More Awesome Than You!

Yeah, it's not TS2, but I need some help.  I downloaded a terrain from Loverat that I really like, but I wanted to add some more roads to it.  I've tried everything to get it to show up in my game (which isn't registered, so I can't see anything on the official site) but it just doesn't.  I did some searching on fansites and they all make my head spin with talking about things that I have no idea of.

I've checked all the city sizes (even though it should only be the small city size), and moving and renaming the file but nothing works.  Any ideas?

Make sure you're using the same edition of the game (with expansions) that Loverat has, and make sure your head is not blocking the way.

Hmm, maybe that's it.  I have no idea what she's using.



Pbbffttt...

Ok…

1) Place the .sc4 file in your My Documents \ SimCity 4 \ Regions \ Downloads folder.
2) Start up SimCity 4
3) Click on a city tile of the appropriate size in your region (for TS2 terrains: "small"), and choose "Import City"

Keep in mind the terrain is horizontally flipped, and use only straight roads: diagonal roads are not imported.

Yeah, I did that, Jordi, and the city doesn't show up.  The Downloads folder is there, and so are the 3 cities I created myself but this one is not.

which terrain is it and i will see if i can pull it up in my game.

It's the IncyIsle.sc4 terrain.  :)

I love that terrain! 

Sorry - I think I'm feeling game withdrawal symptoms. 
/me whines - I wanna play Sims... I wanna make SC4 terrains... I wanna I wanna I wanna

Well, where's your game?

It's here.  I'm in building mode.  And re-neighborhooding mode.  I 'splodie my old one.

Oh no.  :(

I've splodied my old one too, I think I actually need a self-help book or something, to get past deliberately wrecking my hoods.  ::)

I have a plan though.  It's a good plan, now to just see if I carry it through or not...

I tried opening as well. No go.

I've PM'd Loverat, so I'm just waiting to see what she says.  Some people are so weird about their stuff, and not wanting anyone to modify it (even for their own use), so I hope she's not like that.

/me isn't sure what is going on, so he is going to show what he knows.


So make sure that her lot is inside the downloads folder, now go into a Region and click on a small city.
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y194/simsbaby/4fe8a6fa.jpg)
Click on the button at the left and a window will pop up.

(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y194/simsbaby/af1a6d12.jpg)
Now click on the plus next to downloads (It isn't showing up for me as nothing is in it) and pick the terrain that she created. It might not be named "IncyIsle" because the game looks at something inside the file not the file name

My guess is that LoveRat has SC4 + RH but you shouldn't have problems if you have the deluxe version or SC4 + RH because they are the same game only with different packaging.

Speaking of Sim City 4...

Are there any hacks out there for it? Like, maybe one that fixes the ridiculous issue of the terrain facing you sideways and tilted?

I don't know if maybe there's an ingame way to fix that, because I've only had the game for a few days and all I'm using it for is making terrains, but it's driving me crazy that the stupid thing is not STRAIGHT. I can't tell what I'm doing when it's like that.

All this sim city talk and I had to go play around with it.

I made a city "template" to visually help me plan out a city. The roads represent the visible space in sims 2 without a camera hack. The T and L show how the neighborhood gets flipped.

http://prismbaby.com/sims/Experiment_sc4.jpg (http://prismbaby.com/sims/Experiment_sc4.jpg)

http://prismbaby.com/sims/Experiment_sims2.jpg (http://prismbaby.com/sims/Experiment_sims2.jpg)

Why it didn't occur to me to do this eons ago to help when I'm planning out a terrain I'll never know.

Sara, check out www.simtropolis.com.  It's a pretty big forum and they talk about mods (I never heard one called a hack - evil things  :P) all the time, and I think they had a mod section as well.

I'm registered on there!  lol, they do mod, they seem to be SC4's Mod the Sims 2.

you said you renamed it but did you rename it proper?

Try this: (copy below and paste over current name) Put the city in the sc4 dl folder, then import as usual

City - Incy Isle.sc4

I had no issues importing it when I named it proper.

Yeah, I tried that too, still no dice.  :-\

I have PC CD Sim City 4 Deluxe Edition, what do you have?

I don't think it's deluxe.

Okay, so clearly Loverat doesn't care about my predicament *boohoo* and I need some help.

Since this is my first and foremost favourite terrain and all I want to do is add more roads, I am sending out a request for someone to help me do this.  If you can, please PM me or post here and I'll tell you what I am looking for.

I just opened Incy Isle in my SC4 game - I had been skipping a step.  Act as if you're creating a new city and click a square but then click the little monitor icon and it will ask you which city you want to use.  It will show you the whole file tree of regions.

*but if you'd like help, lemme know :)

I did that, starrling.  I didn't know there was another way.  This terrain is not going to open up in my game.  :'(

So yes, I'd like help please.

What streets do you want added?  I'll do it for you :)

Okay, please don't laugh at my Paint Shop Skills.  :-[

(http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d108/BlueSoupForYou/IncyIsle.jpg)

So where the blue part is, I'd like to add more roads - so they'll fit 2X2 lots, and as many as can fit.  You can close in the streets as well.

Where the red part is, that's land that is unusable.  If you want to see what I mean in the game first, go ahead, but basically you can place lots on the horizontal streets, not on the vertical streets.  Since that area will fit about 4 lots, I kinda want it to work.

If you could fix those, I'd be so grateful!  :-*

/me points and laughs

No, seriously, I'm going to give it a try.  One question though:  Since the red area is unusable how do you want it modified? 

Well, I don't know why it's unusable, that was one of the things I wanted to check.  Do you have any idea why lots would be unplaceable there?  In the way this picture shows, it's actually backwards, the one road that looks horizontal is the unusuable one, the others are fine. I would like it maybe closed in and more roads added, so I could place more, I guess.

A little confuzzled - here's a pic of it where I added 7 houses to that area. 
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v319/Starrling/incy1.jpg)

Well, that blows because I can't add any houses to that area...

Once I'm in the file in SC4 I'll try to smooth out the terrain behind it - maybe that will help.  Ok, off I go... (I won't finalize anything on the file till you give me the ok).

Edit:  on a side note, I know the photo you provided is flipped so I wanted to be sure I have it right - see this photo - is that where you want the extra 2x2 rows of houses?
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v319/Starrling/incy2.jpg)

Yes, but I'd like more roads added - as far out on flat land as possible.

Okay, give this a try and let me know how you want it tweaked further.  I'm open to working on this till we get it right.  I didn't do any pngs since we're not final yet.

I dunno what you did to the unusable part, but it works fine now.  I'm happy with it.   :)

You're kidding.  That's it?  Geez, you should learn to be more demanding :P

(oh, and I simply used the smoothing tool that's in mayor mode and not god mode)

lol.  Well, what can I say.  You get me.  ;)

I just realized we lost a lot of trees in my smoothing-out of the terrain.  Sorry bout that.

I don't care, trees suck and I remove a lot of them anyway.

oh!  *whew*  good
:D

Thanks so much for doing that, Starrling.  Don't even worry about the PNG files, I'm just going to use the originals since they don't even show the roads anyway.  :-*

I'm done already?

Wow, you can request stuff anytime then.  :P

So, I just decided to post a picture of why I need more room:

I have the commercial area all set up in one section, and then the residental lots all in another.  No doubt I'll move these several times, but I ran out of room with the last setup I had, so I'm really happy for the extra lot placements.

(http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d108/BlueSoupForYou/Newhood.jpg)

Very nice!  And it looks like you still have a little room left.

Yeah, which is good for future generations and all (that is, if I don't burninate it first, as is my bad habit  ::) )