How to control buildings to grow?

[FrankU]

The in game buildings come in four styles.... We all know how they work.

But is it possible to control growth of other lots?
I use a large amount of lots by many people here.

In my games I would like to have control over the lots to grow. Like the ones by Haarlemmergold if I make a Dutch village. I want to have some kind of repetition in the lots. Like streets with all the same lot...

I tried to do it by just putting the wanted lots (e.g. Haarlemmergolds Dutch lots) into my plugins folder and then grew my village. Then, as it was completed, I made all historical  , saved and exited the game. Then I removed the lots and put the second group into the plugins folder.
As I started the game I expected to see a lot of brown boxes, but that wasn't the case. I saw just the base/overlay textures with props, but no buildings. Then I grew my next neighbourhood and made all buildings historical  again... Save and exit.

After reinstalling the Haarlemmergold lots and entering the game again I found out that all Haarlemmergold buildings were deleted. I still only saw the bases and props... What happened? Apparently the game deleted the buildings/props that were not available....

Did anyone ever experience someting like this?

And, my real question, does anyone know a way to control the building styles?
In a more or less flexible way?

Of course I could do it by starting with one building style..... build everything I want, make it historical, and save the game. Then add a second building style (i.e. put a subfolder into the plugins folder) and play on.
But we can hardly call this flexible, can't we?

[Andreas]

You cannot remove custom buildings after they grew or were plopped in a city - either it would cause brown boxes, or the models would disappear. It's too bad that Maxis didn't gave us the possibility to add custom building styles to the game - apart from custom menus, this would be the greatest addition. If you want to use different building sets, such as Dutch buildings, Paris buildings etc., the only feasible way would be to use a Maxis blocker, and then modify the building style occupant groups in a way that would move all buildings of a particular style into one of the four in-game styles. Say, all Paris buildings would be Chicago style, all Dutch buildings would be New York style, all mediterranean buildings would be Houston style and all Hamburg buildings would be Euro style. This way, you could control four different building sets with the in-game controls.

[RippleJet]

And, my real question, does anyone know a way to control the building styles?
In a more or less flexible way?

We would need a "toolman" for that...

[metasmurf]

Do you delete just the lots or do you delete the whole thing?

[FrankU]

I did not delete anything....
I just removed files. But you probably wanted to know if I removed everything or only the models. No, I removed all files from the downloads: models, desc etc. Usually they appear in one dat file. Don't they? I did not split up the files...

Andreas: your answer is clear enough. Thanks. I feared this would be the only possible thing. But you never know... There is so much possible in this game.

[metasmurf]

If you keep everything but the lot file, it should work.

[SAC]

Well, I've been away for awhile so I may have forgotten things, but isn't one option to simply use "ploppables" if made by the creator, (ploppable that add jobs or residents, rather than "eye-candy-landmarks"), when trying to somewhat "control" building establishments?

If I'm correct this would work if you simply zone a desired area, and then wait for it to start grow, and once erected, simply place the desired ploppable version on top of the recently constructed building!  Although I may be wrong of course.  Not sure if the particular choice of zoning have an influence, meaning; If you want to place a high-wealth residential building, you must also zone high-wealth!  It does make sense though, but you never know!

There are of course ploppables outthere working as landmarks only, and not adding jobs nor residents, but perhaps it's possible to change that using some simple tool or anything.  I do hope I'm somewhat right in my assumptions, otherwise I'm up for another very very time-consuming challenge...

[Pheonix Rising]

Plop would work for commercial and industry, but I do not think anyone has solved the problem with residential lots yet. Last I looked into it you get a no job zot or a no road zot. I don't really remember which.

If you do use res plops you will have a decent population based on what building you plop but if you unpause that region all of your population will leave. I really hope someone can find a way to allow for residential plops without the population leaving. It would really add some twists to building up a region.

[SAC]

Oookey...I see I'm up for yet another challenge...    

[RippleJet]

SAC, since you've been gone for a while you've probably also missed Buggi's SC4 Extra Cheats.
Place that DLL file in your C:\Program\Maxis\SimCity 4\Plugins folder, start the game and press Ctrl-X.
Right-click in the cheat box that appears on top and you will get the following cheat menu:


Thanks to Dedgren for the image

BuildingPlop (and LotPlop) allows you to plop any building, including growables!

Plopped residentials will still not work though, the sims simply cannot find their way out of a plopped home...

[wouanagaine]

And plopped Industrials are not functionning either, they all have a 'long' commute time even if plopped next to a neighbor connexion.
This is the same 'bug/feature' as the residential. ie the game doesn't know how to compute a path from a plopable, but only to a plopable

[RippleJet]

And plopped Industrials are not functionning either, they all have a 'long' commute time even if plopped next to a neighbor connexion.

Wouanagaine meant long "freight time", not long "commute". It's freight that is going out of industries.

[Ennedi]

I have two questions:

1. If I will plop a growable residential building using Extra Cheats Plugin (first I zone the area, then appear a growable building, I bulldoze it and replace by other building from the same wealth group), will it work properly or not?

2. As we know, there are some ploppable residentials (for example some Paris buildings). What is the practical sense of making them this way (instead of normal growables or landmarks), if they don't work properly (I noticed it too )?

[wouanagaine]

Answering the OP, you can control building by explicitly control zoning and know on which size each of your building grows
I suggest you read this http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=63.0 and any of Alek King post

@Tage, thx for correcting

@Ennedi,
1.it will work for a short period of time, and you'll have the original building commuter, but at the end, it will dilapidate, there was a thread about that experiment on ST, don't have a link.

2.There is no reason of residential plopable

[Ennedi]

@wouanagaine: Thank you, I observed this effect (1), but didn't know about the reason and I was thinking I did something wrong

[SAC]

Plop would work for commercial and industry, but I do not think anyone has solved the problem with residential lots yet. Last I looked into it you get a no job zot or a no road zot. I don't really remember which.

If you do use res plops you will have a decent population based on what building you plop but if you unpause that region all of your population will leave. I really hope someone can find a way to allow for residential plops without the population leaving. It would really add some twists to building up a region.

Couldn't agree more!  Even if you as a mayor have the ability to plop your city, it still remains lots and lots of work planning everything out, so it's not as if the actual game-play would get ruined by having a plop-option.  If only it was possible to sort of create "invisible" lots, programmed for a certain wealth level, including jobs or residents, which would allow us to "plop" graphics, (B.A.T's), on top of it - for the sake of the development control itself!  

Place that DLL file in your C:\Program\Maxis\SimCity 4\Plugins folder, start the game and press Ctrl-X.

BuildingPlop (and LotPlop) allows you to plop any building, including growables!

Plopped residentials will still not work though, the sims simply cannot find their way out of a plopped home...

Nice "new" feature.  I must say I'm kind of stuck between letting my city grow as supposed - although it'll take a tremendous amount of time to accomplish what I want, or to simply use this "new feature" and create Olympia the way I want it to look, (for the sake of realism and eye-candy effect), but then also leave out the other great aspects of the game as a result thereof.  Difficult choice indeed!  

Anyways, if I get this right I can at least "control" commercial lots - regardless of type and wealth levels - by simply zoning and allow for a structure to grow, then plop a new structure of my own choice on top of that recently built one, and everything should work properly with sims able to find their way both in and out?  But with residential and industrial lots, I'll simply have to wait, and bulldoze...and wait, and bulldoze...and wait, and bulldoze...until the desired structure shows up, then make it historical for everything to work properly?

[Ennedi]

Another question: Let's say we have a group of buildings (residential or industrial) in the same style and the same growth stage. But some of them will grow easier than another ones.
1. Which properties of these buildings decide about it?
2. Is it possible to temporary change the specific  property value in the particular building .dat file to give to it the biggest chance to grow, open the game, wait till the building will grow (it will grow very easy now), save the game, change property value(s) to their previous state, and then repeat this operation with other building?

[RippleJet]

Another question: Let's say we have a group of buildings (residential or industrial) in the same style and the same growth stage. But some of them will grow easier than another ones.
1. Which properties of these buildings decide about it?
2. Is it possible to temporary change the specific  property value in the particular building .dat file to give to it the biggest chance to grow, open the game, wait till the building will grow (it will grow very easy now), save the game, change property value(s) to their previous state, and then repeat this operation with other building?

Buildings that are properly modded (with the "X Tool") should all have exactly the same chance of growing.
The variance in the approximation is very wide though, so sometimes it might look as the game is favouring a particular building.

Occupancy has been one property that in the past has been increased, in order to favour certain buildings of a particular growth stage to grow.
However, that is something I strongly recommend not to do, since that will cause problems for the developement simulators,
when lower stage buildings get higher density than existing higher stage buildings.

Another property that you might be able to tweak is the building value.
But the influence of that isn't strong enough for you to be able to decide what buildings to grow.

Anyways, if I get this right I can at least "control" commercial lots - regardless of type and wealth levels - by simply zoning and allow for a structure to grow, then plop a new structure of my own choice on top of that recently built one, and everything should work properly with sims able to find their way both in and out?  But with residential and industrial lots, I'll simply have to wait, and bulldoze...and wait, and bulldoze...and wait, and bulldoze...until the desired structure shows up, then make it historical for everything to work properly?

That is in theory possible using overhanging buildings...

The picture below does, unfortunately, not show a building with both residents and workers:



Instead, Prepo's Arenantalo is an overhanging (partly diagonal) building, which allows you to zone e.g. small residential lots inside it.
Thus, those living in those hidden houses commute to the Arenantalo, and it looks as if they do live in the same building.

[Ennedi]

Instead, Prepo's Arenantalo is an overhanging (partly diagonal) building, which allows you to zone e.g. small residential lots inside it.
Thus, those living in those hidden houses commute to the Arenantalo, and it looks as if they do live in the same building.

Tage, this idea is one of the best I have seen from quite long time!
And it gives also other possibilities. You can for example, make an overhanging 1x1 lot with some interesting sidewalk props and place it inside the overhanging building. The base would be hidden, but props would be visible

[RippleJet]

Tage, this idea is one of the best I have seen from quite long time!

The idea was actually Prepo's himself!

And it gives also other possibilities. You can for example, make an overhanging 1x1 lot with some interesting sidewalk props and place it inside the overhanging building. The base would be hidden, but props would be visible

You can also place parks, plazas and other lots that only partly are visible, partly hidden by the overhanging building, as shown with Krio's Esplanadi buildings here: http://sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=712.msg63184#msg63184