Tutorials:A quick guide to create your neighbourhood

Overview

A Quick Guide to Neighbourhood Creation Using SimCity4
Author	http://www.sims2wiki.info/Category:Tutorials_by_patul patul
Notes	Ported and cleaned up by Database

A quick guide to creating your custom neighbourhood with SimCity 4.

What you will need

• SimCity 4

Tutorial

Quick guide to create your neighbourhood.

Introduction

Create neighbourhoods for The Sims2 seems to be easy but there are several things to know.

First you need SimCity 4 ! With this game you have pre-defined cities in some regions. So it is easier to make a region for your Sims2 creations. When you add a region, tag the plain option, the ocean is not very useful because it will be harder to see your brush underwater. Cities are saved in the “MyDocs\SimCity4\regions\name of region” folder as name of city.SC4. The Sims2 accept only the smaller areas as neighbourhood. You will get an error message in you try to import one that is medium or bigger.

Optional: Create a region full of small towns: With good old MSPAINT, edit the config.bmp file in the “MyDocs\SimCity4\regions\”name of region” folder, zoom it 800%, copy a red pic and full the image with this red (it seems to be not the default), save and exit. http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g31/patul_photos/tuto/tuto01.jpg

Enter the city By default the game will ask you to reconcile edges. It means that terrain will be at the same height than his neighbours. It may be dangerous if you re-enter a map. So deactivate this option in the game option panel.

The SimCity4 modes

• The God mode is the one you get when you just create a city, it is the main terraforming mode.

• The Mayor mode is the one of building and managing city.

Normally you cannot back to God mode after you activate the mayor mode. To do it, you must use the cheat: Control-Alt-Shift + click the God icon

Your new city is not named, you give a name the first time you enter the Mayor mode. When you save your job it will be saved as City – “the name”.sc4 in the…\”region” folder There is NO UNDO COMMAND in SimCity4 except exit city without saving (saving : Ctrl+S). For myself, I name the city immediately then I back to god mode with the cheat.

An interesting thing for the further use of your neighbourhood is to know where is the sun. It is to have in TS2 the best view in the best place. The sun will be in the right lower corner of your City. Due to the multiple rotation you will have to made, it will be interesting to note it with a forest for example

Terraforming tools

• When you select a tool the default big size is selected. By pressing the shift you enlarge it. With the Shift-0 to Shift 1 key commands you lock smaller brushes.

• When you right click on the map you centre the cursor, if you scroll you still centre, useful for adjustments with the maxi zoom.

• When you zoom (in or out) the size of the ground change but not the brush size . If the brush is 10 width in zoom 0, it will be ever 10 in a zoom x2 so it works for a smaller area. You can change between the 6 zoom levels with the mouse wheel and - or + keys.

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g31/patul_photos/tuto/tuto5.jpg

The different brushes SimCity game provides help for each tool. Be careful with the valley brushes to make a river, their effects ads but water surface don’t change. I make a unique hole then I flatten the path of the river with the quick level brush, after that it's much easier to redraw and to adjust. I do most of the job with the level terrain tools.

Roads and bridges

Among the numerous short cuts keyboard there are only two keys interest us. They are directly accessible in god mode: r for road and b for bulldozer http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g31/patul_photos/tuto/tuto7.jpg

Roads

• First TS2 accept only ONE type of road … the ROAD! No streets, no highways or avenues or tunnels…

• Second TS2 accept only horizontal and vertical roads. Even for crossroads.

Making roads on a hilly ground will flatten the path to possible slope. A straight road is often the only way to climb a mountain. Sometime you get a tunnel (it don’t exists in TS2), shorten your road to the top of the hill then restart from this point to do what you want.

Spaces between roads SC4 and TS2 squares are different. It's quite easy to convert:

Nbr SC4 squares are converted in 2*Nbr TS2 squares + 1 TS2 square

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g31/patul_photos/tuto/tuto8b.jpg

Bridges Of course you can make bridges. TS2 will convert only 2 types of bridges : the SMALL ARCH and LEVEL ROAD one. But only one type is allowed on each neighbourhood (consider university, downtown or commercial zones as independents).

In basic SC4 build a bridge will raise the ground around the beginning of the bridge. Several squares may be unusable to build. A more than useful mod is able to have flat bridges : the Bridge Height Mod by joerg (don't forget to "thanks") at [[1]]

http://i52.photobucket.com/albums/g31/patul_photos/tuto/tuto091.jpg

Funds You must pay for building actions. If you are out of funds Ctrl-X then “weaknesspays” is the cheat to add 1000 to your treasury.

Never forget that you make a neighbourhood for your sims...

If you need more... Making a neighbourhood (more tricks)

Credits

Originally posted by patul Quick guide to create your neighbourhood. (original post)