bbsmitz

What on earth was the host thinking. Absolute idiots. Thank you guys for your efforts in getting this site back up and running.

Hi Folks, So I'm dipping my toes back into SC4, playing around with starting/growing cities, and after some kicking the tires, I've got a few questions! I'll preface this with, I'm running most of the basic mods/bug fixes including NAM (or at least a version from 2023), the High Tech Industrial Demand Fix, the less abandonment mod and the industrial jobs fix. I'm also running the SPAM farm mod (also a version from 2023). First, what's the best way to try to force areas to grow R$ or R$$? The demand for those is off the charts, but even with just basic education and health services, a lot of my growth, particularly in the medium density areas, ends up being R$$$ condos. If I plop down a reward or two or god forbid a park, I get a bunch of R$$$. Since the bulk of jobs are aimed at the R$$ set, this make keeping all my sims employed difficult. Does depriving water or healthcare keep away R$$$ residents? I've seen the mod that suppresses R$ and R$$ upgrading to R$$$; is that worth a try? Second, on reading up on guides and resources, I've seen comments (or at least one) that SPAM is unbalanced and can make demand wonky. Is that still true? I've enjoyed the more varied farm lots but would it be worth uninstalling it if there's no updated fix for it? Lastly, my understanding is that now the community recommends using sc4pac to manage your mods. Is this correct? Is there a megathread like the old one Ulisse used to have with a rundown on the current state of recommended mods? Thank you to everyone for your time! -bbsmitz Edit: I literally just saw Rob's video post below this one on mods. I'll watch his vid...

Thanks Cori! Won't stress the services then. Currently messing around with forcing sims to use trains to commute...

Hey folks, So I've made some decent progress building out my first tile (medium size). I got to ~230k population but was still struggling with oscillating demand, so started using Cori's NKO linked above. It's been super useful in helping me choose exactly what parts of the city I want to build up. Definitely feels like a slower pace of play with it, but definitely has helped prevent oversupply followed by abandonment. I've also found that as I start transitioning away from mostly middle density to higher density, I'm not getting R$$$ just randomly popping up like I saw before. Might be just the increased traffic is suppressing desirability enough that most of my growth is R$$ and I need to plop a few parks around to get a R$$$ going up. So I can control my growth better. I'm thinking of starting a new city in the adjacent large tile, and before I did wanted to ask a few questions. I'm struggling with how to fulfill CS$ and CS$$ demand. Does anyone have recommendations? Ploppables? If I don't fulfill the demand, does that adversely affect my city's growth? Does anyone have any resources (like a city guide or a youtube video) on layout tips for a city? I know a lot of experienced city builders will do a basic layout with things like highways/train/elevated etc. lines and roads before they start zoning. Anything I could read up on or watch would be helpful. Thanks guys!

Appreciate the responses guys, I'll check out Cori's mod. Someone also suggested the no mansions mod which I might take a look at. Following up, 1) Based on Kel's link and some more googling, it looks like the SC4launcher is now deprecated and it's recommended to use .dlls instead of a launcher. Does anyone know the best way to remove SC4Launcher? Can I just uninstall it from the add programs windows menu? 2) Turning back to SPAM, does anyone have thoughts on if that's still viable as a mod in terms of balance/demand? Going to go through the youtube tutorial in the link Kel posted tonight... wish me luck.

Hi Folks, So I recently returned to SC4 after a multi-year absence. Having fun getting back into it. I'm running most of the Small/Mods fixes listed in Indiana Joe's thread. So things like NAM, high-tech industry missing jobs fix, industry jobs doubler etc. The issue I'm running into right now is that I'm having some difficulty getting my High Tech industrial zones to develop. I have fairly robust demand for it, a lot of high density industrial zoned, and good transport links to it (both road and subway). Desirability also shows very green. But it seems like unless I zone literally right next to the residential areas (and even then in some cases) it doesn't seem to want to develop. Anyone have any ideas on why this might be? I thought with NAM things like the commute time shouldn't be as much of a factor but could that be it? Cheers for reading! -bbsmitz

Hey, Thanks for the advice. Adding a few parks/gardens really did wonders to help get the areas to develop. Now to try to manage dilapidation... Cheers, -bbsmitz