Pseudo3D's SimCity 4

This revival did not go so well

2011-08-26T11:48:00.000-07:00

Back in March, I posted this:

Due to reasons of consolidation and slow updates, I'll do two things:

1) Continue on the BAT tutorial
2) Close down this site, at least temporarily, and outsource everything to Carbonizer!. Use the tags: Cities, Simtropolis, or BAT to find what you need.

Anyway, I'm closing up for good and officially merging this into Carbonizer, though the content will still remain here. See you!

Simtropolis 6.0 That Was

2011-05-23T08:44:00.000-07:00

Pseudo3D's SimCity 4

2011-05-14T19:04:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to Pseudo3D's SimCity 4!

For the latest post, scroll down! For the index, stay here!
The newest post on the list will be noted with ***NEW***
Updated posts (sometimes re-posted) are noted with ***UPDATED***
Posts that have been temporarily removed due to significant problems are noted with ***UNDER CONSTRUCTION***

Pseudo3D's Building Gallery
Pseudo3D's Building Gallery is filled with building images that Pseudo3D is BATting, would like to BAT, or just thinks is kind of neat
bigg's Hypermarket
Auchan - Gulfgate
Wal-Mart - Small Town Variant

Pseudo3D's BAT Gallery
Nothing here yet.

The Archives
The Archives is a collection of SimCity-related things you may find handy.
Vintage Reviews: SimCity 4 (GameGirl)
CGW May 2002
SimCity Societies Sucks

Other Stuff
These things don't fit in any other category.
Current/Proposed Projects
Why It's Impossible to Recreate Cities in SimCity 4
In Search of Bobbo662's BATs
SimCity 4: Wild World Expansion Pack

Other posts are around, but they are outdated.

Wal-Mart - Small Town Variant

2011-05-13T14:55:00.000-07:00

Description: A small-town Wal-Mart.
Potential in SimCity 4: Every small town in the South needs a small Wal-Mart.
More Info on the Subject: Not much to say, really. These were the "original" Wal-Marts, the ones Sam Walton built his empire on. Regrettably, many have fallen by the wayside. They are getting updated outside (like the picture below shows) or in, if not getting abandoned outright for larger Supercenter buildings.
Location in RL: Caldwell, Texas. Similar examples include Navasota, as well.
Building Exists?: Yes, both.
BAT Progress?: Collected measurements, drew a few shapes, abandoned shortly thereafter. Still on the "to-do" list.
Wikipedia: Walmart
Official Website: Walmartstores.com
Current Equivalent: Someone tried to make something similar to this a few years back. It looks ugly.
Photo Credit: BurlesonTexas.com.
Variation: Can come in tan (recently repainted to be so) and dark brown. May or may not add the logo (added even later)
Bing View: None. But I did take a picture last January.

bigg's Hypermarket

2011-05-09T19:50:00.000-07:00

Description: The last of the "80s hypermarkets", bigg's was basically a prototype of the discount store/grocery hybrid before such a thing existed. However, they were much larger than Wal-Mart Supercenters of later days and had a much larger grocery department.
Potential in SimCity 4: I've been fascinated with bigg's for a few years (before it announced that it would go dead). I mean, where else can you find a hypermarket willingly attaching to large shopping malls? Plus, it's a hypermarket that's NOT Wal-Mart Supercenter!
More Info on The Subject: bigg's (the "b" is lowercase) opened in 1984 as America's first true "hypermarket", offering both food and general merchandise (discounting the fact that just a few states north, Meijer had been doing that for years). It was a coalition between SuperValu (owning 10%) and French companies (90%). Unfortunately, bigg's made a few mistakes in its times of operation. In 1989, a third bigg's hypermarket opened in the Denver market and the first outside of Cincinnati. The store was doomed: Wal-Mart had just set foot in the market and boasted that it was all-American unlike the partially French-owned bigg's (which WAS the truth at the time, most of Wal-Mart's products were American-made). King Soopers, owned by Kroger, ran vicious pro-union attack ads on bigg's (and Kroger was also headquartered in Cincinnati...do the math). All during that time, Hyper Shoppes insisted on building new stores not as stand-alone stores but parts of small malls that were supposed to presumably expand. The only stores that were stand-alone were just supermarkets (diluting the hypermarket brand). By the time SuperValu bought the chain in 1994, they did build stand-alone full-line stores, but scaled back square footage and never went out of the Cincinnati area. By the year 2000, bigg's was no longer building any new "hypermarket" stores and by the year 2010, SuperValu pulled the plug and sold the remnants to another grocery store (Remke Markets). This satire piece, written in 1986, has some neat photos, and shows how "bigg" some people thought it was
Location in RL: Mason, Ohio (this photo) and Florence, Kentucky (main model)
Building Exists?: Both exist. The Mason location is now a Remke Markets bigg's, the Florence location is now closed.
BAT Progress?: Realistically, no. Just a box in SketchUp. However, it is very close up on the list (after Auchan and Wal-Mart). I plan to have the bigg's logo superimposed when queried, but with the stock "cashier" sound.
Wikipedia: Remke Markets bigg's
Official Website: Remke Markets
Current Equivalent: None! That makes it all the more unique!
Photo Credit: Wikipedia article of the same name, taken by user "Joekid".
Bing View: Florence, Kentucky location.

Auchan - Gulfgate

2011-05-08T19:46:00.001-07:00

Description: Auchan, the popular French hypermarket, opened a second location in Houston in 2000. Although Auchan had a previous 1988 location in Houston that was larger (230k square feet compared to this one's ~180k) and a short-lived Chicago location. The location is a former Target which closed in the 1990s due to the depressed part of town (Gulfgate). Regrettably, both locations of Auchan in Houston (and America) closed in 2003. This was because of poor sales and competition (particularly from Wal-Mart Supercenter and H-E-B).
More Info on The Subject: Auchan in Houston.
Potential in SimCity 4: I think cities in SimCity should look realistic and also fairly-comfortable places to live (unless, of course, you try to avoid that) so Auchan would be a good fit. After all, Sims need hypermarkets besides Wal-Mart Supercenter to thrive. It would do great in a Houston CJ or possibly a European CJ (it could do double-duty as a European location...but I could make a Euro version if necessary).
Location in RL: Houston, Texas
Building Exists?: Yes, but it's been a vacant shell since 2003.
Intention on Modeling: Started in SketchUp, undergoing conversion to gmax.
Current Equivalent: A STEX model was released in 2004. I left a comment that sums it up: "While this must have been innovative and amazing in 2004, sadly, it has not surpassed the test of time. Proportionally, it is sized to be the end-all of hypermarkets, but in Real Life, that's just not the case. Furthermore, there are textures are missing. Bummer, because I was looking forward to this one."
Wikipedia: Auchan
Official Website: Groupe-Auchan
Photo Credit: sam59 from forum-auto.com
What is This Stuff, Anyway?: This is a new feature, derived from the old Planning Board, where I write up about interesting buildings in hopes of someday making one. However, there is no actual guarantee is that I will actually make one. Many of these are for infotainment purposes only.
Bing View:

Current/Proposed Projects - updated

2011-05-05T21:08:00.000-07:00

In addition to the Auchan (in SketchUp) and Wal-Mart (in BAT), here are some other ideas I had.

Additional Wal-Mart variants (including various eras, Supercenter stores). This includes a specific store in Caldwell, plus my own local store. Difficult because I want to best Heblem's, and I can readily identify a few problems outright)
Additional Auchan variants (the Beltway 8 Houston location and an "International" edition)
Kmart and variants (Big Kmart, Super Kmart Center, etc...maybe)
Better versions of some BATs currently up (McDonald's, 1980s Toys R Us, Black Cat Fireworks Warehouse)
Better versions of supermarkets (Winn-Dixie, Albertsons, Kroger, H-E-B, Publix, may be historic/dated versions of said stores)
Meijer (newer stores)
bigg's (early 1990s/late 1980s, another long on the planning board)
Local buildings (a high school, specifically, maybe a mall)
Target and variants (possibly)
Various homes (a few I have in mind)
Stars Over Wellborn ("Stars Over SimCity")
Payless ShoeSource (been on my mind a long time!)
Mall 205 (seems simple enough, also on the planning board since at least 2008)

See progress on Auchan here

Supercenters and Hypermarkets (in America)

2011-04-30T17:50:00.000-07:00

I wanted to repost this so I could re-focus on things. I reordered things, updated, added.

Since Pseudo3D's Cities and Buildings is no longer primarily about SimCity (but will still have a big focus), I wanted to show
some progress on these, plus give a bit of history. In general, hypermarkets are a type of store originated from Europe that were a high-volume combination grocery store/department store that came stateside in the late 1980s. A number of major U.S. cities got one, with Philadelphia area getting Carrefour, Houston getting Auchan, Cincinnati getting bigg's (a unique situation in that it was an entirely new chain backed by French companies), and so on. Wal-Mart, then running only discount stores, wanted in, so they partnered with Tom Thumb stores (a Dallas grocery store chain) to make Hypermart USA. Kmart partnered with Bruno's (a southern upscale-leaning grocery store chain) to make American Fare.

But when the novelty ran off, the stores became big losses, and eventually started to disappear or give way to the Superstore concept, an American-created concept where the store was downscaled from 210,000+ square feet to about 150,000 square feet, and was basically a discount store with a supermarket department.

Carrefour closed, Auchan lived, bigg's started to adapt, Wal-Mart replaced Hypermart USA with Wal-Mart Supercenter, Kmart with Super Kmart, et cetera. Today, both bigg's and Auchan are completely gone, Super Kmart is just barely hanging on, Tom Thumb and Bruno's only exist "in name only", and Wal-Mart's Supercenters have conquered America (seriously).

1. Auchan
Auchan is based after a current French hypermarket. I've talked about Auchan in great length at Two Way Roads, my now-defunct blog, so all I can say is that Auchan came stateside in 1988 to build in west Houston with big plans, but never successful enough to make a big chain. A smaller Chicago store opened in 1989 and was shuttered a few years later, and eventually, a smaller Houston store opened in 2000. Unfortunately, the combined threat of primarily H-E-B and Wal-Mart Supercenter did both in a few years later.

I put Auchan first because I was actually working on a BAT. I restarted it from what you've seen previously, which is seen below.

What went wrong? Well, there were some areas that weren't straight, plus the photo was actually not sized correctly. I rebuilt it, so that's what's here. Also, I should note, this is the second smaller location built in 2000.

See my current thread at Simtropolis.

2. bigg's
bigg's (the "b" is lowercase) opened in 1984 as America's first true "hypermarket", offering both food and general merchandise (discounting the fact that just a few states north, Meijer had been doing that for years). It was a coalition between SuperValu (owning 10%) and French companies (90%). Unfortunately, bigg's made a few mistakes in its times of operation. In 1989, a third bigg's hypermarket opened in the Denver market and the first outside of Cincinnati. The store was doomed: Wal-Mart had just set foot in the market and boasted that it was all-American unlike the partially French-owned bigg's (which WAS the truth at the time, most of Wal-Mart's products were American-made). King Soopers, owned by Kroger, ran vicious pro-union attack ads on bigg's (and Kroger was also headquartered in Cincinnati...do the math). All during that time, Hyper Shoppes insisted on building new stores not as stand-alone stores but parts of small malls that were supposed to presumably expand. The only stores that were stand-alone were just supermarkets (diluting the hypermarket brand). By the time SuperValu bought the chain in 1994, they did build stand-alone full-line stores, but scaled back square footage and never went out of the Cincinnati area. By the year 2000, bigg's was no longer building any new "hypermarket" stores and by the year 2010, SuperValu pulled the plug and sold the remnants to another grocery store.

I actually have long intended to do bigg's, but here's all I have:

It's based in Florence, Kentucky (which closed last year)

3. Super Kmart Center
I'm not sure on how to correctly say it: is it "Super Kmart" or "Super Kmart Center" or "Kmart Super Center"? Ah well. The fact is, there's about two dozen of these left, but I had fond memories of one in Waco, Texas which opened in '94 and closed in 2003. Despite the glory days of Kmart being long gone and having sunk even further than my most recent Kmart trip in '09 (in Florida), Super Ks have a lot of nostalgia value and in many ways seemed a lot better than Supercenters. The product mix was great and comparable to real supermarkets, and they had the largest food supplier at the time -Fleming- behind them. But now, with Kmart involved in probably what is the worst merger since AOL Time Warner, I don't know about them.

I snagged this store directory from Flickr, which is from 1997 (the "golden days", I think, for Super Kmart). And I've always wanted a Super Kmart for SimCity 4. Bobbo662 did create one, but no copy has yet been found. Maybe one of these I'll create one.

The above picture comes from Kmart World.

4. Walmart (Supercenter)
Wal-Mart (Supercenters) get a lot of flack for cheap products, dirty stores, and gross people that frequent it. I'm not disputing that fact, and I don't really like Walmart Supercenters that much. They profoundly cut back the SKUs (distinct products) at the local Wal-Mart when it expanded, despite it being one of the largest Wal-Marts in the country. So instead of lots of merchandise, it's short shelves, small departments, and wide aisles. The cereal aisle wasn't as good as the one in Waco that I visited before this one expanded (I had visited it after my grandfather moved to another spot in Waco shortly after the Kmart closed), it just sucked. And thanks to the pitiful selection of SKUs, we went there less often, and as a result of that, didn't really get a chance to get the Walmart rotisserie chickens, which I DID like.

More on the local Walmart here. Seems like a prime opportunity though: there's only one Wal-Mart Supercenter on the STEX, and I think I can do better. They left off the Garden Center and they say that Wal-Mart Supercenter is based in Mexico. The original creator eventually created a new Walmart based on the current model, which is far better than the old BAT. This time I can only nitpick that the "Market & Pharmacy" and "Health & Living" signs are mixed up.

There's a lot of other things I dislike about Walmart, but I won't get into them here.

5. Meijer
Meijer I HAVE been to but regrettably don't know much about. The Wikipedia article is horrifically biased (but hopefully that will clear up). The stores, sadly, are rather dated: the first one I visited was quite a let-down: low ceilings, teal, and 90s fonts. The second one was admittedly better. However, there already IS a Meijer on the SketchUp, and I'd like to one-up it by making it larger, more detailed, and et cetera. There'll even be an aluminum can deposit station (a sad reality in Michigan). However, Meijer isn't quite a hypermarket, but really isn't a supercenter either since supercenters are primarily a discount store. It's more like a supermarket with a huge general merchandise selection.

6. The Other Ones
There are plenty others not mentioned here but haven't gotten around to them. Brief blurbs about them follow.

Fred Meyer: One of the first ones to have "one-stop shopping". Unfortunately, up until the 1980s or so had separate sections that had their own checkouts and walls. No relation to Meijer.

SuperTarget: Includes a bakery and fresh produce section, but like Wal-Mart Supercenter lacks a real meat department. Kind of rare nowadays in the growing selection of "normal" food (beyond chips, candy, and soda) and the "P-Fresh" format in normal Targets.

Leedmark: A 300k square foot store in Maryland in the early 1990s. Closed, now a supermarket and a Wal-Mart Supercenter.

Hypermart USA: A short-lived experiment by Wal-Mart and had less SKUs than possibly even today's Wal-Marts (a better product mix overall, though), they were larger, featuring more food stands than the typical McDonald's or Subway found today, and so forth. From what I've read (I have no interior pics), they were more of a hybrid Sam's Club and Wal-Mart, and had extremely odd merchandising options, such as only selling white paint. By 1990, they were renaming them "Wal-Mart's Hypermart USA", and killed them a few years later.

American Fare: As mentioned above, the Super Kmart proto. However, had a different merchandise mix than Kmart, focusing on upscale clothing brands.

Carrefour: Opened a massive store in Philadelphia in the late 1980s but closed in less than a decade. Opened a second store that was also short-lived, too.

There are others I didn't mention: Fred Meyer, SuperTarget, and the obscure (and long gone) Leedmark among them. I do intend on getting to regular grocery stores and discount stores, but that's for another article.

"The Ideal City"

2011-04-23T10:40:00.001-07:00

Looks rather boring and too sterile, but an interesting artist's conception.

(via Strange Maps)

Rebuilt Roads

2011-04-19T14:10:00.000-07:00

While I try to construct the BAT tutorial (looks I'll have to delay it another day) and the Auchan project (someone leave some feedback at the Simtropolis thread, please, I wanted to show some really interesting rebuilds, often in terms of highways and roads, and occasionally, abandoned railroads.

Orange Bus Line: Los Angeles, California

One of the many odd things about LA is the abundance of wide abandoned railroad right of ways, often even leaving track in (more on that later). But on rare occasions, they actually do something with it. Here we have a abandoned right of way converted to a BRT. BRT stands for Bus Rapid Transit. There's none of it in SimCity, but basically imagine a road that's only for buses. You can clearly see that it says for cars to keep clear of that intersection (much like railroad tracks). I was a bit disappointed though in the fact that it still looks like the buses may have to stop. Heck, if I were a BRT planner, buses would only stop at stations. Mandatory red lights for ALL at-grade intersections when a bus is coming through! They ain't stopping for NOBODY!

Before

After

Also, did some digging, this was the Burbank Branch, abandoned in 1991.

Manchester Road: Des Peres, Missouri
Here we have an intersection found just about everywhere where there's Interstate or Interstate-like highways: a crossing road, two exits (sometimes may be connected to a frontage roads), exit highway, turn left, turn right, go straight, get on highway: very straight-forward. But around 2001 or so, this intersection did a dramatic rebuilding. First off, interestingly enough, the mall just to the east of this did a rebuild by demolishing the old mall and building a new one. The road, however, had several interesting adjustments. It split in two, building a new three-lane road to the north for westbound traffic, and reconfiguring the five lanes (two west, two east, turning lane) for a new traffic flow. See if you can figure this out.

Before

There is no good picture that shows all of the intersection clearly. Best try for a direct direct link
After

290 Leftovers: Hockley, Texas
When US-290 bypassed the towns of Hempstead, Waller, and Hockley in the mid-to-late 1990s, it created some very odd "leftovers".
First up is the Bauer-Hockley/Grimes division. The abnormally sharp curve was created for these two rural roads when 290 bisected it, but what's strange is three factors.

Before

After

1. There's a wooden bridge on the road heading northwest. A wooden bridge. Awesome. It's rare for a public road nowadays.
2. The road was bisected during construction, so there's a Bauer-Hockley Road to the east which used to connect with the Bauer-Hockley Road to the west. But Bauer-Hockley extends southward (westward, with the wooden bridge, is Grimes). I should mention though that especially in Texas rural areas (and even today), it's not uncommon to turn right or left to stay on the same "road" traveling. Traveling south on nearby Katy Hockley Road has the same "features".
3. Possibly as a leftover of the intersection days, you stop if you're going to turn left on the curve, but not turning right. Guess that's safer.

There's also, in that same area, a little paved cul-de-sac that goes nowhere and has no driveways. Property lines suggest that it was originally to be served as the frontage road terminus (and possibly might have!), but it serves nothing of the sort today.

Both of these are endangered roads, because there's plans to build the Hempstead Tollway possibly to that point in the future (but I don't have a link).

Continuous flow intersection: Baton Rouge, Louisiana
A rare, relatively new intersection, so few that there are only 11 in the United States. Now, technically, the B.R. intersection, which I have personally driven through (not driven past, like Hempstead, or seen on GE only, like our first two examples).

The images from Google Earth are twisted 90°

Before

After
However, the CFI in Baton Rouge is a bit different than a normal CFI on two conditions.

1. The CFI is only for the northbound and southbound lanes of the "bigger road", Airline Highway.
2. A frontage road was added for some businesses that used to plug directly into Airline (Airline is NOT limited-access)

I seem to remember that in 2008, it was a bit difficult to maneuver this one, we were heading back from a Christmas party as it were, our car was beating the other car home, but we got side-tracked and got in a less-advantegous lane (frontage or main, I don't remember), and allowed the other car to beat us home. All the while we were trying to avoid a lunatic that honked a split second after an intersection light turned green (but before cars could accelerate). Said lunatic also had a car with a bowling ball sized dent on top of the car.

The intersection was reconstructed in 2005 and opened in early 2006.

Katy Freeway: Houston, Texas
Katy Freeway is another awesome "rebuild". How do you take a congested freeway and transform it into one of the widest freeways in America, with 26 lanes, whether they be frontage roads, HOV, toll, etc.? Use what you've got!

You see, Katy Freeway (which leads out to Katy, Texas), paralleled the Katy railroad (the M-K-T, as it were). By 1996, the Katy Freeway was an overcrowded, dated mess that hadn't been updated in decades, while the Katy railroad was a dilapidated disaster waiting to happen. In 1997, another merger happened, and the tracks were dismantled.

This left a very wide right-of-way, plus, in some parts, a now-redundant frontage road that was used for accessing businesses. Several years later, the expansion began. Regrettably, I couldn't get a good shot of both the widest freeway part and the redundant lane part, and everything has changed so dramatically along the route it's hard to really get a feel for things anyway.

For example, the shot below does not have the "extra frontage road" and the buildings have changed. The building to the north was an IKEA (before they built a new one), and the building to the south was a hotel that has since been demolished.

Before

After
While some homes and aforementioned hotel were demolished for the expansion, the majority of homes and businesses were saved.

I recommend scouting around the area on Google Earth and playing with the time slider.

No doubt all of these created agonizing construction zones and demolished roads. Even the BRT surely must have required something as the railroad was stripped, patched, and repaved.

But in SimCity, there is no construction zones. Want a better interchange? Simple: pause and demolish it. One minute it's there, next minute gone. Poof. There is no trace of railroads. Railroad needs to disappear? Click click! The roads are spotless.

The First Real Post

2011-04-10T06:48:00.000-07:00

During the time this blog had shut down, I made a number of posts that would better fit over here:

Houston Curiosities (Gone)
Of damaged bridges and abandoned railroad signals. Posted April 7.

Interstate Gap in New Joisey
When is the Interstate just a regular road? New Jersey, of course! Posted February 22.

Cool city plans
Thought processes. Posted February 15.

Anyway, in terms of SketchUp/BAT, I found a non-skyscraper building made with SketchUp: Tina's Food & Drug. The link is currently down, but it's based after the author's local stores, Safeway and Albertsons, so it's almost more than likely Tina's is quite overpriced in comparison with the other grocery stores and kind of dirty. Best try for a good Kroger or its brands.

And speaking of Kroger, I had passed by this specimen on a vacation to Ann Arbor, Michigan. It's an old Superstore location, and likely had very few remodels in that time.

More information on this type of Kroger can be found on Pleasant Family Shopping

In the meantime, I'll try to do a complete reorganization of this site, removing some posts, reorganizing, et cetera.

Some SketchUp Stuff I Was Fooling Around With

2011-01-30T09:36:00.001-08:00

I've been experimenting with SketchUp to make some large-scale stores.

Here's the second Auchan in Houston, Texas, located on the South 610 Loop. It's been gone for several years, having most recently been utilized for a Hurricane Ike shelter.

Here's a bigg's hypermarket in Florence, Kentucky. Currently, the store has been remodeled -yet downsized- into Remke Markets bigg's, a large supermarket. As you can see, my model is in the early stage of modeling. When it is done, it will reflect the original bigg's hypermarket. EDIT: Apparently, this particular store has closed, not remodeled.

And here's one for an H-E-B in San Marcos, Texas. This one is noticeably more complete, unfortunately, it isn't mine. I'd like to "fix" this one for further usage, the textures are rather, um, flat. Plus, I miss the "gray" H-E-B style (H-E-B painted much of its older gray stores yellow like this a few years back).

Why It's Impossible to Recreate Cities in SimCity 4

2010-12-04T10:16:00.000-08:00

I haven't gotten around to the BAT, but I did try to fiddle around with WINE, which I wanted to try before jumping into Windows on my Mac. I was disappointed that it wouldn't run stand-alone apps (like, for instance, I Wanna Be The Guy: The Movie: The Game) or when it was "full screen" it wasn't truly full screen (in a demo of Crayon Physics Deluxe, the Dock popped up whenever the mouse went down there).

But I have given thought to SimCity 4, and why it's impossible to recreate major cities.

Aside from the obvious BAT issues...each city has a number of notable buildings in its skyline, but unless you're working with an extremely recognizable skyline (Chicago or New York, for instance) you'll have a very difficult time installing a believable skyline.

Let's look at one of my favorite cities, Houston.

It doesn't seem so bad on the surface...reorient the diagonal northwest-southeast streets to north-south, and you've got a workable area, right? There's even a light rail running through Main Street, which can be easily recreated with something like this.

But the light rail splits up, and parallels two different roads.

And it gets worst. Try recreating this iconic traffic circle near the Museum District, or these spaghetti-strand style interchange.

See that bike trail dissipating into that tan path? That's a former railroad line. It would be practically impossible to get that railroad bridge over a messy highway, a bayou-style river AND a railroad (or a bike trail). And the bayou is so significant, yet hard to do successfully (those LA ditch mods will NOT do the trick).

Worst yet, you have to deal with trademark refineries, and the dozens of railroad spurs that connect to the canal.

The grid also changes orientation constantly. Sometimes it is north-south by default, and sometimes...well, see for yourself.

But Houston is not the only one that cannot be recreated. That's just a good example.

The thing is, city-recreating in SimCity 4 is extremely difficult. The best shot you'll get is to get a collection of buildings from the skyline (or at least something that kind of resembles them), throw in some labels (you know, introduced in SC4RH), and hope for the best. You'll get something contrived, but good enough for a CJ.

Another BAT Post in Honor of Five Years at Simtropolis

2010-09-11T19:08:00.000-07:00

At this rate, I'm never going to fully do this BAT.

SimCity Societies Sucks

2010-08-22T06:39:00.000-07:00

This image was actually banned from the Simtropolis forums. It's preserved here (I snagged it from Simtropolis back in June 6, 2007!)

Welcome to Pseudo3D's SimCity 4!

2010-07-07T12:00:00.000-07:00

THIS WEBSITE LAST UPDATED JULY 7, 2010

Hello and welcome to Pseudo3D's SimCity 4! This is a spin-off of Two Way Roads and focused on SimCity 4. But that's not all! PS3DSC4 will focus on a variety of things, including:

- A BAT showcase
- A compendium of SimCity 4 information, from my own research and others (it will be properly cited, obviously).
- Showcases of cities (both mine and others)
- The history of SimCity (hopefully I will scrounge Archive.org for good stuff)

Enjoy yourself!

--CURRENT BAT PROGRESS--
Note: Overall, everything is suspended due to computer problems.
Wal-Mart: Progress Log

--FUTURE BATS--
As stated in my Simtropolis profile, the following are planned:
Meijer
Payless ShoeSource
bigg's
Stars Over Wellborn/Stars Over SimCity
Auchan

--INDEX--
Articles
Vintage Reviews: SimCity 4 (GameGirl)
CGW May 2002
From Sketchup to gmax...A Brief Tutorial
SimCity 4: Wild World Expansion Pack
Haljackey's Top 10 NAM Requests (and mine)
SimCity Community Magazine
General updates
A Cheer for Progress
Disappointment but Hope for the Future
Reference
In Search of Bobbo662's BATs
Link directory

Wal-Mart Progress Log

2010-07-06T08:23:00.000-07:00

July 6, 2010
In 2D Google Earth, I got the numbers for the footprint of Wal-Mart. Four cities were collected. Hearne, Bryan, Caldwell, and Navasota. Hearne's Wal-Mart closed in 1990, Bryan's opened as part of a mall, and College Station's could not be collected as the blurry 1995 photo showed it being expanded (it has since done another expansion).
Started gmax, built footprint, space for overhang (I guessed on it), and built a box for the main store. Took a long time to render.
July 7, 2010
Fiddled with the settings a bit. Realized I had to always launch SC4 BAT rather than gmax. Started a BAT thread.

Planning Board: Wal-Mart

2010-07-02T08:28:00.000-07:00

Wal-Mart

Description: A small-town Wal-Mart.
Potential in SimCity 4: Every small town in the South needs a small Wal-Mart.
Location in RL: Caldwell, Texas.
Building Exists?: Yes
Hazards in Modeling: Not too many.
Wikipedia: Wal-Mart
Official Website: Walmartstores.com
Current Equivalent: Someone tried to make something similar to this a few years back.
Photo Credit: BurlesonTexas.com
Variation: Can come in tan (recently repainted to be so) and dark brown
Embellishments: The sound effect will be the stock "cashier" sound.

Actual Tips and Advice

2010-06-30T16:33:00.001-07:00

I finally reinstalled SimCity 4 and have gotten back to the point of 2005-2006, when I had a Mac and was optimistic about BATting.

I noticed that the graphics were "tearing" (lines between tiles, even when the tile grid was turned off).

I determined that the tearing was simply the result of a bad porting job. Here's what I did.

1) First, I turned off all the mods I had (which admittedly, wasn't much) and restarted.

2) Next, I switched the resolution to 800x600. Not only did this make everything really ugly, but it didn't fix the problem.

So that's when I chalked it up to a bad port job. Thanks a lot, Aspyr. And a big real thanks to Apple for switching to Intel and making Boot Camp available.

Now all I need is a copy of Windows.

EDIT: It's possible I need the other graphics.sgr file, but I'll have to look into that.

More news...

2010-06-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

No progress on an improved 3DS export script yet (maybe it's time to talk to NYCJ) but other news...

• Cities XL picked up by Focus Home Entertainment (which MAKES TrackMania!)
• SimCity was on the App Store so I bought it for 99 cents. I had money left, and I wanted to play SimCity with least fuss and less money going to EA's coffers.

No, this hasn't been forgotten

2010-06-24T08:43:00.000-07:00

In light of new updates on Two Way Roads and its promised updates, the rejuvenation of my newest blog, College Station Roads and Retail, and more, I wanted to give progress of this blog. As a test, we are going through a conversion process from a SketchUp document (not mine) which is the ALICO building. If you'd like to know more, the SketchUp link is here and the Wikipedia link is here.

The reason ALICO was picked, is because, first off, it's a cool building that I would've considered building myself, second off, it was a mostly-complete model. Here's the method I used.

First, I made sure I had gmax on my PC, and Blender (open-source) and SketchUp (the regular version is freeware) and I downloaded the model.

Then I exported it as .dae (Collada), the only export available in regular SketchUp. This unfortunately stripped the textures by putting them in a new folder. That was OK.

Blender then did the job of importing the .dae file. It was stripped of textures, but the red ALICO letters were still visible.

Then I exported it as .3ds, through Blender's unfamiliar interface.

Unfortunately, the file is 4KB, which seems VERY low for a 3d model. Hopefully, we could just chalk that up to a few missing walls, low 3ds overhead, and lack of textures. Still worries me, though, as the original was 8.8MB and the DAE was 1.2MB.

We'll need to do some retexturing work anyway for it, as well as a few other things. Hopefully this will all work out.

EDIT: Gah, the 3DS file was indeed unusable through a Mac 3DS tool called "3D Toolbox" (it can read/write SketchUp and 3DS, but I'd have to pay). I found a script designed for 3DS export to a game called "TrackMania. Then I found out that I had to import the script into an invisible folder, or so says this thread. I haven't worked with invisible folders since Yoot Tower.

I might write a tutorial on all this when it is done. Or I can just give up and use someone with a Pro license to port my file.

Suggestions?

I Knew It!

2010-05-25T19:34:00.000-07:00

Monte Cristo, maker of the controversial Cities XL, is calling it quits! If they hadn't have been greedy and tried to demand money for "Planet Offer" and "GEMs", then this wouldn't have happened!

http://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=370&threadid=115299

Google Earth, Near Downtown Houston

2010-04-29T15:36:00.000-07:00

Found on Google Earth: in downtown Houston, we spotted 3D models of a Fiesta grocery store, a Payless ShoeSource (standalone), and the downtown Houston Sears department store. Good thing the three of them were all on the "short list" (really about three front-and-back pages) to be BATted. We'll be downloading these in SU and modifying them so they aren't blocky textured polygons.

Building Maker, Huh?

2010-04-27T09:39:00.000-07:00

This looks intriguing and definitely worth a revisit. It might help me model the more complicated buildings, and I'll then I'll try porting buildings to SimCity 4. How does that sound?

EDIT/UPDATE: Turns out that Building Maker is only available in about 30 or 40 U.S. cities...which doesn't sound bad until you consider that Bing Maps has much more, and also when you consider that Building Maker really only covers the city center (i.e. downtown). Back to the "traditional" method, I suppose, but I'll try one more thing.

Planning Board: Payless ShoeSource

2010-04-10T08:19:00.000-07:00

Payless ShoeSource

Description: A stand-alone Payless ShoeSource store.
Potential in SimCity 4: You can place this in small towns, or if you are highly allergic to malls.
Location in RL: Huntsville, Texas. Similar examples exist elsewhere in Baton Rouge and Fort Worth.
Building Exists?: Yes
Hazards in Modeling: I need all four views, for one
Wikipedia: Payless ShoeSource
Official Website: Payless Shoes
Current Equivalent: There are a number of malls on the STEX, so it's assumed that a Payless would be in one
Photo Credit: Bing Maps
Variation: none
Embellishments: The sound effect will be the stock "cashier" sound. The old-style Payless ShoeSource logo will be superimposed when queried.
Final Notes: This concludes the first session of the Planning Board. I'll start on them.

Planning Board: bigg's

2010-04-08T06:26:00.000-07:00

bigg's

Description: One of the first of what I call the "80s hypermarkets". bigg's was headquartered in the Cincinnati area and sold groceries, general merchandise, and much more. The stores were at least 200,000 square feet. Unfortunately, expansion plans for the western USA were axed, and for the rest of bigg's life, it was only in Cincinnati. Even after remodeling stores to more of an upscale supermarket/general merchandise hybrid, bigg's was not able to stay as-is. bigg's will close soon. More info here.
Potential in SimCity 4: I've been fascinated with bigg's for a few years (before it announced that it would go dead). I mean, where else can you find a hypermarket willingly attaching to large shopping malls? Plus, it's a hypermarket that's NOT Wal-Mart Supercenter!
Location in RL: Mason, Ohio, though there are others in Cincinnati
Building Exists?: For now, yes. It may be one of the ones sold to Remke Markets.
Hazards in Modeling: Well, I want to model it to its original form, not the current "Premium, Fresh & Healthy" form. I'm pretty sure the Bing Maps form has been updated since its original pictures...maybe it exists in its original form!
Wikipedia: bigg's
Official Website: Discover Something bigg's
Current Equivalent: None! That makes it all the more unique!
Photo Credit: Wikipedia article of the same name, taken by user "Joekid"
Variation: Could be it in its current Premium, Fresh, and Healthy form.
Embellishments: The sound effect will be the stock "cashier" sound. The bigg's logo will be superimposed when queried.

Planning Board: Stars Over Wellborn

2010-04-06T14:47:00.000-07:00

Stars Over Wellborn

Description: A seasonal fireworks stand located in Wellborn, Texas. This is where we got things like everything from sparklers to new novelties that made many a boom and flash. It was only open for July 4th and New Year's. The rest of the year it was shut up like this.
Potential in SimCity 4: I'd always wanted SC4 to resemble the area where I lived. And what more Texan is a fireworks stand? This is a local example, but I've seen "Mr. W" fireworks stands everywhere else. For the complete experience, put this in a kind of rural area but close to a major road.
Location in RL: Wellborn, Texas
Building Exists?: Sadly, as of December 2009, it was not there. It will be missed.
Hazards in Modeling: Unusual shape.
Wikipedia: None
Official Website: None
Current Equivalent: Boomland Fireworks. Unfortunately, it's a little off-scale (as it was released, again, long ago). Furthermore, Boomland isn't JUST a fireworks stand. It's a Missouri-only (and three locations in MO, at that) that sells not only fireworks, but home decor, gasolines, ice cream, cigarettes, collectibles, etc.. It's an eclectic one-of-a-kind convenience store. Sort of like Buc-ee's in the Houston area.
Photo Credit: Chrisadams3997 of SC4D
Variation: Could be renamed "Stars Over SimCity" for generic use
Embellishments: The sound effect will be the stock fireworks sound. And the flammability will be artificially jacked up...

Planning Board: Auchan #2

2010-04-05T12:12:00.000-07:00

Auchan #2

Description: Auchan, the popular French hypermarket, opened a second location in Houston in 2000. Although Auchan had a previous 1988 location in Houston that was larger (230k square feet compared to this one's ~180k) and a short-lived Chicago location. The location is a former Target which closed in the 1990s due to the depressed part of town (Gulfgate). Regrettably, both locations of Auchan in Houston (and America) closed in 2003. More information on my blog here.
Potential in SimCity 4: I think cities in SimCity should look realistic and also fairly-comfortable places to live (unless, of course, you try to avoid that) so Auchan would be a good fit. After all, Sims need hypermarkets besides Wal-Mart Supercenter to thrive. It would do great in a Houston CJ or possibly a European CJ (it could do double-duty as a European location...but I could make a Euro version if necessary).
Location in RL: Houston, Texas
Building Exists?: Yes, but it's been a vacant shell since 2003.
Hazards in Modeling: I heard it had a dollar store in part of the building at least part of its life.
Current Equivalent: A STEX model was released in 2004. I left a comment that sums it up: "While this must have been innovative and amazing in 2004, sadly, it has not surpassed the test of time. Proportionally, it is sized to be the end-all of hypermarkets, but in Real Life, that's just not the case. Furthermore, there are textures are missing. Bummer, because I was looking forward to this one."
Wikipedia: Auchan
Official Website: Groupe-Auchan
Photo Credit: sam59 from forum-auto.com
What is This Stuff, Anyway?: This is a new feature where I outline my plans for "Batting Through SketchUp". It serves as a catalog for my plans (work would begin this summer, I think) that allows for comments (feel free to leave one!)

Status update

2010-03-29T19:19:00.000-07:00

Hi. Updates have been slow lately, but I want to say that I can't really update this site until I get a computer that can run SketchUp and play SimCity 4 without horrible, horrible graphical glitches.

The truth is, SimCity 4 is not getting any younger, despite the constant pour of new stuff into it. I listen to SimCity 4 music sometimes (such as right now), I get nostalgic...but then I remember my fondest memories happened nearly five years ago. I wanted to make this a resource for both SimCity and my own buildings, but the fact is Simtropolis and the few other sites have claimed an oligopoly on SimCity 4. So I really don't know what to do right now. I want to start PS3DSC4 back up in summer, coupled with a new "wrapper" website...I also want to update the links, but I doubt that I will ever complete it fully. Anyway, don't consider this the final The End, but it's certainly a dead end as of now, at least until around May.

Thanks,

Pseudo3D

P.S.: Please visit Two Way Roads, my main blog, updated daily!

The Link Directory, Revisited

2010-01-28T14:43:00.000-08:00

I found on Simtropolis a "Sim-link directory" and got permission from the creator to revise it. Luckily, I've managed to dump it all on one HTML (Simtropolis has a nasty habit of deleting older posts).

SimWebsites link.

PS3D's SC4 is also still at an identity confusion and has not released any BATs. Plans are being made, however. The problem is the computer I'm using (Internet and user configuration) has major graphical problems (caused by the motherboard) and does not let me render SketchUp stuff. So I'll try to use SU on other computers. Then I'll use the SketchUp Pro demo to export it to gmax.

Link Directory

2010-01-09T16:08:00.000-08:00

Simtropolis
Description: The ultimate SimCity fansite!
Language: English
Type: General
Downloads: Yes
Quality: Varies
Register for Downloads: Yes
Forums: Yes
Forum Updates: Daily
Features: Forum, file exchange, "Omnibus" tutorials
Site Updated: Yes
PS3D's Recommendation: It's good fun to be on Simtropolis, but stay away from the General Off-Topic and Current Events forum sections. There is no distinction for the "way off topic" type discussions!!!

SC4 Devotion
Description: A major SimCity site, second to Simtropolis.
Language: English but support for other languages
Type: General
Downloads: Yes
Quality: High (Private)
Register for Downloads: Yes
Forums: Yes
Forum Updates: Daily
Features: File exchange, forum, Wiki, tutorials
Site Updated: Yes
PS3D's Recommendation: Mostly for the "pro users" (BATting, modding, and city building). There are awesome buildings, however...

SimCity 4 at SimCity.com
Description: The official SimCity 4 website
Language: English and many more languages
Type: General
Downloads: Yes
Quality: High
Register for Downloads: Yes
Forums: NO
Features: Downloads, tips & tricks, patches
Site Updated: No
PS3D's Recommendation: Visit it once, download necessary things, and never again. Mac users don't even have to visit it.

SimPeg
Description: The official website of SimCity independent "Pegasus"
Language: English
Type: BAT downloads
Downloads: Yes
Quality: High (Private)
Register for Downloads: Yes
Forums: NO
Forum Updates: Daily
Features: Forums, BAT buildings
Site Updated: Yes
PS3D's Recommendation: BSC BATs and PEG BATs reportedly do not "play well". This is unconfirmed by me. One thing I definitely don't like is the fact that things cycle out on SimPeg.

more coming soon

SimCity Community Magazine published

2010-01-02T09:59:00.000-08:00

Recently, the SimCity Community Magazine, a Flash-based zine has published its first issue. While it is good and has information on both ST and SC4D, it's a good measure of what I want this blog to be someday. One notable absence I noticed is a complete disregard for Pegasus Productions, possibly because of the "rogue textures" issue that distanced him from the other two bigger sites.

Nevertheless, I recommended printing the magazine out for your own copy.

Disappointment but Hope for the Future

2009-12-28T15:26:00.000-08:00

If any of you are reading this, I apologize for a disappointing year. Since the beginning of the summer, I had ambitious plans that all went to waste. But believe me, I tried. However, it was frustrating. I wasn't enjoying playing SimCity much (even though I COULD run it), I had poor interactions with others, and eventually I lost interest and moved on.

BUT then I got Google SketchUp 7 for Dummies and rekindled that flame. Why, three years ago I remember really liking SimCity 4. I even made lists of what buildings would be cool to make. But I was a dreamer. Now I can make buildings. Make buildings, that's all I'll try to do. My delusions of building fantastical cities is limited to paper. Why in drawing, you aren't limited to the grid! But then you can't have lovely three dimensional buildings.

I'll try to make a few cool buildings, and I'm going to continue work on a few projects that I abandoned. Here's hoping for a better year.

Scroll down for the index.

Haljackey's Top 10 NAM Requests (and Mine)

2009-10-12T17:13:00.000-07:00

Simtropolis/SC4Devotion standby Haljackey has written a pretty cool blog post on NAM components needed. Now, mine, in no particular order would include...

1) HOV Lanes
HOV lanes are a must in large cities, and they often switch directions ~~in the face of adversity~~ at the end of the day. Most of the day, they're closed.

View Larger Map

Barrier to Entry: High. It would be a nightmare to make traffic actually switch according to day. Then again, with the STR (Single Track Railroad) it might not be so difficult.

2) Power lines over GLR lines
Come on, where was the last time you saw a light rail without power lines over them?
Barrier to Entry: Low. All it takes is a cheap model and mild skill.

3) Stoplights that Face the Right Way
Do these look wrong to you?. Yes. Most real stoplights look to the cars from the inside of the stoplight square, not to the out. The one exception is this intersection, Valley Mills and Memorial, Waco, Texas. But as you notice, the "wrong way stoplight" is a special instance, not a normality. Sorry, SimCity, you fail!
Barrier to Entry: High. It may be hard-wired.

4) Continuous flow intersections
It's too cool to be expressed in my words.
Barrier to Entry: High. If pulled off, that would be the end-all of road coolness.

5) Nice-looking RHW-Avenue Crossings
A picture would really help here, but RHW currently does not have a good Avenue-to-RHW crossing texture!
Barrier to Entry: Low. It takes but a texture.

6) Businesses and residential along RHW
With SimCity 4's third-party add-ons I can finally create that lovely strip of highway between Hempstead and Navasota...rolling hills, lots of wildflowers, the farm houses, the watermelon stands...wait, scratch that. Unfortunately, RHW won't let you place RCI (or anything) on RHW. Well, you CAN, but it won't function. Drat.
Barrier to Entry: Medium. RHW can be recoded to allow RCI, but if you wanted to make an Interstate-style set-up, you still can...just don't place anything along it!

7) Puzzle Piece Neighbor Crossings
Currently, Streets, RHW, and GLR cannot cross neighbor crossings, which leads to an unrealistic replacement. All there needs to be is a puzzle piece to fill in the gap.
Barrier to Entry: Medium. It could be done.

8) Park & Ride Equality
Suppose you've got two SimCity cities: a suburb and a huge city. Most of the suburban residents go to the city for work. You've got a nice RHW for them, a park & ride for buses, and a commuter rail. Sims will take the highway, leaving your bus and railroad to gather dust and eat up funds. Desperate, you install the Park & Ride mod, and suddenly, RHW traffic drops off. Why can't everyone get along? People take Park & Rides AND the highways in REAL LIFE.

Barrier to Entry: High. Two traffic simulators do not make a stable game.

9) Ploppable road left turns
You can get a mod that adds a left turn for roads when they approach an intersection, but when it does it to every intersection, it's not realistic. It should be ploppable, so that some intersections have it, others don't.

Barrier to Entry: High. Although it could be possible, most people will find it irritating.

10) Integration with the RAM
More puzzle pieces, like, say, Avenue over STR.

Barrier to Entry: Medium. It's entirely possible, but would take lots of time.

In Search of Bobbo662's BATs

2009-10-03T20:05:00.000-07:00

Back in the glory days of SC4, there was a BATter called Bobbo662 who made dozens of great American commercial BATs...but somewhere along the line, he removed all of them for reasons not entirely clear to me (though the empty lots might have to do with it). Although a few are on SC4D and one or two have been reuploaded on the STEX, most of them are lost. Thanks to this list on correcting empty lots, we have an somewhat-complete list of BATs.

Ames Department Store
Azul's Bistro Bar & Grill
Bradlees Department Store
Retro Safeway Grocery Store
ShopKo Stores Inc.
Woolco Department Store
1960s Retro Safeway
60s Style Esso Station
BP Connect Service Station (Rerelease?)
Burlington Shopping Plaza
Caldor Department Store
Castrol Service Station
Chevron Fast Mart Service Station
Circuit City
Citgo Stop & Go Service Station
Crown Service Station No 2910
Cub Foods Grocery Store (Back by Popular Demand!)
Culver's Restaurant
DELL Computer Plant 550
El Fenix Mexican Restaurant (Co-authored)
Exxon Service Station No. 98939
Fry's Electronics
Giant Grocery Store
Havoline Xpress Lube
H-E-B Grocery Store
HESS Service Station 1005
HyVee Store & Gas
Irving Service Station No 3044
K-Mart Super Center
Mills Fleet Farm
Mobil - On The Run - Service Station
Old Mobil Service Station
Old Total Service Station
Petro-Canada Service Station
Phillips 66
Pick 'n Save
Q Lube
Rainbow Foods Grocery Store
Red Roof Inn (SC4D)
Retro Gulf Station
Retro Mobil
Retro Texaco Service Station
Rita's Ice House
Sam's Club
Sears Grand
Sheetz
Shell Service Station No. 22191 (Rerelease?)
SimRico Building
Sunoco Service Station
Super Target
Texaco Mini Station No. 151
Texaco Service Station No. 5775
The Home Depot 300
The Originial (sic) Pancake House
The Real Canadian - Superstore
Union 76 Service Station No 3224
Valero
Wal-Mart Department Store (Updated on SC4D)
Wal-Mart Supercenter
Valvoline Instant Oil Change
Wawa Gas & Market
Verizon Substation
Zayre Department Store
Zellers Department Store

There has also been a Lowe's released on SC4D.

A cheer for progress

2009-09-30T14:16:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, I managed to scrape together enough data to make a to-scale Payless ShoeSource, which I plan to import into SimCity eventually. For gmax, I'll try to make a house or something simple like that. Maybe a variation on this.

From SketchUp to gmax...A Brief Tutorial

2009-09-08T13:46:00.000-07:00

Originally written by "darkcutie", gotten from http://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=42&threadid=109553&enterthread=y&STARTPAGE=1#last, and cleaned up by me.

It's much easier to create buildings props and other custom content in Sketchup Pro than in gmax only takes you about an hour or less!

After you create your work in sketchup pro here are the steps:
1. Go to "File" then "Export"
2. Select "3d model" then go to the directory you want to save your work
3. Create your new file name it as you like
4. Click export then close Sketchup Pro.
5. Open the BAT then wait for gmax to load.
6. When gmax loads go to File.
7. Click "Import"
8. Go to the folder where you saved the 3ds model then click the file of your work (default is only 3ds and prj files appears)
9. When your work appears sometimes you don't like the size or not attached together (that's the only problem whe working with sketchup pro actual size and sometimes not attached with each other)
10. If parts of your work are not attached, go to "Modify", then "Attach", then click to the parts you are attaching
11. If the size too small go to "Motion" then select scale under the PRS Parameters then under the key info you can scale your work in X Y and Z.
12. Click "Utilities" button then BAT.

Wild World (April Fool's!)

2009-09-05T09:52:00.000-07:00

This was the April Fool's Day Prank of 2004 for SimCity Central.net. It was supposed to be for a new expansion pack, but sadly, not even a second real expansion pack ever appeared. Pictures are missing for this, but...

Welcome!

If you've read the news item on the main page, you're aware that SimCity Central has been granted an exclusive preview of the next Expansion Pack for SimCity 4, which until now had not been announced publicly! Your first question is most likely "Why did SCC get such an exclusive?" Let me explain:

Many of you will remember that before Rush Hour was released, Maxis held a special preview of that expansion for the webmasters of all the major SimCity 4 fansites. If you remember that, then you may also remember that due to a mixup, the owner of SimCityCentral.com got invited instead of our own Martin, owner of SimCityCentral.net. This error was not discovered until it was too late, and Martin was therefore unable to attend the special preview! Well, Maxis felt terrible about the screwup, because the person who ended up going in Martin's place wasn't even really interested in SimCity - he only went because it was a free trip!

This early preview of Maxis' upcoming second expansion pack is their way of apologizing to Martin for the error, and giving our community something special! It should whet your appetites for what is to come!

Now that all that's out of the way, let's get down to business, shall we?

First of all, why Wild World as a title?

The title was chosen because it fits the main theme of this expansion pack well, namely in terms of wild weather and more world architecture being represented. Since SimCity 4 was first released, the fans have been begging for weather-related elements to be added, and as you know, the modding community has already discovered some weather-related terraforming items that there wasn't time to make fully functional for Rush Hour. Wild World enables these functions, and adds many more.

Your cities can now experience the effects of different kinds of weather, including fog, rainstorms, and winter snowfalls. Most of these weather effects will affect the visual feedback you get about your city, such as traffic, and a few will have other effects as well. If your city experiences a long enough period of warm, dry weather for instance, you might need to add new water facilities to keep your city supplied. If you get a lot of rainy and foggy days, solar power plants might not be a very wise choice for your city's power supply.

Along with these new effects, a number of new disasters have been added, most of them weather-related. One of the best is the hurricane. This isn't fully functional yet, since there are still some issues with water and wind effects to sort out, but when it's done it's going to be one nasty disaster that will require serious effort on your part to recover from. There are also mudslides, blizzards, and a few more we're not allowed to talk about yet. The subject of disasters brings up another highly-requested addition - the ability to enable random disasters! Test yourself by enabling this option and seeing how well you can cope when the Big One levels your commercial center, or Hurricane Will arrives and ruins your waterfront!

What can we expect that's not weather-related?

The short answer - LOTS! Probably the most interesting additions are two brand new tilesets. First, the one everyone expected, considering the popularity of the one in SimCity 3000 Unlimited; the brand new Asian tileset! We can't show you much of it just yet, but here's a sample of the style you can expect.

Not to worry, the Asian set will be a worthy successor to the one that was in SC3KU, and will include everything from this sort of small, classy, low density structure to the towering, garishly lit skyscrapers you can find in major cities like Tokyo and Hong Kong.

In addition to the Asian set, an all-new Middle Eastern set has been designed! Middle Eastern architecture is something that hasn't been well-represented in this genre yet, but it will be with Wild World! In the Middle Eastern set, you will find buildings and styles common in countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and many others, and the set will include examples of the modern-styled structures being constructed in these areas today, as well as the more traditional styles that can be found all over the region. The level of diversity possible in your cities will increase dramatically with these additions.

Along this same track, Maxis has responded to another fan request, which was the ability to designate different areas of the city as areas where only specific tilesets can develop. This is accomplished using a new layer, similar to how you lay water pipes and subways underground. What you do is switch to this layer, and use a new set of quasi-zoning tools to tell the game which tilesets are allowed in a given area. Anywhere you don't specify one or more tilesets, the game will develop buildings normally, using whichever of the six sets happens to be active.

There will also be a significant selection of user-created content. Not everyone in the world has Internet access, and Maxis wanted to make some of the best creations available to everyone. To that end, a number of the best user-created lots and buildings will be included. We're not allowed to provide details on which ones just yet, as Maxis still needs to work that out with the content creators.

What else can we look forward to?

Unfortunately, except for a little bit about some of the new transportation types, there isn't much more that we're allowed to talk about just yet since it may change before we release, but rest assured there's plenty more in this pack.

Now, about those transportation types. The first thing that was done was to finish the dirt roads. Those were originally supposed to be available in Rush Hour, but the design team ran out of time and had to sacrifice them in order to make the release date. They're ready in Wild World though! In game terms, they work a lot like streets do, except they're even cheaper, and since they're intended for rural areas rather than city streets, they allow faster truck travel than the city streets do, and busses can't use them at all. This makes them best-suited for rural areas where the focus is small towns and farming. They won't be too useful to you in your office complexes!

There are new highway types in this pack too. The most common requests were for a double-decker highway that's only one tile wide, and a wider superhighway for use in REALLY congested areas. Both of those will be available for use, and they'll have advantages and drawbacks when compared with the other transit types. The superhighway will allow faster speeds and a greater capacity, but your sims definately won't want to live nearby. They'll be beneficial to commercial complexes though. Another addition was a three-tile-wide version of the original ground highway that includes center HOV lanes for vehicles with at least two occupants. These should go well with the carpool ordinance from the original version of the game!

One of the more interesting new transportation features is the new "Commuter Airport." This is intended to allow gamers to simulate areas like the Northeast US where it's not uncommon for business executives to travel quickly between various locations by commuter jet. These airports are sort of like a funky cross between monorails and ferries. They're like monorails in that they're mainly for commuting between cities rather than inside one city, and they're like ferries in that they can connect with any other airport for commute purposes. This addition should open up some interesting possibilities for very large regions, and long-distance commutes.

I regret to inform you that this is all we're allowed to share with you for now. But keep an eye out for updates! As soon as we get the go-ahead, we'll be releasing more information and screenshots of some as-yet unseen new features!

We weren't given anything concrete for an estimated release date, however, it's safe to expect the expansion to be available in time for the Christmas shopping season at the very latest.

Interestingly, the multi-highway lanes were spoofed with a multi-lane highway bug that was known to exist. And the dirt road WAS left out of Rush Hour, but since then, it has fully evolved into the RHW and all its multi-laned glory (yet no HOV lanes, sorry folks). If you have pictures of the faked expansion pack, leave a comment!!

Taken from http://web.archive.org/web/20040621174238/www.simcitycentral.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8223&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Vintage Reviews: SimCity 4 (GameGirl)

2009-09-04T14:12:00.000-07:00

One of the cool things about SIM games is that historically, they were not oriented toward any particular gender. This is kind of shifting, thanks to EA's exploitation of all SIM games to "casual gamers", which is "everyone except for males 13-30". SimCity 4 was one of the last of its kind, something guys and girls can play alike. Heck, in SimCity 4, you can place a female statue either to yourself (to the ladies), or your beloved girlfriend (to the guys), or some random woman (to guys without close friends of the opposite sex, in that case, you should've picked the male version). That said, even in the days when much of the games were the "save the princess/girlfriend" variety, SimCity always stood out because it wasn't sexist. This review today comes from GameGirl which I stumbled upon looking at the archived version of SNGaming.com. Oh, and by the way, this review is no longer on GameGirl.com, which I confirmed. They made one mistake, however: SimCity 4 is not rated T.

Taken from GameGirl.com's archived version

SimCity 4 (PC)
Will you be a Bloomberg or a Marion Barry?
By Susie Vee

PLATFORM:
PC

PUBLISHER:
EA

DEVELOPER:
Maxis
GENRE:
Simulation
ESRB:
Teen
SCORE:

The entire Sim empire, from The Sims and its various expansion packs to lesser-known efforts like SimAnt, all trace their common lineage back to one game – SimCity. More than a decade ago, gamers fired up their primitive PCs to play mayor and take a small burg and turn it into a bustling metropolis.

Will Wright’s simple but deeply complex urban simulator let you plan city neighborhoods, supply power, water and essential city services and maintain the delicate balance that keeps real-life cities from imploding. Both educational and entertaining, SimCity and its sequels were found in classrooms and home for years.

The latest edition, SimCity 4, takes all the classic SimCity ideas and gives them a solid graphical polish while adding plenty of new elements for today’s more demanding gamers.

One great new addition is the highly interactive God Mode, where you can terraform the landscape to your heart’s content before even starting a city. It’s very amusing and provides some nice real-time 3D warping graphics, but ultimately, you’ll do just as well picking one of the pre-existing parcels of land.

Setting up simple residential, industrial and commercial zones, your city can begin to take shape fairly quickly. And, if you’re not careful, it can just as easily spiral out of control. Like some Robert Moses project gone haywire, a few wrong turns can leave you with uncontrollable traffic, areas with no power or a just plain undeveloped downtown.

Knowing what to do in these circumstances can be a bit tricky. The game manual covers some useful tactics, but is annoyingly sparse on basic gameplay mechanics. For that, you’ll have to slog through the non-too-thorough in-game tutorial. That will give you the very basics, but from there on in it’s largely trial-and-error.

In the actual game, a series of advisors and news alerts will key you into problems, but their advice can be vague at times. Often you’ll build something and have no idea why your simulated population isn’t making full use of the things you give them.

It’s also easy to accidentally put down buildings the wrong way, so that your Sims can’t access them. Try building a hospital that no one can drive to and you’ll see what we mean.

Another tip for newbies – start off slowly. Build too much too soon, and your expenses will quickly outstrip your tax revenues. And once you’re in a hole like that, you might as well pack up and move to the next town over.

Of course, SimCity 4 has all the great disasters that SimCity is famous for. This time, we get volcanoes, earthquakes, meteors and even a giant robot from, presumably, outer space.

If you’re so inclined, you can even get more personalized feedback than found in the news ticker by importing Sims from your existing Sims game.

Despite the game’s impressive 3D graphics, SimCity 4 is still basically a 2D isometric affair. Even without worrying about sweeping cameras and high-poly models, the game is sluggish, even on high-powered systems. Chances are you’ll find scrolling around your city to be a bit of a pain, as you wait for the camera to catch up, or the 3D models to fully render. It’s too bad, there’s no reason a high-profile release like this couldn’t have been performance-tweaked a little more.

If you’re a SimCity fan, you’ll obviously want to play the new version. If you’re new to the genre, and you’re looking for something different than the usual shooting or platform-jumping fare, then you’re encouraged to check this game out.

PLATFORM:
PC

PUBLISHER:
EA

DEVELOPER:
Maxis

GENRE:
Simulation

ESRB:
Teen

SCORE:

CGW May 2002

2009-08-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

This was the first glimpse of many to SimCity 4. Sadly, I never got to read it myself back in 2002...

Did anyone get a scan of this?