Boy, am I looking forward to SimCity 4! Too bad it's coming out in January, not in time for Christmas.

The main new features of SimCity 4 will include ways to personalize and "experience" your city more than ever before, including being able to place Sims from The Sims games in your city, the cities belonging to a region instead of being by themselves like in past versions (and being able to directly interact with the other cities), less building repetition due to extensive use of building props, night- and day-time, people/cars/buses,etc. moving along in the city according to the time of day ("automata scripting"), amazing looking graphics, and much more.

So how many of you CivFanatics are interested in the SimCity series? Are you going to get SimCity 4? I sure am. I've owned all the past SimCity versions and this one looks better than ever before...

And here's the link to the official SimCity 4 website: http://simcity.ea.com/.

Theres quite an active Sim city forum at gamecatcher and they are currently running a competition as to who could build the best city on a particular map.
http://www.gamecatcher.net/fora/viewforum.php?f=5

Originally posted by Dell19
Theres quite an active Sim city forum at gamecatcher and they are currently running a competition as to who could build the best city on a particular map.
http://www.gamecatcher.net/fora/viewforum.php?f=5 Thanks. I already knew about the site, but when I saw from your link the Sims Section Forum I decided to register. Looks like a pretty good site. :) Although I'll still stay here for Civ-related things, of course. And I hope they'll continue the tournaments for SC4, since I'm pretty much through playing SC3K.

I spent the downtime yesterday looking into SimCity 4, looks amazing. It comes out 8 days after my birthday, as of right now, so maybe I can get my mom to delay buying me presents.

I haven't played SC3k in a while, ever since I had to wipe my hard drive and didn't reinstall it. Now its acting funny when I try to reinstall...I guess I'll just have to wait for SC4.

I'm really looking foward to the MySims feature (will that work if you don't have the Sims? I hope so...), the day/night, less building repetions (no more damn Lick's ice cream! I had fields of that once...:mad: ;)), and the scripting automata. I'll probably spend half my Simcity time just watching the people roam around...like a stalker with a gods eye view...;) :lol:

CG

I am interested in getting Sim City 4. Going to have to go to that link. Is there going to be multiplayer support in this version?

It's not called Sim City 4000, suprising.

I liked the original Sim City, I also liked 2000. But I have 3000 but I never got into it.

Originally posted by cgannon64
I'm really looking foward to the MySims feature (will that work if you don't have the Sims? I hope so...) ... less building repetions (no more damn Lick's ice cream! I had fields of that once...:mad: ;))The MySims feature comes with several default Sims for people that don't have the Sims game. :) And yep, the building repetitions in the previous versions were really annoying and unrealistic.

I drool at the videos and screens! :D I own every Sim game ever made! :mwaha:

Originally posted by munzy
I am interested in getting Sim City 4. Going to have to go to that link. Is there going to be multiplayer support in this version?

:confused: Uh...I don't believe so. SimCity multiplayer wouldn't be much different from single player, only I guess you can compare cities at the end. Which you can already to online with a screenshot. :)

CG

I never owned the original Sim City or SC 2000, but I did find incredible fun with SC 3000 Unlimited.

I'm looking forward to Sim City 4 if nothing else because of the incredible terrain editor that it appears to have.

And having an active volcano in the middle of a metropolitan city should be hours of fun as well. :)

Originally posted by munzy
I am interested in getting Sim City 4. Going to have to go to that link. Is there going to be multiplayer support in this version?

The Sim City series doesn't really lend itself to any kind of multiplayer aspect. There's no competition per se with other cities and you can't invade them.

Multiplayer with one person controlling one city and another player controlling a neighboring city wouldn't be any more interesting than just playing single player. I guess you could negotiate deals to sell or buy power, water, etc., but that wouldn't really add anything to the game.

Of course you could add military to the game and allow players to invade each other but then you've made an RTS... It could be quite fun if you could build on the same map so that you could destroy part of the other person's city or try and expand to take up the most amount of land.

Originally posted by Dell19
Of course you could add military to the game and allow players to invade each other but then you've made an RTS... It could be quite fun if you could build on the same map so that you could destroy part of the other person's city or try and expand to take up the most amount of land.

Hmmm ... that sounds sorta familiar.

Sim City Central (http://www.simcitycentral.net) is another good fan site with forums and timely updates.

It seems to be shaping up as a pretty good game, though it's going to be rough on the ol' PC.

One has to give these guys credit, each SC is better than the last. I have all of the previous three, though SC3K barely works on my dinosaur computer, and probably won't be able to play this at all. How sad... :(

I just bought Sim City 3000 Unlimited :goodjob: i can't wait to download SimCity4! errr "buy it" :-P

How much does unlimited actually add to the game because I don't know whether to buy it or not?

Unlimited doesn't add much - the scenarios are mildly interesting if you like that kind of stuff, and there are some new buildings and a few new city styles, I think. But I lost interest in SC3K shortly after I bought the add-on - other things to do, I guess.

That said, you could probably get Unlimited for cheap these days. It's certainly not worthless if you like the SimCity concept. Or you could hold out for SC4, which looks to be a much different - and hopefully much improved - game.

I think I'll probably wait then if it doesn't add much and I don't really play scenarios anyway.

Well, save your money, then, Dell. SC4 will retail at 50$ US. Also, it looks like it will hog your system resources, so you might need to upgrade if your system specs are marginal. (Okay, *I* will need to upgrade; I won't dare speak for anyone else on that issue.)

Btw, Dell, you're going to have to update your sig soon. You'll have 5K posts in, what, the next five minutes?

I like having outdated sigs so I'll probably leave it is until someone else complains about it. I should be able to run SC4 since I run Unreal Tournament 2003... :)

Originally posted by Cantankerous


The Sim City series doesn't really lend itself to any kind of multiplayer aspect. There's no competition per se with other cities and you can't invade them.

Multiplayer with one person controlling one city and another player controlling a neighboring city wouldn't be any more interesting than just playing single player. I guess you could negotiate deals to sell or buy power, water, etc., but that wouldn't really add anything to the game. Think multiple people controlling one city...duking it out for valuable land and attracting shoppers to their stores. Monopoly Tycoon does this but I was looking for something a little more serious than that. There is also an online only game that has you playing versus other people. It was made by a Canadian company and then marketed by a French company. AFAIK it didn't do too well. :(

So, yes, multiplayer is possible, you just have to 'think outside the box'. :D

That still doesn't mexplain how you would change Sim city to it. The first thing you would need to do is disable the ability to bulldoze your friends city. I can see how it would work up to a point i.e both building the same or rival cities but I doubt they would really compete that much.

Maybe a zone of control where you can do anything you want in yours but you have to pay or beg the other person to do it in theirs. I don't know all the answers, I just know I would like to play a game like that but I am not going to make it myself....yet.

Originally posted by munzy
So, yes, multiplayer is possible, you just have to 'think outside the box'. :D

Well munzy, now you're talking about a completely different game, which is fine if that's the kind of game you want. But such a game is not keeping within the "tradition" of the Sim City franchise.

I'm just saying that what you're describing would not be "Sim City".

True, it might not be keeping within the 'tradition' but single player could still be 'traditional' and MP could be 'more'. :)

Well in Sim City 2000 Network edition, you'd have to perchase land before devolping it.

I never knew there was a SC2K Network Edition out. I will have to look for that. It isn't that I don't feel that the single player games aren't good, it is just that I like playing against other people.

Cool I just read about the game. That is exactly what I was talking about! You can't say my ideas aren't traditional anymore sinc eit was in SC2K. :p ;)
http://www.cdaccess.com/html/pc/sim2net.htm

I loved SimCity and SimCity 2000 but I was very disappointed in SimCity 3000, it didn't have the same addictive quality as the other two, maybe it's cause of the shiny graphics.

FOUR MORE DAYS!! I read the Gamespot review and (if my parents approve) I'll probably have SC4 when it is released.

I have it preordered, it will come any day now.

There are rumors in other SimCity Forums that they had recived there copies of SC4

Originally posted by Perfection
I have it preordered, it will come any day now.Yep, I also have it preordered. :)

Did you get the BONUS transportation pack?

Originally posted by puglover
(if my parents approve) I'll probably have SC4 ...

If your parents approve?!?
It's not like you're asking for Vice City, fer crying out loud.
If my son asked for it, I'd buy it for him. Of course, he'd have to wrestle me away from the PC. Fat chance of that, though.

Originally posted by Perfection
Did you get the BONUS transportation pack?No, I ordered it from amazon.com so that I could use a gift certificate. What does the special transportation do? Do you see it in the game?

Originally posted by Franklyn


If your parents approve?!?
It's not like you're asking for Vice City, fer crying out loud.
If my son asked for it, I'd buy it for him. Of course, he'd have to wrestle me away from the PC. Fat chance of that, though.

Not that it's got bad things in it. Just that I have a gigantic collection of games already. My CD holders are overflowing with games.

Originally posted by WillJ
No, I ordered it from amazon.com so that I could use a gift certificate. What does the special transportation do? Do you see it in the game? It gives you a greater variety of transportation on the street!

They already have an add-on to the game before it even comes out? :?

Change your sig Dell, it isn't as impressive as the first 4k poster. ;) (Read: ME)

Would'nt it be funny to load Civ 3 Cavalry, Fighter, Tank, etc. into SimCity and kill each other all over the city. It would be hillarious to see people walking around going about there business and across the street is a Spearman!

Originally posted by munzy
They already have an add-on to the game before it even comes out? :?

From what I've read, the transportation disk adds a few special units to the game. Most likely, they'll be posted somewhere eventually. It looks like the disk was simply a premium that EA hatched w/ EBGames.com so folks would buy it from EB. Think of it as a high-tech happy meal toy.

hehe, Only 2 more days untill Jan 14th :D.

Does anyone here remember the original SimCity 3000 release? It was so buggy that it crashed almost every 1/2 hour, and the last zoom level wasn't even rendered! Instead of releasing a patch, the programmers marketed a $40.00 version of the game with the patch (unlimited)... screwing all the people who bought the first release. Join me in boycotting this release!

I got the original release and i had no problems with the game crashing every 30 mins. Infact I still don't have that problem. I for one wont boycott the game. I just won't buy it b/c it wont run on my comp.

Scratch that, it wont run very well on my comp.

I had no problems with SC 3000 either although it did sometimes take awhile to display all the buildings on the map properly.

Im probably gonna buy it.If the systemdemands are not too big...

I'm going to get it today! [dance]

Originally posted by cameramano
Does anyone here remember the original SimCity 3000 release? It was so buggy that it crashed almost every 1/2 hour, and the last zoom level wasn't even rendered! Instead of releasing a patch, the programmers marketed a $40.00 version of the game with the patch (unlimited)... screwing all the people who bought the first release. Join me in boycotting this release!

Why would I want to boycott such an awesome game?! I WANT SIMCITY 4 and YEW can't stop me! *shoves cameramano aside and runs to EB!*

Does anyone have any cheats for this game? I'm taxing the clothing off the people and reducing funding for everything but I'm still losing money! And how do you make Neighbor Deals. I connected both cities but still I can't make deals! :confused:

puglover.

use Control-X
then type the following:
stopwatch: pause/resume the 24 hour clock
whatimeizit: set the time of the day follow with a space and the time you wish to set
whererufrom: change city name follow with new name you want to apply
hellomynameis: changes mayor name following the new name you want to apply
you don't deserve it: all rewards available
sizeof: increases magnification (1-100)
weaknesspays: adds 1,000 to your treasury
fightthepower: removes power requirement for all buildings
zoneria: hides empty zone color
tastyzots: toggles zots
howdryiam: removes water requirement from all buildings

Thanx CG. You saved my city from certain destruction. :)

This #&@% game taxes my machine to beyond it's limits! It's extremely unstable, which tells me that my machine needs more muscle before I can effectively play it. :(

I got it yesterday... pretty fun even though I have difficulty getting my city to grow effectively.

I had difficulty with balanced budgets at first too. The trick is to tax based on demands for the different types of zones. If there is a high demand for low-density residential areas, for example, tax low-wage earners at a higher rate. Some might move away, but you'll get a lot more money and they won't be pushy about it anymore. Plus, you can tax right above the move away threshold so you'll just have disgruntled citizens who don't leave, like in the real world!
Then, cut away at service spendings and provide cash only on the marginals: no empty hospital beds, no empty classrooms. Just like the real world!
And walla, a budget is balanced!

Switch, I have minimum system requirements and don't have any trouble running the game. Have you tried turning down the graphics settings? The default is set to max, which I'm sure would tax my system as well.

Greadius:
What are your PC specs? What settings are you running the game on? Did you overclock? And have you had any problems since you've posted?

I'm asking is because a lot of people w/ tricked-out PCs are reporting some problems - freezing, crashing, etc. Some have blamed their Radeon cards. Others say the MySims feature is the trouble. I'm also wondering because my system, which runs Civ3 just fine, is just above minimum for SC4.

I got it to run now, Greadius. I turned all video rendering settings to low, set the screen resolution to it's lowest setting, turned off the sound, and killed all running tasks except Explorer. It will now run. :rolleyes:

My system specs:
AMD Duron 850 MHz processor, 192 MB RAM, ATI Rage Fury video card w/32 MB RAM on the card, 48x CD-ROM drive, running Windows 98SE operating system. The mainboard is a Giga-Byte GA-7ZX (Socket A), dual BIOS configuration, with a 133/266 FSB on a VIA KT133 chipset.

If you couldn't tell, I built my own system.

Hoo-boy, Switch. That machine wouldn't win a race with anything coming off the shelves now, but it sure kicks the heck out of mine. And you had to turn off just about every feature in the game?!Think I'll stick w/ SC3K for a while. Maybe you should try to get your 50 clams back.

I'm not going to return the game. My mainboard will accept up to an Athlon XP2100 (Palomino) chip, so I've got considerable room for improvement there. Memory is also pretty cheap. When I can set a few dollars aside, I'll upgrade my system. It's a damn shame though, I thought I had a decent configuration.

Originally posted by puglover
Does anyone have any cheats for this game? I'm taxing the clothing off the people and reducing funding for everything but I'm still losing money! And how do you make Neighbor Deals. I connected both cities but still I can't make deals! :confused: Cheating is for crazies, your problem is with your water system, start small, then expand

Still no problems, and I have the graphics set to minimum-medium, lowest resolution, music still on.

Not very computer literate but I'll try to get my specs right:
Pentium 3 500 MHz, 256 megs of RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 2 video card with 16 megs, 24 speed CD drive, running Windows ME.

I've had no problems... biggest pain is switching between zoom levels it takes a second of delay and sometimes a few second to map details.

The only background things I have running are explorer and ZoneAlarm. I tried running it with Kazaa on the background and it was quite a bit slower, but Kazaa is a real systems drain so that doesn't surprise me. I'm not sure why you're having more problems... RAM perhaps :hmm:

Thanks, Greadius. That's good to know. My system specs are roughly the same. I probably need to plunk down a few clams for some more RAM, and SC4 is the excuse I need.

I haven't gotten the game yet. I tend to hold out to see how others are faring with a game before I shell out my $50.

So how is the actual game? Is it that much better than Simcity 3000 Unlimited?

Originally posted by ApocalypseKurtz
So how is the actual game? Is it that much better than Simcity 3000 Unlimited? Really the main differences are the much better graphics, especially with terrain, a much better terrain editor, and region play, along with some other things, but I don't think it's as different as 2000 to 3000. I think for me it was worth $50, since I'm a big fan of the series and I had gotten bored with 3000.

And I've finally discovered how to make money in this game, in case ya'll wanna know:

First, select one of the smallest blocks of land to have as your city (this probably doesn't matter, but I've heard of some people saying that they have better luck with the small land plots, and it worked for me), and keep it flat; don't bother making any terrain features. I guess you could if you wanted to, but I didn't. Then build a coal power plant near the edge of the city, and build low-density residential and commercial zones, along with medium-density industrial zones near the edge of the map. Have a little buffer between the res. and ind. zones. Lower residential $ taxes to about 6%, $$ to 6.4%, commercial $ to 5%, industrial $ to 6%, and industrial $$ to 6.4%. Also, queue the power plant and keep its funding to as low as it can go and still provide enough power (along with a bit of extra capacity for growth, maybe about 100, and always check on it and increase the funding as necessary). After a short while build a school and a small fire station, and always keep them funded as low as they can go and still provide enough coverage/bussing, and teachers for the schools. Don't bother building water towers, pipes, pumps, etc. AT ALL. Demand should be pretty high, and keep on gradually building zones, zones, and more zones, always checking on service funding. Soon you should be making money, just a little per month at first, and eventually you'll be making more and more money. I've just now begun doing this myself, so I haven't found out how far I can go, but I imagine I'll soon be making a couple of thousand dollars per month. Once you get to that point, you can just let the simulation run by itself and go do something else, then come back after awhile and you'll be a millionaire! (Any fires will probably be taken care of by the fire dept. before they get too bad.)

Just FYI, I returned my copy today for Europa 1400: The Guild (I love EB).

After playing it parts of the weekend, I found myself getting bored very quickly. When I wasn't bored, I was confused or frustrated... very disapointing game.

Whereas I doubt I'll return it I feel with you Greadius. The game is very difficult in gameplay and comprehension. It gets rather old having to do the same things over and over again in a futile attempt to make money.

I've heard that the strategy guide does a superb job of making the game understandable and fun, and exlpains all the extra levels of detail that make the game seem so difficult.

Of course, that should have been in the game manual, not strategy guide. With NBA Live 2003 and now SimCity 4, EA Games is getting a really bad rep from me.

All the game companies are taking out what should be in the game manual and putting it into the "strategy guide". Save yourself some money and look for it on Kazaa. ;)

I got the strategy guide, it really adds a lot to the gameplay experiance

Well, I'll be getting it once I've upgraded my CPU - I can't see my PII350 being too happy with it.

It's my birthday in April so one of you kind souls could purchase it for me then. :p

Hmm can someone help me with this custom music "feature"? Ofcourse is isnt in the manuel, reademe, or tech guide. :rolleyes: I put it in the radio/mayor/music whatever it's in there and I was able to tick the box and it will play, but it's a m3u and I want to be able to choose which songs I want to hear. I think I should be able to skip song and go back and choose track and whatever... did they leave this out or am I just missing it?

Okay, thanks for the info WillJ and all.

This game is AWESOME. I think I finally know how to make money in the game too. It's kinda tricky but it does involve low density zoning, only small police stations and fire stations, no water system and high taxing dirty industry to start off with. Hopefully I'll have the guts to try a big city map sooner or later.

And the effects are just AWESOME. Expecially the animals.

Very fun game but runs poorly on my Duron-750. Definately time to upgrade as my wife wants to play the game also....now I can justify the upgrade cost. ;)

Originally posted by munzy
Very fun game but runs poorly on my Duron-750. Definately time to upgrade as my wife wants to play the game also....now I can justify the upgrade cost. ;)

Runs poorly on a Duron 750? It runs well on my Duron 700! Maybe you need more RAM or a better graphics card.

I hope to get this game soon as I am a big fan of the series. I was a beta tester for the Simcity 3k and thought it was the best of the series so far. In sim city 4 do you still have to pay for zoning? Cities are able to zone for free, (pass an ordinance, draw a pretty color on a map, or tell their planning/engineering/publicworks dept to do it) i always thought the simulation experience would be much greater if zoning was free but the capital cost and variety of infrastructure was drastically increased.

Thinking of getting this game this weekend, because I have $97 to burn (thats alot for me ;)). I have PIII, 384 RAM. I'm not sure about my video card (its whatever came with my computer) but my comp runs AoM, so it should be fine.

How much is the strategy guide? I think I'll pick that up too. :)

high expectations

Originally posted by leonel



Runs poorly on a Duron 750? It runs well on my Duron 700! Maybe you need more RAM or a better graphics card. Well, my system has been acting up lately...maybe it is timeto reload XP :_).

BTW, I have 512MB of PC-133 RAM and a GeForce 4MX 420 so those aren't too shabby. I am guessing if it runs fine for you it is either XP (who woulda guessed ;)) or my perception of how the game runs versus yours. :D

Or most likely the city size. When you are playing with some 100,000 inhabitants munzy and leonal has only 10,000 then it runs very differently of course. :mischief:

Map size, detail level and resolution also say whether you need an 2GHz+ CPU with 512MB+ DDR RAM or only 1GHz with 256MB SDR RAM.
:D

Originally posted by cgannon64
Thinking of getting this game this weekend, because I have $97 to burn (thats alot for me ;)). I have PIII, 384 RAM. I'm not sure about my video card (its whatever came with my computer) but my comp runs AoM, so it should be fine.

How much is the strategy guide? I think I'll pick that up too. :)

high expectations

I think around $19.99 USD. ANd belive me, if you dont get the S-Guide you'll hate the game. I dont have it but the learning curve was awful and I've been playing Sim City games for 12 years. :rolleyes:

It is a bit difficult to play....but is interesting. I think I will try again after I reload my system.

Argh, this game is hard. Making money is VERY hard. I remember I really didn't have trouble with this in SC3K. I would lose money for a while, obviously, but pretty soon I would be making money fast.

Do you think its better to tax high first (10% or so) or low at first (6% or so)? I've been taxing high early, but its not working. I guess I'll have to go back and tax low.

Stupid me. I didn't get the strategy guide. :wallbash:

very very very hard

Can't say I didnt warn ya. ;)

Here's a nice little tipsy, if you make one city you really like but are having trouble with money make a few neghibor cities w/o any garabage collection or a very small insuffectiant amount and make deal with your good city, garabage may not be the most expensive thus profitable resorce but it is the easiest to manage.

And about taxation, keep it low for what you want to devolp. For example: I have one city that I consider my "commercial centere" I have an airport and alot of commercial and NO industrial in the city, it does quite well BTW. Anyway I charge high like 11% on poor residentail and low on high, so I get high class people and it makes for a very fine city. That in general is another way to play, haveing an industrial city, residentail towns, and big commercial districsts. Axully it's the only way to play if you want to get the huge skyscrapers and the like they misleadingly place on the box. Ofcourse I've had the game a couple of weeks and have yet to get a tourist trap yet so don' think of me as having the answers to this ridiculously hard game.

If anyone happens to get the S-Guide please tell us about it!

The learning curve in this game is very high, but I'm starting to get used to it. My budget problems are pretty much fixed - taxes starting at about 6% and slowly rising and microing schools and hospitals does the trick. I'm makeing about $20 a month! :crazyeye:

Making a Region is VERY fun, but its also very long. I wish there was some way you could generally sculpt the entire region (mountain range here, water here) and then do it for each one, rather than make a region in each city.

Just a question about your style of region play: how do you get each city to develop. Making an industrial city, a residential city, and a commericial city all sound great, but how do you get each one to develop on its own? You can't just make all commericial from the start, unless I'm missing something.

One final problem I'm having is getting my city to grow. Not literally grow - I've filled up an entire map in a few years - but getting it to grow beyond suburban sprawl. How? I try to tax low, give them water, power, nice neighborhoods, schools, etc but they stay suburban! I even zone Dense and it still comes out suburban. Its bugging me...

been playing for hours

Get a lot of Industrial going and get a good 50k population.. you haveta have a demand for it but suprisingly I am able to have a lot more commercial than I was in the previous games starting off. Mostly $$ and $$$ work at commercial. About the subrban sprawl thing... Density. Zone Dense and make sure there is alot f acsess to the zones and it isnt jammed up with traffic ie MASS TRANSIT.

CompUSA has the SimCity 4 Prima Strategy guide for $9.99. That sale ends TONIGHT. The regular price is $19.99. I just ordered it, and including shipping and tax, the damage is $10.62. I hope I'm not getting screwed by buying the strategy guide, but I just can't get a handle on this game. Perhaps the strategy guide will help me out.

From what I'm reading people say that not only does it have the strategies in it, it also has the stuff that should have been in the manuel as well.

Originally posted by spycatcher34
Get a lot of Industrial going and get a good 50k population.. you haveta have a demand for it but suprisingly I am able to have a lot more commercial than I was in the previous games starting off. Mostly $$ and $$$ work at commercial. About the subrban sprawl thing... Density. Zone Dense and make sure there is alot f acsess to the zones and it isnt jammed up with traffic ie MASS TRANSIT.

I can't tell if this is advice for making specialized cities or for making a dense city, but either way it works. :p :lol: That's probably the reason I'm staying suburban - I'm impatient. I haven't been waiting for the demand for commericial that comes around 50,000. Zoning dense before that is really a waste of time. I just have to play more. ;)

back into the breach my friends

Oh, and to answer someone's (I think Switch's) question about how to put in Custom Songs:

They hid this quite cleverly in the game (hopefully not on purpose...:mischief: ). I figured it out by holding the cursor over the "Custom Tunes" option. Anyway, here's how: Go to Maxis/SimCity4/Radio/Stations/Mayor/Music. In there should be 17 Maxis songs. Take them out if you want (I did, less songs, less confusion) or leave them in, it doesn't matter. Copy/paste some of your mp3s into there. When you get ingame, check "Custom Tunes" in the Audio options. While you have no direct control over them (you can't fast foward, change tunes, etc) it is still a nice option. Enjoy. :D

you can get some pretty odd moments

Sorry for the triple post, but I have a stupid, yet necessary question: how do I make neighbor deals? Southeast Side of Manhattan's garbage is filling up, and I figured Southwest Side could be a nice dump/industrial wasteland. :D Even my advisors are telling me to export, but I can't figure out how!

Oh, and one last question: can Sims commute to another town? If so, how do you coax them to do so? I'm starting to finally get middle/high wealth residential, but the Industrial is ruining it!

thanks in advance

Originally posted by cgannon64
Sorry for the triple post, but I have a stupid, yet necessary question: how do I make neighbor deals? Southeast Side of Manhattan's garbage is filling up, and I figured Southwest Side could be a nice dump/industrial wasteland. :D Even my advisors are telling me to export, but I can't figure out how!

Oh, and one last question: can Sims commute to another town? If so, how do you coax them to do so? I'm starting to finally get middle/high wealth residential, but the Industrial is ruining it!

thanks in advance

That is Ok Cgannon :).

Ok listen carefully on how to make a neighbor deal :). Go into your budge thingy and expand it. You should see a thing labled "Neighbor Deal". Click on it and you are set :). You can only trade with Neighbors that you have a Road, rail, Power line, and/or Pipe cconnection in the edge of your city.
The awnser to your second question: It is possible to do this :)

Hello all, I'm having loads of fun with this game. My current city has almost two million simoleans (I got that much by letting a city that made about a thousand simoleans a month make me a bunch of money), and now I'm starting to actually build the city. I can't decide whether or not I should buy the strategy guide. I'm not really having any problems yet, but still it might come in handy. (I've always liked Prima's SimCity strategy guides in the past.)

Also, to all the people here who want to discuss or ask questions about SimCity, here's an excellent forum for it, that has lots of helpful advice: SimCity Central (http://www.simcitycentral.net). :)

The strategy guide is great I highly recomend it!

Originally posted by CivGeneral


That is Ok Cgannon :).

Ok listen carefully on how to make a neighbor deal :). Go into your budge thingy and expand it. You should see a thing labled "Neighbor Deal". Click on it and you are set :). You can only trade with Neighbors that you have a Road, rail, Power line, and/or Pipe cconnection in the edge of your city.
The awnser to your second question: It is possible to do this :)

I tried that, but it didn't work! I have a road connection to my other town, my advisors are telling me to sell my trash, the other town has a garbage dump connected to the road, and when I got to Budget and Neighbor Deal, it says, "No neighbor deals are availible."

Oh, and about my second question: Is there any in depth way I hav to do do make them commute out of town? Or will they just do it if the other town has lots of jobs?

so fun

Originally posted by cgannon64
I tried that, but it didn't work! I have a road connection to my other town, my advisors are telling me to sell my trash, the other town has a garbage dump connected to the road, and when I got to Budget and Neighbor Deal, it says, "No neighbor deals are availible."

Oh, and about my second question: Is there any in depth way I hav to do do make them commute out of town? Or will they just do it if the other town has lots of jobs?Hmm... So you have a road going from a part of your city (not just starting in the middle of nowhere), to another city's landfill (not just to the middle of nowhere), which is functioning and connected to the rest of the city? I can't see why you couldn't make a neighbor deal; maybe you should just give it time and keep on checking to see if the game ever lets you make one. Also, the landfill has to have a certain amount of free space, although I don't know how much.

Second question: For intercity commuters, it's best to force them to use highways or passenger trains to go from city to city, not roads. Remember, FORCE them, don't just give them the option, because if it's possible for them to use roads, they just might use them, and then complain about the long commute. (Sims aren't always very smart traffic-wise.) Besides that, as long as there are places to live in one city and places to work in another, they should commute and be happy little Sims. :)

Edit: About the neighbor deal: The advisor has to offer you the deal; you don't make one by going to the neighbor deals panel. (I think.)

Originally posted by WillJ
Hmm... So you have a road going from a part of your city (not just starting in the middle of nowhere), to another city's landfill (not just to the middle of nowhere), which is functioning and connected to the rest of the city? I can't see why you couldn't make a neighbor deal; maybe you should just give it time and keep on checking to see if the game ever lets you make one. Also, the landfill has to have a certain amount of free space, although I don't know how much.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I have all that. Does it have to go directly to the landfill? Because I think my landfill is a few blocks in, although that shouldn't matter. Either way, I got sick of garbage piling up and no deal, so I just built a dump in my town. Far far away, of course. :D


Second question: For intercity commuters, it's best to force them to use highways or passenger trains to go from city to city, not roads. Remember, FORCE them, don't just give them the option, because if it's possible for them to use roads, they just might use them, and then complain about the long commute. (Sims aren't always very smart traffic-wise.) Besides that, as long as there are places to live in one city and places to work in another, they should commute and be happy little Sims. :)


Oh OK. I was afraid you would have to coax them to commute. I still seem to have one problem with specialized cities - if I have a city that has lots of industrial, and the neighboring city has lots of residential, and they are communiting (ex - the two prebuilt cities in London) and I build more Industrial in the industrial town, it doesn't grow! :mad: Should I build more connections, or what?

My one main problem with this game so far is money. Not losing it, as I don't have much trouble staying in the black anymore (read: $20-50...:michief: ). My main problem now is that I keep on losing money. Not because I'm overbudgeted, but because I'm zoning faster than I am taking money in. Should I slow down my growth, or is there another answer? I only have 5,000 people in 3 years, so I get the feeling that slowing growth down is a bad idea.

so many questions

*BUMP*

Patch is out! Its supposed to unlock all those perty Houston skyscrapers that were mysteriously blocked by some bug...

Cool!


I am finding this game easier than Sim City 2000 to create a city properly (not creating a core, switching off disasters, waking up in the morning to a very rich town), but I REALLY hate the auto-laying of roads and am still unsure of the best sizes of squares to make for getting certain buildings.

Oh yes, how to make money? Legalise Gambling helps of course as does creating a GHETTO with virtually NO services :D


Apparently the old "before you build city place taxes to max" trick works still if you want loads of money. Haven't tried it personnally I rely on mere hearsay ;)

Originally posted by kittenOFchaos
Cool!


I am finding this game easier than Sim City 2000 to create a city properly (not creating a core, switching off disasters, waking up in the morning to a very rich town), but I REALLY hate the auto-laying of roads and am still unsure of the best sizes of squares to make for getting certain buildings.

Oh yes, how to make money? Legalise Gambling helps of course as does creating a GHETTO with virtually NO services :D


Apparently the old "before you build city place taxes to max" trick works still if you want loads of money. Haven't tried it personnally I rely on mere hearsay ;)

After you download the patch, you can toggle autoroads off by holding SHIFT while laying them down. A very helpful feature, I must say.

I agree with you on your points. It just feels like a good city; my city grows slowly, but not too slow, and medium wealth people are moving in. Its filling up nicely with one story buildings, I think in about a decade skyscrapers while start popping up.

I got the Prima Guide (GET IT IF YOU DON'T) any questions? :)

Looks like I might have to break down and buy the strategy guide....man, I would rather spend the 20 bucks on computer hardware though....does anyone know of a good web site for SC4 strategies?

Originally posted by munzy
Looks like I might have to break down and buy the strategy guide....man, I would rather spend the 20 bucks on computer hardware though....does anyone know of a good web site for SC4 strategies?

simcitycentral.net. Great site.

I reccomend the guide totally, though. I just bought it yesterday; it has every graph you could ask for, ALL the info about every building, its effects, info about mysterious game workings like caps, etc.

GET IT!! :goodjob:

or illegally download it from the internet;)
oops did i say that up loud?

yes you did but I already did a few pages back...no one has taken the time to post it on Kazaa or elsewhere yet. :)

Thanks for the site cgannon64. :goodjob:

Check out www.simcity4.net . They are talking about a intranet version of SC4 there.

Originally posted by munzy
Check out www.simcity4.net . They are talking about a intranet version of SC4 there.

I've heard of that, its not up yet, right? I think the idea is that people play online, each controlling a city in a region. Its being done offline now; check out the Stories area of SCC...there is a sort of SC4 Demogame.

Its pretty cool. :)

Here's an idea I had.

A medium/large sized map(probably large).

Blue - sea.
Green - Residential.
Light blue - Commercial.
Yellow - Industrial.
White - Schools, clinics, police stations, etc. Each white square will provide the services of it's part of the circle. Black - Highways.
Purple - Railroad for the industry.
Red - Railroad for the people to get to work. Built when/if necessary. Maybe subways will be used instead.

The four res&com parts will not be connected to each other via normal roads. To move from one to another they'll have to either use the highway, busses or later on subways or trains.
To move inside, they'll have to use the roads or bus stations in the beginning and subways later in the game.

Questions :
1) Is it a good idea?
2) Any idea on how big the white squares need to be to eventually provide all needed services, from fire stations to colleges?
3) What should the size proportion between the island and the industrial "borders" be? Roughly the same? Island much bigger? The other way around?
4) Is there need for more transportation in the home-work route, especially in the industrial parts?
After people leave the highway, is it too much to expect some of them to drive all the way to the corners?
5) Should one of the corners be replaced with water, to provide a water way to the region? Will it help?
6) Where do I stick the air and sea ports, when their time will come?
7) Can anyone make such map? I suck at this. :D

Great idea Eli! I'm not sure if that could be done, as money is a constraint.

It's taken me 2 weeks, but I finally got the budget on my current city to run in the black. Go me!

I improved my initial idea.

Since commercial zones love traffic and most of the traffic will go to and from the highways...

I'm starting to love this region play. You can basically use Eli's plan, just on a larger scale (Industrial cities, suburbs, and Commericial centers) having highways and subways connecting all of them. I'm already starting to set mine up.

How fast do you guys expand? I think I expanded too fast in my city, having lots of economic troubles...

I find a huge challenge is setting up new neighborhoods (areas of Res. with the usual services) if you lack capital (<5,000). I take out loans, but that kills my economy. Its a real challenge after the first few neighborhoods. :D

DONT take loans. Unless you really have to.

Most of the time, it's best to simply let the time pass.

Remember to micro manage your power and water stations. I found that I was producing 2xs as much water and power as I needed in a city. I right click on the individual plants and cut the production to half. It saved me a good amount of money.

Munzy :

No, you're wrong.

Power and water should never be lower than 100%. Basically, when you underfund them they detiriorate quicker so eventually it's going to cost you more than you save.

Originally posted by Eli
Munzy :

No, you're wrong.

Power and water should never be lower than 100%. Basically, when you underfund them they detiriorate quicker so eventually it's going to cost you more than you save.

Its good for the short term. I do it all the time, not many problems. I'll dig through the S-Guide later to see just how much they detiorate.

Oh, and loans aren't that bad. I find that taking a $5,000 loan when I'm earning $70 a month is better then running the game for an hour...:goodjob:

.

SC4: unplayable since it goes to the desktop every 5 minutes.
Does anyone else have this problem?

Originally posted by cgannon64


Its good for the short term. I do it all the time, not many problems. I'll dig through the S-Guide later to see just how much they detiorate.


I never lower it below 100%, if I got capacity to spare I just export some of it and get some cash for it :scan:

on another note: is it just me, or did the game get easier with the patch?

Originally posted by KaeptnOvi
on another note: is it just me, or did the game get easier with the patch?

Not really. It was harder than intended before the patch. There was a major bug blocking most (estimated to be about 200) of the skyscrapers and buildings in the Houston tileset, which are the 'elite' buildings in the game. This bug made it seem ALOT harder than intended to get these buildings. The patch removed the bug, making alot of them availible.

If you bought it pre-patch, you'll probably notice alot of new, cool, buildings.

Rhye: Do you have the Transportation Bonus Disk installed? I've heard of this problem with this. If so: get the patch!

Originally posted by cgannon64

If you bought it pre-patch, you'll probably notice alot of new, cool, buildings.

Yeah I noticed that. It's just because I had a city with about 100k inhabitatants where I was barely staying above water financially pre-patch. after I installed the patch it took a few months and a got +4k per month. :)

Another thing: has anyone downloaded additional landmarks? on simcitycentral.com I saw a link for the wc-stadium in seoul, it was 50Mb big :eek:

Originally posted by Eli
Munzy :

No, you're wrong.

Power and water should never be lower than 100%. Basically, when you underfund them they detiriorate quicker so eventually it's going to cost you more than you save. Hmmm - I have run them for many years without problems, slowly ratcheting up the production until it is at 100% again as the demand rises. I haven't seen evidence of facilities worsening.

HEADS UP:

Remember that Transportation CD? Its a free download now. Check out SimCityCentral.net, they have a link there. You have to sign up, but its worth it: a 2 MB d/l, with army air force base, air force flyovers, and air shows!

I guess EA is trying to be nice. ;)

Originally posted by munzy
Hmmm - I have run them for many years without problems, slowly ratcheting up the production until it is at 100% again as the demand rises. I haven't seen evidence of facilities worsening. I think that's because you don't really notice it deteriorating. If you try funding it at 100% all the time, you'll probably notice that its condition % goes down more slowly. However, I, like you, always keep it funded just above the necessity (unless I'm expecting huge growth). I wonder if I should stop doing that... Some day I might try experimenting to see which method costs the least amount of money.Originally posted by cgannon64
HEADS UP:

Remember that Transportation CD? Its a free download now. Check out SimCityCentral.net, they have a link there. You have to sign up, but its worth it: a 2 MB d/l, with army air force base, air force flyovers, and air shows!

I guess EA is trying to be nice. ;) I think that it has been downloadable ever since the game was released. Is it now officially released by Maxis (meaning that it won't be illegal to download it anymore)? And has the transportation pack CD/My-Sims mode problem been fixed with the patch?

Edit: Never mind about the transpack CD thing; I just looked at simcitycentral.net and both of my questions have been answered positively. :)