaging other members before. Recently (last week), I was having a conversation with another member via the messenger and everything worked fine. Also, I didn't realize that you had pinged me in this topic over the weekend... I didn't catch that until now, haha!

Despite being technically superior in some ways, the vanilla Special Edition Windows 95 port is inferior in other ways. I'm not sure why I find these bugs and other things to be so oddly amusing (not to mention fascinating, too).

That is really cool! I couldn't imagine playing the Windows 95 port of the game without the big bug fixes nowadays, so that will be essential on my Windows 98 machine (plus not having to set my video settings to 256 colors anytime I want to play the game on there instead with working animations will be very nice! ). I would love to give that a go sometime. It won't have the more advanced modding features in the future like you said, but for general gameplay bug fixes and whatnot, a "legacy" port is nice to have.

I figured I would go ahead and post this here, just in case! Time: 2025-03-29 16:13:32 UTC Cloudflare ID: 9280a763ace47dd6 I was doing what I normally do when I get on the site: click on the notification menu and open each respective thing that I wish to view in a new tab. On the bright side, I haven't experienced this error for months now (since December), so that's good.

While I do like Proposal #1 (it is a viable option), I have to agree with Girafarig's thinking, and I really like their idea as well. However, an additional idea hit me. For a bit more cost, I would extend and connect the highway to the avenue (or right near it), with placement of the highway either alongside the volcano or near it (like it would be in Proposal #1). Not only would this provide a fast, easy connection to the CBD, but there is a fair amount of natural beauty and parks along the avenue! I think this idea would bring more (good) traffic to the area. Anyway, keep up the great work!

Nope, not at all. But now that I think about it more, I do remember seeing "The newspaper is on strike" pop up right after clicking OK (though it's possible that I may have possibly clicked the close button). I'm not sure if it popped up during gameplay and didn't properly display itself for some reason (on top of the game window), or if it happened after clicking either OK or the close button.

Update: Release 9a seems to run pretty well with Wine-GE 8-26 under Linux Mint. I didn't test it out for too terribly long, but everything seemed to work just fine. The game no longer crashed when I selected "MAKE" whenever I was in the map editor, too. (looks awesome, too!) After loading in SimCity.SC2, I decided to make a small test city (not pictured). However, I did get this weird pop-up either upon closing or while I was playing the game (and I didn't realize that it popped up): But after relaunching the game and making another small test city (which I saved), it didn't show up again. I couldn't reproduce the problem again afterward. So overall, the game seems to run just fine. I guess whatever is causing the game to not launch with release 9a under Windows 10 on my main machine is seemingly a mystery.

I searched for it in the registry to no avail. SHA-256: f7a51b6244328bddcc85c2db4d205716b504eb9b6cc51b2f1556adaece96e5bb Also, my EXE is dated ‎Wednesday, ‎March ‎6, ‎1996, ‏‎4:13:20 PM. That's what came directly from my Special Edition CD... though after looking at my CD again, I just realized that the disc was dated 1998 (at least on the disc). I thought it was an original release, but apparently, it's not. I looked it up, and apparently, my copy is one of those "budget" reissues from 2000 or so: https://www.mobygames.com/game/2313/SimCity-2000-cd-collection/covers/group-4511/ So if it turns out that the checksum doesn't match your copy, I wonder: do some of the later "budget" reissue releases have a different EXE (and if so, that'll be annoying, and not to mention noteworthy)? Anyway, I didn't have a good chance yesterday to test 9a with either a different version of Wine or Proton-GE, so I'm going to try that here shortly and see if it was just a problem with a certain version (or versions) of Wine. I know the game ran well with Wine on at least one of my machines. I can't remember which version of Wine it was, and, as expected, I didn't have working animations (although I did find some quirky Linux workarounds to somewhat fix it).

I am not sure whether to post this here or on GitHub, but I can't seem to get release 9a (or even release 8) to work. Release 7 worked just fine, but both 8 and 9a seem to crash on startup (looking at the log file for 9a, it seems to crash after patching the 8-bit color warnings). I'm running Windows 10 Pro, and I have the original Windows 95 Special Edition version installed. Here's the log file (9a, Windows 10): sc2kfix.log In addition, I did try 9a via Wine under Linux Mint. It seemed stable for the most part (for what I tried of it, that is), but it crashed each time I clicked on "MAKE" in the map editor, so I'm going to try again tonight with a different version of Wine or even Proton-GE via Lutris to see if it fixes that. And while dated, I can confirm that release 7 worked with Wine.

Welcome! I haven't tried the AMPS mod yet, but since you are using the original CD release of SC4D, I would suggest installing the Maxis patches first and see if that helps: Install the 1.1.638.0 update first: https://community.simtropolis.com/library/maxis/sc4/patches/UPDATE_SKU1_TO_P1_B638.exe Then install the 1.1.640.0 update: https://community.simtropolis.com/library/maxis/sc4/patches/SC4Update4BAT.exe Also, while ODD emulation may work for the original CD versions of the game with Windows 10 and 11, it's best to consider purchasing and installing the fully patched DRM-free version from GOG instead (right now it's currently on sale for only $4.99 here in the USA) [or use your CD key to claim the digital copy from EA, which should also be fully patched]. This will provide the best experience on modern hardware these days (no hassle with ODD emulation, faster install time, etc.), and it would allow you to use all of the quality-of-life improvement DLL mods. With the death of official support for most disc-based DRM technologies on Windows 10-11 and the advent of DLL mods, the disc versions are no longer supported by the community. I personally only use the CD version on legacy/"retro" machines nowadays, mainly whenever I want to experience the game like I did when I was younger (and once I've updated the game to 1.1.640.0, I usually then "upgrade" it to the GOG version).

After all of the destruction, it seems that the Businesspeople have learned their lesson. That's one for the New Udanania history books! I wonder if the scarred portions of land near The Pond of Sacred Forces will return to normal at some point (perhaps by natural means or Udananians with good intention) or if they will remain there to serve as a reminder to all of the Udananians. As always, terrific work as usual! The newly built small housing areas in Newfoundwealth look quite realistic. They sort of remind me of some of the areas around my area!

I don't know if I would call myself a "veteran" player per se, but I can personally say that I rarely play with the arcologies these days. Admittedly, I still find them to be cool (their appearance, that is), but whether or not I place any of them down really depends on my mood and the city that I'm working on.

Wow!! Really nice work here. It looks very realistic; I love all of the details!

I haven't had any issues with AMD at all. It's all I ever buy and use these days (especially as a Linux user), and it's what I recommend to my friends and family. To me, they're usually better bang for the buck, and they aren't nearly as power-hungry as modern-day NVIDIA GPUs (especially the high-end ones in the RTX 4000 and 5000 series lineups). I'm hoping to upgrade my GPU at some point this year (and possibly build a new machine), and I'm currently thinking about going with the 9070 XT (once it drops, of course).

Yippee! I'll have to check this out today! I haven't been on here in a little bit of time due to an ongoing family emergency and other IRL things (although I was on here one day last week to check out things), but now I finally have a day to rest and relax (pretty much a mental health day). I haven't had a chance to record any of the DOS sounds yet, but I'm thrilled to see that you have ported sounds from other ports of the game! That would be cool! I wonder if a lossless format like FLAC could be possible to implement, too. On a side note, the Sega Saturn port's soundtrack is pretty cool, too. The "Sim-Melody from SimCity 2000" Japanese album is also a lot of fun to listen to if you've never heard it before. Rather neat renditions! If it wouldn't be difficult to implement, perhaps all of those options could be made available? I do like the idea of having a shuffle option (as much as I love the music, the predefined loop does get old after a while), but I also do like the thought of a more frequent option, too (which if I had to guess, it would be more like SC3K's and SC4's way of playing music?). Just an idea. This is cool! (I've used Trello before, and it is quite handy!) Agreed! I was blown away when I was notified about this topic originally. I almost feel like a kid in either a candy or a toy store when I read all of the new updates in this thread (same with SC4 modding, too)! This game and SC4 literally helped define my childhood, so all of these QoL improvements are so cool to see.

The Smileyfaces really do love their weapons. I wonder if the Udananians have an "Eve of Destruction"-like song that plays in (certain) radio markets! Hopefully the Smileyfaces aren't producing "Captain Trips" or a similar thing to it... Despite the terrifying idea of an accidental catastrophe of some sort happening within or around the town's limits, Trigger Happy seems to be a fairly nice little area, almost akin to a military base-like area. Kamberial Island looks so peaceful... It's quite a drastic difference compared to the Armacorp's base! The botanical garden is also quite beautiful, too. I went to a (mostly indoor) botanical garden of sorts with some friends of mine last year in May, and it was a rather nice, peaceful (and fun) experience. Anyway, tremendous job as always when it comes to the details and overall layout of each scene and area. I really do look forward to these, and I can't wait (as always) for the next entry!

I'm 100% for demystifying the simulation and quality of life improvements (bug fixes, unfinished things, etc.) as well. I believe that's a rather important part, and it's by far more important than my ideas right now. A lot of the stuff that I mentioned would be cool but not necessarily "needed" (especially at the moment). I'm curious to see how far things can be extended or pushed within the game, but we're (most likely) not quite there yet. The possibility for more buildings and things like that would be better for "later on down the road" investigations. That is a good question. I hadn't thought about how the approval rating and spontaneous parades work, but it definitely does make me wonder now. I've received the spontaneous parades thing numerous times throughout my years of playing it. Just about each time I've received one in the game, I usually get something from a newspaper (usually) right afterward. Perhaps it's a coincidence? I can't recall if the main headline was always a positive thing or not. Speaking of newspapers: the surveys. I wonder how the game calculates each of the percentages (crime, unemployment, traffic, etc.). On a quick side note, if I get the chance this weekend or early next week, I want to test out my sound effect replacement idea, as I am curious to see if there are any hard-coded limitations regarding sounds in the Special Edition Windows 95 version.

Cool! I plan on giving this a go here soon with Wine, so I can't wait to test it out and have fun! Long live SimCity 2000! There are some things that I can't help but wonder if they are possible to implement or not [my sincerest apologies if this is a long, complicated, and overwhelming list!]: Bigger map sizes - e.g., 256x256? - This is one thing that I've always dreamed of in SC2K since I was a kid (I was spoiled by the bigger map sizes in SC3K and SC4! ). Changing the background color in regular city view from brown to a different color (like from the game's color palette) - I thought about trying this via hex editing the executable long ago (assuming that the value is stored there), but I never did it; it may be easier via a DLL plugin [theoretical example: choose a color from the game's palette, write the number in hexadecimal or whatnot in an INI file, and have the DLL read that and then patch it in memory]. - Or, possibly, utilize bitmaps for a picture background (like the PS1 version's golden tile background... or a SC4-esque blue grid background) [though if I had to guess, the picture's colors would probably need to match the game's color palette] [or implement a routine to draw out a background (like SC4-esque grid) instead of a bitmap, though that may be difficult to align with the city's grid itself]. Adding more buildings to a tileset - That may require extensive modification to both SCURK and the game itself, though it would be cool to have more variety. A way to extract the DOS sounds and use those instead of the low quality sounds (that are in WAVE) - Either via another program or a method of some sort; the user would need to own the DOS version in order to do so.* -- I think the music and the user's selected tileset were stored in the main .DAT file, so it's weird that the sounds are stored in the EXE instead. Go figure!** -- However, since the 95 version (and I think the 3.1 version as well) stores the sounds in .WAV files, it may be easier to record each sound from the DOS version (either via real hardware or from a version of DOSBox), do some careful editing and whatnot to get everything right (time-wise), export each sound as in WAVE, and name each sound appropriately [I personally want to test this out and see how well it would work]. Adding the ability to place subways through pipes - If I remember correctly, this feature was wanted by the developers but they couldn't implement it (either in-time for shipment or it was just technically impossible without a major rework of something or some things, so this might be difficult to implement (if even possible) [I think underground power lines were scrapped because of similar reasons during development, and that's why they weren't implemented (perhaps a SC3K-like approach to power distribution could be implemented?)]. Adding new network types [like avenues, one-way roads, more types of bridges] - Probably a long way down the road (no pun intended, and assuming it's even possible). Adding agriculture to the game [semi-dependent on #3] - Same situation as above [#6]. - Either via a new industry zone type or how it works in SC3K. - This seemed to have been an idea at one point in time during development, but it never came to be. A way to modify the ground colors, bedrock, roads, etc. - Same situation as #6 and #7, although this would be cool. - Especially the ground; while I'm nostalgic for and don't mind the tan and brown colors, it's always made me wonder if it would be possible [like via hex editing or another method; like #2]. And lastly, as other fellow SC2K fans on here were briefly talking about earlier in this post: adding the weather graphics to go alongside the weather descriptions in game (probably in a new box within the game window, similar to the DOS version) - Assuming the extraction can be easily done (if not, one could theoretically replicate them), the weather data can easily be pulled and updated in real time, and a box for it could be created within the game window. Those are just some things that I can think of, and some of those I've wondered about for a long time. I can't wait to try out SCURK with the patches! I loved playing around with it when I was a kid, and I occasionally create new buildings for the game (mainly real-life retail). Apparently, the DOS version is superior, but I've never had any issues whatsoever with the 95 version of SCURK. Also, if you need an artist for a tileset or in-game graphics, let me know! I do enjoy making things in pixel art here and there (SC2K and SCURK are what got me into it when I was younger), so if necessary at some point, I'd be happy to help out in my spare time! * I never realized the sound difference between the two until you pointed it out! You'd think the DOS version would have been worse... but it's not the first time that a Windows port of a Sim title had some sort of an inferior issue; if I remember correctly, the Windows version of SimFarm only has a 16 color palette while the DOS version has a "full" 256 color palette! In this case, the DOS version is technically superior (I think the sound quality may be better in the DOS version, too!). ** Even though you are working on the Windows 95 version, I wonder if an extraction tool could be made for the DOS SC2000.DAT file (or for DAT files in general), as I've always wanted to hear (and see) the differences between all of the MIDIs (from what I've read online, in the SC2000.DAT file, there are multiple versions of each song that are optimized for the various sound cards that the DOS version supports). Yippee! Great job on the project so far! All of this work is very cool to see!

You may want to give this DLL plugin a try if you want to test SCGL out: I'm assuming that you're wanting to test SCGL out (which is cool!), because if you downloaded this for serious gameplay, you should probably use the DirectX renderer instead (and use dgVoodoo2 or another wrapper if deemed necessary). Last I knew, SCGL is still a work in progress and is not entirely complete yet.

You may want to check out its replacement site, SC4Evermore. I'm not sure how many CAMelots are hosted there at the moment, but if I remember correctly, there are some available. All of the SC4D LEX content is safe; if I remember everything correctly, it just takes a fair amount of time to go through all of it and get it prepped for re-releasing.

This is really cool! I'll have to give this a shot sometime! I still occasionally play SimCity 2000, as it is one of my childhood favorite games (very nostalgic), and I really like the game a lot, so this will be cool to see! This one and SimCity 4 are the two that I've played the most. I usually either play the Windows 95 version on my Windows 98 machine or the inferior DOS version (the latter depending on which machine or device I'm using at the time), so it will be cool to see the game up and running on modern Windows without having to do any patching, etc. I grew up with the 95 version (on XP), so I prefer it the most (not to mention that it is the superior port, too). This would be really cool to see! Do you plan on writing any technical write-ups and/or documentation about the simulation and other undocumented aspects? I know there is some documentation about various files and save game structure (I presume you've probably read/looked through them as well, like dfloer's SC2K Docs), and as someone who likes programming and reading through source code, documents, etc., I found those to be rather interesting. I'm hoping that we will see an OpenTTD-like project for this game one day, since I doubt EA will ever release the source code to this game like they did with the original SimCity. I am really looking forward to seeing more! Count me in as intrigued!

In my humble opinion, I like this approach. Why not both? Or multiple (within a reasonable limit)? While I prefer Option A (Jasoncw's style-based idea) the most and see myself using it more often in general, Option B (Ulisse Wolf's region-based idea) is cool, too, and it could potentially come in handy in some of my ideas for future regions. I chose Option A, since it feels more suitable in general (and it feels more like what could have been included in a Maxis expansion pack). But with the possibility of having both options being available to players, I would personally prefer to see both options available. As someone who has been interested in creating BATs for this game for a while now, I would be more than happy to assign respective styles for each option. Quote from Cori on page one, post #17: I like this idea as well. I would like to see something like this as well (especially for my northern Indiana-like towns). The first part (Region) feels more like Option B, but more on a continental and/or global area scale. This may be nice for some players who simply want a general European-style (for example) region without a focus on a specific region. The second part (Eras) could be another candidate for another option. There does appear to be some interest in era-based tilesets (specific eras/time periods seem to be quite popular in city journals). I like these two ideas/options, in addition to the first two options (Option A and Option B). With that being said... I propose the following: Option A (Jasoncw's style-based idea) [consolidated or not consolidated, as tyberius06 and Jasoncw have been discussing] Option B (Ulisse Wolf's region-based idea) [regional areas in continents] Continental/Global Area Option (carlosmarcelo's "Region" idea) [multiple styles across an entire continent or global area] {this option's name is merely an idea} Eras Option (carlosmarcelo's "Eras" idea) [different styles spread across different eras] {which I hope I am understanding this idea correctly } Personally, I think these four possible options would cover the majority of general playing styles, and four main options would most likely be enough. A fifth option could introduce the specialized, specific, localized/area-themed building styles (e.g., Cori's small town [Smalltown, USA], rural, suburb, etc.), either as an optional option in the main package or as a separate download. I really like the idea of this "specialized" option, but it may possibly be too far out of scope for the main community package, hence the separate download idea. Just my two cent... err... simoleons.