Would anyone like to know how to get rudimentary multiplayer in SC4?

[narukaze]

Yesterday, I figured out a way to get some degree of multiplayer working in SimCity 4. I've tested it, and founding a new city makes it appear on the other computer. I don't have time to do a full writeup right now, but I wanted to hear what others thought of the idea. (By "rudimentary multiplayer," I mean "multiple people playing the same region on different computers.")

[mgb204]

I think there is certainly some demand for multi-player regions, this is something that comes up from time to time. However it's always been possible by sharing a region/plugins folder and following some important rules about working on the region. One key point is that when you save a city, every city with a border touching it is updated. So you can not have two players working on either the same city or with any bordering the cities being worked on by others. If you do, you'll end up with problems with the save file. Similarly, the plugins suites must be kept synchronised to avoid major complications.

Now if that's what you've figured out, then there is no real advancement here. But if you've made a solution to either automate the process of managing such a setup, that would be useful. Similarly if you've somehow used a .dll plugin to make this a reality in real-time over the internet, that would be praiseworthy and deserving of much acclaim. That said, without knowing what you've actually done, it very hard for people to make any judgement on the validity of your discovery.

[narukaze]

The idea is to use symbolic links to make SC4 read data from a directory in the cloud, so it syncs automatically. (Using the Dropbox app, for example.) Main issue with it is you can't work on the same or adjacent cities at the same time, as you mentioned. However, if you move the plugins folder to the cloud and make a symlink, it would sync automatically. And the same can be done for the region folder.