Topic: Guys, I think I might have a problem -- Anyway, Let's Play SimCity 4! (Read 13205 times)

R^2 · « **Reply #100 on:** January 25, 2013, 08:04:27 PM »

It came unannounced, but apparently my school grades are adequate to net me a University.

It's about half as big as the airport, though.

Eh, whatevs. It acts like a high-capacity college.

And building a University meets the prerequisites for this.

I guess this increases demand for high-tech industry and high-wealth offices and shops?

It's radioactive like the Disease Research Center, though, so whatever it is it attracts won't want to be anywhere nearby.

Fidgeting with funding nets me the Department of Redundancy Department, which apparently helps fight citywide crime. When you investigate it the gag entry is "Kilometers of Red Tape" (a four-digit figure) and the background noise it generates includes snoring.

After hundreds of industrial fires, a residential zone decides it wants in on the action. Somebody's gonna need a new doorknob.

I seem to be at something of a dead-end. If I build residential zones, people will move in with rudimentary structures, immediately complain of long commutes or unemployment, and abandon their houses. If I build commercial zones, they improve to low-level shops like pizza joints or used-car lots and stop. If I build factories, people bitch about pollution and move away. (This is ignoring that industrial zones -- even high-tech ones -- are lousy at creating jobs. A big factory might create 70 or 80 jobs. An office skyscraper offers over a thousand.)

So I'm not sure what to do next. I mean, I guess I'll try to expand a li--

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHHHH

R^2 · « **Reply #101 on:** January 25, 2013, 08:08:35 PM »

ALL RIGHT

FINE

YOU KNOW WHAT

END OF DAY MOTHERFUCKERS

EXECUTING CARBON REINITIALIZATION PROGRAM

Uh... TIME FLOWS LIKE A RIVER OR SOMETHING, SHIT

END OF THE THIRD DAY, 0 HOURS REMAIN

TIME BOMB SET
GET OUT FAST

I AM... OUT OF TOPICAL VIDEO GAME APOCALYPSE REFERENCES

TABLE FLIPPED

WHAT DO YOU THINK?!

Brentai · « **Reply #102 on:** January 25, 2013, 08:20:50 PM »

Uhhh... well since it's too late to stop you, sure.

R^2 · « **Reply #103 on:** January 26, 2013, 02:56:31 PM »

Dum de dah, don't mind me, just making a precisely-measured grayscale image.

Ho hum, dee dah, and a tiny configuration file to accompany it.

Have the game create a new directory...

...copying the config file over...

...and reloading to include my city border configuration, dah di dum dee dah.

Undocumented (as far as I know, this electronic copy doesn't come with a manual) feature...

...find that grayscale image...

Let the game sit for a few minutes while it calculates every city in the region... dah dee dah dee dum dee dah...

Aaaaaand proof of concept! You can detail out an entire region and set your own city borders with a grayscale image. The lighter the gray, the higher the elevation. Granted, prerendered difference clouds make for a mostly-black image that ends up underwater, but I could conceivably draw whatever I wanted and wouldn't have to worry about imprecise ingame terraforming tools.

Yes, I did nuke all of World 1-1 in frustration, but I wanted to try this and start a new region on Medium difficulty anyway.

So... any ideas for what region comes next?

Zaratustra · « **Reply #104 on:** January 26, 2013, 03:09:30 PM »

make houses for all the bronto people

R^2 · « **Reply #105 on:** January 26, 2013, 03:19:22 PM »

Man do we even have a Brontomap anymore

Zaratustra · « **Reply #106 on:** January 26, 2013, 03:21:42 PM »

this? https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=206653893955101563596.0004aa7f635982135c773

R^2 · « **Reply #107 on:** January 26, 2013, 05:00:46 PM »

So uh

One house in south Australia

Two houses in the British Isles

And all other residential zones in America?

Zaratustra · « **Reply #108 on:** January 26, 2013, 05:44:53 PM »

Make a big american superregion and two tiny britaulian islands on a corner i guess.

Brentai · « **Reply #109 on:** January 26, 2013, 05:52:45 PM »

Just make America and fuck it up in general.

Stush · « **Reply #110 on:** January 28, 2013, 02:51:39 AM »

Who lives in south australia? I thought I knew all the australians!

R^2 · « **Reply #111 on:** January 28, 2013, 06:27:47 AM »

According to the map Zara linked, the only Australian is...

is...

STUSH

THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE AUSTRALIA

STUSH GET OUT OF AUSTRALIA RIGHT NOW

R^2 · « **Reply #112 on:** January 28, 2013, 06:35:10 AM »

You know how this part goes already.

It turns out if you want AMURRICA or some other rendered real-life location a modder has probably already taken satellite images and geological survey information and lovingly rendered a map already. So I download one and load it right up.

This part took the better part of an hour. My fiancee and I finished a couple games of You Don't Know Jack while the game chugged away. Why?

Because I did not realize this download was this ridiculously huge, with every mountain peak and valley and river gouged out of the landscape. There are about 300 city areas on this downloaded map. I wanted the USA, not SPARTAAAA!

The areas I screencapped are California and the western Rockies, the Tennessee river valley, and... sort of New England in general. I'm still having trouble figuring out what interlinking cities is for, so I certainly don't need a map that big!

Shrinking the map down doesn't help much. The mountains and rivers make the terrain way to steep to actually build on.

Smoothing the landscape in the terraforming engine doesn't help much either.

R^2 · « **Reply #113 on:** January 28, 2013, 06:42:52 AM »

The next map I download is words words words words words words words

That goes exactly as expected. To Photoshop!

Well, the words are gone. Need a bit of work done on the landmass itself, though.

I have beaches, and every one comes right off a sheer cliff. So I need to find which shade of gray is the water level (approximately #525252), and make the rest of the landmass a little lighter than that -- but for the coastlines, not much.

This, uh, takes a lot of experimentation.

At one point I paint it all one flat color to make sure I'm on the right track.

The past three screencaps represent about two hours' work of changing levels and brightness and midtone balance and so on in Photoshop and reloading the map again and again. I went to bed and had dreams about terraforming land, I did this for so long.

Eventually the solution was to make another layer on top of everything, fill it with the gray I needed (#505050, I think), and set the opacity to 75%. That darkened the coastlines enough to slope sort-of-gently into the water and brought the mountains down to little reasonable bumps instead of sheer peaks.

It's a gentle enough slope to build beaches and seaports on. I'm calling that a success.

Redo the configuration file to set up the city regions, and I'm ready to roll in Little States. (It turned out to be a video game reference anyway lol)

Zaratustra · « **Reply #114 on:** January 28, 2013, 09:44:18 AM »

niiiiiiiiice

R^2 · « **Reply #115 on:** January 28, 2013, 12:39:15 PM »

Uhh... here. Let's start here.

The real-life area of Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, maybe a little North Carolina and Tennessee. Sounds like an okay name.

Note: medium difficulty.

Humble beginnings.

A wing of factories for those citizens who insist on working in smog.

RCI demand is much lower in general in medium difficulty, so cities take a bit longer to grow.

Things either cost more or taxes bring in less -- at the very least, there's not enough demand for high-density housing and commercial offices for taxpayers to crowd into the city. So, for instance, the garbage is piling up and I can't afford the upkeep on a Waste-to-Energy plant. I have to look at ordinances to cut garbage production instead. Those cost less, but only shave a percentage off the top.

Eventually the city outgrows its clean-but-kinda-costly wind power and I have to build a coal plant. Well, it's polluted over here from all the factories anyway. My utilities advisor immediately begins pestering me about selling all that extra electricity to the neighbors -- even though we don't have any yet.

Start small, I guess.

R^2 · « **Reply #116 on:** January 29, 2013, 04:17:57 PM »

It ain't much. Welcome to Gulf. That's all there is here.

No schools, no po-lice, no nothin'. Just a coupla houses and some shops for the tourists who come to the beach. Amazingly, this little beachside boardwalk is actually in the black, but see previous re: no schools, no police, etc. Beaches are amazingly cheap upkeep and that's almost all I'm paying for.

R^2 · « **Reply #117 on:** January 29, 2013, 04:20:30 PM »

West Virginia? Sure, why not I guess.

It's a small area, it probably wasn't going to amount to much anyway. It starts my interregion rail network to move some freight and maybe provides some farm jobs to those who demand it in other areas and are willing to commute to pick vegetables.

No one here has better than a grade-school education, so hey. West Virginia.

R^2 · « **Reply #118 on:** February 02, 2013, 01:51:51 PM »

Given the way the region is carved up, there are lots of little tiny little nooks I can build eensy little cities on.

West Texas! If this map weren't so AMURRICAcentric there'd be parts of Mexico to build on.

Is it possible to use all kinds of parks and recreational facilities to attract people to this tiny burg? (No.)

R^2 · « **Reply #119 on:** February 02, 2013, 01:55:01 PM »

With an industrial area off to one side, I fully expect traffic to start being a problem as I develop down into Florida. I build some ferries but nobody bothers using them.

Oh well. Build build build

As the area actually capable of maintaining a Waste to Energy Plant I make some deals to keep the neighboring regions clean (and my utilities advisor off my back -- seriously, he's constantly urging you to either sell your garbage to your neighbors or buy garbage from your neighbors).

Still no traffic problems. Huh.

News:

Author Topic: Guys, I think I might have a problem -- Anyway, Let's Play SimCity 4! (Read 13205 times)