Divinyls Fan

When you say a large tile, do you mean a singular farm or do you mean the whole zone? I've never seen the jobs/population stats in the city nor from the region view, large farms amounting to much. The Farmer's Market needs 600 and the State Fair needs 1,200. I've never reached that by leaving the original zone. Only by dividing it up with streets, making equivalents of 4x4 but sometimes they tolerate 3x3, depending how desperate their demand gets. I was mainly wondering if anyone had noticed or if they know for sure, if the land itself is more desirable in a valley or on hills, mountain, coast or inland ... like in the real world. Or whether the land is just for our visuals, and so then the amenities and politics are the thing. Do you think there's a logical progression of the freight from farm/raw materials to manufacturing, to businesses? Or just by imagination.

Thanks for explaining that @rsc204I haven't got NAM. I don't think I'd like it. I'm still exploring, delighting in all the original things, even after all these years, although I haven't played it solidly for all those years, just on and off. I was even a bit annoyed that the traffic expansion pack was included in the download version from the Sims 3/4 launcher. I like the new types of trains, I can't remember which is new though. Monorail, elevated I think. And I think ferries, no the car ferries .. They always had the subway and regular train, and shipping. Anyway, back to playing. And then reading The Iliad ... nearly finished.

capitalism is very general I am interested in the philosophy because I did some economics and other stuff at uni a few years ago, as an older student, quite a bit older. I'm not interested in cheats, mods or cc downloads. I prefer the puzzle of the game's limitations. Back when I bought it, in ... must have been about 2004 or 5, it was an investment to keep me happy to be offline for at least a year because I was cutting myself off from the phone and internet to save money. At the time the internet was still a luxury, as were cell phones. Not necessities, home phone either - and internet was dial up. The other two games I bought were Sims 1 and Rollercoaster Tycoon. I had never bought an elaborate PC game before. I didn't know that there was such a thing as patches, nor mods, cheats or cc. So when I eventually got the internet back on, and off and on a few times, my daughter was the one who showed me the Sims site, but not SimCity. So I learned about patches and cc and the evil mods there. But I never applied that to SimCity 4 because I was content with the original vanilla game, it didn't occur to me. And I never connected it to online nor visited the SimCity site. Its like a drivers licence. I've never had one. So at half a century I'm so used to it, and public transport, that I don't know the difference and so am not interested for the future either. So for SimCity, I've never had mods, cc or cheats, am used to it and am not interested in them. Its not on my radar. If its in the vanilla game to be able to click on "legalise gambling" and leave it running for hours, days, then its not cheating. Neither is accepting the deals with the toxic waste, missile test etc. In fact the legalise gambling enables the reward later of a casino. Also crime but oh well. My computer is always running anyway, I'm in my second undergrad but I was always using it before that too. Most people's are ... I imagine that with a cheat to instantly generate the millions, the effect of the hundreds, thousands of years waiting to build and lower the taxes would be slightly diminished anyway.

I already learned the game. I've had it for 20 years, always offline until the last few years though. Not a newbie. Not an expert either. There's little things I discover and wonder about still. And any in particular I will probably post those in other parts of the forum. But a conversation pondering the philosophy is actually what I was after here.

I already tried the reasonable, kind way years ago. Maximum taxes on the upper and middle income to keep them out at first is the best way, for me, otherwise they come in and take over with mansions that never get bigger or higher, including in high density zones which adds up to lower population that doesn't grow no matter how nice everything is or for how long, and I played for ages and ages, not just right now, every now and then for the past maybe 20 years. So in a brand new city , I like to set all of the taxes up at 20, go into the city ordinances and tick 'legalise gambling' which pays $100 a month. Then I don't build anything at all, no zones, no roads, no power or anything, nothing, and leave it running for a few hundred or thousand years on triple speed while I go and do something else, or overnight. One of the cities in my new region which I left running like that ... it must have been all day and night, can't remember, it was last year and I've just started playing again, anyway it got up to 18 million in funds. No I don't have any mods or cc in my SimCity 4 game, no cheats nothing, I've never felt the need, I've never used any mods, cc or cheats in SimCity 4 and I've owned it on disk since nearly 20 years ago. In fact during those years of disk I never even sought out or used a patch. However the game I'm playing at the moment is the download version from the EA app, which automatically comes with the traffic expansion pack. Fast lane or something. And whatever updates they put in it. Anyway, so I do that for a bunch of connected new cities in a brand new custom region. Custom as in that I made it, terraforming everything by hand. I once tried using the cloud negative photo technique that someone on here told me about, taking a photo of clouds in my RL backyard and using a photo editing programme to convert it into hills and landscape in the game. I didn't like it. So I went back to doing it all myself. Its interesting, running it on maximum taxes from the start, for hundreds of years, the demand on the RCI goes maximum negative on all categories, but some don't go fully negative, like agriculture, and dirty industry. And when a city is developing in the region, the RCI of the other cities that are still unzoned and on the max tax show different categories slowly creeping up, tiny amounts, some more than others, as though they're itching to be let free too. So when I'm ready to start using the millions in revenue to build a little, I lower the tax on the thing I want to encourage in that city first, usually industry, so either agriculture or dirty. Manufacturing and High Tech don't respond until the population become better educated so I don't lower those until later, and I don't always lower dirty industry before manufacturing because I don't always want it in every city. I wait until the demand for it then goes into the positive before I build anything. I've tested all different taxes to drop down to from the centuries of 20%, and found that 12% is the highest they will spring up into positive for, to nearly 4000, especially if I start the city on Medium difficulty level. I haven't tested what it is for the Easy difficulty level, nor Hard. When I'm ready for people, I lower the tax for low income only, on Medium difficulty they will build for a sudden 12%, and then when they've filled the area I want, all in low density zone, then I upgrade the zone to medium or high density where I want, in shapes, then lower the tax for low income only again to about 8. They then build high rise slums. They do it a lot quicker if the tax is about 5, but then that seems to set off a more extreme lower bar for other cities and reduces the revenue obviously. This all gets matched by the business population at the same taxes and densities allowed, by me. Low income business will build a drive in movie lot in high density, can't remember what else. Residents definitely build high rise. Then when that gets to a peak, then I lower the taxes for middle income. The high rises transform into nicer apartments, business lots get redeveloped into office HQ's and solicitors. After that goes on for a while then I let in the high income bracket by lowering their taxes, and thats when the huge buildings start, and the revenue goes nicely. The first time I tried this strategy, my lowering of tax for the low income bracket was down to about 3 or 4, for ages, the others maxed, and the eventual lowering of the other brackets was similar. It went berserk. The middle/high transformation. It was like I'd cracked the code. I thought that would become boring if done too much, so since then I've been trying higher amounts, the current region's average 'letting in' tax is between 10 and 12. The middle city is doing the best. I wonder if I've got one of those early one's saved somewhere ... I'd be able to take pictures. Funny, I never took pictures of this game. It never occurred to me, despite all those years of Sims pictures. And I never used the 'connect to SimCity.com'. It may have been one of the games I bought for the year of sacrificing the internet and phone to save money, because it was an offline capable one. I also bought Rollercoaster Tycoon for that year. One way I get revenue even better by or before the middle/high transformation, is to max out the schools and hospitals, fire, police, everything, beyond the necessary, to chew up the funds to go into negative. Before they do go into the red but definitely after, the game offers deals with ... I think the first thing is a toxic waste plant, missile test range, military base, federal prison ... So after getting those I tweak the funding of the schools etc back to normal, and then the profit is realised. Just keep them in a corner away from everything. I'm telling you, if the rich or middle taxes are reasonable at first, they take over and then never grow, nor the population or revenue. Not just with a few minutes of play, but days, weeks, months. But my original post was more about the theory rather than the gameplay. I wondered if anyone else had wondered about the economic ideology, especially of the creators' that inspired it, enough to discuss and speculate. People over at Tip.it Runescape did that about that game's dynamics a lot. I noticed. and I wandered off on a tangent about gameplay. BTW what is NAM?

See that's the thing. In some respects it's reflecting and simulating RL, and the advisers in the pop-ups give lectures about the way things work as though they're teaching the way of life, but to which economic, political or other models? Is there knowledge of the leaning of the creators? Which would be interesting, but would also give some more defined rules for decisions if someone were to think and research that much about it. The teaching feel of the pop-ups and in-game success or failure seems to imply you could or should apply the principles to RL, but not the reverse because of making it a playable game. So I wonder what parts of RL to draw from to help guide a successful city. But more like which model. Maybe the creator was interested in the Solow Growth model ... or a fan of Milton Friedman ... not sure how those things would apply but perhaps favour one condition, decision more than others. Just getting a bit thoughtful is all... dreamy. I like to start my cities with all 20% taxes for a while, years, while having legalised gambling on, or not, and nothing in the city yet, then all of a sudden drop the low income, business and agriculture down to about 12%. The RCI goes fully down in negative for the maximum tax years, then those low-er tax brackets pop right up above in the positive and go mad building. Later after the low income people have built high rise slums I lower the middle and upper, who then come in and transform the slum towers into glittering condominiums and skyscrapers. That never happens if I start out with reasonable taxes for everyone. The middle and upper income bracket build a singular 2 or 3 storey house on one block of land, with huge grounds, with just a few sims, even on high density zone, and they never upgrade it to multistorey, no matter what you do after that, and the population stays low. I wonder what RL principles and models that's based on. The taxes of other cities in the region also have to stay high, because the bar gets set, and influences other cities' tolerance, it seems. But the influence of one city and the next doesn't seem to really affect the job situation. If you have one city with lots of residents, but no industry, or business, or hardly any, and the next city has mainly industry or business, with inter-city transport, the residential city still complains they have no job and abandon everything. But they're quick to be influenced by the taxes. Once you lower one city, the other one reacts badly until you match it, with no amount of providing extra services and amenities making up for it ... Its a puzzle.

Does anyone know what economic model the game uses? Is it a recognised theory, or the opinion, bias of the game creators, a bit of both? A reflection of the way things were in America at a certain time, including the politics, if so when ... or made up to make it work as a game And then the town planning part, is that based on real science whatever. Nice to build a nice looking and unusual city, but then it may not run well, and the game and its population reacts. Is it so intelligently designed that that's based on something someone has studied, or a generalisation, tweaked to make it a game. Could you rationalise builds and mayoral decisions as you play, based on, within certain economic, or city-planning principles learned at school/university, and see that result pretty much. Or say "its just a game" and make sure to ignore it when trying to study economics for real. Or recognise the differences and be able to remember them like an affirmation of what's correct. Does anyone go that far into it? I suppose if it were based on a real economic model then you'd be able to make routine decisions in every city, unless the unexpected and deviations is part of the model, but if not then that could get boring. Level of difficulty is probably then increased and decreased chances of those factors. Anyone play the Hard difficulty level much? I suppose not many would want slow growth. Wondering how much less growth it is. Its the 'easy, medium, hard' choice at the start of a city I'm talking about btw. Do you end up with a lot of blackened, abandoned buildings? Speaking of which, does anyone else find that if you do too much demolishing, nobody wants to build there for a while? How long does that last? Is it relative to the amount of demolition? And another thing: I notice a lot of very nice pictures with more detail than what my game appears as with the highest settings - is that some kind of custom content, or picture enhancement? Did the game originally come with such detailed textures? So many topics!

What taxes are you setting for that agriculture, and is it mattering what land formations you lay the zone on? I find that if I set my taxes all at 20% for a few hundred years while the city is brand new with nothing on it, and then all of a sudden drop it to ... 12% on something, anything, the demand for that demographic shoots up. Especially if I set those taxes region-wide. Right now I have 12% in my game after 9 thousand years of 20% (legalise gambling to earn $100 a month with no expenses = $11+M... leave it running on triple speed while you do some housework or go shopping). Fun thing about that ... tax out the middle and rich long enough, the low income population starts to build high-rise slums, then when there's enough of those, let the middle then rich in with a lowering of their taxes, then the high-rise slums get renovated/upgraded to condoes, like magic. Whereas if you let them all in from the start, they take up huge lots with just a 2 or 3 storey house, even on high density zones. So then I built some cities, which affect the demand for things to rise or fall in their neighbouring, and other cities. The 9 thousand year one, the demand is up to about 4 thousand and its a big area. So I'm wondering if the position of it will matter. Valley or hills. Ocean-side or lake, or none. How are you able to keep those residential areas going beside the agriculture for long without having to deal with water pollution? The income from agriculture is never enough to cover the cost of a water treatment plant. For this reason I start agriculture with no water. They still build and they don't complain about it. A residential area is then built far enough away for the ground pollution to not touch the water supply. They do need power though. As far as lot size goes, I lay out the zone and then cris-cross it with my own streets, to a minimum of 3x3, sometimes 2x6+ or sometimes I've had farms build on a 1x ... might have been something like 10, but I don't allow the large lots anymore because it didn't matter on the jobs. I make them vary though because they don't like traffic. Make some dead ends. They also like irregular lots, will build on jagged messy shapes. The large lots don't contribute enough to the reward of the farmer's market or state fair. The small one's do. Run out of room before hitting the farming population required. Main thing I was wondering about is if you'd noticed if the landscape matters. Low or high land? Ocean, lake or none? And I haven't concluded yet whether they like a train-line with freight stations or not.

Never mind, I've switched regions.

SimCity 4, I guess it is deluxe? Its the free one from Origin that replaced my old disks. My old disks didn't have elevated rail, parking garages, route query, monorail, those ride testers (helicopter, car etc) and signs. This one from Origin does. The title of it in my library just says SimCity 4. It doesn't say Rush Hour or Deluxe, but it has extra features like it is. Yeah route query says none, the stations have 0 usage. In one city it is half of the network/line which didn't use to be the case, and in another city where I've just built one and a highway, the whole thing is none after running it for a few months sim time. That city has 90K people and the train connects to a city with loads of spare jobs.

I have no mods in my game. Half of the trainline in one of my cities started having zero traffic. I worked out which station/s it started from, and re-laid it and the stations, bit by bit to try work out what was wrong. One stop further than before the zero began to get traffic, and I thought that manually placed trees right besides it were causing the blockage, but after the second stop improved, nothing I did after that worked. I checked for breakages, there were none. It is a large tile city, and the trainline was getting heavily congested for some time before that. Now in the next door city, a brand new trainline is getting zero, as well as a new highway. That city has a population of 90K. Is it broken/glitched? Also, do power lines across water block ferries?

I hoped to make do with what my pc comes with. I thought the pixel art thing was free from Microsoft but its not I've spent all day doing this now so I think I might give up. I'll make a nice dinner. Thanks for all your help.

I found an app from the Microsoft store called Pixel Art. That might make a config what do you reckon? A 10 by 10 might be a manageable size eh. I'm mucking around with it, but its all a bit weird to me! I am old. And an editing one called Image Editing Tool, which has a grayscale thing, but it doesn't say what kind. Would you happen to know?

Thank you. It worked. But I picked bad clouds Awful. What did you do to convert the pics to 8 bit? So I may try out some others. Also, the config thingy, I read the part at the start of this tutorial about a mapper but that it works on windows 8. Is there one for windows 10? To make a smaller config? Maybe I could grab the config for Fairview and move the squares around like a puzzle in Paint, do you reckon that'd work? and then save it to replace a config in a new region, or does the other file have codes that make only the 16 x 16 size generated by the game work? Sorry to ask so many questions.

oi thanks mate I'll give em a go. Sorry about the delay in reply, someone wanted to borrow my pc to print something, I went and did dishes while waiting. I'll update you how it panned out.