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Hey Its been a while. Some of you might remember me from years ago, but I see tons of new faces in the community. It feels nice to be playing this game again, and to see the plethora of new mods I missed while I was away. I started SC4 back up a few months ago and after playing for a few months Im in a place where im content starting another CJ to show off the region I've been working on. Its not too special, Im trying to keep it simple especially regarding mods. There are many regions like it but this one is mine. Its a big region and there's plenty to show off. I am also playing the game. Theres eyecandy obviously but for most updates I will not be getting carried away with photoshop and flora like I used to. Zots and zones may be visible and abandoned buildings stay in screenshots because not all places are great to live in Monterey. Basically how Ill go about this cj is Ill show you random areas or areas Im developing, and if anything looks interesting to anyone I can make an update on a specific area if anyone asks. Anyways; Welcome to Monterey Bay. Somewhere on the west coast of North America this bay was originally home to many farming, logging, and mining communities constructed by an influx of pioneers into the region mostly in the late 1800's. There was some oil, some gold, but the region remained relatively dry during the gold then oil rush days which explains its quiet valleys and low population. Other industries in the area include fishing, limestone, cattle ranching in the low open plains, limestone quarries, as well as a handful of lead and silver mines. While not the largest urban areas on the west coast Monterey County has made a name for itself as being a beautiful retreat destination in the 1900's. Its beaches aren't as pristine as those further south and its not as we as areas further north, but the snow-capped peaks that shine on the various towns in this community remain white for 10 months of the year. The Summers are mild, the spring and fall cool, and the pacific winds help keep the lowlands free from snowfall until you reach the highlands miles inland. First lets visit the seat of the county which shares the same name of Monterey Monterey started as a humble farming community but grew fast. Around the early 1900's everything slowed down as people didnt realize there was much gold in these hills, but it still was a destination many settlers and immigrants ended their long journeys at. The Warf-on-the-River was the central point of the city. Fishermen all around the bay would come right here to sell their catch daily for anyone who managed to earn some meager money by farming or ranching in the valley. At the same time a grand city hall was constructed. It was for a time that Monterey was being considered as the new state capitol, but many long debates and votes and ravings landed that to a more central area further south and inland. While its arguable less bureaucrats and politicians are good for a city, Monterey and the greater bay area didnt need all that to grow into a prospering region. The city grew fast. The industrial revolution passed. Mass transit moved more people around than ever, and more and more people moved to Monterey in the waning days of the oil booms. By the 1950's Monterey cemented itself as 'The' city of the bay area. Despite having lower population than the Tri-Cities, as the locals call them, on the peninsula to the southeast, Monterey developed with people in mind and had better planning and mass-transit than the Tri-Cities as you will be shown in later entries. The city grew and grew. The rich moved in And the poor moved in. They started building up. The Warf-on-the-River is still here Overall Monterey started and exists today as most other cities. It was never a boom town, was never an industrial centerfold, and never even had much interest militarily over WW2. It does have a small air force and military base being a metropolitan area on the west coast, but the Monterey Bay area remains for now just a fertile scenic valley, with nothing too special going on. Until next time!
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Version 1.0.0
1,400 Downloads
A DLL version of Cori's No Kickout Lower Wealth Mod (NKO) mod. Unlike Cori's mod the DLL does not override the Building Development Simulator exemplar, so it should be compatible with CAM or any other mod that alters that file. The DLL sets the Building Development Simulator Tract Developer Kick Out Lower Wealth property to false when a city is loaded. System Requirements Windows 10 or later The plugin may work on Windows 7 or later with the Microsoft Visual C++ 2022 x86 Redistribute installed, but I do not have the ability to test that. Installation Close SimCity 4. Copy SC4NoKickOut.dll into the Plugins folder in the SimCity 4 installation directory. Start SimCity 4. Troubleshooting The plugin should write a SC4NoKickOut.log file in the same folder as the plugin. The log contains status information for the most recent run of the plugin. Source Code and Support Plugin thread: https://community.simtropolis.com/forums/topic/763015-no-kickout-lower-wealth-dll-plugin/ The plugin's source code and issue tracker are located on GitHub: https://github.com/0xC0000054/sc4-no-kick-out- 7 Comments
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I'm having issues regarding the fact that I've been working on a brand new city and the industrial sections just aren't growing. At all. The rest of my city is going along nicely, residential and commercial growing beautifully. But there is no industrial anything. I've tried deleting and rezoning. What causes this sort of thing? How is it fixed?
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Hello, I have a dream of realizing some sort of Ultrasanti one day. Ultrasanti is a kind of city that's a development of Magnasanti, the famous SC3k city. For those unprepared, Magnasanti features the densest city possible in a single tile (I forgot which size it uses), all in the name of making the highest profit possible. It's pretty much dystopian. But Ultrasanti is different. The aim is still making largest and possibly also densest region (we're talking SC4 here, with its regional play) possible in SimCity without any ploppable RCIs, rivaling RL cities like Tokyo, Jakarta, and Greater Bay Area, and even countries like Bangladesh. It'll be a some sort of utopia. Everyone's happy and wealthy (tho the latter is subject to change, especially a healthy city still needs middle class and the poor). It's probably the richest and wealthiest region in the world today if it's exist in real life, with estimated equivalent GDP of $30 trillion, assuming we have 200 million max-educated middle-class sims, and basically unimaginable wealth, all in a region comparable to say, Chongqing or something similar. Ultrasanti would be the largest region, in terms of population and also size, in the history of SimCity 4, even rivaling likes of 3RR (remember that?) The problems are quite paramount. First, we don't know how much computing power we'll need. That's why I refrain it from now. Second, can SC4 really handle such really high population regionally? Third, limits, in terms of networks, water, power, etc can be easily exceeded. Heck I even have really dense medium-sized tiles that basically putting NAM to its knees both practically (there's no way to make a beautiful pedmall in a really dense city, especially medium and small tiles ones) and technically (4x the max capacity of even monorail is alarming at best and outright detrimental at worst). Not to mention those power poles. They can't be removed for neighbor play. So the only way is to accept them as they are and reduce the space available for buildings. Fourth, it will saturate even CAM eventually. Stage 15 would be very easy to get, making staging irrelevant and building higher buildings more difficult without either stage expansion and/or blockers. Fifth, even buildings have limits. There's a limit on how tall we can make. Technically, there's almost none. But practically, there will. Sure, vertiport is a thing. But think for a sec. What happen if such thing is renovated. Tens or even hundreds of ks of jobs will be lost in the process, possibly making the worst recession possible since every renovation would result in that phenomenon. Yeah, you may suggest, "Why not make something like Manhattan's Billionaires Row or even better, overhanging buildings, all within small lot sizes (let's say 2x2 or even 1x1)." Hear me out, there will be a limit on how small buildings can be. We can't cramp more and more buildings into smaller and smaller spaces. The game has 1x1 limitation to begin with. Not to mention, the possibility of misbulldozing and even immortal lots are pretty much astronomical. Last, but not least, since we can't fully figure out on mixed use buildings, yet (despite @mattb325 recent findings), it's pretty much impossible to have superblocks, including vertiports, on growables without resorting to workarounds like 1x1 overhangs and something like that. Hopefully this last problem will be fixed sooner by doing more research. Finally, I can't imagine the situation of civics. Heck, Maxis civics simply couldn't keep up in one of my (lost) cities. I had to use BSC solutions instead. @rsc204, @Terring, @TogaMasterJohn, @Naomi57, @simcitynate, what do you think about this? Let me know in the replies. As always, thanks.
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Hi All, I've been wondering why some of the buildings that can be downloaded from STEX, seem to never, ever grow during normal game session. Some BATs seem to grow quite quickly just after appropriate zoning is provided. Some, however, seem to never react to any mayoral action or incentive... There are quite many of these, so if you like, do try them out yourself and see if you can get them to work: Before you say anything, yes - I am aware that some buildings appear more frequently depending on growth stages. Likewise, I am also aware that the game usually picks buildings which have highest occupant numbers, to quickly satisfy pent-up demand. On top of that, as I already mentioned, I always try to zone exact size of a given BAT to test it out. In fact, I also sometimes check the .desc and .lot files to make sure that the BAT size is indeed the one displayed in a readme file. Plusssss, just to make sure, I have all building styles turned on, just in case a BAT is style-specific. But in spite of all this knowledge, I now have almost 20 "test" subjects, none of which seem to ever appear in my city. I test these custom BATs in a well-developed city, which produces stage-8 buildings with ease and, likewise, has little difficulty to grow minuscule 1x1 kiosks here and there. Commercial demand is positive across the entire spectrum. However, some buildings, including the ones I suggest for your own testing, are yet to be seen in this city. Also, one of the things that I find puzzling regarding the "most populous goes first" rule is that I can get large numbers of some petty R$ buildings that have just 20 workers, but R$ 6x4, 6x6 malls that employ around 200 people never work and are always ditched in favor of regular Maxis malls that employ only 80-ish workers. So I don't really know what to think about all of this stuff. Do you guys have any thoughts? When I open all of my "test" files in iLives, the all seem to have correct properties, purpose and all elements necessary to let them act as "growables" so I'm not sure what stops them from being constructed in my city. Many are also made by renowned BATters that know their craft well... It even makes me wonder if there is perhaps some property that controls an "x in 1" chance for the building to be selected for construction...? I don't know.
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Hello, I have a region with around 1 million people, which I'd submit to that hottest challenge. But I have a huge problem. You see large enough cities will stagnate really quickly. Coming out of it is pretty hard, except if you develop other regions to the next stage. And there are only so much freely available city tiles out there. On the other hand, if you start another city, there's a chance that you'll have very high demand. This isn't sustainable thanks to needing more money than it has (I'm using hard mode. So $100k) and most importantly, lack of education and health development. How do I reliably slow the development? Thanks.
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Power and Water Issues (The dreaded 100,000)
Liz Hayes posted a topic in SimCity 4 General Discussion
I'm having trouble when my cities reach around the 100,000 mark. Before then they have been growing well. A steady demand for middle and high residential and comercial. A steady growth in population. Then, seemingly suddenly, I have huge troubles. No matter how many water pumps or towers, or power plants I build they never seem enough. My income plumets and the demands increase until I bankrupt. I've tried all the usual things. Replacing heavy industry with medium and agriculture. Building more links with other cities, but nothing works. Any suggestions or tips? -
How do I change the growth stage of a building?
TheMurderousCricket posted a topic in SC4 Modding - Open Discussion
Hello Community, I would like to know how can I change the growth stage of buildings. I have recently downloaded a bunch of them, but I believe the growth stages of some are really exaggerated... I tried to edit the respective property in the .ld file's dropdown list, but it almost always returns an error. What other options do I have then? In case it's important - I'm not using CAM. -
I have question with CAM 2.1 and have the Rural installed. There are threads with mention of RCI Demand chart up to 24,000 and the manual mentions 2.1 being 54,000 aside from standard Agricultural lots The splash screen during launch says CAM installed but noticed my RCI has been at the standard 5,000. Does it grow more after time or did I not install this right ? Some lots and CAM counter do show a query popup info box for City Summary - some Industrial and Farms at Stage 6 and maybe 6+, so CAM should be working then. Is this normal having 5,000 for CAM Rural install ? Also, 2nd part question, Jestarr has a bunch of Industrial lots, many of them auto install in 3 parts, example - IM$$3, IM$$6 CAM and Landmark Plop. Since I have CAM installed, do I need both the IM$$3 ? Or will it evidentially upgrade to IM$$6 on it's own ?
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Standard zoning gives you certain plot sizes based in the demand at that point in time. So you might get a 1*3, 2*3 or 3*3 plot by default. Using the CTRL key you can override that and zone any sized plot, say 3*4. But that doesn't automatically mean something will grow of that particular size. This depends on demand and that makes sense. So far so good. However, I have noticed that whereas the game may build bigger buildings that the size you originally zoned for but haven't seen the opposite happen. Can the game build smaller than the plot you originally zoned? It seems this is not the case, or at least I don't remember seeing it happen (I am not a veteran with this game). I zoned this plot next to the school, for example, but nothing develops here. I can understand there may not be demand for a 4*5 building like that. Maybe it doesn't even exist, I don't know. But I know a 3*4 building exist so could that develop there? And if there is no demand for that now either, could just some 1*3 or 1*2 buildings develop like the W2W apartments in the bottom left corner of this block? I have had this zone for a while now and nothing happens. Whereas if I would zone smaller plots of land here I'm pretty sure they would develop. So my question boils down to: if you zone a certain sized plot, will the game only be able to build in that particular size (or larger) but never smaller?
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Hello, Simtropolis, I'm having a hard time trying to have this lots grow, the Moonlight High Wealth Residential which I have used in the past with no problems at all, in fact they used to grow very often, like weeds as some remark in their uploads. I found a previous post in the forums with the same topic but it was about bixel's lots (which do grow in my cities from time to time, even if I don't use CAM), so I thought this might be a different scenario and therefore needed a new post -please, correct me if wrong-. As you can see in the screenshots, my demand is very high (I'm not using any mod, I just suppress other wealth with taxes), and when using the BuildingPlop function, the lots are there, but the zones won't grow even in cheetah speed, and when using Esc key to previously look the lot, nothing happens. I have moved the lots from the subfolder into the plugins root folder without success. I have to remark as well that I use a lot of japanese bats and lots, and all work just fine, they grow and can be plopped without crashes, I just don't understand what can be causing this lots to remain dormant when in the past they used to grow quite consistently. Btw, I tried the DT Maxis Block mod, and was a no go. Please, if this is something that I have to exclusively discuss with the creator, and it's beyond the hands of others, tell me, although I don't know if there's anyway to contact him/her after all this time. In any case, thanks in advance
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Version 1.0
6,204 Downloads
CoriBoom™ Productions Proudly Presents... Cori's No Kickout. Give yourself much more mayoral control. In our 5th official CoriBoom™ release to the STEX, @CorinaMarie and I are proud to finally present a mini (yet magnificent) mod which allows much finer control of city simulation growth: NKO This mod grants the flexibility to have all 3 wealth levels (low, medium, high) coexist in any given location, without the higher wealths gobbling up the lower ones. This is a vast improvement over the default game setting, where the two lowest wealths can upgrade to a higher wealth. While this behaviour is desirable in certain situations, it forces you (the mayor) to mark lots as historical as a preventative measure. This can be a tedious process which soon becomes a boring chore. (Like washing dishes.) The default automatic upgrades are a common cause of population instability and a major factor causing the dreaded no job zots. In regular gameplay, a higher wealth and stage often takes over before the conditions are suitable. NKO fixes the method which the SC4 simulation uses. By doing so, the control is now at your fingertips to decide when a wealth level should be allowed to upgrade and replace a lower wealth. For example with houses, it means R$ can coexist within an area containing R$$ homes, and even R$$$ mansions too! There's no need to mark each as historical for preventing them from being destroyed and replaced with higher wealth. This finer control means there's significantly less micro management involved to ensure RCI growth sustainability. Then if one wishes, the bulldozing tool is useful for giving the green light for a higher wealth to take its place. At this point, certain zones will reassess and grow what the simulation deems as appropriate (based on the RCI demand and local desirability factors). What does "Kickout" mean? The standard SC4 growth simulation automatically allows lower wealths to be replaced by higher wealth levels. This means they can be taken over and redeveloped by a higher wealth at any time the game decides. When this happens, the process of such is described as "kicking out" the lower wealth level. What NKO does is prevent this from happening by setting a Boolean False toggle. In the exemplar property: Tract Developer Kick Out Lower Wealth Name Value: 0x47E2C540 Does NKO prevent higher wealth ever growing? No, not at all. Any new zone will develop just as before based on economic conditions in your city. And you now have the choice of when any given grown lot should be allowed to redevelop. Tax rates can be adjusted accordingly to encourage the development of certain RCI types. This is related to the methods explained in Cori's Residential Revamping tutorial. Then should one later wish to upgrade an area, it's possible to selectively bulldoze. At that point, it provides higher wealths an opportunity to reconsider and grow in place when they're able. As a result, it gives you (as mayor) the ability to decide if you wish to grow something else instead. Power of the Bulldozer Via the bulldozer tool, it gives us an expansive freedom to develop RCI how we wish to. NKO isn't a restrictive mod, but a revision of the simulation and this puts the city design decisions in our own hands. The bulldozer is our friend for this very reason. It means how if wanting to redevelop areas to higher capacity, then using the tool makes way to allow R$$ or even R$$$ buildings too, because then the demand and desirability decides. This applies to residential, commercial and industrial inclusive. For residential and if wanting R$ to stay, then they will do. This could be useful for maintaining a lower wealth area of housing. However, once bulldozing to bare zoning and it's a free for all again. Completely CAMpatible NKO is fully compatible with the CAM too. By comparing the properties in the exemplar which NKO uses too, we've made sure that the same properties are added along with the setting toggled to prevent lower wealths being kicked out. Just makes sure NKO loads after CAM does, so that way it'll be applied. A Couple of Things Thing #1 NKO works very well combined alongside @Bones1's Less Abandonment mod. This is recommended when CAM is not installed. (Which has its own version of Less Abandonment built in.) What the "Less Abandonment" mod does is make sure the city is ready for RCI development when the demand for growth is much more likely to be sustainable. As such it fits along well in harmony with what NKO does. It sets the threshold higher for when buildings will grow, which means they're more likely to stick around once they do sprout. Thing #2 A caveat you should be aware of: NKO does not prevent buildings from upgrading within their own wealth class. This means if you have some lower capacity building you want to keep for aesthetic reasons, you'll still need to click the historical option for it. It is rarer for this to happen in a stable city, but it does occur and well worth being mindful of. Complete NKO Overview To learn more of the advantages to using NKO, see the following thread we made: It contains picture previews to show the real benefits of what NKO provides. Also this doubles up as the official Support Thread if you've any comments or questions we can answer. Replying to the Comments section here on the file entry is fine too if you'd prefer. Installation This mod uses the standard process of installing SC4 content. Copy the Cori's_No_Kickout_Lower_Wealth_CAMpatible.dat file into your Plugins folder. If using the CAM, make sure NKO loads after it since the exemplar is the same. To make sure, a good idea is to place NKO directly inside the same folder CAM is installed to. One way is to place our file in this folder: Documents\SimCity 4\Plugins\a_CAM\a_Core Or as one of the resident experts @twalsh102 posted in our thread: That way it'll make certain the loading order is correct. We hope you enjoy using NKO in your cities! // CoriBoom™ Productions Release \\ Cori's No Kickout Lower Wealth Mod v1.0 — (02 Jan 2021)- 14 Comments
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I thought that the idea of "controlling demand" largely comes down to tax rates, but it seems there is more to it than meets the eye. It looks like, in one of my cities, I have managed to bring about the Marxist paradise that I talked about previously. I have no R$$$ demand and even no R$$ demand... Not really sure why, since the town has all the amenities that the other two towns have (where middle class is a real pain in the back). There are quite a lot of farming jobs available (I use SPAM, so even the R$$$ can find employment in this sector), plus some commercial jobs ones too. The tax rates are reasonable as well, some police coverage, some fire coverage, well-funded clinic etc. Desirability levels for all residential are high. I don't understand what's the problem, why won't the middle and rich just settle in?
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Hey guys, I have been working on my region and I started having a problem. I have started having issues with the two cities I am currently working on (I am going back it forth). When I am zoning stuff, nothing is growing. For example, the first city, the demand is very high for agriculture, with high desirability, cap is at 5%. The other city, residential is not growing, extremely high demand, and no cap issues as well. I know in the past, I have stopped playing a region due to this issue. Is it some time type of bug/glitch causing this issue. I know mods are known to possibly cause issue but I have not changed anything in months. Is it possible it to be CAM or something else? Please feel free to ask for anything else you think would help. Thanks
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Hello again all! I know there was another post somewhat similar to this one here about a week ago, however, where that post seemed to start out as geared towards more resources and assets, I'm actually wanting to inquire more on your mindsets and philosophies when you play the game, to achieve natural growth. I want to pick your brains! =p After a many year break, I'm diving back into SC4 during quarantine, and I'm loving this game all over again. I'm so thrilled there is still a strong and friendly player base, and that mods are still getting updated. Because I had never really satisfied my itch to play the game with the "natural growth" approach, I'm doing so now for the first time. I can already tell I'm making plenty of mistakes and this first region playthrough I'm just going to consider a giant learning experience. I'll try to list some of my philosophies and early problems to this approach, but I would love the feedback of all you seasoned players out there. First off, to me there seems to be sort of two avenues of play regarding the word natural -- I feel like on one hand there are some amazing cities out there which have a natural look, with many manhours pre-shaping the terrain, heavily editing growth possibilities, and laying down amazing looking road networks, and then delicately crafting the cities with ploppables to achieve simply unparalleled realism and looks... all crafted pretty much to the expectations and idea the artist had for these creations before beginning them. On the other hand, I think there is a method more aimed at natural growth, where the primary mindset is to go into the region with practically zero or very little preconceived plans about how the region will develop and turn out, and simply play the game according to how you envision the sims actually expanding and growing their towns/cities and road networks. With this method, players play the game wanting to create extremely amazing looking cities in the long run (like the first method), but they are interested in letting it happen as naturally as possible. There is almost a sense of wonder while playing, and the region takes on a life of its own (not to say it doesn't in the first method). To clarify, I don't think one method is better than the other, and there is certainly crossover and it's not so black & white. Each method contains a bit of the other. Perhaps the first method is more about natural look, and the latter method is more about natural growth. One day I hope I can handcraft a spectacular city worthy of a CJ, but for now I think I want to focus on natural growth first and foremost, with a natural look being the secondary focus. In fact, just with discussion with a friend in the Discord channel, I described my love for city-builders like this: "What excites me the most about city builders is the not knowing, the not knowing where your downtown sector will develop, the not knowing where your first freeway will need to go." Hopefully this helps you understand my core motives at this present time. Anyways, here are some of my early philosophies/approaches I try to keep in mind while going for this natural growth method: First I identified likely spots where settlements would form, such as next to lakes, or along rivers. I started about 8 small, isolate villages with only low density and farmlands. I barely built them up at all, basically just a few months of game time. Next I built dirt streets (SAM portion of NAM) to act as paths between the settlements. I first branched out from where I imagined the settlers first making landfall in the region, and then tried to make realistic decisions about where the trail would go next. My focus here is basically the path of least resistance. I follow contours of the land, I try to cut through clearings or the portions of woodlands where the trees are not as dense. If a path can go straight and steady, it does. After my villages were connected, I cycled back through each city-tile and played for about 3 or 4 in-game years. I continued only using dirt streets to expand, and only according to RCI demand. Again, all low density. Some of the earlier posts I've read on this method emphasized that you basically only provide services as the people demand them. Just like in real life, things typically go long overdue before the service is provided or upgraded. I focused on building dirt roads to clearings and riversides where I would zone for farmlands. I expanded residential areas to eat up the clearings closest to them. After my first 4-year cycle through, I cycled back through each city-tile again. However, for my 2nd pass I started going in the order of whichever cities had naturally become the most populous. On those populous cities, residential demand was through the roof, so I continued residential expansion into available clearings. I continued focusing in farmland expansion on the outskirts of the bigger towns, and for all the other city-tiles on the outskirts of the bigger towns, emphasize was on farmlands. Some of the bigger towns have starts asking for fire protection and medical care, to which I obliged on some of them. And that's currently where I am, about 8 to 9 years into region development. Here is what my region is looking like so far: While I'm happy with the region look, and mostly ok with my individual cities looks, I'm also definitely running into some possible issues, and understanding this is going to be a big learning experience. I didn't expect to master anything right off the bat, and I have a LONG way to go to even become decent at this approach. I'm just going to not beat myself up, but let myself learn from this, and hopefully learn from all of you who are much more experienced in creating both natural growth and natural look. Here are some of my ongoing early "problems" or issues I keep thinking about or wondering: Should I build my paths/roads first, or my villages? When should I upgrade from dirt paths (streets) between my villages, to actual roads? I guess these thoughts kinda keep going back to my idea about the two avenues of "natural" gameplay. Part of me is tempted to just pre-shape and lay down some amazing road networks (which of course will take a lot of practice in and of itself). On the other hand, I want to let my villages grow to the point where it feels proper that they would finally get an actual paved road. Some of the bigger towns have upgraded to red brick streets (but of course these are still just streets for the simulation aspect). This natural approach with road networks may be what fascinates me the most about the play style. I have NO idea where the first freeway will be! It's exciting to not know! I have an idea where it may happen, but allowing the demand to just happen naturally is extremely exciting to me. I'm at the point where many of my streets in my biggest towns are showing red congestion, so I think I'm ready for some roads to start popping up, but it's a bit daunting, and I'm not sure how to proceed quite yet. Should new roads be constructed on top of the old dirt paths? Also, when should road networks destroy previously existing development? These thoughts are a slight hassle. When should I offer plumbing and widespread electricity? Right now I'm just using wind power, mostly around all the farmlands. I almost wish I didn't need to offer any electricity for a long while (perhaps I didn't?). I think I'm on the brink of plopping a coal plant somewhere, which I'll probably put on one of the outskirts of the most populous cities. Perhaps for realism, I should put it in one of the more hilly or mountainous tiles. As for plumbing, what's strange to me is that my sims aren't really complaining about no widespread water yet. I think I'm going to wait a bit longer on plumbing, and again, only for the more populous and therefore wealthy towns. Even trying to emphasize natural growth, I feel my towns grew very quickly and have perhaps become a bit more gridlike than I preferred. I'm mostly happy with the look of my towns, but I feel perhaps I allowed the residential areas to develop and sprawl a bit too quickly. There are farms on most the outskirts, but I almost feel like the residential sectors are too big right now considering how much of the wilderness isn't covered with farms yet. Part of this is also me trying to understand, in the wealthy towns, grids aren't necessarily a bad thing. Take a look at NYC in 1890, it was already extremely gridlike. I think the more a city grows, the more likely the infrastructure will need to become more rooted in structured math (aka grids). When should I start swallowing farmlands or already established areas vs. When should I continue expanding horizontally to nearby clearings? When should I start destroying denser forests for new development? This might be one of the hardest things for me to figure out. I'm obviously not quite there yet, but since my demand for residential continues to be through the roof, I find myself asking the following: Should I start to zone Medium Density residential, Should I create more Low Density residential in nearby clearings (continue expanding horizontally), or Should I start to have residential areas swallow up farms and I just place more farms further away on the outskirts? I'm trying to determine what is more realistic. Since I explained I feel my towns perhaps have already expanded too quickly (residentially speaking), I kinda feel like if I just have residential start swallow farms already than it's not very realistic. I guess those are my primary concerns at this time. Sorry this turned into a massive post, I just love the concept of this playstyle, and I'm eager to learn from you all on how you go about this, and what tips and recommendations you have for me. While I'm certainly open to you recommending assets and mods to assist with this playstyle, I'm mostly interested in your strategies and philosophies that will help me learn! Lastly, I'll share some more pics of what I currently have so you can form a more complete idea/opinion, and better give advice. This here is Grandtrix, where most of the settlers decided they wanted to live after making landfall in a settlement south of here: Grandtrix is the most populous town in my region right now. Based on some of my earlier points, the things I'm unhappy with involve the quick horizontal sprawl of residential, and how it's perhaps a bit too gridlike than I'd prefer. On the other hand, perhaps I'm being overly critical, and the gridlike development is more natural for a blossoming town like this. You can see there are more clearings to the north along the river, so I think that's where I will being to expand residentially and commercially speaking. Residents don't have widespread water yet (they aren't demanding it for some reason). I also wonder, at what point should I begin to zone medium density instead of low density. This here is Northrice, second most populous town in the region right now, just north of Grandtrix, along the river: In some ways, I think I prefer the overall look of Northrice more than I do to Grandtrix, but of course the same aforementioned expansion issues arise in my mind. Here is Southpaw, an example of a more mid-sized town in the region: Here is Dashroad, a smaller community that I feel is perhaps becoming a more "touristy" vacation spot for the wealthy residents of the region: Lastly, here are a few pics of farmland development on the outskirt city-tiles, away from Grandtrix and Northrice: Thank you all for looking and for any advice and philosophical tips you may have for me! I am eager and excited to learn from you all! Asset recommendations are welcome, but I want your advice mostly! <3
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Alright... so I'm logging in to SimCity 4, and next thing I know I build a new city, No population growth! and that goes with all the other cities!! :( what's going on??
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CoriBoom Cori's No Kickout Lower Wealth Mod - Now CAMpatible
CorinaMarie posted a topic in SimCity 4 General Discussion
Cori's No Kickout Lower Wealth Mod - Now CAMpatible The CAMpatible part means that it will work equally well with or without CAM installed. If using CAM, just be sure this mod loads after CAM's controller file. The File: Cori's_No_Kickout_Lower_Wealth_CAMpatible.dat <-- Click here to download. Y'all might be wondering what this mod does. Quite simply, it allows you to control your city growth in a much more stable manner than the Maxis default setting. By not allowing higher wealth levels to kick out and overrun the lower wealth, you need not be constantly dealing with major fluctuations of each grown category of R, C, and I, the associated demand instability, nor overloading the jobs path finding algorithm. Also, in well established cities which you are still expanding (either horizontally or vertically or both), it puts you in charge rather than at the whim of the game's propensity to upgrade multiple buildings in quick succession as you cross new stage thresholds. @Cyclone Boom and I have completed a couple of specific demo tests to show the advantages of using NKO. The Skyscraper Example: Presenting the closest thing to a big city that I have. This has been grown from the start with NKO installed. For this part of the demo, I've removed NKO. Big City Start without NKO installed: Big City 6 years later without NKO installed: ^ You'll notice all my carefully planned low wealth, low density R$ got kicked out and replaced with R$$ and R$$$. Several commercial buildings changed too. Running again from the start, here's Big City 6 years later with NKO installed: ^ What you see is how it is rock solid stable which allows the Mayor to decide which locations to upgrade. This is where the power of NKO really puts you, the Mayor, in charge. Starting from the same year 676 beginning date as above and keeping the NKO mod in plugins, I then bulldozed those two short commercial service buildings cause I have lots of demand for CO$$$. Big City Start with NKO installed and two commercial bulldozed: Letting time run a bit, and both zones begin growing: However, because of NKO there isn't a bunch of random upgrading throughout the city tile and that means all pent up demand is being used where I decided: Big City Demo Run Finished with NKO installed: ^ Ofc, if I had some Custom Content installed (or allowed all 4 original tilesets to grow), I could have variety for that stage of commercial. The key part is that with NKO the rest of my city does not upgrade all haphazardly to higher wealth buildings. The Agricultural (with Small Towns) Example: Not everyone wants complex metalostastrophe cities. NKO is equally important for the agrarian / small towns developer. Here we see a typically Coriesque rural area with small towns: ^ Using no imagination whatsoever, I'm calling them the River Town, the Town on the Hill, and the Main Town. The second town name logic is only apparent when we turn on the grid and peek under the trees. Here's the dirt road running up the hill which then leads to it: This city tile was all grown without using NKO just like every new Mayor would do. (The game comes from Maxis with this disabled oddly enough.) The date is 27 December in Year 54. No amenities have been plopped at this point. That means no education, no medical, no fire stations, none of the earned rewards, and no parks. The idea was to keep the growth as similar as possible to how it would be with NKO. (I am using my Fire Suppression mod so there's no fires to contend with.) There are a couple or three R$$ homes that grew and then dilapidated. That's nothing compared to how the game will screw things up once we start caring for our Sims. The following pics will show the comparisons. CB has used the EPIC Technique for Centered City Screenshots so the pics will align pixel perfect. That means you can click an image and then use your right and left arrow keys to flip back and forth between them. Note: The variations you'll see in the trees are from the random growth cycle differences. What you'll be looking at is the great quantity of dilapidated R$$ homes when not using NKO. Overview of the Main Town at zoom 3: Start - No amenities plopped: No time run yet - Amenities plopped: 100 years later with NKO installed: Same run 100 years later without NKO installed: Main Town near schools at zoom 4: 100 years later with NKO installed: Same run 100 years later without NKO installed: Main Town north side at zoom 4: 100 years later with NKO installed: Same run 100 years later without NKO installed: Town on the Hill at zoom 4: 100 years later with NKO installed: Same run 100 years later without NKO installed: ^ This particular town fared very well. We see no dilapidation and that's because there are some jobs in this tile for a few R$$ Sims. They like it here because higher elevation is preferred so these are a handful which did not dilapidate. River Town at zoom 4: 100 years later with NKO installed: Same run 100 years later without NKO installed: ^ We see one No Job Zot above. (Throughout the run they come and go as some R$$ Sims leave, the demand for them goes up, they come back, can't find a job, and the cycle repeats.) So, IMNSHO, installing the No Kickout Lower Wealth mod is the way the game should be played. Not only does it ease the fluctuations from rural to megacity, but it allows more control over what will be grown and where it will appear. This NKO mod works very well with @Bones1's Less Abandonment mod. That one is always recommended for non CAM users. One caveat you should be aware of: NKO does not prevent buildings from upgrading within their own wealth class. This means if you have some lower capacity building you want to keep for aesthetic reasons, you'll need to click the historical option for it. Important Note: If you plan to peek inside the mod, you must use Reader 1.5.4 which can be found attached to this post on Devotion. (Reader 0.9.3 will bork the file.) Also, the property Tract Developer Kick Out Lower Wealth is set to 0x01 (True) in the release version of the game. This is why I said above that No Kickout is disabled by default.- 95 Replies
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Hey guys, I'm wondering why my CS$ isn't developing. I have HUGE areas set aside for them, and when I plop down CS$ structures, they seem to have workers, so I'm wondering why they aren't growing organically. Here is the RCI. My offices keep re and re-developing, making larger ones, but I can't seem to get CS$ unless I plop them down using B62 or something else. Thanks!
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[Solved] Weird Glitch - Nothing in city builds
KougaTalbain posted a topic in SC4 Bugs & Technical Issues
I played this game years ago. I recently got it for steam. I downloaded add-ons to the plugin folder. Never built anything, started a few city, and did power, water, low density all zones. Nothing builds at all, like absolutely nothing any ideas? Add ons I got from this site too. -
so i build a few cities. i have all the proper mods to 'fix' the game. i have loads of downloaded growable lots, skyscrapers ofcourse but i had maybe 1 or 2 of those ever grow, and they werent even the nicest ones. my cities are stuck at 350k, and they dont seem to grow bigger. how do i get them to grow bigger from here, and how do i get the skyscrapers to grow? or what am i doing wrong or what am i missing?
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Hi everyone. I've got one question about SC4 bats. What do you do when some custom bats grow too much? (I'm certain you know how infuriating it is when you find a nice looking bat and once in your plugin folder it grows absolutely everywhere and ruins your city) What's the easier way to fix that? (Apart from bulldozing, of course). Secondary question, it probably involves modifying lots... if we do so, is there a need to bulldoze every instance of the building already in a city or is it ok to leave them? Thanks for your future replies.
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Hello Sim community I have a city that was designed as a major commercial hub. After I a while, I noticed it had a population of 0, but was still gaining income and growing. Is this a bug?
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I suppose this is a bit of my followup to my post "Strategy per difficulty." I explained my strategy of building a "neighborhood unit," then giving it the basic services of water, power, trash collection, and fire protection, but leaving other services such as education and healthcare out (I will call this my "non-serviced city". I then started putting in education/healthcare when the "non-serviced" city reached $1,000,000("serviced" city). When I finished the "non-serviced" city and unpaused it, the mayor rating was quite low, just 2 green bars, but was making a profit of $5K to $6K per month. After I put the services in, the mayor rating shot up to at least 5 or 6 green bars very quickly, but the profit was only $500 to $1,000, even after fine tuning the funding for the hospitals/schools. Since that time, by building new neighborhoods, I have built the profitability back up to over $5,000 (which means to me that I have to look at increasing city services or perhaps cutting taxes), but I have to wonder something. I wonder if I had kept my "non-serviced" city running for 50 or 100 or however many game years, if the mayor rating would have dropped further, perhaps even down to the red bars, and people/businesses would have started leaving the city, thus eroding the tax base, and eventually getting to a place where it loses instead of makes money. However, after I had put the services in, if I had let the city just run for however long, if it would have been in a better position to maintain the money it was making, and perhaps even growing a small amount. The growth would have come not by zoning and developing more land, but by some of the citizens moving from R$ to R$$ or even R$$$ residents. I don't think it ever would have gotten back up to the $5k that it was, but I think it was in a position to be maintained and even increased a little in the "serviced" city, but was not in the "non-serviced" city (which might even begin to be abandoned eventually). Brian Christiansen
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Entry 11: Harrington, The Beginning (Mk3)
89James89 posted a City Journal entry in Harrington (A natural growth SC4 CJ)
So here we go again! OOC: Right so I have a bit of a lesson for everyone. Apparently, it turns out that its a really bad idea to edit the config file of a region while you have the region open in game. A definite lesson in how to actually think about what your doing before you actually doing and also to make sure that you back up your regions every now and then. Anyway, as you've probably guessed by now, this led to the unfortunate result of me wiping the entire map from existence. Bit of a bummer admittedly, still, from the ashes and all that so let's get stuck right back in, this time though, were going for a larger map (I'm seriously just kidding myself though, there's no way in hell I'm going to probably fill it up.), being 60x50 pixels (so 3000 square kilometres), but this time all in medium tiles rather than large so I can see how each of the settlements is really growing (I like seeing everything as an individual settlement so not being able to tell how many people were living in each of the villages in the old map was annoying me a bit). There's also a small chance I may have got bitten a bit by the whole MMP bug though, the plan is to keep this a bit minimal. Right here we go! Replies: Entry 11: Harrington, The Beginning (mk3) Haven't we been here before? So, welcome one and all to our new home, the Region of Harrington., a very sparsely populated but hospitable land and today, were going to visit the principal settlement of the area, Harrington. Discovered and founded a little while back at the most sensible place for a sheltered harbour on the banks of the river Harring, this place has quickly become the main landing place for new settlers, with most of people in the region having passed through this harbour below. Built to take advantage both of the natural harbour and the fish in the area we have a good staging point for this growing community, centred mainly around this church in the centre of the town where folks usually gather for important community events, both the working class that live around the church itself Or the rich folk, living above the harbour overlooking their various enterprises. As well as the bustling centre of town with the church and the farmers market, the town also boasts a large fete on the edge of the town where the housing gives way to farms. Lots and lots of farms. Other than that its your usual little town nestled amongst the trees with a couple of creeks like this one to give some points of interest. Along with this little ford which, although fairly picturesque and a always fun to watch people try and drive through in the rainy months, is promptly becoming a bit of an issue, given that more and more traffic is heading out and in from the surrounding farms. Still, it's a nice quiet place to live, and the people seem happy, not that they have that much choice, given that no one seems to really remember where the nearest actual settlement outside of the Harrington region but nevermind, they seem to have accepted that this is there lot in life. And that's everything there is about Harrington town, next up we'll have a look at some of the other small settlements that can be found around here. Till next time! -
Entry 7: Its been a while
89James89 posted a City Journal entry in Harrington (A natural growth SC4 CJ)
Replies: westy177: Thanks, hope they provided some inspiration (despite that you posted that god know how long ago). kschmidt: You might be right about the harbour I'll pass it on to the mayor of that town! Ducio: People love cheap housing I guess lol. Glad you like it! Entry 7: It's been a while So, it's been a while since we were last in Harrington. Growth was pretty slow over here lately (like several months slow but we'll ignore that). Anyway we have continued to grow a bit more so its all good. Anyway, lets get on with it. Now as you probably haven't noticed, but nevermind, the area is currently growing around a large harbour and, as with most harbours (actually all harbours), we have a harbour mouth that, in this case is pretty small and apparently very dangerous (having not travelled by boat I'm taking the cargo ships captains word for this). Anyway, we've actually decided to build some lighthouses as you can see here. This has made life a lot safer and, as is usual for the growing area a population centre has built up around the lighthouses (well, I say around it, given that it's on top of a cliff I'm using the term very loosely as everything is built at the bottom of the hill that it's on). Anyway this is what the area looked like several years into its growth, with the ubiquitous farms, springing up around them (and of course a church somewhere in there). Anyway as is njormal around here (and generally with most towns and population areas), despite being cut off form the rest of the Harrington area at the moment, Bayton and its surrounds have continued to grow with the area now looking like this. As you can probably see several new towns have sprung up during the growth, The major development during this time has been the town of Sandwin, which, much to the annoyance of Bayton, has developed the reputation of the holiday/break spot for the region, given its beaches. Rumours are that it would rival Harnsea in pricing if it wasn't for the fact that the popular place is always full of visitors. Swings and roundabouts I guess. The church is pretty nice as well. Moving on from the area around the Two Sisters we have some more development to the south of Harrington in the form of Banbury. Very quickly developing due to the large amount of empty land the town has around it, Banbury first sprung up around this church in its centre, currently now surrounded by the busy farmer market orientated centre of the town (because everyone and their dog in the Harrington area pretty much works on a farm). Currently experiencing some mid wealth growth, by a group of people wanting to move from the villages in the area to a more populated area, the Mayor Goodfrey is currently looking forward to seeing what opportunities the town has in the future (secretly hoping to outgrow Harrington and rub it into their faces). Finally this is what the area looks like from above. Much like the rest of Harrington if were honest. So, that's all I have for you in the this welcome back entry, really looking forward to playing some more SC4 though so I'll try and make sure that the next post isn't quite so long in the making. Till next time!-
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